A27050:477
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.
1. Because the Apostles ordained Elders or Bishops in every Church and City, Acts 14. 23. Tit. 1. 5. Therefore the Church of Corinth had such.
2. If they had not Presbyters or Bishops, they could hold no ordinary Christian Church-Assemblies, for all Gods public Worship; e. g. They could not communicate in the Lords Supper; for Lay-men may not be the Ministers of it, nor the ordinary Guides and Teachers of a Worshipping Church. But they did hold such ordinary Assemblies, communicating in the Lords Supper. And to say, that they had only Pastors that were itinerant in transitu as they came one after another that way, is to speak without book, and against it; and to make them differ from all other Churches, without proof.
2. If they had not Presbyters or Bishops, they could hold no ordinary Christian Church-Assemblies, for all Gods publick Worship; e. g. They could not communicate in the Lords Supper; for Lay-men may not be the Ministers of it, nor the ordinary Guides and Teachers of a Worshipping Church. But they did hold such ordinary Assemblies, communicating in the Lords Supper. And to say, that they had onely Pastors that were itinerant in transitu as they came one after another that way, is to speak without book, and against it; and to make them differ from all other Churches, without proof.
3. 1 Cor. 14. doth plainly end that Controversy, with 1 Cor. 11. when they had so many Prophets, and Teachers, and gifted Persons in their Assemblies, that Paul is put to restrain and regulate their Public Exercises, directing them to speak but one or two, and the rest to judge: and this rather by the way of edifying plainness, than by Tongues, &c. And c. 11. they had enow to be the ordinary Ministers of the Sacraments. And cb. 5. they had Instructions for Church-Discipline, both as to the incestuous man, and for all the scandalous for the time to come, and are chidden for not