A53704:386
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 6: Congregational Churches alone suited unto the ends of Christ in the Institution of his…
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. When any of their Bishops of the new Constitution, whether Patriarchal or Diocesan, fell into Heresies, which they did frequently, and that numbers of them, they had so many advantages to diffuse their poison into the whole Body of their Churches, and such Political Interests for their Promotion, as that the Churches themselves were throughly infected with them. It is true, the Body of the People in many places did oppose them, withdraw and separate from them: but it cannot be denied, but that this was the first way and means whereby the Churches ceased to be the Ground and Pillar of Truth, many destructive Errors being received into them, which did only outwardly assault them, whilst they abode in their first Institution. And had not the ⟨p. 130⟩Churches, in process of time, utterly lost their Primitive State and Order, by coalescing into one Papal pretended Universal Church; the Faith itself could never have been so utterly corrupted, depraved, and lost among them, as in the issue it was.
2. When any of their Bishops of the new Constitution, whether Patriarchal or Diocesan, fell into Heresies, which they did frequently, and that numbers of them, they had so many advantages to diffuse their poyson into the whole Body of their Churches, and such Political Interests for their Promotion, as that the Churches themselves were throughly infected with them. It is true, the Body of the People in many places did oppose them, withdraw and separate from them: but it cannot be denied, but that this was the first way and means whereby the Churches ceased to be the Ground and Pillar of Truth, many destructive Errours being received into them, which did only outwardly assault them, whilst they abode in their first Institution. And had not the ⟨p. 130⟩Churches, in process of time, utterly lost their Primitive State and Order, by coalescing into one Papal pretended Ʋniversal Church; the Faith itself could never have been so utterly corrupted, depraved, and lost among them, as in the issue it was.