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

Sect. VI. 5. Some hold that only Diocesan Churches, and Metropolitical or Provincial, are jure divino, and not the universal: And of these some take Diocesan Churches, for those only that contain many fixed Assemblies, and some for such as have one Bishop, whether over one Congregation, or over multitudes. Saith the very learned Dr. Hamond, in 1 Tim. 3. [The Church of the living God, was every such regular Assembly of Christians under a Bishop (such as Timothy was) an Oeconomus set over them by Christ: Such again every larger circuit under the Metropolitan, who as Timothy had [Greek or Hebrew], Ordination and Jurisdiction over the whole Province. And such all the particular Churches of the whole world, considered together under the Supreme Head Christ Jesus, dispensing them all by himself, and administering them severally, not by any one Oeconomus, but by the several Bishops as inferior Heads of Unity to the several Bodies, so ⟨p. 6⟩constituted by the several Apostles in their plantations, each of them having an [Greek or Hebrew], a several distinct Commission from Christ immediately and subordinate to none, but the supreme Donor or Plenipotentiary. He here supposeth (as he elsewhere showeth) that de facto, Episcopal Churches were in Scripture-times but single Congregations; but that after it was otherwise: And whether then the New Form of Congregations were jure divino, when they became but Parts of a Bishops Church, we leave to the Readers conjecture; as also of the New Form of a Diocesan Church.

Sect. VI. 5. Some hold that only Diocesan Churches, and Metropolitical or Provincial, are jure divino, and not the universal: And of these some take Diocesan Churches, for those only that contain many fixed Assemblies, and some for such as have one Bishop, whether over one Congregation, or over multitudes. Saith the very learned Dr. Hamond, in 1 Tim. 3. [The Church of the living God, was every such regular Assembly of Christians under a Bishop (such as Timothy was) an Oeconomus set over them by Christ: Such again every larger circuit under the Metropolitane, who as Timothy had 〈non-Latin alphabet〉, Ordination and Jurisdiction over the whole Province. And such all the particular Churches of the whole world, considered together under the Supreme Head Christ Jesus, dispensing them all by himself, and administring them severally, not by any one Oeconomus, but by the several Bishops as inferiour Heads of Unity to the several Bodies, so