A27006:981
Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, or, Mr. Richard Baxters narrative of the most memorable passages of his…
Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, or, Mr. Richard Baxters narrative of the most memorable passages of his life and times faithfully published from his own original manuscript by Matthew Sylvester.Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, or, Mr. Richard Baxters narrative of the most memorable passages of his life and times faithfully publish'd from his own original manuscript by Matthew Sylvester.
London: printed for T. Parkhurst, 1696
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.
§ 13. 3. In the Presbyterian way I disliked
1. Their Order of Lay-Elders who had no Ordination, nor Power to Preach, nor to administer Sacraments: For though I grant that Lay-Elders, or the Chief of the People, were oft employed to express the Peoples Consent, and preserve their Liberties, yet these were no Church-Officers at all, nor had any Charge of private Oversight of the Flocks: And though I grant that one Church had oft more Elders, than did use to preach, and that many were most employed in private Oversight, yet that was but a prudent dividing of their Work, according to the Gifts and parts of each, and not that any Elders wanted Power of Office to preach or Administer Sacraments when there was Cause.
1. Their Order of Lay-Elders who had no Ordination, nor Power to Preach, nor to administer Sacraments: For though I grant that Lay-Elders, or the Chief of the People, were oft imployed to express the Peoples Consent, and preserve their Liberties, yet these were no Church-Officers at all, nor had any Charge of private Oversight of the Flocks: And though I grant that one Church had oft more Elders, than did use to preach, and that many were most employed in private Oversight, yet that was but a prudent dividing of their Work, according to the Gifts and parts of each, and not that any Elders wanted Power of Office to preach or Administer Sacraments when there was Cause.
2. And I disliked the Course of some of the more rigid of them, that drew too near the way of Prelacy, by grasping at a kind of secular Power; not using it themselves, but binding the Magistrates to confiscate or imprison Men, merely because they were excommunicate; and so corrupting the true Discipline of the Church, and turning the Communion of Saints, into the Communion of the Multitude that must keep in the Church against their Wills, for fear of being undone in the World. When as a Man whose Conscience cannot feel a just Excommunication, unless it be backed with Confiscation or Imprisonment, is no fitter to be a Member of a Christian Church in the Communion of Saints, than a Corps is to be a Member of a Corporation. It's true they claim not this Power as Jure Divino (though some say that the Magistrate is bound to execute these Penalties on Men merely as excommunicate;) nor no more do the Prelates, when yet the Writ de Excommunicato