RANTERS - Section Five: In What Cases, and How Far This Government Extends I shall begin with that which gave the first rise for this order among the apostles; and I do verily believe, might have been among the first occasions, that gave the like among us, and that is, the care of the poor, of widows and orphans. Love and compa ssion are the great, yea, and the chiefest marks of Christianity; hereby shall it be known, sai ...read
RANTERS - Section Four: Of the Order and Government We Plead For It will be needful then, before I proceed to describe the order and government of the church, to consider, what is or may be properly understood by the church; for some (as I touched before) seem to be offended, or at least afraid of the very word, because the "power of the church, the order of the church, the judgment of the church," and such li ...read
RANTERS - Section One: The Introduction and Method of this Treatise After that the Lord God in his own appointed time had seen meet to put an end to the dispensation of the law, which was delivered to the children of Israel by the ministry of Moses; through and by whom he did communicate unto them in the wilderness from Mount Sinai divers commandments, ordinances, appointments, and observations, according as they a ...read
RANTERS - Section Seven: Concerning the Power of Decision Seeing then, it may fall out in the Church of Christ, that both some may assume another place in the body than they ought, and others may lay claim to a liberty, and pretend conscience in thing's they ought not, and that without question the wrong is not to be tolerated, but to be testified against, however specious its appearance may be; and that ...read
RANTERS - Section Six: How Far This Government Extends in Matters Spiritual and Purely Conscientious Thus far I have considered the order and governmcut of the church, as it respects outward things; and its authority in condemning or removing such things, which in themselves are evil, as being those, which none will readily justify the necessity of which things is such, that few but will acknowledge the care and order in these cases to be commenda ...read
RANTERS - Section Three: Whether There be any Order or Government in the Church of Christ In answer to this proposition, I meddle not at this time with those, that deny any such thing as a Church of Christ; I have reserved their plea to another place. Neither need I be at much pains to prove the affirmative, to wit "that there ought to be go vernment and order in the Church of Christ," unto the generality of our opposers, both Papists ...read
RANTERS - Section Two: Concerning the Ground and Cause of This Controversy When as the Lord God by his mighty power began to visit the nations with the dawning of his heavenly day, (for thus I write unto those that have received and believed the truth,) and that he sent forth his instruments, whom he had fitted and prepared fo r his work, having fashioned them not according to the wisdom and will of man, but to his own he ...read
RANTERS - The Conclusion. The substance, then, of what is asserted and proved in this Treatise, resolves in these following particulars:
First, That in the church of Christ, when it consists of a visible people (for I speak not here of the church in the dark night of apostasy, that consisted not of any society visibly united) gathered into the belief of certain principles ...read
