A27050:167
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.
47. About the Year 430, or after, Cyril at Alexandria did lead the way, and actually used the Sword against the Lives, Estates and Liberties of Offenders: An example which others quickly followed: And easily did he step from the great Judicial Power before described, to a forcing power, the preparations being so great, and the Emperor so ready to exalt them, and the people of Alexandria so turbulent and inclined by pride and passion to such ways.
47. About the Year 430, or after, Cyril at Alexandria did lead the way, and actually used the Sword against the Lives, Estates and Liberties of Offenders: An example which others quickly followed: And easily did he step from the great Judicial Power before described, to a forcing power, the preparations being so great, and the Emperour so ready to exalt them, and the people of Alexandria so turbulent and inclined by pride and passion to such ways.
48. As the Prelacy thus swelled, so the Churches grew suddenly more corrupted with all manner of Vice. The Bishops began with sorrow to confess unto the Heretics, that the greater number in the Churches were naught. When they should choose their Bishops they could seldom agree; but frequently instead of holy peaceable Votes, did turn to Devilish rage and blood-shed, and covered the Streets and Church-floors with the Carcasses of the slain; (especially in the Case of Damasus and others at Rome, and oft at Alexandria and Constantinople.) Frequently they fell into feuds, and fought it out, and murdered people by multitudes: Even the strict holy Monks of the Egyptian Deserts, were as forward as others to fighting, blood-shed and sedition: Even in their ignorance, for such a paltry and sottish an Opinion, as that of the Anthropomorphites, as that God hath the shape and parts of a man: so that they forced that deceitful treacherous Bishop Theophilus Alexandr. to flatter them, and curse the Books of Origen (not for his errors, but for the opposite truth) and to take on him to hold as they did. When God tried them with a Julian (who did persecute them very little,) they reproached him to his face, and tried his patience as well as he did theirs. The Antiochians scornfully1