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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26975	Of national churches their description, institution, use, preservation, danger, maladies and cure, partly applied to England / written by Richard Baxter for promoting peace ... and for the fuller explication of the Treaty for Concord in 1660 and 1661, and of the Kings gracious declaration about ecclesiastical affairs ... and for further explication of his treatise of episcopacy ...	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1691 (1691)	Wing B1329; ESTC R13726	59,031	82

OF National Churches Their Description Institution Use Preservation Danger Maladies and Cure Partly applied to England Written by RICHARD BAXTER for promoting peace when the pacifying Day shall come by Healing their Extremes that are willing of Peace and Healing And for the fuller Explication of the Treaty for Concord in 1660 and 1661. and of the Kings Gracious Declaration about Ecclesiastical Affairs for which he had publick thanks by them that afterward rejected it And for further Explication of his Treatise of Episcopacy and many others written for Peace and rejected Rev. 11. 15. The Kingdoms of this World are become the Kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall Reign for ever and ever Chap. 19. 16. King of Kings and Lord of Lords Matth. 5. 9. Blessed are the Peace-makers for they shall be called the Children of God Jam. 3. 17. The wisdom that is from above is first Pure and then Peaceable c. London Printed by T. Snowden for Thomas Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns the lower end of Cheapside 1691. THE EPISTLE TO THE READER Reader THIS short Discourse cometh not from the expectation of pleasing any of the Extremes the Tyrannical or the Confounders And therefore in a Time and Countrey where those that escape Extremes are few it must expect but the private approbation of those few But those few and their Cause are so considerable as that if God mean not to forsake the Land they may yet become the Agents and stamina of a happy concordant Reformation Of which in the appearance of Second Causes there is yet no great prospect nor like to be unless God cause the Supreme Power by Wisdom and Righteousness or by their own constraining Interest and Necessity to drive the Worldly Unpeaceable Sort to obey Healing Precepts for their own Advantage contrary to their Temptations and Inclinations If such a day come when I am dead these Principles will be of use They are not lately taken up by me as you may see in my Five Disputations of Church Government c. in my Treatise of Episcopacy Nonconformity stated c. and in our frustrated Treaty for Concord 1660 1661. In the state that we are in while we have none to whom we have any Call or Hope to address our selves for publick Concord let us keep our selves from the guilt of unpeaceableness and bear the Slanders and Wrongs of false Accusers and thank God for checking the Power of Persecutors and let us make peace among those that we may speak to with any hope and wait on God till he shew us whether he be saving or forsaking the Land and the rest of the Reformed Unreformed Churches And to them that will be offended with me for saying so much for Bishops and Archbishops let them know that this Book is but an Attendant on a bigger written against a Foreign Jurisdiction or Popery which sheweth that I am no more for the Extremes of others ' than of theirs As also my Treatise of Episcopacy hath shewn And here I have proved that Popery is but a Fabrick built on the Ruins of National Churches or Christian Kingdoms And if it ever fall it must be by their Restoration The Lord pity the Blind Malignant Self-destroying World and prepare us better for a better Society London March 26. 1691. Richard Baxter LET the Reader note that § 7 8 9 and 10. of the XII th Chapter are misplaced and must be read as the end of the IX th Chapter The rest of the Errata's I have not time togather THE CONTENTS CHap. I. What a National Church is Ch. II. That Christ Instituted such a Church Form Ch. III. In the Execution as well as Embrio Judea was such Ch. IV. Particular Churches and Pastors how far Essential to a National Church and what are its Materials Ch. V. The Pastors or Bishops of National Churches are to be of three Ranks Apostolick Successors Ch. VI. Who must be the Lay-members of National Churches Ch. VII What is the Confederacy or Concord needful to a National Church Ch. VIII How far this Confederacy and Concord bindeth the Members of a National Church to Conformity Ch. IX That Christ hath Instituted no Ecclesiastical Government in Man of any larger extent than National much less Universal nor of Foreign Jurisdiction And that the French Aristocracy with the Popes Primacy and Patriarchate is as bad as Papal Monarchy Ch. X. Whether Universal Church Government more than per partes be of Apostolick Succession Ch. XI Whether National Church Primacy or Aristocracy infer Universal Ch. XII 1. Whether the Romans Church Policy should be chosen as strengthning the common Christian Interest 2. Whether Protestants Differences and Divisions make the Roman way of Concord necessary 3. Whether Protestants or Papists have more Errors Chap. XIII What are the Dangerous Diseases of a National Church Chap. XIV Whether the Present Church of England be of a sound Constitution and what is Necessary to its Welfare Safety Strength and Peace Chap. XV. The Case answered Of Tolerating Dissenters from the Laws or Customs of a National Church Books Printed for and Sold by Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers Chapel Baxter's Catholick Theology plain pure peaceable for Pacification of the Dogmatical Word-Warriours in three books Folio His Church History of Government of Bishops and their Councils Abbreviated Quarto His true History of Councils enlarged and defended Quarto His Treatise of Episcopacy Quarto His Saints Everlasting rest in four parts Quarto His Paraphrase on the New Testament Quarto His Life of Faith in three parts Quarto His answer to Dodwel and Sherlock Quarto His Catholick Communion in five parts Quarto Catholick Communion doubly defended c. Whether Parish Congregations be true Christian Churches defended against both Extremes Unnecessary Divisions Quarto His Apology for Non-Conforming Ministers Quarto His Naked Popery c. Quarto His Treatise of Knowledge and Love Compared c. in two parts Quarto His English Non-Conformity as under King Charles the second and King James the second truely Stated and Argued the Second Edition Quarto His Treatise of Self-Denial Octavo His Defence of Non-Conformists Plea for Peace Octavo His Full and Easy satisfaction which is the True and Safe Religion Octavo His Key for Catholicks opening the Juglings of the Jesuits Octavo His Catechizing of Families Octavo His Scriptures Gospel Defended and Christ Grace and free Justification vindicated against the Libertines Octavo His Two Disputations of Original Sin Octavo His Cain and Abel Malignity that is Enmity to Serious Godliness c. Octavo His Call to the Unconverted to turn and live c. Octavo His Glorious Kingdom of Christ described and clearly vindicated c. Quarto stitcht His Reply to Mr. Beverly's Answer to my Reasons against his Doctrine of a thousand years Quarto stitcht His Farewel Sermon prepared to have been Preached to his hearers at Kederminster at his departure but forbidden Quarto published

c. Concord in those otherwise not the best may be better and a greater duty than for better to be singular disobedient and dividers or the encouragers of other mens singularity and divisions § 11. If there were no Law or Mandate of the Prince for such concord as aforesaid yet because a National Church should have the comfort beauty and strength of as much concord as can be attained without greater hurt than it will compensate all the Members of it ought to study the maintenance of such unity concord and harmony and if the Pastors and Churches agree on any such lawful circumstances to comply and conform to such agreement and to shun affected causless singularity In such cases Augustine rightly resolved to do as the Church did where he came It being a disturbing discord for one man to be odd against a lawful Custom without cause As for instance if one would affect to be covered with his Hat at Prayer or Psalmody when the rest are uncovered or to use a gesture contrary to all the rest Conformity in things lawful beseemeth them that profess themselves Members of such National Churches as consist of United Confederate Congregations § 12. But if on pretence of Concord or Confederacy yea or Laws any would tyrannically impose sinful things or else make things lawful so much more necessary than in themselves they are as to become the necessary Conditions of Union or Communion excommunicating persecuting or unchurching all that differ from them and appropriating National Church Membership only to those that obey such ensnaring Canons or Agreements It is not lawful to own or countenance such Usurpation and Tyranny nor to deny those that they deny or condemn to be true parts of the National Church It being only Concord in things essential that is necessary to the Essence and Concord in parts integral that is necessary to Integrity and Concord in convenient Accidents that is necessary to the accidental Comeliness of the Church And contrarily Concord against Essentials nullifieth a Church and Discord against Essentials nullifieth a Member and want of Integrals rendereth it maimed and want of due Accidents uncomely and ill Accidents in Concord or Discord partly scabbed and less beautiful § 13. I earnestly entreat therefore all sober Christians to take heed lest the secret desire of seeming more pious or tender conscienced than other godly people and of getting applause for such tenderness and of being reputed stricter than others should tempt them into opinions or practices of unnecessary distance singularity and division Pride is a deep rooted sin in Nature and it maketh our reputation with the stricter people oft to become a selfish Interest as strong as riches and wordly preferments are with the looser sort of men And it maketh it to such as hard to undergo the sharp censures of the censorious and to bear the imputation of want of Piety and Conscience as to undergo imprisonment and want And hereby young ignorant Apprentice Lads and Women being usually the most censorious such become the real Governours of their Pastors and of the Church especially if Persecution also cast them for a livelihood on the Peoples Charity And so it seemeth to make it the Controversie whether the Churches and Pastors should be governed by Bishops or by censorious Women and Boys Satan hath more Baits to angle with than one and more than one way of deceiving Those that are above the sordid bait of riches or preferment or great mens favour may yet be overcome by the over-valuing the love and praise of a Sect or of mistaken religious persons especially in a time when the Clergy is grown infamous and contemptible by ignorance worldliness or malignity and it is become a disgrace to be numbred with them § 14. But Satan hath taught no small part of our Academick Students and our Clergy a way to frustrate all that I have said by accusations against my self as if it were sufficient to turn all into scorn if they could charge any sin on my person or by impudent falshoods either feign me to contradict my self or if they do the work of the Father of Lies by his proper act and imitation On one side I am daily reviled by the Separatists and Antinomians as over-conformable On the other side I am reviled for Non-conformity and told that my practice is contrary to all that I write and preach for Peace And it is answer enough for them to calumniate and say that I condemn my self as if this did justifie both extreams in their impenitent persevering in enmity to Peace § 15. To Mr. Long therefore and such other Calumniators who instead of a rational Confutation of my Arguments answer by accusing me as of a contradicting unpeaceable life I say 1. One would think with men that have any pretence to reason honesty or honour it should be easie to know that when the Controversie is about Church-Government Oaths Subscriptions Ministration what I am is nothing to the Question in hand If they take me for as errant a Knave or Rogue as Judge Jeffreys or Mr. Long have pronounced me what 's this to the common Cause of Truth and Peace 2. If my forty five years labour for Peace my forbearing these thirty years to gather any Church my Communion with my parish-Parish-Church in Liturgy and Sacrament kneeling at the Altar all my Writings against Schism and Separation and for the reconciling of Word-warriours my quiet submission to their oft imprisoning me and seizing on and selling all my goods Bed and Books as for Preaching when I was twenty miles off and for such occasional Sermons as the Lord Chief Justice Sanders and the new Lord Chief Justice Polixfen gave not under their hands that I was authorized to Preach by the Bishops License not revoked nor forfeit and all this by Sir James Smith and Sir James Butlers Warrants who neither of them ever told me who accused me nor ever called me to speak for my self If the like Warrant before by Sir Thomas Davis If my Imprisonment before by Justice Rosse and Philips If my being tost from Session to Session and bound in six hundred pound to the behaviour by Justices that openly declared they had nothing against me but took me for innocent If my Banishment out of the County and five miles from all Corporations If my attendance at Judge Jeffreys Bar in daily pain to hear my self reviled being forbidden to speak a word for my self and the Lawyers reviled and threatned that spake for me If my Confinement in the Kings Bench Prison for near two years and a great deal more such usage after they had in 1661. offered me a Bishoprick and sworn me to be the King's Chaplain in Ordinary And after Bishop Morley had silenced me and published a Letter of palpable falshoods against me which I answered and for peace laid it by these 28 years I say if all this prove me unpeaceable and them peaceable and if my Concessions in my English

the Jewish State and not an Universal And this National Form went before that part of the Apostles Work and Power which was to be Universal or Indefinite § 15. IV. The Apostles made no Universal Laws of their own but only promulgated the Laws of Christ which by his Word and Spirit he taught them And to that end he promised and gave them his Spirit to lead them into all Truth and bring all to their remembrance and they were sent to all Nations indefinitely to Convert them and Baptize them and to teach them to observe all things that Christ had commanded them The Cryer is not the Law-maker though he proclaim the Law The Obligations to Infant-baptism and the Lords day alledged by some as Apostolical Laws are from Christ himself as I have proved elsewhere at large the Apostles being Authorized Witnesses and Promulgators And had they done it by the extraordinary promised Spirit it had so been Christs own Law-giving no other having that promise of the Spirit to make a new Word of God or Universal Law by bringing all his Commands to remembrance and leading them into all Truth The determinations Acts 15. were also the delivery of the Law of Christ the Holy Ghost giving them the certain understanding of it And it 's like that as two of the four Cases Fornication and Idol-Communion were of known Morality so the other two strangled and Blood-eating if not so were not of Universal Obligation but only to those Gentiles that lived among the offended Jews The like may be said about the Institution of Deacons and Bishops of single Churches If they did not Institute them as in Christs Name by his Command or Spirit but had Authority from him to do it as Apostles It was under the promise of the Spirits Infallible Guidance and a Temporary Work in which they have no Successors For Christs Church would never be formed nor his Laws and Word setled perfect if we must have Men in all Ages to add to his Church Ordinances and Officers and to make him new Laws and a new Word How big would his Bible be then at the last Why have no new Scriptures as his been so made these 1600 years I hope our Volumes of Councils will not go for such § 16. V. The occasional determination of Questions about mutable Circumstances as long Hair the Vails the Love-feasts the time of Collections for Charity and divers such were not Universal but Local and not of Immutable but occasional Mutable Obligation and were but such as National and Congregational Governors may determine without any Universal Supreme Power The Genus or Rule by which they must be determined Edification Love Concord Peace Decency Order being Gods Laws § 17. VI. There is great difference between what the Apostles did as Segregate or Dis-junct each one in his Province and what they did as an Aristocratical Person or College unitedly They Ordained Elders gave the Holy Ghost setled Churches decided Controversies wrote Books and Epistles singly each one in his Province and met not to write any one Book or Epistle by a Major College-Vote in one Body And though their Books now oblige all the Church that have them yet 1. At the first writing they obliged only the Churches or Persons to whom they were written and only after by parity of Reason bind others that have them And every ordinary Pastor that writeth a Book that is sound Divinity bringeth an Obligation on all that read it to obey it according to the Evidence of truth The Obligation of the Apostles Books and theirs is Extensively Indefinite or Universal to all that read or hear it But the Degree of the Obligation Intensively is greater from the Apostles Writings because of their extraordinary Spirit § 18. VII The decision Acts 15. was not by a General Council nor a Pope No such Council was called But they were sent and appealed to as Men of most infallible fitness to decide that Case and if they did it as a College it was only as a National Church College such as de formâ the Jews Nation had in which relation they were first setled For as Twelve they were only so related others being added to be sent with them to the Centiles And besides and after that we never read that they did any thing but in their separate Provinces and Personal Capacity § 10 VIII And as they never did as an Universal Aristocratical College by Vote make new Universal Laws to the Church much less by any ordinary continued Power so neither did they as such a College exercise Judicial or Executive power but did it in their single Capacities only in their proper Provinces and that was partly by an ordinary power of Reproof and Excommunication which continueth and partly by an extraordinary miraculous power of delivering to Satan for Corporal punishment which power is ceased with them Tho' Papists in a mock-imitation deliver the Excommunicate to the Secular powers to be kill'd as if these were Devils As for the Universal Laws that tell whom to Excommunicate they are Christs own Laws and Rules of Judgment To which if men may add the like no wonder if they make Sin and Heresie as they please and Excommunicate and deliver to Satan their Magistrates whom they will and if he that was an Orthodox Saint this year be burnt without change as an Heretick the next and it be never certain till the end of the World what is Heresie or Sin and what not § 20. IX It being certain then that the Apostles did not as an Aristocratical Supreme power over the Universal Church Exercise Legislation Judgment and Execution much less by any ordinary continued power it followeth that they have no Successors that have such power and all Government being contained in these three parts there is de Jure no Universal Governour § 21. X. The power of Moses and Aaron were of equal extent and both of Divine Institution but Aaron was under Moses Government And Christ gave the Twelve and Seventy at first no larger Provinces or Power And when he added more and sent them to the Gentiles he commanded every Soul to be subject to the Princes power as of God Therefore their power in the Empire was limited and subject to the Imperial Government and so in other Lands They were bound to fear God and Honour the King They might by Doctoral and Nunciative Authority perswade Emperors and deliver Gods Commands and so still may any ordinary Teacher but not by Imperant Judicial and Executive power Govern them unless by self-subjecting they make them their Governors as Pupils do their Tutors and Patients their Physicions Yea they could make no Man a Christian but by Persuasion to voluntary consent and till they were Christians they could not Govern them as Christians And they were not Governors of the World but Monitors and Persuaders § 22. XI Indefinite and were it possible Universal Concord Love and Communion All Christians must endeavour

Universal Councils with a Pretorian Power c. raised jealousies in Parliaments who being for their Liberties against Arbitrary Government were the more against those Bishops that seemed to be for it till Innovation provoking the Scots the English Lords encouraged by them and the Irish murdering two hundred thousand Protestants affrighted England into a miserable War and made the most zealous Adversaries of Popery and Ungodliness think that the Papists would destroy them all if they did not help the Parliament to defend them And the Scots would not help them unless the Parliament would engage in the Scots Covenant against the English Prelacy which proved a sinful snare of Division to all the Land And the War ending in the Parliaments Conquest and they conquered again and cast out by their own Army many Divines of the Diocesan Judgment besides the scandalous were cast out And the Restored Parliament recalling K. Charles II. with his Clergy the exasperated came back with a resolution of revenge and the grand design of some was to begin where Laud left and to extirpate Puritans and to that end to get all power in Church and Universities into the hands of the greatest Enemies of the Nonconformists and to get Laws of doubled cruelty made accordingly to root them out which so far prospered that Universities and Ministry are sufficiently disposed into a contempt and opposition to the Nonconformists who are too ready to think that they and their well-wishers are though not the only serious Religious part of the Land yet the main body of them many to one and that the main body of the hot Adherents to their Adversaries are the generality of the sensual wordly and profane who use their Ceremonies as Solomon's Whore did her Sacrifices and Vows to encourage her to take her fill of Love till morning And the differing manner of the Religious Devotions of these two parties maketh the distance seem remediless if some Moderate Peace-makers prove not the Cement One sort are all for praying by habit called extempore as Judges Parliament and Lawyers speak their minds and say that Forms and Liturgies daily repeated are usually said without life or fervency as Boys say an Oration and little move men The other are for the same Liturgy and Words and too many deride all other praying Whereas sober unprejudiced men can make a serious use of both But thus a Clergy modelled at the entrance of King Charles the second into a set opposition to the way of the zealously Religious People called Puritans specially by the interest and wrath of a few hot Doctors after made Bishops are taken by the said people for the Captains of Prophaneness § 20. Having seen what our Diseases are it is easy to know what must be the cure But so hard to accomplish it that I must name the remedies with despair unless the Almighty God will do it by means yet quite beyond our prospect yea to cure any one of all these Maladies requireth a power more than Mans. Qu. But is not our first Reformation and our Canons and present Laws of Conformity a sufficient means of Concord without any new Reformation Ans 1. If so why did King Edward the sixth require Bucer to write for more which he hath done in his Scripta Anglicana And why was the Reformatio Legum Eccles prefaced by John Fox Written by men Commissioned by him 2. Are the same Canons fit for Papists Priests and Protestant Preachers Dr. Burnet tells you that of nine thousand Parish Priests besides all others ordained there did not much above eight hundred take the Reforming Oaths to keep their livings so that there were above eight thousand Papists Parish Priests in our Reformed Church unless that Oath made them all true Protestants And what wonder if these were excused from Preaching and forbidden to Preach till they were further licensed But shall the best Church in the World called the Stupor Mundi be all forbidden therefore after Ordination till Licensed to Preach or Expound any Doctrine or matter in the Church or elsewhere but barely to Read I will venture though I know it will displease the impenitent to say that I will pitty that Minister more than a poor Publican or Drunkard who will justifie 1. All our Canons 2. And all the Laws made as for Uniformity and against Nonconformists and their Execution to the silencing of about two thousand such Ministers and the Death of many of them in and by imprisonment and the ruine of the Estates of them and many more thousand Godly People 3. And the present state of the Parish Churches where the alterations of the Liturgy shew that the Incumbents must not be called Pastors and such as Dr. Fuller Dean of Lincoln are allowed to publish that Inauditus erat Parochorum Pastoratus ante hujus seculi antecedentis delirium The Pastor-ship of Parish Priests was never heard of before the Dotage or Madness of this and the foregoing Age. And so there is but one Pastor and Church in a Diocess Either Mr. Clerksons book unanswered of the Primitive Episcopacy or this and such other Doctors are impudent beyond the degree of humane pravity And whereas they that yet delay to answer my English Non-conformity Stated take up usually with the reproaching one question in it what Church the 800 were of that one Doctor Printeth that he cured of the French Pox should I tell them of the quality and far greater number of persons that Doctor Lower hath thrice together affirmed to have that Disease that with the commoner Whoredom Drunkenness Swearing Self-damning scorning Godliness yea and Gods Word it self may warrant a man that hath any love to the Church and Souls to intreate the Curates though they be not Pastors to bethink them 1. Whether they know who are the Members of their Churches 2. Whether it be they or the Bishop that must know them personally 3. If all that dwell in the Parish are not all the Papists Atheists Hobbists Deboisht and Sectaries of their Churches 4. If only Communicants do they know when they come to the Altar whether they are of their Flocks or Strangers 5. If all that Communicate not be no Members perhaps two thousand if not four thousand in a Parish of six thousand or eight thousand are the rest well permitted quietly to be of no Parish Communion 6. How many of all these and the debauched have been Excommunicated or openly brought to Repentance in London these thirty years according to the Canon 7. Have the Nonconformists more deserved it for going from their own Parishes or Communicating with Godly dissenting Protestants I speak all this only if possible to procure some Repentance of the sins and divisions that threaten our ruines after the sad experience of more than the last thirty years effects For God will not Pardon us without Repentance § 21. I. Christening by Baptism must not be made an Infant Ceremony but used as one of the greatest actions of all the life