A53704:856
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. Particular Churches or Congregations, with their Order and Rule are of Divine institution, and are sufficient unto all the ends of Evangelical Churches. I take Churches and Congregations in the same sense and notion as the Church of England doth, defining the Church by, a Congregation of Believers, otherwise there may be occasional Congregations, that are not stated Churches.
1. Particular Churches or Congregations, with their Order and Rule are of Divine institution, and are sufficient unto all the ends of Evangelical Churches. I take Churches and Congregations in the same sence and notion as the Church of England doth, defining the Church by, a Congregation of Beleivers, otherwise there may be occasional Congregations, that are not stated Churches.
2. Unto these Churches, there is committed by Christ himself, all the ordinary power, and privileges that belong unto any Church under the Gospel, and of them is required the observance of all Church Duties; which it is their sin to omit.
2. Unto these Churches, there is committed by Christ himself, all the ordinary power, and priviledges that belong unto any Church under the Gospel, and of them is required the observance of all Church Duties; which it is their sin to omit.
3. There is no Church of any other form, kind, nature or constitution, that is of Divine institution. Things may be variously ordered in and amongst Christians; or their Societies may be cast, or disposed of, into such respective Relations to, and dependence on one another, in compliance with the political State, and other circumstances of Times and Places, as may be thought to tend unto their advantage. That which we affirm is, that no alteration of their state from the nature and kind of particular Churches is of divine institution.