A27050:560
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.
And doth he not speak much to the same purpose, p. 87. [One City with the Territories adjoining to it, being ruled by one single Bishop, was to be called a singular Church: And therefore that which is said to be done in every Church, Act. 14. 23. is said to be done in every City, Tit. 1. 5. T•e sum of which observation is only this, that one City with the Territories adjoining to it, never makes above one Church in the Scripture Style: (And yet he largely proveth the contrary, that there was one Church and Bishop of Jewish Christians, and one of Gentiles) whereas a Province, or Country, or Nations consists, of many Cities, and so of many Episcopal Sees or Churches.] The like he hath again p. 90 §. 53.
And doth he not speak much to the same purpose, p. 87. [One City with the Territories adjoyning to it, being ruled by one single Bishop, was to be called a singular Church: And therefore that which is said to be done in every Church, Act. 14. 23. is said to be done in every City, Tit. 1. 5. T•e sum of which observation is only this, that one City with the Territories adjoyning to it, never makes above one Church in the Scripture Style: (And yet he largely proveth the contrary, that there was one Church and Bishop of Jewish Christians, and one of Gentiles) whereas a Province, or Countrey, or Nations consists, of many Cities, and so of many Episcopal Sees or Churches.] The like he hath again p. 90 §. 53.
But whereas p. 88. •e would Prove that a Province, or Nation, of many Churches, may be called one Church, because the Churches in all the World are so called in our Creed, and in the Scripture: I answer, That he can never prove that many Churches are ever in Scripture called one, save only the Universal Church, which is but one, being Headed by one Head, even Christ. The Universal Church (as he said before of a Church compared to Persons) is One Collective body, as a Political Society related to Christ or constituted of Christ and all Christians: And a particular Church is one as constituted of the Ministerial Pastors and People: But find any Text of Scripture that calleth the Churches of a Nation, or Province, one Church, in all the new Testament if you can.