A26965:246
The nonconformists plea for peace, or, An account of their judgment in certain things…
The nonconformists plea for peace, or, An account of their judgment in certain things in which they are misunderstood written to reconcile and pacify such as by mistaking them hinder love and concord / by Richard Baxter.The nonconformists plea for peace, or, An account of their judgment in certain things in which they are misunderstood written to reconcile and pacifie such as by mistaking them hinder love and concord / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for Benj. Alsop, 1679
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.
much ⟨p. 72⟩less from men that are far more liable to exceptions.
To this I may add, that as in divers cases the Canons and Decrees forbade hearing some Priests, and allowed several Churches in the same ground, so they seem to give that Pastor a right to the Conduct of the People, who was the chief Converter of them from Infidelity or Heresy: And hence was the Popes Controversy with the Greeks about the Bulgarians, and his claim to the Church of England, and many others, because he said his Missionaries converted them. I shall specially note here, that the old Canons sent by Adrian to Carolus Mag. reci•ed by Canisius and Binius, say, [That no one must pray with Heretics or Schismatics] and so not with Papist-Bishops that are the greatest Schismatics by dividing Impositions [That if a Bishop six months after admonition of other Bishops neglect to make Catholics of the people (multitudes then being Heathens and Heretics) belonging to his seat, any other shall obtain them that shall deliver them from their Heresy.] Yet the Bishop is not deposed, but another Bishop and Church of the new Converts set up in his Precincts, and so a Church gathered in the Precincts of another Church and Bishop. And so Gregory Nazianzen did long preach as their Pastor in a small Church in Constantinople, before he had possession of the Cathedral; the people claiming him for their profiting by his teaching; and Theodosius gave him the Cathedral as merited by his success. And in the said old Canons, c. 19. its said, that Dioceses (which then were every Corporation and the Suburbs or Villages) which ⟨p. 73⟩want Bishops receive none without the consent of the Bishop who hitherto held them (so be it) not proudly: For if he over-hold them, affecting to sit over the people, and despising his fellow-Bishops, he is not only to be driven from the retained Dioc see, but also from his own Church. And ex Con. Sard. 2. [A Bishop that by ambition changeth his seat (which was then forbidden by the Canons) shall not have (so much as) Lay-communion, (no not) at the end (his death.)