A27050:1081
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.
Two Objections are here made. 1. Obj. All the People is put for all present, which is a part.
Answ. By such interpretations let God or Man say what they will, it will signify but what the Reader please. The Context and many concurrent expressions show that (though business or sickness might hinder some Individuals) it was the main body of the Congregation which is called Plebs Universa, or else it will be nonsense.
Answ. By such interpretations let God or Man say what they will, it will signifie but what the Reader please. The Context and many concurrent expressions shew that (though business or sickness might hinder some Individuals) it was the main body of the Congregation which is called Plebs Universa, or else it will be nonsense.
2. Object. But if the same were the custom till the days of Charles and Lodovick, then it could not be all the people, for then it's known that the Dioceses were larger: Therefore it must be but all that belonged to the Cathedral.
Answ. 1. Even till their days Christianity had not been received by the whole Cities or Parishes, in the greatest part of the Empire; but (according to the liberty then given when none were forced to be Christians) the Christians were but few in many great Countries. It was long ere they were the greater number of the Inhabitants in France and Flanders; longer in England; and longer in Germany, and Hungary, and Poland; and longer in Sweden and Denmark, &c. 2. That it was no Cathedral Society distinct from other Congregations under the same Bishop in Cyprian's time, is most evident: There being no such distinction intimated, but contrarily all the Bishops Church or Flock is spoken to: And how should one part of the Church come to have a right to choose and refuse the Bishop more than all the rest? And in all ordinary Dioceses it was so long after: But it is true that at Rome, Alexandria and the greater Churches, where the custom was continued, and yet the multitude of the people was so great that they could not half meet in one place; those that were forwardest crowded together, and oft committed Riots and Murders (as at the Election of Damasus, and others,) till by this, the custom was changed to avoid such tumults; and those that would not be in the Crowd stayed at home: And the nearest Neighbours commonly were they that met.