A27050:206
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.
22. They that were unfixed Preachers or Evangelists, had not that special and particular Charge of all the souls in particular Churches, and in some one Church above all the rest, as fixed Bishops or Pastors have: But they had a greater Obligation than these Bishops to preach to Infidels, because it was their ordinary chief work.
23. The Pastors of particular Churches had such a Charge of those particular Flocks, above all other Flocks (materially,) as that they were not obliged equally to do the same for others as they did for them: Though yet when they had a particular call, they might transiently or occasionally perform the work of the Pastoral Office, to other Churches.
24. This relation to their particular Flock, was not such as disobliged them from their higher regard of the Universal Church: For our relation to that is stricter and more indissoluble than to any particular Church: And we must always finally prefer the Church Universal, though materially we are to labour in our particular Churches principally (and sometimes only) because by such Order the Church Universal is best edified.
25. The Apostles usually (but not only) planted Churches in great Cities; rather than in Country Villages.