A53704:687
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.
He therefore Objects out of my Discourse, pag. 171. Let the Apostles Rule be produced with any probability of Proof to be his, and we are all ready to subscribe and conform unto it. To which he replies; This is the Apostles Rule to go as far as they can, and if they can go no farther, to sit down quietly and wait for further Instruction, and not to break the Peace of the Church, upon present dissatisfaction, nor to gather new Churches out of others, upon supposition of higher attainments.
Answ. 1. Upon a supposition that those who make and impose these new unscriptural Orders, are the Church, and that as the Church they have Authority so to make and impose them; if this be not the Rule of the Apostle, I believe some men judge it ought so to have been. But
Answ. 1. Upon a supposition that those who make and impose these new unscriptual Orders, are the Church, and that as the Church they have Authority so to make and impose them; if this be not the Rule of the Apostle, I believe some men judge it ought so to have been. But
2. The Apostle's Rule is not, that we should go as far as we can, as though there were any thing of Dispute and Difficulty in the Matter; but that so far as we have attained we should walk according to the same Rule.