A Christian Directory, Part 4: Christian PoliticsBaxter, Richard
Religion
A Christian Directory, Part 4: Christian Politics
Baxter, Richard
Casuistry; Christian sociology
No doubt but the king is the supreme governor over all the schools,
and physicians, and hospitals in the land, that is, he is the supreme
in the civil coercive government: he is supreme magistrate over
divines, physicians, and schoolmasters; but not the supreme divine,
physician, or schoolmaster. When there is any work for the office of
the magistrate, that is, for the sword, among any of them, it
belongeth only to him, and not at all to them: but when there is any
work for the divine, the physician, the schoolmaster, or if you will,
for the shoemaker, the tailor, the watchmaker, this belongeth not to
the king to do, or give particular commands for: but yet it is all to
be done under his government; and on special causes he may make laws
to force them all to do their several works aright, and to restrain
them from abuses. As (to clear the case in hand) the king is informed
that physicians take too great fees of their patients, that some
through ignorance, and some through covetousness, give ill compounded
medicines and pernicious drugs: no doubt but the king, by the advice
of understanding men, may forbid the use of such drugs as are found
pernicious to his subjects, and may regulate not only the fees, but
the compositions and attendances of physicians. But if he should
command, that a man in a fever, or dropsy, or consumption, shall have
no medicine, but this or that, and so oft, and in such or such a dose,
and with such or such a diet; and the physicians, whom my reason
bindeth me to trust, (and perhaps my own experience also,) do tell me
that all these things are bad for me, and different tempers and
accidents require different remedies, and that I am like to die, or
hazard my health, if I obey not them contrary to the king's commands,
here I should rather obey my physicians: partly, because else I should
sin against God, who commandeth me the preservation of my life; and
partly, because this matter more belongeth to the physician, than to the
magistrate. Mr. Richard Hooker, Eccles. Polit. lib. viii. p. 223, 224,
giveth you the reason more fully.[73]
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