Reader,

In the time of our divisions, and the execution of God's judgements upon the three nations, I set my self to enquire into the causes of our sad and woeful condition, and to think of some remedies to prevent our ruin. Whilst I was busy in this search, I easily understood, that the subject of our differences was, not only the state but the church. This gave occasion to peruse such authors as write of government, and to study the political part of the holy Scriptures, wherein I found many things concerning the constitution, the adminstration, the corruption, the conversion and subversion of civil states and kingdoms, with much of church-discipline. There I observed certain rules of government in general, and some special, and proper to civil, or else to ecclesiastical polities. All these, accourding to my poor ability I reduced to method, and applied them to our own church and state severally. I further took notice of our principal differences both civil and ecclesiastical, and did freely deliver mine own judgement concerning the particular parties, and their opinions, yet so that I endeavoured to be of no party, as a party. And though in some things I differ from them, yet it was not out of singularity, or a humour of opposition, but out of an unfeigned desire of truth; which in many things I found so evident, that whatsoever should not acknowledge it, must needs be willful, and blinded with partiality or prejudice.

Yet if the pope cannot have and hold this power, yet the princes, sovereigns and civil states, especially Christian, will assume it, and they have the strongest, and the surest way of all others, if they once get possession for to keep it, and that's the Sword. King Henry VIII did not only refuse to submit unto the Roman supremacy, but took it to himself and became within his own dominions, over all persons, in all causes, as well ecclesiastical as civil supreme head and governor. So the priest by the prince was divested of a considerable part both of his power and also his revenue. But whether he could be the proper subject of his spiritual power, or make good his title to it, was much doubted, and that by many. As king, he was but caput regni non ecclesia: and as such, he might have some civil, but no ecclesiastical power at all. Yet though it was called ecclesiastical, yet it was not such [grammatically but rhetorically], not properly but by a trope, a metonymy of the adjunct for the subject circa quod. For the power of a state temporal is only civil, if properly and formally considered; yet the civil sovereign had always something to do in matters of religion, concerning which it may make laws, pass judgement, and execute the same. Yet, the laws, the judgements, the execution were civil, not strictly ecclesiastical.

George Lawson's Politica sacra et civilis is a systematic treatise which traverses much of the conceptual terrain of seventeenth-century political discourse, and provides a critical accompaniment to many of the loudest catch-cries that echoed over it. Lawson's stated purpose is to facilitate a lasting civil and religious settlement. He conceives the church and the state as two broadly parallel and mutually informing structures of political, sovereign power and argues that an understanding of either requires an understanding of both. As Lawson provides an accessible synopsis of the volume in ‘The arguments of the several chapters’ (pp. 8–13), only the briefest outline of the work's theoretical structure is needed here.

Lawson begins by sketching in what he takes to be the nature of all forms of government under a supreme being, the very existence of whom is taken to limit all modes of human allegiance. From the outset, then, Lawson prefigures the central importance to him of authority and its limitations. In chapters two and three he introduces his notions of community and citizenship in civil and ecclesiological society respectively. Communities are divinely sanctioned, pre-political associations; they are comprised of citizens who, in a Ciceronian sense, are naturally free and equal fellows. A community of citizens, however, is not a mere aggregation of isolated individuals; it is a complex, incorporated society under natural law, whose full members represent the disfranchised. The community may lack nothing but the security afforded by the laws of a formal political hierarchy.

Hitherto of a community in general, and of a community civil, that which we call ecclesiastical follows. This in opposition to that which we call temporal and civil is spiritual, and is such in respect of religion; for as there are matters of this life, which concern us as mortals with relation one unto another, so there are matters of God, spiritual, divine, and of a far higher allay [alloy]; there is no nation or people, though rude and barbarous, but profess some religion, by the observation whereof they acknowledge their dependence upon a superior power and providence far above that of mortal man; yet many, contrary to the very light of nature, either worshipped that which was not truly God, or with the true God a false deity; or the true God alone, without any certain rule and direction from Heaven, after the invention of men, or the suggestion of the devil. Of these there have been many communities, which I will no further mention; for these were never called churches, or the people of the living God; for the true church is a community of such as worship the true and living God, according to certain rules of truth revealed from Heaven, and now contained in the holy Scriptures. And these direct us to worship God, not only as creator, but as redeemer by Christ.

The most difficult point in politics is that of the Jura Majestatis, and the right disposal of them in a fit subject. And concerning the nature of civil power, the manner of acquiring and disposing of it, I have already spoken; and also of ecclesiastical power and the acquisition thereof. Now it remains, [that] I say something of the manner of disposing the Power of the Keys in the right subjects. This is a matter of great dispute in these our times. Therefore, when I expected to find all clear, because a Jus divinum, grounded on the Scriptures, was pretended on all hands, I found it otherwise. As, when one of our worthies had disemboked the Magellanick Straits, and was entered into that sea, they call Pacificum, he found the word Pacifick really contradicted by violent storms. So it falls out here; I hoped to have landed in a region of perpetual peace, but I was found in a Terra del Fuego, a land of fire and smoke; like unto Palma, one of the seven Canary Islands, where, in September 1646, or thereabouts, a fire first raged fearfully in the bowels of the earth, and at length brake out, and ran in five several fiery, sulphurious streams into the main. In like manner, this Power of the Keys runs in five several channels, but very turbulently and impetuously. For the pope, the prince, the prelate, the presbyter, the plebeian rank, do every one of them severally challenge it; and nothing under a Jus divinum will serve the turn.

That the Power of the Keys is not primarily in the pope, nor in the civil sovereign; nor in the prelate; nor in the presbyter; nor in both jointly as in a pure aristocracy, hath been formerly declared. It remains, we examine the people's title as distinct from that of the bishop and the presbyter, as they are [pre-eminent citizens of the church], parts of a Christian community. The people and number of believers thus considered, are rather plebs, than populus. To understand this it's to be considered that in a Christian community there are neither optimates properly, nor plebs. There may be and are, as you heard before, such as are incomplete and virtual members, as women, children and other weak Christians, who are not fit to have any vote in the public affairs of the church, much more unfit to exercise and manage the Power of the Keys. There are also complete members, and amongst these some more eminent than the rest. To place the power in the inferior rank, or to make that party predominant, is to make the government democratic. And this opinion is not worth the confutation, because it's not only disagreeing with plain Scripture, but with the rules of right reason. In this regard they are generally rejected. Some charge Morellius and the Brownists with this error, but I have not seen their books.

Church government presupposeth the rules of government in general, therefore he that will know the latter, must understand the former: for he that is ignorant of government, must needs be ignorant of church government; and this is the very case of many in our days, and this is one cause of many differences amongst us at this time. To give some light in this particular, I will say something of government in general. The government of God, whereby he more immediately orders man to his final and immortal estate, I have according to my poor ability declared in my Theo-politica, or divine politics, therefore I will confine my discourse to the government of man by man, or rather the government of God by men set over men. For God communicates some measure of his power to mortal men; and such as are entrusted with it, become his vicegerents and bear his name according to that of the psalmist, ‘I have said ye are Gods’ (Ps. 82.6). My design in this treatise is not to deliver an exact system of politics, yet I will make use of those rules I find in political writers of better rank, but with a reservation of a liberty to myself to vary from them, as I shall see just cause. To pass by the distinction of government monastical and economical; I will pitch upon that which is political. The subject whereof is a community and society larger than that of a family, and may be sufficient to receive the form of a commonwealth.

Having manifested, what ecclesiastical power of discipline is, I must search how it's acquired: for this as well as civil is derivative and that from Heaven, and in a more special manner. It's not natural but acquired. It's also continued by succession, not hereditary but elective; not in a line, as the sacerdotal power confined to the family of Aaron. It's first in God the fountain of all power, and from him derived to Christ as man and administrator general. For so after his resurrection, he said unto his disciples, ‘All power in Heaven and earth is given me.’ Some measure of this he by commission delegate[d] unto the Apostles. Yet that power of theirs as extraordinary, was not successive, or to be derived to those who followed them as ordinary officers of the church: for it expired with them. Yet there was an ordinary power of discipline derived to them, and they never except in ordinary cases, did exercise it but with the church. This, some say was acquired, by those words of Christ to Peter, ‘to thee will I give the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven’, etc. (Matt. 16.19). This power was given to Peter, many of the ancients say, as representing the church; others think it was given him as head of the church; others as representing the Apostles, from whom it was derived to the bishops; or else, as others tell us, to the elders of the church.

The prelate presumes that the Power of the Keys is his, and he thinks his title very good, and so good, that though he could not prove the institution, yet prescription will bear him out. For he hath had possession for a long time: and universality and antiquity seem to favour him very much. Yet I hope his title may be examined; and if upon examination it prove good, he hath no cause to be offended, except with this, that I of all others should meddle with it. But before anything can be said to purpose, we must first know the nature and institution of a bishop, which is the subject of the question. Secondly, put the reader in mind, that the question is not in this place, whether a bishop be an officer of the church, either by some special or some general divine precept, but whether he be [the principal receiver] the primary subject of the Power of the Keys. For he may be an officer and yet no such subject. Concerning a bishop, the subject of the question, two things are worthy our consideration; […] what he is, [and] how instituted at the first. The definition and institution, seem rather to belong unto the second part of ecclesiastical politics, where I shall entreat of ecclesiastical officers; and the constitution of them. Yet I will here say something of both in order to [clarify] the question, though I be the briefer afterward.

Dedicated to His Highness

The LORD PROTECTOR of The Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland

By JAMES HARRINGTON

Epistle to the Reader

Sir,

If this writing be not acceptable, here is already enough, and too much of it; but if it be, it is but a rough draft, for I have not been yet two years about it, nor ever saw all or half my papers together. And now, in the bringing them to light, they have been dispersed into three presses where, because I could not be present at them all, I was present at none, by which means the weakness of my performance hath been so strangely managed for the worse, that I am quite out of countenance at my work, which, the ensuing errors mended, will not be perfect, but not mended, is not to be understood.