An Inquiry into the Original, Nature, Institution, Power, Order, and Communion of Evangelical Churches

by John Owen

Overview

When any thing which is pleaded to belong unto religion or the worship
of God is proposed unto us, our first consideration of it ought to be
in that inquiry which our Lord Jesus Christ made of the Pharisees
concerning the baptism of John, "Whence is it? from heaven, or of men?"
He distributes all things which come under that plea or pretence into
two heads, as unto their original and efficient cause, -- namely,
"heaven" and "men." And these are not only different and distinct, but
so contradictory one unto another, that, as unto any thing wherein
religion or the worship of God is concerned, they cannot concur as
partial causes of the same effect. What is of men is not from heaven;
and what is from heaven is not of men. And hence is his determination
concerning both sorts of these things: "Every plant, which my heavenly
Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up," Matt. xv. 13.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940012279194
Publisher:	New Century Books
Publication date:	03/18/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Born at Stadhampton, Oxfordshire, Owen was educated at Queen's College, Oxford, where he studied classics and theology and was ordained. Because of the "high-church" innovations introduced by Archbishop William Laud, he left the university to be a chaplain to the family of a noble lord. His first parish was at Fordham in Essex, to which he went while the nation was involved in civil war. Here he became convinced that the Congregational way was the scriptural form of church government. In his next charge, the parish of Coggeshall. in Essex, he acted both as the pastor of a gathered church and as the minister of the parish. This was possible because the parliament, at war with the king, had removed bishops. In practice, this meant that the parishes could go their own way in worship and organization.