Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A96097
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The arch-rebel found, or An answer to Mr. M. H.'s Brief enquiry into the true nature of schism By T.W., citizen of Chester ...
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T. W.
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1690
(1690)
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Wing W111A; ESTC R43946
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21,021
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35
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Dissenters and after a Paranthesis are commonly charged with beâ—ng Schâ—smatical the great out-cry is that we leave the Church and the unâ—hanking Mobile who are so well taught as to know no other Churches but the â—ublick places of Worship are easily enduced to believe it as if it were â—chism to Worship God any where else let the Worship there be what it â—ill You cannot be without the Leaven of Reflection for all your pretendâ—d Candor and Charity is not this highly reproachful to say that the Unthinking Mobile c. are easily induced to believe it that is that â—our Meeting is Schism What can you mean but the Pastors and Miniâ—ters of our Church seduce the Mobile to believe that which is false and â—he unthinking Mobile are easily enduced This is a pritty falacy by â—his you would perswade all if you could that none but the Mobile believe â—ou are Schismaticks all the Privy Council the Judges Universities â—nd Magestrates and all above the Mobile have no such thoughts this â—s a random Shot Pray how many besides the unthinking Mobile can you boast of in your Communion God knows you have too much to â—oast of if you have any however your boasting in this is much more vain than God be thanked you have real cause for and all those Poor Souls you have Captivated and lead astray out of Christs Fould are â—gnorant or Giddy-minded and it is done under pretence of more Spiritual Edification and Holiness which is but the Counterfeit of them which glitters with greater Lustre it being the Nature of all Counterfeit things so to do to the Undescerning and Ignorant than the real just as Quack Mountebanks with cunning devised Words and Fables perswade the Moible that their Medicines have much more the Virtue of Healing and that their skill and judgement far surmounts the truly Learned and Judicious Phisitians But God I hope will consider their simplicity and have mercy on them though I wish they would consider what our Saviour saith That if the Blind lead the Blind both fall into the Ditch Then you say as â—f it were Schism to Worship God any where else let the Worship there be what it will It would occasion too long a discourse to pursue I will therefore only mention it The Samaritans in the time of our Saviour were as fully perswaded that their Altar and Worship was as true and acceptable to God as that at Jerusalem as you are that yours is more pure than that of our Church yet our Blessed Saviour tells the Woman St. John 4. v. 22. Ye Worship ye know not what we saith he know what we Worship c. The true reason why the Samaritans Worshiped they knew not what was because it was a separate Altar and a separate Worship from that at Jerusalem this was Schism and had the same effects as your separate Communion hath in this Kingdom viz. Contentions breach of Charity alienation of Affection c. And I do not see but as it was Schism in the Jewish which was the Type of the Christian Church to set up a separate Altar and Worship so it must be Schism to set up a separate Table and separate way of Worship in the Christian Church which is the Anti-type I mention this because you in the 32 page say The common Out-cry is that it is the setting up Altar against Altar supposeing your thoughts here might be upon Mr Dodwells one Altar and one Priesthood as that which makes the Out-cry against you though the Term of Setting up Altar against Altar was used by many of the Fathers in the Primitive Times against Schismaticks in their days whom he follows But Sir If you without prejudice will seriously peruse that Book you will find such weighty reasoning that you will never more despise it and if you cannot but despise it you will perpetuate your Name amongst the most Learned and Judicious above all your Tribe that have been or are and proselite the Diocese besides if you will Answer that Book However it will be a sufficient Answer for me to say it is not the place that makes the Schism but the separate Communion for if you use your way of Worship in one of our Churches it would not abate or excuse the Schism and so if you were rightly ordained and should use the same way of Worship which we use in our Churches and is required by the Church in your Stable and through some Providence necessitated to such a place no one of our Church would nor any other justly could charge you with Schism In your 25 page Those who will allow themselves the Liberty of an Vnpreâ—udiced thought cannot but see the difference so small that as long as we beâ—ieve the same Christian Faith and agree in the same Protestant abhorence of Papal delusions we may easily be looked upon as one and the same as well as two several Parish Churches may especially being Vnited under the care and protection of one Protestant King and Members of the same Common-â—ealth Difference in small and little things comes oft in my way I cannot but wonder that we who agree in the Belief of those High and Sacred Mysteries of Faith so contrary to Flesh and Blood and so transcendant above Natural reason which cannot be wrought in us but by the Grace of God and the operation of his Spirit and yet that even among these there should be men of high and preverse minds sensual and such who cause Division As the Donatists who did separate and â—rend the Church and yet believed the same Fundamental Faith and were Zealous to use your own Words for the great Gospel Truths but their separation was as yours is for little things How would you have your Separate Communion to be looked upon as one and the same Church as well as two several Parish Churches When it is apparent that you do Rob our Parish Churches All you can and would Monopolize all our Parishes into your Communion and yet forsooth would be looked upon as one of our Parish Churches This is a Paradox which passâ—th all understanding And it is as wonderful that the having the same Protestant abhorence of Popish delusions should be a bar to Schism a man may be an Arian Socinian ay or an Atheist if he can but abhor Popery and yet be free from Schism is this one of your great Gospel Truths Is this any thing like Primitive Doctrine that Heresy Atheism Quakerism and all other divided and currupt Opinions so they but abhor Popery may be looked upon as one and the same Church is new and strange Divinity Sir all that follows in your Book being of the same spinning I will spare my self from any more trouble and expose you no farâ—her The Reader will be able to Judge whether I have or not given you a truer Notion of Schism than that in your Enquiry and sufficiently convicted your unskilfulness in expounding Scripture and fully Answered you I will only add
hinc illae lacrymae It must rather be the setting up of your Seperate Communions that hath been so much the bane of this Christian Church I am sure it was the Puritanical Faction who in their Conventicles blew up the Trumpet of Sedition and Rebellion and overturned the Government of both Church and State and through pretended Sanctity and Gospel Zeal perpetrated the most hellish Actions that ever were since Adam Then was Violence under the colour of Zeal the Note and Badge of Sanctity Loyalty to a Prince of incomparable piety and faithfulness to the most pure Christian Church was damn'd for malignancy I am sure you are of the same Tribe these were the men by whom the Church was not only rent in Pieces but for a time which was as long as they were in Power rooted out here we may truly say hinc illae lacrymae Mr. H. I lived in the time when through Blood and Rebellion your Party gave Laws and Rules to all then all that were of our Church were not Censured for little things but Branded for Reprobates Excluded from Mercy all the Clergy not only Silenced but Sequestred and many Imprisoned and starved it was not much worse with Christians under Nero and Dioclesian and all this for not Conforming to your Novel Discipline yet the gentle Penalties of the Royal Laws which were made for Peace and Unity are cry'd up by you and your Party for such a Persecution as never was Alas Sir for all your pretended Meekness and Charity now you that retain the same principles would certainly repeat the same miseries had you the same power which God of his Infinite mercy for ever prevent Amen Now I return and try whether from your Instance in the Corinthians you could not have found a far more genuin conclusion and more agreeing with the Apostles meaning If but the having one Minister of Christ though rightly ordained in admiration above another to the begetting Contention incur the Guilt of Schism and is no way to be Tollerated in the Church of God How much more am I a Schismatick who am not only not rightly ordained but keep up a Communion seperate from the Church of God in the Kingdom where I live the Argument will hold a Minori ad Majus If contentions about admiring one Minister above another be Schism then sure to maintain a Separate Communion which makes Contention much hotter fiercer and more numerous must much more be Schism In Page 15. you say That 's Schism which breaks or slackens the bonâ— by which the Membeâ—s are knit together In this you are Orthodox but you keep not to it for you say Now that bond is not an Act of Vniformity in point of Communion in the same Modes and Ceremonies but true Love and Charity in point of Affection The breach of Communion be it for want of Uniformity in the same Modes and Ceremonies or what you will that is not sinful does certainly to use your own words Break and Slacken the Bond by which the Members are knit together for to divide in point of Communion is to dis-unite and unknit the Members and consequently the Bond be it as you say Love and Charity or the Unity of the Spirit or what you please is broken and this you most truly say is Schism and yet you say that the Bond is not an Act of Vniformity c. in point of Communion which is a manifest contradiction Now all these erroneous and miserably mistaken Expositions of Scripture and inferences equally false are the Foundation upon which you erect your Description of Schism and which at present you apprehend is the true Scriptural Notion of Schism which that all who read these papers may judge of I here Insert Schism is an Uncharitable Distance Division or Alienation of Affection among those who are called Christians and agree in the Fundamentals of Religion occasioned by their different apprehensions about little things You agree with our Church in all that you call Fundamentals and your Distance and Division you acknowledge is for little things that it is an Uncharitable Distance and Division is undeniable for the breach of Christian Communion is certainly the breach of Christian Charity here you are Condemned out of your own mouth But how far different your Description is from the Primitive Catholick Notion of Schism sufficiently appears to you by what I have shewed before You mention not Seperating or withdrawing from the Communion of the Church which is most Infamous and Notorious Schism and confine it only to breach of Charity which though always a great fault yet in many cases amounts not to Schism I now take notice of your Fourth Inference page 23. If this be Schism then there may be Separation of Communion where there is no Schism say you for thus we all agree that there may be difference of apprehension and yet no Schism provided it do not eat out Christian Love but be managed amicably as betwixt the Arminians and the Calvinists in the Church of England What strange kind of Reasoning is this If breach of Charity be Schism then separate Communion may be without Schism and to prove this you instance in the difference between the Arminians and Calvinists in the Church of England who differed in Opinions the former Asserting the Freedom or Liberty of the Will the other Election and Reprobation here was no separation of the Communion or denial of any Article of the Church for both sign'd the Articles nor from Communion one with another both parties submitting to the Uniformity required so you bring an instance to justifie seperate Communion from Schism where there was no seperate Communion at all see how illogical your reasoning is If breach of Charity be Schism then there may be separate Communion without Schism Would any man of Sence but you have made such a Conclusion from such premisses would not the Argument have run truer thus If breach of Charity be Schism then separate Communion is much more Schism But breach of Charity is Schism Therefore c. I am forced here to say what I have said before that it is most manifest that a separate Communion unless from a Schismatical Church is in it self the agravation and extremity of Schism and is naturally and infallibly the cause of the highest breaches of Charity and of the hottest and fiercest contentions which you own to be Schism But suppose there were some thing in our Constitutions that needed amendment or alteration yet every defect and supposed Corruption in a Church is not a sufficient ground for Separation or warrant enough to tear it in pieces Hear Mr. Calvins Opinion he saith where ever the Word of God is duely Preached and Reverently attended to and the true use of the Sacraments kept up there is an appearance of a true Church whose Authority no man may dispise or reject its admonitions or resist its Councils or set at nought its Discipline much less separate from it and