him either as his Mouth unto his People or as their Mouth unto Himself in publick Assemblies or Congregations Such likewise are those set and solemn Times for worship which he has instituted both among Jews and Christians and which are all design'd for publick worship in Joynt-Assemblies Yea even our Prayers which are the Acts of worship express communion and joynt-society being put up according to his appointment in the plural number he having taught us to say Our Father which art in Heaven and give us this day c. which speaks the communion and concurrence of more besides our selves And the Holy Sacraments those most eminent Acts and Instances of worship are ordained for Asts of society and partnership or of communion therein We are all baptized into one body And We being many are one bread and one body And The bread which we break is the communion of the body of Christ and the cup of blessing which we bless is the communion of the blood of Christ as St. Paul says And because by their institution they are not only to be Acts of worship but of publick worship or of joynt-concurrence or communion therein therefore doth our Church allow no Sacrament even to the Sick without three or two at the least to make a Congregation and condemns the private and solitary Masses of the Church of Rome which are eaten by the Priest alone Such is the natural obligation and such the necessity and importance of publick worship which is one of the greatest visible supports of Religion without which 't is to be feared it would sink and be in danger to fail in the Earth Whereas the paying of this worship in Church-Unity and dependance on a Bishop though it be a duty too yet is a duty more of positive obligation For to have Bishops and to pay all our publick worship in communion with them is no natural duty which always was incumbent on all men but came in with Christianity by positive Institution or particular Revelation And besides though important in it self yet in comparison it is of less importance not only the natural parts of the Ministration but the positive too as the Holy Sacranients c. being I conceive of more Weight And though the want of this Union under our own Bishops by the opposite Passions and angry Tempers which Schism introduces doe greatly eat out true devotion yet doth it not make so wide a breach and waste therein as the want of any Ministerial Offices at all would do Now in any competition of Duties the Rule is that things of positive obligation shall give way to things of natural obligation and positives of less importance to positives of more importance in those cases and times where we can not do both The natural there takes place of the positive and the greater sets aside the less Particularly as to the keeping up Religion and Church-unity and Association if in any case we can not maintain both but a competition happens to arise between them the care of Church-unity must give way to the care of Religion We must look then to keep up as much Church-unity as we may do in keeping up Religion which being once lost Church-unity and association signifies nothing And not begin the other way to content our selves with keeping up so much of Christian Religion as we do in strict observance of the Rules of Church-society and Union For Christs first and chief design was to plant and preserve the Religion And that Church-unity which is either valuable or desireable in the sight of God is Church-unity with true Religion not Church-unity without it and we are tyed to keep up Church-union for Religion's not Religion for Union's sake as I shewed before And therefore the duty and obligation to communicate in some Ministerial Offices will be a fair excuse for doing this out of the way of Church-unity or dependance on our own Bishops when both can not have place And thus I think the Scripture determines in such cases and that 2. These abatements are what God himself has been willing to make on such necessity in other like duties He has not required that men should stick so fast to those duties or parts of duty which are inferior or subservient or appendages unto others as that for their sakes they should drop other duties which are principal or superiour to them nor is he willing that in care of preserving their practice of lesser Vertues inviolable they should at any time let the weightier fall So that to think he will abate and relax something of the duty of Church-union when that is necessary to keep on the more important duty of publick Ministration and that he doth not the the People up to such strict care of communicating in the Unity of the Church as must drop and let fall all communion in Ministerial Offices when they are not to be had but at the hands of those who minister in breach thereof is only to think that he is ready to make the same equitable allowance on any competition in these as he doth on like competitions in other duties And that Almighty God is willing to make these abatements on such necessity and competitions I conceive may sufficiently appear by the following Instances Circumcision and Sacrifice and the Sabbath are all positive duties But Circumcision and Sacrifice being of more importance they were to take place of the Sabbath and whensoever it so fell out that they could not observe both men might be excused in breaking the Sabbath Rest to labour in Circumcision as they did whensoever the eighth Day of the Childs Age which was appointed for his Circumcision fell to be on the Sabbath Day or in Sacrifices with the labour whereof the Priests in the Temple continually prophaned the Sabbath and were blameless as our Lord determines And God himself declares I will have Mercy before Sacrifice which imports according to our Lords allegations and applications of it that Men should drop the duty of Sacrifice to attend the duty of Mercy when for the time they must let one fall and could not pay both So making the necessity of performing natural duties an excuse for the omission of positive and the necessity of performing more important duties an excuse for the omission of less important when there is a necessity of letting one fall Thus also it was a positive duty and rule among the Jews that the Priests should kill the Sacrifice according to what is said in the Law Lev. 1. 4 5. The People who brought it as it is there order'd were to lay their hands upon the head of the Sacrifice But it was left to the Priests to kill it as Josephus relates Whence the Priests were able to give the number of the Paschal Sacrifices at any Passover as they did to Cestius Gallus as the same Author testifies And this is the account of the Jewish Doctors
Church or spiritual city wherein Christians are incorporated into one Body is not only the Church of one place or Country wherein all the Members may Embody and Associate under the same Governors as the Church of Rome Alexandria or Antioch But the collection of all particular Christian Societys or the whole number of independant Churches Existing in all times and diffused through all places For all these our Saviour has ordained to be one Society or Spiritual Body Of them he speaks or of all that do or shall believe on him when he prays to his Father that they all may be one Joh. 17. 11. 20. 21. And of them St Paul speaks when he says both of Jews and Gentiles distributed into so many distinct Churches that by the Cross of Christ they are all reconciled to God in one Body Eph. 2. 16. And when he says of Baptism which being duly received in any Church makes a man free of all other Christian Churches that by one spirit we are all baptized into one body whether we be Jews or Gentiles 1 Cor. 12. 13. And of the Unity of this Church or Collection of all Believers do those Scriptures speak which represent all that are in Heaven and all that are in Earth as one whole Family Eph. 3. 15. As one House-hold 1 Tim. 3. 15. and Gal. 6. 10. or as one City Heb. 12. 22. Whence accordingly all who are at any time in this world are said to have their Citizenship or Corporation in Heaven Phil. 3. 20. And all who are admitted into Christs Church here to be Fâ—llow-Citizens with the Saints and Domesticks with Prophets and Apostles and with all others who are gone to God before Eph. 2. 19. What is the one Body saith St Chrysostom on the words of St. Paul there is one Body 'T is all believers of every place saith he both those who now are and who formerly have been and who hereafter shall be And as to the Union of these Spiritual bodys or societies both the Members of each particular Church must keep Unity or make one society with their own Church And every particular and independant Church with its Members must keep Unity and make one society with all other particular and independant Churches The Members keep Unity with their own Church by due dependance and subjection or by keeping subject and dependant on their own Lawful Bishops And one particular Church keeps Unity with all other independant and sister Churches by Fraternal Communion or the Communion of Saints in the Holy Catholick Church profess'd in the Creed that is by their readiness to Unite with their Religious Assemblies to own their Members and to ratify their Church Acts as if they were their own or had been sped by themselves And this way of fraternal communion as well as the other of keeping under the same visible Governors by due dependance and subjection is a way to Unite them not only as a Sect who all hold and profess the same Doctrines and Opinions but also as a Society or as one Body For by this bond of fraternal communion they stand obliged not only to Unity of Doctrine as men of the same sect but to unity as of internal so of external society and incorporation as fellow citizens For such are the obligations of receiving mutually each others Member as their own free denizens of admitting of their baptismal claims and Church Priviledges of Ratifying of their Church-Acts and Censures of Associating with their Church services and Assemblies and of standing together as one body and brotherhood for the same common Tenets and Religious interests as if they were incorporated under the same External Heads or were the members of the same particular Church And this is to unite them in the great things of society particularly of a spiritual society which lyes mightily in communion in spiritual acts and offices And accordingly Uniting in the same Sacraments which are the Highest Acts of Church Communion is set out for a way of Uniting all in one body or corporation We being many are one body by being all partakers of that one bread 1 Cor. 10. 17. And we are all baptized into one body 1 Cor. 12. 13. So that all Christian Churches who under one common Father as Domesticks or under one Lord and King as Fellow-citizens are incorporated upon one Charter or New-covenant to live by the same Laws and out of the same Hopes and in enjoyment of the same Church-rights and Priviledges and have one common Form of Incorporation to Naturalize or Enfranchise them thereinto viz. One Baptism are to transact as one society by keeping up one fraternal Communion among themselves Now both this Union of subjection towards their own Church and its Lawful Heads and of fraternal communion towards all other equal and independant Churches all good Christians are bound to keep up unless some obstacles happen in either which are of force to put a bar thereto or give discharge thereof And such obstacles either in our own Bishops or in other equal and independant Churches are Heresy when once openly profess'd by them Or their fixing unlawful Terms of Communion puting sinful things into their sacred offices or not allowing any to Communicate with them without believing or professing some false Doctrine or partaking with them in some evil worship or thing Or Tyrannical Usupation on their Brethrens Libertys not admitting other Churches to their Communion unless they will give up their own rights and freedoms and become their Subjects When such exceptions lye against any Bishops or against any Churches they have lost their claims of union But all Church-Members are bound I conceive by all the numerous and earnest commands of keeping Unity to continue subject to their Lawful Bishops as all Churches are by the same to keep up Communion with other Churches if they cannot produce any such just obstacles in bar thereof Now Schism is a sinful breach of this union of Church Society Either in the Members of any particular Church when they unjustly break off their subjection and dependance upon their own Church Or in any Particular Churches when they unduly break off Fraternal Communion with other Churches denying to Assemble with them or Communicating with such as stand Excommunicated by or have made a Schism from them First One Great way of Schism is in respect of Particular Members when against the Gospel duty and Commands of Unity they unduely throw off their subjection and dependance upon their own Bishops and break off from the Unity of their own Church One way of Uniteing Societies or Bodys of Men is by uniteing them under the same Heads They are all one Body and Members one of another as keeping under and being United to the same Head and Governor Thus of the Association of Man and Wife which is the Original Society and makes a Family which is the ground work of all other Societies it is said that they two
and private Claims and mastering all private resentments as mortifyed and most publick spirited Men they can make an end thereof by letting fall their own pretensions And why will many good Minds and sincere Lovers of Peace say should they not do this for the Love of Peace and for Religions sake and the Churches Their Adversaries indeed can not have the face to ask it And others who may move better therein would be modest in pressing liberality on Losers and not go too far in urging them who have suffered so much already from the Invaders as if they had not taken enough from them to fall upon themselves and throw them what remains Yet they think it would be a noble Pitch in Vertue full of Glory and Goodness if of themselves they would prefer Publick-Weal before private Passions and Advantages and be full of Care for others when that needs to be shewn in caring least for themselves Which Heavenly-mindedness and publick-spiritedness and Mortification to private Interests God and the Church they conceive must needs take most kindly at their hands But as to this the suffering Bishops can not take this way of Cure by giving up their Claims where they are bound in duty to insist on them And that they are bound to do as I have already shewn at large in the forementioned Cases By their quitting there they would surrender the Souls of their Charge to become a Prey to Wolves and Seducers and to be trained up in wicked and corrupt Doctrines Prayers and Practices And this is not to be true to their Pastoral Trusts 'T is not faithfully to discharge their Cure of Souls but perfidiously to throw it off So that be they never so mortified and negligent of themselves and zealously studious of Unity and the Churches Peace yet in Fidelity to Christ and to the People whom he has entrusted to their Charge they must hold on their spiritual relation I conceive and diligently discharge it the best they can at such times and not desert but stick to the Church over which the Holy Ghost hath made them Overseers Besides the exercise of their spiritual Ministrations is loudly call'd for in such Cases and bound on them and the suffering Clergy their Brethren by all the Powers and Characters of the Ministerial Office as I think may fully appear from what I have said on that point before And not only the continuance of their former Relation as the true Bishops still of those places but this very exercise must in consequence keep up a schism in the Church at such times For this exercise of their Ministrations must be in separate Bodyes The state incorporateing and espousing the Anti-Bishops and their Adherents will give them the Publick Churches And Depriving and Persecuting the other and their Followers will also be sure to keep them out thereof So their Ministrations if they go on Ministring at all as 't is plain they ought must be in separate places and Assemblies Yea and by different ways of exercise the spiritual administrations of one being purely spiritual in the way of a destitute and persecuted but those of the other being mixt in the way of an incorporate and endowed Church And therefore in all the foremention'd cases where the suffering Bishops are still bound for the interest of Religion and of Souls to insist upon their Episcopal Claims and their Relation to their Churches and with their brethren of the other Clergy still to go on in a faithful discharge of their Ministrations this way of Cure can have no place But as the Anti-Bishops by breaking off from them and from those Christian Principles and Practices whereto they stand firm have made the Schism so they alone by a Penitential return are capable to mend it It not admitting of Remedy in those Cases and under such state of things from any other hands And this may be sufficient as to the true and suffering Bishops and shew how little the Arguments from the desirableness and duty of Union will affect them in those cases When the Church is Rent by such a deplorable schism as the precedent discourse shews who make it so this I think is enough to shew who can mend it and to whom alone the lovers of peace and unity are to apply themselves for remedy at such times CHAP. II. Of the Schism of Particular Churches from other Sister-Churches by their rejecting of Fraternal Communion therewith BEsides this first way of Schism viz. of particular Members breaking off unjustly from the Unity of their own Church by throwing off their due Subordination and Subjection to their own Bishops There is a second as I observed above viz. of particular Churches breaking off unjustly from the Communion of other Sister-Churches And this is by rejecting Fraternal Communion with them denying to worship God in their Assemblies or to admit their Members to worship in ours or communicating with those who stand Excommunicated by them or have made a Schism from them Our Lord is not only for having the Christians of every Place of Country to keep Unity with their own particular Church but also as I noted before for having all particular Churches to keep up the Unity of one Body among themselves All his Sheep he has gathered into one Flâ—ck Joh. 10. 16. All the Assemblies both of Jews and Gentiles he has reconciled to God in one Body Eph. 2. 14 16. calling all his Followers to profess Christianity in one Body as St. Paul says Col. 3. 15. Accordingly Baptism which makes them all Christians lists or inrolls them all in one Corporation we being all baptised into one Body 1 Cor. 12. 13. And the Holy Eucharist which is the other Great Sacrament and solemn Undertaking of Christianity confederates them into one spiritual Corporation we being all made in that to drink into one Spirit 1 Cor. 12. 13. and tho' many being one Body as partaking therein of one Bread 1 Cor. 10. 16 17. This Union of all Christians and Christian Congregations into one Society under Jesus Christ makes that Body the Church whereof he is the Head Col. 1. 18. which the Scripture sometimes expresses by one Temple Eph. 2. 21. or spiritual House 1 Pet. 2. 5. or one Family and Houshold Eph. 2. 19. c. 3. 15. as I observed above And which is that one Holy Catholick Church betwixt all the parts whereof the Communion of Saints is to be maintained as all Christians profess in the Creed This Union of all particular Churches as one Body under himself our Lord has appointed to be kept up by all the Members thereof as occasion is but chiefly by the Union and Accord of the Bishops and Pastors who are the respective Heads of those particular Churches This whole Church is made one Body by one Spirit Eph. 4. 4. so the Unity thereof is call'd the Unity of the Spirit v. 3. And one great means of the Spirits keeping up this Unity is by the Ministration of Pastors and
faln from them and tyes us up no further to communicate with them 1. First 'T is always a just Ground to break off from them if they make impious or unlawful things the Terms or Conditions of their own Members or of others keeping on communion with them I do not say it is the only Ground having mentioned others but it is always a just Ground thereof And thus it is 1. When they put impiâ—us or unlawful things into their saecred Offices and mix sinful Matters in that Body of Prayers or Administration of Sacraments which they call others to communicate with What Allowances may be made herein for a generally corrupt state of the Church and how far in necessity and want of others good People may be at liberty still to resort to such I shall consider afterwards But such mixture of Sin and Prophanation in what they are called to communicate in I think sets People loose and leaves them no longer bound to them For the Communion which all Christians are obliged to seek in the Catholick Church is the Communion of Saints This Saintship though it be not always in Reality must at least be always in Profession The Persons must all be profest Saints whom we communicate with And the Things and Offices must all be of profess'd Saintship which we are call'd to communicate in And such those publick Offices are not that have any gross Sins or Wickednesses which are all so many Prophanations for the matter of them This Saintship wherein this Communion is to be held lyes more especially in Faith and Worship And where they fail in either of these we are not bound to communion with any Assemblies It is so plainly where they fail in point of Faith For Heresie which is a corruption of Faith will set us loose as I shall shew hereafter from the communion of any Persons or Churches And Corruptions of Worship are to the full not only as offensive but as openly dishonourable to God who is not more aspersed or provoked by a false belief and confession than by a corrupt and wicked worship So that among those whose business in Religious Assemblies is to see God honour'd and to seek that he may be appeas'd any gross Sins made the matter of Worship which are a corruption of Worship will do the same They not only set God's faithful People free to stand off from such corrupt Offices but oblige his faithful Pastors to standâ—up for him and to minister or afford better out of a just sense of the Peoples needs and jealousie for God's Honour as I shew'd before Besides our chief Obligations to unite our selves to any Religious Assemblies is as they are Assemblies for Worship We as so many live Stones are joyn'd together and built into a Spiritual House to offer up Spiritual Sacrifices as St. Peter says 1 Pet. 2. 5. Yea and as they are purely for Worship not partly for worshipping and partly for prophaning God there being Obligation enough on the Servants of God to meet together to see him publickly honoured but none to see him publickly profaned And therefore we are not obliged to make part of such Assemblies as put up sinful Matters and gross Wickedness in their publick Offices For Worship is a Profession of Honour and Reverence But Sin and Wickedness are Professions of Irreverence and Reproach and so are not Worship but Profanations So that the Obligations incumbent on God's Servants to meet there where Offerings are to be made that are for his Honour yea only such as are for his Honour will not bind them but if they can serve him any where else rather forbid them to meet there where these Prophanations are Thus is the Matter of Religious Meetings or the Worship and Service there performed the chief thing that carryes the Obligation to them I say the chief but not the only thing For we are Members of a Church as well as Professors of a Religion and as Christians are incorporated into a Society as well as instructed in a Doctrine And both these bind us to Religious Assemblies For as good Christians we ought to meet there to shew our Adherence to the Church as a Society or our Union to it as Members as well as to put up Prayers to God by JESUS CHRIST or to pay our Religious Worship and Service That is our Christianity obliges us to meet together both to present our Religious Oblations and Acknowledgments to Almighty God and to do it in dependance on our Lawful Pastors or in the Unity of the Church But this Obligation to these Meetings as thereby keeping Union with the Church as a Society is but a Secondary Obligation and that of paying truly Christian and acceptable Worship is the first and chief therein For the end why Christians were formed into a Society was to keep up the Profession and Payment of that Holy Doctrine and Worship which are necessary or peculiar to them as they are a Sect or Religion And the Members are bound to stick to it whilst it stands upon this Doctrine and Worship not when it starts off from it It is the Religion which recommends the Church And we are to chuse our Church or Assemblies for the Religions not our Religion for the Churches sake So that their falling off from pure Christian Worship and Doctrine which are necessary to the Religion to its honouring God or our acceptance by it loosens the bond of Union to any Assemblies and sets Men free to joyn with any others regularly empowered who stick faster to them Agreeably to all this we find Faith and Worship spoke of as the Great Ligaments that are to bind and unite us to any Church Of the Ligament of Faith I shall treat in its proper place And as for Worship which lyes partly in confessions of Faith but more especially in Prayers and Sacraments it is a Ligament too and Prayers and Sacraments are set off as compacting us into one Body or cementing us into one spiritual House Thus of Prayers St. Peter says we are set together as one spiritual House to send up spiritual Sacrifices 1 Pet. 2. 5. And of the Sacraments it is declared that we are all baptized into one Body 1 Cor. 12. 13. and that we are one Body by partaking all of one Bread 1 Cor. 10. 17. and by having been made all to drink into one Spirit 1 Cor. 12. 13. therein referring to the one Loaf whereof we all eat and to the one Cup whereof we all drink in the Holy Eucharist Now as that Faith which is to unite and bind us to any Churches or Assemblies is not any Erroneous or Heretical Tenets as I shall shew anon but the Orthodoâ—c and Right Faith So is that Worship which is to do the same not any sinful and prophane but a truly Christian and Holy Worship or such an Oblation of Prayers and Administration of Sacraments as Christ has instituted and appointed and will not reject and punish but