A53704:450
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 9: The Continuation of a Church-state, and of the Administration of Evangelical Ordinances…
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. IX. The Continuation of a Church-state, and of the Administration of Evangelical Ordinances of Worship, briefly vindicated.
The Controversy about the Continuation of a Church-state, and the Administration of Gospel-Ordinances of Worship, is not new, in this Age, though some pride themselves, as though the Invention of the Error whereby they are denied, were their own: In former Ages, both in the Papacy, and among some of them that forsook it, there were divers who on a pretence of a peculiar Spirituality, and imaginary Attainments in Religion, wherein these things are unnecessary, rejected their Observation. I suppose it necessary briefly to confirm the Truth, and vindicate it from this exception, because though it be sufficiently weak in itself, yet what it is, lies against the foundation of all that we are pleading about. But to reduce things into the lesser compass; I shall first confirm the Truth by those Arguments or Considerations, which will defeat all the Pleas and Pretences of them by whom it is opposed; and then confirm it by positive Testimonies and Arguments, with all Brevity possible.
THe Controversie about the Continuation of a Church-state, and the Administration of Gospel-Ordinances of Worship, is not new, in this Age, though some pride themselves, as though the Invention of the Errour whereby they are denied, were their own: In former Ages, both in the Papacy, and among some of them that forsook it, there were divers who on a pretence of a peculiar Spirituality, and imaginary Attainments in Religion, wherein these things are unnecessary, rejected their Observation. I suppose it necessary briefly to confirm the Truth, and vindicate it from this exception, because though it be sufficiently weak in itself, yet what it is, lies against the foundation of all that we are pleading about. But to reduce things into the lesser compass; I shall first confirm the Truth by those Arguments or Considerations, which will defeat all the Pleas and Pretences of them by whom it is opposed; and then confirm it by positive Testimonies and Arguments, with all Brevity possible.