Owen - BX5085 O84x 1681

( S ) Lord Chrift will utterly deflroy. (z) Such things as pre- tend untoa countenance tobegiven them bydivinelnfiitution but horribly corrupted. Such are the Name of a Church and its 'ower, a Worfluip pretended to be Religious and .Di- vine ; an Order as to_Officers and Rulersdifferent from the people, with fundry things of the like nature; thefe things are good in themfelves; but as ingroffed into a falfe Church- State, and Worship corrupt in themfelves, they are of Men, and to be abhorred of all that Peek after the trueChurch of Chrift. ( 3 ) There is that which is the 'Efl'ence of a true Church, namely, that it be a fociety of men united for the Celebrationof Divine Worfliip; 'This fo far as it may be found among them, is tobe approved, But Churches, as evas Paid, are of a Divine Original, and have the warrant of `Divine Authority. The whole Scrip- ture is an account of God's Inflitution ofChurches, and of his dealing with them. God laid the foundation of Church Societies and the ne- cefiîty of them in the Law of Nature, by the creation and conflitution of it. I fpeak of Churches in general, as they are Societies of Humane Race, one way or other joyned and united together forthe Worship of God. Now the foie End of theCreation ofthe Nature ofman, was the Glory of God, in that Worship and Obedience which it was fitted and enabled to perform: For that end, and no other, was our nature created in all its Capacities,Abilities and Perfebi- ons : Neither was man fo made meerly that every indivi dual fh<ould Tingly and by himfelf perform this Worfhip, though that alfo every individual perfon is obliged unto. Every man alone and by himfelf, will not only find himfelf indigent, and wanting fupplies of fundry kinds ; but alfo that he is utterly difabled to at fundry faculties andpowers of his Soul, which by nature heis endued withal. Hence the Lord God faid, It is not good that man fhould be alone, Gen. z. 18. Thefe

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