A52591:267
A Declaration of the faith and order owned and practiced in the Congregational churches…
A Declaration of the faith and order owned and practiced in the Congregational churches in England agreed upon and consented unto by their elders and messengers in their meeting at the Savoy, October 12, 1658.
London: printed by John Field, 1659
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
II.
God alone is Lord of the Conscience, and hath left it free from the Doctrines and Commandments of men, which are in any thing contrary to his Word, or not contained in it; so that to believe such Doctrines, or to obey such Commands out of conscience, is to betray true Liberty of Conscience; and the requiring of an implicit faith, and an absolute and blind obedience, is to destroy Liberty of Conscience, and Reason also.
God alone is Lord of the Conscience, and hath left it free from the Doctrines and Commandments of men, which are in any thing contrary to his Word, or not contained in it; so that to believe such Doctrines, or to obey such Commands out of conscience, is to betray true Liberty of Conscience; and the requiring of an implicit faith, and an absolute and blinde obedience, is to destroy Liberty of Conscience, and Reason also.
III.
They who upon pretence of Christian Liberty do practice any sin, or cherish any lust, as they do thereby pervert the main design of the Grace of the Gospel to their own destruction; so they wholly destroy the end of Christian Liberty, which is, that being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, we might serve the Lord without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life.