A90276:382
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.
1. The Church of Corinth was undoubtedly a true Church, lately instituted according to the mind of Christ, and was not fallen from that privilege by any miscarriage, nor had suffered any thing destructive to its being; which wholly differences between the case proposed in respect of many particulars, and the instance produced. We confess the abuses, and evils mentioned had crept into the Church, and do thence ⟨p. 266⟩grant, that many abuses may do so into any of the best of the Churches of God. Nor did it ever enter into the heart of any man to think, that so soon as any disorders fall out, or abuses creep into it, it is instantly the duty of any to fly out of it, like Pauls Mariners out of the ship, when the storm grew hazardous. It being the duty of all the members of such a Church untainted with the evils and corruptions of it, upon many accounts to attempt and labour the remedy of those disorders, and rejection of these abuses to the uttermost; which was that, which Paul advised the Corinthians all and some unto, in obedience whereunto they were recovered. But yet this I say, had the Church of Corinth continued in the condition before prescribed, that notorious, scandalous sins had went unpublished, unreproved, drunkenness continued, and practised in the Assemblies, men abiding by the denial of the Resurrection, so overturning the whole Gospel, and the Church refusing to do her duty, and exercise her Authority to cast all those disorderly persons upon their obstinacy out of her communion; It had been the duty of every Saint of God in that Church, to have withdrawn from it, to