A26975:164
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 5: Of Pastors or the Bishops of National Churches, that they are to be of Three ranks.
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.
And as the King first maketh General Officers for his intended Army, and then by them, or immediately commissioneth Generals and Captains to raise their several Regiments and Companies, and doth not make the common Soldiers before the Officers, that are to Rule them; so was it done by Christ at the gathering of his Church. But when a Church is gathered (or an Army raised) they are not to be dissolved (or disbanded) when the Pastor (the Captains or Generals) die, but continue in the existent state of a Community, and the state of a Virtual Policy till a Pastor (or Ruler) be chosen, because the Legal Institution de specie, keeps up a virtual or intentional Policy still.
And as the King first maketh General Officers for his intended Army, and then by them, or immediately commissioneth Generals and Captains to raise their several Regiments and Companies, and doth not make the common Souldiers before the Officers, that are to Rule them; so was it done by Christ at the gathering of his Church. But when a Church is gathered (or an Army raised) they are not to be dissolved (or disbanded) when the Pastor (the Captains or Generals) die, but continue in the existent state of a Community, and the state of a Virtual Policy till a Pastor (or Ruler) be chosen, because the Legal Institution de specie, keeps up a virtual or intentional Policy still.
§ 4. Christ's first Instituted Officers were Apostles, and after the Inferior Official Disciples, immediately from himself, to convert Souls, and make them fit matter for his Kingdom-Church; and these were afterward to gather into distinct regular Congregate Churches, such as were so converted by their Ministry, and to place fixed Elders over them.
§ 5. These Twelve Apostles and Seventy Disciples were first instituted in and for a National Church state. Christ found the Jews under a National Form, and therefore did not at first change that Form, but only changed the Laws and Ordinances made for their Infant state of peculiarity, which he had fulfilled for them, they being but a Pedagogy to lead to and till Christ.