A53704:317
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 5: The Sate of the First Churches after the Apostles to the end of the Second Century.
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.
2. The Members of these Churches that were great and numerous, being under the care and Inspection of their Elders in common, might for the ordinary Duty of Divine Worship me•t in parts or several actual Assemblies, and they did so especially in time of Persecution. Nothing occurs more frequently in Ecclesiastical Story, than the Meetings of Christians, in secret Places, in private houses, yea in caves and dens of the Earth, when in some places it was impossible that the whole Body of the Church should so assemble together. How this Disposition of the Members of the Church into several Parts, in each of which some Elder or Elders of it did officiate, gave occasion unto the distinction of greater Churches into particular Titles or Parishes, is not here to be declared, it may be so Elsewhere: But neither yet did this alter the State of the Churches, from their Original Institution. For,
3. Upon all extraordinary occasions, all such as concerned the whole Church, as the Choice of Elders, or the Deposition of them, the admission or exclusion of Members, and the like, the whole Church continued to meet together, which ⟨p. 88⟩practice was plainly continued in the days of Cyprian as we shall see afterwards, Neither doth it appear but that during the first 200 years of the Church, the whole Body o• the Church did ordinarily meet together in one place, for the solemn Administration of the Holy Ordinances of Worship, and the Exercise of Discipline.
Wherefore notwithstanding these and other the like Variations, from the Original Institution of Churches which came in partly by Inadvertency unto the Rule, and partly were received from the Advantages and Accommodations which they pretended unto, the State of the Churches continued Congregational only for 200 years, so far as can be gathered from the remaining Monuments of those times. Only we must yet add, that we are no way concerned in Testimonies or sayings taken from the writings of those in following Ages as unto the State, way and manner of the Churches in this season; but do appeal unto their own writings only, This is the great Artifice whereby Baronius in his Annals would impose upon the Credulity of men, an apprehension of the Antiquity of any of their Roman Inventions; he affixeth them unto some of the first Ages; and giving some Countenance unto them, it may be from some spurious writings, lays the weight of Confirmation on Testimonies and Sayings of Writers, many years, yea for the most part, Ages afterwards, for it was and is of the Latter Ages of the Church, wherein Use and Custom have wrested Ecclesiastical words to other significations than at first they were applied unto, to impose the present State of things among them, on these who went before who knew nothing of them.