A26898:275
Church-history of the government of bishops and their councils abbreviated including the chief part…
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 ... / by Richard Baxter ...
London: printed by B. Griffin for Thomas Simmons, 1680
Church-History OF BISHOPS And their COUNCILS ABRIDGED, &c. › Chapter 2
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
§. 25. By the way it is worth the considering by some Papists, who make both a Bishop Essential to a Church, and a Pope to the Church-Universal, and deny Church-Government to Presbyters, that this Council is said to be called by the Roman Clergy (the Presbyters and Deacons) when the Church had been a year or two without a Bishop (through the sharp persecution of Decius upon Fabian's Death). And it is to the Roman Clergy (Presbyters and Deacons) that Cyprian at this time wrote divers of his Epistles, as they wrote to him; insomuch that Binnius sticketh not to say, that in this interregnum the Roman Clergy had the care or charge of the Universal Church.
§. 25. By the way it is worth the considering by some Papists, who make both a Bishop Essential to a Church, and a Pope to the Church-Universal, and deny Church-Government to Presbyters, that this Council is said to be called by the Roman Clergy (the Presbyters and Deacons) when the Church had been a year or two without a Bishop (through the sharp persecution of Decius upon Fabian's Death). And it is to the Roman Clergy (Presbyters and Deacons) that Cyprian at this time wrote divers of his Epistles, as they wrote to him; insomuch that Binnius sticketh not to say, that in this interregnum the Roman Clergy had the care or charge of the Vniversal Church.
Quaer. How far their Government, even of Bishops (whom they Assembled in this Council) was Canonical or valid?
§. 26. VI. After this there was another Council at Carthage, and two at Rome, and one in Italy, and another at Carthage, about the same Controversy; where it was determined that the Lapsed should be received to Repentance, and after a sufficient space of Penance, should communicate, but not sooner: And that the Bishops that lapsed should be uncapable of Episcopacy and communicate only with the Laity upon their penance: Yet Cyprian in time of a renewed Persecution thought meet to relax this, and take in the Penitent presently, lest they should be discouraged under Suffering. But Foelicissimus one of his Deacons made himself the Head of a Faction, by taking men in by his own Authority too soon, and Novatus and Novatian, as is said, being against their taking into Communion at all, the Councils excommunicated them all as Schismatics. Where note,