Thus did the princes and cities of Germany in the first reforma-
tion ; and defended theit* so doing by many reasons, which are set
down at large in Sleidan, Lib. 6, Anno 1526, and Lib. 1 1, Anno 1537,
and Lib. 13, Anno 1540. But that the magistrate either out of
that church-revenue which remains yet in his hand, or establishing
any other maintenance instead of tithe, should take into his own
power the stipendiary maintenance of church-ministers, or compel
it by law, can stand neither with the people's right, nor with chris-
tian liberty, but would suspend the chm-ch wholly upon the state,
and turn ministers into state pensioners. And for the magistrate
in person of a nursing father, to make the church his mere ward, as
always in minority, the church, to whom he ought as a magistrate,
Isa. xlix. 23, ** to bow down with his face toward the earth, and
lick up the dust of her feet; " her to subject to his pohtical drifts
or conceived opinions, by mastering her revenue ; and so by his
examinent committees to circumscribe her free election of minis-
ters, is neither just nor pious ; no honour done to the church, but
a plain dishonour : and upon her whose only head is in heaven,
yea upon him, who is only head, sets another in effect, and which
is most monstrous, a human on a heavenly, a carnal on a spiritual,
a political head on an ecclesiastical body] which at length, by
such heterogeneal, such incestuous conjunction, transforms her oft-
times into a beast of many heads and many horns. For if the
church be of all societies the holiest on earth, and so to be re-
verenced by the magistrate ; not to trust her with her own belief
and integrity, and therefore not with the keeping, at leasf with the
disposing, of what revenue shall be foimd justly and lawfully her
own, is to count the church not a holy congregation, but a pack
of giddy or dishonest persons, to be ruled by civil power in sacred
affairs. 