A26892:7544
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.
2. But if the King himself shall command us to swear obedience to a subordinate Civil Usurper, he thereby ceaseth to be an Usurper, and receiveth authority, and it becometh our duty. And if he that was an Ecclesiastical Usurper, quoad personam, that had no true Call to a Lawful Office, shall after have a Call, or if any thing fall out, which shall make it our duty to Consent and Call him, then the impediment from his Usurpation is removed.
3. It is not lawful, though the Civil Magistrate command us, to swear obedience even in licitis & honestis, to such an Usurper, whose Office it self is unlawful, or forbidden by Christ, as he is such an Officer. No Protestant thinketh it lawful to swear obedience to the Pope as Pope: nor do any that take Lay-Elders to be an unlawful Office, think it lawful to swear obedience to them as such.
4. If one that is in an unlawful Ecclesiastical Office, be also at once in another that is lawful, we may swear obedience to him in respect of the Lawful Office. So it is Lawful to swear obedience to the Pope in Italy, as a Temporal Prince in his own Dominions: And to a Cardinal, (as Richelieu, Mazarin, Ximenes, &c.) as the Kings Minister, exercising a power derived from him: So it is lawful for a Tenant, where Law and Custom requireth it, to swear fidelity to a Lay Elder, as his Landlord or Temporal Lord and Master. And so the old Non-conformists, who thought the English Prelacy an unlawful Office, yet maintained that it is Lawful to take the Oath of Canonical obedience, because they thought it was imposed by the King and Laws, and that we swear to them not as Officers claiming a Divine Right in the Spiritual Government, but as Ordinaries, or Officers made by the King to exercise so much of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction under him, as he can delegate; according to the Oath of Supremacy, in which we all acknowledge the King to be Supreme in all Ecclesiastical Causes, that is, Not the Supreme Pastor, Bishop or Spiritual Key-bearer or Ruler, but the Supreme Civil Ruler of the Church, who hath the power of the Sword, and of determining all things extrinsic to the Pastoral Office; and so of the Coercive Government of all Pastors and Churches, as well as of other Subjects. And if Prelacy were proved never so unlawful, no doubt but by the Kings Command we may swear or perform formal obedience to a Prelate as he is the Kings Officer. Of the Non-conformists judgement in this, read Bradshaw against Can, &c.