A27050:351
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.
Ans. Is not here frustration instead of edification to the Reader, for want of defining a Diocese and a Parish. I thought we had talked of a Diocesan Church; and here is a Diocese described which may be a single Church, or no Church at all as the Bishop pleaseth. Here is not so much as any Christians, much less Congregations of them mentioned as the Bishops Flock: But many an Apostle, Evangelist, and Converting Preacher, hath been set over Cities and Countries to labour mens Conversion, as far as they were able, before they had converted any, or at least enow to make a Church; and after that, before they had converted more than one Assembly. The Jesuits in the Indies thus laboured in several Provinces, before they were Bishops of those Provinces, or called them Provincial Churches. But now we perceive what he meaneth by a Diocese, even a space of Ground containing Inhabitants to be converted if we can.
Ans. Is not here frustration instead of edification to the Reader, for want of defining a Diocess and a Parish. I thought we had talkt of a Diocesan Church; and here is a Diocess described which may be a single Church, or no Church at all as the Bishop pleaseth. Here is not so much as any Christians, much less Congregations of them mentioned as the Bishops Flock: But many an Apostle, Evangelist, and Converting Preacher, hath been set over Cities and Countries to labour mens Conversion, as far as they were able, before they had converted any, or at least enow to make a Church; and after that, before they had converted more than one Assembly. The Jesuits in the Indies thus laboured in several Provinces, before they were Bishops of those Provinces, or called them Provincial Churches. But now we perceive what he meaneth by a Diocess, even a space of Ground containing Inhabitants to be converted if we can.
I will shorten my Answer to the rest of his Reasonings for such Diocesan Churches.