A27050:592
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.
14. By their model it is not Bishops and Metropolitans alone that are of divine right: For if the Church Government must be modelled to the Civill, the Imperial Churches must have had Officers to answer all the Proconsuls and Prefects, the Lieutenants, the Vicars, the Consular ⟨p. 118⟩Presidents, the Corr•ctors &c. For who can prove that one sort or two only must by imitated and not others.
14. By their model it is not Bishops and Metropolitans alone that are of divine right: For if the Church Government must be modelled to the Civill, the Imperial Churches must have had Officers to answer all the Proconsuls and Presects, the Lieutenants, the Vicars, the Consular ⟨p. 118⟩Presidents, the Corr•ctors &c. For who can prove that one sort or two oaly must by imitated and not others.
15. They must by their rule, set up in England an inconsistent or self destroying form. For in many if not most Counties our Lord Lieutenants, Deputy Lieutenants, and Sheriffs, and most Justices dwell in Country manors and Villages, and not in Cities. And so either Cities must not be the Seats of Bishops and Churches, or else the Seat of Civil Government must not be the Seat of the Ecclesiastical. If they say that Assizes and Sessions are kept in the County Towns, I answer. 1. So Church assemblies called Synods or Councils may be held in them, and yet not be the Bishops Seat. For they are not the Judges or Justices Seat, because of Assizes, and quarterly Sessions. 2. The observation is not universally true: Yea no Assizes or Sessions at all are therefore held in any Town because it is the County Town, but because it is the convenientest place for meeting; The choice of which is left to the Judges and Justices; who sometimes choose the County-Town, and sometimes another, as they please (As Bridgnorth in Shropshire, Aylesbury (not Buckingham) ordinarily in Buckinghamshire, and so of others. 3. And thse County Towns are few of them either Cities or Bishops Seats: As Buckingham, Hartford, Bedford, Cambridge, Huntington, Warwick, Darby, Nottingham, Shrewsbury, Ipswich, Colchester, Lancaster, Flint, Denbigh, Montgomery, Merioneth, Radnor, Cardigan, Carnarvon, Pembroke, Carmarthen, Brecknock, and divers others.