A53732:788
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.
2. WE enquire at present after such an Union as gives particular Churches Communion among themselves; which this Order doth not, but absolutely overthrows it; leaving nothing unto them but subjection to Officers set over them, who are not of them, according to Rules and Laws of their appointment; which is foreign to the Scripture and Antiquity.
2. WE enquire at present after such an Vnion as gives particular Churches Communion among themselves; which this Order doth not, but absolutely overthrows it; leaving nothing unto them but subjection to Officers set over them, who are not of them, according to Rules and Laws of their appointment; which is foreign to the Scripture and Antiquity.
3. THIS Order it self, the only bond of the pretended Union having no Divine Institution, especially as to its extent unto the whole Catholic Church, nor any intimation in the Scripture, and being utterly impossible to be put in execution or actual exercise, no Man can declare what is the Original or Centre of it, whence it is deduced, and wherein it rests.
3. THIS Order it self, the only bond of the pretended Union having no Divine Institution, especially as to its extent unto the whole Catholick Church, nor any intimation in the Scripture, and being utterly impossible to be put in execution or actual exercise, no Man can declare what is the Original or Center of it, whence it is deduced, and wherein it rests.
HAVING removed these pretences out of our way, we may easily discern wherein the Union, and consequently the Communion of •ll particular Churches doth consist, and in the due observation whereof, all that Church-Order which the Lord Christ hath appointed and doth accept, is preserved.