A27050:325
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 if he mean that in these Cities and whole Countries were several such Churches, that had each an Altar, and were fixed Societies for personal holy Communion, not having any proper Bishop of their own, but one Bishop in Common, with whose Cathedral Church, they did not, and could not Communicate, (through Number or distance) I deny his Minor proposed in this sense, as to the two first Centuries; though not as to the following Ages. But if by [Cities, Suburbs, and whole Countries subject] he mean all the unconverted Infidels of that space (for doubtless he calls not the soil or place, the Church) I deny the very subject; There were no such Churches: Infidels and Heathens make not Churches, (Though Heretics made somewhat like them, sicut vespa faciunt •avos, as Tertullian speaketh.) If the Diocesan Churches Disputed for, be Churches of Pagans and Infidels, we know no such things.
But if he mean that in these Cities and whole Countries were several such Churches, that had each an Altar, and were fixed Societies for personal holy Communion, not having any proper Bishop of their own, but one Bishop in Common, with whose Cathedral Church, they did not, and could not Communicate, (through Number or distance) I deny his Minor proposed in this sense, as to the two first Centuries; though not as to the following Ages. But if by [Cities, Suburbs, and whole Countries subject] he mean all the unconverted Infidels of that space (for doubtless he calls not the soil or place, the Church) I deny the very subject; There were no such Churches: Infidels and Heathens make not Churches, (Though Hereticks made somewhat like them, sicut vespa faciunt •avos, as Tertullian speaketh.) If the Diocesan Churches Disputed for, be Churches of Pagans and Infidels, we know no such things.
But if he mean that all the Heathens in that Circuit are the Bishops Charge in order to Conversion, I answer, 1. That maketh them no parts of the Church: Therefore the Church is of never the larger extent for the soil or Infidel Inhabitants. 2. The Apostles, and other General Preachers (like the Jesuits in the Indies) may divide their Labourers by Provinces