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power_n	ceremony_n	church_n	rite_n	2,845	5	10.3412	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61588	A rational account of the grounds of Protestant religion being a vindication of the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury's relation of a conference, &c., from the pretended answer by T.C. : wherein the true grounds of faith are cleared and the false discovered, the Church of England vindicated from the imputation of schism, and the most important particular controversies between us and those of the Church of Rome throughly examined / by Edward Stillingfleet ...	Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1665 (1665)	Wing S5624; ESTC R1133	917,562	674

most part yet living These are your assertions and because you seek not to prove them it shall be sufficient to oppose ours to them Our assertion therefore is that the Church and Court of Rome are guilty of this Schism by obtruding erroneous Doctrines and superstitious practises as the conditions of her Communion by adding such Articles of Faith which are contrary to the plain rule of Faith and repugnant to the sense of the truly Catholick and not the Roman Church by her intolerable incroachments and usurpations upon the liberties and priviledges of particular Churches under a vain pretence of Vniversal Pastourship by forcing men if they would not damn their souls by sinning against their consciences in approving the errours and corruptions of the Roman Church to joyn together for the Solemn Worship of God according to the rule of Scripture and practise of the Primitive Church and suspending Communion with that Church till those abuses and corruptions be redressed In which they neither deny obedience to any Lawful Authority over them nor take to themselves any other Power than the Law of God hath given them receiving their Authority in a constant Succession from the Apostles they institute no Rites and Ceremonies either contrary to or different from the practise of the Primitive Church they neither exclude or dispossess others of their Lawful Power but in case others neglect their office they may be notwithstanding obliged to perform theirs in order to the Churches Reformation Leaving the Supreme Authority of the Kingdome or Nation to order and dispose of such things in the Church which of right appertain unto it And this we assert to be the case of Schism in reference to the Church of England which we shall make good in opposition to your assertions where we meet with any thing that seems to contradict the whole or any part of it These and the like practises of yours to use your own words not any obstinate maintaining any erroneous Doctrines as you vainly pretend we averre to have been the true and real causes of that separation which is made between your Church and Ours And you truly say That Protestants were thrust out of your Church which is an Argument they did not voluntarily forsake the Communion of it and therefore are no Schismaticks but your carriage and practises were such as forced them to joyn together in a distinct Communion from you And it was not we who left your Church but your Church that left her Primitive Faith and Purity in so high a manner as to declare all such excommunicate who will not approve of and joyn in her greatest corruptions though it be sufficiently manifest that they are great recessions from the Faith Piety and Purity of that Roman Church which was planted by the Apostles and had so large a commendation from the Apostolical men of those first ages Since then such errours and corruptions are enforced upon us as conditions of Communion with you by the same reason that the Orthodox did very well in departing from the Arrians because the Arrians were already departed from the Church by their false Doctrine will our separation from you be justified who first departed from the Faith and Purity of the Primitive Church and not only so but thrust out of your Communion all such as would not depart from it as farr as you Having thus considered and retorted your Assertions we come to your Answers Nor say you does the Bishop vindicate the Protestant party by saying The cause of Schism was ours and that we Catholicks thrust Protestants from us because they call'd for truth and redress of abuses For first there can be no just cause of Schism this hath been granted already even by Protestants And so it is by us and the reason is very evident for it for if there be a just cause there can be no Schism and therefore what you intend by this I cannot imagine unless it be to free Protestants from the guilt of Schism because they put the Main of their tryal upon the justice of the cause which moved them to forsake the Communion of your Church or else you would have it taken for granted that ours was a Schism and thence inferr there could be no just cause of it As if a man being accused for taking away the life of one who violently set upon him in the High-way with an intent both to rob and destroy him should plead for himself that this could be no murther in him because there was a sufficient and justifiable cause for what he did that he designed nothing but to go quietly on his road that this person and several others violently set upon him that he intreated them to desist that he sought to avoid them as much as he could but when he saw they were absolutely bent on his ruine he was forced in his own necessary defence to take away the life of that person Would not this with any intelligent Jury be looked on as a just and reasonable Vindication But if so wise a person as your self had been among them you would no doubt have better informed them for you would very gravely have told them All his plea went on a false supposition that he had a just cause for what he did but there could be no just cause for murther Do you not see now how subtil and pertinent your Answer is here by this parallel to it For as in that case all men grant that there can be no just cause for murther because all murther is committed without a just cause and if there be one it ceaseth to be murther So it is here in Schism which being a causeless separation from the Churches Vnity I wonder who ever imagined there could be just cause for it But to rectifie such gross mistakes as these are for the future you would do well to understand that Schism formally taken alwayes imports something criminal in it and there can be no just cause for a sin but besides that there is that which if you understand it you would call the materiality of it which is the separation of one part of the Church from another Now this according to the different grounds and reasons of it becomes lawful or unlawful that is as the reasons do make it necessary or unnecessary For separation is not lawful but when it is necessary now this being capable of such a different nature that it may be good or evil according to its circumstances there can be no absolute judgement passed upon it till all those reasons and circumstances be duely examined and if there be no sufficient grounds for it then it is formally Schism i. e. a culpable separation if there be sufficient cause then there may be a separation but it can be no Schism And because the Vnion of the Catholick Church lyes in Fundamental and necessary truths therefore there can be no separation absolutely from the Catholick Church but what involves in it the

habit should be worn all over the world will you say That any number of men who found this habit extremely inconvenient for them and therefore should disuse it did on that account separate from humane nature and ceased to be men by it Such is the case of any particular Churches laying aside some customes or ceremonies which in some one age of the Church or more the greatest part of Christian Churches were agreed in the practice of for although this general practice should make men more diligent in enquiry and careful in what they did yet if such a Church having power to govern it self see reason to alter it it doth not separate from the Communion of the Catholick Church therein and therefore doth not cease to be a Church For there is no culpable separation from the Church Catholick but what relates to it properly as Catholick now that doth not relate to it as Catholick which it may be Catholick without now certainly you cannot have so little reason as to assert that the Church cannot be Catholick without such extrinsecal and accidental agreements And from hence it follows That no Church can be charged with a separation from the true Catholick Church but what may be proved to separate it self in some thing necessary to the Being of the Catholick Church and so long as it doth not separate as to these essentials it cannot cease to be a true member of the Catholick Church If you would therefore prove that the Church of England upon the Reformation is separated from the true Catholick Church you must not think it enough to say which as weakly as commonly is said That no one particular Church can be named which in all things agreed with it for that only proves that she differed from particular Churches in such things wherein they differed from each other but that she is divided from all Christian Churches in such things wherein they are all agreed and which are essential to the Being of the Catholick Church when you have proved this you may expect a further Answer This then can be no cause why your Church should expel the Protestants out of her Communion but it shews us sufficient cause to believe that your Church had separated her self from the Communion of the Catholick For which we must further consider that although nothing separates a Church properly from the Catholick but what is contrary to the Being of it yet a Church may separate her self from the Communion of the Catholick by taking upon her to make such things the necessary conditions of her Communion which never were the conditions of Communion with the Catholick Church As for Instance Though we should grant Adoration of the Eucharist Invocation of Saints and Veneration of Images to be only superstitious practices taken up without sufficient grounds in the Church yet since it appears that the Communion of the Catholick Church was free for many hundred years without approving or using these things that Church which shall not only publickly use but enjoyn such things upon pain of excommunication from the Church doth as much as in her lyes draw the bounds of Catholick Communion within her self and so divides her self from the true Catholick Church For whatever confines must likewise divide the Church for by that confinement a separation is made between the part confined and the other which separation must be made by the party so limiting Christian Communion As it was in the case of the Donatists who were therefore justly charged with Schism because they confined the Catholick Church within their own bounds And if any other Church doth the same which they did it must be liable to the same charge which they were The summ then of this discourse is That the Being of the Catholick Church lyes in Essentials that for a particular Church to disagree from all other particular Churches in some extrinsecal and accidental things is not to separate from the Catholick Church so as to cease to be a Church but still whatever Church makes such extrinsecal things the necessary conditions of Communion so as to cast men out of the Church who yield not to them is Schismatical in so doing for it thereby divides it self from the Catholick Church and the separation from it is so far from being Schism that being cast out of that Church on those terms only returns them to the Communion of the Catholick Church On which grounds it will appear that yours is the Schismatical Church and not ours For although before this imposing humour came into particular Churches Schism was defined by the Fathers and others to be a voluntary departure out of the Church yet that cannot in reason be understood of any particular but the true Catholick Church for not only persons but Churches may depart from the Catholick Church and in such cases not those who depart from the Communion of such Churches but those Churches which departed from the Catholick are guilty of the Schism These things I thought necessary to be further explained not only to shew how false that imputation is of our Churches departing from the true Catholick Church but with what great reason we charge your Church with departing from the Communion of it and therefore not those whom you thrust out of Communion but your Church so thrusting them out is apparently guilty of the present Schism But still you say Your Church had sufficient cause for the expulsion of Protestants out of her Communion and for this you barely repeat your former assertions and offer not at the proof of one of them as though you intended to carry your cause by the frequent repeating your Declaration But Sir it is the proof of what you say that we expect from you and not the bare telling us That Protestants are Schismaticks because they are Schismacicks When you will be at leisure to prove that the Protestants were guilty of Heretical Doctrine or Schismatical proceedings that they raised a new separate and mutinous faction of pretended Christians distinct from the one Catholick body of the Church by chusing new Pastors instituting new rites and ceremonies not in their power to do by Schismatical convening in several Synods and there broaching new heretical Confessions of Faith when I say You shall think good to prove all or any one of these you shall receive so full an Answer as will make it evident that the Protestants did not depart from the Catholick Churches Doctrine and Communion but that the Church of Rome is departed thence first by imposing erroneous Doctrines and superstitious practices as conditions of Communion and then by thrusting out all such as would not consent to them His Lordship disputing the terms on which a Separation in the Church may be lawful saith That corruption in manners only is no sufficient cause to make a separation in the Church And saith he This is as ingenuously confessed for you as by me For if corruption in manners were a

any such can be found then I say and 't is most true Reformation especially in cases of Religion is so difficult a work and subject to so many Pretensions that 't is almost impossible but the Reformers should step too far or fall too short in some smaller things or other which in regard of the far greater benefit coming by the Reformation it self may well be passed over and born withall But if there have been any wilfull and gross errours not so much in opinion as in Fact Sacriledge too often pretending to Reform Superstition that 's the crime of the Reformers not of the Reformation and they are long since gone to God to answer it to whom I leave them This is his Lordships full and just account of the proceedings of the Reformation in the Church of England to which we must consider what Answer you return To his Lordships Question Why may not a National Council of the Church of England do the like you give this answer Truly I know no reason why it may not provided it be a true National Council and a true Church of England as those recited were true Churches and Councils and provided also that it do no more We are contended to put the issue of this business upon these three things viz. That our Church is a true Church That the power which reformed it was sufficient for that purpose and That no more was done by them then was in their power to do But for the first you tell us That seeing by the Church of England he means the present Protestant Church there you must crave leave of his Lordship to deny his supposition and tell him the Church of England in that sense signifies no true Church Were it not an easie matter to requite you by telling you It is impossible we should be guilty of Schism in any separation from your Communion because we must crave leave of you to say that the Church of Rome is no true Church and where there is Schism that must be a true Church which men are guilty of it in separating from Not as though I sought only to return a blow on you which I could not defend our Church from but to let you see that by whatever way you would prove your Church to be true by the same we may prove ours to be so too If you own and believe the Christian Doctrine to be the way to salvation so do we If you embrace the ancient Creeds so do we If you acknowledge the Scriptures to be Gods Word so do we If you joyn together in participation of the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lords Supper so do we If you have a constant succession of Bishops so have we Name then What it is which is Fundamental to the Being of a Church which our Protestant Church doth want You grant the Church of England was a true Church before the Reformation Wherein was it altered from it self by it that it ceased to be a true Church Was it in denying the Pope's Supremacy in eighth's time That cannot be for you very remarkably grant afterwards That the Bishops and the King too left the Pope in possession of all that he could rightly challenge Which is a concession we shall make more use of afterwards Surely then this could not unchurch them Or Was it the proceedings of the Reformation in Elizabeth's time The Supremacy could not be it neither now for that was asserted under a more moderate title in her time than in her Fathers Was it the Vse of the Liturgy in the English tongue Surely not when Pius the fourth offered to confirm it as is credibly reported from Vincentius Parpalia whom that Pope imployed on a Message to Queen Elizabeth with terms of Accommodation But What was it which did unchurch us Were they the Articles of Religion agreed on in the Convocation 1562 If they were these Were they either the positive or negative Articles If the positive Were they the asserting the Articles contained in the three Creeds the sufficiency of Scriptures the necessity of Divine Grace or What else If the negative Was it the denying Purgatory Invocation of Saints Vnlawfulness of Priests Marriage Communion in one kind or Which of them else was it which made the Protestant Church to be no true Church Or Is it lastly the asserting That as the Church of Jerusalem Alexandria and Antioch have erred so also the Church of Rome hath erred not only in their livings and manner of Ceremonies but also in matters of Faith Is this it which hath done us all the mischief to unchurch us viz. the denying your Churches Infallibility If this be it it is our comfort yet that our Church will remain a true Church till yours be proved to be Infallible which I dare say will be long enough But as though it were in your absolute power to church and unchurch whom and when you please you offer at no proof at all of this assertion but only very fairly crave his Lordships leave to call the Protestant Church no true Church Which indeed is a more civil way of begging the Question And if it will not be granted you cannot help it for you have done your utmost in craving his leave for it and you have no more to say to it But you seem to say much more to the second That the Reformation was not managed by a lawful power nor carried on in a due manner for you offer to prove that the National Synod 1562. was no lawful Synod in these words For is it not notorious that pretended Synod A. D. 1562. were all manifest usurpers Is it not manifest that they all by force intruded themselves both into the Sees of other lawful Bishops and into the cures of other lawful Pastors quietly and Canonically possessed of them before the said intrusion Can those be accounted a lawful National Council of England or lawfully to represent the English Church who never had any lawful that is Canonical and just Vocation Mission or Jurisdiction given them to and over the English Nation Two things you object as the great reasons why those persons who sate in the Convocation A. 1562. could make no lawful Synod and those are Intrusion and want of a lawful Mission which shall be particularly examined The first charge is of Intrusion which you would seem to aggravate by several circumstances that they intruded themselves and that by force and not some but all and that into the Sees of other lawful Bishops and cures of lawful Pastors But how true these circumstances are must appear by a true account of the matters of fact relating to these things in the beginning of Elizabeth's Reign How false that is That all intruded themselves is notorious to any one who understands any thing of those times For this Convocation was held in the fifth year of Queen Elizabeth and in the fifth of her Reign Of 26 Cathedral Churches there were but fourteen