Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, or, Mr. Richard Baxters narrative of the most memorable passages of his…

§ 25. I first began in Conference and Writing to Reverend Mr. Anthony Burgess, and some others, to put the main Question, Whether all Church Government be not, as Camero holdeth, only Persuasive, not by private, but public or authorized Doctoral Persuasion, and so can work on none but the Conscientious or Assenters? And whether the usurpation of a strictly Legislative and Judicial Power (save only to judge what we are to execute), or a power of binding Dissenters, even Clave errant, especially binding Magistrates to execute by Corporal Penalties and Mulcts, and other Punishments, Eo nomine, because by Excommunication the Church hath punished them, I say, whether this be not a robbing the Magistrate of his Power, and making the Exercise of the Keys, to be too like a Coercive Secular Judgment, and so the Ground of all the Quarrels in the Church? For I saw plainly that the Papists, and those Prelates and Presbyterians who are for such an unexamined Judicial Power, do but strive for that which belongeth to none of them all. Upon the raising of these doubts I was suspected to be an Erastian, and had no other Answer, or Satisfaction: But the study of the Point somewhat cleared my own Judgment.

§ 25. I first began in Conference and Writing to Reverend Mr. Anthony Burgess, and some others, to put the main Question, Whether all Church Government be not, as Camero holdeth, only Perswasive, not by private, but publick or authorized Doctoral Perswasion, and so can work on none but the Conscientious or Assenters? And whether the usurpation of a strictly Legislative and Judicial Power (save only to judge what we are to execute), or a power of binding Dissenters, even Clave errante, especially binding Magistrates to execute by Corporal Penalties and Mulcts, and other Punishments, Eo nomine, because by Excommunication the Church hath punished them, I say, whether this be not a robbing the Magistrate of his Power, and making the Exercise of the Keys, to be too like a Coercive Secular Judgment, and so the Ground of all the Quarrels in the Church? For I saw plainly that the Papists, and those Prelates and Presbyterians who are for such an unexamined Judicial Power, do but strive for that which belongeth to none of them all. Upon the raising of these doubts I was suspected to be an Erastian, and had no other Answer, or Satisfaction: But the study of the Point somewhat cleared my own Judgment.