A27050:1322
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.
XIX. The next evidence is, That when Churches first became Diocesan (in the sense opposed) they were fitted to the form of the Civil Government; And Dioceses and Metropolitans, and Patriarchs, came in at the same door: The very name [Greek or Hebrew] was long unknown in a sacred sense, and was after borrowed from the Civil divisions, when the Church was formed according to them. And as Altar Damasc. p. 290. saith, Vox [Greek or Hebrew] ut refertur ad Episcopum, ignota fuit Eusebio & superioribus seculis: And the word Parish was also before used in our narrower sense, for a vicinity of Christians. And as Grynaeus saith in Euseb. p. 1. not. 3. Euseb. promiscue usurpat haec duo vocabula [Greek or Hebrew]
XIX. The next evidence is, That when Churches first became Diocesane (in the sense opposed) they were fitted to the form of the Civil Government; And Dioceses and Metropolitanes, and Patriarchs, came in at the same door: The very name 〈non-Latin alphabet〉 was long unknown in a sacred sense, and was after borrowed from the Civil divisions, when the Church was formed according to them. And as Altare Damasc. p. 290. saith, Vox 〈non-Latin alphabet〉 ut refertur ad Episcopum, ignota fuit Eusebio & superioribus seculis: And the word Parish was also before used in our narrower sense, for a vicinity of Christians. And as Grynaeus saith in Euseb. p. 1. not. 3. Euseb. promiscue usurpat haec duo vocabula 〈non-Latin alphabet〉
And that a Diocesan as such (thus formed to the Roman Civil form) and a Metropolitan and Patriarch, yea, and the Pope as the Prime Patriarch in the Empire, are all of Humane institution, and all of the same original and right, there are few Protestants that do deny. 1. The reason of the thing plainly showeth it. 2. Their beginning at once showeth it. 3. And that they were never any of them settled out of the Roman Empire, where that form obtained, except that they settled here and there one on the verge of the Empire to have some care of the neighbour countries, till after that the Roman name and power invited small countries adjoining to them to imitation. And Bishop Bilson of Chr. Subject. often tells us that Metropolitans and Patriarchs are of Humane institution.