A90287:84
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.
To render my former assertions the more unquestionably evident, I consider the several accounts given of mens blameable departures' from any Church, or Churches mentioned in Scripture, and manifest that none of them come under the head of Schism. Apostasy, irregularly of walking, and professed sensuality, are the heads, whereunto all blameable departures from the Churches in the Scripture are referred.
To render my former assertions the more unquestionably evident, I consider the severall accounts given of mens blameable departures' from any Church, or Churches mentioned in Scripture, and manifest that none of them come under the head of Schisme. Apostasy, irregularly of walking, and professed sensuality, are the heads, whereunto all blameable departures from the Churches in the Scripture are referred.
That there are other accounts of this crime, our Author doth not assert; he only says, that all, or some of the places I produce, as instances of a blameable separation from a Church, do mind the nature of Schism as precedaneous to the separation; What ere the matter is I do not find him speaking▪ so faintly and with so much caution through his whole discourse as in this place: all, or some do it; they mind the nature of Schism; they mind it as precedaneous to the separation, so the sum of what he aims at in contesting ⟨p. 83⟩about the exposition of those places of Scripture is this; some of them do mind (I know not how) the nature of Schism, which he never once named as precedaneous to separation; therefore the precise notion of Schism in the Scripture doth not denote differences and divisions in a Church only; Quod erat demonstrandum: That I should spend time in debating a consideration so remote from the state of the controversy in hand, I am sure will not be expected by such as understand it.
That there are other accounts of this crime, our Author doth not assert; he onely saies, that all, or some of the places I produce, as instances of a blameable separation from a Church, do mind the nature of Schisme as precedaneous to the separation; What ere the matter is I do not find him speaking so faintly and with so much caution through his whole discourse as in this place: all, or some do it; they mind the nature of Schisme; they mind it as precedaneous to the separation, so the summe of what he aims at in contesting