N02341:196
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.
§. 2. The Principle which the Churches do generally go upon, has been thus declared. The Laws by which our SAVIOUR will have His Kingdom to be governed, are administered in the Corporations thereof. Particular Churches of Believers, associating to Worship our SAVIOUR in all His Ordinances, when furnished with Pastors, are such Corporations. But the Great KING has many Subjects in His Visible ⟨p. 69⟩Kingdom, who are not yet constituent Members of the Corporations. They who openly profess the Christian Religion, and make Choice of the True GOD, for Their GOD, and submit unto the Laws of His Kingdom, and have nothing in their Conversation that may give a notorious Contradiction to this Profession; These are to be owned as, The People of GOD. We durst not say, There is no Difference between These and Pagans. We cannot but own These, for Subjects in the Visible Kingdom of our Glorious LORD. We cannot answer it unto GOD, or His People, to deny unto These, and unto the Offspring of these, the Baptism, with which the Subjects of our SAVIOUR, are to be Distinguished and Acknowledged.
§. 2. The Principle which the Churches do generally go upon, has been thus declared. The Laws by which our SAVIOUR will have His Kingdom to be governed, are administred in the Corporations thereof. Particular Churches of Believers, associating to Worship our SAVIOUR in all His Ordinances, when furnished with Pastors, are such Corporations. But the Great KING has many Subjects in His Visible ⟨p. 69⟩Kingdom, who are not yet constituent Members of the Corporations. They who openly profess the Christian Religion, and make Choice of the True GOD, for Their GOD, and submit unto the Laws of His Kingdom, and have nothing in their Conversation that may give a notorious Contradiction to this Profession; These are to be owned as, The People of GOD. We durst not say, There is no Difference between These and Pagans. We cannot but own These, for Subjects in the Visible Kingdom of our Glorious LORD. We cannot answer it unto GOD, or His People, to deny unto These, and unto the Offspring of these, the Baptism, with which the Subjects of our SAVIOUR, are to be Distinguished and Acknowledged.