Five disputations of church-government and worship

The fifth Canon of the Council of Antioch is the same with that of Can. Apost. before cited, that no Presbyter or Deacon contemning his own Bishop, shall withdraw from the Church and gather an Assembly apart, and set up an Altar. By which still it appears that to withdraw from that Assembly, was to withdraw from the Church, and that one Bishop had but one Altar and Assembly for Church Communion.

So Concil. Carthag. 4. Can. 35. which order the sitting of the Presbyters and Bishop together in the Church: And many decrees that lay it on the Bishop to look to the Church lands and goods, and distribute to the poor the Churches Alms, do show that their Dioceses were but small, or else they had not been sufficient for this.

So Concil. Carthag. 4. Can. 35. which order the sitting of the Presbyters and Bishop together in the Church: And many decrees that lay it on the Bishop to look to the Church lands and goods, and distribute to the poor the Churches Alms, do shew that their Diocesses were but small, or else they had not been sufficient for this.

All the premises laid together me thinks afford me this conclusion, that the Apostolical particular Political Churches were such as consisted of one only Worshipping Congregation (a Congregation capable of personal communion in public worship) and their Overseers; and that by little they departed from this form, each Bishop enlarging his Diocese, till he that was made at first the Bishop but of one Church, became the Bishop of many, and so set up a new frame of Government, by setting up a new kind of particular Churches. And thus was the primitive Government corrupted, while men measured their charge by the circuit of Ground, thinking they might retain the old compass when they had multiplied converts, and therefore should have multiplied Churches and Bishops.^*