N00779:132
The order of the Gospel, professed and practised by the churches of Christ in…
The order of the Gospel, professed and practised by the churches of Christ in New England, justified, by the Scripture, and by the writings of many learned men, both ancient and modern divines; in answer to several questions, relating to church discipline / by Increase Mather, president of Harvard College in Cambridge, and teacher of a church at Boston in New England. ; [Five lines of Scripture texts]The order of the Gospel, professed and practised by the churches of Christ in New England, justified, by the Scripture, and by the writings of many learned men, both ancient and modern divines; in answer to several questions, relating to church discipline / by Increase Mather, president of Harvard Colledge in Cambridge, and teacher of a church at Boston in New England. ; [Five lines of Scripture texts]
Boston: printed by B. Green for Benjamin Eliot, 1700
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.
5. If we admit not a Consociation of Churches, there will be no Remedy against the Male Administrations of Particular Churches; nor any cure of Schisms, or Errors that may happen in our Churches. This has been objected (but injuriously) as a Scandal attending the Congregational Church discipline, and that therefore it is a way not practicable. Indeed, if we refuse this part of Church Communion, the objection would be unanswerable. And who would be willing to be a Member of that Church, in which although he should be never so much wronged, there will be no relief for him upon Earth? There was once a Church in New-England, which having censured one of ⟨p. 78⟩their Members, he complained of the suppose• wrong done him, to Neighbour Elders, who thought he had received hard measure. Th• Pastor and major part of the Church were no• willing the case should have a re-hearing before the Elders and Messengers of other Churches. Upon this, great clamours were raised, and prejudices taken up against the Congregational Discipline. Mr. Cawdrey got this story by the end, and in his Epistle to the Dissenting Brethren p. 10. He says that a Minister in N E writes over to England, that this injured person would have no remedy until the Churches in New-England were become Presbyterians, and that if Independency does not brea• all the Churches in New-England excepting a few Semi-Presbyterian, some are deceived Who th• Minister was that wrote thus to England, M• Cawdrey tells us not. But it is a great wrong to the Churches of New-England, and to the way Congregational, to Represent them, and all that are of that way, as being of such Independent and Unaccountable Principles, which they utterly disclaim. Dr. Owen in his Disciplinary Catechism, and especially in the Additament there unto, (which was written on occasion of an harsh and rash censure in the Independent Church in Cambridge in England) h•• with great evidence of reason, refuted the maintainers of such an Independency.
5. If we admit not a Consociation of Churches, there will be no Remedy against the Male Administrations of Particular Churches; nor any cure of Schisms, or Errors that may happen in our Churches. This has been objected (but injuriously) as a Scandal attending the Congregational Church discipline, and that therefore it is a way not practicable. Indeed, if we refuse this part of Church Communion, the objction would be unanswerable. And who would be willing to be a Member of that Church, in which although he should be never so much wronged, there will be no relief for him upon Earth? There was once a Church in New-England, which having censured one of