A26912:148
A defence of the principles of love, which are necessary to the unity and…
A defence of the principles of love, which are necessary to the unity and concord of Christians and are delivered in a book called The cure of church-divisions ... / by Richard Baxter ...
London: printed for Nevil Simmons, 1671
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.
11. Therefore it is none of the Question [Whether you must own our Diocesan Bishops?]
12. Nor yet [Whether you must have Communion with any thing called, A National Church, as a Political Society constituted of an Ecclesiastical ⟨p. 76⟩Head and Body, and denominated from that form, •r Constitutive Head? Though we must own a National Church, as it is improperly so denominated, from the King that is the Civil Head (accidental, and not Constitutive to the Spiritual Church.) And as it is a Community of Christians, and a part of the Universal Church, united by the Concord of her Pastors; who in Synods may represent the whole Ministry, and be the means of their agreement.
13. Nor is it the Question, [Whether you must needs hold Communion with those individual Bishops, whom you account the Persecutors, and Causes of our silence and confusions. I have told you in the Story of Martin, how he separated from the Synods of th•se individual Bishops, and from their local Communion, without separating from the Office, the Churches, or from any other Bishops. This is a matter that I did not meddle with, because it is not their Communion that you are called to, but the Parish Churches.