A27050:997
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.
Object. The practice of the Churches after showeth that they took it not for a sin, or Schism, to have several Altars in a Church.
Object. The practice of the Churches after sheweth that they took it not for a sin, or Schism, to have several Altars in a Church.
Answ. I talk of nothing but matter of fact; it was the note of One Church when those Epistles were written: whether the Author was mistaken de jure, or whether after Ages grew wiser, or rather had fewer Bishops and more Altars for the sake of Carnal Interest, I judge not.
The same Author Epist. ad Smyrn. saith [Ubi utique apparet Episcopus, ibi & multitudo sit: quemadmodum utique ubi est Christus Jesus, illic Catholica Ecclesia:] as Usher's Lat. Trans. or [[Greek or Hebrew]] omnis exercitus coelestis. And the Context showeth that this multitudo or plebs is the Church which the Bishop overseeth. Therefore ubi Episcopus ibi Ecclesia fuit, and so every Church had a present Bishop.
The same Author Epist. ad Smyrn. saith [Ubi utique apparet Episcopus, ibi & multitudo sit: quemadmodum utique ubi est Christus Jesus, illic Catholica Ecclesia:] as Usher's Lat. Trans. or [〈non-Latin alphabet〉] omnis exercitus coelestis. And the Context sheweth that this multitudo or plebs is the Church which the Bishop overseeth. Therefore ubi Episcopus ibi Ecclesia fuit, and so every Church had a present Bishop.