A27050:980
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 2 › Chapter 5: The same proved by the full Testimony of Antiquity.
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. V. The same proved by the full Testimony of Antiquity.
That the particular Churches, infimae speciei vel ordinis, (of which combined Associated Churches were constituted) were no larger than is before described, and had but Unum Altar, I shall prove Historically from Antiquity.
THat the particular Churches, infimae speciei vel ordinis, (of which combined Associated Churches were constituted) were no larger than is before described, and had but Unum Altare, I shall prove Historically from Antiquity.
I. And Order requireth that I begin with Clemens Romanus.
But let the Reader still remember that while I cite him and others oft cited heretofore by many, I do it not to the same end, as they who thence prove that Bishops and Presbyters were then the same; but to prove the Churches to be but such single Congregations as are fore-described, Ep. ad Cor. pag. 54, 55. [[Greek or Hebrew]] i. e. Per regiones igitur & urbes verbum praedicantes, primitias eorum spiritu probantes, Episcopos & Diaconos eorum qui credituri erant constituerunt.] Here are these concurrent evidences to our purpose. 1. In that he speaketh only of Bishops and Deacons, and neither here nor elsewhere one syllable of any other Presbyters but Bishops, it is apparent that in those times there were no Subject-Presbyters distinct from Bishops in being: Nor could Doctor Hammond any other way answer Blondel here, but by confessing and maintaining this, and so expounding Clemens as speaking of Bishops only before other Presbyters were in the Church. And if so, then there could be none but Churches of single Assemblies then, or such as one man could officiate in: because there was then no more to do it.