A27050:1359
A treatise of episcopacy confuting by Scripture, reason, and the churches testimony that sort…
A treatise of episcopacy confuting by Scripture, reason, and the churches testimony that sort of diocesan churches, prelacy and government, which casteth out the primitive church-species, episcopacy, ministry and discipline and confoundeth the Christian world by corruption, usurpation, schism and persecution : meditated in the year 1640, when the et cætera oath was imposed : written 1671 and cast by : published 1680 by the importunity of our superiors, who demand the reasons of our nonconformity / by Richard Baxter.A treatise of episcopacy confuting by Scripture, reason, and the churches testimony that sort of diocesan churches, prelacy and government, which casteth out the primitive church-species, episcopacy, ministry and discipline and confoundeth the Christian world by corruption, usurpation, schism and persecution : meditated in the year 1640, when the et cætera oath was imposed : written 1671 and cast by : published 1680 by the importunity of our superiours, who demand the reasons of our nonconformity / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for Nevil Simmons, 1681
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.
CHAP. VIII. That the Diocesans cause the error of the Separatists, who avoid our Churches as false in their Constitution; and would utterly disable us to confute them.
CHAP. VIII. That the Diocesans cause the errour of the Separatists, who avoid our Churches as false in their Constitution; and would utterly disable us to confute them.
When the Brownists say that our Churches are no true Churches, they do not mean that they are not Societies of mens devising; but that they are not Societies of Gods Instituting. And this they prove upon the principles of the Diocesans thus: If your Churches be of Gods Institution (de specie) it is either the Parish Churches, or the Diocesan Churches that are so: But neither the Parish-Churches, nor the Diocesan: Ergo.
WHen the Brownists say that our Churches are no true Churches, they do not mean that they are not Societies of mens devising; but that they are not Societies of Gods Instituting. And this they prove upon the principles of the Diocesans thus: If your Churches be of Gods Institution (de specie) it is either the Parish Churches, or the Diocesane Churches that are so: But neither the Parish-Churches, nor the Diocesane: Ergo.
1. That the Parish Churches are not such, they prove because by the Diocesans own confession, they are no Churches at all, except equivocally so called: It is one of their own principles, (and we grant it) that Episcopus & Plebs Constitute a Church, as a King and Subjects constitute a Kingdom, and as a ⟨p. 84⟩Schoolmaster and Scholars make a School: and as a Master and household make a Family. And that ubi est Episcopus (as Cyprian saith) ibi est Ecclesia; which is nothing but Plebs pastori adunata. And that a people without a Bishop (truly so called) are but a Church equivocally, as Scholars without a Master are a School, or as a company of Christians in a ship or house accidentally met, and praying together are a Church, &c. And as Dr. Field before cited, saith, None but a Bishop hath a Church: all others are but his assistants, or as commonly called his Curates. Therefore when a Prelatist pleadeth that our Parish Churches are true Churches (either of Gods or mans institution) they do forsake the principles of their party (as now maintained) or they contradict themselves, or they play with equivocations and ambiguities.