A27050:442
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.
7. And I take it for undenied among Christians, that humane Power of Government, extendeth but to the Ordering and not the Nulling of a Function instituted by God. It is not referred to King or Bishop, whether there shall be a Preaching or none, Sacraments, or none, Church discipline and exercise of the Keys, or none; no more than whether there shall be a Scripture, and Divine Law, a Christ, a Heaven, and whether men shall be good or bad, saved or damned: But only by whom, and when, and how, this Divine Function shall be so exercised, as may best attain the end, as to those circumstances not determined of by God; and not contradicting Gods Institutions. Therefore if the Bishops say that the Preachers of the Gospel ⟨p. 81⟩shall be silenced (perhaps by hundreds or thousands) while the necessity of the Peoples Souls is undeniable, their Authority in this should hinder no man from going to Preach (further than their violence hindereth.) And so by his own Rule it must be as to Discipline, if Discipline be a Work belonging to a Presbyter. And as Spalatensis saith of Confirmation, the Presbyter should do it, though the Bishop rorbid him.
7. And I take it for undenied among Christians, that humane Power of Government, extendeth but to the Ordering and not the Nulling of a Function instituted by God. It is not referred to King or Bishop, whether there shall be a Preaching or none, Sacraments, or none, Church discipline and exercise of the Keys, or none; no more than whether there shall be a Scripture, and Divine Law, a Christ, a Heaven, and whether men shall be good or bad, saved or damned: But only by whom, and when, and how, this Divine Function shall be so exercised, as may best attain the end, as to those circumstances not determined of by God; and not contradicting Gods Institutions. Therefore if the Bishops say that the Preachers of the Gospel ⟨p. 81⟩shall be silenced (perhaps by hundreds or thousands) while the necessity of the Peoples Souls is undeniable, their Authority in this should hinder no man from going to Preach (further than their violence hindreth.) And so by his own Rule it must be as to Discipline, if Discipline be a Work belonging to a Presbyter. And as Spalatensis saith of Confirmation, the Presbyter should do it, though the Bishop rorbid him.