ry and the good of the church; they defend, stand
for, and take care to propagate the true faith and godliness,--they afford
places of habitation to the church, and furnish necessary helps and
supports,--turn away injuries done to it,--restrain false religion,--and
cherish, underprop, and defend the rights and liberties of the church: so
far they are from diminishing, changing or restraining those rights; for
so the condition of the church were in that respect worse, and the liberty
thereof more cut short, under the Christian magistrate, than under the
infidel or heathen.

96. Wherefore seeing these nursing-fathers, favourers, and defenders, can
do nothing against the truth, but for the truth, nor have any right
against the gospel, but for the gospel; and their power, in respect of the
church whereof they bear the care, being not privative or destructive, but
cumulative and auxiliary, thereby it is sufficiently clear that they ought
to cherish, and by their authority ought to establish the ecclesiastical
discipline; but yet not with implicit faith, or blind obedience; for the
reformed churches do not deny to any of the faithful, much less to the
magistrate, the judgment of Christian prudence and discretion concerning
those things which are decreed or determined by the church.

97. Therefore, as to each member of the church respectively, so unto the
magistrate belongeth the judgment of such things, both to apprehend and to
judge of them; for although the magistrate is not ordained and preferred
of God, that he should be a judge of matters and causes spiritual, of
which there is controversy in the church, yet is he questionless judge of
his own civil act about spiritual things; namely, of defending them in his
own dominions, and of approving or tolerating the same; and if, in this
business, he judge and determine according to the wisdom of the flesh, and
not according to the wisdom which is from above, he is to render an
account thereof before the supreme tribunal.

98. However, the ecclesiastical discipline, according as it is ordained by
Christ, whether it be established and ratified by civil authority or not,
ought to be retained and exercised in the society of the faithful (as long
as it is free and safe for them to come together in holy assemblies), for
the want of civil authority is unto the church like a ceasing gain, but
not like damage or loss ensuing; as it superaddeth nothing more, so it
takes nothing away.