A27058:185
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.
And because I perceived young men and strangers to former times, deceived by the general noise, How Ancient and ⟨p. 24⟩Universal Episcopacy hath been; as if all that is called Episcopacy were but one and the same thing; or as if we were against the Primitive Episcopacy; therefore I suddenly (and too hastily for want of time,) bestowed a few weeks in summing up the Heads of the History of Bishops and Councils, out of a few Historians which were most common, next at hand, and of most credit with those whose faults I opened: That it might be truly known How much the tumified degenerate sort of Prelacy had caused the Divisions and Calamities of the Church.
And because I perceived young men and strangers to former times, deceived by the general noise, How Antient and ⟨p. 24⟩Universal Episcopacy hath been; as if all that is called Episcopacy were but one and the same thing; or as if we were against the Primitive Episcopacy; therefore I suddenly (and too hastily for want of time,) bestowed a few weeks in summing up the Heads of the History of Bishops and Councils, out of a few Historians which were most common, next at hand, and of most credit with those whose faults I opened: That it might be truly known How much the tumified degenerate sort of Prelacy had caused the Divisions and Calamities of the Church.
§ 21. For this Mr. Morris (as fame saith) and many more are so greatly offended with me, and say of me herein what they do. And on pretence of Vindicating the Primitive Church which untruly implieth that I who vindicated it against corrupters did oppose it) he defendeth the corruptions and sinful miscarriages and diseases of the Prelates: And this he doth, 1. By striving to make me contemptible as unlearned, as if that would excuse the sins which I rehearse and lament: He findeth in one place through my haste and heedlessness, a word of Theodoret misplaced, and the word [Calami] translated Quills, which he thinks should be Reeds; and one or two more such; as if he prevaricated, and had a design to extol the Book, which he finds no more and greater fault in, than he really hath done. And he proveth it likely that I never saw the Histories that stood by me near twenty years, because the Printer put a Comma between [Marquardus] and [Freherus] (I think there are a dozen Comma's misplaced in my whole Book;) when he himself saith of his own Book [The faults that have escaped are almost infinite.] But of these things more anon.