A27050:836
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.
And it was the Prelatical Tyranny of the Romanists, that since raised so many parties against them, and then had no way to Cu•b them, but by prosecuting them by the Sword and flames, as in the case of the Waldenses, Albigenses, and Protestants appeareth: And as the Murders of many hundred thousands in Piedmont, France, Germany, Ireland, England, &c, Besides their Inquisitions show. Thus Solitudinem fecerunt, & unitatem & pacem ••car•nt. When they have hanged, burnt and slain the people and Priests, they have quieted and silenced them, and when they have made a solitude and depopulation by killing those that disser•d from them, they have brought all to concord, and been all of a mind.
And it was the Prelatical Tyranny of the Romanists, that since raised so many parties against them, and then had no way to Cu•b them, but by pros•c•ting them by the Sword and flames, as in the case of the Waldenses, Albigenses, and Protestants appeareth: And as the Murders of many hundred thousands in Piedmont, France, Germany, Ireland, England, &c, Besides their Inquisitions shew. Thus Solitudinem fecerunt, & unitatem & pacem ••car•nt. When they have hanged, burnt and slain the people and Priests, they have quieted and silenced them, and when they have made a solitude and depopulation by killing those that disser•d from them, they have brought all to concord, and been all of a mind.
And let none be offended that I mention the Papists in describing Prelacy. For I do it not to raise an Odium on them; but I refer it to the consideration of sober men, 1. Whether as Herbarists give us the picture and description of herbs, not in their spring, but in their full grown stalk, blossom and fruits, and as he that will know the nature and difference of fruits, or animals, must stay till they are come to their full growth and ripeness, and not take them green and young; so he that will judge either of Schism or of Church-tyranny: Lust do. 2. And whether the Quakers, Ranters Familists and Munster monsters be not Schismatics ripe and at full growth, and therefore a young Schismatic is not o tell us what Schism is, but should himself see what he will be when he is ripe. And so whether Popery be not the Diocesan Prelacy full grown and ripe; and whether they should not therefore see what they would come to, if that which withholdeth in the several Kingdoms were taken out of the way, as the Pope hath removed it in the Empire. If the Diocesans, Metropolitans, Patriarchs, and Pope (as to his Primacy in the Empire) did not all stand on the same humane foundation, then are they not the things that I am speaking of.