A27050:604
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
Part 1 › Chapter 7: The Definition and reasons of a Diocesan Church considered, and overthrown.
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. VII. The Definition and reasons of a Diocesan Church considered, and overthrown.
I Have already showed, that we dispute not about aery notions, nor Non-existence, but about such Dioceses as we see and have; and that by a Diocese we Non-conformists mean only a large circuit of ground with its inhabitants containing many particular Parishes: And by a Diocesan Church, we mean all the Christians within that circuit, who have but one Bishop over them, though they be of many Parish Churches, yea few Presbyterians take the word so narrow as this. For (I think too) many of them do with Rutherford distinguish between a worshipping Church and a Governed Church (and saddling the horse for Prelacy to mount on) do affirm that many (about twelve usually) of these worshipping Churches (like our Parishes) may make but one Governed or Presbyterial Church: But a Diocese in England containeth many hundred, and some above a thousand Parishes (as is said.)
I Have already shewed, that we dispute not about aery notions, nor Non-existence, but about such Dioceses as we see and have; and that by a Diocese we Non-conformists mean only a large circuit of ground with its inhabitants conteining many perticular Parishes: And by a Diocesan Church, we mean all the Christians within that circuit, who have but one Bishop over them, though they be of many Parish Churches, yea few Presbyterians take the word so narrow as this. For (I think too) many of them do with Rutherford distinguish between a worshipping Church and a Governed Church (and sadling the horse for Prelacy to mount on) do affirm that many (about twelve usualy) of these worshiping Churches (like our Parishes) may make but one Governed or Presbyterial Church: But a Diocese in England containeth many hundred, and some above a thousand Parishes (as is said.)
But the Diocesans (Hammond and Downam) define not a Diocese (as we see it) as containing many Churches or holy assemblies; but only as being the Church of one City with its territories. Now the question is, what it is that is the specifying difference by which a Diocesan Church is distinguished from others, and constituted. 1. Not that it is in a City: For an Independent Church, or a Presbyterian Church may be in a City: When there is but one Church there, or many Independent ones, these are no other than those allow, whom you take for your chief adversaries.