A Christian Directory

Now what is the work besides all these that we must have new Churches and offices made for? Is it to Govern all these Bishops and Churches? How? By the Word or by the Sword? If by the Sword, the Magistrate is to do it? If by the Word (or spiritual Authority) either God hath made such an office as Arch-bishops or General Bishops over many, or he hath not: If he have, we need no new humane office for it, God having provided for it already: If not, but God hath left all Bishops independent, and to learn of one another, as equals in Office, and unequal only in gifts, then either such an office is fit and necessary or not. If it be, you accuse God of omission in not appointing a Bishop over Bishops as well as a Bishop of the lowest order. If not, then by what reason or ⟨p. 838⟩power will you make new needless officers in the Church? When Cyprian and his Carthage Council so vehemently disclaimed being Episcopi Episcoporum?

Now what is the work besides all these that we must have new Churches and offices made for? Is it to Govern all these Bishops and Churches? How? By the Word or by the Sword? If by the Sword, the Magistrate is to do it? If by the Word (or spiritual Authority) either God hath made such an office as Arch-bishops or General Bishops over many, or he hath not: If he have, we need no new humane office for it, God having provided for it already: If not, but God hath left all Bishops independant, and to learn of one another, as equals in Office, and unequal only in gifts, then either such an office is fit and necessary or not. If it be, you accuse God of omission in not appointing a Bishop over Bishops as well as a Bishop of the lowest order. If not, then by what reason or ⟨p. 838⟩power will you make new needless officers in the Church? When Cyprian and his Carthage Council so vehemently disclaimed being Episcopi Episcoporum?

19. I would fain know whether those new made Churches of humane and not of Divine fabrication, (whether Universal (or Papal) Patriarchal, Provincial, &c.) were made by former Churches or by no Churches. If by no Churches, then either by other societies or by single persons: If by other societies, by what power do they make new Churches to Christ, who are themselves no Churches: If by single persons, either they are before Church-members or not. If not, how can those make new Churches that be not so much as members of Churches, without a Commission from Christ? But if either former Churches or their members made these new Churches, then 1. It followeth that there were another sort of Churches before these new or humane Churches. And if so, either those other that made these were themselves made of God or not? And so the question will run up till you bring it either to some Church of Gods making which made these other, or some person commissioned to do it. If you say the first, then he that will confess that there is a species of Churches of Christs Institution, and a species not of his institution, must prefer the former, and must well prove the power of making the later. And so they must do, if they say that it was done by particular persons that were no particular Church-members. For if Christ commissioned them to settle any one species of Churches, those are to be esteemed settled by Christ. But if you say that Christ left them to vary the species of Churches as they saw cause, and so on to the end of the World, 1. You must well prove it, 2. It is before disproved: (unless you take the word Church equivocally.)