A27050:1101
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.
Cap. 57. The description of a Church Order is, that the Bishop's Seat be in ⟨p. 35⟩the midst, and that the Presbyters sit on each side of him, and so for the rest. And the Order of Officiating was, [that (the Deacons seeing all orderly keep their Seats) the Reader first read the old Scriptures, and the Deacon or Presbyters the Gospels; then that the Presbyters exhort the people, not all at once, but one by one, and last of all the Bishop, &c.] These were then the Churches; where every Altar had a Bishop.
So cap. 50. Cum doces Episcope, jube & mone populum frequent are quotidie Ecclesiam mane & vespere, ut omnino abesse nolit, immo assidue conveniat, neque Ullus subducendo see Ecclesiam mutilam faciat, & a corpore Christi unum membrum decerpat: Neque enim de solis Sacerdotibus dictum est, sed potius quisque Laicus, &c. So that a Bishop's Diocese or Church was so great, as that no one Lay Member should be absent Morning or Evening.
So cap. 50. Cum doces Episcope, jube & mone populum frequent are quotidie Ecclesiam mane & vespere, ut omnino abesse nolit, immo assidue conveniat, neque Ullus subducendo se Ecclesiam mutilam faciat, & a corpore Christi unum membrum decerpat: Neque enim de solis Sacerdotibus dictum est, sed potius quisque Laicus, &c. So that a Bishop's Diocess or Church was so great, as that no one Lay Member should be absent Morning or Evening.
Lib. 4. cap. The Bishop had the particular care of all the Pupils, Widows, Labourers, Weak, Naked, Sick, Virgins, &c. And cap. 5. He is to know well who they be that offer all the Oblations; and is to reject the Oblations of all the Wicked: For cap. 7. Let the Poor have never so much •eed, it's better perish by Famine, than receive anything from the Enemies of God, which may be contumelious to his Friends.]