."

Lastly, I hold, that, after the definition and decision of a council,
princes may not take upon them, by any judicial power or public vocation,
to examine the same, as if they had authority to pronounce yet another
decisive sentence, either ratifying or reversing what the council hath
decreed. Most certain it is, that, before princes give their royal assent
unto the decrees of any council whatsoever, and compel men to receive and
acknowledge the same, they ought, first of all, carefully to try and
examine them whether they agree with the Scriptures or not; and, if they
find them not to agree with the Scriptures, then to deny their assent and
authority thereto. But all the princes do not by any judicial power or
public authority, but only by the judgment of private discretion, which
they have as Christians, and which, together with them, is common also to
their subjects; for neither may a master of a family commend to his
children and servants the profession of that faith which is published by
the decrees of a council, except, in like manner, he examine the same by
the Scriptures.

DIGRESSION IV.

OF THE POWER OF THE KEYS, AND ECCLESIASTICAL CENSURES.

Ecclesiastical censures and punishments, wherewith delinquents are bound,
and from which, when they turn penitents, they are loosed, are of two
sorts: either such as are common, and agree unto all, as excommunication
and absolution; or such as are peculiar, and agree only to men of
ecclesiastical order, as suspension, deprivation, &c.

As touching the power of the keys, to bind and loose, excommunicate and
absolve; first of all, princes are to remember, that neither they may, by
themselves, exercise this power (for _regum est corporalem irrogare
paenam; sacerdotum spiritualem inferre vindictam_(1065)), nor yet by their
deputies or commissioners in their name, and with authority from them;
because, as they have not themselves the power of the keys, so neither can
they communicate the same unto others. Secondly, Forasmuch as princes are
the wardens, defenders, and revengers of both the Tables, they ought,
therefore, to provide and take course that neither laymen be permitted to
have and exercise, the power of excommunication, nor yet that the prelates
themselves be suffered, in their particular dioceses, to appropriate this
power and external jurisdiction, as peculiar to themselves; but that it
remain in their hands to whom it pe