A53704:622
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.
To Erect new kinds of Churches, to introduce into them new Orders, new Rules, Rites and Ceremonies, to impose their Observation on all Churches, and all Members of them, and to charge their dissent with the guilt of Schism, that Schism which is prohibited and condemned in the Scripture, hath much of an assumed Authority and Severity in it, nothing of Countenance from the Scripture or Primitive Antiquity.
To Erect new kinds of Churches, to introduce into them new Orders, new Rules, Rites and Ceremonies, to impose their Observation on all Churches, and all Members of them, and to charge their dissent with the guilt of Schisme, that Schisme which is prohibited and condemned in the Scripture, hath much of an assumed Authority and Severity in it, nothing of Countenance from the Scripture or Primitive Antiquity.
But after that Churches began to depart from this original Constitution by the ways and means before declared, every alteration produced a new supposition of Church Unity and peace, whereto every Church of a new Constitution laid claim; New sorts of Schism were also coined and framed: For there was a certain way found out and carried on in a Mystery of Iniquity, whereby those Meek, Holy, Humble Churches or Societies of Christs Institution, who as such, had nothing to do with the things of the World, in Power, Authority, ⟨p. 245⟩Dignity, Jurisdiction, or Wealth, in some Instances wherein they got the Advantage one of another, became in all these things to equal Kingdoms and Principalities, yea one of them to Claim a Monarchy over the whole World.
But after that Churches began to depart from this original Constitution by the wayes and means before declared, every alteration produced a new supposition of Church Unity and peace, whereto every Church of a new Constitution layed claim; New sorts of Schisme were also coyned and framed: For there was a certain way found out and carried on in a Mistery of Iniquity, whereby those Meek, Holy, Humble Churches or Societies of Christs Institution, who as such, had nothing to do with the things of the World, in Power, Authority,