A53704:337
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.
Unto this time, that is, about the year 107 or 108, do belong the Epistles ascribed unto Ignatius, if so be they were written by him. For Polycarpus wrote his Epistle unto the Philippians after Ignatius was carried to Rome, having wrote his Epistle before in Asia. Many are the ⟨p. 101⟩Contests of Learned Men about those Epistles which remain, whether they are genuine, or the same that were written by him: for, that he did write Epistles unto sundry Churches, is acknowledged by all. And whereas there have in this Age been two Copies found and published of these Epistles, wherein very many things that were obnoxious unto just exception in those before published do not at all appear, yet men are not agreed which of them ought to be preferred; and many yet deny that any of them were those written by Ignatius. I shall not interpose in this contest; only I must say, that if any of his genuine Writings do yet remain, yet the Corruption and Interpolation of them, for many Ages, must needs much impair the Authority of what is represented in them as his; nor am I delivered from these thoughts, by the late either more sound, or more maimed Editions of them. And the truth is, the corruption and fiction of Epistolical Writings in the first Ages was so intolerable, as that very little in that kind is preserved sincere and unquestionable. Hence Dionysius the Bishop of Corinth complained that in his own time his own Epistles were so corrupted by additions and detractions, so as that it seems he would have them no more esteemed as his. Euseb. Ecclesiast. Hist. lib. 4. cap. 22.
But yet because these Epistles are so earnestly contended for by many Learned men, as the genuine Writings of Ignatius, I shall not pass by the consideration of them, as unto the Argument in hand. I do therefore affirm that in these Epistles, (in any Edition of them,) there is no mention made, or Description given of any Church or Churches state, but only of that which is Congregational, that is, such a Church as all the Members whereof did meet and were obliged to meet for Divine Worship and Discipline in the same place. What was the Distinction ⟨p. 102⟩