A53704:17
An enquiry into the original, nature, institution, power, order and communion of evangelical churches.…
An enquiry into the original, nature, institution, power, order and communion of evangelical churches. The first part with an answer to the discourse of the unreasonableness of separation written by Dr. Edward Stillingfleet, Dean of Pauls, and in defence of the vindication of non-conformists from the guilt of schism / by John Owen.An enquiry into the original, nature, institution, power, order and communion of evangelical churches. The first part with an answer to the discourse of the unreasonableness of separation written by Dr. Edward Stillingfleet, Dean of Pauls, and in defence of the vindication of non-conformists from the guilt of schisme / by John Owen.
London: printed by J. Richardson for Nath. Ponder, 1681
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.
The Preface.
An Examination of the General Principles of Dr. Stillingfleet's Book of the Unreasonableness of SEPARATION.
THE Differences and Contests among professed Christians about the Nature, Power, Order, Rule and Residence of the Gospel Church State, with the Interest of each Dissenting Party therein, have not only been great, and of long continuance, but have also so despised all ways and means of allaying or abatement, that they seem to be more and more inflamed every day; and to threaten more pernicious consequents, then any they have already produced; which yet have been of the worst of Evils that the World for some Ages hath groaned under. For the Communion, so much talked of, amongst Churches, is almost come only, unto an Agreement and Oneness in design for the mutual and forcible Extermination of one another; at least this is the professed Principle of them who lay the loudest claim to the Name and Title, with all the Rights and Privileges of the Church; Nor are others far remote from the same Design, who adjudge all who dissent ⟨p. 2⟩from themselves, into such a condition, as wherein they are much inclined to think it meet they should be destroyed. That which animates this contest, which gives it Life and Fierceness, is a supposed enclosure of certain Privileges and Advantages Spiritual and Temporal, real or pretended, unto the Church-state contended about. Hence most men seem to think that the principal, if not their only concernment in Religion, is, of what Church they are; so as that a dissent from them, is so evil, as that there is almost nothing else that hath any very considerable evil in it. When this is once well riveted in their Minds by them whose secular Advantages lye in the Enclosure, they are in a Readiness to bear a share in all the evils that unavoidably ensue on such Divisions. By this means among others, is the state or condition of Christian Religion as unto its public Profession, become at this day so deplorable as cannot well be expressed. What with the bloody and desolating Wars of Princes and Potentates, and what with the Degeneracy of the Community of the People from the Rule of the Gospel in Love, Meekness, Self-denial, Holiness, Zeal, the Universal Mortification of Sin, and Fruitfulness in Good Works, the Profession of Christianity is become but a sad Representation of the Virtues of him who calls out of Darkness into his Marvellous Light.