A53704:698
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.
3. I deny, and shall for ever deny, that the Rule here intended by the Apostle doth give the least countenance unto the Invention and Imposition of things not divinely instituted, not prescribed, not commanded in the Word, on the Pretence that those who so invent and impose them, judged them lawful, and that they have Authority so to do.
He Objects again unto himself out of my Discourse, that the Apostles never gave any such Rules themselves about outward Modes of Worship with Ceremonies, Feasts, Fasts, Liturgies, &c. Whereunto he Replies; What then? I say then,
1. It had been happy for Christians and Christian Religion if those who pretended to be their Successors, had followed their Example, and made no such Rules at all; that they would not have thought themselves wiser than they, or more careful for the Good of the Church, or better acquainted with the Mind of Christ in these things then they were. For that Multiplication of Rules, Laws, Canons, about the things mentioned, and others of an alike nature, which the Apostles never gave any Example of, or Encouragement unto, which ⟨p. 272⟩afterwards ensued, hath been a principal means of altering the state of the Church from its Original Institution, of corrupting its Worship, Administering occasion unto scandal and endless Strifes.
1. It had been happy for Christians and Christian Religion if those who pretended to be their Successors, had followed their Example, and made no such Rules at all; that they would not have thought themselves wiser than they, or more careful for the Good of the Church, or better acquainted with the Mind of Christ in these things then they were. For that Multiplication of Rules, Laws, Canons, about the things mentioned, and others of an alike nature, which the Apostles never gave any Example of, or Encouragement unto, which