A27050:470
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.
Cap. 9. About the sense of a Canon variously read.
Cap. 9. About the sence of a Canon variously read.
And Cap. 10. Whether Eutychius Alexandrinus erred in one thing; and therefore were not to be believed in another, are little pertinent to our business.
In his 4th. Dissert. the Cap. 1. is but Proem, but Cap. 2. he tells us that the Apostles as Bishops Governed the Churches which they had planted, without the mediation of a College of Presbyters (all ways) and he bringeth not a word to prove it, but 1 Cor. 3. 6. You have not many Fathers in ⟨p. 89⟩Christ, I have begotten you by the Gospel, c. 4. 15, 16. I have planted, and c. 9. 19, 21. I will come to you, will ye that I come with the Rod? and c. 5 3, 4. I as absent in Body but present in Spirit have judged—This is all. And will not the impartial Reader wonder at humane frailty, how easily men believe what they would have to be true, and what, an evident Nothing will go for undeniable proof. Let the Reader Note, 1. That the question is not whether an Apostle after that he had planted a Church remain still an Apostle to them as well as others, and have the Apostolical eminency of Power, which is greater than any mere Bishop had. 2. But first, Whether the Apostles had any fixed Provinces, or Cities undertaken as their special charge, in which no other Apostle had Apostolical Power? And 2. Whether there were not fixed Bishops settled by them in all the Churches which they planted? 3. And whether it was not so in the Church of Corinth' in particular? Yea, whether they had not more Bishops or Presbyters than one? For by [Unius] which here he applieth to Paul, he meaneth Unicus, Paul only, or else he abuseth his Reader and himself. And 1. He that will follow Paul in his Travels, will find that he went the same way that some other Apostles went, viz. John and Peter, and therefore that they must have the same Dioceses, or have their Dioceses notably intermixed: John was in Asia as well as Paul, and no man can prove that he was the Second Bishop of Ephesus, or Asia, as Paul's successor only when he was dead. Nor will the Romans be willing to grant that Peter was Bishop of no more at Rome but the Jews only (as this Dr. elsewhere intimateth) lest that prove not that the Gentile Church of Rome was founded by Peter, but by Paul alone. 2. What proof hath he that besides Peter and John, there were not many other Apostles per vices in the same Cities where Paul had been? And that when they did come thither, they had not Apostolical Power there? 3. Doth not the Text expressly say that Paul and Barnabas long travelled together?