of everything, and to instruct others, belongeth to them who before
others take pains and study to the care and knowledge of the same, so
physicians judge which meat is wholesome, which noisome. Lawyers declare
what is just, what unjust, and in all arts and sciences, they who
professedly place their labour and study in the polishing and practising
of the same, both use and ought to direct the judgments of others." Since
therefore(970) the ministers of the church are those _quibus ecclesiae
cura incumbit vel maxime_, since they do above and before the civil
magistrate devote themselves to the care and knowledge of things
pertaining to God and his worship, whereabout they profess to bestow their
ordinary study and painful travail, were it not most repugnant to the law
of natural reason to say that they ought not to direct, but be directed
by, the magistrate in such matters?

3. The ministers of the church are appointed to be "watchmen in the city
of God," Mic. vii. 4, and "overseers of the flock," Acts xx. 28; but when
princes do, without the direction and definition of ministers, establish
certain laws to be observed in things pertaining to religion, ministers
are not then watchmen and overseers, because they have not the first
sight, and so cannot give the first warning of the change which is to be
made in the church. The watchmen are upon the walls, the prince is within
the city. Shall the prince now view and consider the breaches and defects
of the city better and sooner than the watchmen themselves? Or shall one,
within the city, tell what should be righted and helped therein, before
them who are upon the walls? Again, the prince is one of the flock, and is
committed, among the rest, to the care, attendance, and guidance of the
overseers; and, I pray, shall one of the sheep direct the overseers how to
govern and lead the whole flock, or prescribe to them what orders and
customs they shall observe for preventing or avoiding any hurt and
inconvenience which may happen to the flock?

4. Christ hath ordained men of ecclesiastical order, not only "for the
work of the ministry,"(971) that is, for preaching the word and
ministering the sacraments, for warning and rebuking them who sin, for
comforting the afflicted, for confirming the weak, &c., but also for
providing whatsoever concerneth either the private spiritual good of any
member of the church, which the Apostle calleth "the perfecting of the
saints," or the public sp