A27058:159
The true history of councils enlarged and defended against the deceits of a pretended…
The true history of councils enlarged and defended against the deceits of a pretended vindicator of the primitive church, but indeed of the tympanite & tyranny of some prelates many hundred years after Christ, with a detection of the false history of Edward Lord Bishop of Cork and Ross in Ireland ... and a preface abbreviating much of Ludolphus's History of Habassta : written to show their dangerous error, who think that a general council, or college of bishops, is a supreme governor of all the Christian world ... / by Richard Baxter ... ; to which is added by another hand, a defence of a book, entitled, No evidence for diocesan churches ...The true history of councils enlarged and defended against the deceits of a pretended vindicator of the primitive church, but indeed of the tympanite & tyranny of some prelates many hundred years after Christ, with a detection of the false history of Edward Lord Bishop of Corke and Rosse in Ireland ... and a preface abbreviating much of Ludolphus's History of Habassta : written to shew their dangerous errour, who think that a general council, or colledge of bishops, is a supream governour of all the Christian world ... / by Richard Baxter ... ; to which is added by another hand, a defence of a book, entituled, No evidence for diocesan churches ...
London: printed for Tho. Parkhurst, 1682
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.
17. These hurtful Contentions in Councils at first prevailed but little, and that at Nice did much more good (I think) than harm: And after at Constant: a little more hurt was done, and much good: And those that followed did worse and worse, till the proud worldly Spirit contracted Malignity, and so much ⟨p. 17⟩prevailed, that for a thousand years at least the Bishops with their Prelatical Clergy and their Councils have been the grand Corruption and Plague of the Church; which many of the most Learned Expositors of the Revelation, take to be the Image of the Beast; and Dr. H. Moore calls it a Heathenish Christianity, which they have made their Religion.
18. In their progress to all this, as the Dioceses first grew up from our Parochial Magnitude towards that of the present Diocesan, so the very Pastoral Power of all the rest of the Presbyters, was by degrees taken away, so far as that they had no consenting power in Ordinations or Excommunications, unless the Bishop would choose a few for his Council: so that the proper power of the King's was confined to one Bishop over many hundred Parishes; and so Discipline became an impossible thing, save as it served the Bishops against some that they disliked: And so the Church which was as the Garden of Christ, became like the Commons, and good and bad were little differenced in Communion.
18. In their progress to all this, as the Diocesses first grew up from our Parochial Magnitude towards that of the present Diocesan, so the very Pastoral Power of all the rest of the Presbyters, was by degrees taken away, so far as that they had no consenting power in Ordinations or Excommunications, unless the Bishop would chuse a few for his Council: so that the proper power of the King's was confined to one Bishop over many hundred Parishes; and so Discipline became an impossible thing, save as it served the Bishops against some that they disliked: And so the Church which was as the Garden of Christ, became like the Commons, and good and bad were little differenced in Communion.