A27050:139
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
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.
28. In Scripture times we read not of any mere fixed Bishops of particular Churches, who Ordained either Bishops or Presbyters; but only Apostles and their unfixed Assistants, who had an equal charge of many Churches. Not that the Office of the Indefinite unfixed Ministry was not the same with the Office of the fixed Bishops in specie: (For both had power to do all the Ministerial work, as they had a call and opportunity to exercise it.) But because it being the employment, of the Indefinite or unfixed Ministers to Gather and plant Churches, before they could be Governed, the Ordination of Elders over them, was part of the planting of them; and so fell to their lot, as part of their constituting work.
28. In Scripture times we read not of any meer fixed Bishops of particular Churches, who Ordained either Bishops or Presbyters; but only Apostles and their unfixed Assistants, who had an equal charge of many Churches. Not that the Office of the Indefinite unfixed Ministry was not the same with the Office of the fixed Bishops in specie: (For both had power to do all the Ministerial work, as they had a call and opportunity to exercise it.) But because it being the employment, of the Indefinite or unfixed Ministers to Gather and plant Churches, before they could be Governed, the Ordination of Elders over them, was part of the planting of them; and so fell to their lot, as part of their constituting work.
29. How it came to pass that the Itinerant or Indefinite exercise of the Ministry for planting Churches, so quickly almost ceased after the Apostles days, is a matter worthy to be enquired after: For whereas some ⟨p. 16⟩think, that de jure & obligatione, it ceased with the Apostles, as being their proper work, that cannot be true, 1. Because many others were employed in the same work in the Apostles days: 2. Because it is Christ's own description of that Ministry to whom he promiseth his presence, to the end of the Age or World, Mat. 28. 19, 20. 3. Because to this day, there is still lamentable necessity of such: Five parts in six of the World being yet Infidels.