A90265:21
The duty of pastors and people distinguished [sic]. Or A brief discourse, touching the…The duty of pastors and people distingushed [sic]. Or A briefe discourse, touching the…
The duty of pastors and people distinguished [sic]. Or A brief discourse, touching the administration of things commanded in religion. Especially concerning the means to be used by the people of God (distinct from church-officers) for the increasing of divine knowledge in themselves and others. Wherein bounds are prescribed to their performances, their liberty is enlarged to the utmost extent of the dictates of nature and rules of charity: their duty laid down in directions, drawn from Scripture-precepts, and the practise of Gods people in all ages. Together with the several ways of extraordinary calling to the office of public teaching, with what assurance such teachers may have of their calling, and what evidence they can give of it, unto others. / By John Owen, M.A. of Q. Col. O.The duty of pastors and people distingushed [sic]. Or A briefe discourse, touching the administration of things commanded in religion. Especially concerning the means to be used by the people of God (distinct from church-officers) for the increasing of divine knowledge in themselves and others. Wherein bounds are prescribed to their peformances, their liberty is enlarged to the utmost extent of the dictates of nature and rules of charity: their duty laid downe in directions, drawn from Scripture-precepts, and the practise of Gods people in all ages. Together with the severall wayes of extraordinary calling to the office of publike teaching, with what assurance such teachers may have of their calling, and what evidence they can give of it, unto others. / By John Ovven, M.A. of Q. Col. O.
London: printed by L. N. for Philemon Stephens, 1644
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.
CHAP. II.
Of the same among the Jews, and of the duty of that people distinct from their church officers.
Of the same among the Jewes, and of the duty of that people distinct from their church officers.
2. Concerning the Jews after the giving of Moses law, the people of God were then gathered in one, and a standard was set up for all his to repair unto, and the Church of God became like a City upon a hill, conspicuous to all; and a certain rule set down for every one to observe that would approach unto him: as then before the law we sought for the manner of Gods worship from the practise of men, so now since the change of the external administration of the covenant, from the prescription ⟨p. 7⟩of God; then we guessed at what was commanded, by what was done; now at what was done, by what was commanded; and this is all the certainty we can have in either kind, though the consequence from the precept, to the performance; and on the contrary, in this corrupted state of nature, be not of absolute necessity; only the difference is, where things are obscured, it is a safer way to prove the practise of men by Gods precept, charitably supposing them to have been obedient, then to wrest the divine rule to their observation; knowing how prone men are to deify themselves, by mixing their inventions with the worship of God: The Administration of Gods providence towards his Church hath been various and the communication of himself unto it, at sundry times, hath been in divers manners; especially, it pleased him not to bring it to perfection but by degrees,1 as the earth bringeth forth fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear: thus the Church before the giving of Moses law, seems to have had two main defects, which the Lord at that time supplied; one in discipline, or government, in that every family exercised the public worship of God within it self or a part. (though some do otherwise conclude from