A27050:737
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.
Obj. But if he be in the Church though without Repentance, he may there he brought to Repentance afterward.
Ans. Possibilities are no Rule for us to go by in such cases, so you may say if one be Baptized, before he profess to believe or repent, he may be brought to it after by hearing in the Church: But this is but to make Laws for the Church instead of Christs, when we have cast out his Laws, and to confound the world and the Church by our foolish adverse reason. He that is in the Church notoriously against or without his will, stands there but as a testimony of the Bishops perfidiousness: And he that will not come in by any reasoning or entreating, without the violence of the Sword, is in all process of humane Judgments to be esteemed unwilling: The ancient Churches would indeed importune men to Baptism; but they never baptized any (at age) that did not entreat to be baptized, and voluntarily make profession of faith and repentance. And Papists and Protestants commonly affirm, that none should be constrained to be baptized, or to make profession of Christianity. But the Papists come after and tell us that vet when one is baptized, he may be compelled by force to all his duty, and so may be constrained to stay in the Church, or to return if he forsake it: Their Reasons are, 1. Because now he is obliged by his own consent. 2. Because he hath put himself under the Government of the Church, and therefore must be Governed by it. Ans. But 1. to consent to be a Christian Ruled by Christ, and to consent to be constrained by force to continue this consent, are two things. Prove the latter if you can to be included in our Baptism? Contrarily as we freely and not forcedly consent, it is supposed that we are accordingly to continue it as we began it. 2. And to put our selves under the Government of the Church, is not to put our selves under the sword: the Church punishment reacheth no further then excommunication: and where a man is fully excommunicated, he is cast out of the Church again: and when he is out of it, he is not under its Government: Indeed he is under the ⟨p. 147⟩Magistrates Government: But if that will prove that he may be punished for not repenting and returning to the Church when Excommunicate, it will prove too that he might be punished before Baptism, for not repenting and being baptized. For though there be some aggravations of his sin that Apostatizeth to it, yet that differeth the case but as to the degree.