A27050:1012
A treatise of episcopacy confuting by Scripture, reason, and the churches testimony that sort…
A treatise of episcopacy confuting by Scripture, reason, and the churches testimony that sort of diocesan churches, prelacy and government, which casteth out the primitive church-species, episcopacy, ministry and discipline and confoundeth the Christian world by corruption, usurpation, schism and persecution : meditated in the year 1640, when the et cætera oath was imposed : written 1671 and cast by : published 1680 by the importunity of our superiors, who demand the reasons of our nonconformity / by Richard Baxter.A treatise of episcopacy confuting by Scripture, reason, and the churches testimony that sort of diocesan churches, prelacy and government, which casteth out the primitive church-species, episcopacy, ministry and discipline and confoundeth the Christian world by corruption, usurpation, schism and persecution : meditated in the year 1640, when the et cætera oath was imposed : written 1671 and cast by : published 1680 by the importunity of our superiours, who demand the reasons of our nonconformity / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for Nevil Simmons, 1681
Part 2 › Chapter 5: The same proved by the full Testimony of Antiquity.
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.
8. And after he saith, [Saluto Deo dignum Episcopum, & Deo decens Presbyterium, & conservos meos Diaconos & singillatim & communiter omnes.] Which plainly signifieth that it was the same City Church in Smyrna ⟨p. 24⟩that had a Bishop, Presbytery and Deacons: For the scattered Presbyters of many distant Parishes cannot be meant by the Presbytery which is supposed present with the Bishop and Deacons.
II. The next in the Florentine Copy is the Epistle to Polycarp, where he saith to the Bishop, [Let not the Widows be neglected: Next after the Lord, be thou the Curator of them: Let nothing be done without thy Sentence: and do thou nothing without God: and what thou dost let it be well stable: Let Congregations be often made: seek all by name: despise not Servants and Maids: speak to my Sisters to love the Lord, and be subject in flesh and spirit to their Husbands, and to the men to love their Wives. And the Men that marry, and the Women that are married, must make their union with the sentence of the Bishop, &c.]
II. The next in the Florentine Copy is the Epistle to Polycarpe, where he saith to the Bishop, [Let not the Widows be neglected: Next after the Lord, be thou the Curator of them: Let nothing be done without thy Sentence: and do thou nothing without God: and what thou dost let it be well stable: Let Congregations be often made: seek all by name: despise not Servants and Maids: speak to my Sisters to love the Lord, and be subject in flesh and spirit to their Husbands, and to the men to love their Wives. And the Men that marry, and the Women that are married, must make their union with the sentence of the Bishop, &c.]
Here it is evident, 1. That it was a Church of which Widows were a part that is here meant: But Widows then were special parts of particular Parish-Churches, and not common to a Diocese of many such.