atter of
admiration how Camero could so far forget himself as to say,(965) that in
things pertaining unto religion, _dirigere atque disponere penes
magistratum est proprie, penes ecclesiasticos ministerium atque executio
proprie_, telling us further, that the directing and disposing of such
things doth then only belong to ecclesiastical persons when the church
suffereth persecution, or when the magistrate permitteth that the matter
be judged by the church.

Our writers have said much of the power of the church to make laws, but
this man (I perceive) will correct them all, and will not acknowledge that
the church hath any power of making laws about things pertaining to
religion (except by accident, because of persecution or permission), but
only a power of executing what princes please to direct. More fully to
deliver our mind, we say, that in the making of laws about things which
concern the worship of God, the prince may do much _per actus imperatos_,
but nothing _per actus elicitos_. For the more full explanation of which
distinction, I liken the prince to the will of man; the ministers of the
church to man's particular senses; a synod of the church to that internal
sense which is called _sensus communis_; the fountain and original of all
the external things and actions ecclesiastical, or such as concern the
worship of God, to the objects and actions of the particular senses; and
the power of making ecclesiastical laws to that power and virtue of the
common sense, whereby it perceiveth, discerneth, and judgeth of the
objects and actions of all the particular senses. Now as the will
commandeth the common sense to discern and judge of the actions and
objects of all the particular senses, thereafter commandeth the eye to
see, and the ear to hear, the nose to smell, &c., yet it hath not power by
itself to exercise or bring forth any of these actions, for the will can
neither see nor yet judge of the object and action of sight, &c. So the
prince may command a synod of the church to judge of ecclesiastical things
and actions, and to define what order and form of policy is most
convenient to be observed in things pertaining to divine worship, and
thereafter he may command the particular ministers of the church to
exercise the works of their ministry, and to apply themselves unto that
form of church regiment and policy which the synod hath prescribed, yet he
may not by himself define and direct such matters, nor make any laws