A27050:304
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.
Two Texts he allegeth to prove that the word [Church] is used definitely to signify these Churches Congregate into a Synod or Consistory: But I believe his word of neither place. One is Mat. 18. 17. Tell the Church, &c. If I say that [tell the Church] signifieth [tell the Society containing Pastors and Christians] though it is the Pastors that you must immediately speak to and the offender must hear, I give as good proof of my exposition as he doth of his. If I speak to a man, and hear a man, though it be only his ears that hear me, and his tongue that speaketh to me, yet by the word [man] I mean not only ears and tongue. If the King send a Command to a Corporation to expel a seditious member, though the Mayor or Aldermen only do it Authoritatively, and the People but executively, yet the word [Corporation] doth not therefore signify the Officers only. The other Text is, Act. 15. 22. But I will not believe him that [the whole Church] signifieth the Synod only: For though they only decreed it, I think the rest ⟨p. 55⟩consented and approved it, and are meant in the word [the whole Church.]
Two Texts he alledgeth to prove that the word [Church] is used definitely to signifie these Churches Congregate into a Synod or Consistory: But I believe his word of neither place. One is Mat. 18. 17. Tell the Church, &c. If I say that [tell the Church] signifieth [tell the Society containing Pastors and Christians] though it is the Pastors that you must immediately speak to and the offender must hear, I give as good proof of my exposition as he doth of his. If I speak to a man, and hear a man, though it be only his ears that hear me, and his tongue that speaketh to me, yet by the word [man] I mean not only ears and tongue. If the King send a Command to a Corporation to expel a seditious member, though the Mayor or Aldermen only do it Authoritatively, and the People but executively, yet the word [Corporation] doth not therefore signifie the Officers only. The other Text is, Act. 15. 22. But I will not believe him that [the whole Church] signifieth the Synod only: For though they only decreed it, I think the rest