A26975:156
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
Chapter 4: Particular Churches and Pastors how far essential to a National Church, and what are it…
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.
§ 4. That all essential parts of a National Church, are not the Form that denominateth (as aforesaid) needs no more proof, than that Matter and Privation (by which Aristotle meant Dispositio Materiae receptiva) are not the Form of a Natural Body: So that Confederate Pastoral Churches are necessary, yea essential matter of a National Church or Christian Kingdom, when it is past being a mere Embryo, or unshapen Mass, and is come to be a well shapen Politic Body: Till then it is but as the body in the ⟨p. 14⟩womb, while the punctum saiiens first maketh the Heart, Eyes, Brain and Arteries, before it hath made the Stomach, Liver, Lungs and Intestines. It is not yet come to show what Christ's Institution of a Church was.
§ 4. That all essential parts of a National Church, are not the Form that denominateth (as aforesaid) needs no more proof, than that Matter and Privation (by which Aristotle meant Dispositio Materiae receptiva) are not the Form of a Natural Body: So that Confederate Pastoral Churches are necessary, yea essential matter of a National Church or Christian Kingdom, when it is past being a meer Embrio, or unshapen Mass, and is come to be a well shapen Politick Body: Till then it is but as the body in the ⟨p. 14⟩womb, while the punctum saiiens first maketh the Heart, Eyes, Brain and Arteries, before it hath made the Stomach, Liver, Lungs and Intestines. It is not yet come to shew what Christ's Institution of a Church was.
§ 5. But our great Controversies are,
I. Who be the Organical Pastors that must make up a National Church. II. Who must be the Lay-members of those Churches. III. What that Confederacy must be that must unite them. IV. How far the Members are bound by that Confederacy.