A26860:327
An answer to Mr. Dodwell and Dr. Sherlock, confuting an universal humane church-supremacy aristocratical…An answer to Mr. Dodwell and Dr. Sherlocke, confuting an universal humane church-supremacy aristocratical…
An answer to Mr. Dodwell and Dr. Sherlock, confuting an universal humane church-supremacy aristocratical and monarchical, as church-tyranny and popery : and defending Dr. Isaac Barrow's treatise against it by Richard Baxter ; preparatory to a fuller treatise against such an universal sovereignty as contrary to reason, Christianity, the Protestant profession, and the Church of England, though the corrupters usurp that title.An answer to Mr. Dodwell and Dr. Sherlocke, confuting an universal humane church-supremacy aristocratical and monarchical, as church-tyranny and popery : and defending Dr. Isaac Barrow's treatise against it by Richard Baxter ; preparatory to a fuller treatise against such an universal soveraignty as contrary to reason, Christianity, the Protestant profession, and the Church of England, though the corrupters usurp that title.
London: printed for Thomas Parkhurst, 1682
Chapter 5: Wherein Mr. Dodwell's deceits, and the danger of them do consist.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
And indeed (I have tried it) a sober Pastoral course of conviction and discipline with each one, will take up so much time, that seven years are not enough for him to go over all this Diocese if he did as much in a month as ever I knew a Bishop do in his life, except against Godly Nonconformists, or Conscientious Dissenters. But if you consider how far every accusing Minister and Churchwarden, and every accused sinner, have to travel, some 20, some 40 miles, &c.) and that Witnesses also must travel as far; and how long they must attend, and how few can bear the charge of this; and that the old and weak sort of sinners are unable for the journey, and who shall do the Parish Ministers work the while; and how likely it i• that of 10000 such sinners, 5000 may be dead, or the Witnesses at least, before the re•t are tried and well dispatched; or t•e case grown old, and the same m•n drunken twenty times again, before he can be judged for the first. […] al•o how strange a course this is to humble, convince, and save a soul—wonderful!— that it should with any man living be a controversy, Whether ⟨p. 79⟩one Bishop be sufficient for all this? And what need we more than common experience? The work is every where undone. Lay the blame where you will, not one common gross sinner of a thousand is disciplined or judged as in question. That which can be done, and should be done, some one good Bishop will do But none that ever I knew did ever see the face, and speak to one of a thousand gross sinners of his Diocese, (unless perhaps as he preached to one or few Congregations) nor do I know any that take it for their work, (if they could do it), but leave it to the Lay-Chancellor as his part. If you say that Excommunication must not be on many: I answer, 1. The Bishops trying and conviction of gross sinners is first for their Repentance, and not their Excommunication, except in case of the last obstinacy, which cannot be foreknown till tried. 2. If Christ would not have such Discipline at all, there needs no Bishop to do it. If he would, when twenty drunkards, fornicators, &c. are notoriously guilty, is it his will that one of these only be admonished, convinced, excommunicated, and all the rest let alone that are equally guilty? Sure the Law of God doth not so distinguish, but say of all alike, If any called a brother be a fornicator, &c.