A27050:241
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.
56. We hold that when Constantine gave the Clergy the sole Power of Judging the Causes (Civil and Criminal) of all the Christians, he showed ⟨p. 39⟩more ignorant zeal, than true discretion, and did let in a pestilence into the Church; and that instead of that he should have only left Arbitrations to mans free choice, and have set up a Christian or Righteous Magistracy, to whom both Bishops and all other Christians should submit.
56. We hold that when Constantine gave the Clergy the sole Power of Judging the Causes (Civil and Criminal) of all the Christians, he shewed ⟨p. 39⟩more ignorant zeal, than true discretion, and did let in a pestilence into the Church; and that instead of that he should have only left Arbitrations to mans free choice, and have set up a Christian or Righteous Magistracy, to whom both Bishops and all other Christians should submit.
57. We hold that when Christians so multiplied, as that they grew uncapable of Personal Communion, at one Altar, it was the duty of them and the Bishops, to have ordered them into new Churches, which should every one have had its proper Bishop, or plenary Pastoral Office among them; and not to have kept them all still in the name of one particular Church (infimi ordinis) when they were uncapable of the nature and end.
57. We hold that when Christians so multiplyed, as that they grew uncapable of Personal Communion, at one Altar, it was the duty of them and the Bishops, to have ordered them into new Churches, whcih should every one have had its proper Bishop, or plenary Pastoral Office among them; and not to have kept them all still in the name of one particular Church (infimi ordinis) when they were uncapable of the nature and end.