A90287:13
A review of the true nature of schism, with a vindication of the Congregational…A review of the true nature of schisme, with a vindication of the Congregationall…
A review of the true nature of schism, with a vindication of the Congregational churches in England, from the imputation thereof unjustly charged on them by Mr D. Cawdrey, preacher of the Word at Billing in Northampton-shire. / By John Owen D.D.A review of the true nature of schisme, with a vindication of the Congregationall churches in England, from the imputation thereof unjustly charged on them by Mr D. Cawdrey, preacher of the Word at Billing in Northampton-shire. / By John Owen D.D.
Oxford: printed by Henry Hall printer to the University for Thomas 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.
CHAP. 1.
The present State of things in the Christian world, will on a slight consideration yield this account of controversies in Religion; that when they are driven to such an issue, as by foreign coincidences to be rendered the interest of parties at variance, there is not any great success to be obtained by a management of them, though with never so much evidence and conviction of truth. An answering of the profession that is on us, by a good and lawful means, the paying of that homage and tribute we owe to the truth, the tendering ⟨p. 2⟩of assistance to the safe-guarding of some weaker professors thereof, from the sophisms and violence of adversaries, is the most that in such a posture of things, the most sober writers of Controversies can well aim at.
THe present State of things in the Christian world, will on a slight consideration yeeld this account of controversies in Religion; that when they are driven to such an issue, as by forraigne coincidences to be rēdered the interest of parties at variance, there is not any great successe to be obtained by a mannagement of thē, though with never so much evidence and conviction of truth. An answering of the profession that is on us, by a good and lawfull meanes, the paying of that homage and tribute we owe to the truth, the tendring ⟨p. 2⟩of assistance to the safe-guarding of some weaker professours thereof, from the sophismes and violence of adversaries, is the most that in such a posture of things, the most sober writers of Controversies can well aime at.
The winning over of men to the truth we seek to maintain, where they have been preingaged in an opposition unto it, without the alteration of the outward state of things, whence their engagements have insensibly sprung and risen, is not ordinarily to be expected. How far I was from any such thoughts in the composing and publishing my Treatise of the nature of Schism, I declared in sundry passages in the treatise its self. Though the thing contended about, whatsoever is pretended to the contrary, will not be found amongst the most important heads of our Religion, yet knowing how far on sundry accounts the stated, fixed interest of several sorts of men, engageth them to abide by the principles they own in reference thereunto I was so far from hoping to see speedily any visible fruits of