their cuftome to place Bifhops in villages, ( as Socrates, Sozomen, and Nicepho- rus agree.) So that thematter offad is certain : except four or five Churches ( if fo many ) in all the world 400 years after Chrift, and except but twoor three hundred years after Chrift, you will find,no Bifhop in any Church but one, as part ofhis own Charge. But the confequence inferred hence will be denied, becaufe the other Pa- tithes might be taught by Subpresbyters without him. Anfiv. But! wouldask, r. Whether all the reff of theParifhes were not the Bifhops Charge ? yea part of his Church, yea equally with the other part ? As to what Onuphrius and others fay of the Rations, and the Bifhops going from Church toChurch, I. Itwas fcarce anywhere but in Rome : 2. It was of later times :. 3. It was only in the City : 4. It was commonly the fame auditors that followed hint, to feveral Churches. And it's true that other Bifhops went to the memorials;of theMartyrs oft, and had as monuments more Churches than affemblies: And it's true that of later times, certain Canons bind theBifhops to vifit all their Parifhes: And the eldeft oblige him to vifit all the people : which fheweth that yet his Docefe was not great. Ifhe be the Bifhop ofthe Church, and theoffice of a Bifhopbe to guide the. Church, in Worfhip, and byDifcipline, then he is bound to do this to all the Church : indeed ifyou make but a meer Presbyter ofhim, then as many may divide the work between them, fo each might know his proper part, (asthings flood when Parifhes or Chappels were divided) But ifa Bifhop, as fuch, be the uniting,head as the King of a Kingdom, he mull be equally relatedto the whole. But ifit werenot equally, who can believe that there was fo great a difference in the parts of the fame Church, as that one parcel of them only fhould, have right to. their Bifhops prefencc, teaching, worthipping, and perfonal guidance, and ten, twenty, an hundred, a thoufand other parcelshave no right at all ? What ! a Bithopofa whole Church, not at all obliged to Teach, or Guide in perfonal wotfhipping, any part ofthat Church but one ? Some great change was made in Churches before men could arrive at fucha conceit? Even now among us, a Bifhop taketh himfelf ,( by the conflrainingLaw of man, which . is his Rule) to v4It his Diocefe once in three years : (I do not mean one Church offourty or anhundred in his Diocefe, much lefs topreach himfelf ufually in thofe few Towns he comes to ; but to call his Curate Neils to- gether,, and to let one of them to preach his Vifitation Sermon.) But where find you this done by three Bifhops in the world for Soo years after Chrift, unlefs that Archbifhops vifited the Bifhops Churches under them ? Now they fay there havebeen Bifhops in Englandwho have once in three yearsconfirmed tome children abroad throughout their Diocefe (I donot mean one oftwo hundred ) but where find you that then the Bithop wentout ofhis City to do this ?' a. My next quefion therefore is, Whether the Bifhopsof thofe times were a'ot at lean as confcionable and. careful.and laborious in their offices, as any now are,
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