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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27050	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.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1681 (1681)	Wing B1427; ESTC R19704	421,766	406

Bishop and his Chancellor and other Officers are over us all The Magistrates Civil Governmeut of the Church I shall not meddle with as having no exceptions against it The Sacerdotal or Spiritual Power called the Power of the Keys determineth who shall be Members of the Church and partake of its Communion and exerciseth other acts of Spiritual Discipline of which more anon This power is said to be in Archbishops and Bishops in foro ecclesiae publico vel exteriore though also in the Governed Presbyters in foro privato interiore as they may privately comfort a penitent person and declare God's promise of the pardon of his sin The Archbishops have it in eminency As also the power of confirming the Election of the Bishops of their Provinces and the power of Consecrating Bishops with two others and the power of Convocating Provincial Synods upon the Kings Prescript and of moderating in them The power of receiving Appeals and of Visiting the whole Provinces yea to receive Appeals from the lower Judges omiting the middle ones and to exercise Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in any vacant Diocess under them They have power of Dispensation in all Causes not judged contrary to Gods word wherever the Pope had power and where the Pope had not power if the King or Council permit it them They may dispense with the Eating of flesh on Fasting-days with Marrying without previous publication with divers irregularities and sometime may abolish simoniacum ambitum They may grant Commendams and Dispence with Non-residence and with the keeping of divers Churches called Benefices in several Cases and with a Sons succeeding his Father and with Lay-mens possessing the Church-maintenance called Prebends The Bishops who take place in Parliament of other Barons as the Archbishops do of Dukes are all chosen really by the King who nominateth in a Writ to the Dean and Chapter the man whom they must chuse who pro forma do chuse him never contradicting the Kings Nomination Their proper Office consisteth in the powers of Order and of Jurisdiction as they distinguish them Their power of Order is threefold 1. To Ordain Priests and Deacons 2. To Consecrate Churches and Burying places 3. To Confirm Children after Baptism when they can speak and say the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue and others that were not Confirmed in their Childhood Besides that they may be Privy-Counsellors Lord-Keepers of the Great Seal Lord Treasurers Embassadours c. Their ordinary Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction extendeth 1. to the Interdiction of Divine Offices 2. to publick Admonitions and Penances 3. to suspension from the Sacrament and from ingress into the Church and 4. to Excommunication and Absolution and 5. to Anathematisms And as to Ministers 1. They may Sequester Benefices 2. They may Suspend ab officio beneficio and forbid them to Preach or Pray Or grant License to such as shall be tolerated to Preach 3. They may deprive 4. And depose Ministers by sentence verbal and degradation actually This Church Jurisdiction of Bishops is distinguished into Voluntary and Contentious The Voluntary extendeth to abundance of things granted them by Statute and by Common Law which I pass by That which they claim both by Municipal Law and Ecclesiastical is 1. The probate of the Testaments of the dead 2. The granting Administration of Goods to the next of Kin 3. Keeping the bona caduca where none claimeth the Inheritance 4. To receive Reasons of Administring and to be Judges of them 5. To confer Benefices or Institute such as others present 6. To grant Induction to the Instituted 7. To receive the Fruits of vacant Benefices 8. To allow the Vicar a fit proportion 9. To grant Letters Dimissory or Testimonial 10. To Visit their Diocess once in three years In which Triennial Visitation they usually go to one Town in a County and never see the face of the people in the many score or hundred Churches about them and thither they summon the Ministers and the Church-Wardens and Sides-men Where one Minister preacheth and then the Ministers must dine with the Bishop and in Court he or his Officer giveth a Book of Printed Articles containing a multitude of particulars which the Church-warden must swear to present by where because of the quality of them some Church-Wardens refuse and others because of the number some saying it is unlawful to undo their Ministers and Neighbours by such Presentments as for omitting a Ceremony for preaching or keeping a Fast in private c. and some saying it is impossible to keep the Oath and some saying that if they do it they shall be hated of their Neighbours Whereupon those that refuse are prosecuted to punishment And the rest take the Oath and Articles but not one of many doth present accordingly though the Canon enquires after the perjured And many that fear perjury or persecution themselves do hire some poor man to be Church-Warden in their stead that will venture upon all I must intreat the Reader to peruse some of their Books of Articles especially such as Bishop Mountagues and Bishop Wrens to see what was then enquired after Dr. Zouch de Jud. Eccless p. 37. § 1. Part. 3. saith Ad judices quod attinet statuto ordinatum quod personae conjugatae dummodo Doctores Juris Civilis fuerint qui ad officium Cancellarii Vicarii Generalis Officialis vel Commissarii à Majestate Regia Archiapiscopo Episcopo Archidiacono aut alio quocunque potestatem habente deputati sunt omnem Jurisdictionem Ecclesiasticam exercere quam libet censuram sive coercitionem ●rrogare possint This Jurisdiction of Bishops is exercised either Universally by a Vicar General usually a Lay-man or qarticularly by a Commissary And when he please the Bishop may do it himself The other part of their Jurisdiction is called Contentious And here the Bishop may himself judge in some Cases but in the ordinary course of Jurisdiction a Civil Lawyer called his Chancellor is the Judge This Chancellor is and must be a Lay-man which even Bishop Goodman of Gloucester Myst Rel. Epist I have it and can produce it at this time under the Kings own Hand and Seal wherein he forbids that any Church-man or Priest in Holy Orders be a Chancellor and this was the occasion of all the corruption of the Spiritual Courts For Chancellors live only on the Fees of the Court and for them to dismiss a Cause it was to lose so much blood See further in him a Papist Bishop of a Protestant Diocess complaineth in Print that he could not get Reformed This Chancellor keepeth an Ordinary Court in the form of a Civil Court where are Advocates for Council and Proctors for pleading Certain men called Apparitors whose name is commonly a scorn among the people do from abroad the Country bring them in Accusations and Summon the persons accused besides those that by Plaintiffs are accused Here are judged Causes about Church Materials and Causes Criminal which he that

they forsake him or refuse to use him and Excommunicateth a man when they avoid his communion and declare him unmeet for communion In all which the Church useth her own right but taketh not away another mans Then for the Canonical Enquiries after faults and impositions of Penence or delays of absolution he sheweth that both the Canons and Judgments by them being but prudential Determinations of Modes and Circumstances bound none but Consenters without the Magistrates Law except as the Law of Nature bound them to avoid offences He should add and as obedience in general is due to Church-guides of Christ's appointment And how the Magistrate may constrain the Pastors to their duty Chap. 10. He sheweth that there are two perpetual Functions in the Church Presbyters and Deacons I call them Presbyters saith he with all the Ancient Church who feed the Church with the Preaching of the Word the Sacraments and the Keys which by Divine Right are individual or inseparable Note that And § 27. He saith It is doubtful whether Pastors where no Bishops are and so are under none though over none are to be numbered with Bishops or meer Presbyters § 31. His counsel for the choice of Pastors is that as in Justinian's time none be forced on the People against their wills and yet a power reserv'd in the chief Rulers to rescind such elections as are made to the destruction of Church or Commonwealth Chap. 11. § 10. He sheweth that Bishops are not by Divine precept And § 1. That therefore the different Government of the Churches that have Bishops or that have none should be no hindrance to Unity And § 10 11. That some Cities had no Bishops and some more than one And that not only in the Apostles ●ays but after one City had several Bishops in i●●tation of the jews who to every Synagogue had an Archisynagogus Page 357. He sheweth that there have been at Rome and elsewhere long vacancies of the Bishops See in which the Presbyters Governed the Church without a Bishop And saith that all the Ancients do confess that there is no act so proper to a Bishop but a Presbyter may do it except the right of Ordination Yet sheweth p. 358. that Presbyters ordained with Bishops and expoundeth the Canon thus that Presbyters should Ordain none contemning the Bishop And p. 359. He sheweth that where there is no Bishop Presbyters may Ordain as Altisiodorensis saith among the Schoolmen And questioneth again whether the Presbyters that have no Bishops over them be not rather Bishops than meer Presbyters citing Ambrose's words He that had no one above him was a Bishop what would he have said of our City and Corporation Pastors that have divers Chapels and Curates under them Or of our Presidents of Synods or such as the Pastor of the first Town that ever I was Preacher in Bridgnorth in Shropshire who had six Parishes in an exempt Jurisdiction four or five of them great ones and kept Court as ordinary like the Bishops being under none but the Archbishop And § 12. He sheweth that there was great cause for many Churches to lay by Episcopacy for a time And p. 360. he saith Certainly Christ gave the Keys to be exercised by the same men to whom he gave the power of Preaching and Baptizing That which God hath joyned let no man separate But then how should Satan have used the Churches as he hath done And he sheweth of meer ruling Elders as he had done of Bishops that they are not necessary but are lawful and that it may be proved from Scripture that they are not displeasing to God and that formerly the Laity joyned in Councils Only he puts these Cautions which I consent to 1. That they be not set up as by God's command 2. That they meddle no otherwise with the Pastoral Office or Excommunication than by way of Counsel 3. That none be chosen that are unfit 4. That they use no coactive power but what is given them by the Soveraign 5. That they know their power to be mutable as being not by Gods command but from man And Chap. 11. § 8. He delivereth his opinion of the Original of Episcopacy that it was not fetcht from the Temple pattern so much as from the Synagogues where as he said before every Synagogue had a chief Ruler 14. As for J. D. and many other lesser Writers Sir Thomas Aston c. who say but half the same with those forementioned it is not worth your time and labour to read any more Animadversions on them 15. But the great Learned M. Ant. de Dominis Spalatensis deserveth a more distinct consideration who in his very learned Books De Repub. Eccles doth copiously handle all the matter of Church-Government But let us consider what it is that he maintaineth In his lib. 5. c. 1. he maintaineth that the whole proper Ecclesiastical Power is meerly Spiritual In cap. 2. that no Power with true Prefecture Jurisdiction Coaction and Domination belongeth to the Church In c. 3. he sheweth that an improper Jurisdiction belongs to it Where he overthroweth the old Schoolmens Description of Power of Jurisdiction and sheweth also the vanity of the common distinction of Power of Order and of Jurisdiction and maintaineth 1. that Power of Jurisdiction followeth ab Ordine as Light from the Sun 2. That all the Power of the Keys which is exercised for Internal effects although about External Matters of Worship or Government belongeth directly to the Potestas Ordinis 3. That the Power of Jurisdiction as distinct from Order and reserved to the Bishops is but the power about the Ordering of External things which is used Principally and Directly for an External Effect that is Church order § 5. p. 35. 4. That it is foolish to separate power of Order from any power of Jurisdiction whatsoever that is properly Ecclesiastical it being wholly Spiritual 5. The Episcopal Jurisdiction not properly Ecclesiastical he maketh to consist in ordering Rites and Ceremonies and Circumstances and Temporals about the Church and about such Modal Determinations about particular persons and actions as are matters of humane prudence which have only a General Rule in Nature or Scripture 6. By which though he hold Episcopacy Jure Divino that it is but such things that he supposeth proper to the Bishop which the Magistrate may determine and make Laws for as Grotius and others prove at last and himself after and as Sir Roger Twisden hath Historically proved to have been used by the Kings of England Histor Def. Cap. 5. 7. That all Ecclesiastical power whatsoever is fully and perfectly conjunct with Order page 36. 8. That this plenitude of power is totally and equally in all Bishops and Presbyters lawfully Ordained and that it is a meer vanity to distinguish in such power of Order Plenitudinem potestatis a parte solicitudinis 9. That this equal power of the Bishop and Presbyter floweth from Ordination and is the Essential Ordinary Ministerial

ordaine and how oft and how oft the Common prayer be read the Surplice worne the Sacraments administred in what place what Registers to be kept what order to be observed in reading the Scriptures and the Apocrypha with abundance the like have all the foresaid answers to prove that they are no proper work of a distinct order There remaineth therefore but the determination of present circumstances which are part of the Ministers proper work or the Lecturer or Clerkes at least As 1. What text to Preach on to day How to expound it and apply it In what method to Preach What words to use How long to Preach 2. In what method words and length to pray where free Prayer is allowed 3. What particular Psalm to Sing and in what tune 4. On what particular daies to administer the Lords Supper besides the great daies Easter Whitsontide c. At what hour to go to Church and when to end 5. What particular sick person to visit and when And what sinner to reprove or admonish personally And who is to be taken for a true penitent and absolved in foro poenitentiali or privately as they distinguish all these are either the personal work of him that officiateth as chewing his meat of a man before he swallow it and degest it or as choosing his medicaments is to the Physician and belongeth to his calling which none should hinder him in of which I make no question And if so it is not the proper work of a Bishop Or else it is fit that this liberty be taken from him and that other men choose for him every day his Text his Method his words his tune his hour and the rest And if so when this also shall be made a Canon no doubt but the King and Parliament and Presbyters in convocation will all have a hand in it and perhaps the Bishops be under the Canon as well as others Yet then we have not found out a Bishops proper work unless it were when he is present in the same assemblies to governe the work in all these circumstances in which I do not contend against him II. If then it lie not in Legislation or Canon making let us consider whether it lie in judging or executing And this must be chiefly about Excommunication and Absolution as it concerneth the Laity And here 1. The business is not to judge of the Law but of the Person by the Law It is not to judge in plaine cases whether we must avoid an impenitent Fornicator a Drunkard a Blasphemer an Heretick c. For if the Bishops say nay we must not believe him or obey him And for difficult instances of the species of sins deserving it is partly the work of an expositor of Scripture to determine of them and partly of the Canons and Laws of the land where Magistrates and Presbyters are efficient and Bishops themselves obliged as well as Presbyters The business therefore is to judge whether this person be guilty of such a Crime and. 2. Whether he be impenitent therein And that this is the work of a Parochus that is a Cohabiting Pastor who is upon the place and knoweth the parties and not of a strange Bishop over a a thousand or many hundred Churches I have partly shewed before and partly shall shew now and partly hereafter At the present let the unexperienced consider of this which any Novice that is upon the place may know 1. A Bishop especially armed with penal terrour or a Chancellour's Court is not like to know of one scandalous Impenitent person of a hundred which the present Pastor is like to know of For experience telleth us that few honest men will accuse their neighbours where they shall but get hatred and foresee no more probality of procuring the persons repentance by it And that Church-Wardens do not and will not do it Many men that fear perjury refuse the oath lest they should break it or sin in keeping it as it bindeth them to prosecute many men for Conscientious Nonconformity And those that take the Cath before they fear an oath will make no Conscience at all of breaking it So that a matter of notorious fact is past dispute The land knoweth that not one Swearer Curser Fornicator Adulterer Railer Thief Derider of Scripture and Religion c. of a multitude is ever accused at the Bishops Court Whereas the Present Pastor can scarce choose but know the greatest part of these in his Parish by dwelling among them where he shall have frequent notice of it Say as long as you will that this is long of the Minister or Long of the Church-Wardens or of the Apparitor we know that the thing is so 2. And in Church judgments where a mans repentance is the cause in question he hath the advantage an hundred fold that is present For the tenor of his life before and after will be of great signification in judging of this A man that never fell into such a sin before and that quickly lamenteth it by free confession known to the Pastor may easily be believed to be penitent But a man that hath many years continued in a wicked life and that after all admonition and perswasions to repent confessing one day and sinning the next and perhaps deriding the Pastor and making a jest of his own confessions is not so quickly to be believed And yet the strange Diocesans or Chancellour shall not know the difference nor hear any more at the best than I repent And whereas they say if he sin again he is to be accused again 1. They know de facio that this is seldome done except against some Conscientious Nonconformists 2. And when neighbours see that the man whom they enraged against them by an accusation cometh home again by saying I Repent and paying his fees and doth but watch to execute his malice against the accusers they will meddle in such improfitable work no more 3. And whereas the Chancelor or Diocesane must go upon the witnesses report 1. The credit of the witnesses will be unknown to them because it lyeth upon the honesty of the persons whom they know not but by other persons nor those other but by others and they are forced to take all our slight reports usualy from some flatterers of themselves almost the worst men in the Parish accounted by them the best and most credible because they know not them aright nor the rest at all 2. And how unsatisfactory a thing it is to a mans Conscience to Judge at random or upon the uncertain credit of they scarce know who in a c●se of Excommunication or Absolution whereas the present Pastor may goe on far more cleare and satisfactory grounds 4. Moreover the Conviction of a sinner before Excommunication or Absolution requireth a great deal of time and a great many words and those chosen with the greatest skill and set home with the greatest Life and Light and Love that can be manifested by the speaker

and work upon them 4. That it maketh the Discipline or Government instituted by Christ in the very matter of it to become impossible and impracticable and so excludeth it under pretence that they are the only persons impowred for it and they set up a kind of secular Courts and Government in its stead and so are practically Erastians I shall conclude all with these Consectaries which follow what is already proved Cons. 1. Such Diocesane principles greatly strengthen the Brownists cause who deny us to have any Church or Ministry of divine institution as is before shewed And as for them that say No form of Church Government is of divine institution Ans 1. It is well that they are forced to except both the universal and the particular Churches and expound this only of Associations of Churches 2. It is well that yet they confess that the office of Pastors is of Divine institution who are made Church Governours by Christ 3. But it is scant well that yet they subscribe to the book of Ordination which asserteth the Divine right of three distinct orders if they do not believe it 4. And these also too much gratifie the Brownist who affirmeth that we have no Churches of Divine institution and thinketh that it is no fault to separate but from a Church of humane invention Cons 2. To say that no man High or Low is bound in his place and calling to endeavour a Reformation of such a Church-Government and so to justifie the neglecters and opposers of all such Reformation is to draw upon a mans self the guilt of so much pollution and of the ruin of such a multitude of souls as should make that Conscience smart and tremble which is not seared and past all feeling Cons 3. To swear or subscribe or say and declare that though millions should swear to endeavour such a reformation in their places and callings by lawful means there is no obligation lieth on any one of them from that Vow or Oath So to endeavour it is The Lord have Mercy on that Land City or Soul that is guilty of it Cons 4. All carnal interest and all carnal reason is on the Diocesanes side and all the lusts of the heart of man and consequently all the Devil can do Therefore while carnal Christians make a Religion of their lusts and interest and pride and covetousness and idleness are more predominant than the fear of God and the love of souls no wonder if the Diocesane cause prevail with such Cons 5. A truly sanctified heart knoweth the nature and worth of Grace and the nature and weight of the Pastoral Office and is devoted to God and the good of souls and contemneth the ease and pleasures of the flesh and the riches and the honours of this World and is the best argument in the World against such Diocesane Prelacy and must at least be weakened before it can subscribe never to endeavour to amend it Cons 6. No wonder if the most serious zealous practical sort of Christians are ordinarily against such Diocesanes Prelacy when it hath the described effects and that those among themselves Cons 7. No wonder if the principal work of such Diocesanes be to silence faithful preachers and persecute zealous Christians where they had espoused a cause so contrary to the interest of Godliness that all these are unreconcilable thereto Speak not of any other Prelacy Cons 8. Take but from such Prelacy the plumes which it hath stolen from Magistrates and Presbyters and it will be a naked thing and simply a name Cons 9. If Magistrates were not the Prelates Executioners or seconded them not by writs de excommunicato capiendo c. such Prelacy would give up as dead or aweary of it self Cons 10. The ill Mixtures of force and secular power corrupteth Church Discipline and depriveth it of its proper nature use and force maketh it another thing or undiscernable Cons 11. Though in cases of necessity civil Rulers may trust Church men with part of their power about religion it is far better out of necessity that they keep if wholly to themselves And let them thunder their excommunications without any power of the Sword Cons 12. Such Bishops and Arch-Bishops as overthrow not the Churches officers and discipline of Christ must be submitted to by all peaceable men though we cannot prove them as such to be of Divine institution CHAP. XXIV Some testimonies of Prelatists of the late state of the Church of England lest we be supposed partial in our description of it 1. FOr the true understanding of the late state of the Church of England the Reader may find some light in the Lord Falklands Parliament Speeches and Sir Edward Dearings and in Heylins own History of the Sabbath with Pocklingtons Sunday no Sabbath and the Bishop of Lincolnes book of the Holy Table name and things and Dr. Heylens answer to him And the same Heylins History of Arch-Bishop Laud and from Mr. Thornedicks four last bookes II. To what common scorne all serious Godliness was brought by the rabble through the abuse of the name Puritane used by the Prelatists to make odious the Nonconformists is after shewed out of Bishop Downame and Mr. Robert Bolton who is large and frequent in it III. Bishop Halls Confession of the corruptions in the Church Governours and Government in his Modest offer and Peacemaker and his disclaiming those that deny it I have cited elsewhere IV. Williams Arch-Bishop of Yorke Morton Bishop of Durham with many other Episcopal Divines of greatest name and worth did assemble in Westminister and collected a Catalogue of things needing reformation in Discipline and worship which are to be seen in print V. A Prelatical Divine in a Treat called Englands faithful Reprover and Monitor thus speaketh to his prelates and Pastor pag. 60 61. c. And now with what depth of sorrow ought we to recount your past errours partly through neglect of duty partly through abuse of power were the faithful in your trust did ye diligently instruct the ignorant severely punish the disobedient Endeavour to reclaime those that walked disorderly and contrary to the Gospel That ye were violently bent against Action and Schisme against singularity and Non-conformity all confess a few excepted who thought nothing too much yea nothing enough in this kind how opposite soever to Christian mildness prudence and Conscience But in the mean time by reason of your Connivence or Supineness in the Episcopal office Ignorance and Superstition every where misled the people and caused them to wander in darkness not knowing whither they went Profaness like a rank pernicious weed overspread the field and Vineyard of the Lord And the prophane and vicious lives of those who stood up in defence of your Government occasionally gave increase and added strength to the opposite factious party who alledged this as one main ground of their separation from the Church that those who adhered to it were for the most part