in the Vnity of the Catholick Church must not be any other Communion within the Jurisdiction in which he lives and from which he is supposed to be separated As for any other Churches they are also confined within their own Jurisdictions by the common right of Jurisdictions and so confined as that their intermedlings in other Jurisdictions are not only irregularities but meer Nullities and neither their obtruding Officers can oblige others to receive them nor their presuming to censure or absolve without the consent of the power of the Jurisdiction can oblige either Subjects or subordinate Officers to ratifie their censures And much less can any party of the same Church do it within their own Jurisdiction especially against the consent of the Supreme Governours of that Jurisdiction And the reason is plain â—â—cause in the most confined acceptation of a Church there caâ— be no more than one in a Jurisdiction and therefore the multiplying of opposite Assemblies in the same Jurisdiction cannot muâ—â—iply Churches but still that party and that alone must be the Church of the Jurisdiction which has the original right of Authority on their side It is certain by the fundamental constitutions of all Government that neither the acts of Subjects in opposition to their Governours nor of inferior subordinate Governours in opposition to the Supreme visible Governours nor of a smaller over-voted part in opposition to a prevailing number of suffrages are to be taken for the acts of the Society And on account of some or all these defects no act of any of the Conventicles in London can be taken for the act of the Church of London So that still he that only communicates with the Conventicles may notwithstanding that be excluded from the Communion of all particular Churches in the World even that of London it self And therefore this can never in this way of judging secure any Communicant of his being in the Communion of the Catholick Church § XVI BESIDES it has appeared that as they are no acts of Churches so neither are they valid as to the nature of the thing and therefore cannot validly admit a Member even of that particular Church And if they be not valid in reference to that particular Church I leave it to our Brethrens second thoughts to consider how they can be valid in regard of the Catholick Church It suffices at present that this Nullity of such Sacraments hinders them from making their Communicants Members of any particular Church which is sufficient on our present Principles to deprive them of the comfort of their being assured thereby that they are Members of the Catholick Church And yet if what I have said prove true I have directly proved that they who received invalid Sacraments cannot by virtue of such Sacraments expect the Spirit of Christ or to be validly united into his Mystical Body without which our Adversaries themselves will neither think it possible to be united to the Catholick Church nor could they think a Vnion with the Catholick Church desirable on such terms though it had been possible Besides whoever intermeddles to repeal censures within a particular Jurisdiction against the Superiors of that Jurisdiction cannot be presumed to be a competent Judg of such matters though his Judgment should be never so true and the Superiors never so much mistaken yet in all matters of practice not sinful the Superiors Judgment is that wherein the Subject is obliged to acquiesce as to practice And therefore though it were fit that a Person censured by the Governours of a Jurisdiction should be restored yet none but the Governours themselves who have censured him have power to restore him And therefore though such Persons so restoring him should have right on their side as to the reasonableness of the cause why he should be restored yet still these two cases are very different that it is fit he should be restored and that he actually is so And though the Superiors themselves who have power of restoring him do judg it fit that he should be restored yet even their judging it fit that he should be restored does not actually restore him And therefore if the Authority of these Persons fail who presume to restore a Person censured by the Governours of the Jurisdiction against the consent of those Governours that alone is sufficient to invalidate the act of his restitution And if he be not actually restored it plainly follows that a Person so restored is not yet an actual Member of that particular Church and therefore notwithstanding that restitution still continues out of the Communion of all particular Churches and consequently of the Catholick Church in general § XVII AND these same reasons which prove that the acts of usurping Subjects cannot make a Member of that particular Church to which they are related as Members will also prove that their being received into the Communion of other Churches by alike unauthorized Members can never make them Members of those Churches into which they are pretended to be received And therefore if valid Sacraments be only administred in the Episcopal Communion in opposition to all others at least in such places where there are such opposite Communions and it is impossible for any to be made visibly a Member of any Church without a visible participation of its Sacraments then no reception by Persons divided from Episcopal Authority in other places can make them Members of the Churches of those places where they are received If the Conventicles in London have no power to make a Member of the Church of London then though such a censured Person as I am speaking of who should despair of a visible Communion with the Catholick Church in London should remove to York yet he could not better his condition by that removal The Conventicles in York are for the same reason under the same incapacities of making him a Member of the Church of York as they in London were for making him a Member of the Church of London And let him remove never so often yet wher-ever the same reason holds there will still remain the same impossibility of a relief Let him hold correspondence with never so many Conventicles in never so many or distant places all they can do put together cannot make him a Member of one particular Church § XVIII TO which if we add that all those Churches if any there be not Episcopally governed not yet opposed to any Canonical-Episcopacy of the place they live in if notwithstanding they keep an amicable correspondence with the Episcopal Communions and withal keep true to the terms of correspondence they cannot receive to their Communion any who has refused to communicate with those Episcopal Communions with which they mantein correspondence whilest he lived among them and was subject to them As for a surreptitious Communion which may be obteined with forein Churches without knowledg of their condition at home it can be of no more validity before God than their surreptitious bargains
the Judgment of the Person complying that he may also Judge them to be secure and that this is not only actually true in practice but also that it must be so considering the reason of the thing For neither indeed can any real security of any external Object whatsoever be really for our Interest any further than it may be known and judged to be so nor if it were capable of being our Interest yet is it capable of being a reason of any of our compliances nor is it capable of being either our present Interest or the present Reason of our Practice without a present satisfaction of our Judgments concerning it that we really believe it to be our Interest and really believe it secured by this compliance so that it is in vain to pretend that the excellency of the promises of the Gospel can be a rational inducement to us to do any thing for them at present any farther than we may at present be satisfied that by doing so we shall secure our Interest in them These things I conceive so easy as that I cannot think it necessary to digres so far as to prove them and accordingly we find that no man can be rationally induced to enter into any Society or to submit to any Impositions barely on account of the real conduciveness of such submissions to his greater Interests unless he may be rationally convinced that they are his real Interests which are promoted by such submissions and that they are really promoted by them So that in order to our present design it comes to the same purpose in reference to our present actings whether we lose our Salvation it self or lose the comfort of being secured of it by our being deprived of the External Communion of the visible Church Submissions and that they are really promoted by them So that in order to our present design it comes to the same purpose in reference to our present actings whether we lose our Salvation it self or lose the comfort of being secured of it by our being deprived of the External Communion of the visible Church § X THIS therefore being supposed that our assurance of our Salvation is the great reason of all our Religious performances it will be easy to infer further 4. that where we may be better assured of our Salvation there we have the greatest reason to oblige us to a compliance For if our Assurance be the ground of our Religious performances then where our assurance is greater our performances ought to be so too and where the assurance even to us is greatest there can be no inexpediency in any thing else so great as that of venturing our greatest concerns on more hazardous Conditions and therefore there can be nothing which by the common Rules of Prudence can be judged more avoydable If therefore it may appear that by our External Communion with a visible Church we may be better assured of our own Salvation than by any performances whatsoever that we are capable of doing out of that Communion at least may be better assured of the Success and efficacy of a good life within the Communion of the Church in Order to our Salvation than we can of the same good life in a separated condition it will follow that the proof of this better Assurance will be alone sufficient to oblige all considerative Persons as they tender the better Assurance of their Salvation that is indeed all the comfort they are capable of receiving from the hopes of it in this Life not only to embrace this External Communion where it may be had but also to submit to all tolerable that is all unsinful Conditions of obtaining it notwithstanding that all possibility of Salvation were not denyed without it § XI NOW to make some application of what has been said to our Adversaries by this First Observation it appears how unconclusive to our purpose it is what they discourse concerning the Salvability of particular Persons either out of Church Society or independently on it For though their pains had been more successful for proving the sufficiency of Faith and Repentance for Salvation independently on the Sacraments or any other Exercise of Ecclesiastical Society than from our following Principles it will appear that they are yet all this would not come home to disprove our Obligation resulting hence to submit to all unsinful Conditions for obteining Ecclesiastical Communion unless they could prove either that such a Condition is more secure than that of being in the External Communion of the Visible Church that is that we can be better secured of the success of Faith and Repentance out of the Church than in it or that supposing the contrary that we can be better satisfied of the security of our condition even upon performance of Conditions in this External Communion of the Visible Church than out of it this would not oblige us in the way I have explained it to submit to all such Conditions of obtaining it neither of which has been as much as attempted by them Nay I very much doubt whether they themselves when the Case is thus truly stated will differ from us in asserting the much better security of a Communicant where Communion may be had on terms not sinful than of a Person out of Communion Nor indeed do I see how they themselves can avoid it § XII FOR though the Sacraments were no channels of Divine Grace and though there were no Divine Influences Instrumentally conveyed in the Exercises of Ecclesiastical Communion any more than in our ordinary Political and Oeconomical Duties and though they had no other goodness in them than what they are capable of receiving from an Arbitrary Positive Command yet even this were sufficient to make a state of Actual Communion preferrible to that of a separate Condition even in reference to our Assurance inasmuch as there is far more reason for him to be assured of the Divine Favour who besides his Moral Eternally obliging Duties is also punctually observant of the Positive Commands of God than for him who neglects lesser on pretence of observing greater Duties and he has certainly a better Title to the Divine Favour who yields to any thing not sinful rather than he would break even a Positive Command which breach must needs be sinful when it may be avoided on such Terms than he who suffers himself to avoid such yielding to be transported into such a violation of his Duty Our Saviours words are very express That whosoever shall break the least of his Commandments St. Matth. v. 19 and teach men so shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven that is as it is usually understood none at all And St. James That he that should keep the whole Law and yet offend in one point is guilty of all St. Sam. 11.10 And certainly he that is so cannot be so well assured of his Salvation And if it be not so much as the violation of a Positive Command to
Solemnities is the only Ordinary Means whereby we may be particularly assured of our Interest in the Covenant But that I may more distinctly shew not only that in reason this is fit to have been thus contrived but also that it has been actually Observed in the Evangelical Covenant and that I may bring the application more home to our particular Case I therefore proceed to § III THE 2. Particular proposed That at least these Ordinary Means of our Salvation at least those whereby we may be satisfied of it and receive any comfort from it that is as has appeared from the things now premised Gods Promises as conveyed to us by a Covenant and this Covenant as Legally applyed to particular Persons by Persons sufficiently Authorized by God for that purpose to act in his name and to engage him with a Legal valid obligation to performance are indeed confined to the external Communion of the Visible Church And that the Episcopal Church under whose Jurisdiction any one lives is that Visible Church out of which these Ordinary Means of Salvation are not to be had by any whilest he lives under that Jurisdiction This consists of two Parts 1. That these Ordinary Means of Salvation are confined to the External Communion of the Visible Church And 2. That in reference to the Duty of particular Persons that Visible Church wherein they may expect to find these Ordinary Means is the Episcopal in opposition to all other Societies not Episcopally governed § IV 1. THESE Ordinary Means of Salvation are confined to the External Communion of the Visible Church I say the External Communion that I may prevent those Exceptions which many are ready to make in behalf of our dissenting Brethren that they do already Communicate with Us in 36. of the 39. Articles which they believe as well as We and that they heartily wish well to all good Men of what Party soever and that at least they Pray for Vs where they cannot Pray with Vs For these if they could in any propriety of Speech be stiled Acts of Communion which no good Christian can deny even to real Schismaticks themselves with whom notwithstanding all who hold that there is such a thing as real Schism must not hold it lawful to communicate yet most certainly they are not Acts of External Communion By this therefore I only mean a participation in those External Exercises whereby the Church subsists as a distinct Society that is a joining in the Ordinances administred in it but especially in the Sacraments I say the Visible Church purposely to obviate that pretence of the Church's consisting only of the Elect who as they are supposed themselves not Visible nor united among themselves by any Visible commerce so they think and very consequently to this Notion that Communion may be maintained with them in an Invisible way by likeness of design and Sympathy of Affection◠And therefore by this Visible Church I mean that Visible Society which is maintained by an acknowledgment of the same common Visible Ecclesiastical Government and by an external participation of the same common Sacraments So that my meaning in this whole Proposition is That a Legal Right to these Evangelical Promises and Covenant which are the Ordinary Means whereby we may be assured of our Salvation on performance of Conditions is not conveyed to Vs otherwise than by our participation of these external Ordinances whereby we profess our Selves Members of such a Visible Society which is maintained by those Ordinances of which none can be partakers without consent of the Visible Ecclesiastical Governours which must therefore oblige all to a Subjection to those Governours This will be clear in discoursing concerning these particulars 1. That the only Ordinary Means whereby we may assure our Selves that we in particular have an interest in his Promises of any of the things now mentioned as necessary for our Salvation is by our assurance of our being engaged in Covenant with him 2. That the only Ordinary Means whereby we may assure our Selves of our Interest in this Covenant with him is by our partaking of these external Solemnities whereby this Covenant is transacted and maintained and 3. That the partaking of these external Solemnities with any Legal validity which can only be a ground of comfort to a Person concerned in this Case is only to be had in the external Communion of the Visible Church § V 1. THEREFORE the only Ordinary Means whereby we may assure our Selves that we in particular have any Interest in these Divine Promises without which assurance it has appeared to be in vain for particular Persons to challenge any comfort is by assuring our Selves that we in particular are in Covenant with him so that at least the Negative way of Arguing for which alone I am at present concerned will hold here That he who cannot assure himself that he is in Covenant with God can also never in an ordinary way at least assure himself that he in particular has an Interest in the Divine Promises For proving this I desire it may be Observed 1. That it is only the Obligatory force either of the Divine Promise or Covenant that can be a solid ground I do not say of comfort in general but at least of any positive Assurance and consequently at least of that degree of comfort which requires positive Assurance This appears from what has been already discoursed under the former Head 2. Therefore it is to be Observed further that Promises and Covenants are Legal transactions and that God himself herein condescends to the capacities of his Creatures so that they may be capable of judging him obliged to them by the same Legal rational measures whereby they are capable of entring into Obligations to one another That it was Gods design that his Creatures should understand him as thus obliged is very easie to be understood from his using expressions plainly significative of a Legal conveyance with all its Circumstances according to the Customes of those Nations Thus the name of a Covenant of a Mediator of a Testament of a Surety of Sealing of giving an earnest and First fruits c. are plain terms of Law and allusions to the Customes of Legal conveyances in those times and therefore were so most obviously intelligible by those Persons who were concerned in them immediately and to whose capacities they were immediately fitted of a Legal Obligation and consequently were in all likelihood designed by God himself so to signifie Unless we can suppose that he designedly made use of Expressions which by all Regular and Prudent measures of Interpretation were likely to be misunderstood by his Creatures concerned in them which it not reconcilable with his Goodness and Veracity Besides this appears from his doing this in Writings of a Popular stile and particularly fitted to the vulgar capacities who were certainly like to understand him thus where they found their own familiar Expressions used and their Terms alluded to nay from the
his own Order that can perform the Ceremony to him because we suppose him to be supreme and there cannot be two such in one Society And if he must depend on the supreme powers of the neighbouring Societies for an investiture so that he could not be validly invested without them this would both be dangerous in suspicious times and would besides be very prejudicial to the liberty of the particular Society for which such a Governour were concerned § XVI AND therefore I for my part am so little solicitous for any consequence that may hence be inferred to the prejudice of my Cause as that I am apt to think that this must have been the way observed at first in the making of Bishops how absolute soever I conceive them to have been when they were once made and how invalid soever I think the actings of Presbyters would be which were done without his consent after his Consecration though they were those very Presbyters by whom he had been Consecrated And I wish our Adversaries had Authorities suitable to their confidence either better than conjectures or if no better yet more ancient than the time of St. Hierome whose contemporary he was who wrote the Commentaries under the name of St. Ambrose much more than the very exceptionable testimony and Age of Eutychius This seems best to agree with the absoluteness of particular Churches before they had by compacts united themselves under Metropolitans and Exarchs into Provincial and Diocesan Churches as the word Diocese was understood in the Eastern parts in the language of that Age. And this seems to have been fitted for the frequent Persecutions of those earlier Ages when every Church was able to secure its own Succession by its own power without depending on the uncertain opportunities of the meeting of the Bishops of the whole Province And the alteration of this practice the giving the Bishops of the Province an interest in the choice of every particular Colleague seems not to have been so much for want of power in the particular Churches to do it as for the security of the compacts that they might be certain of such a Colleague as would observe them whose Communicatory Letters they might therefore not scruple to receive when they had first by their own act satisfied themselves of the trustiness of his Person before his Consecration However the matter was I cannot but think that it was the interest of the neighbouring Bishops in the correspondence of every particular Bishop that first occasioned and procured their interest in his Election Nor can I tell how the Succession could have been so secure otherwise unless every Bishop had named and constituted his Successor in his Life time for which they had precedents in the Successions of the Philosophers in imitation whereof I have already observed how probable it is that these Ecclesiastical Successions were framed But then withall as that way was uncertain so when the Philosophers failed to nominate their own Successors then the Election was in the Schools But this would even then only warrant such acts of those Presbyteries which held correspondence with their own Bishops and with the Episcopal Communion but in these modern Ages it can only excuse those to whom the power was returned by the Bishops who had been peaceably possessed of it for many Centuries before This I note that it may not be drawn into a precedent now any further than it is fit and reasonable CHAP. XXV The Nullity of the same Ordinations proved from the right of Episcopal Presbyteries as Presbyteries THE CONTENTS 2. Even from the Principles of Aristocratical Government from the right which Episcopal Presbyteries ought to have in giving Orders as they are considered as Presbyteries § I II. This proved by these degrees 1. Though a Presbyter when he is once made is a Presbyter in the Catholick Church yet the reason that makes him so is that correspondence of the whole Catholick Church with that particular one of which he was made a Member at his Ordination § III IV V VI. 2. Hence it follows that he who cannot validly make out his Authority in the particular Church in which he pretends to have received his Orders cannot in reason expect that the exercise of his Authority should be ratified in other Churches who cannot thus be satisfied that he has received them § VII 3. The Church by which the validity of the Orders of every particular Presbyter must expect to be tryed must not be a Church that derives its beginning from him but such a one as must be supposed settled and established before he could be capable of any pretensions to Orders Applied to single Presbyters § VIII To whole Presbyteries made up of overvoted single Presbyters § IX X XI 4. No Orders can be presumed to have been validly received in any particular Episcopal Church as Presbyterian without the prevailing suffrages of the Presbyteries § XII A smaller over-voted number of Presbyters cannot validly dispose of the common rights of the whole Presbyteries § XIII XIV XV. The power given in the Ordination of a Presbyter is a right of the Presbytery in common by the Principles of Aristocratical Government § XVI XVII XVIII XIX An Objection answered § XX XXI XXII Another Objection answered § XXIII XXIV Retorted § XXV The reason of the Retortion given § XXVI § I BUT 2. There is also another just exception against the validity of our Adversaries Ordinations even from the right of Aristocratical Government and that is from the right of their Fellow-Presbyters as well as themselves If we should allow the right of Ordination to Presbyters as Presbyters as our Adversaries desire yet that will not justifie the validity of the Ordinations of single Presbyters no nor of a smaller part in opposition to the greater by which it is over-voted And our Adversaries cannot defend their Ordinations at present any better than by the single acts of particular Presbyters over-voted by the greater part of the Presbyteries of which they were originally Members Their first Ministers which began the separation were much the smaller part of the respective Presbyteries to which they were related And though they might if they had continued in the Communion of the Church have had their single votes in all the acts of Government and the disposal of all the Offices which by the practice then obteining were allowed to the whole Presbyteries yet they could never have obteined that the Offices disposed of by their single votes must have been validly disposed of and ratified by the rest by whom they were over-voted And sure they cannot expect to be gainers by their unpeaceableness that their single votes must be esteemed of greater value out of the Church than in it that they who could not have made Presbyters in the Church against the prevailing vote of their Brethren should be allowed to make as many as they please on condition they will divide from their Brethren and make themselves the Heads
had behaved themselves seditiously in their single capacities would not do so also when they were united and when their common interest still obliged them to do so when they might thereby so much better their disadvantages in their respective Presbyteries It is the humour of such Persons to unite against a common Adversary at least for a time how seditious soever they might be otherwise And certainly they might expect better condescensions from Persons as criminal as themselves who had themselves also many unreasonable things to be born with than from their more innocent equals who had Justice on their side much more than from their Superiors And what could any Ecclesiastical censures signifie if they who had been ejected singly might be thus allowed to confederate themselves into a Communion and a Presbytery independent on those from which they had been ejected Who would value Excommunication or Deprivation when they might so easily restore themselves into a condition as good as that from which they had been ejected and might at the same time so easily revenge themselves on those by whom they had been ejected by setting up another Government within their Jurisdiction whose acts must also be accounted as valid as their own These things shew that such a precedent of Presbyteries erected out of Persons over-voted in their particular Presbyteries would be injurious to the common interest of Government in general though the form were every where Presbyterian as well as to those particular Governours by whom they had been ejected and to those in whose Jurisdiction they were assembled And its being against the common interest of Government is as has been observed a great presumption that it is against Justice also § X BUT besides this presumption the same reasons of exception lye against the Justice of such a Presbytery as against the acts of single Presbyters I mention not the Canons that forbid all Churches to receive the Excommunicates of each other that put Communicants with them into the same condition with the Excommunicates themselves that deprive them all of the Communion of all those Churches who maintein a correspondence with each other in the observation of those Canons I mention not that common interest which at first induced the Governours of particular Churches to agree upon those Canons and obliges all even those that never received nor heard of those Canons yet to be determined by them in their practice on the same account as all even the most barbarous Nations are obliged by the Law of Nations though never explicitely received by them because these are as necessary for the common interest and correspondence of Ecclesiastical as the other are for those of Civil Societies Which consideration must extend the ratification of the censures of particular Churches to the Catholick Church as the Law of Nations is common to all Nations so that the Excommunicates of every particular Church must be so to the Catholick Church also And then sure it will be hard to understand how they who are de Jure out of the communion of all Churches can yet be in the Catholick Church or how they who have no right to be members of any Church can by their meeting together become a Church and become capable of Ecclesiastical Authority Which reason will in the consequence of it reach Schismaticks as well as Hereticks how little soever it be observed by our Brethren who are very little used to take in the rational rights of Government in general in their disputes concerning the Government of the Church § XI BUT besides the same reasons invalidate the acts of these Presbyteries which were urged against the acts of single Presbyters among them Whatever may be thought of such a Multitude of over-voted Presbyters in a Heathen Country where the right were primi occupantis yet where a Government is already possessed their encroaching on that must be as invalid as if they should take upon them to dispose of the goods of such Persons as were in actual possession whatever might be thought of what conveyances they might also make of goods that were under no propriety And the reason of these two cases is so exactly the same as the conveyances of power must in such a case be as invalid as the conveyance of property Besides according to the nature of Government which admits of no competition within its own Jurisdiction strangers how numerous soever immediately become Subjects by living in the Jurisdiction of another whatever they be in their own and that with this disadvantage also beyond the natural Subjects of the place that they can have no interest in so much of the Government as the Natives of the place may pretend to where the Government is Democratical And the acts of such Subjects how numerous soever must be invalid in matters of Government Now in this I believe our Adversaries will find themselves deeply concerned They who pretend to the most regular Ordination of them since the defection who were not immediately ordeined by Bishops can only say that the Presbyters by whom they were ordeined had received Episcopal Ordination and that they were ordeined by a full Presbytery of such Presbyters not of the greater part of the settled Presbytery of the place where they were ordeined or of any other but only of a Multitude of particular Presbyters from several parts who were over-voted in their several respective Presbyteries I believe they cannot give an instance in any place where the greater part of a settled Presbytery revolted from the Bishops to them I am sure they cannot justifie their ordinary successions by such Ordinations § XII AND 4. As the order of Presbytery which would be allowed in the Catholick Church must first appear to have been validly received in some particular Church and that particular Church must on the Principles now mentioned be some Episcopal Church as Presbyterian so no Orders can be presumed to have been validly received in such a Church without the prevailing suffrages of the Presbyteries Let none be surprized at my speaking of an Episcopal Church as Presbyterian I do it only that I may in dealing with our Adversaries accommodate my self to their Notions It is therefore certain that in the Ordination of Presbyters after the Episcopal way the Bishop does not lay on his own hands alone but has the assistance of several other Presbyters who are present to lay on their hands together with him On this account it is that several of our Adversaries who are sensible of their obligation in interest to do it do justifie the validity of those Orders they have received by Episcopal Ordination They consider the whole act only as the act of an Episcopal Presbytery and consider the Bishop himself in that act only as an ordinary Presbyter who cannot lose the power he has as a common Presbyter by being made a President of the whole Presbytery Yet in that act they consider him only as an ordinary Presbyter because they think it would
such a Separation as denies not only Actual Obedience but the Lawful Jurisdiction of Superiors and withdrawes Subjects from the proper Legal Coercions of such a Society especially if continued in the same Districts where Separation from Government is not intelligible without opposition to it must needs be Schismatical For where there are two Governments not Subordinate there must needs be two Bodies Politick and therefore that Separation which interrupts this Subordination and erects an Independent Government must consequently dissolve this Political Vnity and be Schismatical This therefore being the true ground of this Notion of Schism must be the principal thing requisite to be proved against our Adversaries And whether it be proved directly that the Church is such a Body Politick and it be thence inferred that such a Separation as that I have been speaking of is properly Schismatical or whether the Separation be first proved Schismatical and this Political Vnity of the Church be thence deduced both ways of proceeding will come to the same event § XLII ESPECIALLY considering 2. that though indeed we can by Reason prove it very convinient and avaylable for the Salvation of particular Persons that they be thus confederated into Political Societies yet we cannot prove it so necessary as that Antecedently to all Positive Revelation we might have been able to conclude that God must have thus confederated them For besides the great Presumption and Vncertainty of this way of Arguing what God must have done from what we esteem fit and convenient acknowledged by all Equal Persons in Instances whereof they may be presumed Equal Judges that is when this Argument is produced in favour of Adversaries the Argument is then more especially Weak and Imprudent when the conveniences are no greater than still to leave many things to the determination of Humane Prudence and such they are here and when we can have securer ways of Arguing as none will doubt but that it is much more secure to Enquire what God has actually done from actual Revelation than from our own fallible Conjectures what was fit to have been done by him especially in things so Indifferent and Arbitrary as these are concerning which I am at present discoursing If therefore it may appear that God has actually made the Church a Body Politick it will follow that resistance to Ecclesiastical Governors must be actually comdemned by God as Shismatical and on the contrary if it appear that God has actually condemned Resistance to Ecclesiastical Officers as Schismatical it will also follow that he has made the Church a Body Politick there being no other difference betwixt these two ways of Arguing but that one of them is a priori the other a posteriori but in both of them the Connexion is equally certain from its own rational Evidence § XLIII 3. THEREFORE As this actual Constitution of the Church is most proper to be proved from Scripture so the most satisfactory way of proving it thence will be not only to prove thence the Duty of Obedience to be required from Subjects to their Ecclesiastical Superiors but also to discover from thence the mischief likely to befall Subjects upon their Disobedience For 1. it is in vain to constitute a Government or a Body Politick properly so called without a Coercive Power over its particular refractory Members And therefore if in the Constitution of the Church as established in the Scriptures there appeared nothing Coercive over its particular Members to force them to the performance of their Duty under pain of a greater Prejudice to be incurred by them in case of refusal than that of barely acting irrationally and indecorously this very Omission would make it suspicious that the Duty exacted from them were no more than that Reverential respect which we commonly conceive due to Persons of excellent accomplishments or from whom we have received particular Obligations though they have no Right of Jurisdiction over us but not that Obedience which is properly due to Governours of Societies by virtue of their Offices without any regard to their Personal accomplishments and our Obligations to them So that this real Prejudice which is likely to be incurred by the Subject in Case of Disobedience is very necessary to be discovered from the nature of the Constitution of the Church as it is expressed in the Scripture even in order to the clearing the Nature of the Duty and the extent of the obligation of this Authority § XLIV AND 2. the Church being on this Supposal an External Body Politick its Coercive Power must also be External And therefore though the validity of her Censures be derived from Gods seconding them that is from his remitting or binding in Heaven what she remits or binds on Earth yet this power will indeed be very little Coercive if Gods confirmation be thought easily separable from the Churches Act. For seeing that a Society of this nature cannot imply any External Coercion of the External Act all the Coercion she can pretend to can be no other than a Deprivation of those Priviledges which are enjoyed and may be pretended to by virtue of her visible Membership and an exposing the Person so deprived to all the Calamities consequent to such a Deprivation But if the Confirmation of these censures by God be wholly resolved into the merit of the Cause for which they were inflicted they can never be feared nor consequently prove Coercive to their Subjects who are not convinced of the merit of the Cause it self Which in the event will make them never properly Coercive at all especially in regard of a Government which is acknowledged Fallible as the Church is generally by Protestants For it is to be presumed that all who stand out so obstinately against the Churches Authority as to provoke her Censures either are not or pretend not to be satisfied with the Justice of her Decrees and therefore if their own Judgments may be taken as all the Coerciveness of such Censures as these are which are not Externally Coercive must be derived from the Judgments of the Persons lying under them concerning their validity there can be no hopes of reclaiming them by Censures who are not already such as may be presumed satisfied concerning the Justice of the Cause for which they were inflicted and yet such alone are the proper Objects of Coercive Power § XLV BESIDES those Censures which are supposed only Declarative not Operative are not properly the Acts of Authorized but Skillful Persons for it is Skill not Authority that is a Prudent Presumption that any thing is such as it is Declared and therefore the Opinions of Learned Doctors though but private Persons would in this way of Proceeding be much more formidable than the Peremptory Sentences of Ecclesiastical Governours as they are considered only under that Relation I cannot see how this can be denied by those who conceive the Declaration to be purely-Speculative and to be of no further force for obliging particular Persons than as upon
abstain from actual Communion I do not see how they can avoid denying the Divine Authority to be concerned for the Sacraments for if they acknowledged it to be so they could not deny the Sinfullness of resisting it and consequently denying the perpetual Obligation of the Sacraments And then it will be impossible for them to explain any Sinfulness in Schism as it is a Division of a Body Politick which as they are Consequences I doubt unavoidable from this Supposal so I verily believe that they will be so detested by our ingenuous Adversaries as that they will oblige them to some serious second thoughts how they may avoid them § XII BUT though we could be better assured that true Repentance should find acceptance with God independently on Sacraments or any other Act of church-Church-Communion yet it is not conceivable how there can be true Repentance in them who willingly abstain from Communion when it may be had by compliances not Sinful For I believe our dissenting Brethren themselves do not understand by Repentance a bare sorrow for our past Sins but a serious and universal design of Reformation for the future and accordingly that he who lives in any known avoidable Sin cannot be said to be truly Penitent Nor do I believe that they will deny any violation of our Political Duties to be as truly and properly Sins as the violation of those which are Personal so that he who lives never so Temperately as to himself yet if he disturb the Society where he lives he cannot be supposed in this sense universally Reformed and therefore not truly Penitent nor do I think that they will deny that there is a Duty incumbent on private Persons to preserve the Peace of Ecclesiastical as well as Civil Societies I am sure the Scripture recommends this principally even above the other and that nothing but direct Sin can excuse us for the omission of any Duty Now upon these Concessions it is impossible that he who is hindred from the Peace of the Church or from her Communion by any Impositions not Sinful can be supposed thoroughly reformed or consequently truly Penitent So that still this obligation to maintain the Church's Peace and to submit to its unsinful Impositions on account of the greater security of our Salvation in its Communion than out of it remains unshaken by any thing which our Adversaries have yet Objected to the contrary CHAP. II. That we cannot be so well assured of our Salvation in the use of Extraordinary as of Ordinary Means THE CONTENTS § I The 2. Head That for proving this want of so solid Assurance of the welfare of particular Persons out of Ecclesiastical Communion as may be had in it it will be sufficient to shew that however God may provide for the Salvation of particular Persons in an Extraordinary way without this external Communion yet that this is a Case indeed rare and Extraordinary and not easily to be expected and therefore not to be trusted with any confidence and that at least the Ordinary Means of Salvation are confined to the External Communion of the Visible Church The difference betwixt the Ordinary and Extraordinary Means of Salvation § I. II.III.IV The former Head proved in both particulars 1. That we cannot be so well assured of our Salvation in the use of Extraordinary as of Ordinary Means The Extraordinary Means whereby we may be assured of our Salvation are Conjectures concerning the Divine Uncovenanted Goodness Concerning these it is proved 1. That the Assurance grounded on these Conjectures is not such as can afford any solid comfort to the Person concerned The extream difficulty of making application of what might be concluded from this Divine Uncovenanted Goodness to particular Cases § V. VI.VII.VIII.IX.X The particulars necessary for Assurance in this Case are such as God is not obliged to by his Uncovenanted Goodness § XI XII.XIII.XIV.XV.XVI.XVII 2. The comfort that might otherwise have been expected from these Conjectures is not comparable to that which may be had from those general Ordinary Means which God hath provided for by express Revelation This proved by three Degrees § XVIII XIX.XX.XXI.XXII 3. These expectations from Extraordinaries not seasonable in our Adversaries Case who might obtain the Ordinary Means by Concessions not Sinful § XXIII 4. The relief by Extraordinary pretences to Gods Uncovenanted Goodness must needs be rendred more difficult since the establishment of Ordinaries § XXIV XXV.XXVI.XXVII I PROCEED therefore to the 2. thing proposed That none be can so well Assured of his Salvation out of this visible Church or consequently out of that part of it of which Providence has made him a Member as in it And that this Visible Church must be the Episcopal that particularly to whose Jurisdiction he belongs This may be resolved into two easie parts 1. That though our Salvation might be equally sure in it self yet at least that none can be so well assured of it in the use of Extraordinary as of Ordinary Means 2. That the Ordinary Means at least of Salvation are indeed confined to the External Communion of the Visible Church And that the Episcopal Church under whose Jurisdiction any one lives is that Visible Church out of which the Ordinry Means of Salvation are not to be had by any whilst he lives under that Jurisdiction § II 1. THOVGH our Salvation might be equally sure in it self yet none can be so well assured of it in the use of Extraordinary as of Ordinary Means For clearing this it must first be understood what we mean by Ordinary and what by Extraordinary Means of our Salvation The Means therefore whereby we may be assured of our Salvation are those whereby the Difficulties occurring in the procurement of our Salvation are most Regularly provided for And they are reducible to these Heads 1. To assure us that our past misdemeanors Antecedent to our admission into the Favour of God both of Original and Actual Sins shall not be imputed to us for the future to our Prejudice For till we be assured of this we shall have very Just reason to Question the real security of our condition And because our Natural Strength is not sufficient to perform our Duty for the future though all our past offences had been really forgiven us and yet without probable hopes of our future performance we can have no assurance of our future Security therefore it is further requisite 2. That we be upon our own Endeavours assured of those Supernatural Divine Assistances without which our unassisted natural Endeavours are not likely alone to prove sufficient For Rewards promised to impossible performances cannot afford us any comfort and without these Assistances our Duty would prove impossible to us And yet notwithstanding these Assistances we are still obnoxious to so many inadvertencies and impure mixtures by reason of the faint concurrence of our Wills as might render our best performances unacceptable if God should deal in rigor with them so that even these Assistances
reason of the thing § IX This performed by two degrees 1. It is God alone that has the right of disposing the Spiritual benefits here conveyed § X XI XII The reason of the Adversaries mistakes § XIII 2. It is none but he that can give Possession of them § XIV 2. From the actual establishment of God No such Authority actually conferred upon the People § XV XVI XVI The weakness of the Argument from bare Primitive Precedent for proving a right conferred shewn from the many condescensions of those times and the Prudence of the Reasons that required them § XVIII XIX XX XXI XXII XXIII XXIV XXV The unreasonableness of this way of Arguing § XXVI There were then circumstances proper to that Age which required particular condescension § XXVII Though the Negative Argument be not good yet the Positive is that the actual claim of Governours then is a good presumption that they had a right to the Power so claimed by them § XXVIII Persons extraordinarily-gifted at length made subject to the ordinary Governours of the Church § XXIX XXX XXXI This derivation of Power rather from Governours than from the People agreeable to those Precedents whom the Primitive Christians were most likely to imitate § XXXII XXXIII XXXIV XXXV A way proposed for accommodating the several Interests concerned in Ordination according to the Practice of those times § XXXVI XXXVII The Apostles unlikely to confer this right of Government on the People if left by God to their own Liberty according to the Notions which then prevailed among the Christians § XXXVIII Remarks tending to the satisfaction of the Lovers of Truth and Peace 1. This way of arguing from the actual establishments of God as it is much more modest so it is also more secure for finding out the right of Government than any conjectures we can make from the reason of the thing § XXXIX XL. 2. Though the People had this inherent right of Government originally yet it cannot exclude a right of God who may when he pleases resume this right into his own hands § XLI 3. If the People ever had such a right originally yet all that has been done since for alienating that right which could be done § XLII § I 3. THEREFORE no other Ministers have this Authority of Administring the Sacraments but only they who receive their Orders in the Episcopal Communion This I shall endeavour to prove by these Degrees 1. That the Authority of Administring the Sacraments must be derived from God 2. That though it be derived from him yet it is not so derived without the mediation of those men to whom it was at first committed 3. That it cannot be so derived from those men to whom it was at first committed without a continued Succession of Persons orderly receiving Authority from those who had Authority to give it them from those first times of the Apostles to ours at present 4. That this Authority is to be expected no where now but in the Episcopal Communion § II 1. THE Authority of administring the Sacraments must be derived from God I do not only mean that it must be derived from God as all other things as well as Authorities are derived from him who is not only the Supreme Prince but the first Cause of all things Nor do I mean only that it must be from God the same way as all other even Secular Authority must be derived from him at least Providentially though the Power of Government were originally never so much at the disposal of the Persons to be governed For whatever the Creature has originally the disposal of it must be supposed at first derived from God But yet in a way of Providence God does also frequently dispose of Governments which had been otherwise in the Creatures liberty to dispose of as in those rights which are gotten by just Conquest and Prescription where the rights of Government are certainly disposed of by Providence without any possible pretence of consent in the Persons obliged to submit to it For the right of the Creature where-ever it has any is not to be understood so as to derogate from the right of God to dispose of them as he pleases whatever right they have as it must necessarily be derived from him if it be indeed any right at all so that derivation does not rob him of any of that which he had before It is to be understood not Privatively as they say but Accumulatively My meaning therefore is that this Power of administring the Sacraments must be so derived from God not as to exclude the mediation of such men who have received it in a Succession from him but so as to exclude all right originally derived from the Creature as far as the Creature is capable of such a right originally in contradistinction to God That is that no men have a right to Government in Ecclesiastical affairs but by a particular donation from God not by vertue of that general right which God has given every one by his general Providence to take care of himself and which therefore every individual Person may for himself and much more whole Multitudes may by common consent commit to others § III THE consequent whereof will be that all Ordinations and all Administrations of the Sacraments derived from any Multitudes or Persons on account of their general right of governing themselves without an express donation from God are not only irregular but invalid and such as can neither in Conscience oblige any Subjects to submit to them nor encourage any who are otherwise willing to submit to expect any benefit from them And my design in proving this Proposition is particularly to oppose not the Independents only but those others also who by the badness of their Cause have been forced upon their Principles and do assert a power in the mutinous Communalty to legitimate the Calling of those Pastors which they have been pleased to set up for themselves in opposition to their original Superiors on what account soever they assert it to them besides this of an express donation which I do not know that any yet have pretended to whether in regard of that intrinsick right every one is supposed to have for his own Government in Spirituals where he is not expresly imposed on by positive Provisions though withal he have not that intrinsick right either confirmed or enlarged by any such Provisions or in regard of their Election according to them who conceive the Elect only capable of constituting a Church and that according to the popular Notion of that word of Election § IV I AM sensible how needless my present undertaking is for proving the first Dividers of the several Parties to have been guilty of Schism For if any other form of Government be lawful in the Church besides Democracy that is indeed if it be in the Power of the Multitude to alienate their own Power by their own Act and if they cannot it is impossible
any farther than our circumstances are the same as those were which were foreseen at their settlement If our circumstances be not the same they might have been very prudent in their provisions for settlement and yet we very imprudent in following their precedent in those provisions All that I infer from their settlement is only this that it is no way likely that they did believe that the People had any such inherent right in the Ecclesiastical Government as our Brethren conceive them to have and which the reasons and Authorities produced by them in this Argument prove if they prove any thing For it is not likely that they would have deprived them of any thing which was their right considering of how dangerous consequence it might have been to the progress of the Gospel it self for them to have done so and considering withal how much their Authority was questioned in those times But rather from the great silence with which these Rules were settled we have reason to conclude not only that the Apostles did not intend to deprive them of any right but also that the Multitude themselves who were concerned in them did not think themselves deprived of any And the very actual judgment of those times are much better assurances of the truth of this matter than our Adversaries present conjectures and much more than any of those reasons on which they are capable of grounding their conjectures They cannot think themselves at this distance better qualified for understanding the Scriptures than they were who wrote the Scriptures or than they for whose immediate use and in accommodation to whose language and circumstances they were written § XL AS for the reasons they made use of for informing themselves in this matter besides that the utmost they can make of them is only conjectural and the conjectures they make by them are not so probable as the motives of credibility of those Ages I say besides this there are other prudent inducements which might in reason make one more confident of the judgment of those Ages than of those Reasons We know no reasons which they could not know as well as we but they knew many of which we now are ignorant and besides were much better able to judg of the same reasons which we both know than we are We know none which they could not know For the reasons from the nature of Government in general and peculiarly of Government as Ecclesiastical are not proper to any one Age. But for bringing these reasonings down to determine the rights of any particular Government many particular matters of fact are requisite to be known of which they were undoubtedly better Judges than we are They better knew the actual design of the Sacraments what benefits were intended by them and how they would oblige men to a dependence on them who had the power of administring them They better knew the precedents from whence they were taken and the actual state how those precedents were observed by them from whom they were taken And they who knew these things could much better judg whether they were such as would allow the people any right in the Government They certainly knew the actual challenges of the people and the actual condescensions that were made to them they knew what was quietly received and what was either not received at all or received with contradiction And they who knew these things much better than we do must also have known much better what either was or was then thought to be the Peoples right in this matter of Government I only now mention those advantages they had above us in regard of the times they lived in not in regard of those many Prophets and other inspired Persons whom they could then consult and by whose assistance they might know many things certainly which without them we can only know conjecturally though we had the best information that reason is able to afford us § XLI A SECOND thing I could wish observed in relation to this Argument is this That though the People had this inherent right of Government originally as our Brethren pretend them to have had yet it cannot exclude a right of God who can when he pleases take the right into his own hands Which when he would be pleased to do Subjects were as much obliged to submit to his disposal of them as if they never had any right of disposing of themselves I have already given my reasons elsewhere and shall not now repeat them I only observe at present how much safer it is on this account also to acquiesce in Gods actual establishment than to trust to our reasonings from the nature of the thing which are much more uncertain and unsecure as to our Duty For supposing that by the reason of the thing we should find that the People might by their internal right pretend a title to dispose of the Government this might indeed take them off from making any further enquiry into Gods actual establishment but could not in the mean time secure their practice For if by his actual establishment he had reserved the right of Government wholly in his own hand and had actually subjected us to his own Rules he that should insist on that right of the People for defending himself against these actual impositions could not be excused by that pretence for his disobedience For though the People might have had a right if God had left them to themselves to prescribe or abrogate Rules for the Government of themselves yet in case God has made use of his own Prerogative they cannot then pretend to such a right because God has prevented it And he who in that Case should refuse obedience would be a rebel against God though he broke no compacts made by the People whether with or without his particular consent This will shew that how conclusive soever the reasons be yet for security of practice all must be obliged to depend on Gods actual establishment Which may let our Brethren see their obligation to enquire into this for the security of their Practice § XLII A THIRD Observation is this that if the People ever had any such original right yet all has been done for alienating it that could be done Whatever could be done by the Rule left by the Apostles for Succession by whatever Authority they are supposed to have acted whether as Apostles of Jesus Christ or as Apostles of the Churches whatever could be done by the act of the Multitudes themselves submitting to and owning the exercise of Authority in the Officers and never pretending any power afterwards to resume their own right if it had been so nor to practise any branch of it in calling Officers to an account for mal-administration how notoriously soever they were guilty of it whatever could be done by their own disowning any such right for many Ages and Successions and confirming the sentences of their Superiors against such Persons as challenged such rights in their
have received no Power at all Which in reference to Subjects already under Government will disoblige such Subjects from Submission to them and will consequently make their Authority as unpracticable antecedently to this approbation of the ordinary Governours as if they had none antecedently And because it is not probable by the Principles of Government that God would give an Authority that should be useless and unpracticable as to all the proper uses of Authority this will also make it suspicious that God does not indeed give this Authority it self antecedently to the approbation of ordinary Superiors Especially considering that though these ordinary fallible Superiors should be mistaken in thinking such Persons not Authorized when really they are so yet still their Authority must continue unpracticable by these Principles and that for ever if ordinary Superiors should for ever continue in their mistakes § XV THIS I note against the Opinion of a very ingenious and candid Person who conceives that the Authority is grounded on those gifts of the Spirit which he supposes to be in Persons antecedently to Ordination Mr. Humphreys and which he therefore conceives not given but approved by their Ordeiners so that according to this Hypothesis Ordination does not give this Power but only declares that they have it and gives them a liberty to exercise it within the Jurisdiction of the Ordeiners without which himself conceives it irreconcilable with any Order or Discipline that they should be permitted to exercise their gifts within those Jurisdictions and is sensible how impossible it is to secure the Church from the mischiefs which may be occasioned by the pretences of assuming Enthusiasts if Subjects may be allowed immediately to judg of their gifts and to receive them as the measures of their Practice antecedently to the declaration of their ordinary Superiors If this were true it would indeed follow that Acts of this Authority would indeed be valid before God antecedently to the Declarations of ordinary Superiors and even after them contrary to the Declarations of fallible Superiors in case they should prove actually mistaken which is no hard supposition concerning Superiors who are acknowledged fallible especially in their Declarations concerning things which are true or false antecedently to their Declarations though they might be obnoxious to Canonical Penalties for exercising their gifts antecedently to this Canonical approbation § XVI BUT in reference to Practice the Question will not be what is really valid before God but what may be known to be valid by men And if men presume that to be invalid which is really valid they cannot look on any thing done by them as valid whilest they are supposed to doubt of the validity of the Authority by which it is done And if Subjects be obliged to stand to the judgment of ordinary Superiors concerning the validity of the Authority to which men pretend it plainly follows that even where their Superiors are actually mistaken in judging Persons to have no Authority who really have it yet Subjects must in that Case presume they have none at least presume so in reference to Practice Which will as much discourage them from joining in Communion with such Persons disapproved by Superiors and will consequently oblige them to as near a dependence on Superiors for the practicableness of their Authority as if they had really received it from them which presumed invalidity is sufficient for all that I am concerned for in this Question Besides the unpracticableness of such an Authority independently on Superiors I have shewn to be a great and prudent Presumption from the Principles of Government that no such Authority is given independently on Superiors § XVII BUT 2. Our Brethren must be obliged in equity to grant this Negative way of arguing that men cannot be supposed to have an Authority from God which they cannot shew their title to by the mediation of ordinary Superiors because they cannot pitch on a more certain way of proving that such Persons have received Authority from God than that they have received it from them who were at first Authorized by God and Authorized to give their Authority I cannot conceive how such Persons can pretend to come by their Authority from God otherwise than either that they must have received it from him immediately or that they must have received it from him mediately with dependence on the Scriptures But neither of these Pretences can satisfie others or prevent the mischiefs which may follow from false pretences which I have shewn how much it is the common interest of all Governments of what nature soever to have prevented § XVIII 1. THEN They cannot pretend to receive their Authority from God immediately For they neither can give any solid reason for satisfying themselves that God will call any immediately in these modern Ages much less that they in particular are so called by him nor much less can they satisfie others that they are called God has never promised that he will call any in such an extraordinary way in these modern Ages nor have we any reason to believe that he ever intended it All the extraordinary manifestations which alone made these extraordinary Calls seasonable and useful all confess to have been long since discontinued And it is no way likely that he would continue his extraordinary Calls without his extraordinary manifestations without which they must be so useless And if it neither appear in general that God has actually promised it nor that it is probable that he would ever have intended it how can they satisfie themselves that they in particular are however actually called by him Will they or can they say that God has spoken to them immediately No doubt some Enthusiasts will say so But it is sufficient for my purpose if this cannot be said without Enthusiasm § XIX AND if they will avoid this charge let them consider the differences made between true Prophets and Enthusiasts the secret evidences not only of the Revelations themselves but also of their proceeding from God which appeared to the Prophets themselves either those that are mentioned by the Jews or any others that may be rational Let them consider how dangerous it must prove to themselves as well as others seduced by them if they should prove mistaken how highly responsible they must be to God if they run in his name when they are not sent by him and whether the evidence of their Mission be great enough either to prevent or countervail that danger Let them judg themselves in this particular with the same severity wherewith they would judg others who would pretend Authority for messages contrary to their own and with the same wherewith they must expect to be judged by God if they should prove mistaken and I am confident they will find the evidence necessary for satisfying them in this particular not only much greater than they have but also than they can rationally expect in this present Age. Nay if they would consider how
of a popular party § II THIS is not allowed in any Societies of the like nature Though the Aldermen of Corporations have a power together with the Mayors to dispose of the Offices belonging to their respective Corporations yet if the whole Table shall meet by themselves in separation from the Mayor and in opposition to him however they might over-vote him if he had been present and their assembly lawful yet what they should do in the Case we are now supposing would be a perfect Nullity and unobliging to the Corporation But if any single Alderman should separate from all his Brethren also and should of himself undertake to dispose of the things or Offices of the Corporation could any of our Brethren themselves approve them in it Could they think the Offices so disposed of by them validly disposed of Could they think the Corporation obliged to ratifie them And yet it is strange that they should not see how like this Case is to that of their own Predecessors The first Ministers they had ordeined in the separation were ordeined by such Presbyters as these and by such an act as this now mentioned And their whole Succession since that time has been mainteined generally on no better a Title This representation of their case may possibly affect some popular capacities better than the naked reasons But that the more judicious among them may see that my desire it to deal fairly and candidly with them and not to represent their cause more invidiously than it deserves or to take any advantage that may be taken from a false representation of it I shall endeavour to reduce the reason to a more close way of management under the following considerations which I shall intreat our Adversaries to consider impartially § III 1. THAT though a Presbyter when he is once made is a Presbyter in the Catholick Church yet the reason that makes him so is the correspondence of the whole Catholick Church with that particular one of which he was made a Member at his Ordination By his being a Presbyter in the Catholick Church when he is once made I do not mean that he may canonically exercise his Power in all particular Churches where he may have occasion to come without dependence on the respective Governours but that the exercise of his power in his own Church is to be ratified over the whole Catholick Church in general that they are to suppose the Sacraments administred by him to be validly administred and that therefore they are not to rebaptize Persons baptized by him when they come to live among them nor to refuse their Communion to such to whom he thinks fit to give it nor to receive to their Communion those who are excluded from his and that they are also so far to ratifie the Authority received in his own Church from those who had power to give it him as that if they think fit to permit him to exercise his power within their Jurisdiction they do it without pretending to give him a new Authority but only a new Licence and that where-ever he can exercise his Authority without Canonical injury as in Heathenish or Heretical Countries where no Canons do oblige ratifie all his acts of power the same way as if he had performed them within his own Canonical Jurisdiction This is more than is observed in civil Societies One Country is not bound to confirm the censures of another they are neither obliged to banish their exiles nor to receive their Countrimen to the same priviledges among themselves which they enjoyed in their own Country nor to receive their Magistrates to exercise power among themselves without a new Commission which may give them a new power which the Authority of their own Country was not able to give them § IV AND the reason why I level my discourse against the power that the Presbyters of our Adversaries may pretend to on account of their being Presbyters of the Catholick Church is because this is the only pretence that they can plausibly make for the validity of what they do Canonical Licence they cannot so much as pretend to for exercising their power within the Jurisdictions of others without their leave And it has already appeared that they can make out no Succession from the Apostles but what must originally have come from Episcopal Ordination That therefore they should expect that the exercise of a power received from the Bishops yet exercised within their Jurisdiction without the Licence of the Bishops nay contrary to their express prohibition should be counted valid how unlawful soever must be from the irrevocableness of the Authority at first received by them and the unconfinedness of the design of that power antecedently to those Canons by which it was afterwards made irregular in its practice Were it not for the nature of the unconfinedness of this power they could not pretend to any right to exercise it out of the Jurisdiction of him who gave it them nor even within that Jurisdiction without his leave And therefore if this will not do it they can have nothing that can defend their Vsurpations from being invalid as well as uncanonical § V AND that this correspondence of the Catholick Church with that particular one in which he was ordeined is the true reason why all other Churches are obliged to ratifie the acts of every particular Presbyter will appear if it be considered that by his Ordination in his own particular Church he can have no Jurisdiction given him over any other which is not under the Jurisdiction of that particular Church from which he has received his Orders And therefore the reason why they are obliged to confirm his censures cannot be any Authoritative deference they owe to him such as Subjects owe to even their fallible Superiors even in matters wherein they think them actually mistaken yet so to practise as if they thought them not mistaken but purely their own actual conviction concerning the reasonableness of the thing it self because they either know or presume it to be fit that his censure should be confirmed But this reason of the thing would not hold were it not that his Church and theirs are in those things the same and as they give the same advantages so they require the same qualifications which whoever is presumed to have in one cannot by them by whom he is presumed to have them be at the same time presumed to want them in the other In other Societies where the priviledges conferred are proper to the Society the qualifications are so too And therefore though one Society be really satisfied that a Subject has deserved well of another and that he has deservedly received his reward for his eminent deserts from that Authority which had power to give him it and therefore that he has a just title to a reward yet are they not obliged in any reason to give him the same honour in their own For the nature of these Societies are so little
interessed in common as that the very same performance which is eminently serviceable to one may for that very cause be as eminently disserviceable to the other as when they are in a state of hostility However it is certain that as their interests are very different so the means of serving those interests are very different also and therefore that there is no real consequence that he who has indeed obliged one Society must in doing so oblige all others also § VI BUT the benefits of the Sacraments are such as that he who has them in one Church cannot by him who supposes him to have them there be at the same time supposed to want them in another Regeneration and pardon of sins and a Mystical Vnion with Christ are the designed effects of the Sacraments And it is impossible that he who has these in any one Church can be presumed to want them in another by them who presume he already has them And as no Church can think it in her power to exclude from her Communion those very Persons whom she judges regenerated and pardoned and united to Christ so if she be convinced that these benefits are validly conferred by a Presbyter in another Church she must in reason be obliged to treat them as such in her own Now whether they be validly conferred or not that she is to try by his Ministry If his Ministry be a valid Ministry his Sacraments must be valid Sacraments and actually confer the benefits designed by them to Persons not unqualified to receive them And whether his Ministry be valid or no that is whether he be indeed a Legal Representative of God so as to oblige him to ratifie what is done by himself in his name this being an act of Authority and of Authority visibly administred by men however proceeding originally from God it must be judged the same way as is usually made use of in judging concerning acts of Humane Authority that is by considering the power by which he has received it And because by communicating with the Church of which such a Presbyter is a Member and from whence himself pretends to have received his Authority she plainly acknowledges that that Church has really a power to give him that Authority he pretends to therefore the only way to satisfie her self in this matter is to examine the truth of his pretences whether he has indeed received that Authority he pretends to from those Persons from whom he pretends to have received it Which way of tryal does plainly resolve her judgment in this matter into her correspondency with his Church By that she judges whether his Authority be good and whether he have actually received it § VII 2. THEREFORE Hence it follows that he who cannot validly make out his Authority in the particular Church in which he pretends to have received his Orders cannot in reason expect that the exercise of his Authority should be ratified in other Churches who cannot thus be satisfied that he has received them For their duty of correspondence being primarily with Churches and only secondarily with particular Persons as they relate to particular Churches which is particularly true in acts of Authority which cannot be supposed in any particular Person but by derivation from some Church or which is to the same purpose from some Ecclesiastical Person whose act is to be taken for the act of the Church it must follow that the tryal of the pretences of any particular Person to Authority must be by examining his reception of it from the Church And therefore if it cannot appear that he has received any such Authority as he pretends to from that Church wherein he pretends to have received it he is to be presumed not to have it at all and therefore all that he presumes to do on supposition of it must be null and invalid § VIII 3. THE Church by which the validity of the Orders of every particular Presbyter must expect to be tryed must not be a Church that derives its beginning from him but such a one as must be supposed settled and established before he could be capable of any pretensions to Orders For no other Church can be supposed proper to try him by because the Authority of no other Church can be presumed good antecedently to his being so All the Authority nay the very being of a Church set up by a particular Presbyter must it self depend on the Authority of the Person by whom it is set up If he be no Presbyter such a Congregation cannot be a Church in the sence we mean the word at present and therefore cannot be capable of any Ecclesiastical Authority Whence it will follow that he cannot by any act of such a Church derive Authority if he wanted it before because they can have no Authority but what he brought over to them If he brought none they have none to give him If they had any yet not such as were proper for this purpose both because it is hardly possible that it can be more notorious than that which was at least in time antecedent to it and because at least it cannot be such a Church as other Churches have held correspondence with antecedently to their correspondence with his particular Person and therefore whose Authority might have been presumed to have been granted by them on account of their correspondence with them And there will appear the less reason either that this way of tryal should be right or should be admitted by them because it is against the interests of all Government whatsoever and will justifie the practices of any seditious Person who can be so successful in his seditious practices as to gain himself the reputation of being the Head of a seditious party To be sure the party headed by him will give him all the Authority they are capable of giving him It is their interest to do so at least in the beginnings of disturbances and as it will oblige him to their interests so it will give him greater advantages for promoting those interests effectually And then what Government can think it self secure if it were so easie to justifie seditious practices How can we think that Governments should ever be favourable to Principles so pernicious to the rights of Government in general § IX NOR are these things only true concerning Churches erected by single Presbyters but concerning such also as had whole Presbyteries made up of multitudes of single Presbyters who had been over-voted in their several Presbyteries respectively Especially if they presumed to exercise their Government in the Jurisdiction of another This would also be a precedent as favourable to sedition and as destructive to Government as the other If fugitive over-voted Magistrates of several places may invade the Territories of a Third and there erect themselves into an absolute Senate independent on the Government of the place what security could there be for any Government For can we think that those same Persons who
is there any reason for them to oppose God and the Church as they usually do on this and other occasions If the Church's Authority be received from God then what is done by her is to be presumed to come from him the same way as what is done by any mans Proxy is presumed to be his own act and as what is done by an inferior Magistrate by virtue of his Office is presumed to come from the supreme Which will especially hold as a presumption that is where there are no clearer proofs of the supreme Magistrates mind being contrary to that of the inferior than our Adversaries can pretend to for proving the inseparable union of these powers by Divine institution If they were then united by God because they were united by the men who represented God why are they not disunited by God now when men alike empowered by him have disunited them Why should they not oblige God in one case as well as the other especially when there is nothing in the Commission it self that implies confinement in one case rather than the other and when the whole reason of judging is taken only from the actual practice how is it possible that any actual practice can prescribe against the power that introduced it that it may not introduce a different practice as arbitrarily as it introduced this If there had been a distinct Authority for making the union of these two powers inseparable distinct from that which united them only in practice or if the same Authority of men which united them in practice had declared Gods pleasure to be that they should for ever be so united though they might reverse the Authority of their own practice yet it might not be in their power to evacuate their own Declarations because those are supposed to belong to an Authority greater than their own and antecedent to it and therefore may rationally be supposed such as may null all future acts that are contrary to it But such distinct Authority or distinct Declaration our Adversaries cannot pretend in our present case § XXV AND if they could prove this inseparable Vnion of these two powers by the Divine appointment our Adversaries would do well to consider whether it would be more for their interest or their disadvantage that is whether it will not rather follow that they are no Presbyters at all who have received Episcopal Ordination that they have no power of administring the Sacraments because it is certain that they have not received the power of Ordination than that they must have received the power of ordeining other Presbyters because they have received the power of administring the Sacraments The Negative consequence is as unavoidable from the inseparableness of these two powers as the Affirmative that is it is as certain that where one of those powers is certainly not given there nothing is given because it cannot be supposed to be given alone as that if one be given the other must be given also As therefore it is certain that the Ordeiners intended to reserve the power of Ordination from the Persons ordeined Presbyters by them so it will follow by this principle that if the whole power was not intended none was so And if what was not intended was not given and what was not given was not received and the power of Ordination was not received then neither could the power of administring the Sacraments be received also And if so then let them be called by what name they please yet really they will be no Presbyters at least not in the Scripture-sence if either of these powers be essential to such a Scripture-Presbyter And then in vain do they challenge the power of such Presbyters when they are not those Presbyters to whom those powers belong And certainly it is much more certain and prudent to argue from the nature of the power given to them that they are Presbyters in the Scripture-sence who have the power given them which is supposed to belong to Scripture-Presbyters and on the contrary that they are not Presbyters in the Scripture-sence who have not that power given them than that they must have the power because they have the name and that intended in the Scripture signification Names are imposed arbitrarily to signifie what men please and if they please by the name Presbyter to signifie him whom the Scriptures call so yet still it is to be supposed to signifie that sense which they understand to be the sence of Scripture though they be mistaken in the sense of it And it is certain that the name cannot alter the nature of the power which is given to them though the nature of that power may alter the justice of their title to the name If they have less power given them than should belong to Scripture-Presbyters it must certainly follow that the name would be given them improperly and certainly our Adversaries themselves cannot think it just that they who are improperly called Scripture-Presbyters should claim the priviledges of them who are called so properly § XXVI INDEED if the nature of the powers were mutually inseparable it would be reasonable to argue that where one was given both must be so or if at least on one side this inseparableness held it were just to conclude that the other power must be given if this be that from which that other is inseparable but not on the contrary that the separable power must be given because that power is given from which it is supposed to be separable And on this account there is indeed some colour of reason to presume that where a higher power is given the inferior is given also because usually the Inferior is included in the Superior though it be not always so But it will by no means follow that a Superior power must follow that which is Inferior because here can be no pretence either of inseparable connexion or of inclusion Now this is plainly the case here All that our Adversaries can directly prove to have been given to their first Predecessors who received their Orders in the Communion of the Church is only a power of administring the Sacraments in their own Persons But the power of giving this power to others is certainly a power of a higher nature than the power of administring in their own Persons If therefore both these powers be essential to a Scripture-Presbyter and they cannot prove that any more than one of them was given to their Predecessors neither by any express donation nor by any inseparable connexion with that which was expresly given it will clearly follow that they were not made Presbyters in that sence which our Adversaries understand to be the sence of the Scriptures and therefore that they cannot claim the priviledges which they conceive due to Scripture-Presbyters And for my part I do not understand a more prudent Rule for distinguishing when the negative way of arguing is seasonable from this Topick that neither power is given because it is
obligingness of Ecclesiastical Authority antecedently to compacts of the Subjects And when 2. they have withal denied also the obligingness of the compacts of Predecessors to oblige Successors in this matter And when they have 3. denied the obligation of their Baptismal Covenant in reference to any duty owing by them to any particular Church even to that particular one in which they have received their Baptism even so long as they continue in it When 4. they make the act whereby they confer power to their Pastors not privative but accumulative so that they are still supposed to reserve to themselves the same liberty after they have empowered their Pastors which they enjoyed before I say when we consider them as proceeding on these Principles it cannot be admired that they destroy all Jurisdiction especially in regard of place For how is it possible that such Persons should think themselves obliged to submit to any particular Jurisdiction on account of their living within a particular district of place when they neither think themselves obliged to own any Lord of any place antecedently to the compacts of the Inhabitants nor think themselves obliged by any compacts of their Predecessors of former generations which might have given him the Dominion of the place so far as it was in the power of the Inhabitants to give it him How can they think themselves obliged by the place they live in who do not think themselves bound by any thing but their own act nor by that it self any longer or any farther than themselves please But it seems much stranger how they should do it who do not think particular Persons obnoxious to Discipline antecedently to any consent of their own distinct from that whereby they undertook their Baptism and their Christianity § III 1. THEREFORE as to the Presbyterians and those others who acknowledg an obligation of Government antecedently to the consent of particular Subjects that which can alone be requisite in dealing with such Persons is to let them see that from this antecedent obligation to Government in general it follows that they must be subject to the particular Jurisdictions To which purpose it is to be observed 1. That by the obligation of Government in general all those particulars must be obliging without which it cannot be practicable For it is not becoming the Divine Wisdom that we should suppose that he should constitute a Government that should not be practicable He cannot be supposed to design a Government but for the actual practice of it because this is indeed the only use of it and therefore the only reason that might make it capable of being prudently designed But none can design a Government for practice which he knows to be unpracticable And therefore if he do design it it must not be supposed to have been known by him to be unpracticable but to prove so for some reason that was not foreseen by him when he designed it But this cannot be thought true concerning God Whence it must plainly follow that if any thing else should prove necessary for the practicableness of the Government designed by him besides what was provided for by express constitutions yet we have reason to believe that it was foreseen and therefore also very prudent reason to presume that it was intended by him when he seems to have been so well satisfied with that which he was so certain would prove true in the event as that he did not judg it necessary to make any other provision concerning it § IV AND 2. The Presbyterians themselves at least so many of them in our present Age who have lived to see those consequences actually follow which their Predecessors did not foresee that they would follow these I say do not deny but that the application of general Rules to particulars and the determination of those circumstances without which the general Rules would not be applicable to particular Cases do properly belong to the Office of Ecclesiastical Governours And whether they granted it or not yet they who will stand to the tryal of reason or rational consequences must needs grant the reason now proposed that all which was necessary for the practicableness of the Government designed by God must needs have been foreseen and therefore designed by him in order to the making the Government designed by him practicable And therefore all that can be necessary to be proved further against these Persons can only be that the acknowledgment of these Jurisdictions is absolutely necessary for the practicableness of this Government in general § V 3. THEREFORE it is absolutely necessary for the practicableness of Government in general that every Subject know his Governour and him particularly to whom he in particular owes obedience If he only know in general who are Governours indefinitely and withal know that he is not obliged to pay any duty but only to those to whom he in particular owes subjection it plainly follows that as yet he may deny his duty to all particular Governours because he does not owe them it barely as Governours but particularly as his So that as yet no Government can be practised For Government and Subjection do necessarily answer each other and Government cannot be practised by the Governours without an acknowledgment of Subjection by the Subjects An actual exercise of power will be unsufficient to secure a practice of obedience without a right to such a coercive power Nor can the right actually oblige the Subjects to submit unless it be acknowledged by them If at least it be not acknowledged for right by the greater part and unless they confess themselves obliged in Conscience to acknowledg it it cannot prove actually coercive § VI 4. THE means whereby every particular Person may be convinced to whom it is that he in particular owes subjection must be such as may be presumed notorious to the whole Community and therefore must not be of private cognizance but such whereof others may judg as well as the person particularly concerned and by which they may judg as well concerning his Duty as their own This is necessary that every Member of the Community ignorant as well as skilful may know his own duty and be left inexcusable if he neglect it which will require great plainness and easiness in the means that they may be suitable to the meanest capacities of those who are concerned to be directed by them as that plainness and easiness must in the event make them notorious to all But much rather it is necessary in a Community where Governours and all who are concerned for the maintenance of Government are to judg of the actions of Subjects and to reward or punish them as they shall judg them dutiful or refractory whatever the concerned Subjects themselves shall profess or pretend to judg to the contrary If this liberty of judging and of imposing their judgment in practice be not allowed to Governours it will be impossible for them to answer the designs of Government
particular Governours This therefore cannot be founded on the Authority of particular Governours whose Authority is wholly grounded on it but only on the Authority of God whose Authority alone is antecedent to the Authorities of particular Jurisdictions § XII NOR can this be thought strange in Ecclesiastical Government which is so acknowledged in Civils There are also in them some Laws of the like universal concernment on which the right of all Civil Jurisdictions depend and which are therefore as impossible to be derived from the Authority of particular Governours and as necessary to be derived from God alone Such are the Laws of Nature and of Nations the breach whereof has by all wise men been always thought most piacular and most properly obnoxious to the punishment of God himself Which is a consideration very worthy to be laid to heart by our dissenting Brethren whether it be not equally applicable to this present Subject concerning the right of particular Jurisdictions And if this be acknowledged to be the truth of this matter that the Divine Authority is thus resisted by this disobedience to Humane Jurisdictions what can more agreeably be expected as the punishment of such resistance than that they who are guilty of such resistance by any acknowledgment of a power independent on the Governours of their Jurisdictions should at least lose the advantages they might otherwise expect from the Society to which they joyn themselves I mean those advantages which might otherwise be expected from a conjunction with them considered as a Society especially such advantages as are only to be immediately performed by God whom they must by these Principles be supposed to have disobliged Which will make it reasonable to believe that the Sacraments received against the Authority of these Jurisdictions shall not actually have the benefit of Sacraments and therefore shall not actually contribute to the forgiveness of sins or the giving of the Holy Ghost the way whereby Sacraments are supposed to contribute to them Nay instead of that such communications will incur the guilt of Sacriledg on the same account as Corah and his company were guilty of it though they were consecrated Persons for transgressing the bounds allowed them by the order prescribed by God But how much more must it be so when Persons not having any Consecration at all shall presume to encroach on those sacred rights of their own Superiors which God himself who gave them those rights does hence appear obliged to preserve inviolable § XIII AND indeed I do not understand how the Presbyterians can with any shew of reason defend their own practice of Authority without acknowledging this right of Jurisdictions How can they justifie the Authority of their National and Provincial Synods over all those who live within the Province or Nation represented in the Synods How can they challenge it even over the Independents themselves who live among them notwithstanding their profession of a different Judgment from them notwithstanding their disowning any act whereby they have obliged themselves to submit to their Authority distinct from the Baptism which they have received among them How can they have the confidence to charge even them with Schism for refusing to submit to them or for gathering Churches out of their Parishes if the living within the districts of a Parish could give them no peculiar title to those who did so What can they call this right they pretend to over Persons living within their districts antecedently to any act of their own distinct from their Baptism if it be not Jurisdiction For my part I profess I mean no more at present nor am I sensible that my cause obliges me to mean any more And can they allow of Jurisdiction in Parishes only and not in those greater Bodies which are only Aggregates of Parishes The Authority they challenge to their Provincial and National Synods does plainly shew they cannot do so And how can they possibly deny the same right and reason of Jurisdiction to the Parishes and Diocesses wherein their first Predecessors were baptized How can they think the same Episcopal Jurisdiction any more impaired by their own irregular practices since than they think their own Jurisdiction impaired by the like irregular practices of the Independents They who acknowledg a right over particular Christians antecedently to their own act as these generally do when they speak consequently to their own Principles must needs acknowledg that the power so antecedent to private suffrages may constitute what rules they please for distinguishing the limits of the proportion of particular Governours So that such Persons cannot with any shew of reason doubt of the obligingness of such rules of Jurisdiction when they are once established but only whether this particular rule of judging by the districts of place be established by that antecedent Power But of this there can be no doubt in our present case because there is no other way so much as pretended by our Adversaries themselves for distinguishing the limits of particular Jurisdictions § XIV BUT I proceed to shew 2. How the same thing may be proved against them who deny all Ecclesiastical Authority antecedent to the voluntary Obligations of particular Persons I have already observed how much more consequently these men speak to their Principles than the Presbyterians And it is indeed impossible that these men should own the Authority of Jurisdictions if they will be true to their Principles But then the great reason why it is impossible is particularly that Principle and the consequences of it that they think the obligatory right of all Ecclesiastical power derived from the particular Personal consent of every particular Member and that distinct from his consent to be a Member that is from his consent to Baptism If this be overthrown then the reasons will return which I have urged against those who grant a power in the Church obligatory of all baptized Persons living among them antecedently to their personal Contracts For there is no middle way of dealing in this case They who disown the Original of power to be seated in the people if they own any Ecclesiastical power at all they must needs place it originally in the Governours No third seat can or that I know of has been ever thought of And if it be originally in the Governours then it must be there antecedently to the consent of particular private persons and being so must also oblige antecedently to their consent for it is a contradiction to speak of power without obligation And if so then whoever is a Member of the Church is a Subject of its Government and whoever is a Member of the visible Church is by the same reason a Subject of its visible Government But none can deny that it is the visible Church as well as the invisible of which Baptism makes us Members nay many of our Adversaries especially will say that it is the visible Church rather than the invisible Whence it will follow that none who
for this Application § VIII That this separation from their own particular Churches must necessarily infer a separation from the Catholick Church also The Objection proposed § IX Answ. If it were otherwise it would destroy all Discipline and therefore all the dividing parties who are for Discipline are obliged as well as we to answer this Objection and to be favourable to what we shall say in Answer to it § X XI A more particular Answer proving the thing principally designed 1. This pretence of Union with the Catholick Church can be no encouragement for any to neglect any means of continuing his Union with his own particular Church unless he may be assured that whilest he wants it he may notwithstanding continue united to the Catholick Church § XII 2. That Union with the Catholick Church of which we may be assured must be such as may appear to us by the use of those external ordinary means which God has appointed for mainteining that Union § XIII 3. In this way of judging he that would assure himself of his being united to the Catholick Church must do it by proving himself united to some particular visible Church by an external Communication in their Sacraments § XIV 4. The external Communion of another Church which while a separated Person does maintein he may have hopes of keeping still his Interest in the Unity of the Catholick Church must not be any other Communion within the Jurisdiction in which he lives and from which he is supposed to be separated This proved in regard of Usurping Members of the same Church § XV.XVI. and of unauthorized Members of other Churches within the same Jurisdiction § XVII XVIII 5. Such Separatists cannot maintein their title to Catholick Unity by being received into any other Churches though otherwise absolute and unaccountable to the Church from whence they are separated § XIX XX XXI This proved 1. The nature of the inconvenience incurred by deprivation of Communion in a particular Church is such as that it is impossible that the censure can be valid in that particular Church unless it be valid in others § XXII 2. Hence it follows that if such a Person be received to the Sacraments in another Church without as good an Authority for uniting him to the unity of the Catholick Church as that was by which he was deprived only on supposition of the continuance of his invisible unity with the Catholick Church notwithstanding his visible separation from a part of it such Sacraments must as to him be perfect Nullities § XXIII 3. No particular Church can by its Authority alone restore any to Catholick Unity who has been separated from it by another Church without the consent of the Church by which he was at first separated § XXIV 4. Hence it follows That all that can be done by other Churches receiving a Person separated from the Communion of his own Church can only be to judg of his case not so as to oblige the Church to which he belongs originally to stand to their judgment but only so far as concerns their own Jurisdiction § XXV XXVI XXVII 5. Whatever is necessary for the design of Gods establishment that he must by his design be obliged to ratifie whether he has expresly said he will do so or no. This applied § XXVIII The validity of the separation proved when it is the act of the Separatists themselves without any censures of Ecclesiastical Authority § XXIX XXX § I THE last thing which remains to be proved in my designed method is That the nature of this obligation to submit to unsinful conditions of their Episcopal Communion is such as will make them guilty of the sin of SCHISM who rather than they will submit to such conditions either separate themselves or suffer themselves to be excluded from Communion by their respective Diocesan Ordinaries And all that will be necessary to be said concerning this will be only to remember and apply what has been already proved throughout the body of the whole discourse It is therefore certain 1. That Schism as such is a dissolution of the Body and therefore Schism in the Ecclesiastical sence is a dissolution of the Church which is the Mystical Body of Christ a dividing of its Vnity wherein soever that may be conceived to consist If the Vnity of the Church consisted only in a Vnity of correspondence without any obligation to yield incumbent on one party rather than on any other then the crime of Schism would only be culpably chargeable on him who was chargeable with the breach that is who either began the separation on unsufficient reasons or who suffered himself to be excluded on terms of less importance to him than the correspondence So that in this way of tryal the whole Judgment concerning this matter depends upon the merit of the Cause Where there is no duty owing on either side there the whole reason of obligation to yield on one side must only be the reason of the thing its little momentousness in comparison with the momentousness of mainteining correspondence And as in this case the interest of the party is the only solid reason why he may be conceived to be obliged to yield so the most proper and competent Judg of this interest is supposed to be the party himself who is concerned in it As therefore the common interest of the several divided parties does in this way of judging no farther oblige any one to yield to the others terms than as it may appear that the common interest is more its own particular interest than the things to be yielded in regard of it so that even the acknowledgment that any thing is indeed for the common interest cannot oblige any to yield it barely as it is the common interest but as it is his own private interest and more so than the thing to be yielded for it so also in this Vnity of correspondence which is very well consistent with an equality between the several parties who are to maintein this correspondence every one is sui juris and therefore very justly to be determined by his own judgment concerning his own interest and cannot be obliged to renounce his own judgment in compliance with others concerning his own matters how much soever he may value their judgment otherwise above his own This therefore would be the only Notion of Schism if all the Members of the Church were equal or if all the difference between them were only such as would make a reverence due to some Persons for their eminent personal accomplishments so that still it fell short of a Subjection due to them in regard of any Office or Authority And I have accordingly observed that in this dispute concerning Schism Introd our Adversaries Notions are exactly fitted to this Hypothesis even of those of them who otherwise own a properly-coercive Authority of the Church over her particular Members § II BUT I confess this Notion of Schism is not sufficient
Religion even all that assurance of the safety of their condition which they are capable of receiving even in the external Solemnities of the Covenant and the application of the external Seals These themselves they may receive if not in the Church from whence they are ejected yet in some other where they may be received upon their ejection who may have as just an Authority to administer the Sacraments as the Church which has ejected them and is no more obliged to stand to the judgment of the Church who has ejected them than she is to stand to hers but is every way as competent a Judg of the qualifications to be required from those who are to be admitted to her own Communion This indeed seems to be the true reason why all the Discipline of particular Churches has been so insignificant since the Catholick has been divided into so many parties who are ready to receive each others Excommunicates They only can be terrified to do their duty who must otherwise be excluded from the Catholick Church to which alone the priviledges of the Church can be thought confined But for avoiding this whatever censures they lye under from particular Churches two excuses are obvious from our Adversaries Principles Either they make the Vnity of the Catholick Church such as that they may be conteined in it who are excluded from the visible Communion of all particulars or if they require visible Communion with some particular Church to Communion with the Catholick yet they have been used to contein under the name of the Catholick Church all the several divided parties those which are Heretical and Schismatical as well as the Orthodox And upon these terms it is impossible for any censures to deprive of the whole visible Communion of the Church As the case stands now the very case of being excommunicated by one Church is a recommendation to others to receive them And if none others would yet it is but the setting up a new Communion of their own which any censured Persons may do with as good right as many others have done before them § X TO this that I may reply I must first freely confess that if it were possible to retein the Vnity of the Catholick Church whilest men are excommunicated out of the particular Churches to which they are more particularly related at least if their exclusion from their particular Churches were not so much as a presumptive exclusion from the Catholick but that excommunicated Members might not only as certainly be but also as certainly assure themselves that they are Members of the Catholick Church as they could before when they were Members of their own particular Church I should then acknowledg that Persons so excommunicate could not have any reason to apprehend themselves to be in any such danger of Salvation as might oblige them to such unsinful condescensions as those are concerning which I have been speaking in order to the avoiding of that danger For it is to be considered that as the whole immediate effect of Excommunication is privative so the deprivations of the benefits of Ecclesiastical Communion do herein differ from the deprivations of Secular censures that the benefits cannot be taken away in one place if they may be enjoyed in another He who is banished from England may really be deprived of all those accommodations which he is intitled to as a Subject of England which is all that the power of England can do to him and which is a real effect of that power And yet at the same time he may enjoy the like or greater accommodations in France because these are capable of being enjoyed by them who are deprived of their English Freedoms The difference of Country is sufficient in this case to afford some places priviledges different from the priviledges of others Put the Spiritual advantages whereof men are deprived by Excommunication the pardon of sin the giving of the Holy Ghost the promises of future and eternal Rewards are things impossible to be enjoyed in one place if they be wanting in another It is God himself that must immediately ratifie them and his power is equally concerned for the Church who has exercised her power of Excommunication as for her who receives the others Excommunicates And therefore if notwithstanding the Excommunication of such Persons they may yet communicate in other Churches and expect that God should confirm to them the benefits of such Vncanonical Communions they must consequently expect that God in doing so must disanul the censures of the Church which has Excommunicated them Which must consequently disoblige all who think so from all condescensions on their part for the recovery of the Communion of which they are deprived § XI AND if Persons Excommunicated in one place may be received in another without so much as the formalities of an absolution to repeal the sentence which has been passed against them nay must never have been presumed to have been cast out of the Communion of the Catholick Church by the Excommunications of their own Church then they must still be supposed to have continued in a state of Pardon and Possession of the Spirit upon performance of the moral conditions of the Gospel And then what effect can their Excommunication be supposed to have upon them that may oblige them to any condescensions in order to an Absolution And therefore that I may settle the Discipline of particular Churches on a solid foundation it will be necessary to shew that the Vnity of particular Churches is in the ordinary constitution of things so inseparable from the Vnity of the Catholick Church as that whoever is cut off designedly from the Vnity of a particular Church however it come to pass whether by his own act or the act of his Superiors cannot at the same time be presumed to retein the Vnity of the Catholick Church Whence it will follow that as I have proved our Brethrens separation to divide them from the Vnity of their particular Churches of which they are Members respectively so it must consequently divide them from the Vnity of the Catholick Church and so be as properly Schismatical in respect of that as it is in respect of their particular Churches But I could wish that they would remember that the reason obliging me to this is the interest of the Discipline of all particular Churches in it and the unpracticableness of that Discipline without it by what form of Government soever it be administred whether Monarchically or Aristocratically or Democratically All who maintein any power of Church censures are as much concerned for it as I am Neither the Presbyterians nor the Independents themselves can ever expect that their censures can oblige any to perform their duty if all they do be only to exclude him from the Ordinances of their own particular Congregations but that notwithstanding he may as validly partake of Ordinances in other Congregations as he did before and be received on as easie terms as if he
other it will not be difficult to determine which of the two must prove invalid The Church which endeavours to restore such a Person is supposed to be only equal with the Church which has rejected him and therefore can have no Authority to reverse her censures And therefore as God is not obliged to ratifie that act of hers in regard of her Authority so he is obliged to disanul it as he is the common Governour of all the Churches and as he is thereupon obliged to maintein Discipline and that correspondence between the Churches which is so necessary for the preservation of Discipline § XXV HENCE it follows 4. That all that can be done by other Churches receiving a Person separated from the Communion of his own Church can only be to judg of his case not so as to oblige the Church to which he belongs originally to stand to their judgment but only so far as concerns their own Jurisdiction They can judg whether they be in conscience or for the maintenance of their common correspondence obliged to ratifie their censures within their own respective Jurisdictions that is they can judg concerning the validity of the censures whether they be grounded on a cause properly belonging to the Authority by which they were censured and whether they have reason therefore to presume them valid before God that is indeed whether they do really cut him off from Catholick Vnity And in case they find the sentence pronounced against him in his own Church invalid in it self they may then receive him to their own Communion yet so as that they do not pretend any Authority to reverse the sentence pronounced against him in his own Church but only to declare the original invalidity and that only with relation to their own obligation to confirm it within their own Jurisdictions nor pretend to restore him to the Catholick Vnity which he had lost by the censures which had been passed upon him in his own Church but only receive him as an acknowledgment of his uninterrupted right to Catholick Communion and of their own obligation as parts of the Catholick Church to admit him to their own Communion This certainly they may do by their own Authority without any the least encroachment on the Authority which had originally passed the censure not as superior to that Authority but only as not subject to it § XXVI AND this seems actually to have been the case of the Western Church in the cause of Athanasius Whilest he was charged only with Canonical matters they were willing to hear what might be said against him and in the mean time to suspend him from their own Communion But when they found partly by the notorious conviction of the disingenuity of the accusations of this kind as in the charges of the suborned whore and the cutting off the hand of Arsenius and prophaning the sacred offices at Mareotis and partly by their delays and evasions of this kind of tryal that this was not the thing indeed insisted on how much soever it was pretended but that it was rather an artifice made use of for the subversion of the common faith professed by him they must then look on such censures as passed upon him rather for his Faith than for the Ecclesiastical crimes which were pretended Wherein if they judged right the censures must have been essentially invalid on two accounts both as to the cause for which they were inflicted and as to the Persons by whom As to the cause for which they were inflicted For they could not believe that God would deprive him of Catholick Vnity only for mainteining the Catholick Faith which was one of the principal foundations of that Vnity And as to the Persons by whom they were inflicted who being Hereticks were uncapable of being Bishops and consequently of any Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction besides that they were not obliged to maintein any correspondence with Hereticks and therefore could not be confined to Canons in dealing with them the Canons being only terms of correspondence Though in the case wherein our Adversaries are concerned there is much more reason for the confinement of this power of other Churches For the power is much more absolute which particular Churches may challenge over their particular Subjects than that which Provincial or National Synods can pretend to over particular Churches And therefore the obligation to confirm their censures must be proportionably greater on account of the common correspondence § XXVII NOW if this be so then it will plainly follow that the Governours of particular Churches do as often deprive of Catholick Vnity as they deprive any really of the Communion of their own Churches and that all that other Churches can do cannot really unite any to the Catholick Church who has been separated from any particular Church by a just Authority without the consent of that Authority by which he was separated and that if their receiving such a Person to their Communion do him any good it must be only in such cases wherein he was really never deprived of a right to Communion even with that Church whose actual Communion has been denied him The only thing remaining further for settling the Discipline of the Church on a solid foundation can only be to see in what cases the censures may be presumed valid and wherein it may therefore be known that the restitution is invalid and unsafe to be trusted and whether any relief may be expected thence by Persons in our Brethrens circumstances If either by any censure of their Superiors or by their own resistance and separation from them they be really separated from their own Churches to which they were originally related they must consequently be separated from the Vnity of the Catholick Church nor can they be restored to it but by being reunited to their own particular Churches and that by a reconciliation as visible as their separation And for clearing this that their separation must needs be a real separation even in the esteem of God himself I desire it may be considered § XXVIII 5. THAT whatever is necessary for the design of Gods establishment that he must by his design be obliged to ratifie whether he has expresly said he will do so or no. Nay indeed there can be no necessity that he should expresly warn them of it who are already sufficiently convinced that this is agreeable to his design For it is certain that God cannot design an end without the means nor be ignorant of what is requisite to his design as a means nor fail where the means belong to his part of the Covenant to see them performed as I have already shewn that it is his part to perform the benefits of the Sacraments None but he can immediately give the Spirit and apply the forgiveness of sins which are there promised But yet he is obliged to do so when the Persons Authorized by him do it in his name and with reference only to that end for which he has
given them that Authority If therefore Government be a thing designed by God and the ratification of this separation by God be necessary for the end of this Government I do not know what can be required further to prove that God is obliged to ratifie it The former has already been proved and the later will appear by easie inferences from it especially considering the peculiar circumstances of our Adversaries case The practicableness of any Government will require 1. A power of determining indifferent circumstances and 2. A power of obliging Subjects to stand to the judgment of Governours concerning the expediency of such determinations at least to acquiesce and submit in practice though they may otherwise think them mistaken in their judgments and 3. A power of obliging Subjects to a passive obedience even in things unlawful so long as the title to this Government is lawful And this passive obedience implies that they must not assume a power which is not committed to them in any case at all no extremity whatsoever can warrant that that for the same reason they do not abet others who are guilty of it that because the independency of Societies cannot possibly be understood within a Jurisdiction already rightfully possessed without either assuming or abetting such an Vsurpation besides the resistance that must thereby be made against the lawful Authority of the Jurisdiction therefore no opposite Societies be erected or abetted within settled Jurisdictions These are things so necessary to Government in general as that the Authority exercised in these cases must be valid if there be any Authority at all acknowledged that may properly deserve that name And therefore in these cases there can be no necessity to descend to the merit of the cause Whatever the cause be so long as it is reducible to any of these Heads the presumption lyes clear in favour of the Governours § XXIX BY this it will appear that our Brethrens separation for any of these causes is altogether unjustifiable on their part whence it will follow that if they be separated by their Superiors for any cause of this kind they are separated as well for a just cause as by a just Authority so that nothing can be wanting for making their separation valid before God And though their separation be intirely their own act without any express censures of their Superiors yet it will as effectually cut them off from the Vnity of that Church from which they separate as if they were deprived by Authority For the great design of God in joyning the Grace of the Sacraments with the external participation of the Elements being by this contrivance of things to oblige them to adhere to their Superiors without whose consent they cannot enjoy the Sacraments the reason of the thing will require that they lose those Graces as well by their own separation of themselves from their Superiors as by being separated by them The Vnity of the Church is alike prejudiced both ways and if withal we consider this right of Governours as designed by God for a preservative of Vnity nay indeed as the very bond of Vnity of a Body Politick it will then appear that a separation from visible Governours must be a direct violation of this Vnity and the rather so because it is impossible that it should not be injurious to the rights of Governours which God himself has designed for the preservation of Vnity Nay it plainly overthrows their coercive power over Malefactors by which they are enabled to preserve this Vnity For if all they can do for this purpose be only to cut them off from their Communion and they may elude this by cutting themselves off first this is an art that may be made use of by any who are objects of their Discipline and must therefore render their whole power ineffectual As therefore this visible separation does evidently cut them off from any legal notorious pretence to Vnity so by its opposing the design and means appointed by God for the preservation of Vnity it must also cut off such Separatists from all hopes of relief in point of equity For all that can be said to justifie mens claim to the equity of Gods promises when they evidently fail of performing the ordinary conditions of those promises can only be their compliance with Gods design in making those promises which could not in their circumstances be complied with by the use of the ordinary means But this cannot be pleaded in our Adversaries behalf And therefore such a separation as this must really cut off the Members so separated from Catholick Vnity and consequently the reconciliation made without the consent of the Church which had been particularly injured by the separation must be invalid and cannot expect the Divine ratification § XXX AT least upon this account the Church which would venture to reconcile them would have reason to believe that they were really disunited from the Catholick Church antecedently to her own reconciliation Whence it will follow that she cannot truly declare them united And therefore unless her act of reconciliation can reunite them whom she finds disunited it can signifie nothing for the comfort of the Persons reconciled by her But besides the reasons now-mentioned there are others sufficient to convince such a reconciliation not only of irregularity but of invalidity also both in regard of the reconciliation it self and in regard of the correspondence she is obliged to maintein In regard of the reconciliation it self because indeed it nulls it self For if she have no power to cut off she can have none to reunite them who are cut off by others And upon the same reasons by which she deprives other Churches of having a power to cut off that Member which she is pleased to receive to her Communion and to own as still united notwithstanding what has been done for cutting him off from the Vnity of his own Church she must also deny that power in her self to separate any of her own Members from her own Vnity For if on the terms now-mentioned as necessary for the preservation of Government in general his own Church has not a power to deprive him of her own Vnity she can have it in no case at all nor can any other Church have it because it is the same power that is supposed common to all particular Churches This will at least shew that they who admit of any such power of Churches to punish the misdemeanours of particular Subjects with an effectual deprivation of her own Communion cannot in reason look upon the reception as valid at least so far as it is only declarative And that it cannot be valid by way of Authority to restore to Catholick Vnity those who had been validly separated from it will appear from the other consideration of the correspondence they are obliged to maintein with all other Churches For it having appeared that by the Divine contrivance of things every particular Church is obliged to ratifie the