A33359:268
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 runs beyond M. B's bounds towards the middle of the third Century, and tells us the greatest part of Alexander Severus his Family were Christians. And so they might be, and yet no more Christians in Rome for that, if they were Christians before they came into his family, which is more likely than that they were converted in it. However many more such Additions will not increase that Church beyond M. B's Measures, nor make it near so numerous as that Parish to which Whitehall belongs.
What he next offers neither concerns Rome, being 1general expressions, nor M. B. referring to the Ages after those which he is concerned for, whether by [Greek or Hebrew] we understand the great multitudes which were gathered into the Christian Profession (as Valesius) or that assembled together for Christian worship (as our Author) is not material; though the former is more likely, unless we can think Eusebius, an elegant Writer, would use so much tautology in so few lines. That from which he may expect more service is the next expression, which he renders the multitude of their Meetings in every City, but may with better reason be rendered, the numerousness or multitudes of those that assembled in several Cities. For it is so far from being true, that every City had many Congregations of Christians in it; that there were many Cities long after, which had no Christians in them. And two instances cannot be given of any Cities in the whole Empire that at this time had more Congregations than one; unless where they all might have assembled in one place, they thought it better in Prudence to disperse themselves into several Meetings. For in Alexandria, which was the greatest City next to ⟨p. 85⟩Rome, and the most populous Church in the whole World, there is no appearance of more assemblies till the end of the tenth Persecution, and the death of Peter Bishop there, who suffered in the ninth year of itt. And therefore the elegant gradation, in discovering of which this Gentleman would have us take notice that he has a more comprehensive faculty than Valesius, seems not very well founded.