A90287:6
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.
Christian Reader.
IT is now about three weeks since, that there was sent unto me, a book entitled, independency a great schism; as the frontispiece farther promiseth, undertaken to be managed against something written by me, in a treatise about the true nature of schism, published about a year ago; with an addition of a charge of inconstancy in opinion, upon my self: of the one, and the other, the ensuing discourse will give a farther and full account. Coming unto my hands at such a season, wherein, as it is known, I was pressed with more then ordinary occasions of sundry sorts, I thought to have deferred the examination of it, until farther leisure might be obtained, supposing that some fair advantage would be administered by ⟨image 3⟩it, to a farther Christian debate, of that discovery of truth, and tender of peace, which in my Treatise I had made. Engaging into a cursory perusal of it, I found the Reverend Authors design, and discourse, to be of that Tendency, and nature, as did not require, nor would admit of any such delay: His manifold mistakes in apprehending the intention of my Treatise and of the severals of it His open presumption of his own principles, as the source and spring of what pretends to be argumentative in his discourse, arbitrarily inferring from them, without the least attempt of proof, whatever tenders its assistance to cast reproach on them with whom he hath to do, his neglect in providing a defence for himself by any principles not easily turned upon him, against the same charge which he is pleased to manage against me: His avowed laying the foundation of his whole fabric, in the sand of notoriously false suppositions, quickly delivered me from the thoughts of any necessity to delay the consideration of what he tendered to make good the Title of his discourse.