A27050:1319
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.
XVII. Another evidence is this: That when first new Communicating Assemblies were erected even in the same Cities with the Bishops, the sa•d Bishops did devise this new trick of their own heads, to send to that Assembly some Bread ⟨p. 73⟩hallowed by themselves; And this was first to comfort (as they said) the Presbyters and new Congregation, lest they should think themselves cut off from their Bishops Church and Communion. 2. To hold their interest in the people by this handle of their own making. Of these Eulogiae the Can. Concil. Laodic. 14. speaks, as Petavius and others think: Petav. in Epiphan. ad haeres. 69. pag. 276. saith, [Romae, ubi per titulos distributi presbytery suos quique populos regebant: Ad eos Episcopi Dominicis diebus fermentum sive benedictum panem in Communionis symbolum mitre consueverant.] And the passage which he citeth out of Innocent ad Decentium cap. 5. is very full, [De fermento vero quod die Dominico per Titulos mittimus, superflue nos consulere voluisti: cum omnes Ecclesiae nostrae intra civitatem sint constitutae: Quarum Presbyteri quia die isto propter plebem sibi commissam nobiscum convenire non possunt, ideo fermentum a nobis confectum per acolythos accipiunt, ut se a nostra communione, maxima illa die non judicent separatos.] That Melchiades ordained this, Damasus his pontifical book saith; which was about An. 313. But Baronius ad An. 313. largely openeth all the business, and showeth that this fermentum was hallowed leavened bread, which was not the Eucharist, but a devised sacrament (as Innocent calleth it) of Union and Communion: confirming this which I have said: And ex Can. 14. Concil. Laod. &c. he showeth that it was used also in the East: And to this notable passage of Innocent [Omnes ecclesiae nostrae infra civitatem suntconstitutae] all the Popes Churches were within the city, he saith, (p. 97.) [Detitulis tantum intelligit, ad quos fermentum mitti soleret, non quidem quod non essent in suburbiis aliae complures ecclesiae atque sanctorum memoriae, sed nulla prorsus Titularis, in quam populus colligi consueverit. Cujus rei causa ait se non mittere fermentum ad Presbyteros per diversa coemeteria constitutos, quod illi plebem sibi subditam quam colligerent, non haberent.]
XVII. Another evidence is this: That when first new Communicating Assemblies were erected even in the same Cities with the Bishops, the sa•d Bishops did devise this new trick of their own heads, to send to that Assembly some Bread