A53732:833
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.
3. WHERE there hath been any Male Administration of Discipline, ⟨p. 254⟩whereby any Members of a Church have been injured, as suppose they are unduly cast out of the Church by the Power and Interest of some Diotrephes; or that any Members of the Church make a Party and Faction to depose their Elders, as it was in the Church of Corinth, when the Church at Rome gave them Advice in the case: It is necessary from the Communion of Churches and the Interest the Persons injured have in the Catholic Church, whose Edification is the end of all Church-Administrations, that the proceedings of such a Church be renewed by a Synod, and a Remedy provided in the case. Nor was it the mind of the Apostle that they should be left without Relief, which were unduly cast out of the Church by Diotrephes; nor is there any other ordinary way hereof, but only by Synods; but this case I suppose I shall speak unto afterwards.
3. WHERE there hath been any Male Administration of Discipline, ⟨p. 254⟩whereby any Members of a Church have been injured, as suppose they are unduly cast out of the Church by the Power and Interest of some Diotrephes; or that any Members of the Church make a Party and Faction to depose their Elders, as it was in the Church of Corinth, when the Church at Rome gave them Advice in the case: It is necessary from the Communion of Churches and the Interest the Persons injured have in the Catholick Church, whose Edification is the end of all Church-Administrations, that the proceedings of such a Church be renewed by a Synod, and a Remedy provided in the case. Nor was it the mind of the Apostle that they should be left without Relief, which were unduly cast out of the Church by Diotrephes; nor is there any other ordinary way hereof, but only by Synods; but this case I suppose I shall speak unto afterwards.
4. THE same is the case with respect unto Worship, as also of Manners and Conversation. If it be reported or known by Credible Testimony that any Church hath admitted into the exercise of Divine Worship any thing superstitious or vain, or if the Members of it walk like those described by the Apostle,