A treatise of episcopacy confuting by Scripture, reason, and the churches testimony that sort…

I do not cite all this now as to prove the sense of Antiquity, but the sense of Petavius, who plainly intimateth that the Churches were no larger of a long time, than that a Bishop might preach to all the Clergy and People every Lords day; and that in Scripture times all or near all the Presbyters were Bishops (which is it that we contend for;) and consequently you may judge what the Churches were.

And though it still look much farther than Scripture times, I will show you what Petavius thought of the Magnitude of City-Churches, even near four hundred years after Christ, in Epiphanius's days, in his Animadvers. on Epiphan. ad Haer. 69. p. 276. [Singularem tunc temporis Alexandriae morem hunc fuisse, vel saltem paucis in Ecclesiis usurpatum, &c. i. e. That this was a singular custom of Alexandria, or at least used in few Churches, you may hence conjecture, because he so expressly mentioneth this custom as peculiar to the Alexandrian Church: to wit, that in the same City there should be many Titles, to each of which should be assigned a proper Presbyter, who should there perform the Church Offices. But yet the same was formerly elsewhere instituted; that is, at Rome: where the Presbyters did every one rule his own people, being distributed by Titles (that is, settled Sub-Assemblies.) To them the Bishops on the Lords days sent Leaven, or hallowed Bread in token of Communion.] See what a shift they were at first put to, lest the several Assemblies should seem several Churches. For it is not to be imagined that this was done to signify that common Christian Communion which they had with all other Christian Churches, but that nearest Communion which belongeth to those that are embodied under one Pastor, or the same Pastor in Common, that is, one particular Church Even as if these divers Altars or Tables were at a distance in the same Church, and the Bishop would signify the Union of the several Companies in the same Society, by sending some of the Bread which he had blessed to them all.

And though it still look much farther than Scripture times, I will shew you what Petavius thought of the Magnitude of City-Churches, even near four hundred years after Christ, in Epiphanius's days, in his Animadvers. on Epiphan. ad Haer. 69. p. 276. [Singularem tunc temporis Alexandriae morem hunc fuisse, vel saltem paucis in Ecclesiis usurpatum, &c. i. e. That this was a singular custom of Alexandria, or at least used in few Churches, you may hence conjecture, because he so expresly mentioneth this custom as peculiar to the Alexandrian Church: to wit, that in the same City there should be many Titles, to each of which should be assigned a proper Presbyter, who should there perform the Church Offices. But yet the same was formerly elsewhere instituted; that is, at Rome: where the Presbyters did every one rule his own people, being distributed by Titles (that is, setled Sub-Assemblies.) To them the Bishops on the Lords days sent Leaven, or hallowed Bread in token of Communion.] See what a shift they were at first put to, lest the several Assemblies should seem several Churches. For it is not to be imagined that this was done to signifie that common Christian Communion which they had with all other Christian Churches, but that nearest Communion which belongeth to those that are embodied under one Pastor, or the same Pastor in Common, that is, one particular Church Even as if these divers Altars or Tables were at a distance in the same Church, and the Bishop would signifie the Union of the several Companies in the same Society, by sending some of the Bread which he had blessed to them all.