352 ECCLESIASTICAL DISCIPLINE MAY BE CHANGED. He removes the candlesticks, Rev. ii. 5. He placed Eli, of the family of Ithamar, in the high priesthood, and displaced his race from it. " I said indeed," says God, "that thy house, and the house of thy father, should walk before me for ever ; but now the Lord saith, Be it far from me," &c., 1 Sam. ii. 30, 1 Kings ii. 27. 3. The reason and exigency of things might be sufficient ground for altering an universal jurisdiction; for when it should prove very inconvenient or hurtful, God might order such an alteration to happen, and men be obliged to allow it. As God first instituted one universal monarchy, but that form, upon the multiplication of mankind and peopling of the earth, proving incommodious, Providence gave way for its change and the setting up of particular governments, to which men are bound to submit; so God might institute a singular presidency of the church, but when the church grew vastly extended, so that such a govern- ment would not conveniently serve the whole, he might order a division, in which we should acquiesce. 4. It has ever been deemed reasonable, and accordingly been practised, that the church, in its exterior form and political admini- strations, should be suited to the state of the world and constitution of worldly governments, that there might be no clashing or disturb- ance from each to other. Wherefore, seeing the world is now settled under so many civil sovereignties, it is expedient that ecclesiastical discipline should be so modelled as to comply with each of them.* And it is reasonable that any pretence of jurisdiction should vail to the public good of the church and the world. That it should be necessary for thechurch to retain the same form of policy, or measure ofpower affixed to persons or places, can no wise be demonstrated by sufficient proof, and it is not consistent with ex- perience, which shows the church to have subsisted with variations of that kind. There has in all times been found much reason or necessity to make alterations, as well in the places and bounds of ecclesiastical jurisdiction as of secular empire. Wherefore, St Peter's monarchy, reason requiring, might be can- tonized into divers spiritual supremacies; and as other ecclesiastical * It is not easy to reconcile this, which has been calledthe ambulatory view of church government, with the strong sentiments expressed by Barrow in his thesis De Regimine . Episcopali; in which he strives to prove that "the rejection of episcopal government, where there are orthodox and lawful bishops, properly constitutes a mortal schism." In his maturer age, he may, like many others, have come to view such matters with a more liberal eye. But it seems much more reasonable to hold that the right govern- ment of the church, so long as it employs only spiritual means, and aims only at spiri- tual ends, can never clash or come into collision with civil government, so long as that employs only secular means, and aims only at secular endsED.
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