Five disputations of church-government and worship

Sect. 14. And 3. We still find that there were more then one of these general itinerant Ministers in a Place, or at least that no one excluded others from having equal power with him in his Province, where ever he came. Barnabas, Silas, Titus, Timotheus, Epaphroditus, and many more were fellow-labourers with Paul in the same Diocese or Province, and not as fixed Bishops or Presbyters under him, but as General Ministers as well as he. We never read that he said to any of the false Apostles that sought his contempt [This is my Diocese, what have •ou to do to play the Bishop in another mans Diocese?] Much less did he ever plead such a Power, against Peter, Barnabas or any Apostolical Minister: Nor that James pleaded any such prerogative at Jerusalem.

Sect. 14. And 3. We still find that there were more then one of these general itinerant Ministers in a Place, or at least that no one excluded others from having equal power with him in his Province, where ever he came. Barnabas, Silas, Titus, Timotheus, Epaphroditus, and many more were fellow-labourers with Paul in the same Diocess or Province, and not as fixed Bishops or Presbyters under him, but as General Ministers as well as he. We never read that he said to any of the false Apostles that sought his contempt [This is my Diocess, what have •ou to do to play the Bishop in another mans Diocess?] Much less did he ever plead su•h a Power, against Peter, Barnabas or any Apostolical Minister: Nor that Iames pleaded any such prerogative at Ierusalem.

Sect. 15. And therefore though we reverence Eusebius and other Ancients, that tell us of some Apostles Dioceses, we take them not as infallible reporters, and have reason in these points partly to deny them credit from the word of God. The Churches that were planted by any Apostle, or where an Apostle was longest resident, were like enough to reckon the series of their Pastors from him: For the founder of a Church is a Pastor of it, though not a fixed Pastor, taking it as his peculiar charge, but delivering it into the hands of such: And in this sense we have great reason to understand the Catalogues of the Ancients