Baxter - BR161 B28 1680

2e Church-Hiftory of Mops and the Chinches confent) their Office is exercifed in putting out the Lights; fometimes hundreds of faithful Minifters being filenced by their means in a little time. And they take the fwordof Difcipline or power oftheKeys as the Church ufed it Sooyears tobe vain, unlefs prifons or mulíts enforce it And to efcape the Primitive poverty, they overthrow the Primitive Church, Form, and Difcipline, and tellmen, All this is for the Churches, honour and. peace. §. 68. Yea all that likenot their arrogances and grandure, theyrender odious as Arian Hereticks or Schifmaticks, provoking men to hate and revile them, and Magiftrates to destroy them , as intolerable. And by making their own numerous Canons and Inventions neceffary to Mini- Itry and Church-Communion, they will leave no place for true unity and peace, but tear theChurches in pieces by the racksand engines of their brains and wills. §. 6y. III. Yea worfe than all this, there are Come befides. the French- Papifts, who tell the world,. That the Oniverfal Church on Earth is one vifi- ble political body, having a vifible Head er Supreme vicarious Government un. derChrifl, even et Collettive Supreme, that bath univerfal Legiflative, Paid- al and Executive power. And they make this Summa Poteftas Constitutive of the ChurchVniverfal, and fay that this is Chrifls body out of which none have his Spirit nor are Church-members, and that there is no Onity or Concord but in obeying this fupreme vifiblepower ; And that this is in General Councils and in the intervals in a College of Bishops Succeffbrs of the Apoflles, (Iknownot who or where, unlefs itbe all theBishops as fcattered over the earth)and that they rule per literas formatas : (as others fay, It is the Popeand Roman Clergy or Cardinals.) S. 70. And whenour Chriftianity, Salvation, Union and Communion, yea, our Lives, Liberties and-mutual forbearances, and Love, is laidupon this very form of Church -policy and Prelacy,. and Chrift is fuppofedto have filch aChurch as is notin the World, even constituted with aVifible Vicarious Collettive Soveraign, that mutt make Laws for thewhole Chri IlianWorld,; it's time to do our belt to-fave men from this deceit. S., 71. 1 muff confefs, If I believed that the Whole Church had any Meador Soveraign under Chrift,. I should rather take it to be the Pope . thanany one, '- finding no other regardable Competitor. He is uncapable of ruling at the Antipodes and all the Earth but a General Council is. muchmore uncapable, and fo are the feigned College of Paftors or Bi. shops, (none knoweth'who.) §. 72. IV.. And a blind zeal againft errour, called Herefe, doth cry down the necefläry Love and to leration of many tolerable Christians,;. /Ind fame cry,.down with-them, and away with them that erre more them.- felves, and by their meafures would leave but few Chriftians endured by one another in theWorld : Thus do they teach us to underftand Solomon,, Eccl. 7. 16. Bo not righeeousand wife' overmuch: fo much are thefe men for 'tinily, thatthey wilutaveno placefor much Unity on earth, As if none fhould',

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