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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	ancient_a	church_n	faith_n	1,854	5	5.2308	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

or the Puritan convert to Apostolical Christianity written by W. H. opening their fundamental errours of unwritten tradition and their unjust description of the Puritan the Prelatical Protestant and the Papist and their differences c. To which is added an examination of Roman Tradition as it is urged as infallible c. In answer to a book called A rational discourse of Transubstantiation in Quarto A Key for Catholicks to open the Jugling of the Jesuits and satisfie all that are but truely willing to understand whether the cause of the Roman or reformed Churches be of God and to leave the readerutterly unexcusable that will after this be a Papist in Octavo A Treatise of Justifying Righteousness in two books in Octavo There are lately published of this Authors these two Books following and sold by Thomas Simmons at the Princes Armes in Ludgate-street CHurch-History of the Government of Bishops and their Councils Abbreviated Including the chief part of the Government of Christian Princes and Popes and a true account of the most troubling Controversies and Heresies till the Reformation Written for the use especially of them I. Who are ignorant or misinformed of the state of the Antient Churches II. Who cannot read many and great Volumes III. Who think that the Universal Church must have one Visible Soveraign Personal or Collective Pope or General Councils IV. Who would know whether Patriarchs Diocesans and their Councils have been or must be the cure of Heresies and Schismes V. Who would know the truth about the great Heresies which have divided the Christian World especially the Donatists Novatians Arrians Macedonians Nestorians Eutychians Monothelites c. By Richard Baxter a Hater of False History A Moral Prognostication I. What shall befal the Churches on Earth till their Concord by the Restitution of their Primitive Purity Simplicity and Charity II. How that Restitution is like to be made if ever and what shall befal them thenceforth unto the End in that Golden Age of LOVE Written by Richard Baxter when by the Kings Commission we in vain treated for Concord 1661. And now published not to instruct the Proud that scorn to learn nor to make them Wise who will not be made Wise But to Instruct the Sons of Love and Peace in their Duties and Expectations And to tell Posterity That the Things which befall them were Fore-told And that the Evil might have been prevented and Blessed Peace on Earth attained if Men had been but willing and had not shut their Eyes and hardened their Hearts against the Beams of Light and Love THE English Diocesan AND PRIESTHOOD TRYED c. CHAP. I. The Reasons of this Writing I Am not ignorant how displeasing it will be to the Prelates that I publish these Reasons of my Nonconformity to the Subscriptions and Oaths by which they would have me become an obliged Approver of their Function Nor am I ignorant what Power Wit and Will they have to express and exercise their displeasure And consequently how probable it is that I shall suffer by them for this work And I well know that peaceable subjects should not unnecessarily say any thing against that which is required by their Rulers Laws nor cherish the Peoples discontents but do all that is lawful for the common Peace And I am not of so pugnacious or self-hating a disposition as to be willing of mens displeasure especially my Superiours or to be ruined in this World and all that I may but vent my Opinion in a case wherein I have published already so much that is still unanswered as in my Disputations of Church-Government is to be seen And upon such Reasons but above all that I might not cast away my opportunity for some more useful writings nor put an end to my own labours before God put an end to them I have been silent in this Cause since our publick debates in 1661 above ten years I have lived peaceably I have endeavoured to preserve the due reputation of the publick Ministry and to perswade all others to due subjection love and quietness I have by Word and Writing opposed the Principles of such as are exasperated by their sufferings into the Dividing and Separating extream Though I knew that by so doing I was like to incur the displeasur and b●tter cen●●●e of the Separatists as much as I had before of the Prelates though not to suffer so much by them And I thought that the Prelates themselves who would not understand the true state of the People nor the tendency of their way by our informations and evident Reasons might yet come in time to know all by experience and so to amend what they have done amiss But now I dare be no longer silent for the Reasons given Apol. ch 1. which I will ●tay the R●●der b●ie●y to sum up 1. I find that experience it self doth not Teach some men but Harden them 2. I perceive that those that are now convinced by experience and wish they had taken another course and rather have united the Ministry than silenced them are not able to undo what they have done nor to amend what is done amiss much less to retrieve all the doleful consequents but the matter is gone out of their hands and beyond their power 3. I see that while we wait the Devil's work goeth on by the silence and by the Divisions of the Ministers Popery greatly increaseth Quakers multiply Atheism and Infidelity go ba●e faced among those that are accounted men of reputation Malice and bitter hatred of each other with common backbitings censurings and slanders instead of sweet Love and Concord do notoriously encrease Thousands are every day committing these sins to the increase of their guilt and the hastening of Gods judgments on the Land The sufferers call the Prelates persecuters and wolves in sheeps cloathings who are known by their fruits their teeth and ●laws The Prelatists still say that the Nonconformists are unreasonable discontented peevish factious unpeaceable unruly schismaticks that will rather see all confounded than they will yield to things indifferent And shall we still stand by and silently see this work go on 4. And to love and defend Truth Honesty and Innocency is to be like to God It is pity that those that Christ hath done so much to justifie and will so gloriously justifie at the last should have nothing said on their behalf by men But we are much more obliged to justifie a righteous cause than righteous men For all men have somewhat that is unjustifiable but so hath not the truth of God 5. And he that in his Baptismal Covenant is engaged against the Flesh the World and the Devil should be loath to see all their work go on and not oppose it and to see that which he taketh to be no better than deliberate Lying or Justifying sin and Perjury it self and covenanting never to obey God in lawful and necessary Church-reformation to be all called Things indifferent 6. Nature and Scripture teach us to

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

me all nations baptizing them And Dr. H. thinketh that no Presbyter but Bishops baptized in Scripture time because there were then no other existent And it is too evident in Antiquity by what I before cited that no child or aged person was usually baptized without a Bishop when Bishops came up at least they used to anoint their nostrils c. with holy oyl And doubtless they that Baptized or admitted to baptism did examine them of their faith and resolutions before they took them into the Covenant and Vow of God And how many hundreds in a year can the Bishop do this for besides all his other work 6. It is by the English Canons and Rubrick the Bishops duty to confirm all that were baptized many think it is meant in Heb. 6. 1 2. Our Bishops take it for a proper part of their work And they that must confirm them according to our Liturgy must know their understanding and receive their profession of their faith and standing to their Baptismal Covenant which requireth some time and labour with each one for him that will not make a mockery of it Look into the Bills of London which tell you how many are born every week and thence conjecture how many hundreds in a year the Bishop hath in that Diocese to Confirm and consequently in other Dioceses proportionably Or if that will not inform you try over England where you come how many are though but cursorily as a hasty ceremony confirmedat all Whether it be one of many hundreds And set this to the rest of the Bishops work 7. It is the Bishops work to defend the truth against gainsayers to confute and stop the mouths of Hereticks and contradicters and confirm the troubled and wavering minded in the faith not by fire and sword nor by a quick prohibition of others to preach but by sober conferences and weight of evidence and by Epistles as Paul did when they are not at hand yea even to other Churches and as one that is gentle to all men apt to teach patient in meekness instructing them that oppose themselves if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth 2 Tim. 2. 24 25. And shall the Bishop do this for many hundred Churches While he is defending the poor flock against Papists Quakers Arrians Socinians Infidels alas how numerous are the deceivers at Newark or Gainsborough or Boston what shall they all do between that and Barnet or the remotest part of Buckinghamshire II. The second part of the Bishops office is to be the peoples Priestly guides in Gods worship principally in the publick Assemblies and oft in private viz. 1. To confess the peoples sins and their own To be their own and the Churches mouth in prayer thanksgiving and the praises of the Lord. And in how many hundred Congregations at once will they do this 2. To consecrate and distribute the Sacrament of Communion and consequently to discern who are fit for it And in how many Churches at once will he do this 3. To bless the Congregation at the end of every meeting All these I have before proved that the ancient Bishops did and Dr. Hammond saith No other in Scripture times And what Ubiquitary shall do this 4. And in private it is the Bishop that must visit the sick that must be sent for by them all and must pray with them As Dr. H. at large proveth Annot. in Jam. 5. I have told you before how well and for how many he is able to do this in one of our Dioceses If that serve not turn I pray you if you are foreigners ask English men what number it is of sick men in a Diocese that are visited and prayed with by the Bishop Compare them with the Bills of Mortality in London and judge proportionably of the rest whether he visit one of many thousands of such as die to say nothing of all the sick that do recover 5. And it is the Bishops work to receive all the offerings first-fruits tythes and other maintenance of the Church as the Canons before cited say And see Dr. H. on Act. 2. c. and Act. 4. 33 34 35 c. 6. It was the Bishops work to take care of all the Poor Orphans Widows Strangers as the Canons cited shew And Dr. H. on 1 Cor. 12. 28. c. saith The supreme trust a●d charge was reserved to the Apostles and Bishops of the Church So in Can. 41. Apost A Bishop must have the care of the moneys so that by his power all be dispensed to the poor c. where he citeth Just Mart. and Polycarp for a particular care I have before told you that if the poor of every parish be not relieved till the Bishop take notice of them few of the poor in England would be any more for Bishops than for famine nakedness and death III. But the principal thing which I reckon impossible and is and must be destroyed by Diocesanes is the Government of all the particular Churches or Parishes in the Dio●●se Where note 1. That I speak not of the Magistrates Government 2. No● of that General Inspection by which an Archbishop or General Pastor overseeth the inferiour Bishops with their flocks as a general Officer doth the Regiments and Troops in his Army which have Colonels and Captains of their own But I speak of the particular Church Government of the Bishops of single Churches like that of Captains over their own troops or rather Schoolmasters in their several Schools And I the rather mention this because Bishops making it more proper to themselves than Teaching or Worship must hold were they consistent with themselves that they can less delegate it to others The exercise of the Keys are 1. For entrance by Baptism 2. By confirmation rightly understood as in a peculiar Treatise I have opened it 3. By Reproof Consolation Excommunication and Absolution of particular persons which I am now to speak of Where distinctly note I. What the work is Materially II. In what manner it must be done III. On how great a number of persons I. 1. To receive accusations and informations of all the great and perilous heresies crimes and scandals in the Diocese 2. To judge of the credibility of the witnesses hardly done by a stranger and of the validity of their proofs For Councils themselves have petitioned the Emperours that ungodly persons might not be witnesses who make so small a matter of other sins as that they may be supposed to make but little of false witnessing Else an Atheist or Infidel or man of no conscience as he never need to miss of Church preferment for want of conforming to mens wills so he may be master of the ●ame liberty and lives of all honest men at his pleasure and govern them that govern Church and State Therefore Bishops themselves must difference between witnesses And to say I know an honest man that knoweth an honest man that saith they are honest men is a poor