A26975:376
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.
Ans. 1. You may next ask, Who then must Make or Consecrate a Pope? Is it a Superior? Contrarily, If a Pope may be made by Inferiors (as they do) a Patriarch, a Metropolitan, an Archbishop and a Bishop may quoad esse be validly made by Men of the same Order. Yea and Presbyters too where Politic Order and Church safety forbid it not.
Ans. 1. You may next ask, Who then must Make or Consecrate a Pope? Is it a Superior? Contrarily, If a Pope may be made by Inferiors (as they do) a Patriarch, a Metropolitan, an Archbishop and a Bishop may quoad esse be validly made by Men of the same Order. Yea and Presbyters too where Politick Order and Church safety forbid it not.
§ 3. It is so far from being true (as I once foolishly thought) that National Church Supremacy inferreth Popery, that it is a necessary or very great means against it, without which (though particular Souls may be saved from Popery) a Nation cannot long, nor ever was that I have read of. For Popery is but the Invading of the power of all other Bishops and Kings: And for each one to reassume his own power, is the direct Deposing of the Pope. As if one King or Senate claimed the Government of all Kings and Senates, how should these Usurpers be Deposed but by every King and Parliaments reassuming their own?
§ 4. But then every party that differeth in the Form of National Government, must not pretend that it is only their Form, that is the Bulwark against Popery. National Church Concord and Strength may be kept up by a Supreme Christian Prince or State with a Concordant Ministry, whether among themselves United as the Scots in General Assemblies, or as in England by Archbishops, Bishops and Convocations, obeying the Laws of Christ, and the just Laws of the King and State that are made for determining needful Circumstances; supposing such Bishops qualified and chosen justly, and usurping none of the Swordbearer's power.