7 - Of the manner of acquiring ecclesiastical power

Summary

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.