N02341:344
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.
Some of our Churches do yet continue to Elect, and (with Imposition of Hands) to Ordain One or Two, or Three Ruling Elders, and apprehend they find their Account in it, and good Services ⟨p. 128⟩done to the Interests of Piety. And these we will present with the Exhortation, which Polycarp gave to the Presbyters in the Church at Philippi. Let the Elders be Tender and Merciful; Compassionate towards all; Reducing those that are in Error; Visiting all that are Weak; not Negligent of the Widow nor the Orphan, and him that is poor; but ever providing what is honest in the sight of GOD and Men; Abstaining from all Wrath, Respect of Persons, and Unrighteous Judgment; being far from Covetousness; not hastily believing a Report of any Man; not rigid in Judgment; Knowing that we are all Faulty and Obnoxious to Judgment.
They will also think of what Origen, in the third Century, declared then to be used in the Churches; Persons established to take Notice of the Life and Conversation of those, who embrace the Christian Religion, and when they committed any Evil Actions, to expel them out of the Congregations; and receive with great Affection, those that lived well, and make them better from Day to Day.
§. 2. The Office of DEACONS, to assist and relieve the Pastors, in all the Temporal Affairs of the Church, is in the New English Churches retained, as was in the Primitive; where we find them Serving Tables; being as Ignatius (if it were he) expresses it. ΒΡΟΜΑΤΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΠΟΤΩΝ ΔΙΑΚΟΝΟΙ: The Deacons of Meats and Cups; that is to say, Those who prepared the Bread and Wine for the ⟨p. 129⟩Eucharist: and the Dispensers, as Origen expresses it, of the ΤΑ ΤΑΣ ΕΚΚΛΗΣΙΑΣ ΧΡΗΜΑΤΑ, Churches Money; (which ought to be) with the Advice of the Pastors.