A27050:1335
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.
XXII. Another evidence is that Presbyters did but rarely preach in the two or three first ages (except in Alexandria, or in some few Churches which had got some extraordinary men; Chrysostom's preaching at Antioch, Augustin's at Hippo, while they were but Presbyters, are noted as unusual things. And it is said of Augustine (as forecited) that it being not usual in other Churches, for the Presbyters to preach in the Bishops presence, the example of that Church (by the humility of the honest Bishop who preferred his abler Presbyter before himself) did lead many other Churches into the same practice. Spalatensis1 and many others have given large proofs, that the Bishops and not the Presbyters were the ordinary preachers in their Church. * Filesacus saith, De Episcop. authorit. cap. 15. Sect. 1. pag. 344. [Episcopos consuevisse ex ambone verba facere, refert Concil. Lateran. sub Martino, & Concil. Trull. c. 33. Permissum deinde Presbyteris, quanquam non passim, nec in quibuslibet ecclesiis: Diaconis olim id concessum, ⟨p. 78⟩sed raro—& p. 351. ait, [Balsamon juris Graeco-Romani li. 2. cap. 9. in Alexii Comneni Bullis; Populum docere solis est datum Episcopis: & magnae eccl•siae Doctores Patriarchae jure docent.] These were like our Canons as he shows at large; and this was in later ages when a Bishop might teach per alium.—And p. 351, 352. Concil. Trull. c. 64. docet ex Greg. Nazianz. solis Episcopis convenire concionari & sanctas scripturas interpretari; Presbyteris vero non nisi Episcoporum concessione. Of the Bishops teaching see the numerous citations in Filesacus cap. 1.
XXII. Another evidence is that Presbyters did but rarely preach in the two or three first ages (except in Alexandria, or in some few Churches which had got some extraordinary men; Chrysostome's preaching at Antioch, Augustin's at Hippo, while they were but Presbyters, are noted as unusual things. And it is said of Augustine (as forecited) that it being not usual in other Churches, for the Presbyters to preach in the Bishops presence, the example of that Church (by the humility of the honest Bishop who preferred his abler Presbyter before himself) did lead many other Churches into the same practice. Spalatensis1