A27050:256
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.
70. We hold the Parish Churches of England, that have true Ministers (that are, not utterly uncapable through Ignorance, Heresy, Insufficiency, or Wickedness,) to be true Churches of Christ; But that is, because we hold the particular Ministers to be true Bishops (Episcopos Gregis etsi non Episcoporum,) and to have the power of the Keys over all their Flocks: And that is, because we hold that it is not in our Bishops power to deprive them of it though they would; And because we hold that when Christ hath instituted and described the Office of a Pastor or Presbyter, and the Ordainers ordain a man to that Office, their power shall be judged of by Christs institution, and not by the Ordainers will, though he mistake or would maim and change it by his wrong description. And that the Ordainer is but a Ministerial Invester, delivering possession according to his Masters will and not his own: And as long as Christ giveth to Pastors the power of the Keys, and they themselves consent to receive and use them, (especially if the People also consent to the exercise of them) it is not the Bishops will or words that can nullify this power. And if this Answer were not good, I confess, I were not able to Answer a Brownist, who saith, that we have no true Public Churches of God's Institution, Diocesan Churches being but Humane, if they had Bishops in each Church under them, and being sinful when they have none, and Parochial Churches being Humane or null, as having no Bishops of their own, nor Pastors of Christ's Institution, but half Pastors; and therefore being but part of a Diocesan Church. But all this is sufficiently answered by our foresaid Reasons; which no high Prelatist can soundly answer.
70. We hold the Parish Churches of England, that have true Ministers (that are, not utterly uncapable through Ignorance, Heresie, Insufficiency, or Wickedness,) to be true Churches of Christ; But that is, because we hold the particular Ministers to be true Bishops (Episcopos Gregis etsi non Episcoporum,) and to have the power of the Keys over all their Flocks: And that is, because we hold that it is not in our Bishops power to deprive them of it though they would; And because we hold that when Christ hath instituted and described the Office of a Pastor or Presbyter, and the Ordainers ordain a man to that Office, their power shall be judged of by Christs institution, and not by the Ordainers will, though he mistake or would maim and change it by his wrong description. And that the Ordainer is but a Ministerial Invester, delivering possession according to his Masters will and not his own: And as long as Christ giveth to Pastors the power of the Keys, and they themselves consent to receive and use them, (especially if the People also consent to the exercise of them) it is not the Bishops will or words that can nullifie this power. And if this Answer were not good, I confess, I were not able to Answer a Brownist, who saith, that we have no true Publick Churches of God's Institution, Diocesan Churches being but Humane, if they had Bishops in each Church under them, and being sinful when they have none, and Parochial Churches being Humane or null, as having no Bishops of their own, nor Pastors of Christ's Institution, but half Pastors; and therefore being but part of a Diocesan Church. But all this is sufficiently answered by our foresaid Reasons; which no high Prelatist can soundly answer.