Baxters Narrative of His Life and Times, Part 2 · Section 10 · Floating text 6
The brief Sum of our Iudgment and Desires about Church-Government.
1. POwer is 1. Imperial and Coercive, by Mulcts and Penalties; 2. or Doctoral and Suasory. The first belongeth only to the Magistrate; The second to the Pastors of the Church.
2. Though in Cases of Necessity the same Man may be both a Magistrate and a Pastor; yet out of such Case it is unlawful or very unmeet: Each Calling will find a Man work enough alone. And our work being perswasive, is successful but as it procureth Complacency and Consent; and therefore we should be put upon no such Actions as will render us more feared and hated, than desired to our Flocks. We therefore humbly beseech your Majesty to trust no Church-men with the Sword; with any degree of Imperial Coactive Power; but where it must be used, that it be by Magistrates. And that your Execution be not annexed to their Iudgments; nor any Man punished by you, meerly because he is Excommunicate (that is, sorely punished) by them.
3. Every stated full Congregation that had unum Altare, was by Divine Institution to have a Bishop of their own, or many if they could be had; which Bishops were called Elders also in the Scripture. And for Order sake, where there were many of these, the Churches soon placed the Precedency and Moderatorship in one, whom they called by Eminency the Bishop.
4. Because in the beginning there were no stated Churches or Altars (ordinarily) but in Towns and Cities; therefore the same Apostles that ordained Elders in every Church, are said also to appoint that they be Ordained foreign, oppidatim, in every Town or City. And it being long before the Villages had Churches, they were the Parish or Diocess of the Bishops of the Town. And when Rural Bishops were placed in those Churches, they were subjected to the City Bishops; when every Church, as in the beginning, should have had a Bishop of their own.
5. If you will return to the Scripture Pattern, every stated Congregation that hath one Altar, must have Pastors that have the Government of the People; and if you will return to the primitive Episcopacy, eminently so called, every one of these Churches should have a Bishop with Fellow Presbyters as his Collegues, or Deacons at least in smaller Churches.
6. If you will return to the first and lowest degree of Corruption of Church-Order, you must have a Bishop and Presbytery in every City and Town only, such as our Corporations and Boroughs are, who must take care also of the adjacent Villages.
7. For the maintaining of Unity and Concord, and Edifying each other by Communion, these Bishops held ordinary Synods or Meetings, in which by Agreements called Canons (no proper Laws) they bound up themselves in things of mutable Determination, and also tied themselves to their Duties.
8. Besides these particular Bishops, there were General Overseers of the Church, such as the Apostles, Evangelists, and others that fixed not themselves in relation to any one particular Church, but the Care of many. And that these have Successors in this ordinary part of their Work, we do not gainsay. But we humbly crave, that if our Diocesans will be such, they be taken for Archbishops or General Pastors: and that they take only a General Charge of the Flock, overseeing the particular Pastors or Bishops, and receiving Appeals in some Special Cases, and not a particular Charge of each Soul as the particular Bishops have. And therefore that they be not charged with ordinary Confirming (or admitting into the state of Adult Members) all the People, which will bind them in Conscience to know and try them all, or most: Nor yet to receive Presentments of all Scandals, nor to Excommunicate and absolve, or impose Publick Penitence, on all that these belong to.
9. If these things may not be granted, we must be bold to leave our Testimony, that Diocesans assuming the particular Government of all the People, in so many Churches, as they have in England, are destructive 1. To the very being of all the particular Churches, save the Cathedral or City where they are; (It being that old Maxim, Ubi non est Episcopus non est Ecclesia; viz. in sensu politica): 2. And to the Pastoral Office of Christ's Institution: 3. And to the most ancient Episcopacy. Whenas by the establishing of these Parochial Bishops, (at least Oppidatim) the Diocesans may become of great use for the Work of General Oversight. We refuse not General Officers, so they overthrow not the particular Officers and Churches: As if General Officers in an Army or Navy would be the sole Commanders, and depose all the Captains, and consequently make the Discipline impossible.
10. We most earnestly beseech your Majesty, that in Matters of Doctrine, Discipline and Worship, the Modes and Circumstances and Ceremonies may not be made more necessary to our Ordination, Institution, Ministration, or Communion than God hath made them, either in Scripture or in the Nature of the thing; lest they be still the Engines of our Divisions and Calamity; but that we may hold our Concord and Communion in Necessary things, according to the Primitive Simplicity; and may have Liberty in things Unnecessary, as to Subscriptions, Promises and Practice; that so the Churches may have Peace and Charity in both. And that our Discipline which operateth on the Will, may not be corrupted by unnecessary and unseasonable violence; nor any permitted, much less constrained to be Members of our Churches and Communion that vilifie such Priviledges, and cannot be moved by our Exhortations, nor feel the weight of a meer Excommunication. Though a gentle Force is necessary to compel the Learners or Catechumens to submit to the necessary means of their Instruction: and to restrain the petulant from abusing the Worship and Worshippers of the Lord. He that will rather be cast out of the Church by Excommunication, than repent and amend his wicked Life, is so unfit to be a Member of the Church, that it is most unfit to drive him into it by Imprisonment, Mulcts, or Secular Force: And this is that which doth corrupt and undo the Church.
I shall here Annex Archbishop Usher's Model of Government, which we now also presented.