A27050:1095
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.
And cap. 28. In their Love-Feasts the Bishop was to have always his special part of the Feast, even sent him if he were absent. Sure if his Diocese had six hundred or a thousand Parishes and as many Feasts, and some of them as far off as I am from the Cathedral Church (about fourscore Miles) it will cost more the Carriage of the Bishop's Supper than it is worth, and it will be cold, and it is well if it stink not by the way. And the Presbyters that were all to have a double portion also of the Feast, are called tanquam Consiliarii Episcopi & Ecclesiae Corona, sunt enim Consilium & Senatus Ecclesiae. So that it was but one City Congregation yet that had Bishops and Presbyters and Deacons, &c.
And cap. 28. In their Love-Feasts the Bishop was to have always his special part of the Feast, even sent him if he were absent. Sure if his Diocess had six hundred or a thousand Parishes and as many Feasts, and some of them as far off as I am from the Cathedral Church (about fourscore Miles) it will cost more the Carriage of the Bishop's Supper than it is worth, and it will be cold, and it is well if it stink not by the way. And the Presbyters that were all to have a double portion also of the Feast, are called tanquam Consiliarii Episcopi & Ecclesiae Corona, sunt enim Consilium & Senatus Ecclesiae. So that it was but one City Congregation yet that had Bishops and Presbyters and Deacons, &c.
And in cap. 30. and many Chapters there is mentioned often the Bishops doing all without any help save the Deacons, which would make one think that de facto Doctor Hammond was in the right, and that some of the Constitutions were written when in most Churches there was no Presbyters with the Bishop but Deacons only.
Cap. 32. If the Deacon knew any to be poor, he must tell the Bishop, and do nothing without him. How large was this Diocese? cap. 34. This Bishop must be loved as a Father, feared as a King, honoured as a God, offering him our Fruits and the works of our hands for his Blessing; giving him as God's Priest our First-fruits, Tithes, First-fruits of Corn, Wine, Oil, Apples, Wool, and all that God shall give us.] Was all this carried him from many hundred Parishes, many score Miles?