For further clearing hereof, consider the several sorts or kinds of ecclesiastical power, according to this type or scheme of ecclesiastical power and authority here subjoined.

Ecclesiastical power is either supreme and magisterial; or subordinate and ministerial.

I. Supreme magisterial power, consisting in a lordly dominion and sovereignty over the Church; and may come under a double consideration, viz: 

1.  As it is justly attributed to God alone.  Thus the absolute sovereignty and supreme power (to speak properly) is only his over the Church, and all creatures in the whole universe:  now this supreme divine power is either essential or mediatorial.

1.  Essential, viz. that power which belongs to the essence of God, and to every person of the Trinity in common, as God.  “His kingdom ruleth over all,” Psal. ciii. 19.  “God ruleth in Jacob to the ends of the earth,” Psal. lix. 13.  “The kingdom is the Lord’s, and he is the Governor among the nations,” Psal. xxii. 28.

2.  Mediatorial, viz. that magisterial, lordly, and sovereign power or dominion, which God hath dispensed, delegated, or committed to Christ as Mediator, being both head of the Church, and over all things to the Church.  This power is peculiar only to Jesus Christ our Mediator.  “All power is given to me both in heaven and in earth,” Matt. xxviii. 18.  “The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand,” John iii. 35.  “The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son,” John v. 22.  “One is your Master, even Christ,” Matt. xxiii. 8, 10.  “God hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the Church,” Eph. i. 20-23.—­This power of Christ is the only proper fountain whence all ecclesiastical power flows to the Church.

II.  As it is unjustly arrogated and usurped by man; whether, 1.  By the pope to himself; who arrogates to himself to be Christ’s vicar, the supreme visible head on earth of the visible catholic Church of Christ; who exalts himself above all that is called God on earth, over magistrates, princes, kings, yea, over the souls and consciences of men, and the holy Scriptures of God themselves, &c., 2 Thess. ii. 4; Rev. xviii. 10-13.

2.  By earthly princes to themselves:  as, King Henry VIII., who, casting off the papal power and primacy, was vested with it himself within his own dominions, over the Church, accounting himself the fountain of all ecclesiastical power, (it being by statute law annexed to the crown,) and assuming to himself that papal title of supreme head of the Church, &c., which is sharply taxed by orthodox divines of foreign churches.  Thus, that most learned Rivet, taxing Bishop Gardiner for extolling the king’s primacy, saith, “For, he that did as yet nourish the doctrine of the papacy, as after it appeared, did erect a new papacy in the person of the king.”—­Andrew Rivet, Expli.  Decalog.  Edit. ii. page