THE CHURCH. By ENOCH POND, D. D. PROFESSOR IN THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, BANGOR. DIVINITY SCHOOL LIBRARY. BOSTON : PUBLISHED BY WHIPPLE & DAMRELL, No. 9 Cornhill. NEW YORK:-SCOFIELD & VOORHIES, 1837. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1837, by WHIPPLE AND DAMRELL, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. WILLIAM S. DAMRELL, PRINTER, ADVERTISEMENT. THE author of the following pages is, not only by profession, but in principle, a Congregationalist. He believes that the popular form of church government, adopted (with some modifications) by the Congregational and Baptist churches of the United States and of England, is more nearly in accordance with apostolical usage, and better adapted to secure the great ends of church organization, than any other with which he is acquainted. Of course, he feels an interest in the explanation and vindication of this general form. In common with many of his brethren, with whom he has had opportunity of correspondence, the writer has felt that a small treatise on the general subject of the Church, designed not exclusively for the learned, but rather for the instruction of the common mind, was much needed at the present time. This need it has been his object in some measure to supply. How far he has succeeded in this attempt, the public will decide. |