N00779:174
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.
1. Such Letters will serve instead of a new Examination and Trial which is necessary when persons are first Admitted into the Church.
1. Such Letters will serve instead of a new Examination and Tryal which is necessary when persons are first Admitted into the Church.
2. Because otherwise Churches may be imposed upon, so as to receive Members who are unfit, and it may be under offence in the Churches from whence they come.
2. Because otherwise Churches may be imposed upon, so as to receive Members who are unfi•, and it may be under offence in the Churches from whence they come.
3. To receive the Members of another Church without the Approbation of that Church to which they do belong, is the way to make difference in Churches, and to set them one against another Thus that Learned man. Granting of Letters Testimonial was practised in the Churches in Guernsey whe• first Reformed: Their Ecclesiastical Discipline was the Composure of the famous Thomas Cartwright (as the Ministers in that Island assured me, when I had my Conversation amongst them many years since) Now one Article of their Discipline is, That there shall not he received to the Lords Supper any one of other Parishes without Good Testimony from his Pastor, or of two of the Elders where there is no Minister. ⟨p. 112⟩Although it is true, that no Church ought to be made a P•ison, It is nevertheless a Sin for any Church Member to leave that Church where the Providence of God has set him without just cause. It is a Violation of his Church Covenant. The removal of a Member from a Church does tend to the weakening of that Church If one may depart without just reason, why not an other, and a third, and ten, twenty, and more, until the Church is in a manner dissolved. And therefore 'tis rational that if Members of Churches desire to remove their Relation to another Church, they should acquaint their own Church with their desires, and the reason thereof that so if they are justifiable, they may have a Loving Dismission, but if otherwise that they may be Convinced of their Error, and desist from their purpose. It is no sign of Wisdom for a man so to abound in his own sense, as not to ask the Advice of others (the Church especially to which he is related) n a matter of such moment