good opinion of them and of the innocency and goodness of their intention in what they desire and seek Whereas the other tends to exasperate and provoke and to beget an ill opinion of them and a jealousie of their designs in the minds of those from whom they expect ease and relief in what is mattet of grievance to them And that which does that is no good way of obtaining from them Solomon's wise advice is If the Spirit of the Ruler rise up against thee leave not thy place for yielding pacifieth great offences Eccles 10.4 QUERY XIII WHerein may Catholick Church Communion consist And how and by what means is it best preserved To clear our way in this Inquiry it will be convenient to take notice of the difference that is between the Vnion of the Catholick Church and the Communion of it The Union of the Catholick Church consists in the same Relation which all the Members of that one Body bear to Christ the Head of it and to one another as fellow-members But the Communion of this spiritual Corporation consists in a mutual performance of those Christian Duties and Offices to which they are engaged by virtue of that relation By that Relation in which their Union consists they come to have a greater interest in one another than they had before their incorporation into that body and by it they come under new duties to one another to which they were not obliged before But their Communion consists much in a mutual discharge of those duties towards one another and in an improvement of that interest for the benefit of one another and the good of the whole by their mutual intercourse in spiritual affairs The Union of the whole which is made by one Baptism or the Baptismal Covenant respects the being of the Church But Catholick Communion respects its well-being by its increase in wisdom goodness and comfort There is indeed a Catholick Church Vnity by Communion as well as there is another which comes by Relation but this Unity of Communion slows from that which is made by a Relation common to the whole Having thus briefly considered how Catholick Communion differs from Catholick Union I shall now proceed to shew a little more particularly wherein or in what Catholick Commumunion doth consist And we may best know what it is and wherein it doth consist by the account we have of it as practised in the Catholick Church when it first became Christian And this account we have in these words Acts 2.42 And they continued stedfastly in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers By which description we see it consisted in their consent and agreement in three things Faith Worship Fellowship 1. In their agreeing in the same Faith they continued stedfastly in the Apostles Doctrine that is in the belief of it in attendance to it and practice of it From the same faith being common to all Christians it is called the common faith Tit. 1.4 the one faith Eph. 4.5 and their agreement in it is stiled Vnity in the faith Eph. 4.13 2. In their agreement in the same Worship breaking of bread and prayers This Catholick Church in its beginning is said to have continued with one accord in Prayer and Supplication Acts 1.14 And on the day of Penticost they were all with one accord in one place when the Holy Ghost was poured out upon them And when their number so increased that they could not all perform this Publick Worship together in one place but in several distinct Assemblies called particular Churches yet their agreement in the same Worship made their Communion in it but one Communion tho performed in several Assemblies For altho these Assemblies be never so far distant from one another yet so long as they all agree in the same Worship the distance of place can no more hinder their Communion from being one than their being baptized in several distant places can hinder the Relation to one another contracted thereby from being one when it is common to all the Members We account all those to be of the Communion of the Church of Rome at the same time and in the same acts in which they hold their Local Commumunion in several distant Nations so long as they all agree in the same corrupt Worship And there is the same reason for the Unity of the Communion in Worship of all Orthodox Assemblies in all Nations So that I take this for an unquestionable truth That it is mens agreement in the same Principles of Communion be they good or bad that makes their Communion but one tho the particular acts of it are performed by them in many thousand distant places And now it is by the Union of Relation by the Baptismal Covenant and the Unity of Communion by agreement in the Principles of the Worship wherein they have Communion that all Orthodox Christians make one great House or Temple of God in the world in which he is openly worshipped and publickly acknowledged to be what he is the one only true God Father Son and Holy Ghost in opposition to all false Gods Ephes 2.21 In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy Temple in the Lord. This is that house which is called Christs own house Heb. 3.6 and that House of God over which Christ is said to be High Priest Heb. 10.21 And particular Churches in reference to this one house are but as several Apartments in it which all together make up one great house of God And in this house of his God dwells and therein manifesteth himself to his People after a more special manner than he does to the world 2 Cor. 6.16 Ye are the Temple of the living God as God hath said I will dwell in them and walk in them and will be their God and they shall be my people Here Almighty God meets with them and communes with them and receives their addresses and here he entertains them with the fatness of his house the Ordinances of the Gospel and the benign influences and comfortable presence of his Spirit in the use of them In this way the whole Church in their several Assemblies have Communion with their Head Christ Jesus and one with another by partaking in common of the spiritual benefits communicated by the Lord and in assisting in common in the Worship Adoration and Thanksgiving which the Church renders him for the glory and transcendent perfections of his nature and being and returns him for all the blessings and benefits they receive from him And the more all Christians are agreed in their worshipping of God and in their Communion with him the more they honour him and the more they please him and make themselves the more capable of receiving all good things from him in the greater abundance If the agreement but of two of them touching any thing they shall ask hath his promise of granting it Mat. 18.19 what might not be expected from him
Catholicism Or Several ENQUIRIES TOVCHING Visible Church-membership Church-Communion The Nature of Schism And the Vsefulness of National Constitutions For the furtherance of RELIGION By W. A. LONDON Printed by M. C. for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops head in St. Pauls Church-yard 1683. THE PREFACE TO THE READER ONE would think any thing should be acceptable to dissenting Brethren which has a true tendency to deliver them from those mistaken notions of things which do expose them to much trouble from Men and from the Laws themselves and by means of which they are an occasion of trouble and danger to the Nation And it is but reasonable to expect that things of this nature should be consider'd by them now at such a time as this tho' neglected during the time in which those Opinions put them to no trouble The hope of which and the sorrow to see Christian Brethren to suffer great inconveniencies to themselves needlesly has been a motive to me to make these sheets publick at this time as not doubting but that if judiciously and impartially weighed they with other writings of like nature may be of good use to discover to them their mistakes Their Separation from parochial Communion which does expose them to trouble does proceed principally from their mistakes as I conceive them to be either about that which makes men members of the visible Church or that which gives them Right to the external Priviledges thereof or about the external manner of publick worship There are many of the Dissenters whose notion of the visible Church and of Mens Right to Communion in the external Priviledge of it seems much narrower than the Scriptures represent those things to be They make that to be necessary to visible Church-member-ship and Communion which is but necessary to Invisible Church-Communion And then they make this qualification necessary not only by way of Duty but of Condition also without which in humane judgement persons ought not to be admitted into Church fellowship or unto Communion in the external priviledges of the Church Which notion and correspondent practice of theirs I have endeavored to discover to be plainly contrary to the whole current of the Scriptures touching these matters both of the Old Testament and of the New both as to doctrine and matters of fact That which hath betrayed them into this mistake seems to have been the want of distinguishing between the internal and external state of the Church for want of which they confound them and make that which is but necessary to the Being of the Church as invisible to be so likewise to the Being of it as it is visible The Church being described in Scripture but as a little flock and that as our Saviour says there are but few which find the narrow way which leads to Life and enter in at the strait gate and because the qualification of those of the invisible Church who shall be saved as described in Scripture seems to agree but to a few of those who profess the Christian Religion and because the Church is but One hereupon they come to be persuaded that none are really and truly of the Church but such whose qualification agrees with their description to whom Salvation is indeed promised But as for others they esteem them no more to be true and real Members of the Church than wooden Legs and glass Eyes are Members of the Body of a Man But then there are Scriptures which must be considered likewise which have foretold of the coming of many whole Nations into the Church both Kings and their People and of the numerous increase of it when a little one shall become a thousand and a small one a strong Nation when the stone cut out of the mountain without hands shall fill the wole Earth when for number they shall say the place is too strait for me give place to me that I may dwell and the like for there are many such Predictions in Scripture Now unless they will say that whole Nations and those vast numbers forementioned are all of the Church as invisible which is more then they will or can say they must of necessity admit of a distinction of a two-fold state of one and the same Catholick Church the one external and visible the other internal and invisible And if this distinction be admitted then these Predictions concerning the vast extent of the Church will be fairly reconcileable to those other Scriptures which speak of it in a more contracted and limited sense without which they seem irreconcileable For what some Scriptures speak touching the paucity or fewness of Church-members and what others say touching a far greater number of which the Church doth and will consist are both true in different respects the one in respect of the Internal and Invisible state of the Church the other in respect of that which is external and visible And this distinction is fairly justified by what our blessed Saviour hath said more than once to wit that many are called but few are chosen And if any should fancie that this twofold state of Church-members implies two Churches the one visible the other invisible there is no ground for it since those who are of the Church as invisible are the same Persons which are in external and visible Vnion and Communion with those who are of the Church only as visible and so make one Church with them But we cannot say they make one Church with these and another by themselves for then there would be two Churches indeed and yet of the same persons for a considerable part Considering then this twofold state of the Church it will not be difficult at all to conceive how and why a participation in the external priviledges of the Church does belong to all that are externally and visibly of it when yet a participation in the internal and invisible priviledges of it belongs only to those who are of the Church in respect of its invisible as well as visible state As there are different qualifications of persons of the same Church so there are different priviledges which belong to them accordingly external ones to them who are only externally qualified and both external and internal ones to them who are qualified for both Now this different state of the Church being so apparent as it is in Scripture as also that those who have but common grace and yet Baptized are really and truly of the visible Church I say the consideration of these things hath enclined me to touch upon several things which seem to render it very improbable at least that the Apostles should admit none into the Church by Baptism but such as they judged to believe so effectually as to be thereby Regenerate before they would Baptize them To what is said in my inquiries into these matters I shall here add a little more for our better Vnderstanding that case or question The question is whether it be probable that the Apostles admitted none into
me to fall somewhat hard upon such as separate from the publick Worship of God established in such Nations by National Authority in a way of National Reformation and on those more especially who separate from that Worship for that very reason because enjoyned by National Authority It likewise falls hard upon them also who disesteem or less esteem a National Ministry because it is National or made such according to a National establishment These seem to be of one mind and Almighty God of another when he esteems Nations to be joyned to him and to be his People by that for which they separate Their pretence that in the Apostles times and for three hundred years after the Affairs of the Church were carried on only in a free Congregational way in greater or lesser voluntary Associations and therefore they ought to be so now seems very inconsiderable Because what was done in that kind then was done by way of necessity because they had not opportunity of a better Not but that they long'd for and pray'd for such Kings as would use their Authority and Power for the propagation and furtherance of the Christian Religion as well as for the defence of it and the Professors of it And they esteemed it no small favour from God when at last they obtained it in Constantine a Christian Cesar who used that Power of his for the establishing the Christian Religion and Worship of the only true God and for the ordering and regulating many things relating to the more commodious and orderly carrying on the ministration of the Gospel and the Worship of God And therefore the people of God then existent in the Empire are brought in by the Spirit of Prophesie expressing themselves thus upon that occasion Now is come salvation and strength and the Kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ as I shew'd before Rev. 12.10 2. It may be justly questioned whether it be worth the while for men to dispute against the being of a National Church in New Testament times considering that in the New Testament Nations reformed from Paganism and Popery are stiled Gods Kingdoms And considering likewise that the Scripture stiles the same people and in the same respect sometimes the Kingdom of God and sometimes his Church And therefore it should seem no more improper to call a Christian Nation a Church of God than it is to call it a Kingdom of God which yet the Scripture stiles so 3. It may be observed yet farther That the Kingdoms or Nations which have been reformed from Popery were before such reformation was made but Kingdoms of this world notwithstanding much of what pertains to the Christian Religion was then owned and professed in them The Spirit of God by whom the book of Revelations was indited we see stiles them so in their unreformed state The Kingdoms of this world are become c. Yet they then in their unreformed state Worshipped the true God and his Son Christ Jesus They owned the holy Scriptures for the Word of God and used the same Creeds which the Reformed Churches themselves use and yet we see they are in that state stiled by the Spirit of God but Kingdoms of this world when as under their reformed state they are said to be the Kingdoms of God and of his Christ Like as Almighty God for the like reason esteemed the Nation of the Jews who had been his own Church and People but as Ethiopians unto him Amos 9.7 and told them by another Prophet Ye are not my people and I will not be your God Hos 1.10 For tho they had his Ordinances among them and boasted of their Temple-Worship crying The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord are these yet at the same time they burnt Incense unto Baal and walked after other Gods Jer. 7. they divided their Worship between the true God and Baal and did swear by the Lord and by Malcham Zeph. 1.5 And upon this account it was that God said of them by his Prophet they are unto me as a speckled bird of a Religion of several colours Jer. 12.9 For this spiritual Whoredom especially it was that Almighty God who had once espoused that people to himself gave them a Bill of Divorce at last brake up house turned them out of doors and sent them out of his Land untill they should repent and reform And if we compare these things with the spiritual whoredom wherewith Mystical Babilon is charged and for which with other heinous crimes she is threatned in this Book of Revelations it will not be at all hard to conceive why Nations while Popish are stiled and esteemed but Kingdoms of this world And this if there were no other is argument enough to prevail with all such as would not be disowned by God to be none or to become none of their Communion who are thus disowned by him And thus we have seen how both from the light and law of Nature the reason of the thing and from divine Revelation also the great expediency at least of the publick exercise of Gods Worship in the way of National establishment is warranted and approved of This then may be a caution to men who live in any such reformed Nation as we have discoursed of and as ours is to take heed of acting in matters Ecclesiastical or pertaining to Church Communion as if they lived in a Popish or Pagan Nation by disowning and by separating from the National way of Worship lest thereby they discountenance and disparage what God approves of and disown that for which God owns such a Nation for his Kingdom It is true the Primitive Christians who lived in Pagan Countries and those since which have lived in Popish have been necessitated in duty to be separate in their Christian Communion from their National Worship as much as they were obliged not to be Idolaters But there is a great difference between false Worship and defects in that which is true The best Church Constitution and the best Church Administration which have men not divinely inspired for the ordering of them are liable to humane defects And if humane defects even in Gods Worship were not to be endured for the sake of Communion in the Worship it self there could no such thing as Church Communion be enjoyed among Christians because we cannot say there is any in this imperfect state in which we are without defects But then the question will be what defects are to be indured in Gods Worship rather than Communion in it should be forsaken and what are intolerable and for the sake of which Communion in the Worship is to be declined And here it seems to me impossible warrantably to determine any defects intolerable which do not alter the nature of the Worship and make it become false Worship that do not destroy or defeat the ends for which true Worship serves Who is he that will undertake to determine for what defects which
if the whole Church were of one heart and one soul as they were at the first in matters of their Communion 3. Catholick Communion consisteth also in the mutual assistances which Christians give to and receive one from another couched in that one word Fellowship in the description of Catholick Communion Acts 2.42 And they continued stedfastly in the Apostles Doctrine and Fellowship c. The same word which in our Version is here translated Fellowship is by the Dutch in their Version translated Communion And according to Dr. Hammond it signifies both to communicate and to participate to distribute and to receive So that according to the nature of Christian Communion every Member of the whole Church is or ought to be useful and serviceable to the whole Community of Christians in general and to every Christian in particular so far as they can in the place and rank in which the Providence of God hath set them The which if duly observed by all as it ought to be the same persons that thus communicate and contribute assistance to others would be receiving back again from the whole and from every Member in particular the like succour service and assistance as opportunity serves as they themselves had contributed to them As a Christian is to serve every fellow-Christian so according to the same Law every one is to serve him This is that the Apostle means when he says By love serve one another Gal. 5.13 And this giving and receiving assistance the same Apostle calls communicating with him Phil. 4.15 If this Catholick Communion were but duly maintained among all Christians how like a heaven upon earth would the Catholick Church be And how happy would they be even now for the present that are of it And how would the Inhabitants of the world that are not of it then flow into it And yet for Christians thus to exchange Offices of love with one another is nothing more than what we are all obliged to by the Royal Law of Love Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self For if I am hereby bound to love every Neighbour as my self so is every Neighbout obliged by it to love me as they love themselves And how delightful a commerce would this be if the Christian Church were but so happy as to hit on it The particular duties and offices of love in which this part of Christian Communion does consist are such as these the instructing and exhorting one another the watching over and admonishing one another the strengthening the feeble minded the visiting and comforting the afflicted the relieving one anothers wants the bearing on anothers burdens the having the same care one for another and the like Together with these we may reckon the yielding and allowing to every one the liberty of sharing in the common priviledge of enjoying Communion in Gospel-Ordinances and Worship so long as they have not made themselves uncapable of it by drawing on themselves deservedly the Censures of the Church nor are otherwise naturally uncapable of the end and use for which those Ordinances or any of them were ordained as little Children seem to be in reference to the Lords Supper THus much briefly touching the nature of Catholick Commumunion Come we now to enquire how and by what means it may best be preserved There are two Bonds which the Scripture mentions by which Christians are bound and knit together in one Communion the bond of Charity and the bond of Peace 1 The bond of Charity Above all these things put on Charity which is the bond of perfectness Col. 3.14 Charity is a bond which knits and unites mens hearts together and makes them one in affection knit together in love as as it is exprest Col. 2.2 and while they be so it can hardly be but that they will be one in Communion This was that which made the Catholick Church in its beginning to be all of one heart and one soul as it is said the multitude of them that believed were Acts 4.32 And that was the reason doubtless why they continued stedfastly in their Communion in the Apostles Doctrine and Fellowship and in breaking of bread and prayer Charity we see is called the bond of perfectness for the Church is in a kind of perfect state in her Communion so long as the Parts and Members of it are knit together in one Communion by love made perfect in one as our Saviour expresseth it Joh. 17.23 And the Union in Communion which is made by love is Union in its perfection nothing unites Christians so entirely and firmly as love does If Christians love one another in the truth and for the truth sake which dwelleth in them as St. John speaks this Love and Union by Love will last there will be no failure in the oneness of Communion until there be first a failure in love Charity must needs unite and knit Christians together in one Communion because it is the Principle from which the particular acts of Christian Fellowship fore-mentioned do spring a great part of the acts of Christian Communion are nothing else but offices of brotherly love and by these Christians take fast hold one of another Charity in its own nature is communicative of the good it has and the good it can do and by that it does attract and draw others to a nearer conjunction with those in whom it dwells Charity is the Arms of the Christians inner man by which they imbrace one another though absent Love is of a winning nature it gains upon others that stand at a distance If a Principle of love be in the heart it will season a mans speech and enable him to speak the truth in love according to St. Pauls direction And the truth spoken in love will sooner reconcile than the strongest Arguments when mixt with bitterness of Spirit A tongue of love is Solomons tongue of health it will heal wounds when another tongue does but make them And therefore with great reason did St. Paul call upon the Church of Corinth to do all their things with Charity and spent a whole Chapter upon them to persuade them to it as an effectual means to cure the divisions into which they were unhappily fallen Again Charity covereth a multitude of sins 1 Pet. 4.8 and by that means among other it keeps Christians from flying asunder and dividing in their Communion which many times takes its first rise from very small matters when they meet with an evil mind that will aggravate and make the worst of things and seek out matter to make the breach wider But Charity is not apt to spie faults or to pick quarrels nor to aggravate and make the worst of things nor to harbour jealousies or evil surmises out of which breaches are wont to grow but it will over-look mens weakness mistakes and inadvertencies as believing they do not proceed from an evil mind And if any thing be amiss love will take notice of all the extenuating circumstances in the
Publick Worship at least in part should be performed by a Liturgy appears by their having ordered that so it should be And this ought to weigh much with humble and modest men remembring what St. Paul hath said in another case to shew what esteem ought to be had of the Usages and Customs of the Churches of God If any man seem contentious we have no Such Custom neither the Churches of God 1 Cor. 11.16 2. To satisfie yea to convince such as are under a prejudice against worshipping God by the use of our English Liturgy that there is no such difference as they fancy between the worshipping God according to that in conjunction with Pulpit Worship and that way of Worship which they so much prefer before it I shall offer this to their consideration viz. That there have as worthy men for Piety and Learning both Conformists and Non-conformists as perhaps ever England bred lived and died in Communion in that Whorship which has been performed by our English Liturgy from the beginning of the Reformation downward And we may well conclude that their Souls would never have prospered and flourished so as no mens more if there had been any such difference as some men imagine between the way of their Communion and that of others Men do not gather Grapes of thorns nor Figs of thistles That the souls of many prosper no better under it proceeds not from the nature of the provision for them but from their own gross neglect both of it and of themselves who doubtless would be such as they are whatever the manner of Worship is in the places where they live 3. If we have in the place where the providence of God hath set us means of worshipping God publickly competently useful and sufficient to the ends of such Worship tho it should in some respects be inferiour to some other yet if we can have no better without breaking Order and running into confusion nor without breaking one Commandment to observe another nor without making our selves guilty of an unlawful separation and all the dreadful consequences of it we may be said to worship God in the best manner we can tho we content our selves with this provided we be not wanting to improve it the best we can to its end And the reason is because we then perform the best Worship we can that will consist with edification Publick Order and the peace of the Church and a Worship wherein all these concur does best answer to general Rules for the manner of Publick Worship taken together 4. For men to separate from Parochial Communion in the Worship performed according to the Liturgy to the end God may be worshipped by them after a better manner in separate Assemblies is to do evil that good may come of it unless they can prove a necessity so to separate or to sin For that to separate without such a necessity is to do evil is a Protestant Maxim assented to on all hands among them And that they are under no such necessity as to sin if they do not so separate I have shewed before by shewing that the said Worship is neither corrupt in the essence of it nor is the external manner of performance of it deficient as to its end and use one of which must be proved against it before separation from it can be justified 5. By such a separation as that we speak of men really do much more disservice to God and the great concerns of Religion and the Souls of men than they can with any colour of reason pretend that by worshipping God without the Liturgy they honour him or Religion or advantage the Souls of men The effects of such a Separation are very visible which do too naturally flow from it such as the destruction of Peace Charity and Humility the engendering of Envy Hatred Strife and Contention to the great reproach of Religion and dishonour of Almighty God and the hurt of mens Souls But how these great evils can be pretended to be counter-ballanced by their Worship being performed without the Liturgy I understand not but do take it to be a matter past doubt that the benefit which those that separate get by their Communion without a Liturgy over and above what they might have gained by Communion where that is used will never equal the hurt they draw upon themselves and others and the wrong they do to Religion by their separation And if not then when ever the account comes to be made up and their loss to be compared with their gain they will be found exceeding great losers by their separation notwithstanding all the advantages they promised themselves by it Thus far to shew that there is no just cause of separating from Communion in the Worship performed by the Liturgy every Lords day As for the gesture of kneeling in the act of receiving the Lords Supper so much hath been written to prove it no sin and so little that looks like an Argument to prove the contrary that if men of understanding would but lay aside prejudice and impartially compare and consider what hath been said on both sides I cannot think that after this any could be long without satisfaction touching the lawfulness of complying with publick Order in that matter especially considering how much is declared at the end of the Office for administration of the Lords Supper in the Liturgy to clear that gesture in that action from all suspicion of Bread-worship more than in the Liturgy in use in the old Non-conformists days when they scrupled it But if any after they have done thus shall not for all that be satisfied yet that can be no more an Argument to them than it was to the old Non-conformists why they should not hold Communion in the rest of the Lords-day Worship as they did and not only so but pressed it also on others as their duty to do so and zealously inveyed against separation from it as a great evil as their Writings do abundantly shew And that for such to hold Communion with their Brethren so far as they can is plain matter of duty I have shewed before And in case they should thus hold Communion in the other parts of Worship they need no more to live without the use of the Lords Supper than the old Non-conformists did since I doubt not but they know how to be therein accommodated as well as they did and as they were And so for Baptism in case they cannot be active in the use of the Cross after it yet they may be passive in as much as it is not used as any sign of Gods conveying grace as Sacraments are but only as a token of duty nor as any Rite in Baptism neither but only in receiving the Persons baptized into the Church after they are baptized and seems to be no more ground of scruple than laying the hand upon and kissing the Book in swearing is which is a piece of Divine Worship which none scruple