A27050:378
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.
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.