A53704:628
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.
For as I have not found either Cause or Reason from any thing in the Doctors Book to make the least change in what I had written, so my principal Design being the Instruction and confirmation of them, who have no other Interest in these things, but only to know and perform their own Duty, I was not willing to give them the trouble of perpetual diversions from the Matter in hand, which all Controversial Writings are Subject unto. Wherefore having premised some general ⟨p. 249⟩Considerations of things insisted on by the Dr. of no great Influence into the Cause in hand, and vindicated one Principle, a supposition whereof we rely upon, namely, the Declension of the Churches in the Ages after the Apostles, especially after the End of the second Century, from the Primitive Institution of their State, Rule, and Order, in the Preface; I shall now proceed to consider and examine distinctly what is opposed unto the Defence of our Innocency as unto the Guilt of Schism. But some things must be premised hereunto. As,
For as I have not found either Cause or Reason from any thing in the Doctors Book to make the least change in what I had writt•n, so my principal Design being the Instruction and confirmation of them, who have no other Interest in these things, but only to know and perform their own Duty, I was not willing to give them the trouble of perpetual diversions from the Matter in hand, which all Controversial Writings are Subject unto. Wherefore having premised some general ⟨p. 249⟩Considerations of things insisted on by the Dr. of no great Influence into the Cause in hand, and vindicated one Principle, a supposition whereof we rely upon, namely, the Declension of the Churches in the Ages after the Apostles, especially after the End of the second Century, from the Primitive Institution of their State, Rule, and Order, in the Preface; I shall now proceed to consider and examine distinctly what is opposed unto the Defence of our Innocency as unto the Guilt of Schisme. But some things must be premised hereunto. As,