The rule of faith, or, An exposition of the Apostles Creed so handled as…

When I enquire what the Church is, I mean, the true Church, for the false Church is no Church properly, as an ill Grammarian is no Grammarian properly.

When I enquire what the Church is, I meane, the true Church, for the false Church is no Church properly, as an ill Gramarian is no Gramarian properly.

Now to find out what the Church is, we must first consider of the acceptation of the word, and then of the definition of the thing it self.

Now to finde out what the Church is, we must first consider of the acceptation of the word, and then of the definition of the thing it selfe.

The word Ecclesia was a word in use among the Athenians, and came of the word [Greek or Hebrew], and signified an assembly of Citizens, that were called out from the multitude a• it were by name, or in their ranks by the voice of the public Crier, to hear some speech or sentence of the Senate and was thence borrowed by the Apostles for their purposes, by way of similitude: The Church or assembly of Gods people, being a company that came together, not by chance, or without order, but by the voice of Gods Ministers, as it were Criers, called out of the Kingdom of Satan, to hear the doctrine of the Gospel revealed from heaven. The common people in common speech, call the places set apart for the exercises of Religion, Churches. But so it is not taken here. In Scripture the word hath divers acceptations, for sometimes it signified, the assembly of the men of the world for their own businesses; and so that tumultuous Assembly ⟨p. 557⟩of the Ephesians was called a Church,