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

And we cannot prove that this maketh a distinct form of a Church, no not in the Apostles time and case: For we cannot prove that ⟨p. 11⟩they distributed the Countries into Provinces or Dioceses peculiar to each Apostle; and had any Churches which they supposed to be peculiarly under this or that Apostles Government so as that any of the rest might not with Apostolical power have come, resided, preached and governed in the same: No Scripture tells us of such limits & Provinces. Nay, the Scripture tells us, that many of them were as Apostles at once in the same places: As at Jerusalem oft. Paul and John had Apostolical power at Ephesus: Peter and Paul (as is commonly held) at Rome: And its probable that as Christ sent forth his disciples by two and two, so the Apostles went in company, as Paul and Barnabas did: so that such appropriate settlement of Provincial or Diocesan Churches, we cannot see proved; though such a General Ministry is easily proved; and we doubt not but by consent they might have distributed their Provinces, had they seen cause, and that actually they did so distribute their labours as their work and ends required: But if they had become proper Provincial Bishops over several Districts or Provinces, it seemeth strange to us that no history telleth us which were the twelve or thirteen Provinces, and how limited; and that they continued not longer; and that instead of three Patriarchs first, and four after, and five next, we had not twelve or thirteen Apostles or Patriarchs seated over all the world, with their known divisions; And that men seek not now to reduce the Churches to this Primitive State, rather than to the said Imperial Constitution; and rather to subject us all to the Apostolical Seats, than to five Patriarchs in the dominions of another ⟨p. 12⟩Prince, and now mostly subject to an Infidel. Yea it is strange to us that the first Seat (Rome) should derive its pretended power from two Apostles (as if our Church might have two Bishops) and the second (Alexandria) from Saint Mark, who was no Apostle, and the third (Antioch) from the same Apostle that Rome did, (as if one Bishop might have two such Dioceses,) and the fourth (Jerusalem) from St. James, commonly said to be no Apostle; and the last (which became the second or the first) from no Apostle, nor make any such pretence; if thirteen Apostolic Provinces were then known.

And we cannot prove that this maketh a distinct form of a Church, no not in the Apostles time and case: For we cannot prove that