A53671:140
A brief instruction in the worship of God, and discipline of the churches of…
A brief instruction in the worship of God, and discipline of the churches of the New Testament, by way of question and answer with an explication and confirmation of those answers.
London : s.n., 1667
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.
First they are appointed and approved by Christ. Matth. 18.15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. If thy Brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone, if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy Brother; but if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established; and if he shall neglect to hear, then tell it unto the Church, but if he neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican; verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, shall be bound in Heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed also in Heaven; again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth, as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in Heaven; for where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
Such a Church he supposeth and approveth, as his Disciples had relation ⟨p. 95⟩unto, and as any one of them could have recourse unto as a Brother, in obedience to his commands and directions. This could not be the Church of the Jews neither in its whole body, nor in any of its Judicatories. For as at that time there was a solemn decree of excommunication against all and every one that should profess his Name; John 9.22. The Jews had already agreed that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the Synagogue; which was executed accordingly upon the man that was born blind, Verse the 34. which utterly disabled them from making any use of this direction, command or Institution of his for the present; So afterwards the chief business of the Rulers of those Assemblies from the highest court of their Sanhedrin, to the meanest Judicatory in their Synagogues, was to persecute them, and bring them unto death. Math. 10.17. They will deliver ye up to the Councils and they will scourge you in their Synagogues.