A27050:176
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.
But after this, alas, how much greater were their enormities and dissentions, when their Tyranny was much increased; It would grieve any sober Christian to read how the Christian World hath been tossed up and down, and the people distracted, and Princes disturbed and dethroned, and Heresies fomented, and horrid Persecutions, and bloodshed caused, by the pride and contentiousness of Prelates: And most of all this, in prosecution of that Controversy, which Christ decided so long ago, viz. Who should be greatest. It was not Religion, saith Socrates, l. 5. c. 22. that the two Arian Sects of Marinus and Agapius was about, but Primacy: They strove which of them should be the chief: wherefore many Clergy-men under the jurisdiction of these Bishops, perceiving the ambition, the rancour and malice of these proud Prelates, forsook them, &c.
But after this, alas, how much greater were their enormities and dissentions, when their Tyranny was much encreased; It would grieve any sober Christian to read how the Christian World hath been tossed up and down, and the people distracted, and Princes disturbed and dethroned, and Heresies fomented, and horrid Persecutions, and bloodshed caused, by the pride and contentiousness of Prelates: And most of all this, in prosecution of that Controversie, which Christ decided so long ago, viz. Who should be greatest. It was not Religion, saith Socrates, l. 5. c. 22. that the two Arian Sects of Marinus and Agapius was about, but Primacy: They strove which of them should be the chief: wherefore many Clergy-men under the jurisdiction of these Bishops, perceiving the ambition, the rancour and malice of these proud Prelates, forsook them, &c.
Macedonius at Constantinople was so Tyrannical, that as he came in by cruelty, so he caused more, by presumptuous removal of the bones of Constantine, to another Church, that he might pull down that, and this without Constantius the Emperors knowledge: where the people in Factions fought it out, till the Church and Streets were full of Carcasses and streams of blood, saith Socrates. The same man set four Companies of1 Soldiers on the Novations in Paphlagonia, till he enraged the people with Clubs and Bills to kill them all. And he was so Tyrannical in forcing Conformity, that he not only forced men to the Sacrament, but gagged their mouths and popped it in.