A27050:14
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.
Upon these Considerations, I set my self to a more searching study of the matter: I read Gersom Bucer, Didoclave, Jacob, (and after Parker, Bains,) and others on one side, and all that I could get ⟨image 4⟩on the other, (Downam again, Bilson, Hooker, Saravia, Andrews, and many more) And the result of my search was this, I wondered to find so many write for and against Episcopacy, without distinguishing the sorts of Episcopacy: For I found reason to think one sort at least Tolerable, yea, desirable; but that which the Oath of 1640. would have bound me to, I found great reason to judge to be but what I have described it in this Book: And I here give notice to the Reader, that wherever he findeth me speak, as against the English Diocesan Prelacy; I mean it as described by Cousins, and Dr. Zouch; and as relating to that Oath and Canon, and not in opposition to the Laws of the Land.
Upon these Considerations, I set my self to a more searching study of the matter: I read Gersom Bucer, Didoclaue, Jacob, (and after Parker, Bains,) and others on one side, and all that I could get ⟨image 4⟩on the other, (Downam again, Bilson, Hooker, Saravia, Andrews, and many more) And the result of my search was this, I wondered to find so many write for and against Episcopacy, without distinguishing the sorts of Episcopacy: For I found reason to think one sort at least Tolerable, yea, desirable; but that which the Oath of 1640. would have bound me to, I found great reason to judge to be but what I have described it in this Book: And I here give notice to the Reader, that whereever he findeth me speak, as against the English Diocesane Prelacy; I mean it as described by Cousins, and Dr. Zouch; and as relating to that Oath and Canon, and not in opposition to the Laws of the Land.
This Judgment then settled, I never could see cause to change, but the more I read of the Ancients, Church History, Counsels, &c. And many other Writers for Episcopacy, (Petavius, Sancta Clara Spalatensis, Dr. Hamond and many more) the more was I confirmed in it to this day. When Usurpation was at the highest, I wrote accordingly in my book, called Disputations of Church Government. When the King came home I accordingly used my Endeavours as a Reconciler with the Ministers here called Presbyterians, who seemed mostly of the same mind, And how little an alteration of the Church Government in the Kings Declaration of Ecclesiastical Affairs, did we receive with thankfulness, and it would have been with a conforming joy, but that we knew the leading Men, that treated with us, too well to hope that they had any intention to continue it, but to use it—they knew to what, till they had done their work and got this Act of Uniformity.