A27050:763
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.
II. If then it lie not in Legislation or Canon making, let us consider whether it lie in judging or executing. And this must be chiefly about Excommunication and Absolution, as it concerneth the Laity. And here, 1. The business is not to judge of the Law, but of the Person by the Law. It is not to judge in plain cases, whether we must avoid an impenitent Fornicator, a Drunkard, a Blasphemer, an Heretic, &c. For if the Bishops say nay, we must not believe him or obey him. And for difficult instances, of the species of sins deserving, it is partly the work of an expositor of Scripture, to determine of them, and partly of the Canons and Laws of the land, where Magistrates and Presbyters are efficient, and Bishops themselves obliged as well as Presbyters.
II. If then it lie not in Legislation or Canon making, let us consider whether it lie in judging or executing. And this must be chiefly about Excommunication and Absolution, as it concerneth the Laity. And here, 1. The business is not to judge of the Law, but of the Person by the Law. It is not to judge in plaine cases, whether we must avoid an impenitent Fornicator, a Drunkard, a Blasphemer, an Heretick, &c. For if the Bishops say nay, we must not believe him or obey him. And for difficult instances, of the species of sins deserving, it is partly the work of an expositor of Scripture, to determine of them, and partly of the Canons and Laws of the land, where Magistrates and Presbyters are efficient, and Bishops themselves obliged as well as Presbyters.
The business therefore is to judge whether this person be guilty of such1 a Crime, and. 2. Whether he be impenitent therein. And that this is the work of a Parochus, that is, a Cohabiting Pastor, who is upon the place, and knoweth the parties, and not of a strange Bishop over a a thousand or many hundred Churches, I have partly showed before, and partly shall show now, and partly hereafter. At the present let the unexperienced consider of this which any Novice that is upon the place may know.
The business therefore is to judge whether this person be guilty of such