A53732:761
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 10: Of EXCOMMUNICATION.Chapter 10: Of EXCOMMVNICATION.
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.
2. IT is an undue Representation of Christ and his Authority, for persons openly guilty of profaneness in sinning, to Excommunicate them who are blameless in all Christian Obedience.
3. ALL Excommunication is Evangelically null where there is wanting an Evangelical frame of spirit in those by whom it is Administered; and there is present an Anti-evangelical Order in its Administration.
3. ALL Excommunication is Evangelically null where there is wanting an Evangelical frame of spirit in those by whom it is Administred; and there is present an Anti-evangelical Order in its Administration.
4. IT is sufficiently evident, that after all the Contests and Disputes about this Excommunication that have been in the World, the Noise that it hath made, the horrible Abuses that it hath been put unto, the wresting of all Church-Order and Rule to give countenance unto a corrupt Administration of it, with the needless Oppositions that have been made against its Institution; there is nothing in it, nothing belongs unto it, nothing required unto its Administration, wherein Mens outward Interests are at all concerned, and which the smallest number of sincere Christians in any Church-Society, may not perform and discharge unto the Glory of Christ, and their own Edification.