A53704:583
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 11: Of Conformity and Communion in Parochial Assemblies.
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.
(3.) It is to be enquired, whether the pretended Discipline doth in any thing answer that which Christ hath plainly and expressly ordained. For it a Discipline should be erected whose Right of Exercise, is derived from secular Power, whose Administration is committed unto Persons who pretend not in the least unto any Office of Divine Institution, as Chancellors, Commissaries, Officials, &c. every way unknown unto Antiquity, foreign unto the Churches over which they Rule; exercising their pretended Power of Discipline, in a way of Civil Jurisdiction, without the least regard unto the Rules or Ends of Evangelical Discipline, managing its Administration in brawlings, contentions, revilings, Fees, pecuniary Mulcts, &c. in open defiance of the Spirit, Example, Rule, and Commands of our Lord Jesus Christ, it would be so far from supplying this Defect, that it would exceedingly aggravate the Evil of it. God forbid, that any Christian should look on such a Power of Discipline, and such an Administration of it, to be that which is appointed by Jesus Christ, or any way participant of the Nature of it. Of what Expediency it may be unto other ends, I know not; but unto Ecclesiastical Discipline it hath no Alliance, and therefore in its Exercise, ⟨p. 223⟩so far as it is Corrective, it is usually applied unto the best and most sober Christians.
(3.) It is to be enquired, whether the pretended Discipline doth in any thing answer that which Christ hath plainly and expresly ordained. For it a Discipline should be erected whose Right of Exercise, is derived from secular Power, whose Administration is committed unto Persons who pretend not in the least unto any Office of Divine Institution, as Chancellours, Commissaries, Officials, &c. every way unknown unto Antiquity, forraign unto the Churches over which they Rule; exercising their pretended Power of Discipline, in a way of Civil Jurisdiction, without the least regard unto the Rules or Ends of Evangelical Discipline, mannaging its Administration in brawlings, contentions, revilings, Fees, pecuniary Mulcts, &c. in open defiance of the Spirit, Example, Rule, and Commands of our Lord Jesus Christ, it would be so far from supplying this Defect, that it would exceedingly aggravate the Evil of it. God forbid, that any Christian should look on such a Power of Discipline, and such an Administration of it, to be that which is appointed by Jesus Christ, or any way participant of the Nature of it. Of what Expediency it may be unto other ends, I know not; but unto Ecclesiastical Discipline it hath no Alliance, and therefore in its Exercise,