A27050:1437
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.
1. It is undeniably of Divine institution that there be ordinary public Assemblies for Gods solemn worship, and the peoples edification. 2. And that Ministers of that office which Christ hath instituted, be the officiating Guides in these Assemblies. 3. And that Cohabiting Christians be the ordinary stated bodies of these assemblies, and not live loosely to go every day as they please from Church to Church, but ordinarily when they can, be settled members of some one Church (To which cohabitation or vicinity, is one dispositio materiae) 4. And that each of these Churches have their proper fixed Pastors, and should not take up with unfixed various passing Ministers, unless in cases of necessary ⟨p. 98⟩unsettledness. 5. And that these settled Pastors should live among the People,1 and watch over them personally, and know them, and be known of them in doctrine and ensample, as to the main body of the flock. 6. That these Relations and Communion be by mutual consent of the Pastors and the body of the flock. 7. That these mutual Relations of Gods appointment and their own consent do constitute them a spiritual society of Divine institution. 8. That this Communion must be (as our Creed calleth it) a Communion of Saints: that is, of men professing Christianity and Holiness, and seeming such: And must extend to a free Communication to each other, for the supply of corporal necessities; And to a mutual assistance of each other in holy living. 9 That therefore there must be some to discern and judge whether the persons that would enter this Society and Communion, be Professed seeming Christians and Saints or not? And whether they revolt by Heresy or wicked lives from their profession? And whether they be impenitent in these revoltings? And therefore having opportunity by presence or nearness to know them and the witnesses, must judge of the credibility or reports or accusations? And must admonish the offenders, and seek by all possible conviction and exhortation, with patience to draw them to Repentance: And if no persuasion will prevail, to refuse to admit them to the Communion of the Church, and to deliver them the Sacrament of Communion, and to tell them openly of their sin and danger, and pronounce them liable to Gods wrath till they do repent, and to charge the Church to avoid Communion with them. 10.
1. It is undeniably of Divine institution that there be ordinary publick Assemblies for Gods solemn worship, and the peoples edification. 2. And that Ministers of that office which Christ hath instituted, be the officiating Guides in these Assemblies. 3. And that Cohabiting Christians be the ordinary stated bodies of these assemblies, and not live loosely to go every day as they please from Church to Church, but ordinarily when they can, be setled members of some one Church (To which cohabitation or vicinity, is one dispositio materiae) 4. And that each of these Churches have their proper fixed Pastors, and should not take up with unfixed various passing Ministers, unless in cases of necessary