A27050:574
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.
CHAP. VI. That it is not of Gods institution, nor is pleasing to him that there be no Churches and Bishops but in Cities; or that a City with its territories, or Country adjacent, be the bounds of each Church.
Some late most esteemed defenders of Diocesans, especially Dr. Hammond, lay so great a stress upon the supposition, that the Apostles settled the Churches in the Metropolitan and Diocesan order, and that they did partly in imitation of the Jewish policy, and partly as a thing necessary by the nature of the thing, that even in Heathen Kingdoms, when Churches are gathered in any Cities, they must have a difference of Church power over each other as they find the Cities to have a civil power (as you heard before from Dr. H.) that I think it meet here briefly to prove, 1. That it was not of the Apostles purpose to have Churches and Bishops placed only in Cities, and not in Villages. 2. Nor that Church power should thus follow the civil; 3. Nor that a City with its territories should be the measure of the habitation of each Churches members. The licet in some cases I deny not, but the oportet is the question, yea and the licet in other cases. The two first are proved together by these reasons, following.
SOme late most esteemed defenders of Diocesanes, especially Dr. Hammond, lay so great a stress upon the supposition, that the Apostles setled the Churches in the Metropolitane and Diocesane order, and that they did partly in imitation of the Jewish policy, and partly as a thing necessary by the nature of the thing, that even in Heathen Kingdomes, when Churches are gathered in any Cities, they must have a difference of Church power over each other as they find the Cities to have a civil power (as you heard before from Dr. H.) that I think it meet here breifly to prove, 1. That it was not of the Apostles purpose to have Churches and Bishops placed only in Cities, and not in Villages. 2. Nor that Church power should thus follow the civil; 3. Nor that a City with its territories should be the measure of the habitation of each Churches members. The licet in some cases I deny not, but the oportet is the question, yea and the licet in other cases. The two first are proved together by these reasons, following.