A53704:448
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.
4. As a new Church-state is Prophesied of under the New Testament, Ezek. 34.25, 26, 27. Isa. 66.18, 19, 20, 21, 22. and other places innumerable; so it was actually erected by Jesus Christ, as we have declared. And whereas it is introduced and established in the place and room of the Church-state under the Old Testament, which ⟨p. 157⟩was to be removed at the time of Reformation, as the Apostle demonstrates at large in his Epistle to the Hebrews; all the commands, promises, and threatenings given or annexed unto that Church-state, concerning the conjunction of men unto it, and walking in it, are transferred unto this of the new erection of Christ. Wherefore although the State of the Church itself, be reduced from that which was Nationally Congregational, unto that which is simply and absolutely so; and all Ordinances of its instituted Worship are changed, with new rules for the observation of what we are directed unto by the light of Nature: yet the commands, promises, and threatenings, made and given unto it as a Church, are all in full force with respect unto this new Church-state; and we need no new commands to render it our duty to join in Evangelical Churches, for the ends of a Church in general.
4. As a new Church-state is Prophesyed of under the New Testament, Ezek. 34.25, 26, 27. Isa. 66.18, 19, 20, 21, 22. and other places innumerable; so it was actually erected by Jesus Christ, as we have declared. And whereas it is introduced and established in the place and room of the Church-state under the Old Testament, which ⟨p. 157⟩was to be removed at the time of Reformation, as the Apostle demonstrates at large in his Epistle to the Hebrews; all the commands, promises, and th•eatnings given or annexed unto that Church-state, concerning the conjunction of men unto it, and walking in it, are transferred unto this of the new erection of Christ. Wherefore although the State of the Church itself, be reduced from that which was Nationally Congregational, unto that which is simply and absolutely so; and all Ordinances of its instituted Worship are changed, with new rules for the observation of what we are directed unto by the light of Nature: yet the commands, promises, and threatnings, made and given unto it as a Church, are all in full force with respect unto this new Church-state; and we need no new commands to render it our duty to joyn in Evangelical Churches, for the ends of a Church in general.