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A27034
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A second sheet for the ministry iustifying our calling against Quakers, seekers, and papists and all that deny us to be the ministers of Christ by Richard Baxter.
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Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.
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1657
(1657)
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Wing B1404; ESTC R17263
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18,288
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the place 3. Either the Election Ordination or both is it that giveth them the Essence of their Papacy If Election then there hath been a long interruption For somewhile the People chose and in other ages the Emperors chose and in these times the Cardinals and therefore some of them had no lawful choyce And for Ordination or Consecration 1. There have been three or four Popes at once and all were consecrated that yet are now confessed to have been no true Popes 2. Inferiours only consecrated 3. And such as had no power themselves Besides that the Sea hath been very many years vacant and some score years the Pope hath been at Avignion and had but the name of P. of Rome And when three or four have been Pope at once Bellarmine confesseth learned men knew not which was the Right yea General Councils knew not The Council at Basil thought Faelix the fifth was the right Pope but it proved otherwise so that many palpable intercisions have been made at Rome 2. Our Ordination hath been less interrupted then theirs Object But you are not ordained by Bishops Answ 1. Almost all in England are till of late if that will serve 2. Presbyters may orâ—â—â—â— in case of Necessity as the generality of the old Episcopal men grant and their Ordination is not Null 3. Presbyters have power to Ordain and were restrained only from the exercise by humane Laws as many of the Schoolmen confess 4. Presbyters have still ordained with the Bishop therefore they had authority to it and the work is not alien to their Function 5. Our Parish Presbyters are Bishops having some of them Assistants and Deacons under them Or as Grotius notes at least they are so as being the chief Guides of that Church Their own Rule is that every City should have a Bishop and every corporation is truly a City {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and therefore must have a Bishop 6. The Jus Divinum of Prelacy is lis sub judice 7. Bishop Vsher maintaining to me the validity of the Ordination of the Presbyters without a Bishop told me how he answered King C. who askt him for an instance in Church-History viz. That Hierom ad Evag. tels us of more that the Presbyters of Alexandria till the dayes of Heroclas and Dionysius took one from among themselves and made him Bishop therefore they may make a Presbyter which is less 8. It s at last confessed that in Scripture-times there were no Presbyters under Bishops but the single Churches had single Pastors 9. No man can prove Ordination by fixed Bishops over many Churches now called Diocesan in the first age The fixed Bishops had no more at first but single Churches Object But you never received power from the Bishop to ordain and therefore cannot have that which was never given you Answ If they put men into that Office to which God hath affixed the power of Ordination then they do their part to convey the power As if you marry a couple and express not the mans authority over the woman yet he hath it nevertheless by being made her husband So he that is made a Pastor in City or Country may do the work of a Pastor though each particular was not named Proposition 7. Ordination is ordinarily necessary as a means of our right entrance but not absolutely necessary to the Being of our Office or Power For 1. God having already settled the Office Duty and Power and what Qualifications shall be necessary and giving these Qualifications to men he hath left nothing to man but mutual consent and to judge of the person qualified and solemnly introduce him 2. God hath not tyed himself or us absolutely to the â—udgement of Ordainers If a Bishop ordain a Heathen or any man void of essential Qualifications its Null as being against a flat command of God And if Bishops refuse to ordain us Pastors the people must take them without because the command of Preaching Hearing Sacraments c. is greater then that of Ordination and before it Positives yield to natural morals and matters of Order to the substance and end of the Duty ordered See my Christian Concord pag. 82 83 84. 3. Ordination is no more necessary to the Ministry then Baptism to Christianity As those that are first Princes by Title must be crowned and those that are Souldiers by contract must be listed and take colours and those that are husband and wife by contract must be solemnly married which are celebrating perfecting actions so they that are first heart-Christians by Believing or by parents Dedicating them to God must be solemnly entred under the hand of the Minister And those that are by approbation and consent initially Ministers must by solemnization have the Office publikely delivered them by the Ministers of Christ So that as a man is a Christian indeed before Baptism initially and is justified initially before and in case of Necessity may be saved without it the Papists confessing that the vow will serve so is it in the case of Ordination to the Ministry Proposition 8. It is only Christ and not the Ordainers People or Magistrates that give us our Office and Power Only the people and approvers design the person which shall receive it from Christ and our own consent and the peoples is of necessity thereto and our own much as theirs and the Ordainers do Instrumentally invest us in it But the Power and Duty arise directly from Gods Institution when the person is designed Now I proceed to prove our calling Argument 4. We have a far clearer Call then the Priests before Christ had to the Priesthood For they were not of the true Line they bought the Priesthood they corrupted the Doctrine and worship and were of wicked lives And yet Christ commanded submission to their Ministry Ergo Argument 5. If we have as clear a call to our Office as any Magistrates on earth have to theirs then we are true Ministers of Christ For they are true Magistrates and God is the Fountain of their power too and its impossible they should have any but from him Or from him but by his means Officers have no power but from the Soveraign The Prince was at first chosen by God immediately as well as the Apostles were by Christ yet no Prince can plead an uninterrupted succession thence And if they may Reign without it we may be Pastors without it and yet I cannot say that we are without it though Princes be Kings were formerly anointed by inspired Prophets and were Prophets themselves And as the continuance of this is not necessary to them so neither to us The differences between their power and ours makes nothing against this Argument If conquest or the peoples consent or Birth or directing Providences can prove their Title then Consent Ordination Providence with due Qualifications will sure prove ours were it not for fear they should soon hear the Arguments more set home against themselves that are now
of Christ But such are the Ministers before mentioned of the Reformed Churches Ergo This will be proved at once with the next which is Argument 3. Either these Pastors of the Reformed Churches are the true Ministers of Christ or else there are none such visible in the world But there are such visibly and certainly in the world as was proved Else there is no Church no Ordinances no Christianity no Christ For he can be no King without Subjects and Laws no Master without a School and Scholars no Physitian without Patients no Husband without his Spouse no Head without a Body no Intercessor without a Church to intercede for And to Believe the holy Catholick Church and the Communion of Saints is part of our Belief and therefore the Christian faith is gone if these be gone And that either we or None are Christs true Ministers I prove thus 1. We challenge the adversary to name us the true Church and Ministry if these be none of them where be they and who are they speak out or give up your wicked cause If you know not who they be or where then how know you that there are any such True Ministers are like a Light that shineth to all the house even the lights of the world and like a City on a hill that cannot be hid Matth. 5.14 15 16. 2. But let us try the particulars 1. The Seekers have no Church or Ministry 2. The Quakers have no Ordination that we know of and are every way so unworthy and had no being in the world till a few years ago that he is either no Christian or of a crazed brain that thinks Christ hath no Church or Ministry but them 3. The Anabaptists Socinians Swenkfeldians Familists Paracelsians Weigelians and such like have no more to shew for their Ministry and Churches then we but their errors and are so few and so lately sprung up that of them also I may say that he that takes them for the only Church or Ministers is either out of the faith or much out of his wits 4. The Eastern and Southern Churches have no more to shew for their Ministry and Churches then we but are incomparably more ignorant and erroneous few of them doing more then Read their Liturgies and Homilies and so administer the Sacraments 5. All the controversie therefore lyeth between us and the Papists Either they are true Ministers and a Church or not If not then it s left to us If they are then we are so much more For we have much more unquestionable evidence of our Title 1. The Office of a Tâ—aching Guiding worshiping Presbyter which we are in is beyond all question and yielded by themselves to be of Divine Institution But the office of a Mass-Priest to make a god of a piece of bread and turn bread into flesh so that there shall be Quantity colour taste c. without bread or any subject and a mans eyes tast or feeling shall not know that its bread or wine when we see taste and feel it as also to celebrate publike worship in an unknown tongue this Office is more questionable then ours 2. It remaineth a great doubt whether the Pope be not the Antichrist but of our Ministry there 's no such doubt 3. For Knowledge Godliness and Utterance and all true Ministerial abilities as it s well known what an ignorant Rabble their common secular Mass-Priests are so those military Fryers and Jesuites that are chosen of purpose to play their game among us and credit their cause if they have any reliques of truth or modesty will confess that the generality of our Ministers are much beyond theirs for parts and Piety or at least that we cannot be denied to be true Ministers for want of necessary Abilities We should rejoyce if their Ministers Priests or Jesuites were neer of such Piety as those of the Reformed Churches Some of their Jesuites and Fryers are learned men in which also we have those that equal the best of them but for the learning ability or Piety of the common Ministers on both sides there is no comparison to be made 4. All the Question then is of the way of entrance And there 1. The Papists seek not the Peoples consent so much as we do 2. They despise the Magistrates consent in comparison of us 3. And for Ordination which is it that all the stress must be laid on we have it and neerer the Rule of God then they Are 〈◊〉 ordained with fasting prayer and imposition of hands so are we M 〈…〉 it be by one of a superiour Order Who then shall Ordain or consecrate the Pope And yet a multitude of our Ministers are ordained 〈◊〉 Bishops if that be necessary But the great Objection is that we have not an uninterrupted succession from the Apostles and so those that ordained us had no Power and therefore could not give it to us Proposition 6. The want of an uninterrupted succession and so of Power in the Ordainers doth not disable our title to the Ministry or set us in a worse condition then the Papists For if it be only the succession of possession of the Office there is no man of brains can deny but we have an uninterrupted succession down from the Apostles But if it be a succession of Right Ordination that is questioned 1. The Papists have none such themselves 2. We have more of it then they 3. It is not necessary that this be uninterrupted All these I prove 1. The Popes themselves from whom their power flows have been Hereticks denied the immortality of the soul Whoremongers Sodomites Simonists Murderers so that for many of them successively the Papists confess they were Apostatical and not Apostolical see in their own Writers the lives of silve. 2. Alexand. 3 6. John 13. 22. 23. Greg. 7. Vrban 7. and abundance more Joh. 13. was proved in Council to have ravished maids and wives at the Apostolick doors murdered many drunk to the Devil askt help at dice of Jupiter and Venus and was kill'd in the act of Adultery Read the proofs in my Book against Popery pag. 269 270 255 101. The Council at Pisa deposed two Popes at once called them Hereticks departed from the faith The Council at Constance deposed Joh. 23. as holding that there was no eternal life immortality of the soul or Resurrection The Council at Basil deposed Eugenius 4. as a Simonist and perjured wretch a Schismatick and obstinate Heretick Now these men are uncapable of the Ministry as an Infidel is for want of Essential Qualifications As Copper is no currant coyn though the stamp of the Prince against his will be put upon it Undisposed matter cannot receive the form A fit man unordained is neerer the Ministry then such a man ordained So that here was a Nullity 2. And all the following Popes were the successors of Eugenius that was deposed and thus judged by a general Council but by force brought them to submit and held