A26975:141
Of national churches their description, institution, use, preservation, danger, maladies and cure, partly applied…
Of national churches their description, institution, use, preservation, danger, maladies and cure, partly applied to England / written by Richard Baxter for promoting peace ... and for the fuller explication of the Treaty for Concord in 1660 and 1661, and of the Kings gracious declaration about ecclesiastical affairs ... and for further explication of his treatise of episcopacy ...
London: printed by T. Snowden for Thomas Parkhurst, 1691
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. It is past question that many Kings who had given up their Kingdom to the Pagan Beast, followed the success of Constantine, and afterward did give up their Power to Christ, yet no Kingdom was wholly converted at once, nor of many years: But yet while the Sovereign Power and Confederate Christian Pastors and Subjects had the chief Power, it was truly a Christian Kingdom: For the Form in capable matter doth denominate.
§ 2. It is past question that many Kings who had given up their Kingdom to the Pagan Beast, followed the success of Constantine, and afterward did give up their Power to Christ, yet no Kingdom was wholly converted at once, nor of many years: But yet while the Soveraign Power and Confederate Christian Pastors and Subjects had the chief Power, it was truly a Christian Kingdom: For the Form in capable matter doth denominate.
And tho' many Heathens were long permitted in Government, that doth but prove that the Kingdom had two sorts of free Subjects; one sort that were Christians, and so were the chief Members, who in all matters of Religion were exempted from Pagan Judicatures; and the other Heathens who had a freedom in things secular.
§ 3. Judea then was more eminently Christian than any other Nation of no greater extent: There were Arch Bishops, and Bishops, and Presbyters, and after a Patriarch: And there were more Monasteries and Religious Societies, and more Temples built there, than in any Country that was no greater: And more Christians flocked thither from other Nations out of a veneration for the place: And indeed it was the Mother-Church out of which all other Churches sprang: Therefore if any Province might be called a National Church, it was Judea.
§ 3. Judea then was more eminently Christian than any other Nation of no greater extent: There were Arch Bishops, and Bishops, and Presbyters, and after a Patriarch: And there were more Monasteries and Religious Societies, and more Temples built there, than in any Countrey that was no greater: And more Christians flockt thither from other Nations out of a veneration for the place: And indeed it was the Mother-Church out of which all other Churches sprang: Therefore if any Province might be called a National Church, it was Judea.