A27050:612
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.
CHAP. VIII. Whether the Infidel Territories or Citizens do make part of a Diocesan Church.
CHAP. VIII. Whether the Infidel Territories or Citizens do make part of a Diocesane Church.
1. WE distinguish between a Diocese and a Diocesan Church. 1. The word Diocese first was of civil signification, and so we have nothing to do with it. 2. It may signify a Country of Infidels whom a Minister of Christ endeavoureth to convert: And so it is no Church of it self, nor no part of a Church, if a Church be in it: (as is past all question.) And so we deny not but that, 1. Every Minister should convert as many Infidels as he can. 2. That he that is resident on the place as Pastor of a Cohabiting Church hath better opportunity than a stranger usually to convert the neighbour infidels; And therefore hath more obligation to endeavour it; because men must divide and order their work as their opportunities do invite and guide them. 3. But yet that God set no man his Ministerial Charge by the measure of ground: And therefore that if such a City-Bishop have a smaller number of Infidels in his territories, than will take up his time and labour (besides the care of his Church) he ought not to confine his labour to them, nor neglect other territories that need his help, but may, must and should go further in his endeavours, as Augustine and other later Bishops among the Saxons, notwithstanding the neighbourhood of the Britons; and as Wilfred alias Boniface among the Germans, &c. And if any other Minister come among the Infidels in the Territories of a City that hath a Church, while they have need of such help, the Bishop were a beast if he ⟨p. 123⟩should forbid him on pretence that it is his Diocese where another hath nothing to do. But as unoccupied Countries belong to any occupant, so an Infidel Country belongeth to any preacher that hath opportunity to convert them. And if a Diocesan prohibit such preaching, he is to be neglected or reprehended, but not obeyed. Yet I deny not, but prudence may direct preachers (as it would do occupants in the aforesaid case) to distribute their labours so as one may not hinder but help another: But that is not a Law of propriety otherwise than as mutual consent obligeth. And it is, but the determination of circumstances, and that not about any part of a Church, and therefore nothing to the constitution of a Church.