it serves your purpose to have it believed that it cannot be sound and Orthodox unless it maintain Communion in Accidentals with every other sound Part. Upon the erecting this Scheme and observing the Rules of Art you have already given one may be able to resolve a great many nice horary Questions Yet some of them must stay for your own Solution or Elias's Quest If Baptism lets one into the Church and entitles one to all the Privileges of Church-Membership how comes it to pass that one who ordinarily dissents is an Intruder when he exercises an Act of Communion Answ You had your Answer already if you had Eyes to see it He who despises the Authority or destroys the Vnity of the Church renounces his Membership and Communion with it Quest What tho he does actually communicate Resp Yes thou Man of perverse Understanding Church-Communion does not consist in particular Acts of Communion but in Membership Quest Well then if neither Baptism nor particular Acts of Communion are enough to make or at least continue me a Member pray how many Acts of Communion will do the Business Resp Why I tell you it must be constant Communion Quest What do you mean by constant Communion Resp I mean ordinary Communion that is always sometimes Quest Well what is it that obliges me always sometimes to communicate with a particular Church Does Baptism do it Resp No we know no Church but all Christians are made Members of by Baptism Quest What then if I chuse ordinarily to communicate with another Church Resp If you divide your self from this Body and set up distinct and separate Societies which you call Churches but which are not Members nor live in Communion with the one Catholick Church you cannot carry your Right and Title to the Covenant out of the Church with you Quest But do you not tell us that our Communion with the Church consists in being Members of the Church which we are made by Baptism And they being baptized into the same Faith I should think they hold Communion with the Church Resp But let me tell you tho sometimes I maintain That Baptism makes us Members of the whole Church and gives us a Right to communicate with every sound part of it yet in spite of Contradiction I hold That Baptism at most gives Men only a Disposition to be Church-Members but does not make them Members of any Church Besides where there are two separte Churches one if not both must be Schismatical And the National Church having the Advantage of Authority you are bound to reject the Communion of all other Parties and Sects of Christians as Schismatical If you do not you renounce your Membership and by destroying the Unity of the Church forfeit your Interest in the Divine Charter and cannot carry your Right and Title to the Convenant out of the Church with you Quest Suppose I do not communicate with any other Church yet ordinarily withdraw from Communion with yours at the Times appointed for Worship or other Acts of Communion is it enough to own my self a Member Or if not how long Suspension will amount to a Forfeiture Resp 'T is not enough to own your self a Member for to withdraw from the visible Communion of the Church is Separation Now if Separation from Religious Assemblies be to break Cowmunion then to live in Communion with the Church requires our actual Communion Quest Well then thus far I have learnt my Catechism that there must be actual Communion and that actual Communion must be constant or ordinary otherwise a Man wilfully separates himself and forfeits his Interest in the Divine Charter So it seems tho Acts of Communion are but Effects and Applications of Church-membership yet the Non-user of them forfeits the Right one had by Baptism even tho one be not cast out of the Church by any Sentence and nothing but ordinary Communion amounts to owning a Membership How many Acts are necessary to avoid the Forfeiture we are yet to learn And further if we live where Communion may be had with another Church in communion with that which expects our constant Attendance we as well own our selves Members by a constant Communion with the other as with that For as you inform us there is nothing in Baptism nor in all the Acts of Communion which does more peculiarly unite us to such a particular Church than to the whole Christian Church And 't is no Interruption of Communion to communicate actually with any Church that is in Communion with another sound Part. But if it should fall out that notwithstanding the Division of Communions upon lesser Matters a divided Communion may continue a sound part of the Christian Church the Necessity of constant Communion with a Church where occasional is lawful will stand in need of some other Medium to support it Resp O but there is a differene between being a Member of the Vniversal Church and of all particular Churches which are Parts and Members of the sniversal Church Quest Why so may I not communicate with any sound Part which is in communion with this Church and professing no dislike of its Communion thereby own my self a Member especially since my communicating with the one does not interrupt the Communion with the other and neither Baptism nor all the Acts of Communion unite me more to one than another Resp I care not for that for constant Communion in a particular Church confines Church-Membership to that particular Church in which you communicate Quest If I may not offend I should say my Question is What obliges to constant Communion But you seem to say no more than that constant Communion obliges to constant Communion or in your own Phrase confines Church-Membership to that particular Church So it seems if constant Communion be omitted that Obligation or Confinement ceases I shall trouble you but with one Question more in this place and that is Whether the Necessity of re-baptizing those who were of a separate Communion does not follow upon your Grounds as well as upon Donatus's and that tho the Party had not been baptized in a Schism Certainly this is no remote consequence from the Supposition that Separation makes a forfeiture of all the Privileges acquired by Baptism For if they were forfeited how can they be restor'd without a new Grant Nay they are your own Words that the guilty Divider forfeits his Interest in the Covenant without a new Grant But a little to examine the Foundation of your charitable Positions You suppose that Christ's Body being but one whoever separates from any sound Part separates from the whole But is it not equally evident that whoever separates from any true Part separates from the whole Surely a true Member is a Member tho it be not sound Yet you say there may be a true Church tho no Catholick Church that is according to your Argument no
consequently ought to be done when fit Circumstances concur yet not being enjoin'd as the necessary Means to Salvation when such Circumstances are wanting the actual Exercise is not required yet it does not follow that therefore 't is indifferent What the Judicious Hooker says of Baptism is doubtless equally applicable to the other Sacrament and all the Parts of the Office of the Ministry That God saith he hath committed the Ministry of Baptism unto special Men it is for Order's sake in his Church and not to the end that their Authority might give being or add force to the Sacrament it self To this purpose I did before cite the deservedly esteemed Authors Dr. Stillingfleet Dr. Tillotson and their Forerunner Mr. Chillingworth yet certainly this does not overthrow the Necessity of a setled Ministry and a regular Authority in the Church It were an easy matter here to make a pompous shew of Reading I shall only observe to you that some of my Questions related to the supposed absolute Necessity of receiving the Sacrament of Baptism others to the Authority of them who administer it Indeed that of the Lord's Supper was not mentioned by me because as you had handled the Matter the chief Dispute was about the forming of a Church and Church-Communion which you tell us is something antecedent to all the Acts and Offices of Communion I must tell you I had my Warrant for such Interrogations as I made upon both Heads from very great Lights in our Church Mr. Hooker when he was to argue against the Dissenters of his Time found them to stand much upon the Authority of their Ministry which they contended to be by Divine Right and that others could not duly administer the Sacraments Now tho that great Man asserts That it hath been constantly held as well touching Believers as Martyrs that Baptism taken away by Necessity is supplied by desire of Baptism and to Children by a presumed Desire Yet he chiefly addresses himself to prove That Baptism by any Man in case of Necessity is valid which he says was the Voice of the whole World heretofore But a learned Oxford Professor Mr. George Abbot in a Theological Lecture there de Circumcisione Baptismo goes to prove it unlawful for any of the Laity to usurp upon the Ministerial Office in this because Baptism is not absolutely necessary in it self He concludes his elaborate Reading thus Interea tamen ista sunt quae hodiernâ oratione accepistis Externo Sacramento non sic astringi alligari Dei gratiam ut sine ipso salvare aliquando nolit Ideoque diffidenter quoad Deum audacter quoad se Faeminas Laicosque facere qui baptizare aggrediuntur Tertiò tamen cum sigillum sit impressum non esse iterandum Fifth Article The fifth Article which is not so explicit as the foregoing of being guilty of Deism Socinianism and what not is laid but as a Consequence of the former wherefore that Imputation being wip'd off I fear no Man's charging me with this And to deal as plainly with you as you I think you have done with me I should have expected this sooner from another Man Whatever you or I say the World will judg whether he is most likely to be guilty of Deism undermining Christianity and contemning all revealed Religion who calls your Opinions in question or he who will argue that it is as necessary to communicate with every sound Part of the Catholick Church as with any and that one is as much obliged to communicate as a Member with some particular visible sound Part as to be a Christian and that not only by joining in the Purity of Faith and Worship for that he tells us Hereticks might do but in all other Acts or Terms of Communion And that notwithstanding the Efficacy which God Almighty has promised to a true lively Faith in the Merits of Christ Jesus it is as necessary to Salvation to know which of the Churches divided in Accidentals is in the right and with which we are bound to communicate rejecting all divided Communions for Schismatical as it is to be of the Christian Religion Such sort of Mediums must needs do as great Disservice to Christianity as counterfeit Miracles to the true and he who imposes the Belief of both as of equal Authority or under equal Necessity to my thinking bids prety fair for the undermining and contempt of all For Socinianism not knowing upon what account I should come to be caution'd against it I should think it used meerly as a Term of Reproach to be given of course when a Man is angry and wants better Arguments were it not that perhaps you might do it designedly to prevent my joining in that Charge which others have in this respect undertaken to make good against your self and crying Whore first as they say would oblige me to find another Addition for you Truly I shall not go about to retort it not being at leisure to tell you wherein you may seem not to have answered fully or to have slighted many Things as Buffoonry which have been very closely as well as acutely urged I shall only observe upon good Authority that the Socinians give themselves a greater Liberty of enquiring into the Modes of Existencies and the Nature of Divine Mysteries than becomes short-sighted Mortals And if other Men equally full of themselves happen to differ from them when they adventure upon their own way of explaining those sublime Truths which retire to be the Objects of our Admiration rather than of a distinct Perception If the Scripture-Account which the Homilies of our Church afford them be look'd on as too great a stinting of their Spirit of Enquiry they have no great reason to expect that God's Grace should be engaged to protect them from dangerous Errors seeing they attempt to be wise above what is written And perhaps he who will reproach as magical any Notion of the Union of true Believers with Christ Jesus and with each other which does not agree with his Political Scheme or with the visible Connection of the Parts of a natural Body may take to himself as dangerous a Latitude and then we need not wonder if he apply to the Church of Christ what he has observed of a natural Body Viz. That the Vnion of every Member with the Body is its Vnion with that part of the Body which is next c. Had he but made Provision for the Cloaths too and had argued that that part of the Body which is naked cannot be united to that which is cloathed it might have come up more fully to his purpose of proving a necessity of Union in Accidentals as well as in Essentials Pray the next time you see our loving Friend W. S. tell him so much is expected from him Having said what I conceiv'd fitting for an Antidote against the spreading of your Reflections upon me I shall here
for granted as I had reason that you went herein upon the Authority of the Church-Officers I ask'd Whether this would not put the Being of our Church upon an hazardous Issue and oblige your self to prove that 't was a true Church before the Reformation Which surely is no remote Consequence from the Supposition that the Church-Power was lodged with them of the Church of Rome before in opposition to which our Church was erected and out of which it was gathered But then you say to my second Query upon this That there was not the same Necessity for private Christians reforming from an Antichristian Church to usurp the Ministry as there is for a Lay-man in an Heathen Nation But you do not observe that the Force of this lies in the Supposition that the Power was lodg'd with the Popish Clergy upon which account the Acts of the Reformed Ministry in opposition to them would be but like the Acts of Lay-men And you know who has asserted That Recourse ought to be had to the Intention of the Church-Governors Ecclesiastical Power being their Gift And this does oblige all to a strict dependance on the supreme visible Power so as to leave no Place for Appeal concerning the Practice of such Government And they are the most certain as well as the most competent Judges of their own Intentions But should we have recourse to such Church-Governours pray do you think they would say you have Power of keeping up a Form of Church-Government in opposition to theirs or that your Officers are better than Lay-men To put this home to you I shall here subjoin a Passage of your own Should a Company of private Christians on their own choice separate themselves from their Bishops and unite into a church-Church-Society this were a Church-Faction and Schism and all they did were null and void Here you must admit that a Minister Episcopally ordained may possibly join with them in this Separation from the Bishop or else you will allow of what will overthrow your Assertion as to Separation even from the most sound Church Wherefore this being admitted and it being laid generally shew me if you can wherein this differs from Mr. D. at least how Separation from Papists or from whatever unlawful Terms of Communion can upon your Hypothesis be freed from Schism You assure us you do not charge our Dissenters with Schism from the Invalidity of their Orders but from their causless and sinful Separation And tho they have true Orders and are true Churches but yet divide Christian Communion by separating from any sound Part of the Christian Church they are Schismaticks nay if it were only in separating from each other Wherefore since Separation and ordinarily refusing to communicate where one never did but as you suppose ought come to the same thing you cannot blame me if I represent your Notion to be That where there are several Churches within a Nation which here you admit of whether one of these Churches has Authority over the Members of the other or no yet he who refuses to communicate with any one of these is a Schismatick And so you make it in relation to Churches in several Nations If this be your meaning as I take it to be then you have no reason to cry out of Mis-representation and blending together Things of a different Nature when I ask Query 4. Whether from the Supposition that there is to be but one Church-Covenant throughout the Catholick Church that there cannot be one true Church within another And that the Nature of Catholick Communion is such that one ought to be ready to communicate with any sound Church from which one is not hindred by reason of the Distance of Place It does not follow Here you stop me before you make an Answer as if I did not fairly to take every one of these Propositions for yours or in tacking together some Things not very consistent with each other Because you had in some place asserted that there could be but one Church in one Place therefore it seems not only our Dissenters but also Foreigners living here are without any Church Tho to avoid the Force of my Questions now you would admit that the Dissenters may have sufficient Church-Officers and Power but however that they are Schismaticks if it were only for dividing from each other You had said further that nothing can justify the Distinction of Christians into several Churches but only such a Distance of Place as makes it necessary and expedient to put them under the Conduct and Government of several Bishops What that Distance of Place is which makes this necessary and expedient you are not pleased to inform us But nothing it seems but Distance can with you justify a Distinction of Churches be the Terms never so unlawful which is but the same in effect with what you had said elsewhere as that 't is absurd to gather a Church out of a Church of baptized Christians Nay further here is more wholesom Doctrine which is That no Distinction of Churches is justifiable but under Bishops Yet alas you do not dispute against the Dissenters Form of Church-Government or deny their being rightly invested with Church-Power no not you But it lies not upon me to reconcile you to your self nor can you deny the having said a Thing in one place because of the contrary in another The only Proposition which you can seem to deny with any colour is That one ought to be ready to communicate with any sound Church from which one is not hindred by distance of Place But surely 't is full enough to this purpose that The Exercise of true Christian Communion in a particular Church is nothing else but the Exercise of Catholick Communion in a particular Church which the Necessity of Affairs requires since all the Christians in the World cannot meet together for Acts of Worship But there is nothing in all these Acts of Communion which does more peculiarly unite us to such a particular Church than to the whole Church Again To be in Communion with the Church signifies to be a Member of it and that not of any particular Church as distinguish'd from the whole Catholick Church but to be a Member of the one Body of Christ and of every sound Part of it Wherefore as a Man is a Member of every sound Church sure he may communicate with any sound Church if Distance do not hinder nay the refusing Communion in such Case is the very Schism which you all along declaim against Having thus fix'd upon you every one of these Propositions for the first of them I cannot believe that you will yet deny I shall consider with you what follows Wherefore I still assert Either that the French Protestants have no Church here but are Schismaticks in not communicating with ours Or that ours is guilty of Schism in making the Terms of Communion so streight that
Presbyters of another I take leave to inform you that the Stat. 14. of this King cap. 4. has provided that every Person which was not then in holy Orders by Episcopal Ordination or should not be so ordained before a Day prefixt should be utterly disabled and ipso facto depriv'd from all manner of Ecclesiastical Promotions and that none for the future should be admitted to any such Promotion nor should presume to consecrate and administer the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper unless Episcopally ordained The Penalty indeed is not made to extend to Foreigners of Reformed Churches allowed here but quere whether the Declaration of Disability does not If you say by the Lutheran Church you mean only those religious Societies of Lutherans which are in Sweden and Denmark under Bishops or at least that have Superintendents or Generales ordained and ordaining Episcopally which surely some Lutheran Societies want you may avoid the Consequence as to such and all others of the Reformation which are without Episcopal Orders by denying them to be Christian Churches if you please for then indeed it would not follow from your condemning such Societies that you thereby refuse Communion with a sound Church This brings me to our Churches Sence and Application of this Matter O says it how the Church is divided O how the Cities be cut and mangled O how the Coat of Christ which was without Seam is all to rent and torn O Body mystical of Christ where is that holy Unity out of which whosoever is he is not in Christ If one Member be pulled from another where is the Body If the Body be drawn from the Head where is the Life of the Body We cannot be joined to Christ our Head except we be glued with Concord and Charity to one another For he that is not of this Unity is not of the Church of Christ which is a Congregation or Vnity together not a Division St. Paul saith that as long as Emulation or Envying Contention and Factions or Sects be among us we be carnal and walk according to the fleshly Man And St. James saith If ye have bitter Emulation or Envying and Contention in our Hearts glory not of it for where Contention is there is Vnstedfastness and all evil Deeds And why do we not hear St. Paul which prayeth us whereas he might command us I beseech you in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you speak all one Thing and that there be no Dissention among you but that you will be one whole Body of one Mind and of one Opinion in the Truth If his Desire be reasonable and honest why do we not grant it If his Request be for our Profit why do we refuse it And if we list not to hear his Petition of Prayer yet let us hear his Exhortation where he saith I exhort you that you walk a becomes the Vocation in which you be called with all submission and meekness with lenity and softness of Mind bearing one another by Charity studying to keep the Vnity of the Spirit by the Bond of of Peace For there is one Body one Spirit one Faith one Baptism There is saith he but one Body of the which he can be no lively Member that is at variance with the other Members There is one Spirit which joineth and knitteth all Things in one and how can this Spirit reign in us when among our selves we be divided There is but one Frith and how can we then say He is of the Old Faith and he is of the New Faith There is but one Baptism and then shall not all they which be baptized be one Contention causeth Division wherefore it ought not to be among Christians whom one Faith and Baptism joineth in an Unity If all Differences in Opinions be here forbid as cutting Men off from Christ's Body it may be said perhaps that Schism cannot possibly be avoided But what seems intended by the Apostles and by our Church is That notwithstanding such Differences Men should be united in the same Faith by the Bond of Charity which you may call a magical Vnion when Men divide from each other in their Opinions if you please Certain it is neither the Scriptures nor our Church speak of dividing Communions yet there is no doubt but that may be Schism in a divided Communion which is in a joint And whoever want true Christian Charity they are the Schismaticks whether in communion with a Visible Church or withdrawing from it Having shewn what Account the Scriptures and our Church give of Schism it may not be improper to shew in what sence it has been taken by some of the greatest Eminency in our Church I had before shewn how Dr. Stillingfleet had defended our Church against the Imputation of Schism in dividing Communion from the Papists and how the Primitive Fathers ought to be understood when they write of this That Schism did not lie in a voluntary Departure out of any particular Church upon the account of any Thing extrinsecal and accidental Christian Charity to be sure is essential I shall only subjoin the Testimony of Mr. Hooker and if I have these two on my side I shall think my self sufficiently well back'd The Apostle affirmeth plainly saith he of all Men Christian that be they Jews or Gentiles bond or free they are all incorporated into one Company they all make but one Body the Vnity of which visible Body and Church of Christ consisteth in that Vniformity which all several Persons thereunto belonging have by reason of that one Lord whose Servants they all profess themselves that one Faith which they all acknowledg that one Baptism wherewith they are all initiated The Visible Church of Christ is therefore one in outward Profession of those Things which supernaturally appertain to the very Essence of Christianity and are necessarily required in every particular Man Let all the House of Israel know for certain faith Peter that God hath made him both Lord and Christ even this Jesus whom ye have crucified Christians therefore they are not which call not him their Master and Lord. But this extraordinary Person could not think himself obliged in Charity to his own Soul and to deliver himself from the Guilt of the Blood of Dissenters to instruct them in the Necessity of one Communion in Accidentals if they would continue Christians Nay he thought that altho they should be excommunicated yet even that could not cut them off from Christ's Body His Words are these As for the Act of Excommunication it neither shutteth out from the Mystical nor clean from the Visible Church but only from Fellowship with the Visible in Holy Duties But you it seems have considered this Matter better than Mr. Hooker and affirm That every Bishop and Presbyter shuts out of the Catholick Church by Excommunication And this leads me to the Notion of a true or sound Church And surely it was not impertinent