A27050:377
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.
6. Bishop Hall's Defence of Episcopacy meddleth so little with the1 point now in Question, that I have no need to say any thing to it, more than is already said. And he granteth all that I desire.
- 1Bish. Hall.
7. As for Petavius, I need not confute him; for he granteth me most,1 as to matter of Fact, that I desire, as I shall after further show. His Fundamental Assertion is, That the two Offices of Bishops and Presbyters, were both placed in the same person, in the Apostles days; at which Salmasius justly laugheth: For what is that but to say, that then there was no such person as a Subject Presbyter (much less as our half-Presbyters:) And Salmasius justly congratulateth his concession, [that solo confensu hominum & vitandi schismatis gratia, unus enumero Episcoporum, eorundemque Presbyterorum, electus est qui praeesset caeteris: Quod nemo dici prohibet—Nam etsi Episcopalis ordo jure divino introductus est, non eodem tamen illo jure decretum est, ut unus in singulis civitatibus & Ecclesiis, esset Episcopus, sed Ecclesiae authoritate conciliorumque sanctionibus. viz. [It was only by Mans consent and for the avoiding of Schism, that one was chosen out of the number of Bishops, who also were Presbyters, to be above the rest: This saying none forbiddeth. For though the Episcopal Order was introduced by Divine Right, yet was it not by the same right decreed, that One should be a Bishop in each City and Church, but by the authority of the Church and the sanctions of Councils. Of this sober Jesuit more anon.
7. As for Petavius, I need not confute him; for he granteth me most,1 as to matter of Fact, that I desire, as I shall after further shew. His Fundamental Assertion is, That the two Offices of Bishops and Presbyters, were both placed in the same person, in the Apostles days; at which Salmasius justly laugheth: For what is that but to say, that then there was no such person as a Subject Presbyter (much less as our half-Presbyters:) And Salmasius justly congratulateth his concession, [that solo confensu hominum & vitandi schismatis gratia, unus enumero Episcoporum, eorundemque Presbyterorum, electus est qui praeesset caeteris: Quod nemo dici prohibet—Nam etsi Episcopalis ordo jure divino introductus est, non eodem tamen illo jure decretum est, ut unus in singulis civitatibus & Ecclesiis, esset Episcopus, sed Ecclesiae authoritate conciliorumque sanctionibus. viz. [It was only by Mans consent and for the avoiding of Schism, that one was chosen out of the number of Bishops, who also were Presbyters, to be above the rest: This saying none forbiddeth. For though the Episcopal Order was introduced by Divine Right, yet was it not by the same right decreed, that One should be a Bishop in each City and Church, but by the authority of the Church and the sanctions of Councils. Of this sober Jesuit more anon.