N02341:144
Ratio disciplinae fratrum Nov-Anglorum. A faithful account of the discipline professed and practised; in…
Ratio disciplinae fratrum Nov-Anglorum. A faithful account of the discipline professed and practised; in the churches of New-England. : With interspersed and instructive reflections on the discipline of the primitive churches. : [Seven lines from Ezekiel]
Boston: printed for S. Gerrish, 1726
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.
ARTICLE III. The Usual Services which every Lord's Day calleth for.
§. 1. A Church is thus furnished with a Pastor; And sometimes with more than one; In which Case, One of them formerly was distinguished by the Name of a Teacher: Tho' in regard of their Work, and their Power, among these ⟨p. 43⟩Churches, it has been so much Distinctio sine Differentia, that more lately the Distinction is less regarded. And their being mentioned so together, as they are in the sacred Oracles (Eph. IV. 12.) is pleaded for little short of an Identity between them. Let us now see, how he endeavours to irradiate the House of GOD, when he is thus fixed in the Golden Candlestick.
Every LORD's DAY, the Congregation meets twice; and so hath both a Morning and an Evening Sacrifice. These are as Tertullian says of the like in his Time, Dominica Solennia, The Lord's Da• Solemnities.
§ 2. As these Churches, have the Incontestable Judgment and Practice of the Primitive; (directed by the Spirit of GOD who calls the first Day of the Jewish Week, Rev. I 10. The LORD's Day,) harmonizing with them in their Sabbatizing on the Lords Day; and may say that which Dionysius of Corinth wrote unto the Church of Rome, This Day being the Lord's Day, we keep it Holy. And as their Judgment and Practice is according to that in Clemens of Alexandria; A true Christian according to the Commands of the Gospel, observes the Lord's Day, by casting out all evil Thoughts, and entertaining all good Ones, glorifying the Resurrection of the Lord on that Day. So they keep up the Term of, The LORD's Day: and look upon it as an abuse to call it, Sunday: Though the Day being the Christian Sabbath, it is as frequently called, The Sabbath, and, The Sabbath Day, among them. There is an unhappy Passage in the Rhemish and Romish Annotations upon the New Testament, concerning the Protestants; While they