of the Creation doth do them as long as that wherein the vital Substance of Religion consists is preserv'd You having prov'd that a causeless Separation from the Church is highly Schismatical wherein we do not oppose you in the Theorie but in the Application of your Doctrin in which you all along beg the Question you tell us That for Separatists to set up opposite Churches and Officers is a degree of Sin much worse than Separation it self And we will say as you do when once you have prov'd the Separation to be Causeless But till then we hope your Christian Charity will allow us to provide for our own Souls that we may not be as Sheep without a Shepherd when we are either unjustly cast out by you or most justly separated from you And if you will not allow us this we will bless God and thank our more merciful Governours that do allow us without your Leave so to do Lastly You proceed to a yet higher Degree of Schism viz. When they that are engag'd in it constitute Officers without Authority or take to themselves Pastors that have no lawful Mission or real Ordination This is another of your orthodox Hypotheses which it is a thousand Pities that it should be dishonour'd by a Miss-application Sir We are as little for Uncommissionated Preachers and Self-intruders into the ministerial Office as You. Tho' bare Mission without Ministerial Qualification make but an Idol-Shepherd and wherein the Church of England is more deeply concern'd than perhaps you are willing to own yet Qualification without a rightly deriv'd Comission makes but a Thief or a Robber So that herein You and We agree in Thesi But when on this Head you apply to Us and to our Ministers that tragical Story of Korah and his Complices we cannot take it so kindly of you tho' you are not the first Man that in great Wrath hath thrown this heavy Stone at our Heads however we have not been hitherto hurt by it The History of the Case we need not repeat the Principles by which they were acted notwithstanding their popular Pretensions were Seditious and sacrilegiously Rebellious and the Judgment of God on them and their Followers as Just as it was Dreadful But before your Charity had apply'd this dismal Story and Guilt to Us and to our Teachers you ought to have drawn a true Parallel of the Case and have pro'd that our Ministers have no more Call nor Right to the Gospel-Ministry than Korah and his Company had to the Priesthood and that God hath set as strict Bounds about your English Episcopacy as it is now Established exclusively of all others as he then had done about Moses and the Aaronical Priesthood And till this be done there is no Man of sober Thought but must suspend his Judgment on us Out of this Preamble you lead us to your third Section where you tell us You are now come to our Case for indeed we think you have hitherto been far enough from it here then we hope for a fair Trial may we but be determin'd by what is written in that Book out of which both You and We must shortly be judged And in Order to our Conviction you are pleas'd to mind us how nearly it concerns us to enquire I. Whether we have not contracted the guilt of Schism in our Separation from the Church of England II. Whether we have not increased this Guilt by setting up opposite Churches and Officers or joyning with them III. Whether our Pastors have any just Title to the Ministry Sir Had we not to the best of our Power and Skill with the greatest Diligence and Sincerity enquir'd into all these Things long before this Day we had acted very precipitantly and dangerously but yet such an Admonition as this however design'd shall never be out of Season with us But seeing you offer your Interrogatories not in the form of an Enquiry but of an Indictment we are ready to answer to each Article in our just Defence 1. The first Article of our Indictments runs thus That we have contracted the Guilt of Schism by our Separation from the Church of England that is to wave all Disputes about the Ambiguity of the Word what you are pleas'd to call the Church of England Tho' we have varied your Form of Speech we have done you no wrong it being a known Rule in Rhetorick that a Negative Interrogation is but a more vehement Affirmation And to convict us of the Schism you charge us with you plead thus Was your Communion with it lately Lawful and have any new Terms been added to make it cease to be so Or was Conformity then a Duty and is it now become a Sin This you take to be a Dead Blow which must needs convince us and make us cry Guilty or stop our Mouths for ever But be not too Consident before you have heard our Defence 1. By way of Concession you shall have all that you here suppose that you may see we are not froward 1. That we once thought our Communion with your Church of England Lawful we grant for had we not been so perswaded we had been self-condemn'd by our own Practice Yet whatever our private Thoughts were once of it that was not it that could make the thing to be in it self either Lawful or Unlawful our private Judgment being only a Rule to our selves And if we were therein mistaken thro' our Weakness or any Prejudices of our Education we hope you will allow us the Liberty of rectifying our Judgments upon better Information of which if you think us uncapable what do all your Arguings with us signify But 2. We will grant you yet a little more that we are still of the same Opinion that it is Lawful to Communicate with the Church of England i. e. that it is not absolutely and in it self Sinful so to do But then we hope that if your Charity will not your Logick must grant us that what is to be consider'd but as simply Lawful is Matter of Liberty and not of Necessity We say Liberty granted us by the Nature of the Thing without any Relation to what the Government hath pleas'd so much to your regret to grant us But where we are thus at Liberty to Censure us for using it is Inhumanity 3. If this be not yet enough to please you we will grant a little more we once thought the Conformity you contend for i. e. our Lay-Conformity to be our Duty nor have we repented of these our Thoughts to this Day nor acted any thing that is inconsistent with them We hope the Ingenuity of your cultivated Reason will allow at least in Thesi that what is a Duty at one Time and under some Circumstances is not always so at another Time and under other Circumstances This you must grant or you know with what a Crowd of senseless Absurdities you will be pester'd and of which you will not be able to rid your self Now having
say in behalf of our Ministers must be referr'd to your Third and most consequential Article of our Indictment as its more proper Place and which we are now next to enter on and it runs thus III. That the Pastors we have chosen have no lawful Call to the Ministry This indeed if it could be prov'd were enough to convict both Vs and Them for Schismaticks Those Dissenters that think themselves unconcern'd in this Matter we are not now to answer for nor are we concern'd in what you say of them And as for the Philadelphians we know not what they are expecting but might we once see the Church of England reform'd according to the Scriptures we would expect a better Clergy than most of them now are I. The Ministers whom we profess to own and to follow you confess to have had some of them Episcopal Ordinations and others only Presbyterial Of the former you are willing to allow for the Honour of your own Church not only the validity of their Ordination but an eminency of Personal Abilities but in the exercise of their Abilities you fancy that they are some of those of whom Ignatius says they serve the Devil and your great Reason is not that they are Men of debauched and scandalous Conversation or of false and corrupt Doctrin but because they refuse to obey their Ordinary as you say they solemnly promis'd to do that is you think they have broken their Oath of Canonical Obedience To this we answer for them that if any of 'em have inconsiderately enslav'd themselves and betray'd the Liberties of the Church by an Oath or Promise to any Man Ordinary or Extraordinary to obey them any further than the Apostle requir'd to be obey'd by the Churches 1 Cor. 11.1 viz. as far as he himself obey'd or followed Christ we think 't is time for them to repent of such an Oath And whereas you tell us They can't expect a blessing on their Work while they continue in the Breach of such an Engagement We have as great Reason to think they can't expect a Blessing in keeping it at least being now perswaded of the Evil of it But yet our Charity obliges us to believe that they took that Oath in no larger Sense than is consistent with the Rules of the Gospel and are sure that it is no otherwise binding to ' em And this we hope you will not call a new or strange Doctrin in the Christian Churches Neither is this to degrade all Bishops or to abrogate their Office or overthrow their Chairs as you with so ill Design suggest but to reduce them to that Scripture-Foundation on which alone they may be more gloriously and firmly Established We cannot but remark with how light a Touch you pass by the Foreign Protestant Churches as one that is afraid of burning his Fingers pretending to have nothing to do with them on a Supposition which you are willing to allow that you may so rid your Hands of 'em that their Call to the Pastoral Office was extraordinary for which you quote something out of Calvin and Beza tho' little to your Purpose In what Sense these Churches understand the extraordinariness of their Call they themselves are best able to inform you Did they ever any of them pretend to be rapt up into the third Heavens where Paul once was there to receive a new Call and Commission differing from what Christ and his first Apostles delivered to and left with the Churches By what Angel or Bathkol or Vision do they say this Extraordinary Call was given them When and on whom was it that the Holy Spirit came down in the Form of Cloven Tongues to Seal them a Commission to go out and Preach another Gospel and to lay a new Foundation of the Gospel Ministry Can you bring us any Tidings of any thing like this out of their Writings or if you could would you not easily answer it by Gal 1.8 But how far are they from such vain Dreams as these Mons Turretin will tell you in what Sense they take their Call to have been Extraordinary Turretin de Necessâ—ria Secessione 〈◊〉 Eccles Rom. p. 228. Si Ordinarium dicitur quod Ordini primitus divinitus instituto est Consentaneum potest dici nostra Vocatio Ordinaria sed si equivoce pro eo sumiâ—ur quod inveterata consuetudine qualiscunque illa sit publice est acceptum extraordinaria dicenda erit quia plurimum abfuit ab ea Consuetudine More qui in Ecclesia Romana inoleverat If Ordinary be taken for that which is agreeable to the Order of Primitive and Divine Institution then our Call is Ordinary but if it be taken equivocally for that which is by long Custom of any kind commonly receiv'd then may it be call'd Extraordinary because so very different from that use and manner which had so long obtain'd in the Church of Rome You see now in what Sense they take their Call to be Extraordinary The Deliverance of the Church out of Mystical Egypt and Babylon was indeed an Extraordinary Deliverance but their Call to the Ministry was the Ordinary Call of the Gospel that Spirit of Wisdom Faith Patience Zeal Self denyal by which they were divinely influenced in their Reformation was Extraordinary and it had been better for the Church of England if her's had not been in this respect too Ordinary In the same Sense as the Reformation of Johosaphat Hezekiah and Josiah was Extraordinary in comparison of that of some other Good Kings who are noted for sparing the High Places so may the Call of these Foreign Churches be said to be Extraordinary M. Claud History of the Reformation Part 4. p. 86. 89. but that they acted by the ordinary Rule of the Holy Scriptures and the Practice of the Primitive Church they constantly affirm O Sir How poor an Escape have you endeavour'd to make this way that you may seem to be a little more Courteous to Foreigners than to your own Country-Men how pitiful a Go by is this and as foreign to Calvin's Sense as these Churches are to Your's What a strain will it cost you now to deliver your self from the Hornes of this Dilemma either to acquit Vs of what you have charg'd us with or condemn all the Protestant Churches in the World that are not of your Constitution and Communion And Excommunicate us all as Heathens and Hereticks that have no Gospel-Ministry nor Ordinances among them as the Church of Rome doth whom you hereby justify in all their Persecutions and barbarous Severities against them which looks very ill in a Protestant especially at such a Time as this But that our Ministers have not taken upon them the sacred Function in a new Way that was never approv'd in ancient Times shall be prov'd as you demand by a sight of their Patent and Commission if you have Eyes to read it in its proper Place II. Next you prepare to bring on your Tryal against a
if a Company withdraw themselves from it and shake off all Dependance on it and Communion with it all Communion if you speak this to us you must mean all outward Communion in those Ceremonious Acts of Worship and Matters of Discipline that lie in Controvesie betwixt us they cannot be of the same Body that they deserted And then it must needs follow That Your Church being Politically in Communion with the CATHOLICK and Ours out of Communion with you we are but as so many dead Branches that have lost their Union with the Body and all the Influxes of Life from the Head How gladly then would you see us in the Fire that you may warm your selves by us Sure 't is well for those of us you are so angry with that the Act De Haroticis comburendis is repeal'd But this Inference of yours you pretend to illustrate by several pat Instances The Empire of Persia you say was one Body under Darius but was not so when divided into several Kingdoms under the Successors of Alexander Very critically observ'd when thus divided they were not One particular Political Body as before yet were they true parts of One and the same Universal World still tho' divided into particular National Polities yet united still in all the common Interests of Human Nature and Society So a City is one Body but the Colonies that issue out from it and are form'd into other Cities under their own proper Laws and Jurisdiction cannot be Numerically and perhaps are not Specificially one Political Body yet they are one Kingdom and govern'd by the same common Laws and Statutes of the Kingdom And what the Kingdom is the worse for this Variety or Diversification of particlar Political Forms no Man can tell Nay suppose this Separation be made by a Revolt or Dislike of the Constitution of the Government of the City or of their Manners and Formalities and without the Publick Consent we hope this will not Out-law them nor Disfranchize them of any of their National Privileges and Rights as long as they behave themselves with due Loyalty to their Sovereign and peaceably to their Fellow-Subjects Now you say a Church hath this Communion with a City and with all Corporations Very true so the Church at Jerusalem was once the Vniversal Church and Gospel Metropolis But if all those particular Churches that have been separated from it into Political Bodies not only Numerically but Specifically distinct under their own Laws and Forms of Government Worship and Discipline and different from that of the first Mother-Church from which they issued be no more Churches because of these different outward Communions wherein they are not one with the first Church nor with one another then it must needs follow that You are no more a Church of Christ than We and so you have thus far set us on even Ground with your selves nor hath any one need to renounce the use of the Words or affront the common Sense of Mankind to draw this Conclusion from your Premises 2. You plead from a supposed Inconsistency it hath with Church Government and its Destructiveness of the Church it self and a vain excuse you say 't will be for Men to say that they are at an Agreement with the Church in Doctrin while by their Divisions they are tearing the Church in Pieces And this you are at the Pains to Illustrate by Comparisons Military Civil and Domestick as if it were an hard Matter to beat this Notion into Mens Heads But when all is done you won't imagine how little We think our selves concern'd in it for you have granted us and we cannot forget it that it must be a Causeless Separation or else it is not what you are declaiming on therefore till it appear that our Separation from the Church of England is Causeless we are not the Persons that are like to be hurt by your Arrows And as for our Officers by whose Conduct we are guided in the Matters of God and of our Souls they are neither Mutinous nor Seditious nor Self-Intruders as by your Comparisons you would Insinuate but generally as well qualify'd and altogether as lawfully call'd and commission'd and as fully invested with the ministerial Office according to the Rules of the Holy Scriptures as any of your Selves as we have already prov'd so that this Argument you may now lay aside among your broken Weapons till you find a proper Occasion for it 3. You argue from its Inconsistency with the Notion of Schism as it is express'd in the Holy Scripture i. e. If the Scripture Notion of Schism were the same with Yours And for this your only Instance is the Schism that was once in the Church of Corinth where every one said I am of Paul or I of Apollas or I of Cephas But this Faction among the Disciples at Corinth you told us in your second Section was but a Schism within the Church not from it and therefore will not give us the full Notion of Schism according to your own apprehension of it But we will let this pass for an Impertinence having already granted you more than this Instance can pretend to prove viz. that Oneness in Doctrin is not always enough to justify a Separation from outward Communion 'T is in your misapplying it to us that your great Mistake lies supposing that our Separation from you is as Causeless as were the Factious Divisions of those in the Church of Corinth which is the Thing that 's yet to be prov'd But it seems to us by the Tenour of your Discourse from top to bottom that let a Church be what it will either as to its Constitution or its individual Members ever so Corrupt in Doctrin Superstitious in Worship or Filthy in Conversation and degenerated from Scripture Rules and Institution yet while they hold together in outward Communion as the Church of Rome hath done both before and since the Protestant Reformation there is nothing in it that deserves the Name of Schism or that will justifie a Seperation from it Pray tell us plainly whose Cause it is you are pleading under the Name of the Church of England Have you never consider'd the Differences that there were in the Apostle's Days between the Churches of the Christian Jewes and those of the Gentiles in respect of Rites and Ceremonies and outward Communion and don 't you know to what a height these Differences were kept up by the Churches that were still so fond of their old Way that there was no Uniting them in this Point That Paul for his Non-Conformity to 'em could not shew his Face among 'em at Jerusalem without danger of his Life Have you not read what a feud there was once between Him and Peter on this Account Gal. 2.11 12 13 14. And how much ado the Apostle Paul had to preserve the Churches of the Gentiles from being bigotted to their Superstitions Now pray tell us whether the Church at Jerusalem or that at Antioch were the