A53732:138
The true nature of a Gospel church and its government
The true nature of a Gospel church and its government ... by the late pious and learned minister of the Gospel, John Owen ...
London: printed for William Marshall, 1689
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Chapter 3: Of the Polity, Rule, or Discipline of the Church in General.
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.
How well this great Command and Direction of our Lord Jesus Christ hath been and is complied withal, by those who have taken on them to be Rulers in the Church, is sufficiently known.
WHEREFORE there is no Rule of the Church, but what is Ministerial, consisting in an Authoritative Declaration and Application of the Commands and Will of Christ unto the Souls of Men, wherein, those who exercise it are Servants unto the Church for its Edification, for Jesus sake, 2 Cor. 4.5.
IT hence follows, that the introduction of Humane Authority into the Rule of the Church of Christ in any kind, destroyeth the nature of it, and makes his Kingdom to be of this World, and some of his Disciples to be in their measure like the Princes of the Gentiles; nor is it oft-times from themselves, that they are not more like them than they are. The Church is the House of Christ, his Family, his Kingdom. To act any power in its Rule, which is not his, which derives not from him, which is not communicated by his legal grant; or to act any Power, by Ways, Processes, Rules and Laws not of his appointment, is an invasion of his Right and Dominion. It can no otherwise be, if the Church be his Family, his House, his Kingdom. For what Father would endure that any Power should be exercised in his Family as to the disposal of his Children and Estate, but his own? What Earthly Prince will ⟨p. 31⟩bear with such an intrusion into his Rights and Dominion? Foreign Papal Power is severely excluded here in England, because it entrenches on the Rights of the Crown, by the exercise of an Authority and Jurisdiction not derived from the King according unto the Law of the Land. And we should do well to take care that at the same time we do not encroach upon the Dominion of Christ, by the exercise of an Authority not derived from him, or by Laws and Rules not Enacted by him, but more Foreign unto his Kingdom, than the Canon Law or the Popes Rule is unto the Laws of this Nation, lest we fall under the Statute of Praemunire,