A26897:182
Church concord
Church concord containing I. a dissuasive from unnecessary division and separation, and the real concord of the moderate independents with the Presbyterians, instanced in ten seeming differences, II. by Richard Baxter.Church concord containing I. a disswasive from unnecessary division and separation, and the real concord of the moderate independents with the Presbyterians, instanced in ten seeming differences, II. by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for Tho. Parkhurst, 1691
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.
Chap. IX. Difference VII.
THE seventh Difference is, about the Power of a particular Church to exercise all Government and Church Ordinances within it self, without Subordination to Synods or any other as extrinsic Ecclesiastical Superior Governors.
THE seventh Difference is, about the Power of a particular Church to exercise all Government and Church Ordinances within it self, without Subordination to Synods or any other as extrinsick Ecclesiastical Superiour Governours.
This is Pleaded for by the Independents in ordinary cases (whence Mr. Cotton owns the Name of Independency, Keys, P. 29. 53.) saith he, [A Church of a particular Congregation, consisting of Elders and Brethren, and walking in the Truth and Peace of the Gospel, as it is the first subject of all Church Power, needful to be exercised within it self; So it is Independent upon any other (Church or Synod) for the exercising of the same]. Some of the Episcopal and Presbyterians deny them this, and affirm, that Synods are a Superior Power, and that particular Congregations without the lower sort of Synods called Classes may not Excommunicate, and that in an ordinary Regimental ⟨p. 34⟩order, Congregations are under the Government of Synods (and consequently say the Episcopal, of the Heads of those Synods). But the more moderate both Episcopal and Presbyterians hold that Synods oblige directly but gratia Unitatis & Communionis Ecclesiarum, and not directly by a Superior Governing Power. So Bishop Usher profest his Judgment to me: and that a particular Bishop or Church was not subject to a Synod as their Superior Governor, but bound in lawful things to consent for Unity and Communion. And Mr. Cotton granteth, for ought I see, as much, if not more than this comes to; and Mr. T. Goodwin and Mr. Nigh, I think as much in their Preface to his Book, saith Mr. Cotton, p. 53. [A fourth Corollary touching the Independency of Churches is, That a Church fallen into any offence (whether it be the whole Church, or a strong Party in it) is not Independent in the exercise of Church Power, but is subject both to the admonition of any other Church, and to the Determination and Judicial Sentence of a Synod, for Direction into a way of Truth and Peace] [For (saith he) Ecclesia litigans non ligat, that is, if Christ hath not given to a particular Church a Promise to bind and loose in Heaven, what they bind and loose on Earth, unless they agree together, and agree in his Name, then such a Church is not Independent in their Proceedings, as do fail in either: For all the Independency that can be claimed is founded upon that Promise, What ye bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven, &c.]