The nonconformists plea for peace, or, An account of their judgment in certain things…

XXXIX. 7. If any Prince would turn his Kingdom, or a whole Province, Diocese or County into One only Church and thereby overthrow all the first order of Churches of Christs institution, which are associated for Personal present Communion, allowing them no Pastors that have the power of the Keys, and all essential to their office; though he should allow Parochial Oratories or Chapels, which should be no true Churches, but Parts of a Church, It were no Schism to gather Churches within such a Church against the Laws of such a Prince. Many write that there is but One Bishop in Abyssinia (though some say that others have Episcopal power ⟨p. 53⟩under him:) some that read the old Canons, which confine Bishops to Cities, and take not the word as then it was taken, for any great Town or Corporation, but for such privileged Towns only as are called Cities in England, hence gather that as the King may disfranchise Cities and reduce them to ten, two or one in a Kingdom, he may by consequence do so by Churches that have Bishops; which if it be spoken but of Episcopi Episcoporum we resist not; But if of Episcopi Gregis of the first Order of Churches called [Particular] we suppose that out of such a Kingdom-Church Provincial or Diocesan-Church, it is no Schism to gather particular Parochial Churches though forbidden. And the same reason will prove that if in a lesser circuit, the same things be done though in a lower degree, viz, were it but three, four or ten particular Churches of the largest size capable of Personal Communions turned into one which is capable only of distant Communion per alios it is lawful to gather particular Churches out of that larger sort of Church. If the Bishop of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Caesarea, Heraclea, Carthage, &c. should have put down the Bishops of ten, twenty, an hundred or many hundred Churches about them, and set up only Oratories and Catechists in their stead making them all but part of their own Churches, it would have been lawful to have gathered Churches in their Churches: For God never made them proper Judges whether Christ should have Churches according to his laws, nor whether God should be worshipped, and souls be saved, or his own nstitutions of Churches be observed.

XXXIX. 7. If any Prince would turn his Kingdom, or a whole Province, Diocess or County into One only Church and thereby overthrow all the first order of Churches of Christs institution, which are associated for Personal present Communion, allowing them no Pastors that have the power of the Keyes, and all essential to their office; though he should allow Parochial Oratories or Chappels, which should be no true Churches, but Parts of a Church, It were no Schism to gather Churches within such a Church against the Laws of such a Prince. Many write that there is but One Bishop in Abassia (though some say that others have Episcopal power