part of the Catholick Church Is Christ's Body made up only of sound Members Are all that are unsound divided from the Body But if a true Member be of the Body as well as that which is sound do not you by refusing to communicate with any true Member upon your own Principles refuse to be of the Body especially when the only Unsoundness is that it differs by reason of some Accidentals from that Church where you exercise the Acts of Catholick Communion And it might be well to know whether you own that there is any sound Church besides the Church of England with which you can communicate how much soever you talk of Catholick Communion Or at least whether you are not Schismatical in dividing from some true Churches And may not you be charged with denying the very Notion of a Catholick Church and asserting that Christ has not one but twenty or a hundred several Bodies But whereas you affirm that he who divides from one sound Part divides from all is it not rather demonstrable that he who communicates with one sound Part or one true Part communicates with all as being united to Christ's Body As he that touches a Man's Finger touches his Body but it does not follow that one cannot touch his Body unless he touch his Finger But since you are so fond of this Notion give me leave to turn your own Artillery upon you and if you have condemned your self or the Church in which you live of Schism and dividing from Christ's Body you may thank your self If it follows from the Identity of Christ's Body that whoever is divided from any sound Member is divided from the whole being that Member is united to the Body so it must necessarily be if you divide from any true Member unless a true Member is no Member And you your self being sensible of this have taught that 't is absurd to gather a Church out of a Christian Church and divide Neighbour-Christians into distinct Communions Nay you left your self no possible Evasion when you affirmed that the only thing that can give us in particular a Right to the Blessings of the Covenant is that we observe the Conditions of this Covenant and live in Vnity and Communion with all true Christian Churches in the World If therefore there be any true Christian Church with which you refuse to communicate have you not made a good Rod for your own Back The Church of Rome as you own is a true tho a corrupt Church but you I suppose refuse to communicate with this true Church are you not therefore cut off from Christ's Body You will say perhaps you cannot communicate but upon sinful Terms But what 's that to the purpose If this is stil a true Church and Member of Christ's Body you know Christ has but one Body one Spouse one Flock one Church And if we be no Members of this one Church we are not united to Christ The Parts of this Body must be united to each other that they may be united to Christ else it would be as if the Parts of the natural Body should divide from each other and hang together by a magical kind of Vnion with the Soul AndVnion to the Body consists in being united to that part of the Body which is next You have foreclosed your self from saying that you are united in what is essential to its being a Member of Christ's Body and have a participation of the same vital Heat and animal Spirits but think it hard that one Member should be charged with the putrid Sores or Wounds of another and to speak plainly that you forsake it only in its Uncatholick Terms This would come too nigh that very Fanaticism which you deride And you having told us that a Compliance with the Order Government Discipline and Worship as well as the Doctrine of the Catholick Church is absolutely necessary to Catholick Communion 'T is upon your own Grounds necessary to comply with every true part of the Catholick Church in all these as well as with every sound Part. Wherefore might not the Papists beat you into their Church with those Weapons which you have forg'd against others Might not they tell you that you want Christian Charity unless you are united in one Communion with this one Body That you want the chief Branch of Holiness without which none shall see God That all the Blessings of the Gospel are promised to us in a Church-State That the Effects and Application of the Grace Merit and Satisfaction of Christ Jesus is confined to this Body consisting of Members sound and unsound That the Gospel-Covenant is confin'd to the Communion of the Christian Church That to remit Sins is to restore Men to the Peace and Communion of the Church and to retain them is to cast Men out of the Church or keep them under Church-Censures which is a plain Demonstration that Sins are forgiven only in the Communion of the Church But yet further 't is a Question whether you are in Communion even with every Church which requires nothing sinful as a Term of its Communion and is upon that account sound and Orthodox You say indeed you should make no scruple to communicate with the Lutheran Church if it did not require of you the Belief of Consubstantiation Yet certainly you did not attend to your own Grounds when you said so For if that be not in Communion with our Church you know you would be a Schismatick if you communicated with it But that their Church is not in Communion with ours appears upon your own Rule for that the Governors are not in Communion with each other which you make essential to the Communion of particular Churches And for this 't is not necessary to shew that the Governors of each side condemn the others Constitution 'T is enough if the Governors of that Church which you are of do condemn the Constitution of the other or of any part of it You say indeed that our Church is so far from condemning Foreign Reformed Churches for the want of Bishops that it has always lived in Communion with them If this be so then as a Bishop in the same Communion with us might with the leave of English Bishops exercise his Episcopal Office in any Church in England so might a Protestant Minister ordained abroad without Episcopal Ordination But I take it you will not say that he may If he may not this is a condemning with a witness For if any of them have no Orders amongst them where is their regular Church-Society Nay as you believe the Right of Episcopal Government 't is questionable whether you do Divine not deny that such have any proper church-Church-Officers And further that you may not take the Difference about the Constitution of Churches or the Validity of a particular kind of Ordination to be meerly between the Bishops of our Church and the
for granted as I had reason that you went herein upon the Authority of the church-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-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-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
Consent you hold to be necessary by a Divine Law And here indeed is Cardo rei Well then this Consent which is necessary by a Divine Law is either in Fundamentals only or in Fundamentals and Accidentals too Whatever Church differs from a sound Church in Fundamentals is certainly ipso facto cut off from Christ's Body without Excommunication But the Question is Whether if in Accidentals only the danger be the same Dr. Stillingfleet says it is not and you have not yet proved it is Indeed you talk very wisely of the Catholick Church which is the Root and Fountain of Vnity and was antecent to particular Churches But I would gladly know whether these Accidentals were antecedent too or whether it is not the Fountain of Unity only upon the account of the Fundamentals essential to it Speak home to this and shame all the Orthodox Writers before you and of this Age if you please Assure your self my concern was only to admonish your self and your unthinking Hearers of the Danger I conceiv'd to lie in your way If neither you will retract nor they distrust your Authority however I have discharg'd my self But it not being improper for me to make some Enquiry into the Political Constitution of a Church viz. as it is founded on Consent which as was before cited is all that is necessary to unite a Body or Society into one Communion Here 't is presumed that the Consent of the Minor Part is so included in the Major that every one is bound as he would avoid the damnable Sin of Schism to conform to that sound Church or particular Way of Worship which carries it by most Voices But suppose that according to Mr. Humphreys his Model several Ways should be left indifferent or that the Number of Voices should be equally divided or where there are three Negatives it could not be agreed by all three dividing by a National Act from a false Way of Worship which of the distinct Communions in the true Way should be the National Would not more than one Church in such case be consistent with one Civil Government And can it be made appear which of these is the Root and Fountain of Vnity according to your Cabalistical Terms to which the others ought to unite But suppose one of the Churches carries it by plurality of Votes and looking upon all others as Schismatical and therein as Heretical too should with the African Fathers deny these Schismaticks their Communion unless they should be re-baptized which you own to have been a Mistake in those Fathers Pray would they still continue Schismaticks who would refuse to come in upon those Terms Or would the prevailing Party which vigorously insisted on this be Schismatical But as you say that there ought to be but one Church and one Communion in one place and that Dissenters are Schismaticks in separating from each other as well as from the Church of England while they live in England I desire you to resolve me one Question which is this Whether the Christian Church at Rome gathered out of the Gentiles in the time of the Apostles or that distinct Church which was gathered out of Jews was the Church of the Place You will say No doubt that the Church gathered from among the Gentiles was the only sound Church But what think you then of those poor Jews who through the Mis-fortune of their Education were so wedded to the Jewish Rites that they thought them necessary to be retained along with Christianity which as you do probably they thought to be nothing else but mystical Judaism and would not communicate in those Christian Congregations which believed those Rites to be abolished by the Christian Religion Were these poor Men Schismaticks and as bad as Murderers and Adulterers If they were they might well argue that our Saviour introduced a very hard Law which not only obliged them to a severer Mortification of their Appetites and Desires but required of them upon pain of Damnation to act against their Consciences in those very things which they scrupled as they thought by Divine Warrant But as to their Case Dr. Stillingfleet tells us that It was agreed by all the Governours of the Christian Church that the Jewish Christians should be left to their own Liberty out of respect to the Law of Moses and out of regard to the Peace of the Christian Church which might have been extreamly hazarded if the Apostles had presently set themselves against the observing the Jewish Customs among the Jews themselves But if it had been absolutely necessary to Catholick-Communion that there should be but one Church in a place The Apostles who were the Governours would never have suffer'd this Which since they did I conceive it directly conclusive against your Notion Nor is it to be suppos'd that these Jews had no distinct church-Church-Officers For Timothy might have been over a Church of converted Jews being circumcis'd which for ought we know was for that very end Nay St. Peter himself withdrew and separated himself from the Gentiles And as St. Paul told him would compel to wit by his Example the Gentiles to live as do the Jews But will you say as you must if you are consistent with your self that St. Peter was a Schismatick by this You say There cannot be any competition betwixt two Churches because there must be but one in the same place How far this agrees with the fore-going Instance you would do well to consider If in this matter I have fastened many absurd Proposions upon you t is not I conceive for want of due regard of my own Reputation or the common Principles of Honesty you well know the old Observation uno dato absurdo sequuntur mille 5. As to my Query about virtual Baptism you say You speak only of the necessity of visible Communion in visible Members And these you suppose not capable of Communion with the visible Church not being made Members But the Question is Whether they be not made Members of the invisible And if they be your Notion of the absolutle necessity of being visibly received into Communion falls 6. As to that of a profest Athiest you here place both him and a Schismatick in the same state of Exclusion from the Catholick Church Yet it may be a Question Whether by our unwary wording things you do not suppose that the Atheist is intituled to Acts of Communion but the Schismatick is not The first you seem to suppose to be in a State of Covenant with God For a Church-State and a Covenant-State you make the same thing And if it be not or that Baptism does not give us this you argue that then a Man may be in Covenant with God through Christ and yet be no Member of Christ or he may be a Member of Christ viz. as baptiz'd and yet no Member of his Body which is the Church Nay in your glorious Vindication you number Schismaticks among them
who you say shall at the last day be judged not as Infidels but as wicked and Apostate Christians 7. The seventh Query which goes upon that Ground which you give and do not yet recede from for the Belief of your lodging Church-Power so with the Clergy that they who conform not to them or who incur their Displeasure would be in a woful Case you answer only with a Scoff but say not whether the Clergy are the Church Representative or whether what I urge would follow from that Supposition or no. These were the general Questions and whether most of them were impertinent or are now fairly answered 't is for others to determine From hence I am obliged to follow you to my three Sets of Queries as you call them relating to sveral Propositions and the parting-blow of four Queries relating to the Text. Because of my asking Questions concerning your Sense of our Saviour's Promise to his Apostles which you seem to suppose to go along with Church-Governours in Succession as distinguish'd from the Body of Christians and without allowing private Christians that share which the Words of the Promise import you intimate my designing to confute our Saviour and burlesque his Institution But to use mostly your own Expressions if my design of Charity and to deliver that blessed Institution from the Freaks of an Enthusiastick Fancy and to expound it to a plain and easy Sense such as is agreeable to the Vnderstanding of Men and worthy of the Spirit of God be to burlesque Scripture I acknowledg the Charge To my first Qustion Whether our Saviour's Promise of Divine Assistance did not extend to all the Members of the Church considering every Man in his respective Station and Capacity as well as to the Apostles as Church-Governours You answer That there are Promises which relate to the whole Church and Promises which belong to particular Christians as well as Promises which relate particularly to the Apostles and Governours of the Church Well for the comfort of us poor Lay-men there are some Promises which relate to us It being so then I may well ask 2. Whether it signifies any thing to say there is no Promise to particular Churches provided there be to particular Persons such as are in Charity with all Men and are ready to communicate with any Church which requires no more of them than what they conceive to be their Duty according to the Divine Covenant You think it hard to know what this Query means But surely 't is material to know whether or no such Men may be saved otherwise than under Church-Governors And truly you tell us pretty plainly I wish for your own sake it had been a little more covert that such have no Promises but as Members of the Church that is of the visible Church under Church-Officers if you answer to the purpose You add indeed When Communion may be had upon lawful Terms I hope this implies that 't is possible the Terms may be unlawful Which yields me my fourth Question upon this Matter But it likewise yields That if the Terms are unlawful private Christians are entitled to these Promises tho not visibly admitted into a Church-State which is contrary to what you all along drive at But it seems however your Charity to these Men who think the Terms such as they ought not to comply with is so great to believe them guilty of Schism as adhering to their own private Fancies in opposition to Church-Authority out of Pride and Opinionativeness which God alone can judg 3. The third Query is Whether if the Promise you mention be confined to the Apostles as Church-Governors it will not exclude the Civil Power To which you answer That the Civil and Ecclesiastical Power are very distinct but very consistent But such a Power in the Church-Officers as would make them the Church-Representative and prevent a National Reformation tho by the Civil Power is of another Nature Nor do you think fit yet to declare what the Power is which you would have lodged in church-Church-Officers But for fear you should go beyond your Warrant in this Matter I shall mind you of what our Church teaches us which is that We must not think that this Comforter was either promised or else given only to the Apostles but to the Vniversal Church of Christ dispersed through the whole World And speaking of Christ's Promise that the Spirit of Truth should abide with them for ever and that he would be always with them he meaneth saith our Church by Grace Vertue and Power and that it says was indifferently to all that should believe in him through their the Apostles Words that is to wit for his whole Church To my Inferences from the second Proposition which I consider apart You make such an Answer as if we had been at cross Purposes For my Questions were grounded upon your asserting without any limitation That 't is absurd to gather a Church out of a Church of Baptized Christians And indeed it is but a Golden Aphorism wherein you epitomize a great Part of your Discourses on this Subject And you answer That the Independents are out in their way of gathering Churches and that we separated not from the Papists upon their Principles Which is nothing to the purpose But you do confess indeed that we may separate from any Church of baptized Christians if their Communion be sinful But wherein the Difference lies I know not except by Separation you would only have a withdrawing from Communion but will not allow the setting up a distinct Church-Communion be the Cause of withdrawing never so just Which unless you mean I hope you will be so ingenuous to confess this was not so warily worded and so sound as might have been But if you have a Patent to make Words signify what you please besides their natural and presumable Intendment to make generals particular or vice versâ much good may it do you provided they afford you not a Loop-hole for the most uncharitable Censures Yet give me leave before I quit this to demonstrate that you have not answered fairly in restraining this as if spoke only of Independents These were your own Words When there is one Church within the Bowels of another a new Church gathered out of a Church already constituted and formed into a distinct and separate Society this divides Christian Communion and is a notorious Schism This is the plain case of the Presbyterian and Independent Churches and those other Conventicles of Sectaries which are among us They are Churches in a Church Churches formed out of the National Church by which means Christians who live together refuse to worship God in the same Assemblies Pray Sir would you have me fancy some general Scope and Design which no Man can understand from the Words you utter in any particular Place This I suppose may satisfy reasonable Men that all my Queries under this Head
call this a sinful Term in that Respect be pleas'd to consider again how a Church commanding things sinful and admitting none into Communion with it but upon those sinful Terms can avoid the Imputation of being Schismatical in its Frame and essential Constitution any more than the Independents for requiring a new Church-Covenant If you say the Church may quit those Terms and still continue a sound Church so may they and yet continue Independent But if I ought to learn my Catechism from our Church it self rather than from any Doctor in it I should think that whereever there is any Congregation or Fellowship of God's faithful and elect People built upon the Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ being the Head Corner-stone that must be such a Church as cannot possibly differ in its essential Frame and Constitution from any other sound Church But when you say 'T is impossible that a Church which is not Schismatical should excommunicate Schismatically 't is worth enquiring whether you mean That tho it does enjoin Terms sinful and unlawful in themselves and excommunicate them who cannot comply in such Matters it has by that exercise of its Power of the Keys deprived those Dissenters of Catholick Communion as not being Schismatical in its essential Frame and Constitution Being excellent good at leaving out the Force of any Question to which you are loth to give a direct Answer you say my three first Queries relating to the meaning of the Text come onely to this Whether every particular Church may not be called the Body of Christ Whereas it was Whether it might not be an entire Body And you yield my Question yet you say all the Churches in the World are but one Body and must be but one Communion Which if you will allow to be by virtue of a mystical or spiritual Union need not be disputed Yet it being a Question Whether you would yield a particular Church to be a proper Body of Christ why might I not ask Whether it may not at least be taken so in a Metaphorical Sence And surely you who have been charg'd to turn the Priesthood of our Saviour from proper into Metaphorical might well enough understand what I meant by this Word But if you consider the Force of the Question upon the Text it is to know your Warrant for arguing that it is always Schism to refuse the Communion of any sound Church where-ever you find it whether it has Authority over you or no from a Text which only charges Schism upon Members of the same particular Church or Body of Christ with which they did actually communicate For my 4th Query from the Text of the Nature of Schism you condemn me to the Drudgery of examining the Defence of Dr. Stillingfleet But as you speak not directly to it I shall here take it for unanswered yet I shall not deny it some Consideration in its due time But thus you say you have honestly answered all my Queries in my first Letter And truly the Judgment of Charity obliges me to hope that you have according to the Intention of your own Mind And yet 't is a very difficult thing to believe that you should not have discernment enough of your self to see through all your false Colours If they are Errors of your Understanding I hope God will not call you to so severe an Account for them as you threaten to well-meaning Dissenters My second Letter you may if you please term peevish for conjuring you as a Protestant Divine to answer my Doubts categorically and that without referring me to what Mr. D. or any profest Papist had writ on that Subject But perhaps very few Men that observe the Neighbourhood of the Doctrines through Mediums not far differing leading to the like End will much condemn the Caution which I there gave you Wherefore to vindicate my self to you I shall give a taste of your Agreement with Popish Mediums And since you disown D lism shall as much as conveniently may be strip your Positions of what is directly his way And perhaps it will not seem improbable that you should have borrowed some of those Arguments which I look upon as tending to or proceeding from Uncharitableness from the Author of Charity maintained by Catholicks His Labour is to prove all Protestants Schismaticks because they withdrew from the Communion of the visible Church that is in his Sence the Church of Rome and those that were in Communion with her And he cites St. Austin to prove That not a diverse Faith but the divided Society of Communion doth make Schismaticks From whence he argues That the Catholick or Universal Church is one Congregation or Company of Faithful People and therefore implies not only Faith to make them faithful Believers but also Communion or common Union to make them one in Charity which excludes Separation and Division He goes on By the Definition of Schism may be inferred that the Guilt thereof is contracted not only by Division from the Universal Church but also by a Separation from a particular Church or Diocess which agrees with the Universal You would prove That Men as they would avoid the Sin of Schism must communicate with the National Church or with some Church that is in Communion with it and reject the Communion of all other Parties and Sects of Christians Indeed you will say that you qualify it if the National Church be sound that is if there be nothing sinful in its Constitution and Worship Yet 't is a Question whether your Arguments go not as far as the Jesuit's For you suppose with him that there must be some particular Church with which we must communicate under church-Church-Officers Or to use your own Words We must of necessity join in the actual and visible Communion of the Church Suppose the Dissenters say with Mr. Chillingworth We don't leave the Church but only its external Communion You look upon that as absurd and wonder that they should assign Reasons why they cannot communicate with us and yet at the same time will not own that they have made any Separation Nay you affirm That for two Churches to renounce each others Communion or at least to withdraw ordinary Communion from each other from a profest Dislike and yet still to continue in a State of Communion with one another is a downright Contradiction Well be it so then it seems Protestants by withdrawing from the Communion of the Romish Church put themselves out of a State of Communion with the Christian Church just as Dissenters do Yet our great Champion thought he had furnish'd us with a litle Armour which might repel all the Jesuit's Batteries and could not understand it to be a Contradiction to say One leaves the Church by ceasing to be a Member of it by ceasing to have those Requisites which constitute a Man a Member of it as Faith and Obedience But we leave the external Communion of
a Church by refusing to communicate with any Church in her Liturgies and Worship What tho according to Mr. Chillingworth's Rule 't is possible to be a Member of the Church without actual Communion You say 'T is as necessary actually to communicate with some Church or other as 't is to be a Christian Wherefore it seems those Protestants in Popish Countries who did actually communicate with no Church had not what essentially constituted them Christians You will say that you make allowance for Cases of Necessity when Communion cannot be had but upon sinful Terms But surely 't is absolutely necessary to be a Christian Nay in that very Book which you refer me to for your Thoughts at large you assert from your own and the Popish Notion of the Power of the Keys that the Communion of the Church is absolutely necessary to Salvation Wherefore methinks many of your Expressions would make no improper Sound out of a Papist's Mouth We are the Visible or National Church your Division from us is Schism and Separation from the Church and every Separation is a Schism on one side or other Nay you renounce our Communion for to withdraw your selves from ordinary Communion with the Church in which you live into distinct and separate Societies for Worship is to renounce their Communion And he who disputes the Authority or destroys the Vnity of the Church renounces his Membership and Communion with it Besides 't is enough that 't is a Separation and gathering a Church out of a Church which did before consist of baptized Christians Ye are Schismaticks in dividing your selves from the Body of Christians and all your Prayers and Sacraments are not Acts of Christian Communion but a Schismatical Combination You may pretend that if you do not divide upon the account of sinful Terms yet you do it for greater Edification and purer Ordinances And that at least 't is very doubtful whether the Church on Earth has power of clogging God's Ordinances with such Rites as shall be made Terms and Conditions of receiving them Well 't is no matter for all this Doubt and divide from us and be damn'd It 's pleasant that you should pretend Edification to break the Vnity of the Church Be assured that the Influences of the Divine Spirit are confined to this Vnity What Allowances Christ will make for the Mistakes of well-meaning Men who divide the Communion of the Church I cannot determine but his Mercies in such a Case are uncovenanted and such an one is no Member of the Invisible Church that we do or can know of And if he separate from the Visible Church tho upon the account of sinful Terms the Thread of this Reasoning affords him no Clue to lead him to the Gate of Life For having no visible Church that he knows of with which to communicate or by Misfortune being depriv'd of the Opportunity he was thereby denied the ordinary Means of Salvation And it may be said in your Words I do not now speak of the invisible Operations of the Divine Spirit Truly Sir to my thinking either I have rightly represented your Agreement here or Words are to be governed by some Authority which you have not yet produced The half Answer which you suppose already given to the Question with which I closed my second Letter had I doubt not its due Consideration where-ever 't was met with But the Question was this Whether if the Nature of Catholick Communion requires a readiness to communicate with any sound Church and yet a Church obliges us to communicate with that alone exclusive of other sound Churches while Distance does not hinder the occasional and frequent Communion with others is not that Church guilty of Schism in such an Injunction contrary to the Nature of Catholick Communion Your Answer is That no Church can be supposed to forbid Communion with any Church which is in Communion with her But 't is its Duty to forbid Communion with Schismatical Conventicles Which is as much as to say that the French the Greek Church or any other that is not in Communion with our Church is a Schismatical Conventicle And such you observe that I am pleased to call sound Churches wherein you intimate That no Church which is not in Communion with ours that is not ready actually to communicate in all its Accidentals can be sound and Orthodox But then the frequent Communion with another Church being in the Question what provision does your Answer make for so much as the ordinary Communion which you call constant with the National Church But then you having admitted that Dissenters have proper church-Church-Officers and Power what Answer will you make to what follows Or at least is it not impossible that he who communicates sometimes with one true Church sometimes with another can be a Schismatick or any more than an Offender against a positive Humane Law You say indeed he is an Offender against the Vnity of the Church and the Evangelical Laws of Catholick Communion but you have not yet been pleased to produce those Evangelical Laws which oblige Men upon the pain of Damnation consequent upon Schism to communicate with the church-Church-Officers allowed of by the Civil Power rejecting others as Schismatical tho admitted to have the same Evangelical Institution Indeed you look upon it as self-evident That where-ever there is a Church establish'd by Publick Authority if there be nothing sinful in its Constitution and Worship we are bound to communicate with that Church and to reject the Communion of all other Parties and Sects of Christians for the Advantage always lies on the side of Authority But how this is made out by any thing you say I cannot find In my Judgment you afford no other Notion of Catholick Communion but as an Agreement and Readiness to communicate in Accidentals as well as Essentials with any sound Church be it National or otherwise Indeed you suppose Dissenters to have no sound Church for want of a National Establishment but then you make no manner of provision for so much as the ordinary actual Communion in any Episcopal Church where one lives if so be that one communicates actually with any other Church which is in Communion with that But if it should happen that the true Notion of Catholick Communion consists only in a Communion in Essentials and being united by the Christian Bond of Charity notwithstanding Separations for lesser Matters then by the same reason I may communicate with any sound Church and nothing but Humane Law can restrain me which by your own Confession can neither make nor cure a Schism And indeed what should hinder but that Humane Law may as well confine me to the Communion of the Bishop of the Diocess where I live which you know were but according to the old Rule of One Altar one Bishop as well as to give me a Latitude for any Diocess provided I do not
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