A27050:1443
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.
And if the Church Form be not of Divine institution, then the Church it self is not. For forma dat nomen & esse. And so the cause is given up to the Brownists by these Learned moderate men, so far as that there is no Church in England of Divine institution. Were it not that when in general they have said that no Church Form of Government is so Divine, they again so far unsay it, as to confess the Parish Churches or Congregations with their Pastors to be of Divine institution and of continued necessity.
And if the Church Form be not of Divine institution, then the Church it self is not. For forma dat nomen & esse. And so the cause is given up to the Brownists by these Learned moderate men, so far as that there is no Church in England of Divine institution. Were it not that when in general they have said that no Church Form of Government is so Divine, they again so far unsay it, as to confess the Parith Churches or Congregations with their Pastors to be of Divine institution and of continued necessity.
All that is to be said by and for them is this, That the Apostles were the makers of the English or Diocesan Form, but not of that only, but of the Presbyterian (and Independent) also; and so made no one necessary but left all indifferent: Or that they made one of these Forms as mutable, allowing men to change it.
All that is to be said by and for them is this, That the Apostles were the makers of the English or Diocesane Form, but not of that only, but of the Presbyterian (and Independent) also; and so made no one necessary but left all indifferent: Or that they made one of these Forms as mutable, allowing men to change it.
Answ. But 1. I have proved what they made; Let them prove that they made any other, of a different sort, not subordinate or supraordinate, if they can. 2. And let them prove the mutability of that which they made, and their power to change it, which they assert. Till one of these is proved, we are or should be in possession of that which was certainly first made.