A27050:1504
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.
XI. That many Councils have had Presbyters, yea many of them is past doubt: Look but in the Councils subscriptions and you will see it. A Synod of some Bishops and more Presbyters and Deacons gathered at Rome, decreed the Excommunication of Novatianus and his adherents, Euseb. lib. 6. c. 43.
Noetus was convented, judged, expelled by the Session of Presbyters, Epiphan. Haeres. 47. c. 1.
See a great number of instances of Councils held by Bishops with their Presbyters in Blondel, de Episc. sect. 3. p. 202. Yea one was held at Rome praesidentibus cum Joanne 12 Presbyteris, An. 964. vid. Blond. p. 203, 206, 207.
Yea they had places and votes in General Councils: Not only ut aliorum procuratores, as Victor and Vincentius in Nic. 1. but as the Pastors of their Churches, and in their proper right. I need not urge Selden's Arabic Catalogue in Eutych. Alex. where there were two persons for divers particular places: or Zonaras who saith, There were Priests, Deacons and Monks; nor Athanasius a Deacon's presence: Even of late the Council of Basil is a sufficient proof.