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A44476 A tract concerning schism and schismatiqves wherein is briefly discovered the originall causes of all schisme / written by a learned and judicious divine ; together with certain animadversions upon some passages thereof. Hales, John, 1584-1656.; Page, William, 1590-1663. 1642 (1642) Wing H278; ESTC R2860 21,883 35

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which you desire to be informed thus much in generall evidently appeares that all meetings upon an unnecessary seperation are to be so stiled so that in sense a Conventicle is nothing else but a Congregation of Schismatiques yet Time hath taken leave sometimes to fix this name upon good and honest meetings and that perchance not altogether without good reason for with publique religious meetings thus it fares First it hath been at all times confessed necessary that God requires not only inward and private devotion when men either in their hearts and Closets or within their privaet walls pray prayse confesse and acknowledg but he further requires all those things to be done in publique by troupes and shoales of men and from hence have proceeded publique Temples Altars formes of Service appoynted times and the like which are required for open Assemblies yet whilst men are truely pious all meetings of men for mutuall help of piety devotion wheresoever and by whomsoever celebrated were permitted without exception But when it was espyed that ill affected persons abused private meetings whether Religious or Civill to evill ends Religiousnesse to crosse Impiety as appeares in the Ethnick Elusinia and Bacchanalia and Christian meetings under the Pagan Princes when for feare they durst not come together in open view were charged with foule imputations as by the report of Christians themselves plainely appeares and Civill meetings many times under pretence of friendly and neighbourly visites sheltred treasonable attempts against Princes and Common-weales Hence both Church and State joyned and joyntly gave order for Formes Times Places of Publique meetings whether for Religious or Civill ends and all other meetings whatsoever besides those of which both time and Place are limited they censured for Routs and Riots and unlawfull Assemblies in the State and in the Church for Conventicles So that it is not lawfull no not for prayer ●earing for Conference for any other Religious office whatsoever for people to Assemble otherwise then by publique order is allowed neither may wee complaine of this in times of incorruption for why should men desire to do that suspitiously in private which warrantably may be performed in publique But in times of manifest Corruptions and persecutions wherein Religious Assembling is dangerous private meetings howsoever besides publique order are not only lawfull but they are of necessity and duty else how shall we excuse Meetings of Christians for publique Service in time of danger and persecutions and of our selues in Queene Maries dayes and how will those of the Romane Church amongst us put off the imputation of Conventicling who are knowne amongst us privately to assemble for Religious exercise against all established order both in State and Church For indeed all pious Assemblies in times of persecution and corruption howsoever practised are indeed or rather alone the lawfull Congregations and Publique Assemblies though according to forme of Law are indeed nothing else but Riots and Conventicles if they be stayned with corruption and superstition ANIMADVERSION Eightly and lastly you take away all superiority from Bishop's when you say they doe but abuse themselves and others that would perswade us that Bishops by Christs institution have any superiority over other men further then of reverence Where although you intended onely to speake against the superiority of one Bishop over another yet you seeme to take away not only all power of one Bishop over another but of a Bishop over a Presbyter yea of a Bishop over any other private man I cannot here intending brevity enter upō the dispute about the power of one Bishop ouer another or of the power of a Bishop over a Presbyter The former of which is no doubt confirmed by a long continued Ecclesiasticall power the latter by an Apostolicall But that a Bishop should not have any superiority over an ordinary lay-man seemes strange to mee Certainely our Saviour intended some power and authority unto Peter and the rest of the Apostles when he gave them the keyes and wisht them to open and shut to binde and loose whose successors Bishops are and though some make question whether they succeede them as Bishops yet none doubt but they succeede them as Pastors of the Church and thus have they power over lay-men S. Paul wills Timothy to command and teach 1. Tim. 4. 11. and in another place willeth others to obey those who had the oversight of them Heb. 13. 17. Now where there is commanding on the one side and obeying on the other there must needs be superiority But I could not have imagined this had been your meaning but for your proofes which followe For we have believed him that hath told us that in Christ Iesus there is neither high nor low and that in giving honour every man should be ready to preferre another before himselfe which saying cuts of all claime certainly of superiority by title of Christianity except men thinke that these things were spoken only to poore and private men Where you consider not that you run into an Anabaptisticall humor and take away all superiority in the common-wealth as well as in the Church and entrench upon the Scepter of the King as well as upon the Miter of the Bishop But your proofes are easily satisfied For the first though we finde not those very words in Scripture yet I suppose you aime at that place wherein it is said Wee are all one in Christ Iesus Gal. 3. 28. where the true meaning of the place is that as wee are Christians we are all one that is wee have all equally and alike beene partakers of Christ by baptisme as he saith vers. 27. as many of you as have beene baptized into Christ have put on Christ So that as members of Christ we are all one all make but one body of Christ Yet as amongst the naturall members of our bodies so amongst the mysticall members of Christ though they be all one as members being compared with the head yet being compared one with another S. Paul tels us there are more honourable and lesse honourable members 1. Cor. 12. 23. Your other place that we should in giving honour preferre one another teacheth humility but taketh not away superiority But you go on and tell us that nature and religion agree in this that neither of them hath an hand in this heraldry of Secundum sub supra whereas in it they both joyne hand in hand Nature acknowledgeth this heraldry that shee may avoyd ataxie and confusion And religion also for did not our Lord and Master acknowledge a Caesar and commanded us to give unto him that which belonged unto him to wit obedience subjection And doth not his Apostle S. Paul command that every soule should be subject to the higher power Rom. 13. 1. where you see this heraldry of sub supra is put downe in expresse tearmes and pray let us observe the Apostles reason why wee should thus be subject to the higher powers for saith he there is no power but of God the powers that be are ordained of God How heare I then that all this comes from composition and agreement of men amongst themselves But I spare to prosecute this doctrine any further least I should discover in it a very transcendent crime FINIS Lib. ad Her cap. 39. Artic. 20. Cap. 1. 2.
Church since the beginning at least since the originall of Episcopacy as now it is was never to admit at once more than one Bishop in one Sea and so far in this point have they been carefull to preserve unity that they would not have a Bishop in his Sea to have two Cathedrall Churches which thing lately brought us a book out of France De monogamia Episcoporum written by occasion of the Bishop of La●gres who I know not upon what fancy could not be content with one Cathedrall Church in his Diocesse but would needs have two which to the Author of that Work seeme to be a kind of Spirituall Polygamy it fell out amongst the Ancients very often sometimes upon occasion of difference in opinions sometimes because of those who were interessed in the choice of Bishops that two and sometimes more were set up and all parties striving to maintaine their owne Bishop made themselves severall Churches severall Congregations each refusing to participate with others many times proceeding to mutuall excommunications that is that which Cyprian cals Erigere Altare contra Altare to this doth he impute the originall of all Church disorders and if you read him you world thinke he thought no other Church tumult to be Schisme but this This perchance may plead some excuse for though in regard of Religion it selfe it matters not whether there be one or more Bishops in one Diocesse and sometimes two are knowne to have set at once for Epiphanius reckoning up the Bishops of Rome makes Peter and Paul the first and Saint Augustin acknowledgeth for a time he sate fellow Bishop with his predecessor though he excused it that he did so by being ignorant that the contrary had been decreed by the Councell of Nice yet it being a thing very convenient for the peace of the Church to have it so neither doth it any whit savour of vice or misdemeanor their punishments sleeps not who unnecessarily and wantonly goe about to infring it ANIMADVERSION Seventhly you come to Episcopall Ambition then which you say none hath caused more frequent more continuous more sanguineous Schismes It is very true indeed we shall read of many uproares and much bloudshed about the election of some Bishops for which you cannot so much accuse the Bishops as the factious furious and unruly multitude who eagerly pursue their severall humors and are violently carryed into extreames And therefore for the cure of this mischiefe the order and power of Bishops was not taken away but the choice of them you know was taken from the giddy multitude and translated unto the nomination and election of temporall Princes As for your story out of Socrates you should have done well to have put downe the place that your reader might have seene you have urged it to your owne advantage I shall set it downe plainly as I finde it in his proeme to his fift booke where Socrates intending to write an ecclesiasticall history and yet withall is willing to mingle amongst it temporall affaires makes three apologies for it First saith he that these warlike affaires might not be forgotten but come unto posterity for it seemes there were few or no historians in his time The second excuse is which you alledge for variety sake least the reader should be cloyed with perusing only Church affaires which is no more then if a man writing a story of a common-wealth should for variety and delight intermixe here and there businesses of the Church Not that the common-wealth was then more quiet then the Church but there were full as many troubles and tumults in that as in this Nay which may serve somewhat to excuse the unquietnesse of the Clergy it was caused through the disturbance of the common-wealth For that is Socrates his thirde and chiefest reason because by setting downe the affaires of the temporall estate we may knowe from whence these tumults amongst Bishops arose For when saith he the common-wealth was thus tossed up and downe with troubles and seditions with factions and divisions the estate of the Church and chiefest Church-men {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} as it were by a certaine kinde of Sympathy could not chuse but be infected with the same disease Besides suppose some Bishops then were factious and ambitious you should consider that this concerneth the persons of Bishops not their calling though I thinke you might have spared both Now what a vulgar and illogicall way is this through the sides of any mans person to wound his very calling And had our great writer of Bishops lives been as carefull to lay together all that makes for them as he hath been industrious to rake together all that makes against them he might have made his volumes swell twise as bigg TRACT But that other head of Episcopall Ambition concerning Supremacy of Bishops in divers Seas one clayming Supremacy over another as it hath been from time to time a great trespasse against the Churches Peace so it is now the finall ruine of it The East West through the fury of the two prime Bishops being irremediably separated without all hope of Reconcilement And besides all this mischiefe it is founded on a vice contrary to all Christian humility without which no man shall see his SAVIOUR for they do but abuse themselues and others that would perswade us that Bishops by CHRISTS Institution haue any superiority over other men further then of Reverence or that any Bishop is Superior to another further than Positive order agreed upon amongst Christians hath prescribed for we have beleived him that hath told us that in IESVS CHRIST there is neither high nor low and that in giving honour every man should be ready to preferre another before himselfe which saying cuts of all clayme certainly of superiority by title of Christianity except men thinke that these things were spoken only to poore and private men Nature and Religion agree in this that neither of them hath an hand in this heraldry of Secundum sub supra all this comes from Composition and agreement of men amongst themselves wherefore this abuse of Christianity to make it Lacquey to Ambition is a vice for which I have no extraordinary name of Ignominy and an ordinary I will not give it least you should take so transcendent a vice to be but triviall Now concerning Schisme arising upon these heads you cannot be for behaviour much to seek for you may safely communicate with all parties as occasion shall call you and the Schismatiques here are all those who are heads of the faction together with all those who foment it for private and indifferent persons they may be spectators of these contentions as securely in regard of any perill of Conscience for of danger in purse or person I keepe no account as at a Cock fight where serpents fight who cares who hath the better the best wish is that both may perish in the fight And for conventicles of the nature of