A33359:309
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.
So that if we take account how many Bishops there were of old, as he would have us, by their numbers in Councils, there will be more before the middle of the third Age, than in the beginning of the fourth; more in the beginning of the fourth than in some part of the fifth; and more in the beginning of the fifth, than in some part of the sixth; quite contrary to the Hypothesis on which he proceeds. Whether by his argument he would lead us to think Dioceses did wax and wane so oddly, as it makes Bishops to be more or fewer, I cannot tell. However since he grants that in the fourth and fifth Ages Dioceses were very smallf, and crumbled into small piecesg, (and so nothing like ours): there's no expectation he can find any larger, if any thing near so great, in any former age: unless they can be larger when incomparably fewer Christians belonged to these Bishops; which will be no less a paradox than the former. For it cannot but be thought strange, that the Bishops Diocese should be greater when his flock was undeniably far less. And they seem not to be Christian Bishoprics, whose measures must be taken by numbers of Acres rather than of Souls; or by multitudes of Heathens rather than Christians.
So that if we take account how many Bishops there were of old, as he would have us, by their numbers in Councils, there will be more before the middle of the third Age, than in the beginning of the fourth; more in the beginning of the fourth than in some part of the fifth; and more in the beginning of the fifth, than in some part of the sixth; quite contrary to the Hypothesis on which he proceeds. Whether by his argument he would lead us to think Dioceses did wax and wane so odly, as it makes Bishops to be more or fewer, I cannot tell. However since he grants that in the fourth and fifth Ages Dioceses were very smallf, and crumbled into small piecesg, (and so nothing like ours): there's no expectation he can find any larger, if any thing near so great, in any former age: unless they can be larger when incomparably fewer Christians belonged to these Bishops; which will be no less a paradox than the former. For it cannot but be thought strange, that the Bishops Diocese should be greater when his flock was undeniably far less. And they seem not to be Christian Bishopricks, whose measures must be taken by numbers of Acres rather than of Souls; or by multitudes of Heathens rather than Christians.