A52591:8
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.
And accordingly such a transaction is to be looked upon but as a meet or fit medium or means whereby to express that their common faith and salvation, and no way to be made use of as an imposition upon any▪ Whatever is of force or constraint in matters of this nature, causeth them to degenerate from the name and nature of Confessions, and turns them from being Confessions of Faith, into exactions and impositions of Faith.
And such common Confessions of the Orthodox Faith, made in simplicity of heart by any such Body of Christians, with concord among themselves, ought to be entertained by all others that love the truth as it is in Jesus, with an answerable rejoicing: For if the unanimous opinions and assertions but in some few points of Religion, and that when by two Churches,1 namely, that of Jerusalem, and the Messengers of Antioch met, assisted by some of the Apostles, were by the Believers of those times received with so much joy, (as it is said, They rejoiced for the consolation) much more this is to be done, when the whole substance of Faith, and form of wholesome words shall be declared by the Messengers of a multitude of Churches, though wanting those advantages of counsel and authority of the Apostles, which that Assembly had.
And such common Confessions of the Orthodox Faith, made in simplicity of heart by any such Body of Christians, with concord among themselves, ought to be entertained by all others that love the truth as it is in Jesus, with an answerable rejoycing: For if the unanimous opinions and assertions but in some few points of Religion, and that when by two Churches,1 namely, that of Jerusalem, and the Messengers of Antioch met, assisted by some of the Apostles, were by the Believers of those times received with so much joy, (as it is said, They rejoyced for the consolation) much more this is to be done, when the whole substance of Faith, and form of wholsome words shall be declared by the Messengers of a multitude of Churches, though wanting those advantages of counsel and authority of the Apostles, which that Assembly had.