A27050:1085
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.
Object. But do not we see that a whole County can meet to choose Parliament Men?
Object. But do not we see that a whole County can meet to chuse Parliament Men?
Answ.1. No: It is only the Freeholders who are comparatively but a small part of the County. 2. It is in a Field, or Streets, and not in a Church. 3. It is commonly to judge of their Suffrages by comparing by the eye, the magnitude of the distinct Companies when they separate, or else by taking their Votes Man by Man in a long time, and not to do all in their hearing, and by their Counsel, as in this Case. 4. I have been at great Assemblies for such Elections of Parliament, in the Fields; and I never saw more together than have heard me preach in one Assembly, nor half so many as some London Parishes do contain: much less as a Diocese.
Answ.1. No: It is only the Freeholders who are comparatively but a small part of the County. 2. It is in a Field, or Streets, and not in a Church. 3. It is commonly to judge of their Suffrages by comparing by the eye, the magnitude of the distinct Companies when they separate, or else by taking their Votes Man by Man in a long time, and not to do all in their hearing, and by their Counsel, as in this Case. 4. I have been at great Assemblies for such Elections of Parliament, in the Fields; and I never saw more together than have heard me preach in one Assembly, nor half so many as some London Parishes do contain: much less as a Diocess.
There is a great deal more in Cyprian to prove the thing in question, Epist. 3, 6, 10, 11, 13, 14, 26, 27, 28, 31, 33, 40. which would be tedious to the Reader should I recite it. A primordio Episcopatus mei statuerim nihil sine consilio vestro & sine consensu plebis meae privata sententia gerere—Prohibeantur offerre, acturi apud nos, & apud confessores ipsos, & apud plebem universam causam suam.] Haec singulorum tractanda sit & limanda plenius ratio, non tantum cum Collegis meis, sed & cum plebe ipsa universa.—Vix plebi persuadeo, immo extorqueo, ut tales patiantur admitti—Secundum vestra divina suffragia, Conjurati & scelerati de Ecclesia sponte see pellerent.—] By these and many such passages it is evident that even the famous Church of Carthage, under that famous Bishop was no greater than that all Church Affairs might be treated of in the hearing of all the Laity, and managed by their consent, and the Quality of each Presbyter and Communicant, and their faults fell under the Cognizance of the whole Church; not as Governors, but as interested for their own welfare, as the words declare.