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A26909 The dangerous schismatick clearly detected and fully confuted for the saving of a distracted nation from that which would destroy Christian love and unity : occasioned by a resolver of three cases about church-communion / by Richard Baxter ... Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. 1683 (1683) Wing B1237; ESTC R22896 59,069 62

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not common one mans Wife and Children are not anothers So the Bishop of London of Oxford c. must govern his Church for the good of the Universal but he is not the Bishop of Gloucester Norwich Paris Rome These are differences enow to constitute a numerical difference of Churches Paul distinguisheth the Bishops of Philippi Ephesus c. from others Do you yet see no Priviledges that one hath Proper and not common to all none that make a difference in specie but both numerical and gradual 1. All Churches have not Bishop Jewel Bishop Andrews Doctor Stillingfleet Doctor Sherlock to be their Teachers All Churches be not taught all that 's in this Resolver 2. All Churches have not men of the same soundness nor excellency of Parts It was once taken for lawful to account them specially worthy of double honour who laboured in the Word and Doctrine and to esteem men for their works sake Paul saith of Timothy I have no man like minded If those that heard not a Sermon in many years differed not from your Congregation why do you preach I am reproached in Print for telling the world this notorious truth That I lived till ten years old where four men four years hired successively were Readers and School-masters two Preached as it was called once a Month the other two never Two drank themselves to beggery After I lived where many Parishes about us had no Preachers The Parish that I lived in had a Church with a Vicar that never preached and a Chappel with a Parson eighty years old that had two Livings twenty Miles distant and never preacht His Son a Reader and Stage-player was sometime his Curate His Grand-son my School-master his Curate next that never preacht in his life but drunk himself to beggery One year a Taylor read the Scripture and the old man the best of them all said the Common-Prayer without book for want of sight The next year a poor Thresher read the Scripture After that a Neighbours Son my Master was Curate who never preacht but once and that when he was drunk in my hearing on Mat. 25. Come ye Blessed and go ye Cursed the saddest Sermon that ever I heard These things were no rarities Now my assertion is That the Church that had such as Austin Chrysostome Jewel Andrews and such worthy men as London now hath many had Priviledges distinct from these and many the like that I was in If you say that every Bishop and Preacher is as much the Bishop and Preacher to all other single Churches as to that which is his Title then 1. He must be condemned for not teaching them all 2. Then he may claim maintenance from them all 3. Then he may intrude into any mans Charge 4. Then no Church is unchurcht for want of a Bishop for any one Bishop is Bishop to every Church in the World and so ubi Episcopus ibi Ecclesia signifieth but that Church and Bishop are on the same Earth and Ecclesia est Plebs Episcopo adunata may be verified if there be but one in the World 5. And so Mr. Dodwell and such are self-confuted before you are aware Geneva Holland and all Presbyterians are true Churches for they have all Bishops e. g. The Bishop of London is Bishop to them all For if one man be no more a Member of one single Church than of another and so no more a Subject to one Bishop than to another then one Bishop is no more Pastor of one Church than of another 7. And how can you magnifie the Church of England for a Wise Learned Pious Clergy above other Churches if all Priviledges be common and they have no proper Pastors of their own 8. Do you think that the Church e. g. Of Hippo that was in Austins dayes was the same numerical single Church with that which is there now were there any or with the Diocesan Church of London if not then at least distance of time and change of Persons maketh divers Particular Churches and it 's no more against the unity of the Church Universal to have divers particular Churches in it in the same Age than in divers Ages In short Diversity of matter and form maketh a numerical Diversity as of Natural so of Politick Bodies of the same species But the Churches of Ephesus Smyrna Thyatira Philadelphia c. were of divers matter and form numerically Ergo they were divers Political Churches Sure God doth not commend Laodicea for Philadelphia's Church Virtues nor condemn the Church of Philadelphia for the other Churches Sins And if the Angels be Bishops why are some Bishops praised as the Bishops of such Churches and the Bishops of other Churches threatned But I confess this is a ready way to end the Controversies between the Bishops of several Churches which snall be greatest if they be all but one But I hope that when the Bishop of Rome and his Church was corrupted it is not true that every Bishop and Church fell with him or with any that hath turned to Mahumetanism To be no longer on this which I thought no Prelatist would ever have put me on if these men speak not notoriously against Scripture against the constant Language of Canons and Fathers Historians and Lawyers and all Antiquity and all Christian Countreys and Divines yea even those that at Trent would have had only the Pope to be of immediate Divine Right then I know not any thing by Reading And if poor Nonconformists must be put to defend themselves against such singularities and be Schismaticks unless they will differ from all the Christian World of all Ages there is no Remedy § 7. But p. 5 6. he tell us that a Church is made by a Divine Covenant-God only can constitute a Church Such Persons if there be any so absurd are not worth disputing with who dare affirm the Church to be an humane Creature or the invention of men And no Church can depend on humane Contracts for then a Church would be a humane Creature and Constitution whereas a Church can be founded only on a Divine Covenant 1. Who would think but this man were a Nonconformist that talks so like them e. g. Amesius in Medul Theol. against humane Church Forms But what then will Bishop Bilson and almost all other Bishops and Christians be thought of who affirm Patriarchal and Metropolitical Churches and many of the Diocesane to be but humane Constitutions and Inventions And if these be not worth the disputing with it seems that you differ from them more than Separatists do and then were not all these Schismaticks and then are not you a Schismatick if you communicate with them yea your Mr. Dodwel himself maketh Diocesan Churches to be a humane Creature and A. Bishop Bromhall much pleadeth for mans power to make Patriarchal Churches and so do such others 2. But is it true that humane Contracts make not a Church Ans. Not alone But I think that all Churches are made by mutual Contracts