A33359:270
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.
That which follows is an hundred years or more beyond 1the time to which M. B. limits his Assertion, About this time or not long after Rome had above 40 Churches, which we must not imagine to be built all at the same time, but by degrees, according as the number of Believers did require; &c. pag. 55.
- 1Pag. 55.
From the number of Churches he can't reasonably conclude such a multitude of Christians as he contends for. There were many Churches in Alexandria when Athanasius was Bishop of it, and yet there were no more Christians in his communion than could meet together in one place. Baronius tells us, that there was a City in Germany which had 400 Churches in it; and yet no reason 1to think that Town was comparable for Circuit and Populousness, either to Rome or Alexandria. If I should say that in Optatus there were not so many Churches, but the number mistaken by the Transcribers, this would be as good an answer as that of our Author, who will have the 12 or 14 years of Athanasius his Banishment in Epiphanius not to be so many months, and that years are put instead of months by the mistake of the Copies, pag. 113. Or that other about the number of Bishops in the Council at Antioch, where he will have 30 in diverse Authors to be a mistake of the Transcribers for, 90 (or 97 or 99.u) Onuphrius must have liked such an Answer to this of Optatus, who tho' he was as much concerned for the greatness of the Roman ⟨p. 86⟩Church as any, and no less inquisitive into the ancient state of it, yet delivers it as a thing manifest and certain, that Rome had but 28 Titles, and this number not completed till the fifth Age. But there's no need to insist on any thing of this nature, it is not so material how many Churches there was, as when there was so many, and about the time he will have Blondel to mistake, and M. B. to follow him therein; he had been nibbling at Blondel a little before upon a small occasion and with as little reason, as might be showed, if it were sit to follow one in his Vagaries. Let us see whether here he doth not follow Valesius in his mistake, who will have Optatus to speak of the Churches at Rome in the time of Diocletian's Persecution, tempore persecutionis Diocletiani