A27050:143
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.
32. When there was a Church of Christians in the City, and a few Converts in the Country Villages that joined with them, they all made up but one full Assembly, or Church, fit for personal Communion, for a long time after the Apostles days; the main body of the people being still Infidels: so that the Christian Churches stood among the Infidels as thin, as the Churches of the Anabaptists, Separatists and Independents did among us here in England, in the days when they had greatest Liberty and countenance.
32. When there was a Church of Christians in the City, and a few Converts in the Country Villages that joyned with them, they all made up but one full Assembly, or Church, fit for personal Communion, for a long time after the Apostles days; the main body of the people being still Infidels: so that the Christian Churches stood among the Infidels as thin, as the Churches of the Anabaptists, Separatists and Independants did among us here in England, in the days when they had greatest Liberty and countenance.
33. Though at first the Bishops being men of the same Office with the other Presbyters, were not to do a work distinct and of any other kind than the Presbyters might do, but only Lead them and Preside among them in the same work as their Conductors (as I said before of a chief Justice, &c.) ⟨p. 17⟩Yet afterward the Bishop for the honour of his calling appropriating certain actions to himself alone, the Presbyters not exercising those acts in time, the not exercising them seemed to signify a want of Office or power to exercise them; and so subject Presbyters (who were never made by the Apostles that can be proved, nor by their command) were like a distinct Order or Species of Church-Officers, and grew from sin-Presbyters or assessors of the same Office in specie to be as much subjects to the Bishops, as the Deacons were to the Presbyters.
33. Though at first the Bishops being men of the same Office with the other Presbyters, were not to do a work distinct and of any other kind than the Presbyters might do, but only Lead them and Preside among them in the same work as their Conductors (as I said before of a chief Justice, &c.)