A27050:435
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.
2. Being his Neighbour, I wrote in his Life time, a Confutation of that Assertion, that the ordained received their Office and Power properly from the Ordainer as the nearest Efficient of it, (in my Disput of Ordination, in my Disput. of Church-Government) and I proved that the Power or Office is immediately from Christ, and that the Ordainers do but design the Person that shall receive it, and Ministerially deliver him possession by an investing Sign.
2. Being his Neighbour, I wrote in his Life time, a Confutation of that Assertion, that the ordained received their Office and Power properly from the Ordainer as the neerest Efficient of it, (in my Disput of Ordination, in my Disput. of Church-Government) and I proved that the Power or Office is immediately from Christ, and that the Ordainers do but design the Person that shall receive it, and Ministerially deliver him possession by an investing Sign.
3. Either the Office of a Presbyter is of Divine Institution, or of Humane: Either fixed by the Holy Ghost in the Apostles, immutably; or made, and alterable by the Bishops? If the Office be of Divine institution, and fixed for the Churches constant use, whether by Christ immediately or by the Holy Ghost in the Apostles,) than it is not in the Bishops Power to Altar it: And so whatever the Ordainers please to give them, is none of the measure of their Power: As the Arch-Bishop may Crown or anoint the King, and yet not give him what Power he please: Or rather as it is of Divine appointment, that the Husband should be the Governor of the Wife: And she that chooseth him, and he that Marrieth them, cannot alter it, nor do they give him his measure of Power as they please, but suppose him endowed with that by God, and do only choose the Person that shall receive it; and Ministerially invest him in the Possession of it. And if the Priest that marrieth them should by any words Contradict, or limit this institution of God, it were a Nullity; and invalid. If he do but say, I pronounce you Husband and Wife: He therefore pronounceth the man to have that Power of a Husband which God hath given him, though he vainly say after, you shall have but so much, or so much of it. And so it is in present Case: If God have made the Ministerial Office, he hath made it something