A27050:1283
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.
Mr. Mede in his Exercitat. of Temples proveth largely that the places of Meeting are ordinarily by the Ancients called Churches, even in several Centuries. Euseb. lib. 8. cap. 1. saith, in every City they built spacious and ample Churches. And Theophil. Antiochen. Autol. saith, [Sic Deus dedit mundo, qui peccatorum tempestatibus & naufragiis jactatur, Synagogas, quas Ecclesias sanctas nominamus, in quibus veritatis doctrina fervet, ad quas confugiunt veritatis studiosi, quotquot salvari, Deique judicium & iram evitare volunt.]
So Tertullian, de Idololat. cap. 7. pag. 171. Tota die ad hanc partem zelus fidei ingenuum Christianum ab Idolis in Ecclesiam venire, de adversaria Officina in domum Dei venire, &c. The very Name there of a Church, and the naming of a single Temple thence doth signify our supposition.
So Tertullian, de Idololat. cap. 7. pag. 171. Tota die ad hanc partem zelus fidei ingenuum Christianum ab Idolis in Ecclesiam venire, de adversaria Officina in domum Dei venire, &c. The very Name there of a Church, and the naming of a single Temple thence doth signifie our supposition.
III. To this I may add the Name and 1Primitive Sense of [Greek or Hebrew]. For it signifieth a Vicinity, and Parochus Vicinus, a Cohabitant or Neighbour, as well as inquilinus, and is used in all the ancient Church-Writers as noting both a Sojourner (as Christians are in the World) and a Neighbour, so constantly in this later sense, not excluding the former. Else Men of several parts of the World might have been said to be [Greek or Hebrew], because inquilini, had it not also and specially signified Vicinity. To avoid tediousness of Citations, I refer the unsatisfied Reader but to Gers. Bucer against Downam, and the Basil Lexicon of Henr. Pet. in the word [Greek or Hebrew]. And though the custom of calling a Church by the name [Greek or Hebrew] continued when the Church was altered in magnitude to a large Diocese, yet that is so far from proving that this was the first and old signification, as that the word rather plainly leadeth us up to the thing and sense which first it signified. And therefore to this day, Etymology teacheth us more wit than in English to call a Diocese a Parish, but only a Vicinity of Christians: And when the a Vicinity is the English of the Word, why should Strangers that we shall never see or have to do with, any more than those in the uttermost part of the Land, be called our Parishioners or Neighbours?