A27050:547
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. 12. Is but about the sense of the word applied to Ireneu• ▪ which Dr. H. taketh here and by many after to mean a Bishop, and wonders that Blondel pleadeth for a parity of order from a common Name. But it is not so much without reason as he maketh it: For if Bishops and Presbyters were in the first times called by one Name; and the highest Person in the Church then was ordinarily known by the name Presbyter, and the appropriating of [Bishop] to one sort▪ and Presbyter to another, came afterwards in by such insensible degrees, that no man can tell when it was, it sounds very probable, that it was the true Episcopal Power, or the same Office and Order, that was first commonly possessed by them to whom the name was Common.
Cap. 12. Is but about the sense of the word applyed to Ireneu• ▪ which Dr. H. taketh here and by many after to mean a Bishop, and wonders that Blondel pleadeth for a parity of order from a common Name. But it is not so much without reason as he maketh it: For if Bishops and Presbyters were in the first times called by one Name; and the highest Person in the Church then was ordinarily known by the name Presbyter, and the appropriating of [Bishop] to one sort▪ and Presbyter to another, came afterwards in by such insensible degrees, that no man can tell when it was, it sounds very probable, that it was the true Episcopal Power, or the same Office and Order, that was first commonly possessed by them to whom the name was Common.
And so much of Dr. Hammond's Dissertations, wherein I must desire the Reader to note, 1. That I meddle not with other mens Causes, nor particularly with the question: Whether one man in each Church, had of old, a guiding superiority over the rest of the Presbyters? Nor yet, whether the Apostles had such successors in the General care of many Churches, (such as Visitors, or Arch-Bishops) but only, 1. Whether every Presbyter were not Essentially a Bishop, or Governor of the Flock, having the power of Keys, as they call it, in foro interior & exteriore, both for resolving Consciences and for Church-order. 2. Whether every particular Church, which ordinarily communicated together in the Lords Supper, and had unum Altar, had not one or more such Bishops. 3. Whether it was not a sinful corrupting change to bring in another Species of Presbyters; and so to depose all the particular Churches and Bishops, and set up a Diocesan Bishop inis ordinis, with half Churches and half-Priests, under him in their stead. 2. And note, That as it concerned me not to speak to all that the Doctor hath said, so I have carefully chosen out all that I thought pertinent and of a seeming weight, as to the cause which I manage, and have past by nothing in the whole