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spirit_n	world_n	write_n	wrought_v	18	3	7.6744	4	false

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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

no Model of a Gospel Ministry nor proof of our Authority or obligation as instituted from the Instituted Ministry of the Mosaical Church Because the Law of Moses is abrogate and indeed did never bind the Gentiles as I have fullier proved in my Treat of the Lords day Nor is it safe to argue from parity of reason that we must now be or do as they did in point of pure institution while we so little know the total reason of God's institutions and when he himself hath taken them down and set up new ones we must not then plead our Reason against the alterations which God himself hath made 7. Therefore though Christ be now the Head and Fountain of Power both to Magistrates and Ministers yet he did not institute a new Office of Magistracy but add new Laws for them to rule by as part of their Rule of Government Because their Office was so much founded in Nature and so much of their work lay in ruling mankind according to their common Natural Law But a Ministry he did institute a-new as to the species and great essentials of the Office 8. Christ changing both the Instituted Mosaical Law and Priesthood did begin himself in his own person as the Great Prophet High Priest and King of his Church to exercise his Office in the Jewish Nation 9. Being not to continue corporally on earth nor his bodily presence being ubiquitary he designed that the Holy Ghost should be his Agent internally to carry on his work in the World And he appointed the Sacred Office of the Ministry that meet men might be his Agents externally in the Teaching and Governing of his Redeemed ones in a holy order and in conducting them in holy worship in a Ministerial subordination to his Prophetical Regal and Priestly Office 10. As he himself did Officiate among the Jews so he first placed this Ministerial Power in twelve chosen men and seventy Assistants with some relation to the twelve Tribes and seventy Elders of Israel to whom he sent them 11. During the time of Christ's abode among them in the flesh they were but as Pupils and Learners while they were Teachers and their Abilities Commissions Office and Work and so their success were all yet imperfect They were not yet authorized openly and commonly so much as to declare Christ to be the Messiah and Saviour but only to prepare men for that belief Because those works were not yet done which must be the Evidences of their Doctrine and the Instruments of mens Conviction viz. Christ's Death Resurrection Ascension and his sending the miraculous gift of the Holy Ghost 12. When Christ was risen before his Ascension he perfected their Commission both as to their Work and Province but appointed them to stay till the descent of the Holy Ghost upon them as the sealing and full delivery of it giving them full ability for their work before they set themselves about the solemn performance of it 13. Their Commission and Office was 1. to Teach men and make them Christians or Christ's Disciples 2. and then to Baptize them into the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost and so to take them into his Covenant and Church and 3. to Teach them as Covenanted and en-Churched persons to observe all his commands The first part of their work was to be exercised unlimitedly on all the World as far as they were able The second part on the new Converted Believers and their infant seed And the third part on the Baptized that were adult And he added the promise of his presence with them to the end 14. As he now enlarged their Commission to All the World as the object of the first part of their Office so he added one Paul by a voice from Heaven unto the number of the Apostles who was especially made an Apostle to the Gentiles to shew the rest that they were no more confined to the twelve Tribes of Israel 15. Because these Apostles were entrusted not only with a common Preaching of the Gospel but as Founders of the Churches to be the eye and ear witnesses of the life miracles resurrection and doctrine of Christ and to acquaint men certainly with the Laws of Christ therefore he promised them the extraordinary gift of the Holy Ghost to lead them infallibly into all truth and to bring all things to their remembrance which he had taught and given them in Charge and so to enable them to perform all their Commission which he gave them accordingly and so made them the Foundations of his Church and the infallible deliverers of his Will to the World by their preaching and practice first and afterwards by their Writings 16. Therefore since their miraculous reception of the Spirit all their Doctrines Writings and Establishments which were done in the Execution of their Commission are ascribed to the Holy Ghost It was the Holy Ghost that ●ndited the Sacred Scriptures and it was the Holy Ghost that settled the Churches and that wrought the Miracles and that bare witness of Christ and the Christian verity For the Apostles spake not of themselves but as the Holy Ghost inspired them 17. As others in that time were employed as their assistants in propagating the Christian Faith so had they also the same spirit though in several measures and gifts And so far as they had that spirit he was the seal of their doctrine But because it was the Apostles that had the promise of Infallibility we have greater assurance of the Infallibility of their writings than of others It being their approbation which is much of our assurance that the writings of their Assistants were infallible and the testimony which they give of the persons that wrote them viz. Mark and Luke 18. These Apostles with their many Assistants Prophets and Evangelists did by preaching holiness and miracles the effects of Divine Wisdome Goodness and Power convert multitudes and baptize them and did not only thus gather them into the Catholick Church to Christ but also settled them in a holy Order in particular Churches for personal communion among themselves in holy worship and holy living And they made such regular Church-communion a duty to all that could obtain it 19. By the authority of Christ and the Holy Ghost they ordained others to the sacred Office of the Ministry The same office with their own as to the common works of Preaching and Teaching the Gospel Worshiping and Guiding the Churches by holy Discipline which are the common essentials of the sacred Ministry But not the same in respect of their extraordinary endowments and works before described as eye and ear witnesses infallibly delivering the will of Christ 20. Though in the Nature of the Office all Christs Ministers have the Power before mentioned 1. to convert men to the Faith by preaching 2. to take them into the holy Covenant and Church by Baptism 3. to teach worship and rule in particular Churches or 1. to gather Churches by preaching and

two or three thousand Souls without much help or many sad unavoidable Omissions the Q●estion shall be whether the Bishop may not undertake to Teach and oversee many hundreds or a thousand Parishes and Catechise Pray with and Exhort a thousand times more than any Parish Minister doth or is able to do And to do all this without ever coming into those Parishes or ever seeing the Faces or hearing the names of one of a multitude of the People or ever speaking one word to them but summoning th●m by Apparitors to a Lay-Chancellors Court to be Excommunicated first and after imprisoned while they live if they do not what the Chancellor bids them O what is mans understanding when a Carnal interest hath there clothed it self with a Sacred name Cap. 3. He telleth us of the Power of the Keys commited to the Apostles and by them to the Bishops as their Successors But whether all the Bishops Ordained by them and living with them and some dying before them it 's like were their Successors and whether all true Pastors were not such Bishops as had the Power of the Keys and whether by those Keys be meant the Government of the Flocks or also of the Governors themselves and of what extent the Churches under each Bishop was and to what end and use are the things in Question which he here saith nothing to Cap. 4. He proveth by strong affirmation that the Apostles were by Christ's last Commission Mat. 28. 19 20. to be the Bishops of their several assigned certain Provinces But confidence goeth not for proof with us He tells us of the name of Episcopacy Acts 1. 29. We never questioned whether the Apostles had the Oversight of the Church but we hold 1. That the World was the first Object of their Office from whence they were to gather Churches 2. That the Place Course or Circuit of their Travels and Ministry was not of any Divine Institution but left to their prudent choice by the Common Rules of Nature doing all things in Order and to Edifying and sometime directed in their motions by the present inspiration of the Holy-Ghost 3. That more than one Apostle was oft in the same Cities and Countries none claiming it as his peculiar Province nor denying the right of others to be there And where one was this Year another was the next 4. That when an Apostle planted a Church in any City and settled Bishops over the People they themselves were called by many of the Ancients the first Bishops of those Cities in which sence one Man had many Bishopricks 5. That the Apostles were Itinerant unfixed Bishops and not fixed Bishops such as they themselves confined to any one limited Church or Province Nor can it be proved out of all Antiquity that any one of all the Apostles was confined to any one limited Province much less what that Province was but only that their Ability Opportunity Time and Prudence limited every Man and directed him as the End required 6. And that if the Apostles had fixed themselves in particular limited Provinces they had disobeyed their Commission which was to go Preach the Gospel to all the World And no Man did ever yet so dote as to pretend that they divided the whole World into twelve Provinces and there fixed themselves And such twelve Provinces as they had been capable of overseeing would have been but a little of the World And it was but a little part comparatively that they Preacht the Gospel to Most Kingdoms of the World they never saw And those which they came into were so great and many that they Preached but to a few of the People Yet this was not their culpable Omission because they were limited by Natural Impotency and so by Impossibilities of doing more But had it been by a Voluntary setling themselves in twelve Provinces to the neglect of all the rest the Case had been otherwise But whilst they did their best for the whole World themselves and Ordained others to do the rest they performed their Office There needeth no more to be said as to those Ancients that name the Apostles Bishops Nor is their Episcopacy if proved any thing to our Case as shall be manifested Cap. 5. He thought he had proved that Power in the Church is given by the Apostles to the Bishops only Whereas with Spalatensis and most Christians we hold it given to Christ's Ministers as such and therefore to them all though in an Eminency the Apostles only had it And 1. Whereas he denyeth the Power of the 70 because they were not Apostles but Disciples We Answer 1. That Evangelists and other Ministers that were not Apostles had the Power of the Keys 2. That to deny that the 70 were at least Temporary Apostles limited to the Jews and had the power of Preaching and working Miracles would be to deny the letter of the Text. And the Apostles themselves could not Govern Churches till they were gathered 2. And yet if neither they nor John Baptist in Baptizing did exercise any power of the Keys which he can never prove it is nothing to our Case 3. When will he prove that the Evangelists and the Itinerant Assistants of the Apostles had not the power of the Keys When themselves commonly say that the higher Orders contain the powers of the lower And are the Bishops higher than the Evangelists 4. Nay when will he prove that ever any Presbyter was Ordained by the Apostles or by any others as they appointed without the power of the Keys It would weary one that loveth not confusion and lost lalabour to read long Discourses of the Power of the Keys or Government which distinguish not the Government of the Laity or Flocks from the Government of the Ministers themselves and that abuse the Church by feigning an Office of Presbyters that are not Presbyters and proving that Church-Governors are not Church-Governors For what is the Office of the Presbyter or Pastor essentially but a Stated Power and obligation to Teach and Govern the People and Worship as their mouth and guide Cap. 6. He seemeth by denying the Evangelists the power of the Keys and of Church-teaching and making them meer Preachers to the Insidels to favour the Independants Opinion who think the Laymen sent forth are to do that work But 1. Mat. 28. 19 20. Christ maketh such Officers as must Preach and Baptize and gather Churches among the Infidels before they govern them to be them that he will be with to the end of the World And the same men had the Power of teaching the Churches when they were gathered as is there expressed 2. Call them by what name you will such Itenirants were usual in the Apostles daies as Silas Apollo and many more 3. It was not the twelve Apostles only that Converted the World but such other Ministers that were called thus to labour by them or by the Spirit immediately Joseph of Arimathea is said by many to have preached here and in other

abilities and to manage Gods work in each assembly more skillfully and guide the Church more prudently and defend the truth more powerfully than common unlearned Presbyters could do Now let it be for the present granted that for such reasons Episcopacy in each Church was justly setled and call it an order or a degree as you please It will be a difficult question what shall be judged of those that have the same place and Title without the same Qualifications and precedencie of parts Because the Reason of his power faileth If one be chosen Bishop to keep out Hetesie and he prove a Heretick and the Presbyters Orthodox whatis his power to that end If one be chosen Bishop to keep out Schisin and he prove a Schisinatick or Sect-Master and the rest concordant what is his power If one be made Bishop to teach the people better than the Presbytres and to teach the Presbyters themselves and to defend truth and Godliness and he prove more ignorant than the Presbyters and Preach not to the thousandth or hundredth part of his Diocese once in all his life nor to any at all past once in many weeks or months or years and if he do but silence the Ministers that are abler and farr more pious than himself what power hath he as a Bishop to those ends Sure I am that dispositio mater●e is necessary as sine qua no● ad receptionem formae If one be made a Schoolmaster that cannot reach the Scholars half so much as they know already but hath need to learne of them and yet will neither learne of them nor suffer them to learne without him I know not well how farr he is their Schoolmaster indeed If one be made a Physician that knoweth not half so much as I do I should be loth for Order sake to venture my life upon his trust Nor yet to venture my own life and others in a Ship that had an ignorant Pilote when the Mariners had more skill but must not use it Orders and Office that are appointed for the work 's sake essentially suppose ability for that work And without the necessary qualifications they are but the Carkasses or images of the office but of this before Therefore it is that the Christian flocks could never yet be cured by all the a●t or tyranny that could be used of the esteem of real Wisdome and Godlines● and preferring it before an empty title or a pompous shew and from setting less by Ignorance and Impiety venerably named and arrayed then by self evidencing worth nor from valuing a Shepherd that daily feedeth them from a Wolfe in Sheeps cloathing that hathe Fangs and bloody jawes and fleeceth and devoureth the flock with the Shepherds And hence we may say that God himself useth to give Bishops to the Church whether men will or not while he giveth them such as Jerome Luther Melan●●horn Bucer Calvin Zanchius c Who had Episcopal ability and really did that which Bishops were first appointed for while the Bishops would have hindered them and sought their blood They taught the people they bred up young Ministers they kept out Heresies and Schismes they guided the churches by the light of Sacred truth and by the power of Reason and Love And who than was the Bishop who is the real Architect he that buildeth the house or he that hath the title and doth nothing unless it be hindering the builders To this already said I add but two more intimations which I desire the sober impartial Reader to consider 1. Writing is but a mode of Preaching And of the two it is worse to have inept Sermons in Publick Assemblies and so Gods worke and worship dishonoured than to have inept bookes in private And no doubt the Pastors oversight extends to publick and private Now while the meer worth of bookes without any Authority commendeth them to the world though sometimes with some few giddy Pamphlets are accepted yet that is but for a fit and ordinarily the Book-sellers sufficiently restrain all that are not of worth because they cannot sell them But if a Bishop must impose on all the people what bookes they must read in many Kingdoms it will be for the Pope and Masse in others for Exorcism and Consubstantion c. 2. Is not order for the the thing ordered Episcopacy is for the Churches benefit by the Bishops eminent gifts and parts But if the Bishop be of lower parts than the Pastors and an Envious Malignant hinderer of their work Quere Whether the order being humane cease not ubi cessat subjecti dispositio relatio ad finem when the end and the pesons capacity cease II. But how the world by the countenance of Emperours was invited to come in t the Church How worldly wealth power and honour did indue them How Bishopricks were made baites for the proud and tyrannical and Covetous How such then sought them and so the worldly Spirit had the rule and altered Episcopacy I shewed in the History before THE Second Part. Having in the former Part laid down those Grounds on which the Applicatory Part is to be built and subverted the foundations of that Diocesane frame which we judge unlawful I shall now proceed to give you the Application in the particular Reasons of our judgment from the Evils which we suppose this frame to be guilty of CHAP. I. The clearing of the state of the Question THE occasion of our dispute or rather Apology is known in England 1. Every man that is ordained Deacon or Presbyter or licensed a Schoolmaster must subscribe to the Books of Articles Liturgy and Ordination as Ex animo that there is nothing in them contrary to the Word of God And by the late Act of Uniformity that he doth assent and consent to all things conteined in and prescribed by the said books as since altered we think for the worse 2. In the year 1640 the Convocation formed printed and imposed a new Oath in these words after others Nor will I ever give my consent to alter the Government of this Church by Arch-Bishops Bishops Deans Arch-Deacons c. as it stands now established and as by right it ought to stand 3. After this the Parliament in the Wars imposed a Vow and Covenant on the Ministers and People contrary to this called the Et caetrea Oath which Vow contained a clause to endeavour the ex●●rpation of this Prelacy In the Westminster Assembly before it passed many Learned Divines declared that they would not take it as against Prelacy unexplained lest it should seem to be against all Episcopacy which was not their judgment they being for the primitive Episcopacy To satisfie these men that else had protested against it and the Assembly been divided the Scots and some others being against all the additional Titles of Deans Chapters c. were put in as a description of the peculiar English frame of Prelacy which they all agreed against Since His Majesty's Restoration there are many Acts

the way to make him hate them 15. And the Office of the Pastors is such as that truth and Goodness are the wares which they expose to sinners choice and Light and Love are the effects which Spirits Word and Ministry are appointed to produce And by Light and Love they must be wrought Therefore no Minister ●oth his work or doth any good to some if by Light and Love and holy Life he help not the people to the same And therefore the adjunction of Jayles and confiscations is so contrary to his Office and designe as obscureth or destroyeth it Though Enemies may be restrained and peace kept by force 16. True discipline cannot be exercised this way not only as it s lost in the confusion of powers as a little wine in Wormwood juice but because the Number and quality of the Church members will make it impossible Enemies and rebellious carnal minds are not subject nor can be to the Lawes of Christ you may affright them to a Sacrament but one of them will make a Minister such work who will but call them to credible repentance for their crimes and will renew those crimes so oft till he be excommunicated and will so hate those that excommunicate as will tell you what can be done when all such are forced unwillingly into the Church Of this I have spoke at large in my Book of Confirmation 17. It tendeth greatly to harden the sinners in the Church in their impenitence to their damnation when they shall see that let one swear and curse and be drunk every day in the week if he will but say I repent rather than lie in Jayl he shall be absolved by the Chancellour in the Bishops came and have a sealed pardon delivered him in the Sacrament by the Minister who knoweth his wicked life How easie a way to Heaven which leadeth to Hell do such good-natured cruel Churches make men Obj. The Minister is to refuse the scandalous Ans Not when he is absolved by the Chancellour Obj. But if he sin again he may refuse him again Ans How far that is true I shewed before But not when he is absolved again And he may be absolved toties quoties if he had but rather say I repent than lie in Jayle 18. Let but the ancient Canons be perused and how contrary to them will this course appear The ancient Churches would admit none to absolution and communion after divers greater crimes till they had waited as is aforesaid in begging and tears and that for so long a term and with such penitential expressions as satisfied the Church of the truth of their repentance It would be tedious to recite the Canons How great a part of Cyprians Epistles to the Churches of Carthage and Rome are on this subject reprehending the Confessors and Presbyters for taking lapsed persons into Church Communion before they had fulfilled their penitential course And what a reproach do they cast upon all these Bishops Churches and discipline who say That sinners must be taken into Communion if they will prefer it before a Jayle Though they love a Wherehouse an Ale-house a Play-house a Gaming house yea a Swine-Stie better than the Church yet if they do not love a Jayle with beggery better they shall be received 19. Even when Christian Emperours had advanced Prelates and given them though not the sword yet the aid of it in the Magistrates hand to second them they never used it to force any to the Communion of the Church but only to defend them and to repress their adversaries Yea when Prelates themselves began to use the sword or to desire the Magistrates to serve them by it it was not at all to force men to say They Repent and so to be absolved and communicate But only to keep hereticks from their own assemblings and from publishing their own doctrines or maintaining them or from being Pastors of the Churches And yet now men will force them to be Absolved and communicate And how great mischiefs did even so much use of the sword in matters of Religion as was the punishment of Hereticks then being though they were not forced into the Church Socrates brandeth Cyril of Alexandriae for the first Prelate that used the sword and what work did he make with it He invaded a kind of secular Magistracy He set himself against the Governour Orestes and under his shadow those bloody murthers were committed on the Jewes who also ●illed many of the Christians The Monks of Mount Nystra rose to the number of 500 and assaulted the civil Governour and wounded him and Amonius who did it was put to death by Orestes and Cyril made a Martyr of him till being ashamed of it he suffered his memorial to be abolished And when Hypatia a most excellent woman of the Heathens was famous for her publick teaching of Phylosophy Peter one of Cyrils Readers became the head of a party of that Church who watched the woman and dragg'd her out of a Coach into a Church stript her of her cloaths and tore her flesh with sharp shells till they killed her and then tore her members in peices and carried them to a place called Cynaron and burned them for which we read of no punishment executed Socrat. lib. 7. c. 13. 14 15. And it was this S. Cyril who deprived the Novatians of their Churches and took away all the Secret treasure of them and spoiled the Bishop Theopompus of all his fortunes Socrat. l. 7. c 7. What his Nephew and Successor Theophilus was and did you have heard before and shall hear more anon What the ancient Christians thought of using the sword against Hereticks though they compelled them not to the Church and Sacrament any man that readeth their Writings may see viz. Tertullian Arnobius La●tantius and abundance more And the case of S. Martin towards Ithacius and Idacius I have oft enough repeated Only I cannot but note the impudency of Bellarmine who de Scriptor Eccles de Idacio falsly making Idacius to be the same with Ithacius when he was but one of his associates doth tell us that Idacius fell under the reprehension and punishment of the Bishops in eo reprehensus punitus ab Episcopis fuit quod Priscillianum apud seculares accusaverit occidi curaverit whereas Sulpitius Severus telleth us that all the Bishops of the Synod joyned with them and one S. Martyn and one French Bishop more disowned and refused them and Martin would have no Communion with them to the death save that once at the Emperours perswasion he Communicated with them to save a prisoners life which was given him on that condition and yet was chastised by an Angel even for that And Ambrose at Milan also disowned them as you may read in his life and when the deed was done the Christians spake ill of Ithacius and Idacius for taking that new and bloody way which before the Churches commonly disowned but they pretended that they did not cause this