B20727:146
The keys of the kingdom of heaven and power thereof according to the word…The keyes of the kingdom of heaven and power thereof according to the word…
The keys of the kingdom of heaven and power thereof according to the word of God / by Mr. John Cotton ...The keyes of the kingdom of heaven and power thereof according to the word of God / by Mr. Iohn Cotton ...
London: printed by M. Simmons for Henry Overton, 1644
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.
2. A second reason may be from the latitude of the Apostolical commission, which was given to them, Mat. 28.19, 20. where the Apostles are commanded to teach the people to observe all things which Christ had commanded. If then the Apostles teach the people to observe more then Christ hath commanded, they go beyond the bounds of their commission, and a larger commission then that given to the Apostles, nor Elders, nor Synods, nor churches can challenge.
2. A second reason may be from the latitude of the Apostolicall commission, which was given to them, Mat. 28.19, 20. where the Ap•stles are commanded to teach the people to observe all things which Christ had commanded. If then the Apostles teach the people to observe more then Christ hath commanded, they go beyond the bounds of their commission, and a larger commission then that given to the Apostles, nor Elders, nor Synods, nor churches can challenge.
If it be said, Christ speaketh only of teaching such things which he had commanded, as necessary to salvation.
Answ. If the Apostles or their successors should hereupon usurp an authority to teach the people things indifferent, they must plead this their authority from some other commission given them elsewhere: for in this place there is no foot step for any such power. That much urged and much abused place in 1 Cor. 14.40. will not reach it. For though Paul requiring in that place, all the duties of Gods worship, whether Prayer or Prophesying, or Psalms, or Tongues, &c. that they should be performed decently and orderly, he thereby forbiddeth any performance thereof undecently; as for men with long hair, and women to speak in open assemblies, especially to pray with their hair loose about them. And though he forbiddeth also men speaking two or three at once, which to do, were not order, but confusion; yet he doth not at all, neither himself enjoin, nor allow the Church of Corinth to enjoin such things as decent, whose want, or whose contrary is not undecent; nor such orders, whose want or