to serve a Party or Interest but to promote Catholick Love and Concord amongst Christians this is the professed end and natural tendency of his Hypothesis which has so favourable an Aspect upon all sorts of Christians that every honest Man must necessarily wish it were true and be glad to see it well made out for he 's no Christian that can take pleasure in thinking all Parties besides his own are out of the Catholick Church and Road to Salvation or that can be sorry to find that the Catholick Church comprehends a great many more than he formerly thought it did It has been an unhappy Error and which too many on both sides have entertained That either the whole party of Dissenters must be Schismaticks or the whole Body of Conformists must be so This mistake has animated even sober Men to charge each other with Schism in their own defence thinking they had no way to clear themselves but by accusing the other and I am perswaded this is one way by which some Men keep up prejudices in the minds of many worthy moderate Gentlemen against our Congregations as if coming to hear amongst us must necessarily argue the Parochial Congregations Schismatical and on the other hand some strait-laced Dissenters think if they should at any time occasionally hear in a publick Congregation they presently thereby condemn their own which are great mistakes as plainly appears by Mr. H's Arguing for Schism is a personal fault and cannot be charged upon a whole Party unless every Person therein discover that Uncharitable Alienation of Affection from others which the Scripture calls Schism Indeed it will be very difficult to acquit those Persons from the guilt of Schism that were the promoters of those Impositions from whence our Divisions proceed for since they themselves acknowledge the questioned terms of Communion to be unnecessary the insisting so obstinately upon them cannot in reason be thought to proceed from any other Spring but that of Uncharitableness and the more pernicious they Judge our Dissenting to be the more Uncharitable they that would rather we should turn Schismaticks and be Damned than a few Ceremonies should be laid aside which they will own might be omitted without hazarding the loss of one Soul But as for the Passive Conformists whose part has been only to comply with these Impositions and have not justified or abetted either the making of them or the violent prosecution of Penal Laws upon them and several such we know there are these are no way chargeable with Schismatical Practices on the other hand those fierce Dissenters cannot be cleared from Schism that uncharitably condemn all Conformists in the lump and look upon none of their Congregations as true Churches if any to excuse them say this censure of theirs may proceed from a mistake we answer 't is such a mistake as is occasioned by their animosity and prejudice which will not give them leave to Weigh the thing impartially and therefore is Schismatical for want of Charity is at the bottom and distorts their Judgments to pass so severe a sentence By this it appears that Mr. H's Book was writ with a Catholick Spirit and Desgn because it favours neither side but censures or justifies Persons of both sides according to their Charitable or Uncharitable Tempers and Actions III. That T. W's Hypothesis and Notions of Schism are very Erroneous and confus'd I confess 't is pretty difficult to gather his meaning in this case and I have reason to think he does not himself understand it he looks upon Schism to be the reverse to Unity which rightly understood is very true but then he gives us so many and variant descriptions of this Unity some too large and others too narrow that no Man knows where to have him He never distinguishes of Unity in Essentials Integrals and Accidentals betwixt Internal and External Unity betwixt the Unity of the Universal Church of a National Church of a Diocesan Church and of a Particular Church but having got hold of a Word like a Man in a delirium runs away with it till he has lost himself and his Readers too I have with all possible seriousness often considered upon what Foot these Men will fix their charge of Schism they so confidently advance against us and by what I can gather from their Writings it must be upon some of these 1. Our withdrawing our selves from the Government of the Bishops without paying Suit and Service to their Ecclesiastical Courts but till it be proved from Scripture that they have the pretended Jurisdiction over us this cannot be Schism In Commission'd Offices Extent of Power changes the Species and if it do not so we may have one Bishop in a Nation nay one over all the World 2. Our want of true Ministers with Episcopal Ordination but this likewise depends upon the proof of the former if Pastors of single Congregations be Bishops in Scripture sence then is our Ordination valid and regular too I mention not the pretended Line of an uninterrupted Succession because that has been sufficiently discussed before and indeed the sober part of Conformists look upon it as an idle Whimsey and will by no means so far destroy the certainty of their own Ordination and Ministry as to put it upon that Issue 3. Our Omission of the appointed Rites and Ceremonies but till it be proved that these are requisite to Church-Unity or that the Convocation that appointed them had any power over us Jure Divino to require our Submission we cannot be guilty of Schism by the Omission of them the Canons of our English Convocations pretend to no power till Confirmed by Act of Parliament and 't is not the breach of a Civil Law that makes us formally Schismaticks for then could there have been no such thing as Schism in the Primitive Churches where the Civil Authority was wanting not to mention that the Civil Power has left us now to our Liberty 4. Our Transgression of Parish-Bounds but this cannot be formally Schism for such Districts are but prudential things and are Dispensed with by themselves in many cases as by going to hear in other Parishes which is frequently done in all parts of England without any such censure also by setting up Chappels within Parochial Precincts whereby Congregations are gathered out of many Parishes and this if not allowed is very generally practised and connived at for my part I think in ordinary cases it is most regular and convenient that there should be such Bounds fixt and observed but this being but prudential will not bind in extraordinary cases as for instance where the Parishes are so vastly great that not a Tenth part of the Parishioners can have room in the Parish Church Where the Minister is notoriously and intolerably scandalous or ignorant for though in doubtful cases it is fit this should be left to the decision of the Ministry yet there may happen some cases so plain and evident as to decide themselves
find that it was designed to out-live their Persons and therefore in this we know of no Successors that they have their call to this Apostolical power was extraordinary their Authority was Universal their Commission extended to the whole World and was the same in all Churches Now to say that the Bishops which are stated Pastors in an Organical Church are the Apostles Successors in this Apostolical power is destructive to their own Notion of Church Government and would give the Bishop of Rome as great power in England as the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury when there is one Indeed as the Apostolical power did contain eminenter the Pastoral power so far the Bishops or Pastors of Churches do succeed them but this cannot be properly called an Apostolical Succession I shall not dispute with him the Episcopal Jurisdiction of Timothy and Titus it signifies nothing till the Nature and Extent of that Office be first determined out of Scripture Dr. Hammond tells us all the Elders we read of in Scripture were Bishops and that every particular Church had at least one of these and no doubt but Ephesus and Creet had such Bishops as well as other Churches but whether Timothy and Titus were such is not certain or material though their frequent removes from place to place at the command of the Apostles makes it very probable that their Office was itinerant and unfixed But 't is pretty to hear him say these two were ordained the Bishops of Ephesus and Creet by the Apostles Was there any Apostle then besides Paul concerned in it But here lyes the Trick they must needs be two Bishops and the Apostolical Succession must begin in them and therefore it was necessary to mention their Ordination by Apostles in the plural because it does not agree with the nature of a proper Succession that two Bishops should succeed one Apostle in his Apostolical power for then Timothy would have been as much Bishop of Creet as of Ephesus and Titus as much Bishop of Ephesus as Timothy for the Apostolical power vested by Succession in them extended as much to the one as the other and as much to all the World as to either And how pray could Timothy and Titus succeed the Apostles in the Sees of Ephesus and Creet whilst the Apostles were yet living Were they translated to a higher Seat or suspended or degraded for not owning the Authority of the Civil Magistrate To be the Apostles Successors in Apostolical power the Apostles yet alive and in plenitude of power is a very great Mystery and something akin to the honest Vicar of Newport's quondam Prayer that King Charles the Second might out-live all his Successors Whereas he says no Presbyters had power to ordain I desire him to try how he will reconcile this with Dr. Hammond that says these Presbyters were all Bishops or indeed with Scripture it self that says even Timothy received the gift by the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery 1 Tim. 4.14 But as to this delicate Notion of Apostolical Succession he is pleased further to inform us that for the propagation thereof Linus by Apostolical Consecration Succeeded the Apostles in the See of Rome here 's a double blunder again Linus Succeeded whilst the Apostles were alive for how else could he have Apostolical Consecration and Linus a single person Succeeds the Apostles in the plural As before the Apostolical power of one Apostle was divided betwixt two Bishops Timothy and Titus so here the power of two or more Apostles is exhausted by one Bishop who is their Lineal Successor and they still living in full enjoyment of their power ask him not how can these things be they must be so for Dissenters must be Schismaticks and this is the way to prove them so and therefore must be rational and solid whatever absurdities our Sceptical Heads discover in it I need not here take notice how positively he asserts the immediate Succession of Linus when all the Learned Men in the World acknowledge great Difficulties and uncertainty whether Linus or Cletus were first Bishop or whether both at once one as Bishop of the Circumcision the other of the Gentiles As Grotius thinks but Ignorance is the rarest thing in the World to make a man bold and venture at any thing Nothing but this Faculty of Ignorance would have emboldened him to say as p. 3. That this Line of Apostolick Succession of Bishops hath continued in all Ages to this present time an Assertion without the least shadow of proof yea contrary to the Acknowledgments of all Church-Historians The very Papists themselves whose Interest it is to make men believe it was so confess there are insuperable difficulties about the Succession of Popes in the Roman See and if the Succession be so perplexed there it must be much more so in other Churches whose obscurity in former Ages makes it less feasible to trace this Line of Succession And though Irenaeus might be able to name all the Successors of the Apostolick Churches in his day yet that will hardly prove that there has been no interruption since Irenaeus is said to have been the Scholar of Polycarp who was the Disciple of Sr. John and he is said to have died in the year of Christ 182. It is therefore very probable he might remember the names of all that had been Bishops of Rome Jerusalem and Alexandria since he had not much above the space of an hundred years to burthen his memory with a less man than he can tell who have been Bishops of Chester for a hundred years but does it follow that an uninterrupted Succession for above 1600 years is equally certain I might here enquire how it came to pass that this Apostolical Succession was propagated in so few Churches as the Patriarchal were methinks there should have been as many as the Apostles were For this man to be so very positive in these difficult and perplexed points shews a very great Effrontery and what may we not expect from the man that will talk at this rate And to say whoever exercises any Ministerial Office out of this Line of Apostolick Succession can be no other than a Lay-Impostor is to expose Christianity it self and to leave the Consciences of all men in the World at an utter uncertainty whether they have a true Ministry and Ordinances or no. Wretched men that to support the beloved Cause of Persecution will advance a notion destructive to our common Christianity and the Peace and Comfort of the Christian World and rather than the Dissenters in England should not be Schismaticks will shake the foundation not only of all the Reformed but of all the Christian Churches in the World Certainly T. W. ought to have been well advised before he had given it under his hand That if there be not an uninterrupted Succession betwixt all the Bishops in England and Apostles they are Lay-Impostors and Schismaticks and that he and the rest of his Friends have no
finds he must necessarily hate and revile us and after the fiercest manner contend with us because we pray without a stinted Form and he prays with one because we take no more notice of the Altar than of the Pulpit whilst he bows towards it because our Ministers preach in Cloaks and his in a Surplice And if it be so natural and necessary for him to run out into the highest breaches of Charity against us upon this account we cannot help it but heartily pity him but if he 'll search to the bottom he may find that his unruly passions and rampant pride are the natural and infallible causes of such Contentions and these distinct Modes of Worship are but the occasions or perhaps but the pretences thereof We know very well there are a great many of the Conformists that we love and honour and can live very peaceably and quietly with them and have very intimate converse together and they have the like respect for us notwithstanding those different practices which he calls Separate Communion they earnestly desire the Ceremonies in Debate might be laid aside because the Papists have not only spit upon them as the Bishop of Salisbury speaks but have made them Tools of Discord and Mischief and if all the Members of the late Convocation had been like some few we should have hop'd the Bone of Contention would have been removed and I know not what such Men as T. W. would then have done for a Cloak to cover their Malice but though that Assembly fail'd the expectation of the King and Countrey yet we are not without hopes it will come to that at last however in the mean time we are very desirous to be peaceable and glad we can be so and if these men are resolved they 'l have no Charity for any but their own Party let them wipe off the guilt of Schism as well as they can We now come to his citations out of Calvin that we ought not to separate from a Church upon the account of many blemishes and we say so too but if those blemishes and corruptions be made Terms of Communion and we must testifie our approbation of them it will greatly alter the case we know there are blemishes in the purest Societies but when we must be obliged to admire and praise these Deformities we shall desire to be excused and that 's our Case The Three Letters of Le Moyne L' Angle and Claude have been already reflected upon by some of the Answerers of Dr. Stillingfleet it appears by many passages therein that they have been very much misinformed concerning our Practice and the Grounds thereof as if we thought none in Communion with the Church of England could be saved that we are the only Men in the Nation that are predestinated to Salvation and such like things for which we are greatly obliged to those that have thus represented us but those that would be further satisfied in the disingenuity of some Men towards us and what Arts they have used to procure the Suffrage of Forreign Divines against us may read the three last pages of Mr. Rules Rational Account to which I could add something my self were it not an invidious piece of work When Mr. H. used these words Whether they be Episcopal Presbyterian Independant or by what Name or Title soever they be self-dignified or distinguished T. W. charges him with Malice against the Clergy as if he meant them only whence so gross a mistake should happen I know not unless it be from the same cause that makes every thing look yellow to some that have been afflicted with predominancy of Choller it 's plain Mr. H's design was to censure the vanity of assuming to our selves the Title of a Party or valuing our selves upon it which certainly has done much mischief But this must needs reflect upon the Archbishops and Bishops which he says are Orders Instituted by the Apostles in the Church of God and from them continued to this present Age without Interruption and for this he refers us to 1 Cor. 12.28 And God hath set some in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Teachers helps Out of some little cunning design no doubt Governments 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though he puts it helps in Government but where 's the Archbishop and Diocesan Bishop he says God has set them up but we cannot tell where all that he says concerning Mr. H's despising and speaking evil of Dignities proceeds from nothing but the Spleen We reverence the Bishops as they are vested by our Laws with a Civil Power circa Sacra and as many of them are Men of great Learning and Worth but cannot allow them to be our Governours by a Divine appointment till we see it better prov'd Sir That Act of Parliament by which we enjoy our present Liberty and which is your intolerable grievance does not carry the Title of Indulgence as you affirm it has in it the very words permitted and allowed which you ought not to have been ignorant of and had you taken as much delight in conversing with this Act as those by which we have been so unkindly oppressed you would not have needed to have been told this It 's true this Act does not Authorize our Churches nor Annex the Benefices to them but as we need not the former for we derive our Authority higher so we are not at all discontented for want of the latter you tell us it is given us for the hardness of our Hearts we might here very well retort and say it was rather given for the hardness of your Hearts who turn'd the Edge of Laws made chiefly against Papists to destroy your Fellow Protestants which was declared by one of the best of English Parliaments to be greatly serviceable to the Popish Interest and the ready way to bring ruin upon Protestants and a Bill brought in for the Uniting of us how that Parliament was represented by such Men as these and what thanks they had for running those great hazards for their Countreys preservation is sufficiently known The Story he brings of Barrow Penry and Burchet signifies nothing but the Malice of the Relator the two former who were Brownists flew so high as with this Man to unchurch and condemn all besides their own Party which is indeed a very ill Principle and none ever more guilty of it than T. W. Burchet was Hang'd for Killing his Keeper would it not be thought a very ill thing for us to charge upon the whole Episcopal Party the Odium and Guilt of all the Rogues and Felons that have died at Tyburn in their Communion We challenge this Man or any of his Abettors to shew any one Principle of ours that has the least Aspect towards Treason or any practices of that kind we have been guilty of though under the greatest provocations We vindicate not the Extravagancies of the Brownists nor will the sober Men of his own Party vindicate the severe handling of