Ratio disciplinae fratrum Nov-Anglorum. A faithful account of the discipline professed and practised; in…

The Churches of New-England cannot easily have their Sense better expressed, than in the Terms, of the famous Festus Hommius, who tho' he pleads for the Political Binding Power of Synodical Decrees, as far as a Protestant can do so, yet after all shows himself a MAN, in these Reasonable Words. ^†The Decrees of Councils ought not ⟨p. 174⟩to be propounded unto or obtruded upon, the Churches, as Praetorian Sayings or Persian Decrees, but the Acts of the Council ought to be sent unto all the Churches, that they may examine them by the Rule of the Word of GOD; and that if they be found to agree with it, they may be approved, and so at length may be willingly and unanimously, not unwillingly and by Compulsion, received by the Churches approving them. For the Churches have not bound their Consciences to the Judgment of those whom they send to the Synod; nor have they given them an Absolute Power of Decreeing what they List, in their Names: But their Consciences are always tied only to the Word of GOD; whereto if they find the Acts and Decrees of their Messengers conformed, then at length the Churches ought to establish and approve them.

The Churches of New-England cannot easily have their Sense better express'd, than in the Terms, of the famous Festus Hommius, who tho' he pleads for the Political Binding Power of Synodical Decrees, as far as a Protestant can do so, yet after all shows himself a MAN, in these Reasonable Words. ^†The Decrees of Councils ought not ⟨p. 174⟩to be propounded unto or obtruded upon, the Churches, as Praetorian Sayings or Persian Decrees, but the Acts of the Council ought to be sent unto all the Churches, that they may examine them by the Rule of the Word of GOD; and that if they be found to agree with it, they may be approved, and so at length may be willingly and unanimously, not unwillingly and by Compulsion, received by the Churches approving them. For the Churches have not bound their Consciences to the Judgment of those whom they send to the Synod; nor have they given them an Absolute Power of Decreeing what they List, in their Names: But their Consciences are always tied only to the Word of GOD; whereto if they find the Acts and Decrees of their Messengers conformed, then at length the Churches ought to establish and approve them.