A27058:478
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.
What I say of Atticus, Proclus, and other peaceable Bishops, you may see p. 17. and very oft. Yea of the Bishops of many Sects, much of the Albigenses, &c. p. 17, 18.
Yea of the good that was done by the very worldly sort p. 18, 19, 20. Yea of the Papists Bishops that were pious p. 20. § 46.
And § 47. I vindicate the excellency of the Sacred Office. And § 53, 58, 59, 60. I plead for Episcopacy it self in the justifiable species of it.
§ 2. But perhaps he will say, that at least I say more of their faults than their […]: I answer, of such good Bishops as Cyprian, Basil, Greg. Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Augustin, Hillary, Martin, &c. I speak of their virtues and nothing at all (that I remember) of their faults. Of such as Theophilus, and Cyril Alexandri. and Epiphanius, &c. I speak of their virtues and some of their faults (as the scripture doth of many good mens.) Of the more ambitious, turbulent sort, I speak only or mostly of their faults: For I profess not to write a History of their lives, but to inform the ignorant what Spirit it is that brought in Church tyranny and divisions. I denied none of their virtues, though it was not my work to record them.