A53704:360
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. That account which they give, that Representation which they make of the kind, state, and order of the Churches among them, doth absolutely agree with, and answer unto, what we are taught in the Divine Writings about the same things. There were indeed before the end of the second Century, some practises in and about some lesser things, (such as sending the Consecrated Elements from the Assembly unto such as were sick) that they had no warrant for from any thing written or done by the Apostles: But as unto the substance of what concerns the State, Order, Rule, Discipline, and Worship of Evangelical Churches, there is not any instance to be given, wherein they departed from the Apostolical Traditions or Institution, either by adding any thing of their own unto them, or omitting any thing that was by them ordained.
3. From this state, the Churches did by degrees and insensibly degenerate, so as that another Form and Order of them did appear towards the end of the third Century. For some in the first Churches, not applying their minds unto the Apostolical Rule and practice, who ordained Elders in every Church, and that not only in Cities or Towns, but as Clemens affirms, [Greek or Hebrew] in the Country-Villages, Many disorders ensued, with respect unto such Collections of Christians and Congregations, as were gathered at some distance from the first or City-Church. Until the time of Origen, the Example of the Apostles in this case ⟨p. 115⟩was followed, and their Directions observed. For so he writes; [Greek or Hebrew]. And we knowing that there are other Congregations gathered in the Towns up and down, by the Preaching of the Word of God; (or that there is another Heavenly City in any Town built by the word of God) we persuade some that are sound in Doctrine and of good Conversation, and meet for their Rule, to take on them the conduct or Rule of those Churches; and these whilst they Rule within the Churches those societies of Divine Institution by whom they are chosen, they govern them according to the Prescriptions or Commands and Rules given by God himself. Adver. Cels. lib. 8.