A90276:356
Of schism the true nature of it discovered and considered, with reference to the…Of schisme the true nature of it discovered and considered, with reference to the…
Of schism the true nature of it discovered and considered, with reference to the present differences in religion. / By John Owen D.D.Of schisme the true nature of it discovered and considered, with reference to the present differences in religion. / By John Owen D.D.
Oxford: printed by L.L. for T. Robinson, 1657
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.
The Church of England as it is called, (that is, the people thereof) separated herself from the Church of Rome. To free herself from the imputation of Schism, in so doing, as she (that is, the learned men of the Nation) pleaded the errors and corruptions of that Church, under this especial consideration of their being imposed by Tyranny; so also by professing her design to be nothing, but to reduce Religion, and the worship of God, to its original purity, from ⟨p. 244⟩which it was fallen. And we all jointly justify both her and all other reformed Churches in this plea.
The Church of England as it is called, (that is, the people thereof) separated herselfe from the Church of Rome. To free herselfe from the imputation of Schisme, in so doing, as shee (that is, the learned men of the Nation) pleaded the errours and corruptions of that Church, under this especiall consideration of their being imposed by Tyranny; so also by professing her designe to be nothing, but to reduce Religion, and the worship of God, to its originall purity, from ⟨p. 244⟩which it was fallen. And we all joyntly justify both her and all other reformed Churches in this plea.
In her design to reduce Religion to its primitive purity, she always professed, that she did not take her direction from the Scripture only, but also from the Councils and examples of the four or five first Centuries, to which she laboured to conform her Reformation. Let the question now be, whether there be not corruptions in this Church of England, supposing such a national state to be instituted. What I beseech you shall bind my Conscience to acquiesce in what is pleaded from the 4 or 5 first Centuries consisting of men, that could, and did err; more then that did hers, which was pleaded from the 9. or 10. Centuries following? Have not I liberty to call for Reformation according to the Scripture only? or at least to profess that my Conscience cannot be bound to any other? The sum is, the business of Schism from the Church of England, is as a thing built purely and simply on Political considerations so interwoven with them, so influenced from them, as not to be separated. The famous advice of Maecenas to Augustus