A27050:646
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. And I deny not but some few members may be several ways uncapable naturally of the ordinary offices of members: Some by infancy, some by distraction, some by sickness, some by the restraint of Parents Masters or Husbands, and some by a retired disposition, &c. And some Churches may be so sinfully over-great, as that the number hindereth many of the members from a capacity of the ordinary duty of the relation; which is the case of some great Parishes in London: But either this is the case of the greater part and main body of the Society, or b•t of a few. If but of a few, it may prove it a disordered Church, but it cannot prove it no Church; no more than a few Heretics can denominate the Church Heretical, or a few mad, or leprous persons, can denominate it mad or leprous, or than the family of Noah, David, Christ, was denominated from a Ham, an Absalom, a Judas. But if it be the main body (though in intrinsic qualifications, the Church may be denominated from the better part sometimes and not from the greater, yet) in extrinsic qualifications, it is now to be denominated a Church only from the Pastor and that number who are capable of the relation (as being the two constitutive parts) and all the rest are none of the Church: And if there be no such body united to the Pastor for true Church ends, and capable of them, it is no Church.
2. And I deny not but some few members may be several waies uncapable naturally of the ordinary offices of members: Some by infancy, some by distraction, some by sickness, some by the restraint of Parents Masters or Husbands, and some by a retired disposition, &c. And some Churches may be so sinfully over-great, as that the number hindereth many of the members from a capacity of the ordinary duty of the relation; which is the case of some great Parishes in London: But either this is the case of the greater part and main body of the Society, or b•t of a few. If but of a few, it may prove it a disordered Church, but it cannot prove it no Church; no more than a few Hereticks can denominate the Church Heretical, or a few mad, or leprous persons, can denominate it mad or leprous, or than the family of Noah, David, Christ, was denominated from a Cham, an Absolom, a Judas. But if it be the main body (though in intrinsick qualifications, the Church may be denominated from the better part sometimes and not from the greater, yet) in extrinsick qualifications, it is now to be denominated a Church only from the Pastor and that number who are capable of the relation (as being the two constitutive parts) and all the rest are none of the Church: And if there be no such body united to the Pastor for true Church ends, and capable of them, it is no Church.