A53704:266
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.
Chapter 4: The Especial Nature of the Gospel Church-State appointed by Christ.
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.
1.13. It is in their Church Assemblies, and in the Performance of his Holy Worship that ⟨p. 64⟩he is present with his Disciples according unto his Promise. (4) In these Churches thus exercised in the holy Worship of God, he gives us a Resemblance and Representation of the great Assembly above, who Worship God continually before his Throne, which is too large a Subject here to insist upon.
1.13. It is in their Church Assemblies, and in the Performance of his Holy Worsh•p that ⟨p. 64⟩he is present with his Disciples according unto his Promise. (4) In these Churches thus exercised in the holy Worship of God, he gives us a Resemblance and Representation of the great Assembly above, who Worship God continually before his Throne, which is too large a Subject here to insist upon.
And to manifest that Assemblies of the whole Church, at once and in one place, for the Celebration of Divine Worship, is of the Essence of a Church, without which it hath no real Being; when God had instituted such a Church Form, as wherein all the Members of it could not ordinarily come together every week for this end; yet he ordained that, for the Preservation of their Church-State, three times in the year the Males (which was the circumcised Church) should appear together in one place, to celebrate the most Solemn Ordinances of his Worship. Exod. 23.14. Chap. 34 23. Deut. 16.16. All those Difficulties which arose from the extent of the Limits of that Church unto the whole Nation, being removed, these Meetings of the whole Church for the Worship of Go• become a continual Duty; and when they cannot be observed in any Church, the State or kind of it is not instituted by Christ.