A53732:780
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.
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.
WHEN Men shall cease to be wilfully blind, or when the powers of the strong Delusion that begin to abate shall expire, they will easily see the direct Opposition that is between these two Heads and two Churches, namely Christ and the Pope, the Catholic Church and that of Rome.
WHEN Men shall cease to be wilfully blind, or when the powers of the strong Delusion that begin to abate shall expire, they will easily see the direct Opposition that is between these two Heads and two Churches, namely Christ and the Pope, the Catholick Church and that of Rome.
I KNOW well enough all the Evasions and Distinctions that are invented to countenance this Anti-christianism. As that there is a double Head, one of internal influence of Grace which Christ is, and the Pope is not; the other of Rule and Authority, which the Pope is. But this also is two-fold; Supreme and Remote; or Immediate and Subordinate; the first is Christ, the latter is the Pope. And there is yet farther a two-fold Head of the Church, the one invisible which is Christ; the other visible which is the Pope.
I KNOW well enough all the Evasions and Distinctions that are invented to countenance this Anti-christianism. As that there is a double Head, one of internal influence of Grace which Christ is, and the Pope is not; the other of Rule and Authority, which the Pope is. But this also is two-fold; Supream and Remote; or Immediate and Subordinate; the first is Christ, the latter is the Pope. And there is yet farther a two-fold Head of the Church, the one invisible which is Christ; the other visible which is the Pope.
NOT to insist on these gross and horrible Figments of a twofold Head of the Catholic Church in any sense, which are foreign to the Scripture, foreign to Antiquity, whereof never one word was heard in the Church for Six hundred Years after Christ, deforming the beautiful Spouse of Christ into a Monster; we will allow at present, that the Pope is only the immediate, visible, subordinate Head of all Rule and Authority to their Church, which is what they plead for. Then I say that the Church whereof he is the Head is his Body; that it holds him as its Head; that it is compacted together by the Officers and Orders that depend on him, and receive all their influence of Church-Power and Order from him, which