A27050:921
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.
All these Texts and others such plainly tell us whether a Church there was one Assembly or many hundred.
3. This is made yet much more evident, by the Scriptures description of a Bishops work; even such as the Apostles then appointed over every Church. 1. They were to be the ordinary public present teachers of all the Flock which they did oversee. 1 Thess. 5. 12, 13. Know them which labour among you and are over you in the Lord, and esteem them highly in love for their work sake. Those then that were over every Church, were present with the Church, and laboured among them (which they could not do in one of our Dioceses, saving as a man may be said to labour among a Kingdom, or the World, because they labour in it.)
3. This is made yet much more evident, by the Scriptures description of a Bishops work; even such as the Apostles then appointed over every Church. 1. They were to be the ordinary publick present teachers of all the Flock which they did oversee. 1 Thess. 5. 12, 13. Know them which labour among you and are over you in the Lord, and esteem them highly in love for their work sake. Those then that were over every Church, were present with the Church, and laboured among them (which they could not do in one of our Diocesses, saving as a man may be said to labour among a Kingdom, or the World, because they labour in it.)
Heb. 13. 8, 17, 24. Remember them which have the rule over you, which have spoken to you the word of God. Obey them that have the Rule over you, and submit your selves, for they watch for your souls as they that must give account. So that a Church was no bigger than the Bishops could speak the word of God to, and could watch for their souls. But I never saw the face of the Bishop of the Diocese where I live, and know but very few men in his Diocese that ever did see him.