A33359:243
Diocesan churches not yet discovered in the primitive times
Diocesan churches not yet discovered in the primitive times, or, A defence of the answer to Dr. Stillingfleets allegations out of antiquity for such churches against the exceptions offered in the preface to a late treatise called A vindication of the primitive church, where what is further produced out of Scripture and ancient authors for diocesan churches is also discussed.Diocesan churches not yet discovered in the primitive times, or, A defence of the answer to Dr. Stillingfleets allegations out of antiquity for such churches against the exceptions offered in the preface to a late treatise called A vindication of the primitive church, where what is further produced out of Scripture and antient authors for diocesan churches is also discussed.
London: printed for Thomas Parkhurst, 1682
Diocesan Churches not yet discovered in the Primitive times.
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.
He would not have us suspect that the numbers of the Church at Jerusalem were not so great as he pretends, because Pella, an obscure little Town, could receive them all besides its own Inhabitants, but we must understand that Town to be their Metropolis, and the Believers all scattered through the whole Country, and this as Epiphanius writes.
He would not have us suspect that the numbers of the Church at Jerusalem were not so great as he pretends, because Pella, an obscure little Town, could receive them all besides its own Inhabitants, but we must understand that Town to be their Metropolis, and the Believers all scattered through the whole Countrey, and this as Epiphanius writes.
But where does Epiphanius write this? Not in the place cited, he writes the contrary both there and elsewhere, that all the Believers (in one placeb) that all the Disciples (in another place) [Greek or Hebrew]c, what he adds is but to describe where the Town was situated, all the Disciples, all the Believers dwelt beyond Jordan in Pella. Archbishop Whitgift brings this as a pregnant proof that the Christians at Jerusalem were but few in comparison (and no more than could all meet in one place, as a little before he affirms ⟨p. 75⟩again and again) his words are how few Christians was there at Jerusalem not long before it was destroyed, being above Forty years after Christ? Does not Eusebius testify dthat they all were received into a little Town called Pella? yet the Apostles had spent much time and labour in Preaching there; but the number of those that did not profess Christ in that City was infinitee. This might be farther cleared by what Epiphanius saith of that Church in its return from Pella, but I design briefness.