A53704:659
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.
(1.) I never gave occasion to him or any else to think, that I would affix such a sense unto the Apostles Words, as if they gave an Allowance to men to be otherwise minded, as unto the pursuit of their main End, ⟨p. 259⟩of living to God in Faith and Love, with mutual Peace among themselves.
(2.) What then do I intend, by being otherwise minded; even the same that he doth, and nothing else, namely, different Apprehensions about some things in Religion, and particularly those concerning the Law and its Ceremonies. For,
(3.) Let it be supposed that the Apostle in particular intends Dissentions about the Law, and the Observance of its Institutions, yet he doth not determine the case from the especial circumstances of that Difference, so adjudging the Truth unto one of the Parties at variance; but from a general Rule how the Disciples of Christ ought to deport themselves towards one another, during the continuation of such Differences. But,