A26975:211
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
Chapter 5: Of Pastors or the Bishops of National Churches, that they are to be of Three ranks.
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.
I never thought Saravia and the Kings Arguments in the Isle of Wight well answered. Mr. Prins and the common answer is, that these were not Bishops, but Evangelists. I grant it, but that confirmeth me. For the name Bishop was then ordinarily appropriated to fixed particular Church Elders: But our question is not de nomine but de re, an Apostle & Evangelist were above such Bishops. Call them Apostles (as Dr. Hammond proveth that the Fathers oft call them) or call them Evangelists, or Arch Bishops or General Bishops or Diocesans or Provincial Bishops, it is not the name that is our Controversy. It proveth that the Apostles did settle a sort of General Overseers to gather and take care of many inferior Bishops and Churches, to succeed them in the ordinary part of their Office.
I never thought Saravia and the Kings Arguments in the Isle of Wight well answered. Mr. Prins and the common answer is, that these were not Bishops, but Evangelists. I grant it, but that confirmeth me. For the name Bishop was then ordinarily appropriated to fixed particular Church Elders: But our question is not de nomine but de re, an Apostle & Evangelist were above such Bishops. Call them Apostles (as Dr. Hammond proveth that the Fathers oft call them) or call them Evangelists, or Arch Bishops or General Bishops or Diocesans or Provincial Bishops, it is not the name that is our Controversie. It proveth that the Apostles did settle a sort of General Overseers to gather and take care of many inferior Bishops and Churches, to succeed them in the ordinary part of their Office.
§ 20. But another argument fixeth me in this opinion, and that is, that when it is fully proved that Christ instituted such a Disparity and Superiority he that will affirm that this doth not now continue and bind us, must prove the repeal or revocation, or prove that he did make this establishment but for a time, and how long that was. But Scripture plainly asserteth that he then appointed the foresaid Disparity, and hath any as plainly proved that he repealed it, or confined it to that Age? It is not proved that I have seen.