A53704:398
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.
CHAP. VII. No other Church-state of Divine Institution.
IT may be it will be generally granted, I am sure it cannot be modestly denied, that particular Churches, or Congregations, are of a Divine original Institution; as also that the Primitive Churches continued long in that Form or Order. But it will be farther pleaded, that granting or supposing this Divine Institution of particular Churches, yet there may be Churches of another Form and Order also, as Diocesan or National, that we are obliged to submit unto. For although the Apostles ⟨p. 137⟩appointed that there should be Bishops or Elders▪ ordained [Greek or Hebrew], that is, in every City and Town where Christian Religion was received; and Clemens affirmeth, that they did themselves constitute Bishops and Deacons [Greek or Hebrew], in the Regions, or Villages and Cities; yet there was another Form afterwards introduced. Theodoret Bishop of Cyprus affirms, that there were eight hundred Churches committed to his care, Epist. 113. whereof many were in Towns and Cities having no Bishop of their own. The whole Country of Scythia, though there were in it many Cities, Villages and Fortresses, yet had but one Bishop, whose Residence was at Tomis, all other Churches being under him; as Zozomen declares, lib. 6. cap. 20. So it is at this day in divers Provinces belonging of old unto the Greek-Church; as in Moldavia and Wallachia, where they have one whom they call the [Greek or Hebrew], the Leader or Ruler that presides over all the Churches in the Nation. And this O•der of things, that there should not be a Bishop in smaller Churches, was first confirmed in the sixth Canon of the Council of Sardis, in the Year 347.
IT may be it will be generally granted, I am sure it cannot be modestly denied, that particular Churches, or Congregations, are of a Divine original Institution; as also that the Primitive Churches continued long in that Form or Order. But it will be farther pleaded, that granting or supposing this Divine Institution of particular Churches, yet there may be Churches of another Form and Order also, as Diocesan or National, that we are obliged to submit unto. For although the Apostles