A27015:491
The safe religion, or, Three disputations for the reformed catholic religion against popery proving…The safe religion, or, Three disputations for the reformed catholike religion against popery proving…
The safe religion, or, Three disputations for the reformed catholic religion against popery proving that popery is against the Holy Scriptures, the unity of the catholic church, the consent of the ancient doctors, the plainest reason, and common judgment of sense it self / by Richard Baxter.The safe religion, or, Three disputations for the reformed catholike religion against popery proving that popery is against the Holy Scriptures, the unity of the catholike church, the consent of the antient doctors, the plainest reason, and common judgment of sense it self / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by Abraham Miller for Thomas Underhill, 1657
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.
9. In things which God hath left undetermined in Scriptures and committed to the Governors of the Church to determine of, they have a Decisive Power. 1. For the Time or Place, or the like circumstances of Gods worship they are necessary in General (viz. there must be some Time, Place, &c.) but not in specie (such a Time, such a Place is not necessary, unless it be some that God hath already made choice of) Here the Church guides must Authoritatively Determine, whereupon the people are obliged to obey; unless in some extraordinary cases, where the Determination is so perverse and contrary to the General Rules which Scripture hath given for it, that it would overthrow the substance of the duty it self. 2. And in case of Church censures, when any man is accused to deserve Excommunication; the Church Governors have a Judicial Decisive Power, as to those ends, though not to make a man guilty that is Innocent, yet to oblige the people to avoid Communion with the person whom they Excommunicate; except in such palpable mal-administration and evident contradiction of the word of God, which may nullify their sentence (for even here their Power is not unlimited.)
9. In things which God hath left undetermined in Scriptures and committed to the Governors of the Church to determine of, they have a Decisive Power. 1. For the Time or Place, or the like circumstances of Gods worship they are necessary in General (viz. there must be some Time, Place, &c.) but not in specie (such a Time, such a Place is not necessary, unless it be some that God hath already made choice of) Here the Church guides must Authoritatively Determine, whereupon the people are obliged to obey; unless in some extraordinary cases, where the Determination is so perverse and contrary to the General Rules which Scripture hath given for it, that it would overthrow the substance of the duty it self. 2. And in case of Church censures, when any man is accused to deserve Excommunication; the Church Governors have a Judicial Decisive Power, as to those ends, though not to make a man guilty that is Innocent, yet to oblige the people to avoid Communion with the person whom they Excommunicate; except in such palpable mal-administration and evident contradiction of the word of God, which may nullifie their sentence (for even here their Power is not unlimited.)