A26975:212
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.
§ 20. But another argument fixeth me in this opinion, and that is, that when it is fully proved that Christ instituted such a Disparity and Superiority he that will affirm that this doth not now continue and bind us, must prove the repeal or revocation, or prove that he did make this establishment but for a time, and how long that was. But Scripture plainly asserteth that he then appointed the foresaid Disparity, and hath any as plainly proved that he repealed it, or confined it to that Age? It is not proved that I have seen.
And to assert this without proof is, 1. To make Christs Institutions to signify but what mans fancy thinks meet, and make us the Masters of his Laws, before we will be ruled by them.
And to assert this without proof is, 1. To make Christs Institutions to signifie but what mans fancy thinks meet, and make us the Masters of his Laws, before we will be ruled by them.
2. It is a charging Christ with temerity or dishonourable mutability, as Instituting one form of Church Ministry and Government for one Age, and changing it presently for another.