A27058:162
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.
20. By this time the Ancient Species of the Churches was altered; and whereas it was long held, that a Church and Bishop were Correlates, and there were no more Churches than Bishops, now many hundred or a thousand Parishes are become no Churches, but parts of one Diocesan Church, which is the lowest, and many score or hundred of the old sort of Bishops, all cast out and swallowed up by one. Just as if a thousand, or some hundred Schools should have but one Governing Schoolmaster, and be but one School, but each part have an Usher to read to the Boys, and tell the one Schoolmaster as a Monitor what they did amiss; but might correct none, nor put them out.
20. By this time the Antient Species of the Churches was altered; and whereas it was long held, that a Church and Bishop were Correlates, and there were no more Churches than Bishops, now many hundred or a thousand Parishes are become no Churches, but parts of one Diocesan Church, which is the lowest, and many score or hundred of the old sort of Bishops, all cast out and swallowed up by one. Just as if a thousand, or some hundred Schools should have but one Governing Schoolmaster, and be but one School, but each part have an Usher to read to the Boyes, and tell the one Schoolmaster as a Monitor what they did amiss; but might correct none, nor put them out.
21. By this time they began to live on blood; and even as they swelled in the beginning, cruelty grew up equally with ⟨p. 18⟩Pride: For Reason and Scripture were not on their side, nor would justify their Cause and them, and therefore violence must do it: They desired not the bare title of Power, but the exercise of it, to promote the Issues of their Wit and Will. They began with rash silencing, ejecting and deposing Dissenters, and thence to anathematizing them, and thence to banishing, till at last it grew up to tormenting in the Inquisition, and burning them.
21. By this time they began to live on blood; and even as they swelled in the beginning, cruelty grew up equally with ⟨p. 18⟩