A27050:1269
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 7: More Proofs of the aforesaid Limits of Churches.
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. VII. More Proofs of the aforesaid Limits of Churches.
The thing that we are proving is that every Bishop should have but one Church (supposing him to be no Arch-Bishop) and that this Church should be such and so great only as that there may be personal Communion in public Worship and holy Conversation between the Members: and not so great as that the Members have only a Heart-Communion, and by Delegates or Synods of Officers.
THe thing that we are proving is that every Bishop should have but one Church (supposing him to be no Arch-Bishop) and that this Church should be such and so great only as that there may be personal Communion in publick Worship and holy Conversation between the Members: and not so great as that the Members have only a Heart-Communion, and by Delegates or Synods of Officers.
As to our Historical Evidence of the matter of fact, it runs thus: 1. That in the first state of the Churches, it cannot be proved that any one Church in all the World consisted of more stated Communicating Assemblies than one, or of more Christians than our Parishes. But though through Persecution they might be forced (as an Independent Church now may do) to meet by parcels in several Houses sometimes in a danger, yet their ordinary Meetings when they were free was all together in one place: And Unum Altar was the note of their Individuation, with Unus Episcopus, when Bishops grew in fashion in the eminent sense.
As to our Historical Evidence of the matter of fact, it runs thus: 1. That in the first state of the Churches, it cannot be proved that any one Church in all the World consisted of more stated Communicating Assemblies than one, or of more Christians than our Parishes. But though through Persecution they might be forced (as an Independant Church now may do) to meet by parcels in several Houses sometimes in a danger, yet their ordinary Meetings when they were free was all together in one place: And Unum Altare was the note of their Individuation, with Unus Episcopus, when Bishops grew in fashion in the eminent sense.