A27050:1189
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 6: The same further confirmed by the Ancients.
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.
CHAP. VI. The same further confirmed by the Ancients.
I. Eusebius Demonstrat. Evangel. pag. 138. saith, [When he considered the Power of Christ's Word, how it persuaded innumerable Congregations of Men, and by those Ignoble and Rustic Disciples of Jesus, [Greek or Hebrew] numerosissimae Ecclesiae were constituted, not in certain unknown and obscure places, but erected in the most famous Cities, (Rome, Alexandria and Antioch) through all Egypt and Lycia, through Europe and Asia, [Greek or Hebrew]—in Villages and Countries or Regions and all sorts of Nations.] By this it appeareth that Villages had Churches then.
I. EUsebius Demonstrat. Evangel. pag. 138. saith, [When he considered the Power of Christ's Word, how it perswaded innumerable Congregations of Men, and by those Ignoble and Rustick Disciples of Jesus, 〈non-Latin alphabet〉 numerosissimae Ecclesiae were constituted, not in certain unknown and obscure places, but erected in the most famous Cities, (Rome, Alexandria and Antioch) through all Egypt and Lycia, through Europe and Asia, 〈non-Latin alphabet〉—in Villages and Countries or Regions and all sorts of Nations.] By this it appeareth that Villages had Churches then.
II. Though of later date, consider the History of Patrick's Plantation of Churches in Ireland: who is said himself in his own time to have three hundred sixty five Churches, and as many Bishops, and three thousand Presbyters; as Ninius reporteth. Not only Thorndike taketh notice of this, but a better Author, Usher de Eccles. Brit. Primord. pa. 950. And Selden in his Comment on Eutychius Origins Alex. pag. 86. from Antoninus and Vincentius, thus mentioneth it, [Certe tantum in orbe terrarum tunc temporis Episcoporum segetem mirari forsan desinet, quisquis crediderit, quod de B. Patricio Hibernensi Antoninus & Vincentius tradunt; Eum scilicet solum Ecclesias fundasse 365. totidemque Episcopos ordinasse, praeter Presbyterorum 3000. Qua de re consulas plura apud praestantissimum virum Jacobum Usserium, &c.] So that here was to every Church a Bishop and near ten Presbyters. (No Man will doubt but the Bishops themselves were taken out of the better sort of the Laity, and the Presbyters of the second sort; and all below many private Christians now among us.) And were there three hundred sixty five Cities think you in Ireland? Yea, or Corporations either? It's easy to conjecture what Churches these were.