A26975:143
Of national churches their description, institution, use, preservation, danger, maladies and cure, partly applied…
Of national churches their description, institution, use, preservation, danger, maladies and cure, partly applied to England / written by Richard Baxter for promoting peace ... and for the fuller explication of the Treaty for Concord in 1660 and 1661, and of the Kings gracious declaration about ecclesiastical affairs ... and for further explication of his treatise of episcopacy ...
London: printed by T. Snowden for Thomas Parkhurst, 1691
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.
§ 3. Judea then was more eminently Christian than any other Nation of no greater extent: There were Arch Bishops, and Bishops, and Presbyters, and after a Patriarch: And there were more Monasteries and Religious Societies, and more Temples built there, than in any Country that was no greater: And more Christians flocked thither from other Nations out of a veneration for the place: And indeed it was the Mother-Church out of which all other Churches sprang: Therefore if any Province might be called a National Church, it was Judea.
§ 3. Judea then was more eminently Christian than any other Nation of no greater extent: There were Arch Bishops, and Bishops, and Presbyters, and after a Patriarch: And there were more Monasteries and Religious Societies, and more Temples built there, than in any Countrey that was no greater: And more Christians flockt thither from other Nations out of a veneration for the place: And indeed it was the Mother-Church out of which all other Churches sprang: Therefore if any Province might be called a National Church, it was Judea.
§ 4. This was when the Fullness of the Gentiles came in; that is, when the Gentile Empire turned Christian: And so the Gentile Powers turned Christian, provoked the Jews to emulation, and requited them by becoming Nursing Fathers to them, and bringing their Glory to Jerusalem: And so all Israel was saved; that is, the body of Abraham's natural Seed, and ⟨p. 11⟩also the faithful Gentiles that were the spiritual Seed, were unitedly gathered to Christ.
§ 4. This was when the Fulness of the Gentiles came in; that is, when the Gentile Empire turned Christian: And so the Gentile Powers turned Christian, provoked the Jews to emulation, and requited them by becoming Nursing Fathers to them, and bringing their Glory to Jerusalem: And so all Israel was saved; that is, the body of Abraham's natural Seed, and ⟨p. 11⟩also the faithful Gentiles that were the spiritual Seed, were unitedly gathered to Christ.