A27050:1079
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.
Now I leave it to the consideration of sober minds how many Churches, or Congregations could do all this? Whether it was many hundred Churches that never saw the person, nor one another, that were to meet in one Church or place, to do all this? Or rather the Inhabitants of a Vicinity, using to assemble for Communion, when even our Greater Parishes now are more than can thus meet and do all this?
2. Note also that when Cyprian imposeth it on the same people that choose their Bishop, also to separate from one that is wicked, and not communicate with him in the Sacrament, it is most evident to him that is willing to understand, that this Bishop was to be the Teacher of all the people of that Church, and was to administer the Sacrament to them in the Congregation, and they had ordinary communion with him: For how else should they be called on to separate from him, in the Sacrifice (as it's called.) Doth he command a thousand or a hundred distant Churches to separate from the Sacrifices of that Bishop, who never had local Communion with him (unless perhaps once in their lives as with a stranger.) The Impartial can hardly read these words, and not understand them.
2. Note also that when Cyprian imposeth it on the same people that chuse their Bishop, also to separate from one that is wicked, and not communicate with him in the Sacrament, it is most evident to him that is willing to understand, that this Bishop was to be the Teacher of all the people of that Church, and was to administer the Sacrament to them in the Congregation, and they had ordinary communion with him: For how else should they be called on to separate from him, in the Sacrifice (as it's called.) Doth he command a thousand or a hundred distant Churches to separate from the Sacrifices of that Bishop, who never had local Communion with him (unless perhaps once in their lives as with a stranger.) The Impartial can hardly read these words, and not understand them.