A27050:157
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.
This Judicial power went so far and took up so much of the Clergies time, that the Synod Taraconens. was after this put to Decree, Can. 4. that the Clergy should not judge Causes on the Lords day; and Can. 10. that no Bishop or Clergy-man should take rewards or bribes for Judgments.
And the Canons so deterred Christians from seeking Justice from the Civil Judicatures, that they had few but Heathens to be Judges of. Yea the Christians thought so hardly of the Judges themselves (for punishing men by the Sword, when the Bishops even for murder it self did punish them but with Penance,) that they doubted sometime whether those Christians that exercised Magistracy or Civil Judgment after Baptism, were not therefore to be taken for sinners; as is visible in Innocent 1. his Epist. to Epist. 3. to Exuper. Tholesan. cap. 3. in Crab. Tom. 1. p. 459.
And the Canons so deterred Christians from seeking Justice from the Civil Judicatures, that they had few but Heathens to be Judges of. Yea the Christians thought so hardly of the Judges themselves (for punishing men by the Sword, when the Bishops even for murder it self did punish them but with Penance,) that they doubted sometime whether those Christians that exercised Magistracy or Civil Judgment after Baptisme, were not therefore to be taken for sinners; as is visible in Innocent 1. his Epist. to Epist. 3. to Exuper. Tholesan. cap. 3. in Crab. Tom. 1. p. 459.
And before in Sylvester's Concil. Rom. apud Crab Vol. 1. p. 280. Can. 16. it is Decreed [Nemo Clericus vel Diaconus aut Presbyter propter causam suam quamlibet intret in curia, quum omnis curia à cruore, dicitur, & immolatio simulachrorum est. Quod siquis Clericus in curiam introicrit, anathema suscipiat, nunquam rediens ad matrem Ecclesiam: A Communione autem non privatur propter tempus turbidum. And Constantine is said to be a Subscriber, with 284 Bishops, 45 Presbyters, and 5 Deacons. And in former Counc. sub Silvest. [Nullum Clericum ante judicem stare licet.]