A69533:1124
Five disputations of church-government and worship
Five disputations of church-government and worship by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by R.W. for Nevil Simmons, 1659
AN Episcopacy Desirable for the Reformation, Preservation, and Peac… › Chapter 5 › Section
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.
§. 46. 4. And in Scotland they had used the help of Visitors for the Reformation of their Churches, committing the care of a County or large Circuit to some one man, which was as high a sort of Episcopacy at least, as any I am pleading for. Besides that they had Moderators in all their Synods, which were temporary Bishops.
§. 47. 5. Also the chief Divines of the late Assembly at Westminster, that recommended the Covenant to the Nations, have professed their own judgements for such a Moderate Episcopacy as I am here defending: and therefore they never intended the exclusion of this by the Covenant.
§. 48. Object. 2. By this we shall seem mutable, while we take down Episcopacy one year, and set it up again the next. Answ. We desire not the setting up of that which we have taken down: and therefore it is no mutability.
§. 49. Object. 3. But this will prepare for the restoration of the old Episcopacy. By such degrees it invaded the Church at first: and if we let in the preparatory degree, the rest in time is like to follow; all that we can do is little enough to keep it out.