A27050:760
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.
11. All the Canons that are for the restraint of sin, as neglect of Church worship, profaning of it, and other abuses, have the same censure.
11. All the Canons that are for the restraint of sin, as neglect of Church worship, prophaning of it, and other abuses, have the same censure.
12. The circumstantiating Canons, how oft Bishops shall confirm, and whom they shall ordain, and how oft, and how oft the Common prayer be read, the Surplice worn, the Sacraments administered, in what place, what Registers to be kept, what order to be observed in reading the Scriptures and the Apocrypha, with abundance the like, have all the foresaid answers to prove that they are no proper work of a distinct order.
12. The circumstantiating Canons, how oft Bishops shall confirm, and whom they shall ordaine, and how oft, and how oft the Common prayer be read, the Surplice worne, the Sacraments administred, in what place, what Registers to be kept, what order to be observed in reading the Scriptures and the Apocrypha, with abundance the like, have all the foresaid answers to prove that they are no proper work of a distinct order.
There remaineth therefore but the determination of present circumstances, which are part of the Ministers proper work, or the Lecturer or Clerks at least. As, 1. What text to Preach on to day. How to expound it, and apply it: In what method to Preach: What words to use: How long to Preach: 2. In what method, words and length to pray (where free Prayer is allowed) 3. What particular Psalm to ⟨p. 151⟩Sing, and in what tune; 4. On what particular days to administer the Lords Supper, besides the great days (Easter, Whitsuntide) &c. At what hour to go to Church, and when to end, 5. What particular sick person to visit, and when: And what sinner to reprove or admonish personally. And who is to be taken for a true penitent and absolved in foro poenitentiali or privately (as they distinguish, all these are either the personal work of him that officiateth) (as chewing his meat of a man before he swallow it and digest it; or as choosing his medicaments is to the Physician) and belongeth to his calling, which none should hinder him in (of which I make no question; And if so, it is not the proper work of a Bishop. Or else it is fit that this liberty be taken from him, and that other men choose for him every day his Text, his Method, his words, his tune, his hour and the rest. And if so, when this also shall be made a Canon, no doubt but the King and Parliament and Presbyters in convocation, will all have a hand in it; and perhaps the Bishops be under the Canon as well as others. Yet then we have not found out a Bishops proper work unless it were when he is present in the same assemblies to govern the work in all these circumstances, in which I do not contend against him.