A26892:6564
A Christian Directory
A Christian directory, or, A sum of practical theology and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortify every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.A Christian directory, or, A summ of practical theologie and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortifie every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by Robert White for Nevill Simmons, 1673
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
12. No mortal man may abrogate or take down the Pastoral Office, and the Intrinsic real power thereof, and the Church-form which is constituted thereby; seeing God hath instituted them for perpetuity on earth.
12. No mortal man may abrogate or take down the Pastoral Office, and the Intrinsick real power thereof, and the Church-form which is constituted thereby; seeing God hath instituted them for perpetuity on earth.
13. But whether one Church shall have one Pastor or many is not at all of the Form of a particular Church: but it is of the Integrity or gradual perfection of such Churches as need many, to have many, and to others not so: Not that it is left merely to the will of man, but is to be varied as natural necessity and cause requireth.
13. But whether one Church shall have one Pastor or many is not at all of the Form of a particular Church: but it is of the Integrity or gradual perfection of such Churches as need many, to have many, and to others not so: Not that it is left meerly to the will of man, but is to be varied as natural necessity and cause requireth.
14. The nature of the Intrinsic Office or power (anon to be described) is most necessary to be understood as distinct from the power of Magistrates, by them that would truly understand this. The number of Governors in a Civil State make that which is called a variety of Forms of Commonwealths, Monarchy, Aristocracy or Democracy: Because Commanding Power is the thing which is there most notably exercised, and primarily magnified. And a wiser and better man, yea, a thousand, must stand by as Subjects, for want of Authority or true Power: which can be but in One Supreme, either Natural or Political person: because it cannot consist in the exercise with self-contradiction. If one be for War and another for Peace, &c. there is no Rule. Therefore the Many, must be one Collective or Political person, and must consent, or go by the major Vote, or they cannot govern. But that which is called Government in Priests or Ministers, is of another nature: It is but a secondary subservient branch of their Office: The first parts are Teaching, and Guiding the people as their Priests to God in public Worship: And they Govern them by Teaching, and in order to further Teaching and Worshipping God; And that not by Might, but by Reason and Love. Of which more anon. Therefore if a Sacred Congregation be Taught and conducted in public Worship, and so Governed as conduceth hereunto, whether by one, two, or many, it no more altereth the Form of the Church, than it doth the Form of a School, when a small one hath one Schoolmaster, and a great one four: Or of a Hospital, when a small one hath one Physician, and a great one many; seeing that Teaching in the one, and Healing in the other is the main denominating work, to which Government is but subservient in the most notable acts of it.