A53704:363
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.
Hereby was the Original Constitution and state of the first Churches for a good season preserved. Nor was there the least abridgement of the power either of these Churches or of their Officers, because it may be they were some of them planted in poor Country-Villages. For as no man in the world can hinder, but that every true Church hath de jure all the Rights and Powers that any other Church in the world hath or ought to have, or that every true Officer, Bishop, Elder, or Pastor, hath not all the power, that Christ hath annexed unto that Office, (be they at Rome or E•gubium) so there was no abridgement of this power in the meanest of them, as yet attempted.
Hereby was the Original Constitution and state of the first Churches for a good season preserved. Nor was there the least abridgment of the power either of these Churches or of their Officers, because it may be they were some of them planted in poor Country-Villages. For as no man in the world can hinder, but that every true Church hath de jure all the Rights and Powers that any other Church in the world hath or ought to have, or that every true Officer, Bishop, Elder, or Pastor, hath not all the power, that Christ hath annexed unto that Office, (be they at Rome or E•gubium) so there was no abridgment of this power in the meanest of them, as yet attempted.
But this course and duty in many places not long after became to be much omitted; whether out of Ignorance or Negligence, or unwillingness of men to undertake the Pastoral Charge in poor Country-Churches; I know not. But so it was, that Believers in the Regions round about any City, [Greek or Hebrew], were looked on as those which belonged unto the City-Churches, and were not settled in particular Congregations for their edification, which they ought to have been. And the Councils that afterwards ensued, made Laws and Canons that they should be under the Government of the Bishops of those City-Churches. But when the number of such Believers was greatly increased, so as that it was needful to have some always attending the Ministry among them, they came I know not how to have Chorepiscopi among them and over them. The first mention of them is in the Synod of Anyra in Galatia, about the year 314, Can. 13. and mention is again made of them in a Synod of Antioch, An. 341. and somewhat before at the Council of Neocaesarea, Can. 13.