A53704:357
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.
To the same purpose doth Origen give us an account of the way of the gathering and establishing Churches under Elders of their own choosing, in the close of his last Book against Celsus. And although in the days of Cyprian, in the third Century, the distinction between the Bishop in any Church eminently so called, and those who are only Presbyters; with their imparity, and not only the precedency, but superiority of one over others began generally to be admitted; yet it is sufficiently manifest from his Epistles, that the Church wherein he did preside, was so far a particular Church, as that the whole Body or Fraternity of it, was admitted unto all advice in things of common concernment unto the whole Church, and allowed the exercise ⟨p. 113⟩of their power and liberty in choosing or refusing the Officers that were to be set over them.
Some few things we may observe from the Testimonies insisted on. As,
1. There is in them a true and full representation of the State, Order, Rule, and Discipline of the Churches in the first Ages. It is a sufficient demonstration that all those things wherein at the present the State and Order of the Church are supposed to consist, are indeed later Inventions; not merely because they are not mentioned by them, but because they are not so, when they avowedly profess to give an account of that State and Order of the Church which was then in use and practice. Had there been then among Christians Metropolitan Archbishops, or Bishops Diocesan, Churches National or Provincial, an enclosure of Church-power, or Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in and for the whole rule of the Church, unto Bishops and Officers utterly foreign unto any pretence of Apostolical Institution or countenance; had many Churches, or many hundreds of Churches, been without Rule in or among themselves, subject to the rule of any one man, standing in no especial relation unto any of them, with other things of the like nature, been then invented, known, and in use, how could they possibly be excused in passing them over without the least taking notice of them, or giving them the honour of being once mentioned by them? How easy had it been for their Pagan Rulers, unto whom they presented their accounts (some of them) of the state of their Churches, to have replied, that they knew well enough there were other Dignities, Orders, and practises, than what they did acknowledge, which they were either afraid or ashamed to own? But besides this silence, on the other hand, they assert such things of the Officers appointed in the Church, of the way of their appointment, of