A27050:1353
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.
And how many Parishes, how many hundred thousand souls can one man do all this for, think you?
I will not tire you with citing out of Isidore, Gregory, Ambrose, Chrysost. &c. the strict Charges terribly laid on Bishops, but only now recite the Preachers words whose Oration Eusebius giveth us, at the dedication of a new Church, Histor. Eccl. l. 10. c. 4. It is Paulinus Bishop of Tyre. In which he tells them that it is the work of Bishops [Intimae animarum vestrarum theoriae videre & introspicere, ubi experientia & temporis prolixitate unumquemque vestrum exact inquisivit, studioque & cura cunctos vos honestate & doctrina quae secundum pietatem ⟨p. 83⟩est, instruit.] It was then thought a Bishops duty to be intimately acquainted with the minds of his flock, and exactly enquire after every one of them, even menservants and maidservants by name, saith Ignatius, as cited before.
I will not tire you with citing out of Isidore, Gregory, Ambrose, Chrysost. &c. the strict Charges terribly laid on Bishops, but only now recite the Preachers words whose Oration Eusebius giveth us, at the dedication of a new Church, Histor. Eccl. l. 10. c. 4. It is Paulinus Bishop of Tyre. In which he tells them that it is the work of Bishops [Intimae animarum vestrarum theoriae videre & introspicere, ubi experientia & temporis prolixitate unumquemque vestrum exacte inquisivit, studioque & cura cunctos vos honestate & doctrina quae secundum pietatem ⟨p. 83⟩est, instruit.] It was then thought a Bishops duty to be intimately acquainted with the minds of his flock, and exactly enquire after every one of them, even menservants and maidservants by name, saith Ignatius, as cited before.