A53701:47
A guide to church-fellowship and order according to the gospel-institution
A guide to church-fellowship and order according to the gospel-institution wherein these following particulars are distinctly handled, I. The necessity of believers to join themselves in church-order, II. The subject matter of the church, III. The continuation of a church-state, and of the administration of evangelical ordinances of worship, briefly vindicated, IV. What sort of churches the disciples of Christ may and ought to join themselves unto as unto entire communion / by ... John Owen ...A guide to church-fellowship and order according to the gospel-institution wherein these following particulars are distinctly handled, I. The necessity of believers to joyn themselves in church-order, II. The subject matter of the church, III. The continuation of a church-state, and of the administration of evangelical ordinances of worship, briefly vindicated, IV. What sort of churches the disciples of Christ may and ought to joyn themselves unto as unto entire communion / by ... John Owen ...
London: printed for William Marshall, 1692
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.
So speaks the Apostle in the case of Circumcision under the Law, Rom. 2.25. For Circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the Law; but if thou be a breaker of the Law, thy Circumcision is made uncircumcision. It is so in the case of baptism. Verily it profiteth, if a man stand unto the Terms of the Covenant which is tendered therein between God and his Soul; for it will give him Right unto all the outward Privileges of a Regenerate State; but if he do not, as in the sight of God his baptism is no baptism, 1as unto the real Communication of Grace ⟨p. 26⟩and acceptance with him so in the sight of the Church,2 it is no baptism, as unto a participation of the external Rights and Privileges of a Regenerate state.
4. GOD alone is judge concerning this Regeneration, 1as unto its internal, real principle and state in the Souls of men whereon the participation of all the spiritual advantages of the Covenant of Grace doth depend: The Church is judge of its evidences and fruits in their external Demonstration, as unto a participation of the outward Privileges of a Regenerate state, 2and no farther. And we shall hereon briefly declare what belongs unto the forming of a right judgment herein, and who are to be esteemed fit Members of any Gospel Church State, or have a right so to be.