According to the introduction, Brown was an English minister
who ran into trouble with the church of England due to his views on the church
structure and meaning. This is
quite obvious when you read this excerpt because this is clearly a precursor to
what would become congregational polity.
This particular excerpt is written in a call-and-response or
question-and-answer format.
First, he suggests if a congregation is started by a
minister, then the people of the congregation shall hold the minister in high
esteem. But, if the minister is
called to an existing church, then the minister shall serve the church’s
witness.
As pointed out in the introduction, he also defines roles
and titles, deacons, elders, prophets, apostles and suggests that those best at
preaching should preach, teaching should teach and administration should
administer.
Theologically, he seems to imply that we’re all in this
together and that its not the minister’s job to call us out when we’ve
misbehaved, but each others.
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