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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

Towns by that name● But at last the Bishops being loath to diminish their Jurisdiction decreed that very small Cities should have no Bishops ne vi●c●eat nomen Episc●pi And in process of time in some Countries the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or City was appropriated at the Princes pleasure to some very few Corporations peculiarly priviledged above the rest So that a King that would have had but one Bishop in his Kingdom as it 's said that all the Aba●●ian Empire hath had but one might have done it by calling but one Town a City VII Yet the People and Bishops being sensible that there was more work For a Bishop in a City-Diocess than one could do in many Countries they had Rural Bishops set over P●pul●ns country Churches And tho these were subject to the Diocesans yet hereby the Churches were multiplied But the Bishops soon grew jealous and weary of these Rural-Bishops and most places put them down and set up instead of them a kind of Itinerant visiting Presbyters empowring all Arch-Bishops and Ach Deacons till at last to save themselves the labour and yet not diminish their Dominion they set up the Courts of Lay-Chancellors Officials and many such Offices besides the Arch-Deacons Surrogates c. VIII In England as is agreed by most Historians at first one Bishop had but one Church or Temple And at Luindisfarne saith Bede It was so po●● a thing that it was a house thatcht with reeds The Pastor of this one Church was to convert as many as he could in all the Countrey about him The Heathen Country might be his Diocess but not his Church The converted Christians got into several Monasteries and not into Parish-Churches These Monasteries were partly for Society in Religious Exercise and partly for Studies like Schools to Educate Youth for the Ministry So that long a Diocess was only the Bishops Church with divers Monasteries At last Gentlemen for their convenience built and endowed Parish-Churches the Bishops old single Churches being called the Cathedrals And finally by the help of Princes all the Land was divided into Parishes subject to the Cathedral-Bishops to whom Deans and Chapters were added in imitation of the old Bishops Colledg of Presbyters in every single Church IX When the Rural-Bishops were put down the Presbyters power in their several Parishes was somewhat enlarged And the Diocesses at last became so great that the Bishops were sain to commit more of the oversight to the Presbyters Tho they kept them under by severe Canons Lay-Deputies and the Cogent Sword X. It grew then a controversie among the Papists themselves whether the Parish Incumbents were proper Pastors and had any Power of Government and how much And my Objectors confess that they were reputed Pastors among the Papists and that Linwood calleth them Pastors and the Laity Oves I have cited in Treat of Epis ●ilesa●us and many more that prove it Ant. de Dom. Spalatensis is large and full in it Sp●lman in R. A●l●ricks Law shews that the Bishop and Presbyter made but one of their seven Orders A great sort of the Schoolmen say the same Most Drs. say That the Presbyters essentially as Sacredetes have the power of the Keys inf●ro interi●re by which they mean not a power that must be kept secret but that which consisteth in the perswas●v● use of Gods word on C●nfer●n●e privately or publickly as distinct from Magisterial and C●gent Power And if they ●e of one Order then if one be a Past●r the other is so also That they are taken but in partem curae is nothing against it but for it For equal Presbyters in one Church have each but partem curae The Reformation finding th●ngs in this case determined none of the disputes de nomine Whether Parish Rectors shall be called ●pis●op●s Gregis or Pastors or Rectors or I●cumb●nts but use these names promiscuously Nor did they dispute whether the Parishes are Political Churches But the Definition and not the Name is the thing now before us in debate God hath given every such Minister the essence of a Pastoral oversight of his Flock Men may hinder the Exercise but can no more alter the Christian Office Power than they can deprive a Husband of the power over his Wife And the Diocesans at last have been necessitated to permit the essential Pastoral power by the word to the Incumbents having none else to use it by But Lawyers have taught many to call nothing Government that is not Cogent on the unwilling and so to say that Government is not in the Presbyters but the Bishops and that all is derived from the King which is all true of Cogent Government by the Sword in f●ro exteriore but not as to Pastoral Government of the Flock by Gods w●rd As Bishop Bilson of Obedience hath distinguished and applied well at large XI Now to come nearer our Case Diocesan Bishops have put down the ranks of Bishops which of old was setled as Presidents over the Presbyters in every Church in Cities and of the lowest Order described by Ignatius and Cyprian and others Every lowest Church hath not now a Bishop over the Presbyters as it had for divers hundred years And by this they have unchurched all the old sort of Churches in the sense of them that say There is no Church where there is no Bishop over Pre●byters And they have set up a Diocesan Church and Bishop only w●●re should be many Churches and Bishops and thus 〈◊〉 hom●●●m I argued with them c. But indeed this Parochial Episcopacy or Pr●sid●ncy being wrongfully said to be Essential to the Church being at most b●t useful to peace ad melius esse and the Epicopacy or Pastoral care of the Laity without any power over the Clergy being it that is essential to single Church Pastors In truth no man can alter this In Consent and ●●putati●n it is altered by those that think Parish Curates no Pastors and deny any Essential power over their Flocks But it is not in Consent and Reputation destroyed by them that acknowledg their Essential power and subject only themselves as Pastors to the oversight of Diocesans and Magistrates They do but destroy the 〈…〉 of Episcopacy of humane Institution which was over Presbyters in 〈◊〉 Ch●rch●● but not the Episcopacy over the Flock which is of Christs Ins●i●utio● XII 〈◊〉 whether most in England are of this Opinion or of that for 〈◊〉 or for meer g●verning Episcopacy and which way the Laws go and 〈◊〉 may be called the sense of the Church when Convocations and Bishops seem to differ and men change their Opinions with the Age and Interest it is impossible for me to be sure But I know how they govern by what Canons and by what Courts and as all their Cogent power is from the King it is no wonder if they be chosen by him But the old sort of Bishops that had no forcing power was so constantly otherwise chosen that their Canons nulled the Magistrates

meritorious cause but Christs righteousness but that righteousness justifieth not Infidels nor any but qualified Receivers and Faith is that qualification Is not this true And is it not enough If you would preach or write censurious disputes whether it be the Physitian or the Medicine or the Patients taking it that cureth him or the Meat or the Giver or the eating it that feedeth men take your course I had rather answer that and most of your Books w●th groans and tears than with disputing XV. As for his threatning to open my faults as fast as I discover them I may save him the labour and lament them my self Two I will confess now besides all heretofore 1. I fear I did sometime by connivence and by too oft preaching against the faults of the Bishops about 1640 encourage some that were set upon accusing and separating over much Tho I ever disliked and opposed that Spirit and fore●●w what Divisions and Sins attended 2. Tho when I took the League and Cov●nant it was not imposed but offered to Volunteers and I never gave i● but to one and kept the Countrie from taking it yet seeing now what I saw not then I repent that I took it Tho being taken I dare not say that it bindeth not as a secondary Self-Obligation to that which God bound me to before My reasons are 1. Because as after imposed no knowing man can believe that the thousands of ignorant people that took it who never understood the controversies of Prelacy could take it in Truth Judgment and Righteousness and so must sin 2. Because it cut the Nation in two parts on pretence of Union and engaged us against such excellent Persons as Vsher Davenant and against the greatest half of the Land when we should have united on the terms of the B●ptismal Covenant 3. Because being before by God and our Allegiance sufficiently ●lliged to the King by a further Vow of mens own making against his will they entangled the consciences of the people about the meaning and the obligation of it some thinking it bound them not to him and other that it bound them to fight for him and yet to oppose the Prelacy that he was for And now the Law for Corporations binds men to declare that there is no ob●igation at all from that O●th either for the King or against any sin XVI There are also more than one of my Opponents who tell me That because I live in prosperity my self and suffer not therefore I am insensible of the case of suffer●rs and add affliction to the afflicted and have not due compassion on them Ans If this be true it is a great sin But 1. why do the same men accuse me for perswading men to avoid sufferings as they think by ill means It is indeed to save men from suffering by mistake for that which was their duty to the injury of others and to reserve their patience for better uses being like enough to have need of it all 2. I thank God I am so far from being insensible of the sufferings of the church of Christ throughout the world that I may say with Paul Rom. 9.1 I have continual sorrow in my heart for the wars blood c●uelties exercised on them and much more for their own sin And sure all the wrath that is agai●st me for labouring to save this Land from division self-destroying and suffering 1661. and since might have been avoided had I been so self-saving as the accusers feign me 3. I thank God my suff●rings have been far less than I expected or deserved of God and not worthy to be called sufferings in comparison of thousands in foreign Lands And I humbly thank the King that they have been no greater but if they had all had been now almost at an end I am not willing to name them lest it seem to savour of impatience but remembring Pauls example to such accusers to the Corinthians I will briefly say 1. From 1639. to 1660. I suffered more assaults and oppositi●n than some of them by divers penalties for divers duties against iniquity 2. I think I was the first silenced since the bishops return And the hot displeasure against me for my pac●ficatory labour 1660. and 1661. is not unknown 3. Enquire whether there be more virulent and voluminous accusations printed against me or any one of them 4 I have had no P●storal maintenance these 23 years and no Church to maintain me nor any stipendary Lecture and for about 15. years I received no gift of money from any but one man which I could not without incivility refuse 5. When I went twice a day to their Church at Acton I was sent to the common Gaol accused for a Sermon for meekness and obedience and submission to Government and when I built a Chappel it cost me about 20 l. to get a Minister out of the prison that had formerly been imprisoned for the Kings service for preaching but one Sermon there when I was twenty miles off 6. All that I had was distrained on and taken from me all my books and the very bed I lay on for preaching after though bona fide they had been on just considerations given or made over to another and were not mine but the present use of them only reserved to me and this by many warrants as convict by the oaths of I know not whom nor when nor could ever know my accuser or witness nor was ever summoned to speak for my self much less to examine the witnesses 7. I have been put in city and countrey to remove my habitation about twelve times and my person twenty in the midst of my pains to my great cost and trouble 8. How many thousand pounds my conscience hath cost me in the loss of a bishoprick by the Lord Chancellor offered since 1661. besides all other losses and charges I leave you to compute and ask you which of you hath lost more tho I acknowledg with thankfulness to God that I never wanted food or raiment 9. And while I am now writing for Parochial churches and communion and know no Law of the land that I break I am hated and while I keep my bed in pain or my couch there are new assaults which I think not fit to publish 10. And all this is but as a flea-biting in comparison of the sufferings which I carry about me by continual pain or langour through age and many uncurable diseases And under the expectations of death how small a matter is it to me whether I dye in a Gaol for my duty to God or in my hired house out of which I have very few times gone these two years but it hath been a prison to me What difference but conceit and consent If our Rulers think it for the interest of any cause or party that I dye in prison I shall acknowledg Gods will in the effect of theirs and it shall not be in their power to make me suffer for any thing but

for another yet agreeing in the same ordinary external Communion one part may be called national as well as the other The question is de ●omine the name equivocal from diversity of relations I own 1. A Christian Kingdom 2. I own a national association of Parish Churches and Pastors 3. Tho these submit to Diocesan superiority and be parts of a Diocess but true single Churches I do not therefore separate from them 4 A national Church headed by one constitutive pastoral Head I disown call which you will the national Church But saith he of his approved parish Church P. 14. Such a Church a●●i●meth to it self all that past●ral p●wer that in pursuance of Canon and Statute Law is fixed in the Bishop Ans Incogitantly spoken Do all Independents assume the power of Ordination Jurisdiction over others Citations Licencing Subspendings Degradings silencings instituting inducting c. which are so fixed on the Bishop If none of this be pastoral power then the appropriating it is no depriving parish Ministers of pastoral power and to be under Magistrates power nulls not the pastors XLIX What he saith about unlawful terms of Communion p 21. c. in the instances of kneeling putting off the hat standing up c. I answer 1. The Author all along seemeth to forget that I am not accusing him not telling every man his duty but only giving the Reasons of my own and such others practice so they make a long ado to vindicate him whose Manuscript I answered and say His question was only whether it be lawful to communicate with the churches as setled by Law and not in other respects When I ever told them I meddle with none of their Questions but my own viz 1. Whether I and such other do well or ill in that communion we hold with the Parish Churches 2. Whether all Protestants in England are bound in conscience to renounce and avoid Communion in the Liturgy with all Parish Churches and Chappels and rather to give over all church worship I only gave my Reasons why that Manuscript divulged and boasted of as unanswerable changed not my Judgment and I answered that in his Arguments which went further than the question put by them and assaulted my own assertions having before in my Christian Directory and cure of Church divisions without naming him fully answered his printed Reasons to prove it unlawful to use an imposed form or Liturgy especially because Ministers must use their own gifts But if any man believe that it is a sin to communicate kneeling or standing or sitting unless he lye down as Christ did or at any time save at a feast or supper or any where save in an Inn or an upper room or with any women or more than twelve or if they think it sin to kneel at prayer or be uncovered or to sing Psalms in our Metre and Tunes whether these men should separate from all the Churches that will not receive them in their own way or how far they do well or ill that will not let every man do what he will is none of the case that I have before me It will not follow that I must separate from a Church that bids me kneel and be uncovered c. because you take it to be sin put not your measures on all others And here because same maketh Mr. Faldo the Author of the Vindication which I answered that I may so far vindicate him as to shew that it 's ●earce likely I ask whether if Mr. Faldo did well as a pastor to keep up a church at Barn●● many years which would not endure the singing of a psalm of praise to God but constantly forbore it tho his Judgment was against them besides that many of them were not only against Infant Baptism but f●rther differ'd in other things was this communion more lawful or laudable than with honest parish Ministers in the Liturgy Did he the whole office of a pastor What if the Bishop had forbid him to sing ●salms Is not the Church State more concerned in the whole congregation than in an absent Bishop what greater omission or defect is there in many Parish-Churches I again say that I am so far of the Judgment of Hildersham John Ball c. that I had rather joyn caeteris paribus in a Church that useth the Psalms Chapters and all the Lords-day Prayers in the Liturgy before Sermon than one that only giveth us one Psalm or none and a Pulpit-prayer and a Sermon without all the rest of Church Worship L. I will conclude all with repeating a little of the Explication of my misused writings I. The pastoral Oversight of the Laity by the Elders or Bishops of the several Flocks is of Christs Institution and belongs to all true Presbyters And tho in necessity it may be done by divers transient Ministers pro tempore most regularly every Church should have it s stated Pastors II. Where such Churches are large the work requireth many Ministers where each one hath but part of the Charge III. Reason and Church-consent among these made one a President over the rest and called him the Bishop pecularly if it were in Marks days as Hierom saith it was in John's And tho this be not essential to a Church it is lawful and fit and at last it grew to so great a Reputation and Opinion of necessity that all Churches had such Bishops and gave them a Negative voice and ordained not without them and defined Churches as essentiated by Relation to them Ecclesia est plebs Episcopo adunata If now such men as J.O. Mr. Nye Dr. Goodwin c. should have in one Church six or seven young men of their own training up to be their Assistant-presbyters I do not think an Independent Church would take it for any crime that he should have a Negative voice in acts of Order and Discipline or that they should ordain Ministers therein without his Consent IV. By degrees single Congregations increased to as many as our great Parishes that have Chappels and tho still they communicated in the chief Church at some special times of the year they ordinarily met in divers places and the Presbyters officiated some in one meeting and some in another at first whosoever the Bishop daily sent but after their particular Tyths or Chappels were assigned to each yet all together were esteemed but one Church governed by one Bishop and his Colledg of Presbyters V. When they increased yet more and more fixed Chappels were assigned to fixed Presbyters but not as distinct Churches but parts of the Diocesan Church tho at last they were larger than one Bishop and Colledg could guide according to the first Institution VI. Yet long every Christian City had a Bishop and Church and every incorporate big Town like our Corporations or Market-Towns was called a City not because it had a Market as a reverend Slanderer seigneth me to lay but because Custom the master of Language called all Corporations and great