A27050:782
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. But next let us distinguish, 1. Between ordaining to the Ministry in the Universal Church without affixing to a particular Charge, and the fixing of a Pastor in that particular Church. And, 2. Between ordaining a Bishop or Plenary Pastor, and a half Pastor called now a Presbyter.
1. As Baptism as such doth join a man to no particular Church, but only to the Universal, but yet they that have opportunity should secondarily by a further act of consent also join themselves to the particular Church where they live, but if they live where they have no such opportunity, they must do it after as soon as such opportunity cometh: Even so ordination to the sacred Ministry as such doth fix a man to no particular Church, but make him a Minister of Christ to the world for mens conversion, ⟨p. 156⟩and to the Universal Church for Christians edification, as he shall have any particular opportunity for exercise (which the Church of England expresseth by the words [when thou shalt be thereunto Lawfully called] meaning a call ad exercitium, to the exercise of the office received: But yet where there are not many unchurched Infidels to be converted, but all profess Christianity, it is not fit such shall be ordained sine titulo, as they speak, lest it occasion irregularity and poverty in the Clergy, but be at once affixed to a particular Church, which fixed Ministers are in Scripture usually called Bishops, Presbyters and Pastors, with relation to their particular flock or Church, besides their primary relation to the World and to the universal Church, from which the extraordinary Officers were called Apostles and Evangelists, and the ordinary ones Ministers of Christ in general. Though I deny not but even the unfixed may be called Bishops, Elders and Pastors, as being virtually such, and in an Office which wanteth nothing but a particular Call to that fixation and exercise.
1. As Baptism as such doth joyn a man to no particular Church, but only to the Universal, but yet they that have opportunity should secondarily by a faither act of consent also joyn themselves to the particular Church where they live, but if they live where they have no such opportunity, they must do it after as soon as such opportunity cometh: Even so ordination to the sacred Ministry as such doth fix a man to no particular Church, but make him a Minister of Christ to the world for mens convertion,