Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n
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A59243
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Schism dis-arm'd of the defensive weapons, lent it by Doctor Hammond, and the Bishop of Derry by S.W.
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Sergeant, John, 1622-1707.
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1655
(1655)
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Wing S2589; ESTC R6168
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184,828
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360
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as clear as the most palpable matter of Fact can make a thing visible to the eyes of the World that there was indeed at least a material breach or Schism by you made from that Body which communicated with the Church of Rome and of which Body you were formerly as properly and truly a part as a Branch is of a Tree To which adde your proofs out of the Fathers in your first Chapter affirming No just cause can be given for a Schism and it will follow that your own words clearly convince and your own proofs evidently conclude you to be formally Schismaticks I will put the Argument in form to make it more plain onely premising That material Schism as far as it concerns us at present is the extern action of breaking from a community Formal the causlesness or unjustifiableness of that material Fact which must needs be criminal because it admits no just excuse to plead in its behalf Then thus No Separation from the whole Body of Christians can possibly be justified say the Fathers by you alleaged Chap. 1. Sect. 8. But your Separation was from the whole Body of Christians Therefore impossible to be justified Where all the evasion I can imagin in your behalf is to distinguish the Major That the Fathers meant Criminal Separation or the Crime of Schism could have no just cause given for it not the material and external fact of Schism But first this makes the Fathers very shallow to go about to shew That no just cause can be alleaged for the crime of Schism since every one knows there can be no just excuse possible for any crime Next the Fathers there alleaged pretend to particularize some special viciousness in Schism and are to that end produced by the Doctor But there is no speciality in Schism above other sins to say That no just excuse can be given for the crime of it since the like may be said of all sins as well as it The fact of Schism therefore it is which they call unjustifiable the same fact which with a large narration you here set down and acknowledge that they said it voted it swore it taking a great deal of pains to prove those whom you undertook to defend to be voluntary deliberate and sworn Schismaticks Now all the Testimonies alleaged by your self against Schism come in troops bandying against you and your cause as strongly as if they had been expresly gathered to that purpose As that a Schismatick is à semet-ipso damnatus self-condemned which you have here very learnedly performed as I lately shewed That ultrò ex Ecclesia se eâ—icerent they cast themselves voluntarily out of the Church c. Quomodo tâ— Ã tot gregibuâ— scidisti Excidisti enim teipsum How hast thon cut off thy self from so many flocks For thy self hast cut off thy self of which accusation your fifth Paragraph infers the confession Your own voluntary recession from us and our Government by your self here acknowledged is an indelible token and as it were a visible ear-mark that you are a stray sheep and a run-away à toâ— gregibus from the flock This badg of a Voluntary Recession your Church must always necessarily carry about her Nor will you ever be able to wipe it off with all the specious Id Ests or Criticisms your wit can invent SECT 9. The nature of Schism fetch t from it's first grounds and the material part of it fastened upon the Protestants TO lay this charge of Schisme yet more home to the Protestants we will open more clearly the nature of Schism and describe it more exactly that the Reader may see how perfectly the Protestant Church is cast in the mold of it For the better conceiving of which it will be necessary to shew first what it is which makes the Sons of the Catholike Church like brethren live together in Unity and this will lead us into the consideration first of the formal Unity it self and secondly of the Reason and Ground of this Unity The Unity it selfe consists in two things one is the submitting to and communicating in one common Head or Government the Authority of which if it be establish't in an undoubted possession as it was at the beginning of Mr. Drs Reformation is as necessary to the Ecclesiastical Community as the acknowledgement of the Undoubted Supreme Magistrate is necessary for the Unity of any temporal Common-wealth The second is the communication of the member-churches with one another consisting in the acknowledging the same Articles of Faith and using the same Sacraments c. To these was added anciently communicatory letters which afterwards by reason of the perfect colligation of the several members with their Head was neglected as unnecessary And these two Unities may be conceived again either negatively or positively By negative Communion in the same Head I mean a not disacknowledging only of the supreme Pastor or at least such an indifferent acknowledgment as having no tie upon it may be at pleasure refused and the Authority rejected As likewise negative communication between the member-Churches imports either a â—leight not denying of communion or such an acceptance and embracing of it as having no obligation may at pleasure be turned into disacceptance and disavowing On the contrary these two communications are then called positive when there is a positive obligation to acknowledge that Head and communicate with the other Churches And this is that which can only make a Church and found Church-government Or rather indeed there can be no Government imaginable either spiritual or corporal without such positive communion for a company of men without an expresse and positive obligation to obey their Superiors and comport themselves towards their fellows according to the laws may indeed be called a multitude such as is aâ—eâ—vus â—apâ—dum an heap of stones but not an Army City Commonwealth or Church which imply connexion and order Neither is the obligation of only Charity sufficient though in it selâ—e a great Ciment of Unity but it must be a visible one resulting out of the very Nature of Government which is visible and exterior Besides Charity extends universally to all even those out of the Church and therfore cannot be that proper peculiar and sole tie which unites the Faithfull as they are a Common-wealth of Beleevers The second thing is the Reason of this double Union or rather of this double positive obligation of Unity in the Church which to conceive more clearly the Reader may please to consider that a Christian is a Christian by his Faith and so a Congregation of Christians is a Community of the Faithfull Whence it followes that the Unity of the Faithfull as such being in Faith their faith must be one the ground therefore of the Unity of their faith is the ground of the Unity of the faithfull but the infallibity of the Church is the ground of the Unity of faith Therefore the same Infallibility is the reason of the Unity or positive
Communication with any Church either true or even fals For first at your dawning or rather twilight in King Henry's dayes for your progress hath not been to noon-day-light but to midnight you had nothing at all to doe with any other Church in Christendom Since that time though you have indeed a kinde of Communication with some few of your fellow Schismaticks yet if well examin'd it is negative onely Faction against Rome initiates you into so much friendship as to converse with the Calvinists sometimes to call them Brethren somtimes to be merry with your doublejug Companions in the Synod of Dort of whose drunken and beastly behaviour wallowing worse then swine in their own vomits I have heard a Pillar of your own Church scandalously complain having too much spirit of draff forced by them into his queaâ—ier stomach Though I say you may thus communicate with them in eating and drinking in which acts * before you made All Communion consist yet any other positive tie and obligation either with them or any others to conserve you in Communion so as you may be said to make up one Ecclesiastically-politick Body united by some inviolable Order such an obligation I say could never be discover'd between you and any other Church good or bad true or fals The Greek Church holding almost all that we doe and scarce two points with you which are against us as your friend Alexander Rosse hath particularly told you The Lutherans hold much more with us in opposition to you than with you in opposition to us The Calâ—inists are excluded by the most understanding Protestants from their Church since they admit not the Government of Bishops held by the others to be of Divine Right nor the Protestants Fundamental or as the Doctor calls it The Bottome of the Foundation of the Reformation to wit that the King is Head of the Church The 39. Articles which as the Kings Supremacy is the Imprimis so these are all the Items of the Protestants Faith obtain not a total admission from any Church but themselves nor amongst themselves neither their great Champion Mr. Chillingworth rejecting them at his pleasure Nor is there any visible form of Government uniting them all together but they are forced to fly sencelesly to an invisible one either of onely Christ in Heaven or onely Charity pretences to gull the easie vulgar not to satisfie prudent men who know that the Church though it be a spiritual Common-wealth breeding up Soules to a state of a future Eternity yet while it is here on earth it is a Common-wealth of Christians visibly comporting or discomporting themselves in order to Christs laws of which the Church is the Keeper and Conserver and therefore it must have visible Governours without expecting a miraculous recourse to Christ in Heaven to resolve emergent difficulties or to cherish and punish her weldemeaned or misdemeaned subjects But for a more full demonstration that the Church of England has no perfect Communion with the Greek Lutheran Calvinist or any other Church I refer the Reader to the learned Exomologâ—sis or Motives c. of Mr. Cressy a late Protestant Dean but now Religious of the ancient and holy Order of St. Benet where the Doctor may also read among other controversies excellently treated the charge of Schism sufficiently prov'd against his Church Perhaps the Doctor will alledge that their positive Communion with other reformed Churches consists in the acknowledgment of Gods Word and the holding to it But I would ask him whether he means they agree in the Name of Gods Word or in the Thing or Sence of it If in the Name onely then all that have the title of Christians that is all Hereticks and Schismaticks in the World are of one Communion nothing being more rife in their mouths and pens than wrong alledged testimonies out of the Bible the bare name then is not sufficient it must be the Thing that is the sence and meaning of Gods Word in which he must make their positive Communion consist but since they have no one certain known and commonly acknowledged Rule by which to interpret Gods word and fetch out the true inward sence lurking in the imperspicuous bark of the letter it followes they have no positive way or meanes to communicate in the same sence and therefore no positive unity can be grounded on that pretence And it would be as sencelesse to object that they communicate at least in fundamentals found in Gods word since the Scripture not telling them they cannot tell certainly themselves which points are fundamentals which not all being there with equal authority and like tenour delivered and proposed to them And if we should goe to reason to know what are fundamentals surely reason would give it that the rules of Faith and Government are more fundamental than all the rest No positive communion therefore have they with our Church as little with their fellow schismaticks it being the nature of boughs separated not to grow together into one tree after they have once lost connection with the root Where they are cut off there they lie and though for a short time they retain some verdure and some little moystning sap counterfeiting life that is as much Religion as serves them to talk of God and Christ yet after a while they wither roâ— and molder away into an hundred atomes of dust or else if they chance to be gathered up or taken away sooner they serve for nothing but to be thrown into the fire SECT 10. That the reforming Protestants were and are guilty of the formal part of Schism THat you have made then a material breach or schism is as evident as fact and reason can make the most manifest thing to the clearest understanding The formality of schism comes next to be enquired into which consists in its injustifiablenesse or doing it without just causes or motives which consequently unlesse you can shew you must unavoidably be concluded formal schismaticks And though the testimonies of the Fathers which you formerly produced affirming that there can be no just cause given of schism render all further proof unnecessary yet to make this matter stil more manifest I desire Mr. Hammond in the Churches behalfe that he would give me leave to summon him to the Bar of Reason that we may see what he can answer for himselfe and his friends whose defence here he undertakes Cath. Do not you know that the Church in whose bowels your ancestors til K. Henry began the breach were bred had no other form of Government then that which now is of the Bishop of Rome held chiefe Pastour of the universal Church and supreme in Ecclesiastical matters and that til the breach was made you held as sacred and were under that government Dr. I pretend not to deny it for this is the very authority I told you in my 7. c. 5. sect we cast out of this Island Besides Kings can erect and remove Patriarchates at