A27050:1066
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.
If after all this evidence from Ignatius any will wrangle, let him wrangle: what words can be plain enough for such? And what a blind or blinding practice is it, which too many Writers for Prelacy have used? to pretend Ignatius to be for them, who is so much and plain against them? And to toss about the name of a Bishop and Presbytery, as if all that was said for a Parochial Bishop and Presbytery (that is, in a Church associated for personal presential Communion) were spoken for such a Diocesan Prelacy as putteth down and destroyeth all such Churches, Bishops and Presbyteries.
If after all this evidence from Ignatius any will wrangle, let him wrangle: what words can be plain enough for such? And what a blind or blinding practice is it, which too many Writers for Prelacy have used? to pretend Ignatius to be for them, who is so much and plain against them? And to toss about the name of a Bishop and Presbytery, as if all that was said for a Parochial Bishop and Presbytery (that is, in a Church associated for personal presential Communion) were spoken for such a Diocesane Prelacy as putteth down and destroyeth all such Churches, Bishops and Presbyteries.
And what falsehood is it to persuade the World that we are against Episcopacy because we would have every Church to have a Bishop, and would not have all the Churches in England except Diocesan, to be unchurched and turned into Chapels or Oratories? When yet we refuse not to submit to more general Overseers of many Churches, to see that the Pastors do their duty, and counsel and exhort them to it, whether appointed hereto by the Magistrate, or the consent and choice of many Churches.
And what falshood is it to perswade the World that we are against Episcopacy because we would have every Church to have a Bishop, and would not have all the Churches in England except Diocesane, to be unchurched and turned into Chappels or Oratories? When yet we refuse not to submit to more general Overseers of many Churches, to see that the Pastors do their duty, and counsel and exhort them to it, whether appointed hereto by the Magistrate, or the consent and choice of many Churches.