A33359:311
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.
The particulars premised contain enough to satisfy all, that I have yet seen alleged out of Antiquity for Diocesan Churches, so that no more is needful, yet let me add another, which will show there is a medium between Congregational and Diocesan Churches. So that if some Churches should be showed out of the Ancients exceeding the Congregational measures (as some there were in the times of the four first General Councils) yet it cannot thence be immediately inferred that they were Diocesan, since they may prove a third sort of Churches, and such as will as little please those of this Gentleman's persuasion as Congregational.
The particulars premised contain enough to satisfie all, that I have yet seen alledged out of Antiquity for Diocesan Churches, so that no more is needful, yet let me add another, which will shew there is a medium between Congregational and Diocesan Churches. So that if some Churches should be shewed out of the Antients exceeding the Congregational measures (as some there were in the times of the four first General Councils) yet it cannot thence be immediately inferred that they were Diocesan, since they may prove a third sort of Churches, and such as will as little please those of this Gentleman's perswasion as Congregational.
6. It's no argument for a Diocesan Church, that there were several fixed Churches, with their proper Presbyters in a City or its Territory; so long as these Churches, how many soever were governed in common by the Bishop and Presbyters in such a Precinct. For though few instances can be given of such Churches, in or ⟨p. 107⟩belonging to a City in the 4th. Age; yet wherever they were extant in that, or the following Age, in things of common concern to those Churches, they were ordered in common by a Presbytery, that is, the Bishop with the Presbyters of that Precinct. Jerome declares it de jure, they ought to be governed in common, in communi debere Ecclesiam regere.h