A27050:412
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.
14. As for J. D. and many other lesser Writers, (Sir Thomas Aston, &c.) who say but half the same with those forementioned, it is not worth1 your time and labour to read any more. Animadversions on them.
- 1J. D. &c.
15. But the great Learned M. Ant. de Dominis Spalatensis deserveth a more distinct consideration: who in his very learned Books De Repub. Eccles. 1doth copiously handle all the matter of Church-Government. But let us consider what it is that he maintaineth. In his lib. 5. c. 1. he maintaineth that [the whole proper Ecclesiastical Power is merely Spiritual. In cap. 2. that no Power with true Prefecture, Jurisdiction, Coaction and Domination belongeth to the Church. In c. 3. he showeth that an improper Jurisdiction belongs to it. Where he overthroweth the old Schoolmens Description of Power of Jurisdiction, and showeth also the vanity of the common distinction of Power of Order and of Jurisdiction; and maintaineth, 1. that Power of Jurisdiction followeth, ab Ordine, as Light from the Sun: 2. That all the Power of the Keys which is exercised for Internal effects, although about External Matters, (of Worship or Government) belongeth directly to the Potestas Ordinis: 3. That the Power of Jurisdiction as distinct from Order, and reserved to the Bishops, is but the power about the Ordering of External things, which is used Principally and Directly for an External Effect (that is Church order.) §. 5. p. 35. 4. That it is foolish to separate power of Order from any power of Jurisdiction whatsoever, that is properly Ecclesiastical, it being wholly Spiritual. 5. The Episcopal Jurisdiction (not properly Ecclesiastical) he maketh to consist in ordering Rites and Ceremonies and Circumstances, and Temporals about the Church, and about such Modal Determinations about particular persons and actions as are matters of humane prudence, (which have only a General Rule in Nature or Scripture. 6. By which (though he hold Episcopacy Jure Divino) that it is but such things that he supposeth proper to the Bishop (which the Magistrate may determine and make Laws for, as Grotius and others prove at last, and himself after; and as Sir Roger Twisden hath Historically proved to have been used by the Kings of England, Histor. Def. Cap. 5. 7. That all Ecclesiastical power whatsoever is fully and perfectly conjunct with Order. page 36. 8. That this plenitude of power is totally and equally in all Bishops and Presbyters lawfully Ordained: and that it is a mere vanity to distinguish in such power of Order, Plenitudinem potestatis a part solicitudinis. 9.