A27050:708
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.
And I ask then whether that all giving of power to another be proper to the Bishops order? If yea, than a Minister cannot give his Clerk power to choose the Psalm, or tune, &c. If not, then may not a Bishop if he please also give power to the Presbyters to ordain, and to give other men power? For if it be his proper work only to give power to others to do all the sacred acts of office, he may give others power to ordain; and if so, then Ordination will be like Preaching, Sacraments, and Discipline, which are none of them proper to the Bishops order.
And I ask then whether that all giving of power to another be proper to the Bishops order? If yea, than a Minister cannot give his Clerk power to chuse the Psalm, or tune, &c. If not, then may not a Bishop if he please also give power to the Presbyters to ordaine, and to give other men power? For if it be his proper work only to give power to others to do all the sacred acts of office, he may give others power to ordain; and if so, then Ordination will be like Preaching, Sacraments, and Discipline, which are none of them proper to the Bishops order.
And is not Church discipline the exercise of the power of the keys? If then the power of the keys may be exercised by the Presbyters, when ever the Bishops please, it seems it is common to them, with him, as well as Sacraments, and therefore belongeth not to a Bishop as a Bishop, but as a Presbyter.
And if in my dispute of ordination *I have fully proved that the power of the Ministry is given by Christ so far immediately, as that it passeth not through the hands of Electors or Ordainers to the receiver, but is given by the mere Instrumentality of the Law or institution, and that the Electors and Ordainers do no more than determine of the qualified person that receives it, and publicly invest him, or ministerially solemnize his Possession, (as the Burgesses choose, and the Steward or Recorder investeth the Major of a Corporation, whose power floweth immediately from the Charter granted by the King) then all this controversy is at an end: and I doubt not but that's fully proved.