the magistrate ‘hath authority, and it is his duty, to take order, that unity and peace be preserved in the Church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire; that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed; all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed; and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administered, and observed’ with ‘power to call synods, to be present at them’. Many Presbyterian churches around the world have modified this line so it doesn’t grant such authority to the civil powers over their synods. Interestingly, the 1689 London Baptist
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