A27050:144
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.
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.) ⟨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 signifie 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 syn-Presbyters or assessours of the same Office in specie to be as much subjects to the Bishops, as the Deacons were to the Presbyters.
34. All this while the Bishop with his fellow Elders and Deacons dwelt together in the same City, and often in the same House, and met in the same Church, the Bishop sitting in the midst on a higher seat, and the Presbyters on each hand him in a semi-circle, and the Deacons standing; And the Presbyters Preaching and otherwise officiating as the Bishop appointed, who ruled the action. And the Converts of the Villages came to this City Church as Members of it, and joined with the rest. In the days of the Author of the Epistles ascribed to Ignatius, every Church had but One Altar, and One Bishop with his Fellow Elders and Deacons as the note of its Unity; or Individuation. For so many people as had personal Communion at One Altar, with the Bishop or Elders were the constitutive parts of the Churches.