A37205:4
The power of Congregational churches asserted and vindicated in answer to a treatise of…
The power of Congregational churches asserted and vindicated in answer to a treatise of Mr. J. Paget entitled The defence of church-government exercised in classes and synods / by John Davenport.The power of Congregational churches asserted and vindicated in answer to a treatise of Mr. J. Paget intituled The defence of church-government exercised in classes and synods / by John Davenport.
London: printed for Rich. Chiswell and to be sold by John Usher of Boston, 1672
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.
TO THE READER.
Tee disposals of GOD in his Providence with reference to the travels of Truth, and bringing forth of Light, are much to be observed, and have much to be read in them. There […] •t been a great and over-ruling hand stead, and that very conspicuously, about […] present Treatise. The Reverend and •earned and eminently accomplished Author ••rst finished a Tractate with this Title, and […] his Subject, near thirty years ago: But •od's time was not yet come for its publishing: it perished therefore in the rude Waves of the vast Ocean, with some other excellent Manuscripts and precious Christians. ⟨image 4⟩Nevertheless, some seven years aft••, God se• him about it again, and then he finished what is now (after twenty years more) thus made public. Thus comes this short an• nervous Treatise to have had a double, and so a more thorough digestion in the heart o• so judicious and holy a Servant of Christ• Nor are the principles and grounds her• proceeded on such as our Author suddenly or lately took up. He was of too serious […] weighty, and advised a spirit, •lightly to take up, or suddenly to vent any singular apprehensions in the things of God. It would be too long to relate, (though I could from his own hand) how he was first staggered in his conformity, and afterwards fully taken off by set Conferences and Debates, with himself and sundry other Ministers obtained with Mr. John Cotton then driven from Boston on account of Nonconformity. Nor am I willing t revive the Memory of what Afflictions […] Author afterwards underwent, because […] could not be satisfied in Conscience in tho two Points; viz. a particular Churches being subjected to a Classis, & Baptizing in that latitude which was then practised, and i still in that Church, to which he had an earnest Call, and with which the Lord gave him a very general and great acceptance. But