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

LIB. I. PART II.

§ 1. IN the Time of the late unhappy Wars in these Kingdoms, the Controversies about Church Government, were in most Mens mouths, and made the greatest Noise, being hotly agitated by States-men and Divines, by Words and Writings: which made it necessary to me, to set my self to the most serious study of those Points: The result of which was, this confident and settled Judgment, that of the four contending Parties, (the Erastian, Episcopal, Presbyterian and Independent) each one had some Truths in peculiar, which the other overlooked, or took little notice of, and each one had their proper Mistakes which gave advantage to their Adversaries; though all of them had so much truth in common among them, as would have made these Kingdoms happy, if it had been unanimously and soberly reduced to practice, by prudent and charitable Men.

§ 1. IN the Time of the late unhappy Wars in these Kingdoms, the Controversies about Church Government, were in most Mens mouths, and made the greatest Noise, being hotly agitated by States-men and Divines, by Words and Writings: which made it necessary to me, to set my self to the most serious study of those Points: The result of which was, this confident and setled Judgment, that of the four contending Parties, (the Erastian, Episcopal, Presbyterian and Independant) each one had some Truths in peculiar, which the other overlookt, or took little notice of, and each one had their proper Mistakes which gave advantage to their Adversaries; though all of them had so much truth in common among them, as would have made these Kingdoms happy, if it had been unanimously and soberly reduced to practice, by prudent and charitable Men.

§ 2. 1. The Erastians, I thought, were thus far in the right, in asserting more fully than others the Magistrates Power in Matters of Religion; that all Coercive Power (by Mulcts or Force) is only in their hands (which is the full sense of our Oath of Supremacy); and that no such Power belongeth to the Pastors or People of the Church; and that thus (as Dr. Ludov. Molinae pleadeth) there should not be any Imperium in Imperio, or any Coercive Power challenged by Pope, Prelate, Presbytery, or any, but by the Magistrate alone: that the Pastoral Power is only Persuasive, or exercised on Volunteers; yet not private, such as belongeth to every Man (to persuade) that hath a persuading Faculty but Public and Authoritative by Divine appointment: And not only to persuade by Sermons or general Speeches, but by particular oversight of their particular Flocks! much like the Authority of Plato or Zen in his School, or a Master in any Academy of Volunteers, or of a Physician in his Hospital, supposing these were Officers of God's Institution, who could as the ground of their perswasitant produce his Commission or Command for what they said and did.