obliged to take notice of it as she will be faithful to her Trust in securing her Body from the like Divisions for the future Thus the Donatists took the first occasion for their Schism from the pretended Personal Faults of Caecilian and his Ordainers This whilst it was a particular Case went no farther than that particular Schism But when it turned into a general Doctrine that Personal Faults were sufficient to justifie Separation then it laid a Foundation of frequent Schisms as often as any Criminals got into Places of Trust and either Evidence was wanting or themselves too powerful to be contested with Then it concerned Ecclesiastical Governours to condemn this Doctrine that encouraged even Men of Conscience to divide designedly and frequently And when that Doctrine was thus condemned by the Church and was notwithstanding maintained by the Donatists as a Principle on which they subsisted as an opposite Communion it then became a Character of a Party to maintain it and from that time forward the Donatists were reckoned among Hereticks as well as Schismaticks For this was the true Notion of Heresie in those Ages as contradistinct from Schism Both of them supposed a Division of Communion or tended to it But that Division was called Schism which only broke the Political Vnion of the Society without any difference of Principles as when Thieves or Robbers transgress their Duties without any pretence of Principles authorizing them to do so So whilst Resentment alone was the reason that made Subjects separate from the Communion of their Ecclesiastical Governours or whilst Ambition alone made any to invade the Office of his Bishop and to erect an opposite Communion this was Schism properly so called as contradistinct from Heresie But when the Schism is patronized by Doctrines and justified as well done and consistently with Conscience such Divisions besides their being Schismatical were Heretical also in the sense of the Ancients and such Doctrines as Characteristical of a distinct Communion were properly called Heresies On this account the same Doctrine of the original Identity of Bishops and Presbyters was no Heresie in S. Hierome who notwithstanding kept Communion with the Bishops of the Jurisdictions he lived in and yet was Heresie in Aaerius when upon account of that pretended Identity he presumed to pay no more Duty to the Bishops of the respective Jurisdictions than he would have done to single Presbyters This is the most agreeable account of the Heresies not only in Philastrius but in other more judicious Collectors of Catalogues of Heresies And it is very agreeable with the Notion of that Term among the Philosophers from whom the Christians derived it All Notions that were proper and characteristical to particular Schools among them made Heresies not those which were received n common among them Answerably whereunto those Differences only in Opinion made Heresies in the Church which were the Notes of different Communions not those which went no farther than Speculation I am very well aware how surprizing this will be to those who upon popular Opinions have used to believe no Opinion Heresie that was not against Fundamentals But if they will for a while lay aside their Prejudices they will possibly find this as slightly grounded as many other popular Opinions are The very distinction between Fundamentals and Non-Fundamentals is not that I know of ever taken notice of by the Primitive Christians either in the same or in equivalent Terms And if a Person will needs make a Breach on account of an Opinion it rather aggravates than diminishes his Guilt that the Opinion is of little consequence His own Will is more concerned in it that is his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and he is therefore more a Heretick and as Hereticks were more self-condemned Tit. 3.2 if even in his own Opinion the Matter for which he separates be not of any considerable Importance Even a Truth and a Truth that has great Evidence of its being so may make a Heresie if it be no way conducive nor disadvantageous to the good of Souls and yet the Person who maintains it will by no means endure Communion with those who are of another Mind He might have more pretence of Zeal tho' Mistaken if the Mistake on the Church's side did indeed concern Souls and seemed at least of dangerous consequence to them When he has not even that to pretend for himself who can impute his breaking on such accounts to any other Original than an assuming Imperiousness of Temper and a love of Contention which we generally acknowledge to be the principal Ingredients of Heresie Certain it is that such a Breach for Opinions tho' true yet of no consequence is highly culpable and destructive to that Vnity which Christ designed for his Church and the more culpable for that very reason that the Opinion is of little consequence Yet it cannot properly be called Schism which is only a Breach like those which fall out frequently in Secular Affairs when Men fall into Parties on account of a Temper ungovernable or ambitions without any proper difference of Opinion and Doctrine And it being no Schism what can we call it in the Discipline of the Church if it be not Heresie These Opinions therefore which are not otherwise Heretical on account of the Nature of the Opinions themselves do then begin to be Heretical when they begin to be characteristical of distinct Communions And that they do not only when Men designedly separate from others on that very account because they are not of the same Opinions but also when they venture on such Practices on account of their singular Opinions wherein others cannot communicate with them for that very reason because they cannot join with them in those their singular Opinions Then plainly the differing in such Opinions makes a difference of Communion unavoidable and therefore the Opinions themselves in such a Case as this is are Signals of different Communions which will come under the charge of Heresie as contradistinct from Schism in the Notion now described of the Primitive Church Thus had S. Hierome proceeded as far as Aerius in the Practice of his Opinion concerning the Original Identity of Bishops and Presbyters and had thereupon broken himself off from his Duty to the Bishop of the Diocese and by that means either made or countenanced a Schism which he had never countenanced but on account of this Doctrine of his which he held in Common with the Aerians that Doctrine had been Heresie in him as well as the Aerians So also Opiuions do then begin to be Treasonable when they are actually productive of Treasonable Actions Thus Latitudinarian Opinions in the Church do always weaken or dissolve the Obligation in Conscience to maintain the Church as a Society in a time of Persecution from the Civil Magistrate yet till that Case fall out and when Interest lies on the Church's side they often still keep one Communion who are for such Opinions and may continue in it while
there are any other Inducements to keep them in it besides those of Conscience Only it may perhaps be fit to be consider'd whether it be prudent to trust such Persons with the Management of the Government of the Church who have no Obligation of Principles or Conscience to maintain it as an independent Society or to suffer for it that is indeed who are never likely to maintain it in that very Case which was most in our Saviour's and the Apostles View that is of a Persecution But when they actually divide that Communion which they were never obliged in Conscience to maintain if they took the utmost Liberty their Latitudinarian Principles would afford them and when their lax Principles are the very grounds of their dividing the Communion without any remorse of Conscience for doing so when they are hereby emboldned to do those things which inevitably cause a Breach from those who cannot follow them in these very Principles This is the Case wherein these Principles are Characters of a distinct Communion and therefore by the Reasoning now mentioned become Heretical Especially the Principles being withall false not only in the Opinion of those from whom they have divided themselves but also of our earliest purest Ancestors even those of the Apostolical Age it self Yet I deny not but that in this Case of Heresie there is also regard to be had to the Momentousness of the Opinion it self Whoever sets up or abets a Communion opposite to that of the Church on account of Opinions is as I have shewn in the Judgment of the Primitive Church an Heretick and is the more not the less so if the Opinions be also frivolous But for such Opinions the Church would never have driven him out of her own Communion if himself had been pleased to have continued in it Her Judiciary Censures ought no doubt to be confined to Opinions Fundamental and of great Importance especially if an internal Assent be required and that under pain of Excommunication CHAP. IV. That the Church of Christ is a Society independent on any of the Powers of the World and its Spiritual Rights derived immediately from a higher Authority subject to none of them according to the Doctrine of the Catholick Church in the earliest Ages EVEN in the Age of St. Cyprian which is the ancientest we know of that an Anti-Bishop was set up against a Bishop in the same See it is 1st very notorious that they then owned no such Power of the Secular Magistrate to deprive Bishops of their purely Spiritual Power and that the Church as a Society distinct from the State subsisted on their not owning it even as to a Deprivation of their particular Districts and Jurisdictions It is notorious and as notorious as any one Tradition of the Catholick Church in those Ages not excepting that of the Canon of the New Testament it self that Christians then and not only then but in all the former Persecutions that had been from the times of the Apostles to that very Age did own themselves bound to adhere to their Bishops when it was notorious withall that those Bishops were set up and maintained against the Consent of the Civil Magistrate It is as notorious also that this Adherence of theirs was not only Matter of Fact which is all our Adversaries pretend here but a Duty owned by them as obliging in Conscience and as the result of Principles This appears not only by the unquestionable Sincerity of the Christians of those Ages who were generously influenced by no Considerations but those of Conscience not only by their Suffering those severe Penances imposed on them in order to their recovering the Bishop's Communion even when the Magistrate was against him which no other Considerations could recommend but only those of Conscience but from the Principles themselves insisted on in the Reasonings of St. Cyprian Such were these That all hopes of Pardon of Sin of the Holy Ghost of Eternal Life on Performance of Duty were confined to the visible Communion of the Church that their visible Communion with the Church could not appear but by their visible Communion with the Bishop as the Head of that Church and the Principle of its Unity that who that Bishop was to whom any particular Person owed his Duty was not then any otherwise distinguishable but by the visible Districts in which themselves lived and to which he was therefore supposed to have a Title whether the Magistrate would or no. It is also as notorious that these Reasonings were not then the sense of private Persons but the received sense of Christians in general and indeed Fundamental to that Catholick Communion which was then maintained where-ever there were Christians Not only every particular Christian of a Diocess did thus assure himself of his Right to Ecclesiastical Privileges by his Communion with the Bishop of that particular District but he was intitled also to Communion with all the other Bishops of the World and consequently with the Catholick Church in general by the communicatory Letters of the Bishop of his own particular District For it was by the mutual Obligation all Bishops of the World had to ratifie the Acts of particular Districts that he who was admitted a Member of one Church was intitled to the Communion of all and that he who was excluded from one was excluded from all others also because no other Bishop could justifie his Reception of a Christian of another Jurisdiction to his own Communion if he had not the communicatory Letters of his own Bishop Thus it appears that the Obligation even of particular Districts without Consent of the Magistrate was then Catholick Doctrine Whence it plainly follows that this Lay-deprivation which is all that can be pretended in the Case of our present Bishops is in the Principles of the Catholick Church in St. Cyprian's Age a perfect Nullity and consequently that in regard to Conscience at least our present Bishops are still Bishops and Bishops of those particular Districts as much as ever and the Obligations of the Clergy and Laity in those Districts as obliging to them now as ever And it thence follows 2dly that Anti-Bishops consecrated in Districts no otherwise vacated than by the Power of the Secular Magistrate are by the Principles of that earliest Catholick Church no Bishops at all but divided from the Church It is plain that Novatian was disowned as soon as ever it appeared that Cornelius was canonically settled in Fabian's Chair before him and disowned universally so universally that who-ever did not disown him was for that very reason disowned himself This is as clear as any Particular mentioned in our Adversaries Collection But we do not satisfie our selves with that It is also further as notorious that he was disowned by Principles obliging them in Conscience to disown him and those again not private Opinions but Principles also Fundamental to the Correspondence then maintained in the whole Catholick Church as the other were that we mentioned under the
Religion and the Catholick Church and the Souls of Mankind before the temporal Prosperity of any particular State and it is hard to conceive how any good Man can do otherwise could even wish such Opinions true tho' his Wish alone were sufficient to make them so How then is it agreeable that Clergy-Men of all Men should be the most favourable and zealous Advocates for such Opinions so manifestly destructive of those greatest Interests which they of all Men ought best to understand and to be most zealously concerned for How is it agreeable that they of all Men cannot be content to let the Memory of ill Presidents die but that they must alarm us with future Fears of having them acted again by not only Abetting but also Justifying them How is it agreeable that they should do this in a Prospect such as ours is of a Laity so little concerned for the Good of Religion and the Church when even they who have any Principles have such lax ones and so very little obliging them even in Conscience to venture any thing for any particular Communion That their preferring their Worldly Concerns depending on the Pleasure of the Magistrate before the greater Concerns of Souls and Eternity is the true Cause of it is not to be believed while there are any Reasons that might induce them to it Yet little Reasons cannot in Equity excuse when the Consequences ought to be so very valuable on that very account of Mens being either Good or Religious Much less when the Consequences of the Principles on which they proceed are such in respect to the Publick Interests even of their own Church as put it in the Power of a Popish or Schismatical Prince and even of a secret Infidel or Apostate to dissolve it when they please Suppose a Popish Prince with a Popish Parliament should turn their Principles that is the Principles of these Men against themselves and deprive all our Bishops with one Act of State I cannot see what these Fathers can pretend to secure their Church as a Society and as a Communion in Opposition to them They must ho longer pretend to Diocesses in England They must not pretend to any Obligation of their Protestant Clergy and Laity to stand by them even in Conscience They must therefore never pretend to Communions in those Diocesses which are plainly Exercises of Spiritual Authority in them Nor can they then justifie or even excuse any Assemblies for Religion when forbidden by the Civil Magistrate who is only supposed by these Principles to have also the Right to that Spiritual Authority by which alone they can be justified And are these the ways to secure our Religion against Popery No open Persecutions whatsoever can ever ruine us so effectually as these Doctrines will if ever we receive them Doctrines of our own will break our Vnion among our selves more than any of our Adversaries open Violencies CHAP. II. That the Church of Christ is not to be considered meerly as a Sect but as a Sacred Society and that its being a Society is a Fundamental Doctrine MEN amongst us in this and the last Age have hitherto considered the Church rather as a Sect than as a Society and have therefore usually had no regard to the Doctrines Fundamental to it as a Society if they did not withall concern it as a Sect and Antecedently to its being a Society But there seems very little Reason for their doing so if they will be pleased impartially to reflect on it It is very true its Notion as a Sect is antecedent to its being a Society because it is a Society into which Men find themselves obliged to enter by the Doctrines they must be supposed to believe if they own it as a Sect. But even thence it appears that the Doctrines which concern it as a Sect do withall make it necessary it should be a Society These two Considerations therefore are by no means to be separated Nay it hence appears that the Doctrines constituting it as a Sect do also by a near and unavoidable and evident Consequence make it a Society Thus therefore the Fundamentals of its being a Society will be included in that System of Doctrines which concern it as a Sect. And then what Matter is it that one of these Notions is antecedent and the other consequent Thus much at least will follow that there is no subverting it as a Society without subverting it also as a Sect because those very Doctrines which make it a Sect do also consequently oblige it to be a Society For my part I believe those Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation which all who believe any Fundamentals proper to the Christian Religion as Revealed by God do reckon among Fundamentals not to have been revealed for Speculation only but purposely to oblige Men to unite in it as a Society The Vnity in Trinity which is the principal thing insisted on in the Doctrine of the Trinity as revealed in the Scripture was purposely to let Men see the Extent of the Mystical Vnion to which they were intitled by the External Vnion with the visible Church that by partaking in the Orthodox Communion the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mentioned by St. John they had also a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the Father and the Son 1 John 1.3 For it was manifest they must also partake of the Spirit because he who had not the Spirit of Christ was none of his It was therefore supposed that by partaking of the Trinity we are made one Mystically and that by being united visibly to the Church we are intitled to that Mystical Vnion So whoever is united visibly to the Church is thereby if he be not wanting to himself in due Conditions united also Mystically to the Trinity and that whoever is divided externally from the Church is thereby also dis-united from this Communion and Vnion with the Trinity And what more prevaeiling Inducements could be thought of to oblige Men to keep in a Society So also the design of the Incarnation was by Christ's taking upon him our Body and our Flesh to make us also one Body and one Flesh with Him thereby to entitle our Bodies to a Resurrection but then our being one Body and one Flesh with Him depended on our being Members of the Church which is called his Body his Flesh his Bones We were to be Baptized into this one Body and become one Body by partaking of one Bread Which plainly shew that all the Benefits of the Incarnation are derived to us by our partaking of the Sacraments and therefore by our adhering inseparably to them who alone are authorized by God to administer them Thus plain it is that those very Fundamentals of our revealed Religion as revealed are revealed and designed for this purpose of making the Church a Society How can therefore our Adversaries make these Doctrines Fundamental if this be not Fundamental also that the Church was by God designed to be a Society This
may be added That the Catholick Church and particular States are by order of Divine Providence of different unequal and inconsistent Dimensions and That Particular States are many intire independent Bodies but all Particular Churches Members of One great Body and subject to the Supream and Vniversal Authority thereof Nor ought any State Prince or Emperor be admitted or reputed Christian who will not submit all their Authority to the Authority of Christ in his Kingdom upon Earth Which being the Chief of all Powers who-ever resists resists the Ordinance of God and shall receive to themselves Damnation Rom. 13.2 CHAP. VII Of the Authority of the Church of England and that the Authority of the Primitive Catholick Church is greater than that of any Modern Particular one and to be preferred before it THE last Refuge is Argumentum ad hominem a poor Cause indeed that is reduced to that which tho' tolerable as an Adjective with others more substantial yet cannot stand alone much less support such a Cause as this Two things are alleadged the Oath of Supremacy Deprivation of the Bishops in Q. Elizabeth 's time for refusing that Oath for Proof of the Doctrine of the Church of England in this case To all this in general our Author opposeth the Authority of the Church of Christ the Catholick Church of the Primitive Ages which the Church of England it self admits and having set out the Objection fully makes this Reply I should most heartily congratulate the Zeal of these Objectors for our Church were it really such as it is pretended to be But I can by no means commend any Zeal for any particular modern Church whatsoever in Opposition to the Catholick Church of the first and purest Ages We cannot take it for a Reformation that differs from that Church which ought to be the Standard of Reformation to all later degenerous Ages at least in things so essential to the Subsistence and Perpetuity of the Church as these are which concern the Independence of the Sacred on the Civil Authority Nor is it for the Honor of our dear Mother to own her Deviation in things of so great Importance from the Primitive Rule much less to pretend her Precedent for over-ruling an Authority so much greater than hers so much nearer the Originals so much more Universal so much less capable of Corruption or of Agreement in any Point that had been really a Corruption It is impossible that ever the present Breaches of the Church can be reconciled if no particular Churches must ever allow themselves the Liberty of Varying from what has actually been received by them since the Ages of Divisions the very Reception thereof having proved the Cause of those Divisions If therefore our modern Churches will ever expect to be again united it must be by Acknowledgment of Errors in particular Churches at least in such things as have made the Differences and which whilst they are believed must make them irreconcilable Such things could never proceed from Christ who designing his whole Church for One Body and One Communion could never teach Doctrines inconsistent with such Unity and destructive of Communion And why should a Church such as ours is which acknowledges her self Fallible be too pertinacious in not acknowledging Mistakes in her self when the Differences even between Churches which cannot all pretend to be in the Right whilst they differ and differ so greatly from each other are a manifest Demonstration of Errors in Authorities as great as her own Nor can any such acknowledgments of actual Errors be prejudicial to Authority where the Decisions of the Authority are to be over-ruled not by private Judgments but by a greater Authority And if any Authority be admitted as competent for arbitrating the present Differences of Communion between our modern Churches I know none that can so fairly pretend to it as that of the Primitive Catholick Church Besides the other Advantages she had for knowing the Primitive Doctrines above any Modern ones whatsoever she has withall those Advantages for a fair Decision which recommend Arbitrators She knew none of their Differences nor dividing Opinions and therefore cannot be suspected of Partiality And it was withall an Argument of her being constituted agreeably to the Mind of her blessed Lord that she was so perfectly one Communion as he designed her And the Acquiescence of particular Churches in her Decision is easier and less mortifying than it would be to any other Arbitrator To return to her is indeed no other than to return to what themselves were formerly before their Divisions or dividing Principles So that indeed for modern Churches to be determined by Antiquity is really no other than to make themselves in their purest uncorruptest Condition Judges of their own Case when they have not the like Security against Impurities and Corruptions I cannot understand therefore how even on account of Authority our late Brethren can excuse their pretended Zeal for even our Common Mother the Church of England when they presume to oppose her Authority to that of the Catholick Church and of the Catholick Church in the first and purest Ages I am sure we have been used to commend her for her Deference to Antiquity and to have the better Opinion of any thing in her Constitution as it was most agreeable to the Pattern of the Primitive Catholick Church CHAP. VIII Arch-Bishop Cranmer 's Opinion perfectly destructive of all Spiritual Authority and his Authority in these matters none at all FOR more particular Answer he first shews the Author and Original and so the Novelty of these pernicious Opinions in England and then answers to both the Allegations aforesaid the first not being very long and therefore recited in his own Words at length is as followeth In Henry the Eighth's time under whom the Oath of Supremacy was first introduced the Invasions of the Sacred Power were most manifest Yet so that even then they appear to have been Innovations and Invasions But who can wonder at his Success considering the violent ways used by him So many executed by him for refusing the Oath The whole Body of the Clergy brought under a Premunire for doing no more than himself had done in owning the Legatine Power of Cardinal Wolsey and fined for it and forced to Submissions very different from the sense of the Majority of them He did indeed pretend to be advised by some of the Ecclesiasticks as appears from several of their Papers still preserved But they were only some few selected by himself never fairly permitted to a freedom and majority of Suffrages And when even those few had given their Opinion yet still he reserved the Judgment of their Reasons to himself And to shew how far he was from being indifferent those of them who were most open in betraying the Rights of their own Function were accordingly advanced to the higher degrees in his Favour and were entrusted with the Management of Ecclesiastical Affairs None had a greater share in his