Samuel Rutherford from Lex Rex questions whether all Christian kings are dependent from Christ and may be called his vice-regents. The prelate taketh on him to prove the truth of this, but the question is not pertinent, it belongeth to another head, to the king's power in church matters. I therefore only examine what he sayeth and follow him. prelate. Sectaries have found, now the prelate is the same thing as an Episcopalian, they believe in a certain church authority, that the king has power over the church. Sectaries have found a query of late that kings are gods, not Christ's lieutenants on earth. Okay, this is what the prelate says. Romanists and Puritans erect two sovereigns in every state, the Jesuit and the Pope and the Puritan and the Presbyterian. Answer, he's refuting the Answer one. We give a reason why God hath a lieutenant as God, because kings are gods, small g, bearing the sword of vengeance against seditious and bloody prelates and other ill-doers. But Christ, God-man, the mediator and head of the body, the church, hath neither pope nor king to be head under him. The sword is communicable. communicable to man, but the headship of Christ is communicable to no king, nor to any created shoulders. Two, the Jesuits make the Pope a king, and to this prelate maketh him an extent, the bishop of bishops, and so king, as I approve, but we place no sovereignty in presbyteries, but a mere ministerial power of servants. who do not take on them to make laws and religious ceremonies as prelates do, who indeed make themselves kings and lawgivers in God's house. It's an excellent statement. They have ministerial power. They only can, their authority is solely in what the word God says. Prelate. We speak of Christ as head of a church, something that Christ was king by his resurrection. Jura acquisito. By a new title, right of merit, I think he was a king from his conception. Answer one. You declare hereby that the king is a ministerial head of the church, under the head Christ. All our divines disputing against the Pope's headship say, nor mortal man hath shoulders, for so glorieth the head. You give the king such shoulders. But why are not the kings even Nero, Julian, Nebuchadnezzar, and Belshazzar, vice-regents of Christ, as mediators, as priests, as redeemer, as prophet, as advocate, presenting our prayers to God as father? What action, I pray you, have Christian kings by office under Christ in dying and raising from the dead for us and sending down the Holy Ghost, preparing mansions for us? Now it is as proper and incommunicably reciprocal with the mediator to be the only head of the body. The church, Colossians 118, has to be the only redeemer and advocate of this church. Okay, and he's teaching. The civil magistrate is not a king over the church. so are spiritual matters at all. Number two, that Christ was king from his conception as man born of the Virgin Mary, suiteth well with papists who will have Christ as man, the visible head of the church. That so as Christ man, he is now in heaven, he may have a visible pope to be head in all ecclesiastical matters. And that is the reason why this prelate maketh him head of a church by an ecclesiastical right that we have heard. And so falleth because the Jesuit is in this and others of his fellows. Pre-lit number one proof. Okay, this is the pre-lit speaking. If kings reign by in and through Christ as the wisdom of God and the mediator, then are kings the vice-urgents of Christ as mediator? But the former is said, Proverbs 15, 16. So Dr. Sanders, a blessed memory. Answer one, we deny the major. All believers living the life of God and grafted in Christ as branches in the tree, John 15, 1 and 2, should by the same reason be vice regents of the mediator. He's arguing against the idea that the king is a mediator between man and God, the civil king. So should the angels whom Christ is ahead, Colossians 2.10, be his vice regents. And all the judges and constables on earth should be under mediators. for they live and act in Christ, yay. All the creatures in the mediator are made new. Revelation 21.5, Romans 8, 20 to 22. Number two, Dr. Andrew's name is a curse on the earth. His writings prove him to be a popish apostate. Prelate number two, Christ, and this is the prelate speaking, Christ is not only king of his church, but in order to his church, king over the kings and kingdoms of the earth. Psalm 2, 5 and 8, Matthew 21, 18, to him is given all power in heaven and earth thereby all sovereignty over kings. Answer one, if all these be Christ's vice-regents over whom he hath ordained power then, because the Father hath given him power over all flesh to give them life eternal, John 17, 1 and 2, then are all believers his vice-regents, yea, and all the damned men and devils and death and hell are his vice-regents for Christ. As mediator hath all power given to him as king of the church, and so power kingly over all his enemies, to reign under them until he makes them his footstool, Psalm, to break them with a rod of iron, Psalm 2, 9, 1 Corinthians 15, 24 and 27, Revelation 1, 18 and 20, 5, 10 to 15. And by the same reason, the prelates' fourth and fifth arguments fall to the ground. He is heir of all things, therefore all things are his vice regents. What more vain? He is prince of the kings of the earth and king of of ogs, of kings, and of enemies. Therefore, sea and land are his vice-regions." Prelate, page 58. Kings are nursing fathers of the church, therefore they hold their crowns of Christ. Divines say that by men in sacred orders Christ doth rule his church immediately, and those things which primely concern salvation, and that by king's scepters and power he doth protect his church. And what concerneth eternal pomp, order, and decency? Then in this latter sense, kings are no less the immediate rise regents of Christ than bishops, priests, and deacons in the former. Okay, the prelate is arguing that because the king is the nursing father of the church, the king has a spiritual role over the church. That's what prelates are arguing. Answer one, because kings hold their crowns of Christ as mediator and redeemer, followed by good consequent, kings are sub-mediators and under-priests, and redeemers as vice-regents. Christ as king hath no visible royal vice-regents under him. The point of all this is that Christ rules directly over the church. There is no intermediator, there's no king over the church. Christ is over the church, the sole king. Two men in holy order sprinkled with one of the papal's five blessed sacraments, such as Antichristian prelates, unwashed priests to offer sacrifices in Popish deacons, are no more admitted by Christ to enter into a sanctuary as governors than the leper into the camp of old. and the Moabite and Ammonite were to enter into the congregation of the Lord, Deuteronomy 23.3. Therefore, we have excommunicated this prelate and such Moabites out of the Lord's house. What be the things that do not primarily concern salvation, the priliate knoweth, to wit, images in the church, altar worship, anti-Christian ceremonies, which primarily concern damnation. Three, I understand not what the prelate meaneth, that the king preserveth external governments in order and decency. In Scotland under Parliament 1633, he prescribed the surplus and he commanded the service book and the mass book. The prelate degraded the king here to make him only keep or preserve the prelate's mass clothes. They intended indeed to make the king, but the Pope serve it for all they say and do for him now. Number four. If the king be vice-regent of Christ and prescribing laws for the external ordering of the worship and all the decent symbolical ceremonies, what more does the pope and the prelate in what kind? In other words, what's the difference between the pope and the king? He may, with his good warrant, preach and administer the sacraments. Prelate. Kings have the sign of the cross on their crowns. Answer. Therefore, Bacchulus, Est, and Agullo, prelates have put a cross in the king's heart. They crossed crown and throne too. Some knights, some ships, some cities and boroughs to carry a cross. Are they made Christ vice-regents of late? By what antiquity does the cross signify Christ? Of old it was a badge of Christians. No religious ceremony. And is this all? The king is the vice-regent of Christians? The prelates, we know, adore the cross with religious worship. So must they adore the crown. Prelate, grant that the pope were the vicar of Christ in spiritual things. It followeth not. Therefore, kings and crowns are subject to the pope. For papists teach that all power that was given in Christ as man is the power to work miracles, to institute sacraments, was not transmitted to Peter and his successors. Answer, this is a base consequence. Make the pope the head of the church, the king, If he be a mixed person, that is, half a churchman and Christ's vice-regent, both he and Prelates must be members of the head. Papists teach that all in Christ as man cannot be transmitted to Peter, but a ministerial Catholic headship, say Bacchus and his fellows, was transmitted from Christ as a man and visible head to Peter and the Pope. Prelate, I wish the Pope, who claimeth so near alliance with Christ, would learn of him to be meek and humble in heart. So should he find rest to his own soul to church and state? Answer one. The same was the wish of Gerson, Ockham, the doctors of Paris, the fathers of the Council of Constance, and Basil. Yet all make him head of the church. Two, the excommunicate prelate is turned chaplain to preach to the Pope. The sole rest that Protestants wish to the Pope is that the Lord would destroy him by the spirit of his mouth, 2 Thessalonians 2.8. But to Popish prelates this wish is a reformation of accidents with the safety of that subject the Pope and is as good as a wish that the devil remaining a devil may find rest for his soul. All we are to pray for is having placed the church as supposed members of the church. The prelate would not pray so for the presbytery by which he was ordained a pastor, 1 Timothy 4.14, though he be now an apostate. It is gratitude to pray for his lucky father, the Pope. Whatever the prelate wish, we pray for and believe that desolation shall be his sole rest and that the vengeance of the Lord and of his temple shall fall upon him and the prelate, his sons." And let me just, the reason he's connecting the papacy to the prelate so much is at this time Archbishop Laude, and there was a toleration and a close connection to Roman Catholicism. Prelate. That which they propose by denying kings to be Christ's vice-regents is to set up a sovereignty ecclesiastical in Presbyteries to constrain kings, repeal his laws, correct his statutes, reverse his judgments, recite, convene, and censure kings. And if there be not power to execute what Presbyteries decree, they may call and command the help of the people, in whom is the underrived majesty, the promise, and the swear, and covenant to defend their fantasies against all mortal men. with their goods, lands, fortunes, to admit no divisive motion, and the sovereignty and sovereign association maketh every private man in armed magistrate. Answer. That's the prelit. Here's the answer. You see the excommunicated apostate strives against the presbytery of a reformed church from which he has his baptism, faith, and ministry. Number one, we deny the king to be the head of the church. Number two, we assert that in the pastors, doctors, and elders of the church, there is a ministerial power as servants under Christ in his authority and name to rebuke and censure kings. and that there is revenge in the gospel against all disobedience, 2 Corinthians 2.6, 10.6. The rod of God, 1 Corinthians 4.21. The rod of Christ's lips, Isaiah 11.4. The scepter of the sword of Christ, Revelation 1.16, 19.15. The keys of his kingdom to bind and loose and open and shut, Matthew 18, 17, and 18. Matthew 16, 19. 1 Corinthians 5, 1-3. 2 Thessalonians 3, 14-15. 1 Timothy 1, 19. 5, 22. 5, 17. And that this power is commuted to the officers of Christ's house. Call them as you will. Remember, that's ministerial. That is ministerial. They can only condemn a magistrate for violating the Word of God. For reversing of laws made by the establishment of popery, we think the Church of Christ did well to declare all these unjust, grievous decrees, and that woe is due to the judges, even the Queen, if they should not repent, Isaiah 10.1. And this prelate must show his teeth in this against our Reformation in Scotland. which he once commended in pulpit as a glorious work of God's right hand and the assembly of Glasgow 1638 declared that bishops though established by acts of Parliament procured by prelates only commissioners and agents for the church who betrayed their trust were unlawful and did supplicate that the ensuing Parliament would annul these wicked acts. They think God privileges neither king nor others from church centers. The Popish prelates imprisoned and silenced the ministers of Christ who preached against the public sins, the blood, oppression, injustice, open swearing and blasphemy of the holy name of God at the countenance of idolatry, et cetera, in king and court. Number four, and by the way, 1638, that's the year of the Second Reformation and the covenant, the Second Covenant. Number four, they never sought the help of the people against the most unjust standing law of authority. Number five, they did never swear and covenant to defend their own fancies, for the confession and covenant of the Protestant religion translated into Latin to all the Protestants in Europe and America, being termed a fancy, is a clear evidence that this prelate was justly as communicated for Popery. Number six, the covenant was sworn by King James and his house, by the whole land, by the prelates themselves, and to this fancy, this prelate, by the law of our land, was obliged to swear when he received decrees in the university. Number seven, in other words, how can you be against us for enforcing the covenant when you guys swore to the covenant? Number seven, there's a reason our covenant should provide against divisive motions. The prelates move the king to command all the land to swear our covenant in the prelatical sense against the intent thereof and only to divide and so command. Judge what religion prelates are of who will have the name of God profaned by a whole nation by swearing fancies. Number eight, Of making private men magistrates and defending themselves against cutthroats. Enough already. Let the prelate answer if he can. Prelate. Let no man imagine me to privilege a king from the direction and just power of the church, or that like Uzziah, he should intrude upon sacred actions. Ex vi ordainis in foro interno conscientious to preach or administrate sacraments, et cetera. Answer. Uzziah did not burn incense. ex vi ordinis, as if he had been a priest, but because he was a king and God's anointed. Prelates sit not in council in parliaments, ex vi ordinis, as temporal lords. The Pope is no temporal monarch, ex vi ordinis, yet all are intruders. So the prelate will license kings to administer sacraments, so they do it not ex vi ordinis, prelate. Men in sacred orders and things intrinsically spiritual have immediately a directive and authoritative power in order to all whatsoever, although ministerial only as related to Christ, but that giveth them no coercive civil power over the prince, per se or per accidents, directly or indirectly, that either the one way or the other, any or many in sacred order, Pope or Presbytery, can cite and censure kings, associates, covenant, or swear to resist him and force him to submit to the scepter of Christ. This power over man, God Almighty useth not much, lest hath he given it to man. His people are a willing people. Answer one. Pastors have a ministerial power, saith he in spiritual things, but in order to Christ, therefore in order to others, it is not ministerial, but lordly. So here are lordly power pastors have over kings, but by the prelates way. we teach it as ministerial in relation to all, because ministers can make no laws as kings can do, but only as heralds declare Christ's laws. Number two, none of us gave any coercive civil power to the church over either kings or any other. It is ecclesiastical. A power to rebuke and censure was never civil. Number three, A religious covenant to swear to resist, that is, to defend ourselves, is one thing, and a lawful oath, as is clear in those of Israel that swear against Asa's covenant without the authority of their own king, 2 Chronicles 15, 9-12, and to swear to force the king to submit to Christ's scepter is another thing. The presbytery never did swear or covenant any such thing, nor do we take sacrament upon it. to force the king. Prelates have made the king swear and take his sacrament upon it that he shall root out Puritans, that is, Protestants, whereas he did swear at his coronation to root out heretics, that is, if prelates were not traitorous in administering the oath. Arminians and Papists, such as this prelate is known to be, but I told that the states of Scotland have power to punish the king if he labored to subvert religion and laws." Okay. the estates of Scotland are the lesser civil magistrates and the lesser civil magistrates, and John Knox taught this too, and Calvin did too, the lesser civil magistrates have power to overthrow the king and they're civil rulers, they're lesser civil rulers, not the church, it's not the church taking up arms against the king, it's the lesser civil magistrates. Number four, If this argument, that religion is to be persuaded, not forced, was to prelate Yusuf be good, he will make much against the king, for the king, then, can force no man to do external profession and use of the ordinances of God. And not only kings, but all the people should be willing. Prelate. Though the king may not preach, et cetera, yet the exercise of those things freely within his kingdom, which concerneth the decent and orderly doing of all, and the external man and the external government of the church, in appointing things arbitrary and different, and what else is of this strain are so due to the prerogative of the crown as that the priests without highest rebellion may not usurp upon him. A king in the state and church is a mixed person, not simply civil, but sacred too. They are not only professors of truth, but they have in the capacity of Christians, but they have defenders of the faith as kings. They are not sons only, but nursing fathers. They serve God as Augustine saith, as men and as kings also. Remember, what the prelate is arguing for is the king is the head of the church and can tell the church what to do. And the Second Reformation got rid of all that. Answer number one. If you give the king power of the exercise of word and sacraments in his kingdom, this is deprivation of ministers in his kingdom. For he surely cannot hinder them in another kingdom. You may make him to give a ministerial calling if he may take it away. But word of God can and came close to the mouth of this man of God, and Christ hath commanded to speak in his name. Number two, in other words, a Christian preacher is not teaching heresy. The king has no power to order him to stop or do anything contrary to that. Number two, if the king may externally govern the church, which may not be excommunicate, for this is one of the special acts of church government, especially seeing he is a mixed person. that is half a churchman, and if he may prescribe arbitrary teaching ceremonies and instruct men in the duties of holiness required of pastors, I see not, but he may teach the word. Three, Dr. Fern and other royalists deny arbitrary government to the king and the state, and with reason, because it is tyranny over the people. But prelates are not ashamed of commanding a thing arbitrary and indifferent in God's worship. Shall not arbitrary government in the church be tyranny over the conscience? But say they, quote, churchmen teacheth the Lord what is decent and orderly in God's worship, and he commandeth it. Okay, this is an excellent argument. And the Lutherans do this, too. Oh, well, it's just indifferent, but you better do it. Well, if it's indifferent, they can't command you to do it. Answer one. Solomon, by no teaching of churchmen, despised Abiathar. David, by no teaching of churchmen, appointed the form of the temple. Number two, God hath given a prerogative, royal to kings, whereby they may govern the church and its kings. They shall not know how to use it, but insofar as they are taught by churchmen. Number three, certainly we shall once be informed by God's word. What is this prerogative? If according to it, all the external worship of God may be ordered, lawyers and royalists teach that it is an absoluteness of power to do above and against the law. As they say from 1 Samuel, 8, 9 to 11, and whereby the king may oppress, and no man may say, what doest thou? Now good, prelate, if by a plenitude of tyranny the king prescribes what he will in the worship and government of the church's house, God's house. Who can rebuke the king, though he command all the anti-Christian ceremonies of Rome and of Turkey, yea, of the sacrificing of children to Molech? For absoluteness royal will amount to shedding of innocent blood. What he's arguing here is he's taken the prelates argument to its logical absurdness, which is if you allow them power to simply make up stuff, where does it stop? There's nowhere to draw the line. And that's why the regular principle of worship, of course, to the church is so important. Where if any oppose the king or say, sir, what do you do? He opposeth the royal prerogative, and that is the highest rebellion, saith our prelate. Number four, I see not how the king is a mixed person, because he is a defender of the faith as a pope, named the king of England, Henry VIII. He defendeth it by his sword, as he is nursing father, not by the sword that cometh out of his mouth. In other words, not by teaching. Five, I would know how Julian, Nebuchadnezzar, Og, and Sion were mixed persons and did not in the external government of the church and that by their offices they were kings. Six, all the instances that Augustine bringeth to prove that the king is a mixed person proveth nothing but civil acts and kings. As Hezekiah cast down the high priests, the high places. The king of Nineveh compelled to obey the prophet Jonah. Darius cast Daniel's enemies to the lions. Prelate, if you make two sovereigns and two independents, there'd be no more peace in the state than in Rebecca's womb, while Jacob and Esau strove for their prerogative. In other words, if you don't allow the king to be the head of the church, you're gonna have conflict between the civil government and the church. Answer, what need Israel strive when Moses and Aaron are two independents? If Aaron made a golden calf, may not Moses punish him? If Moses' turn is Ahab and Ahab, and sell himself to do wickedly? Ought not eighty valiant priests and errands both rebuke, censure, and resist? Number two, the prelate said, page 65, let no man imagine we privilege the king from the direction and power of the church, so he may be no intruding Uzziah. I ask, prelate, what is his church power? Is it not supreme in its kind of church power, or is it subordinate to the king? If he be supreme, see how the prelate maketh two supremes and two sovereigns? If he be subordinate to the king, as he is a mixed person, the king is privileged from his power, that he may intrude as Uzziah. And by his prerogative, as a mixed person, he may say mass and offer a sacrifice, if there be no power above his prerogative to curb him. If there be none, the prelate's imagination is real. The king is privileged from all church power. Let the prelate see to it, I see no inconvenience for reciprocations of subjections of two Supremes, and that they may mutually consensure and judge one another. Objection. Not in the same case, that is impossible. If the king say mass, shall the church judge and censure the king for intrusion? And because the king is also sovereign and supposed in his kind, he may judge and punish the church for their act of judging and censuring the king, it being an intrusion on his prerogative, that any should judge the highest judge? Answer. The one is not subject to the other, but in the case of maladministration, the innocent is innocent is subject to no higher punishment. He may be subject to a higher as accusing, citing, et cetera. Now the, excuse me. Now the Royalist must give instance in the same cause where the church failed against the king and his civil law and the king in the same cause failed against the church canon. And then it shall be easy to answer. Prelate, religion is the bottom of all happiness. If you make the king only to execute what a presbytery commandeth, he is in the hard case, and you take from him the chiefest in government. Ecclesiastical power hath the goal in subjection. The civil sovereignty holdeth the dead dominion over the body. Then the pope and presbytery shall be in a better condition than the king. Superstition is furious and maddeneth the people that they spare neither cown nor miter. Answer, cold and dry is the prelate when he spendeth four pages in defamation for the excellency of religion. The madness of superstition is nothing to the purpose. Number one, the king hath a chief hand in church affairs when he is a nursing father. and beareth a royal sword to defend both tables of the law, though he doth not spin and weave surplices, and other base-masked clothings to prelis, and such priests of Baal. They dishonour his majesty, who bring his prerogative so low. Number two, the king doth not execute with blind obedience with us, with the Pope commandeth, and the prelates, but with light of knowledge what sin is discerned. And he has no more made the servant of the church by this than the kings of Judah and Nebuchadnezzar are servants to Jeremiah and Daniel, because they are to obey the word of the Lord in their mouth. Let them show a reason of this, why they are servants in executing God's will and discipline, and in punishing that the Holy Ghost by his apostles and elders decree, when any constrain the decree concerning the obedience from blood and things strangled, Acts 15, rather than when they punish murder, idolatry, blasphemy, which are condemned in the word, preached by pastors of Christ. And farther, this objection would have some more color, in reality it hath not, if kings were only to execute what the church ministerial in Christ's name commanded to be done in synods. But kings may and do command synods to convene and do their duty. and command many duties never symbolically decreed, as they are to cast out of their court apostate prelates, sleeping many years in the devil's arms, and are to command treacherous divines, neglecting their flock, and lying at court, attending the falling of a dead bishop, as ravens do of the old dying horse, to go and attend the flock, and not the court, as this prelate did. Number three, a king hath power hath greater outward glory, and may do much good service to Christ, in respect of extension, and is more excellent than the pastor, who yet, in regard of intention, is busied about nobler things, to wit, the soul, the gospel, and eternity, than the king. Number four, superstition maddeneth men, and it followeth not that true religion may not set them on work to defend soul and body against tyranny of the crown and anti-Christian mitres. The kingdom had peace and plenty in the prelates time. This is a practical argument. We had peace when the king ruled over the church. Well, answer. Number one, a belly argument. We had plenty when we sacrificed to the queen of heaven. If the traveler contend to have his purse again, shall the robber say, robbery was blessed with peace? The rest of the end are lies and answered already. Only as invectives against ruling elders, falsely called lay elders, are not the purpose. Parliament, priests, and lay and court pastors are lay prophets. Number two, the Presbytery's meddle with civil business is a slander. They meddle with public scandals that offendeth in Christ's kingdom. But the prelates by office were more in two elements, in church and state, than any frogs in the king's heaven tubs originally. Number three, Something he sayeth of popes usurping over kings, but only one of his fathers, a great unclean spirit, Gregory the Great. But if he had refuted him by God's word, he should have thrown stones at his own tribe, for prelates like him do ex officio trample upon the neck of the kings. Number four, his testimonies of one council and of one father or antiquity proveth nothing. Athenaeus said, God hath given David's throne to kings. What, to be head of the church? No, to be a minister of God? Without. To tutor the church. And because kings reign by Christ, as the counsel of Armin saith, therefore it may follow a Bailey is also head of the church, if it be taken from Proverbs 8 and answered. Number five. The presbyteries have usurped over kings more than popes since Hildebrand is a lie. All stories are full of the usurpation of prelates, his own tribe. The pope is but a swelled fat prelate. And what he says of popes, he saith of his own house. The ministers of Christ in Scotland had never a contest with King James, but for his sins. And is conniving with papists. And is introducing bishops, the ushers of the pope. We'll stop there. That question is done. Good old, I know it's kind of hard, Rutherford's difficult, so is John Owen, but what he says is excellent and it should be taken heed. These are the greatest Protestants in history was the Second Reformation Presbyterians. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for Rutherford and his ministry. We ask, Lord, that we would learn from this. Civil magistrates should obey. the teaching of the church when it is in accordance with scripture. They do not have a power over the church whatsoever, as Obama thinks and as the Democrats think. So we ask, Lord, that you would bring reformation to your church as you did in 1638. In Jesus' name, amen.