A27050:163
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.
44. Yet were their Dioceses (which at first were called Parishes) somewhat bounded, by the Canon and Edicts, which decreed that every City where there were Christians enow to make a Church, should have a Bishop of their own, and that no Bishop (except two, who bordered one on Scythia a rude unconverted Country, and the other on the like case, of which more in due place.)
44. Yet were their Diocesses (which at first were called Parishes) somewhat bounded, by the Canon and Edicts, which decreed that every City where there were Christians enow to make a Church, should have a Bishop of their own, and that no Bishop (except two, who bordered one on Scithia a rude unconverted Countrey, and the other on the like case, of which more in due place.)
45. And then every oppidum or populous Town, like our Market-Towns and Corporations, was called [Greek or Hebrew], a City, and not only a few among many that have that name by privilege, as it is in England now. So that even at this height of Prelacy, about 500, 600 or 700 Years after Christ, they were but as if every Corporation or Market-Town in England had a Bishop, who ruled also the adjacent Villages. For though when they began to swell, it was once decreed by one Council, that Villages and every small City should not have a Bishop, lest the Name of a Bishop should grow vile or cheap; yet this was but with this addition, [those Villages or small Cities where there was not a sufficient number of Christians:] (whereas Gregory at Neocesarea thought seventeen a sufficient number to have a Bishop.) And the Canons, that every City should have a Bishop, remained still in force.
45. And then every oppidum or populous Town, like our Market-Towns and Corporations, was called 〈non-Latin alphabet〉, a City, and not only a few among many that have that name by priviledge, as it is in England now. So that even at this height of Prelacy, about 500, 600 or 700 Years after Christ, they were but as if every Corporation or Market-Town in England had a Bishop, who ruled also the adjacent Villages. For though when they began to swell, it was once decreed by one Council, that Villages and every small City should not have a Bishop, lest the Name of a Bishop should grow vile or cheap; yet this was but with this addition, [those Villages or small Cities where there was not a sufficient number of Christians:] (whereas Gregory at Neocesarea thought seventeen a sufficient number to have a Bishop.) And the Canons, that every City should have a Bishop, remained still in force.