A27050:1137
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.
Can. 28. Forbidding the Agapae, or Church Feasts to be made in the Church, implieth that other Houses could contain the Church Members. And Can. 58. Forbidding Oblationes fieri vel celebrari in domibus ab Episcopis vel Presbyteris, doth show that till they built Chapels there was but one Congregation in a City, which was where the Bishop was.
Can. 28. Forbidding the Agapae, or Church Feasts to be made in the Church, implieth that other Houses could contain the Church Members. And Can. 58. Forbidding Oblationes fieri vel celebrari in domibus ab Episcopis vel Presbyteris, doth shew that till they built Chappels there was but one Congregation in a City, which was where the Bishop was.
XXII. Decretum Innocent. 1. P. Rom. (in Crab, Vol. 1. pag. 453.) Dicit, De consignandis infantibus manifestum est non ab alio, quam ab Episcopis fieri licere: Nam Presbyteri licet sint Sacerdotes, Pontificatus tamen apicem non habent, &c. And for how many one Bishop can do this with all his other work also, you may judge.
XXIII. (To look back,) Concil. Carthag. 2. Can 3. decreeth, [Chrismatis confectio, & puellarum consecratio a Presbyteris non fiant: Vel reconciliare quenquam in publica missa, Presbytero non licere.] (Crab. pag. 424.) But this being an ordinary public work, this supposeth the Bishop still present in every Church to do it, and to have a Church no more numerous than he could do it for: whereas if Discipline were but moderately exercised according to the ancient Canons, there could not be fewer than many hundreds in a day for the Bishop either to excommunicate or absolve in this Diocese where I live, Leg. Albaspin. Not. pag. 268. And the fourth Can. fortifieth this by this exception, Si quisquam ⟨p. 41⟩in periculo fuerit constitutus & see reconciliari divinis altaribus petierit, si Episcopus absens fuerit, debet utique Presbyter consulere Episcopum, & sic periclitantem cum praecepto reconciliare. Where note that reconciliari altaribus is the Phrase for being reconciled to the Churches: And that no Presbyter might do it but in case of the persons danger, the Bishops absence, and with the Bishops Command: Which still showeth that the Bishop was usually present. And as Albaspineus noteth, a Presbyter might not do it for a dying Man, till he had consulted the Bishop, and told him all the case, and had his Command: Which supposeth him near (for the man may be dead before our Ministers can ride to the Bishop and have his Commission) and supposeth the Church to be but small.