A27050:551
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.
2. That p. 7. he again well averreth that the Jewish and Gentile Congregations occasioned several Churches and Bishops in the same Cities. And p. 14. 15. That Timothy was placed by Paul, Bishop of the Gentiles at Ephesus, and S. John, and another after him, Bishop of the Jews. Pag. 16. He thinketh that Timothy was Bishop of Ephesus (or Angel) when Rev. 2. was wrote. Pag. 17. From Epiphanius he reckoneth above 50 years from the Revelation of John, Rev. 2. to the writing of Ignatius's Epistles. By which we may Calculate the time when the Office of half-Presbyters began to be invented, according to his own Computation. That pag. 21. & passim, his supposition of the 24 Bishops of Judea, sitting about the Throne of James Bishop of Jerusalem, and his other supposition of their being so ordinarily there. And of the Bishops of Provinces in other Nations, being so frequently many score, if not hundred Miles off their people in the Metropolitan Cities, when the people had no other Priest to Officiate, doth tend to an Atheistical conceit, that the Ordinary use of Sacred Assemblies and Communion is no very needful thing, when in the best times by the best men, in whole Countries at once, they were so much forborne.
2. That p. 7. he again well averreth that the Jewish and Gentile Congregations occasioned several Churches and Bishops in the same Cities. And p. 14. 15. That Timothy was placed by Paul, Bishop of the Gentiles at Ephesus, and S. John, and another after him, Bishop of the Jews. Pag. 16. He thinketh that Timothy was Bishop of Ephesus (or Angel) when Rev. 2. was wrote. Pag. 17. From Epiphanius he reckoneth above 50 years from the Revelation of John, Rev. 2. to the writing of Ignatius's Epistles. By which we may Calculate the time when the Office of half-Presbyters began to be invented, according to his own Computation. That pag. 21. & passim, his supposition of the 24 Bishops of Judaea, sitting about the Throne of James Bishop of Jerusalem, and his other supposition of their being so ordinarily there. And of the Bishops of Provinces in other Nations, being so frequently many score, if not hundred Miles off their people in the Metropolitane Cities, when the people had no other Priest to Officiate, doth tend to an Atheistical conceit, that the Ordinary use of Sacred Assemblies and Communion is no very needful thing, when in the best times by the best men, in whole Countreys at once, they were so much forborn.