A53704:39
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.
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.
These things are sufficient to Vindicate the Truth of the Assertion which the Doctor opposeth, and to free it from his Exceptions. But because, as was observed ⟨p. 12⟩before, the supposition hereof, is the foundation of all our present contests about Church Order and Rule, I shall yet proceed a little farther in the Declaration of the Way and Manner whereby the Apostasy asserted was begun, and carried on. And I shall not herein insist on particular Instances, nor make a Transcription of Stories out of ancient Writers, giving Evidence unto the Truth, because it hath been abundantly done by others, especially those of Magdeburg in the sixth and seventh Chapters of their Centuries, unto whose Observations many other Learned men have made considerable Additions; but I shall only treat in general of the Causes, Ways and Manner, of the Beginning and Progress of the Apostasy or Declension of Churches from their first Institution, which fell out in the successive Ages after the Apostles especially after the End of the second Century, until when, Divine Institutions as unto the substance of them, were preserved entire.
These things are sufficient to Vindicate the Truth of the Assertion which the Doctor opposeth, and to free it from his Exceptions. But because, as was observed ⟨p. 12⟩before, the supposition hereof, is the foundation of all our present contests about Church Order and Rule, I shall yet proceed a little farther in the Declaration of the Way and Manner whereby the Apostacy asserted was begun, and carried on. And I shall not herein insist on particular Instances, nor make a Transcription of Stories out of antient Writers, giving Evidence unto the Truth, because it hath been abundantly done by others, especially those of Magdeburg in the sixth and seventh Chapters of their Centuries, unto whose Observations many other Learned men have made considerable Additions; but I shall only treat in general of the Causes, Ways and Manner, of the Beginning and Progress of the Apostacy or Declension of Churches from their first Institution, which fell out in the successive Ages after the Apostles especially after the End of the second Century, until when, Divine Institutions as unto the substance of them, were preserved entire.