A53704:621
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.
All these Churches and all the Members of them, were obliged by virtue of Divine Institution to obey their Guides, to Honour and Reverence them, and by their voluntary Contribution, to provide for their Honourable Subsistence and maintenance, according to their Ability. Other Church state neither the Scripture nor Antiquity unto the End of the second Century do know any thing of; which I shall hereafter more fully manifest. Neither was there any thing known then to be Schism or so esteemed, but a Division falling out in some one of these Churches; which happened for the most part, if not only, by some of their Teachers, falling into heresy and drawing away Disciples after them, Acts 20.30. or by various opinions about their Guides, 1 Cor. 1.12. or the Ambition of some in seeking the Power and Authority of office among them. To seek for any thing among those Churches, wherein our present Contest about Schism is concerned, is altogether in vain. There was then no such subordination of Churches, of many unto one, as is now pleaded; No such distinction of Officers, ⟨p. 244⟩into those who have a plenary and those who have a partiary power only, in the Rule of the Church; No Church with a single Officer over it, Comprehending in a Subjection unto its Jurisdiction, a multitude of other Churches; No Invention, no Imposition of any Orders, Form• of Prayer or Ceremonies of Worship not of Divine Institution were once thought of, and when any thing of that Nature was first attempted, it caused great troubles amongst them. In a Word, the things on the account of a Non-compliance wherewithal we are vehemently charged with Schism, were then neither laid nor hatched, neither thought of, nor invented.
All these Churches and all the Members of them, were obliged by vertue of Divine Institution to obey their Guides, to Honour and Reverence them, and by their voluntary Contribution, to provide for their Honourable Subsistence and maintenance, according to their Ability. Other Church state neither the Scripture nor Antiquity unto the End of the second Century do know any thing of; which I shall hereafter more fully manifest. Neither was there any thing known then to be Schisme or so esteemed, but a Division falling out in some one of these Churches; which hapned for the most part, if not onely, by some of their Teachers, falling into heresie and drawing away Disciples after them,