A27050:559
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.
Will you yet have more? p. 80, 81. When the London Ministers say that [the Believers of one City made but one Church in the Apostles days] he answereth [This observation I acknowledge to have perfect truth in it, and not to be confutable in any part: And therefore instead of rejecting, I shall embrace it, and from thence conclude that there is no manner of incongruity in assigning of one Bishop to one Church, and so one Bishop in the Church of Jerusalem, because it is a Church, not Churches, BEING FORCED TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT WHERE THERE WERE MORE CHURCHES, THERE WERE MORE BISHOPS.] I am almost in doubt by this whether the Dr. were not against the English Prelacy, and he and I were not of a mind, especially remembering that he said nothing against my disputations of Church Government written against himself, when I lived near him. Observe Reader, ⟨p. 109⟩1. That even now he confessed that a Church and Congregation is all one. 2. And here he confesseth, that where there were more Churches, there were more Bishops; and his words [Because it is a Church, not Churches] seem to import that de jure he supposeth it is no Church without a Bishop, and that there should be no fewer Bishops than Churches. And then I ask, 1. Where and when do all the Christians in this Diocese, of above an hundred miles long, Congregate; who meet but in above a thousand several Temples, and never know one of a thousand of the Diocese? 2. Doth not this grant to the Brownists, that the Parish Churches are no Churches, but only parts of the Diocesan Church? 3. And then if it be proved that the Diocesan Church▪form, is but of humane invention, what Church in England will they leave us, that is of divine institution? This is the unhappiness of overdoing to undo all; and of aspiring too high, to fall down into nothing.
Will you yet have more? p. 80, 81. When the London Ministers say that [the Believers of one City made but one Church in the Apostles days] he answereth [This observation I acknowledge to have perfect truth in it, and not to be confutable in any part: And therefore instead of rejecting, I shall imbrace it, and from thence conclude that there is no manner of incongruity in assigning of one Bishop to one Church, and so one Bishop in the Church of Jerusalem, because it is a Church, not Churches, BEING FORECED TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT WHERE THERE WERE MORE CHURCHES, THERE WERE MORE BISHOPS.] I am almost in doubt by this whether the Dr. were not against the English Prelacy, and he and I were not of a mind, especially remembring that he said nothing against my disputations of Church Government written against himself, when I lived near him. Observe Reader,