A27050:1332
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.
2. My next question therefore is, Whether the Bishops of those times were not at least as conscionable and careful and laborious in their offices, as any now ⟨p. 77⟩are, if not much more? What! not a Gregory, a Basil, a Chrysostom, an Augustine, a Fulgentius, a Hillary, &c. What! not they that preached almost daily? They that write so strictly of the labours of the Ministry? They that lived so austerely, and favoured not the flesh; that speak so tenderly of the worth of souls? And would all these, think you, undertake to be Bishops of a whole Church, and yet so leave the whole work upon others, as never to come among them and teach them, and examine them, nor give them the Sacrament in all the Parishes of the Diocese save one? This is not credible.
2. My next question therefore is, Whether the Bishops of those times were not at least as conscionable and careful and laborious in their offices, as any now ⟨p. 77⟩are, if not much more? What! not a Gregory, a Basil, a Chrysostome, an Augustine, a Fulgentius, a Hillary, &c. What! not they that preached almost daily? They that write so strictly of the labours of the Ministery? They that lived so austerely, and favoured not the flesh; that speak so tenderly of the worth of souls? And would all these, think you, undertake to be Bishops of a whole Church, and yet so leave the whole work upon others, as never to come among them and teach them, and examine them, nor give them the Sacrament in all the Parishes of the Diocese save one? This is not credible.
If you say that in Alexandria it was certainly so, that distinct congregations were committed to the Presbyters, I answer, 1. Yet so as that they might any part of them (as living in the same city) come and hear the Bishop when they would: 2. They might communicate with him per vices if they would: 3. They were all bound to do so at the great festivals of the year: 4. They were all personally governed by the discipline of the Bishop and Presbyters conjunct in Council: But of this next.