much regarded not scripture testimonies; but said, it was at the pleasure of the king to abrogate the statutes, and institute new rites. Touching fasting, there the king can enjoin and command the people, that this or that day the people may eat flesh: yea, that it is lawful for the king to forbid priests to marry; yea, that it is lawful for the king to forbid to the people the use of the cup in the Lord's supper; that it is lawful for the king to decree this or that in his kingdom. Why? Because the king hath the supreme power. It is certain, if kings do their duty, they are both patrons of religion, and nurse-fathers of the Church, as Isaiah calls them, Isa. xlix. 23. This, therefore, is principally required of kings, that they use the sword wherewith they are furnished, for the maintaining of God's worship. But in the mean time there are inconsiderate men, that make them too spiritual; and this fault reigns up and down Germany; yea, spreads too much in these countries. And now we perceive what fruits spring from this root, viz: that princes, and all that are in place of government, think themselves to be so spiritual, that there is no other ecclesiastical government. And this sacrilege creeps among us, because they cannot measure their office with certain and lawful bounds, but are of opinion they cannot reign, unless they abolish all the authority of the Church, and become the chief judges both in doctrine, and in the whole spiritual government. At the beginning they pretend some zeal; but mere ambition drives them, that so solicitously they snatch all things to themselves. Therefore there ought to be a temper kept; for this disease hath always reigned in princes, to desire to bend religion according to their own pleasure and lust, and for their own profits in the mean time. For they have respect to their profit, because for the most part they are not acted by the Spirit of God, but their ambition carries them." Thus Calvin in Amos vii. 13. Oh what exclamations would this holy man have poured out, had he lived to see the passages of our days! _Quis talia fando temperet a lachrymis!_[25] II. Subordinate ministerial power, which is either, 1. Indirectly, improperly, and only objectively ecclesiastical or spiritual, (so called, because it is exercised about spiritual or ecclesiastical objects, though formally in its own nature it be properly a mere civil or political power.) This is that power which is allowed to the civil magistrate about religion; he is _an overseer of things without the Church_, having an external care of religion as a _nurse-father_, Isa. xlix. 23; as had Hezekiah, Josiah, Asa, Jehoshaphat, &c.; so as, by the law, to restore religion decayed, reform the Church corrupted, protect the Church reformed, &c.