That principle is Spiritual in- equally opposed to Erastianism and to Papacy, to the civil power dominating the Church, and to the ecclesiastical power dominating the state.
Before the Reformation the Church would have had the last word; since that event the right and the duty of the civil power have been generally recognized.
In 1581 the Middelburg Synod divided the Church, created provincial synods and presbyteries, but could not shake off the civil power in connexion with the choice of church officers.
A bishop refusing to come to Rome was to be brought there by the civil power.
Seclusion in a monastery seems first to have been used by the civil power in aid of the spiritual.
