alato.(1055) The presiding and moderating in the
human order, that is, by a coactive power to compass the turbulent, to
avoid all confusion and contention, and to cause a peaceable proceeding
and free deliberation, pertaineth indeed to princes, and so did
Constantine preside in the same council of Nice.

DIGRESSION III.

OF THE JUDGING OF CONTROVERSIES AND QUESTIONS OF FAITH.

There is a twofold judgment which discerneth and judgeth of faith. The one
absolute, whereby the Most High God, whose supreme authority alone bindeth
us to believe whatsoever he propoundeth to be believed by us, hath in his
written word pronounced, declared, and established, what he would have us
to believe concerning himself or his worship; the other limited and
subordinate, which is either public or private. That which is public is
either ordinary or extraordinary. The ministerial or subordinate public
judgment, which I call ordinary, is the judgment of every pastor or
doctor, who, by reason of his public vocation and office, ought by his
public ministry to direct and instruct the judgments of other men in
matters of faith, which judgment of pastors and doctors is limited and
restricted to the plain warrants and testimonies of Holy Scripture, they
themselves being only the ambassadors(1056) of the Judge to preach and
publish the sentence which he hath established, so that a pastor is not
properly _judex_ but _index_. The subordinate public judgment, which is
extraordinary, is the judgment of a council assembled for the more public
and effectual establishment and declaration of one or more points of faith
and heads of Christian doctrine, and that in opposition to all contrary
heresy or error, which is broached and set a-foot in the church. From
which council,(1057) no Christian man who is learned in the Scriptures may
be excluded, but ought to be admitted to utter his judgment in the same;
for in the indagation or searching out of a matter of faith, they are not
the persons of men which give authority to their sayings, but the reasons
and documents which every one bringeth for his judgment. The subordinate
judgment, which I call private, is the judgment of discretion whereby
every Christian,(1058) for the certain information of his own mind, and
the satisfaction of his own conscience, may and ought to try and examine,
as well the decrees of councils as the doctrines of particular pastors,
and in so far to rec