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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27068	Whether parish congregations be true Christian churches and the capable consenting incumbents, be truly their pastors, or bishops over their flocks ... : written by Richard Baxter as an explication of some passages in his former writings, especially his Treatise of episcopacy, misunderstood and misapplied by some, and answering the strongest objections of some of them, especially a book called, Mr. Baxters judgment and reasons against communicating with the parish assemblies, as by law required, and another called, A theological dialogue, or, Catholick communion once more defended, upon mens necessitating importunity / by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1684 (1684)	Wing B1452; ESTC R16512	73,103	142

ever I knew have not that I know of renounced any thing essential to a Parish-Pastor I before said Ordination and Jurisdiction over Presbyters or other Churches is no part of its essence To be obedient to a Diocesan is no such Renunciation Therefore it is no such Renunciation to promise to obey them in lawful things subordinate to obeying Christ If it prove a mistake in them and that they owe no such Obedience every such mistake doth not degrade them He that said that he that will be greatest shall be servant of all thought not that to obey an equal did null the Ministry Nor he that said Be su●ject one to another Christ and Peter paid tribute to avoid offence tho the Children be free But what if a man be in doubt whether such Obedience be not his Duty Is it not the safer side much more if he verily think it his Duty 2. To take Diocesans to be Jure Divino is said by some to be destructive of the Pastoral Office and Churches and a change of the English Church-Government But it 's error For 1. It is not the Destructive Diocesan Government which acknowledg no Church and Pastor under them that those in question consent to but the Governing Diocesan who ruleth subject Pastors and Churches 2. This Question of Divine right is threefold 1. Of that which by D●●ire right is necessary ad esse 2. Of that which is by Divine right best and m●st elegible or needful ad melius esse 3. That which is by right of Divine Concession lawful but not necessary The Church of England never determined which of these was the Diocesans Case All Conformists judged it Lawful multitudes judged it Better than other forms Many judged it necessary when it might be had But no Law determined for any of these alone Unless you will say the Preface to the Book of Ordination doth it by saying It is evident to all men diligently reading holy Scripture and Ancient Authors that from the Apostles time there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christs Church Bishops Priests and Deacons Which Offices were evermore had in such Reverend Estimation c. Here some say That the Church of England took not these for three distinct Orders before 1640 but now Therefore by the word these Orders is meant only two Ans At this rate he must have the bette● whom the hearer best trusteth whatever he say If these Orders of Ministers Bishops Priests and Deacons speak not three Orders I cannot understand them Here note partiality the same that refuse to subscribe them because they speak three Orders yet say they speak but two when they argue that Church-Government is changed 1662 from what it was 1640. Indeed Aelfricks Laws in Spelman make Bishops and Priests the same Order and so do a great part of Schoolmen and other Papists but the English Bishops and Clergy were some of one mind and some of another about it and determined it not Unless this Preface be a Determination the Name Order and Office being both used And to instance in no other Saravia tho no English man yet of the Church of England wrote more strongly almost than any that I ever read for Diocesan Episcopacy against Beza c. and that upon this ground of Divine right that they succeeded the Apostles and such as Timothy Titus c. in the Government of many Churches And the Kings Divines at the Isle of White went all on that Ground To say then that to plead a Divine right for them is new is to contradict large Historical Evidences And were it true that this had been never before Imposed or Subscribed surely it is not an Opinion of the Divine right of governing of many Churches that renounceth the being of those Churches it asserteth them to be by Divine right For that which is not is not governable Non entis non sunt accidentia But where and how hath the Law or Church altered the case since 1640. These words were in the Book of Ordination before and I know of none plainer that way since It s destructive Diocesan Government which renounceth the Government of any subject Churches but of one only and of any Pastors that I argue against and not Governours of such Churches XXXIV But it 's objected That they swear not to endeavour any alteration of Church-Government therefore they renounce the Pastoral Office because the present Government excludeth it Ans 1. This is to dictate and not to prove The Diocesan Government hampered and fettered it by the Canons in the time of Whitgift and Bancroft but null'd it not He that reads the Canons or knows the Church and thinks that it's Government hath no need of Amendment is far from my mind But governing is not nullifying 2. It is not true that ever I heard that they swear what this Objection saith The Ministers do not swear but subscribe it and swear Obedience in licitis honestis And I could never learn what Law commands that Oath And if it should extend to obey all the Canons it 's that which I would be full loath to swear but I know no Canon that utterly nulleth the Parish-Churches and Ministers And a Justice that sweareth to execute the Laws is not supposed thereby to justifie every Law nor to execute any if it should be against Gods Law that exception being still supposed 3. Their Subscription never to endeavour alteration engageth them never to endeavour to destroy the Parish Churches and Ministry and so is for them For that would be a great alteration indeed 4. If you should think otherwise yet if the Subscriber or Swearer think himself that it is not destructive but governing Diocesans that he subscribeth to it is not your Opinion or Exposition that bindeth him against his own No tho you were in the right as to the Imposers sense For Ignorantis non est consensus It 's unjust to face them down that they mean what they profess they do not Ask forty Conformists whether they think the Government which they promise not to alter be that Diocesan form which ruleth Parish Churches and Pastors or that which denieth their being and I think few will profess the latter sense 5. And suppose the worst that any Parish-Priest were of that mind yea and were really no true Pastor as to his own acceptance with God he may yet be a Pastor so far true as is necessary to the Essence of the Church if the People know it not For the Innocent suffer not for the guilties sin If a man be a secret Atheist or Heretick or do counter●eit Ordination and Election and really had none and the People be deceived by him and know it not while he possesseth the place and doth the work his Baptisms and Administrations are valid to the Church as a Church tho not to himself and his Ministry The Jews Church was not null when the high Priests had no lawful call but bought the Office of R●man

deny the Parish Pastors the● deny them nothing hereby essential to thei● office All that can with any colour be said is that the Law now seems to be on these mens side by requiring Reordination But 1. The Law-makers profess to establish the Church and not to change it to another thing 2. The Law-makers were not all of one mind in the Reasons of their Laws nor had all studied these kind of controversies Many of them and of the Clergy to this day say that it is not a proper ordination that they require but the giving them Authority to exercise their Ministry in England and the decision of a doubtful case Part of the Church taketh them for true Ministers that were ordained by Presbyters and part do not and that the Congregations may not divide they say they require this like Baptizing after a doubtful Baptism If thou art not baptized I baptize thee I am against this But this proveth not that they take a Presbyter for no Pastor Yea tho they should take his ordaining others to be a nullity Ordaining not being essential to him XXIV The Act of Uniformity or the like Law cannot make the Church no Church or of another species than 1. As it is esteemed by God and his Law 2. Or as it is esteemed by the greater part of the Christian Clergy and Laity Tho the Law should speak as the foresaid odd innovators do For 1. All Christians profess that Christ is the only just Institutor of the essentials of his own Churches All Christians profess Communion with them as Churches of Christs making by his Law The present Church of England professeth this in many books it bindeth all Ministers to hold to Scripture sufficiency and use Discipiine as well as Doctrine and Worship as Christ commandeth It openly holdeth all Laws and Canons about Church essentials yea and integrals to be void and null that are against the Sacred Scriptures and Law of God There is no Power but of God God hath given no power to nullifie his institutions 2. All true Christians who consent to a Parish Minister and attend on his Ministry and join in the Assemblies openly profess to own him first as a Minister of Christ and to join in Worship and Communion of the church as prescibed by Christ which no man hath power to overthrow 3. The Parliament and Convocations and Bishops and Clergy all confess that they have no power to overthrow the Church essentials or offices of Christs Institution They have not revoked the Church Writings in which all this is oft professed They confess that if their Laws mistake and do contrary they bind us not They never openly professed a war against God or Jesus Christ What if one Dr. S. Parker make Christ subject to the King in his Kingdom he is not the Kingdom nor the Church of England For all his words they never made any Law to command Christ or to punish him They never cited him to appear before them nor did any penal execution on his Person which Government implieth They bow at his name and profess subjection to him Therefore if the law had by error said any thing inconsistent with the essence of Churches and Ministry it had not been obligatory to Pastors or people but they ought still to take Churches and Pastors to be what Christ hath made them and described them to be XXV Suppose a Law should say All families shall be so under Diocesans as to have no power but from them and all shall subscribe to this This doth not null family-power and society as instituted by God nor make it a sin to live in Families nor dissolve them all But all must continue in Families as inst●tuted by God And if any subscribe to this it will not make it a sin in all Wives Children and Servants to live in those families If the Law had said All Schools in England shall be essentially subject to Diocesans must we therefore have had no more Schools Or if the School-master subscribe to them is it a sin to be his Scholar If the Law should say All Christians shall choose their own Pastors and meet and pray and preach as they please but only in essential subjection to Diocesans must all therefore give over Church Communion If the Law had said All the Parish-Assemblies in England shall henceforth be essentially subject to the Pope or a forreign Council We must not therefore have forborn all such Assembling but have kept to the state and duty appointed us by Christ XXVI Here the mistaking Opponents say 1. That indeed de jure none can change the Essence of Christs Ministry and Churches but de facto they may and have done Ans What is meant by changing it de facto Have they de facto nulled Christs Power Law or Offices and Churches What Nulled it by a Nullity of pretended Authority and overcome his Power without Power De jure and de facto to be a true Church or Pastor is all one Christ made true ones De facto they cannot unmake them but by destroying matter or form because they cannot do it de jure They have destroyed neither matter or form of such parish churches as I plead for and which Christ instituted for they had not power to do it Indeed they may de facto make other sort of Churches and Ministers to themselves tho not de jure but not to us who stick to Christs institutions XXVII But say they We confess if the Law did bid all assemblies in England meet in dependance on Diocesans private and publick this would not alter the species of our separate Churches because man hath not power and we consent not Ans Very good And I pray you what alters the case as to the Parish-Churches Is it that they have Steeples and Bells or that they have Tythes It 's the Calamity of Dissenters that they either cannot consider or can feel no strength in the plainest truth that is said against them but thoughts and sense run all one way which they think right XXVIII Obj. But say they Constitutive and Declaritive Laws must be distinguished They can but declare our Meetings to be Diocesan which is false 〈…〉 the Parish-Meetings such Ans 1. Remember that declaring the Parish-Churches to be such doth no more constitute them such than yours Why then talk you so much of the words of Bishops and Clergy and Books as if their declarations made them such 2. But how doth a Law constitute one the Parochial to be Diocesan or null more than your separate meetings if by a Law of toleration it should say the same of them The truth is They are such to consenters that judg them such But they constitute them not such to any that consent not to such a constitution but hold to Christs XXIX But it is said that our thoughts alter not constitutions they are our own immanent acts that nihil ponunt in esse and therefore the Pastors and Churches will be

By Laws bind only by vertue of the Soveraigns higher Law And tho this Author would be the Ruler of Language so far as to say that all sinful Worship is not false Worship they that use words as greater Masters have long stated the sence do know that the falseness is the disconformity to Gods supream Rule and that may be in all the degrees forementioned And Rules or Worship are both false so far as they are disconform to the Law of God And now wherein is our Rule false and theirs true 1. We own no Rule of direct immediate obedience to God nor of any universal or unchangeable duty to God but what his Law of Nature or supernatural doth make us We hold that no man hath power to alter Gods word to command any thing against it nor any thing which God hath appropriated to himself as to make new conditions of salvation new Sacraments new Laws as Gods or new duties for themselves necessary to Salvation no nor any thing but what Gods own General Law doth command or allow them to determine being left by him undetermined to their Power and Rule We hold that if any Ruler go contrary to and beyond those Rules of God it is their sin and not ours and we openly disown it And so do our Rulers in general themselves most expresly in the Books of Articles Ordination Homilies Apology c. Binding all Ministers to the Scripture for the Rule of their Preaching and Living only infallible sufficient in all things necessary to Salvation and that if Councils or any men err or disagree with Scripture they are not to be followed We openly renounce all false Rules and Canons but if for such sin against their own profession of Scripture-sufficiency we must renounce Communion with all that are guilty we scarce know the Church on Earth which we must not renounce And the opponents in Particular 2. For let us try now whether you have no Rule which you call False as well as false or sinful practice But I will first take in his fuller explication left I mistake him IX Page 37. I roundly assert against you That tho every Church of Christ hath the liberty aad priviledge to act prudentially or make prudential determinations concerning the present use of indifferent things pro hic nunc yet to make any standing or binding determination and Laws for themselves or other is altogether unlawful as highly derogatory to the Kingly office of Christ and robbing themselves or others of their granted priviledge and so a forfeiture of their Charter And so all your by-standing laws and subordinate Laws for worship which you talk of are unwarrantable additions to the word of God Ans 1. This indeed is round assreting but your word is no proof and here is no better Contraily 1. Those whom Christ maketh Rulers of his Church and commandeth to do all things not particularly determined by him as shall conduce to peace concord order decency and edification may Rule accordingly by such determinations But some such there are whom Christ maketh Rulers of his Church c. ergo c. Maj. Prob. Matth. 24. Who then is a faithful and wise Servant whom the Lord hath made ruler over his houshold to give them meat in due season c. 1 Thes 5.12 Know them who are among you and are over you in the Lord c. 1 Cor. 4.12 Let a man so account of us as of the Ministers of Christ and Stewards of the mysteries of God c. Heb. 13.7 17.24 Remember them who have the Rule over you c. Obey them that have the rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls as they that must give account c. Salute all that have the rule over you c. 1 Tim. 5.17 The Elders that rule well are worthy of double honour 1 Cor. 14.26 Let all things be done to edifying 4. Let all things be done decently and in order 33. God is not the author of confusion but of peace as in all the churches of the Saints By all this it is evident that Church Rulers there must be and such successors of the Apostles in the ordinary parts of their office as Christ will be with to the end of the World Matth. 28.20 And also in what their Rule consisteth Now to the question of Imposing I premise that tho this usurper of a Magistry in Language will have Imposing taken still in an ill sense I leave that to him it is enough for me to tell him that I take it according to the prime signification to put a thing on others without respect to well or ill doing it 1. I know not whether by every Church he intend a meer voting body of People and Pastors by consent or the Pastors alone as the Rulers of a voluntary People 2. I know not whether he take prudential determinations as distinct from Governing Obligations or not 3. I know not whether by present use he mean it only for one present meeting or for more and for how many and how long And by standing how long he meaneth I grant to him that no man may make universal or unchangeable Laws but temporal and mutable and only for his own subjects But I maintain 1. That Pastors may by word or writing make binding commands or determinations to their Flocks of the foresaid modes and circumstances of Religion and Worship For 1. They are such as are necessary in genere and the determination to this or that sort disjunctively necessary Somebody must determine them and that for more than the present meeting even statedly And it belongs to the Rulers office to do it None else is fit or hath any other power than by contract I have oft enough instanced in particulars It is not meet that every meeting the People be put to Vote where to meet next And there is no certainty that they will agree but some be for one place and some for another An ordinary capacious place is necessary It is the Rulers office to appoint it It 's no sin against Christ for him to require them to come to the same place from year to year while it is fit 2. The same I say for a commanding determination of the Lecture-days or times of meeting which the Pastor may prescribe statedly by his office without the Peoples votes Or if all such things were imposed by a Major Vote on the Minor their Vote would be a Governing Rule to the Minor part 3. While Praying with the Hatt on is by the custom of the country a sign of unreverence the Pastors or Elders that Rule well may command the Flocks by their authority ordinarily and not at the present only to be uncovered at Prayer and Sacrament in the assembly without wronging Christs Power unless obeying it be wronging it The same I say of usual kneeling at Prayer 5. If the Congregation be called to confess their Faith or renew their Covenant with God the Rulers