A33359:282
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.
2dly, The greatness of his Revenue is no more apparent, there is nothing to prove it but the riches of that Church, and its great Revenues, and hereof our Author gives us no clear account, no value of the Numismata, nor is there any Evidence in the Council for the Manors he speaks of but only the felling of some wood in a certain place there named. But where there was a Diocesan and Archdeacons, decorum required there should be Manors and vast Revenues for the Bishop. Nor do I quarrel with it, only this breaks the squares a little, and disturbs the correspondence between those and our times; that if the Revenues of that Church had amounted to ten times more, yet the Bishop would scarce have been one jot the richer for it. This will not seem strange to any, who take notice of the ancient Orders, concerning the revenues of an Episcopal Church. The Bishop was to have nothing thereof if he could maintain himself otherwise. When he was necessitous, nothing was allowed him for himself but necessaries, food and raiments. He was to purchase nothing while he lived, nor to leave any thing got by his Bishopric when he died, to his Relatives or others, but only to the Church that maintained himt. The Bishop of ⟨p. 92⟩Edessa, or any other in these Circumstances, must be a poor Diocesan, and one in a good English Rectory or Vicarage, is in a fairer way to be rich, than any in the ancient Bishoprics, so ordered. And if Riches or Revenues be good Arguments to prove a Diocesan, one of our Vicars may be a better Diocesan than the Bishop of Edessa. It is true there is some intimation from Rome, that the Bishop should have the 4th. part of the Churches revenues, but there's no appearance of such a distribution, till after the time of the four first general Councils; nor in any Country but Italy till an hundred years after: Nor did it ever obtain (that I can discover after some inquiry) in the Greek Churches.
2dly, The greatness of his Revonue is no more apparent, there is nothing to prove it but the riches of that Church, and its great Revenues, and hereof our Author gives us no clear account, no value of the Numismata, nor is there any Evidence in the Council for the Mannors he speaks of but only the felling of some wood in a certain place there named. But where there was a Diocesan and Archdeacons, decorum required there should be Mannors and vast Revenues for the Bishop. Nor do I quarrel with it, only this breaks the squares a little, and disturbs the correspondence between those and our times; that if the Revenues of that Church had amounted to ten times more, yet the Bishop would scarce have been one jot the richer for it. This will not seem strange to any, who take notice of the antient Orders, concerning the revenues of an Episcopal Church. The Bishop was to have nothing thereof if he could maintain himself otherwise. When he was necessitous, nothing was allowed him for himself but necessaries, food and raiment