A27050:561
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.
But whereas p. 88. •e would Prove that a Province, or Nation, of many Churches, may be called one Church, because the Churches in all the World are so called in our Creed, and in the Scripture: I answer, That he can never prove that many Churches are ever in Scripture called one, save only the Universal Church, which is but one, being Headed by one Head, even Christ. The Universal Church (as he said before of a Church compared to Persons) is One Collective body, as a Political Society related to Christ or constituted of Christ and all Christians: And a particular Church is one as constituted of the Ministerial Pastors and People: But find any Text of Scripture that calleth the Churches of a Nation, or Province, one Church, in all the new Testament if you can.
In pag. 103. he giveth Reasons for his singularity in interpreting so many Texts of Scripture; and showeth that as the Fathers differ from each other, (as Tirinus showeth) so we may also differ from them, (and I know not of any Expositor that ever wrote that hath more need of this Apology than Grotius and he.) And I mislike not his Reasons. But then how unsavoury is it for the same person to expect that we should in reverence to one expository word in Irenaeus, and another in Epiphanius, forsake the common sense of the Fathers where they do agree? or that we must bow to every ancient Canon?
In pag. 103. he giveth Reasons for his singularity in interpreting so many Texts of Scripture; and sheweth that as the Fathers differ from each other, (as Tirinus sheweth) so we may also differ from them, (and I know not of any Expositor that ever wrote that hath more need of this Apology than Grotius and he.) And I mislike not his Reasons. But then how unsavoury is it for the same person to expect that we should in reverence to one expository word in Irenaeus, and another in Epiphanius, forsake the common sense of the Fathers where they do agree? or that we must bow to every ancient Canon?