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THE REFORMATION OF THE CHURCH: A Collection of Reformed and Puritan Documents on Church Issues
Selected and Introduced by Iain H. Murray
The nature and life of the church is one of the most crucial issues facing Christians today. Questions of ministry and liturgy, authority and freedom, appear in a wide variety of guises throughout the world-wide church. Relativism and uncertainty seem to be as common in the church as in the world. Many Christians wonder whether there is any way forward.
In this context, The Reformation of the Church is an invaluable aid. An anthology of documents, drawn largely but not exclusively from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it presents in a readily accessible form the finest thinking of the reformed fathers on authority and freedom, the need for reformation, the nature of the government, unity and membership of the church of Jesus Christ.
Warmly welcomed when first published in 1965, and widely used since then, these documents provide invaluable material for ministers, elders, leaders, students and all Christians who are concerned to see Christ’s church fulfill her God-given role at a critical juncture in her history.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 7
SECTION I
THE NATURE OF THE CHURCH 15
SECTION II
THE RULE FOR REFORMATION – THE WORD OF GOD
1. Liberation from Human Authority by Martin Luther 30
2. The Reformers and the Regulative Principle by William Cunningham 38
3. The Regulative Principle and Things Indifferent by John Hooper 55
4. The Abolition of Vestments by John a Lasco 63
5. Scripture and the Ordering of Worship 75
SECTION III
THE NEED OF REFORMATION
1. The Necessity for Reformation: The Admonition to Parliament 1572 by Thomas Wilcox 85
2. Concerning a National Church by William Ames 99
3. The Relation of Church and State by Charles Hodge 107
4. Episcopacy: The Petition for the Prelates Examined 127
5. The Grounds of Nonconformity by Edmund Calamy 151
SECTION IV
NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH GOVERNMENT
1. The Book of Discipline 1587 178
2. A True Description of the Visible Church 1589 by Henry Barrow 196
3. The Form of Presbyterial Church Government 1645 by Westminster Divines 207
4. The Cambridge Platform 1648 234
5. The Savoy Platform 1658 276
6. The Difference between Independency and Presbytery by Jeremiah Burroughs 285
7. A Presbyterian View of the Difference with Independency 294
8. The Heads of Agreement 1691 301
SECTION V
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH
1. The Way to Peace by Walter Cradock 314
2. What We Are to Bear with in Others by Jeremiah Burroughs 326
3. Union among Protestants by John Owen 345
4. The Scandal of Division among the Godly by James Durham 358
APPENDICES
1. The Church Membership of Children by Thomas Shepard 383
2. Episcopalian Writers on Church Government 410
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A BEAUTIFUL 475 PAGE CLOTHBOUND VOLUME
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