fuited unto the ends ofChrift's i'.r In f litution. 127 whereby the Church is the Ground and Pillar of Truth. How this can be done , where Churches are of that Make and Conflitution, that the Officers of them can have no immediate Infpetion into or cognizance of either the Knowledge, Opinions, and Pra&ices of the Members of their Church , nor the Body of the Church know on any evident ground , what it is that their principal Officer believes and teaches, I know not. By this means was the Truth preferved in the Churches of the two f"rfl Centuries, wherein they had no Officers but what were placed in particular Churches , fo as that no confiderable Errour made any entrance among them. (2.) That each Church take care that the fame Truth be preferved entire, as unto the profeflion of it in all other Churches. Their Communion among themfelves (where- of afterwards) is built upon their common óNyRoyíx, or Profeffion of the fame Faith. This therefore it is their Duty, and was always their pra&ice to look after, that it was preferved entire. For a change in the Faith of any of them, they knew would be the diffolution of their Communion. Wherefore when any thing of that nature fell out, as it did in the Church of Antioch upon the Preaching of the neceffity of Circumcifon, and keep- ing of the Law , whereby the Souls of many of the Difciples were fubverted, the Church at Hierufalem on the notice and knowledge of it, helped themwith their Advice and Counfel. And Eufebius tells us, that upon the firfc promulgation of the Herefies and Phrenfies of Montaneis, the Faithful, or Churches in Afsa, met fre- quently in fundry places, to examine his Pretences, and' condemn his Errours; whereby the Churches in Phrygia were preferved. Hifi. Eccl. lib. S. cap. 14. So the fame was done afterwards in the cafe of samofatentts at An- tioch , whereby that Church was delivered from the i nfedion
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