neth to the presbytery also, and are not
in the power of the bishop. And that, in the ancient church, as bishops
gave not ordination, so neither did they suspend nor depose any man
without the common counsel, advice, and concurrence of the presbytery,
yea, and sometimes of a synod, it is clear from Cypr. (lib. 1, epist. 9;
lib. 3, epist. 2, 10), Council Carthag. 3 (can. 8), Council Carthag. 4
(can. 22, 23), Council African. (can. 20), Council Hispan. 2 (can. 6),
Justin. (_Novel_. 42, cap. 1), Jerome (_Comment. ad Isa_ 3), Siricius
(_Epist ad Ambros. inter Ambr. Epist._) So, touching the suspension and
deposition of ministers, the Assembly at Glasgow, anno 1610, ordained that
the bishop should associate to himself the ministry of those bounds where
the delinquent served, that is, the presbytery whereof he hath been a
member, and, together with them, there take trial of the fact, and, upon
just cause found, to deprive or suspend: which Act was ratified in the
12th parliament of king James, anno 1612. Nevertheless, if any man think
the sentence of the bishop and the presbytery, given forth against him, to
be unjust, he ought to have liberty of recourse to the synod, and there to
be heard, according as it was decreed by the Fourth Council of Carthage,
can. 66. But oftimes the matter is of such difficulty or importance that
the bishop and the presbytery may not give out any peremptory sentence of
suspension or deprivation till the matter be brought to the synod of the
province,(1119) where, according to the ancient order, the matter is to be
handled,(1120) not "by the censure of one bishop, but by the judgment of
the whole clergy gathered together."

Princes, therefore, may not suffer bishops to usurp the power of
suspending and depriving at their pleasure, and whensoever they commit any
such tyranny in smiting of their fellow-servants, it is the part of
princes to cause these things to be redressed, and for this end graciously
to receive the grievances of oppressed ministers. The Arians of old, being
assembled in a council at Antioch, decreed, that if any ecclesiastical
person should, without the advice and the letters of the bishops(1121) of
the province, and chiefly of the metropolitan, go to the emperor to put up
any grievance unto him, he should be cast out, not only from the holy
communion, but from his proper dignity which he had in the church.
Whereupon Osiander hath this observation:(1122) "This canon also was
compos