A26975:229
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.
II. The Churches being first gathered usually under some one Pastor, and he taking in the ripest of his Converts or Disciples to become his assisting Presbyters, and to avoid divisions, that one (or some other) was chosen to be Episcopus Praeses, the President Bishop of that particular Congregate Church: As the incumbents in big Parishes are with us. And tho I can prove no Institution of this but by Gods ⟨p. 23⟩General Commands (of doing all in Order, Unity and to Edification) yet we have reason to believe that it was begun in the Apostles days, if Jerome say true about Mark at Alexandria, who died before John. And I find no party of Christians against it of many hundred years, perhaps not of a thousand, for even Aerius called it not unlawful: And the Novatians, Donatists, and other Sects were Zealous for this sort of Episcopacy.
II. The Churches being first gathered usually under some one Pastor, and he taking in the ripest of his Converts or Disciples to become his assisting Presbyters, and to avoid divisions, that one (or some other) was chosen to be Episcopus Praeses, the President Bishop of that particular Congregate Church: As the incumbents in big Parishes are with us. And tho I can prove no Institution of this but by Gods ⟨p. 23⟩General Commands (of doing all in Order, Unity and to Edification) yet we have reason to believe that it was begun in the Apostles days, if Jerom say true about Mark at Alexandria, who died before John. And I find no party of Christians against it of many hundred years, perhaps not of a thousand, for even Aerius called it not unlawful: And the Novatians, Donatists, and other Sects were Zealous for this sort of Episcopacy.
III. And that a Superior sort of Successors to the Apostles and Evangelists were of Divine Institution I have proved before.