A27050:1426
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.
The consequence in the Major is evident, because there is eadem ratio; For their reason of denominating a Church One is because it hath One Bishop; and by their Principles there may be one Bishop to a Province, to a Kingdom, to an Empire, to the World.
When all the subordinate Bishoprics were taken down to make up this Diocesan Church of Lincoln which I live in, the Church was One, which before was many. And if all the Bishops were taken down except the two Archbishops, the two remaining Churches I confess would be of the same species with a Diocese. Yea, if there were but One Church and Bishop in the Land. And why might not all Europe on these terms make one particular Church? If you say, Because they are not under one King, I answer, 1. That's no reason: A King is a Civil extrinsic Accidental head of a Church as a Church; and not a Constitutive Head: But a Bishop is an Intrinsical, Ecclesiastical Constitutive head, without whom it is no Church (unless equivocally.) 2. Ten Kings may agree to give way to One Bishop in all their Kingdoms (as they have done to the Papcy.) 3. The Roman Empire was bigger than Europe: Why then might not that have been one only Church of the same Species with a Diocese?
When all the subordinate Bishopricks were taken down to make up this Diocesane Church of Lincoln which I live in, the Church was One, which before was many. And if all the Bishops were taken down except the two Archbishops, the two remaining Churches I confess would be of the same species with a Diocese. Yea, if there were but One Church and Bishop in the Land. And why might not all Europe on these terms make one particular Church? If you say, Because they are not under one King, I answer, 1. That's no reason: A King is a Civil extrinsick Accidental head of a Church as a Church; and not a Constitutive Head: But a Bishop is an Intrinsecal, Ecclesiastical Constitutive head, without whom it is no Church (unless equivocally.) 2. Ten Kings may agree to give way to One Bishop in all their Kingdoms (as they have done to the Papcy.) 3. The Roman Empire was bigger than Europe: Why then might not that have been one only Church of the same Species with a Diocese?