A26975:351
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.
The determinations, Acts 15. were also the delivery of the Law of Christ, the Holy Ghost giving them the certain understanding of it: And it's like that as two of the four Cases (Fornication and Idol-Communion) were of known Morality, so the other two (strangled and Blood-eating) if not so, were not of Universal Obligation; but only to those Gentiles that lived among the offended Jews.
The like may be said about the Institution of Deacons, and Bishops of single Churches: If they did not Institute them as in Christs Name, by his Command or Spirit, but had Authority from him to do it as Apostles. It was under the promise of the Spirits Infallible Guidance, and a Temporary Work, in which they have no Successors: For Christs Church would never be formed, nor his Laws and Word settled perfect, if we must have Men in all Ages, to add to his Church Ordinances and Officers, and to make him new Laws and a new Word: How big would his Bible be then at the last? Why have no new Scriptures as his been so made these 1600 years. I hope our Volumes of Councils will not go for such.
The like may be said about the Institution of Deacons, and Bishops of single Churches: If they did not Institute them as in Christs Name, by his Command or Spirit, but had Authority from him to do it as Apostles. It was under the promise of the Spirits Infallible Guidance, and a Temporary Work, in which they have no Successors: For Christs Church would never be formed, nor his Laws and Word setled perfect, if we must have Men in all Ages, to add to his Church Ordinances and Officers, and to make him new Laws and a new Word: How big would his Bible be then at the last? Why have no new Scriptures as his been so made these 1600 years. I hope our Volumes of Councils will not go for such.
§ 16. V. The occasional determination of Questions about mutable Circumstances (as long Hair, the Veils, the Love-feasts, the time of Collections for Charity, and divers such were not Universal but Local, and not of Immutable but occasional Mutable Obligation; and were but such as National and Congregational Governors may determine, without any Universal Supreme Power. The Genus or Rule by which they must be determined (Edification, Love, Concord, Peace, Decency, Order,) being Gods Laws.