Church-history of the government of bishops and their councils abbreviated including the chief part…

§. 33. The case is known; that, 1. When Christians so multiplied, that one Assembly would not serve, but they became enough for many, the Bishops greatness and wealth increasing with the People, they continued them all under their own Government, and so took them all to be their Chapels, settling divers Altars but not divers Bishops in one Church. 2. And herewith their work also, by degrees, was much changed; and they that at first were most employed in Guiding the whole Church in Gods public worship, and exercised present discipline before them, and were the sole usual Preachers to them all, (the rest of the Elders Preaching but when the Bishop could not, or bid them,) did after become distant Judges, and their Government, by degrees, degenerated to a similitude of Civil Magistracy. 3. And then they set up the old exploded question, which of them should be the chief or greatest: And then they that had the greatest Cities being the richest and greatest Bishops in interest, because of the greatness and riches of their Flocks, they got the Church Government to be distributed, much like the Roman Civil Government within that Empire; And where the Civil Magistrate had most and largest command, they gave the Ecclesiastical Bishop the like: And so they set up the Bishops of the three chief Cities as Patriarchs, Rome being the first, because it was the great Imperial Seat, as the Chalcedon Council giveth the true reason. Afterwards Constantinople and Jerusalem being added, they turned them into five: And Carthage and other places, not called Patriarchal Seats, had exempt peculiar Jurisdictions with a power near to Patriarchs. And the rest of the Bishops strove much for precedency, and got as large Territories as they could, and as numerous Flocks and many Parishes, though still the name Paroeciae was used for the whole Episcopal Church when it was turned into a Diocese.

§. 33. The case is known; that, 1. When Christians so multiplyed, that one Assembly would not serve, but they became enough for many, the Bishops greatness and wealth increasing with the People, they continued them all under their own Government, and so took them all to be their Chapels, setling divers Altars but not divers Bishops in one Church. 2. And herewith their work also, by degrees, was much changed; and they that at first were most employed in Guiding the whole Church in Gods publick worship, and exercised present discipline before them, and were the sole usual Preachers to them all, (the rest of the Elders Preaching but when the Bishop could not, or bid them,) did after become distant Judges, and their Government, by degrees, degenerated to a similitude of Civil Magistracy. 3. And then they set up the old exploded question, which of them should be the chief or greatest: And then they that had the greatest Cities being the richest and greatest Bishops in interest, because of the greatness and riches of their Flocks, they got the Church Government to be distributed, much like the Roman Civil Government within that Empire; And where the Civil Magistrate had most and largest command, they gave the Ecclesiastical Bishop the like: And so they set up the Bishops of the three chief Cities as Patriarchs, Rome being the first, because it was the great Imperial Seat, as the Chalcedon Council giveth the true reason. Afterwards Constantinople and Ierusalem being added, they turned them into five: And Carthage and other places, not called Patriarchal Seats, had exempt peculiar Jurisdictions with a power near to Patriarchs. And the rest of the Bishops strove much for precedency, and got as large Territories as they could, and as numerous Flocks and many Parishes, though still the name Paroeciae was used for the whole Episcopal Church when it was turned into a Diocess.