A27050:145
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.
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.
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 joyned 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.
35. Thus it continued also in the days of Justin, Tertullian and Cyprian; no Bishop having more than one Church or Altar, without any other formed self-communicating Church under him, but only Oratories in City or Country.
35. Thus it continued also in the days of Justin, Tertullian and Cyprian; no Bishop having more than one Church or Altar, without any other formed selfcommunicating Church under him, but only Oratories in City or Country.