A27050:282
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.
Yet note that page 8. §. 5. l. 7. He is brought to acknowledge [that All Churches by the Apostles erected received from them the same Faith, the same Sacraments, the same Form of public Regiment: The Form of Regiment by them established at first was, that the Laity be subject to a College of Ecclesiastical persons, which were in every such City appointed for that purpose: These in their writings they term sometime Presbyters and sometime Bishops▪ To take one Church out of a number for a pattern, what the rest were, the Presbyters of Ephesus, as it is in the History of their departure from the Apostle Paul at Miletum, are said to have wept abundantly all; which speech doth show them to have been many: And by the Apostles exhortation it may appear, that they 1had not each his several Flock to feed, but were in common appointed to feed that one Flock the Church of Ephesus, for which cause the phrase of his speech is this Attendite gregi, Look to all that one Flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you Bishops: These persons Ecclesiastical being termed then Presbyters and Bishops both, &c.
Yet note that page 8. §. 5. l. 7. He is brought to acknowledge [that All Churches by the Apostles erected received from them the same Faith, the same Sacraments, the same Form of publick Regiment: The Form of Regiment by them established at first was, that the Laity be subject to a College of Ecclesiastical persons, which were in every such City appointed for that purpose: These in their writings they term sometime Presbyters and sometime Bishops▪ To take one Church out of a number for a pattern, what the rest were, the Presbyters of Ephesus, as it is in the History of their departure from the Apostle Paul at Miletum, are said to have wept abundantly all; which speech doth shew them to have been many: And by the Apostles exhortation it may appear, that they 1had not each his several Flock to feed, but were in common appointed to feed that one Flock the Church of Ephesus, for which cause the phrase of his speech is this Attendite gregi, Look to all that one Flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you Bishops: These persons Ecclesiastical being termed then Presbyters and Bishops both, &c.
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