A27050:968
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.
4. Bishop Bilson's Testimony, Perp. Gov. cap. 13. pag. 256. See afterward.1
- 14. Bilson.
5. Grotius is large in his endeavours to prove, that not only every City had1 a Bishop, but also every stated Assembly, of which there were divers in one and the same City, and that the Government was not suited to the Temple way, but to the Synagogues; and as every Synagogue had its chief Ruler, of which there were many in a City, so had every Church in a City its Bishop; and that only the Church of Alexandria had the custom of having but one Bishop in the whole City. Thus he de Imper. Sum. Pot. p. 355, 356, 357. And in his Annot. in 1 Tim. 5. 17. [Sed notandum est una urbe, sicut plures Synagogas, ita & plures fuisse Ecclesias, id est conventus Christianorum: & cuique Ecclesiae fuisse suum praesidem, qui populum alloqueretur & Presbyteros ordinaret: Alexandriae tantum eum fuisse morem, ut unus esset in tota urbe praeses qui ad docendum Presbyteros Per urbem distribueret, docet nos Sozomenus, l. 1. c. 14. & Epiphanius, &c.]
- 15. Grotius.
Thus Grotius thought that of old every stated Assembly had a Bishop that had power of Ordination. I confess I interpret not Zozomen nor Epiphanius as Grotius doth, nor believe I that he can bring us frequent proof of two Churches with Bishops in one City (much less many;) unless in Doctor Hammond's instance before and after mentioned. But the rest I accept.