Five disputations of church-government and worship

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.^*

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 publick worship) and their Overseers; and that by little they departed from this form, each Bishop enlarging his Diocess, 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 multiplyed Churches and Bishops.^*

1. *And it seems the Churches were not so large as some imagine, even at the sixth General Council at […] in Consta•ti•op. when Canon 78. it was ord••ed that no the fifth day of the week the Baptized were to say over their Belief to the Bishop or the Presbyters: And it was not such Dioceses as ours that this work could be th•• done for.And it seems the Churches were not so large as some imagine, even at the sixth General Council at 〈…〉 in Constatiop. when Canon 78. it was orded that no the fifth day of the week the Baptized were to say over their Belief to the Bishop or the Presbyters: And it was not such Diocesses as ours that this work could be th done for.