A33359:306
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.
These and such like are used as good arguments for Diocesan Churches, whereas there are diverse Towns in England, which besides the Officers in them, have many Congregations and Presbyters in Villages belonging to them, and contained within the Parish; and yet our Author and those of his persuasion would think Diocesans quite ruined, if they were reduced, and confined to the measures of those Parish Churches, and left no bigger than some of our Vicarages and Parsonages, though such as Mr. Hooker affirms to be as large as some ancient Bishoprics; he might have said most, there being not one in many greater or so large. I yet see no ground in antiquity, nor can expect to have it proved, that the larger sort of ordinary Bishoprics in the fourth age, and sometime after, were of more extent than two such Vicarages would be, if united. Yet a Bishop of such a District in our times would be counted so far from having a competent Diocese, that he would scarce escape from being scorned as an Italian Episcopellus.
These and such like are used as good arguments for Diocesan Churches, whereas there are diverse Towns in England, which besides the Officers in them, have many Congregations and Presbyters in Villages belonging to them, and contained within the Parish; and yet our Author and those of his perswasion would think Diocesans quite ruined, if they were reduced, and confined to the measures of those Parish Churches, and left no bigger than some of our Vicarages and Parsonages, though such as Mr. Hooker affirms to be as large as some antient Bishopricks; he might have said most, there being not one in many greater or so large. I yet see no ground in antiquity, nor can expect to have it proved, that the larger sort of ordinary Bishopricks in the fourth age, and sometime after, were of more extent than two such Vicarages would be, if united. Yet a Bishop of such a District in our times would be counted so far from having a competent Diocese, that he would scarce escape from being scorned as an Italian Episcopellus.
But his greatest argument, (in comparison of which his other Allegations, he tells us, are but accidental hints,z