A27050:823
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.
CHAP. XIII. That there is no need of such as our Diocesans for the Unity or the Government of the particular Ministers, nor for the silencing of the unworthy.
IT stuck much in the minds of the Ancient Doctors and Christians that Episcopacy was necessary to avoid Schism and discord among the Ministers and the people; and that it was introduced for that reason. And I am so averse to singularity in Religion, that I will not be he that shall gainsay it. A double, yea a treble Episcopacy, though I cannot prove instituted of Christ, yet will I not contradict, because one sort I cannot disprove, and the other two I take to be but a prudential humane determination of the Circumstances of one and the same sacred Ministerial office-work. 1. That which I cannot disprove as to a Divine Institution, is a General Ministry over many Churches (like the Scots Visitors at their Reformation) who as Successors to the Apostles and Evangelists in the durable parts of their office, were by a conjunction of Scripture evidence and Divine authority of office, to persuade Pastors and people to their several duties, and to have a chief hand in ordaining and removing Ministers. 2. That which I will not contradict antiquity in, is a Bishop in every particular Church, to be as the chief Presbyter, like the chief Justice on the bench or one of the Quorum, as our Parish Ministers now are in respect to all their Curates of the Chapels under them. 3. And I would not deny but at all Ministerial Synods, one man may be Moderator, either pro tempore, or for continuance, as there is cause. ⟨p. 164⟩These two last are but Prudential circumstances, as Doctor Stilling fleet hath proved. And in all these I like the Discipline of the Waldenses, Bohemian and Polonian Churches.