A27050:789
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. And as his office is related to the Church-Universal, all the same argumentation will hold good. For the Church-Universal is the object of the Ministers office as well as of the Prelates; and no more than his own Diocese is the special charge of a Diocesan as such; and the work to which the Minister is ordained in general to the whole Church can no otherwise be proved less than the Prelates, unless by proving a Divine institution (which they will grant.)
2. And as for a Divine institution as to the ordaining power, I will say but this much, (which may take with cordate men) till I come to speak more largely of the point. 1. That Doctor Hammond (and as far as he knew, all that owned the same cause with him) doth grant that the Apostles (nor any other) in Scripture times did not so much as institute the office of a Presbyter as distinct from a Bishop, much less ever ordain any one to such an office: And that in all their Instructions to Timothy and Titus about ordination of Bishops or elders and Deacons, they have not a syllable about any ordination or qualification of such subject Presbyters, but only about ordaining Bishops. Therefore if Bishops be the successors of the Apostles in ordination, they cannot do more than they did; nor ordain any other Presbyters than Bishops.
2. That if Bishops were the Institutors of Presbyters, as distinct from them by a Power of parcelling out their office to others than Bishops, yet have power to make more sorts of sacred Ministers, by subdivision of their power. They may make one office only to Preach, and another only to baptize, and another only to pray, and another only to administer the Lords Supper, and another to Excommunicate, and why not another to ordain; and so ordination shall not be proper to a Bishop. And so a Chancellor that hath the parcel of excommunicating and absolving, is as true a Clergy man, and of as high original as a Presbyter.