The true nature of a Gospel church and its government

WHEREFORE such a Communion of Churches is to be enquired after, as from which no true Church of Christ is or can be excluded; in whose actual exercise they may and ought all to live, and whereby the general end of all Churches in the Edification of the Catholic Church may be attained. This is the true and only Catholicism of the Church, which whoever departs from, or substitutes any thing else in the room of it, under that Name, destroys its whole nature, and disturbs the whole Ecclesiastical Harmony, that is, of Christs Institution.

WHEREFORE such a Communion of Churches is to be enquired after, as from which no true Church of Christ is or can be excluded; in whose actual exercise they may and ought all to live, and whereby the general end of all Churches in the Edification of the Catholick Church may be attained. This is the true and only Catholicism of the Church, which whoever departs from, or substitutes any thing else in the room of it, under that Name, destroys its whole nature, and disturbs the whole Ecclesiastical Harmony, that is, of Christs Institution.

HOWEVER therefore we plead for the Rights of particular Churches, yet our real Controversy with most in the World, is for the Being, Union and Communion of the Church Catholic, which are variously perverted by many, and separating it into Parties, and confining it to Rules, Measures and Canons of their own finding out and Establishment. For such things as these, belong neither to the internal nor external Form of that Catholic Church, whose Being in the World we believe, and whose Union we are obliged to preserve. And whoever gives any Description of, or Limitation to the Catholic Church, besides what consist in the Communion of particular Churches intended, doth utterly overthrow it, and therein an Article of our Faith.

HOWEVER therefore we plead for the Rights of particular Churches, yet our real Controversy with most in the World, is for the Being, Union and Communion of the Church Catholick, which are variously perverted by many, and separating it into Parties, and confining it to Rules, Measures and Canons of their own finding out and Establishment. For such things as these, belong neither to the internal nor external Form of that Catholick Church, whose Being in the World we believe, and whose Vnion we are obliged to preserve. And whoever gives any Description of, or Limitation to the Catholick Church, besides what consist in the Communion of particular Churches intended, doth utterly overthrow it, and therein an Article of our Faith.