bjects contained
(as much as concerneth the outward man) within the lists of God's law,
whence, also, by consequence, it happeneth, by God's blessing, that the
church is defiled with fewer scandals, and doth obtain the more freedom
and peace.

74. But the proper effect of the ecclesiastical power, or keys of the
kingdom of heaven is wholly spiritual; for the act of binding and loosing,
of retaining and remitting sins, doth reach to the soul and conscience
itself (which cannot be said of the act of the civil power): and as unjust
excommunication is void, so ecclesiastical censure, being inflicted by the
ministers of Christ and his stewards according to his will, is ratified in
heaven (Matt, xviii. 18), and therefore ought to be esteemed and
acknowledged in like manner as inflicted by Christ himself.

75. _Sixthly_, They are also differenced in respect of the subjects. The
politic power is committed sometimes to one, sometimes to more, sometime
by right of election, sometime by right of succession; but the
ecclesiastical power is competent to none under the New Testament by the
right of succession, but he who hath it must be called by God and the
church to it; neither was it given by Christ to one, either pastor or
elder, much less to a prelate, but _to the church_, that is, to the
consistory of presbyters. It is confessed, indeed, and who can be ignorant
of it, that the power, as they call it, of order, doth belong to
particular ministers, and is by each of them apart lawfully exercised. But
that power which is commonly called of jurisdiction is committed not to
one, but to the unity, that is, to a consistory; therefore ecclesiastical
censure ought not to be inflicted but "by many," 2 Cor. ii. 6.

76. _Seventhly_, They differ as touching the correlative. God hath
commanded, that unto the civil power every soul, or all members of the
commonwealth, of what condition and estate soever, be subject; for what
have we to do with the Papists, who will have them whom they call the
clergy or ecclesiastical persons, to be free from the yoke of the civil
magistrate? The ecclesiastical power extends itself to none other subjects
than unto those which are called brethren, or members of the church.

77. _Eighthly_, There remaineth another difference in respect of the
distinct and divided exercise of authority, for either power ceasing from
its duty, or remitting punishment, that doth not (surely it ought not)
prejudice the exercise