A26914:195
The difference between the power of magistrates and church-pastors and the Roman kingdom &…
The difference between the power of magistrates and church-pastors and the Roman kingdom & magistracy under the name of a church & church-government usurped by the Pope, or liberally given him by popish princes opened 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.
Addition: Of the Power of Kings and Bishops out of Bishop Bilson and Andrews.
Lest you should wrong the sober Episcopal Divines, so as to think that they claim as jure Divino, and as Pastoral, any Coercive forcing power, but only an authoritative persuading power, and that of the Keys of the Church, I will transcribe some of the words of that Learned, Judicious Bishop Bilson in his Tract. of Christian Subjection; By which you will see, that all forcing power claimed by them, is only Magistratical, as they are the Kings Officers, and not from Christ.
LEst you should wrong the sober Episcopal Divines, so as to think that they claim as jure Divino, and as Pastoral, any Coercive forcing power, but only an authoritative perswading power, and that of the Keyes of the Church, I will transcribe some of the words of that Learned, Judicious Bishop Bilson in his Tract. of Christian Subjection; By which you will see, that all forcing power claimed by them, is only Magistratical, as they are the Kings Officers, and not from Christ.
Note also that constantly he distinguisheth the Magistrates power from the Pastors, by the [Sword] as the instrument of execution, which even about Ecclesiastical matters is proper to the Magistrate; As the power of the Word and Sacraments, or Keys of the Church, is the Pastors: And these are the shortest, plainest, and least ambiguous terms; and more clear than [Internal, Ecclesiastical and Civil] which have all much obscurity and ambiguity.
Note also that constantly he distinguisheth the Magistrates power from the Pastors, by the [Sword] as the instrument of execution, which even about Ecclesiastical matters is proper to the Magistrate; As the power of the Word and Sacraments, or Keyes of the Church, is the Pastors: And these are the shortest, plainest, and least ambiguous terms; and more clear than [Internal, Ecclesiastical and Civil] which have all much obscurity and ambiguity.