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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26184	Three letters to Dr. Sherlock concerning church-communion wherein 'tis enquired whether the doctor's notion of church communion be not too narrow and uncharitable, both to dissenters, and men of larger principles / by a lay-man of the Church of England ...	Atwood, William, d. 1705?; Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1683 (1683)	Wing A4183; ESTC R11681	18,335	41

THREE LETTERS TO Dr. Sherlock CONCERNING Church-Communion WHEREIN 'T is enquired whether the Doctor 's Notion of Church-Communion be not too narrow and uncharitable both to Dissenters and Men of larger Principles By a LAY-MAN of the Church of England and in constant Communion with it LONDON Printed for Jonathan Robinson at the Golden Lion in St. Paul's Church-yard 1683. To the Reader I Hope these Papers will not fall into any Man's Hands who counts it not a great blessing to have Kings for Nursing Fathers to God's Church To have the true Religion establish'd and guarded by humane Laws And perhaps 't is no absurdity to suppose that Men may as well continue Members of the National Church notwithstanding their breaking many positive Laws made for the outward management and ordering of it tho' not fundamental and necessary to its being As he who incurs the Penalty of any Statute of the Realm about Civil Affairs may however be a sound Member of the State if he keep from Treason or other Capital Crimes Nay possibly That there should be several Religious Assemblies living by different Customs and Rules and yet continuing Members of the National Church is not more inconsistent than that particular Places should have their particular Customs and By-Laws differing from the Common Law of the Land without making a distinct Government Sure I am an outward Government in the Church is requisite if it were only for the restraining those Men who out of confidence of their own Abilities will be venting Notions which none but Men of great subtilty can make one believe to be agreeable either to Scripture or to that Doctrine to which they have subscribed and declared their unfeigned Assent and Consent And me-thinks it were enough to remove Mens prejudices against Episcopal Government to consider how needful it is that some of the most learned and discreet should be chosen from among the Herd of Clergy-men to oversee admonish and censure those who are apt to go beyond their due Bounds Yet even within this Government it may sometimes become the Duty of one of the Laity to take upon him to reprove his Teacher when he apprehends the Doctrine to be dangerous In which case unless he remonstrate against it he may be thought to communicate with him in his Error which possibly may be as sinful as communicating in a Schism which Dr. Sherlock frights us with Out of respect to whom I must say that I had rather be mistaken in that sense which I conceive ought to be put upon his Sermons about Church-Communion than be able to justify That the Objections to which he never vouchsafed an Answer were meither impertinent to his Discourses nor frivolous His Notion of a Political Union of true Believers to Christ I had long since read but the hearing of it fix'd my Attention and put me upon sending him my Objections against it in a private manner The more I think of his Sermons the more I am perswaded that they are contrary to the whole Tenor of the Gospel and the Doctrine of our Church The Scripture tells us That God is no respecter of Persons but in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh Righteousness is accepted with him But the Doctor says That the only visible way of forming a Church for I do not now speak of the invisible Operations of the Divine Spirit is by granting a Church-Covenant which is the Divine Charter whereon the Church is founded And investing some Persons with Power and Authority to receive others into this Covenant c. And then to be taken into Covenant with God and to be received into the Church is the very same thing So it seems according to him no Man is in Covenant with God who is not actually received into Covenant by a visible Church that is by the Bishops and Ministers of the Church As he elsewhere has it speaking of what makes any thing in a strict sense an Act of Church-Communion Indeed he may seem to have a reserve when he says he speaks not of the invisible Operations of the Spirit Yet what room he leaves for that out of the Pale of a particular visible Church is a great Question when he confines the Influences and Operations of the Divine Spirit to the Unity of the Church That is if he speaks to the purpose to Vniformity to that sound part of the Catholick Church where a Man lives But if a Man fall into a Nation where there are no Bishops or inferior Clergy authorised by them the Lord have Mercy upon his Soul for 't is a question how that Scripture can be fulfilled which saith God is no respecter of Persons c. But if the Bishops where he lives fall out Wo be to him if his Bishop be singular And God knows but one of the Primitive Fathers Tertullian notwithstanding all his Zeal for the Christian Religion lies in Purgatory to this day with all his Followers to St. Austin ' s Time For though as Dr. Cave says in his excuse He lived in an Age when a greater latitude of opining was indulged and good Men were infinitely more solicitous about Piety and a good Life than about the Modes of Speech and how to express every thing so critically that it should not be liable to a severe Scrutiny and Examination Yet this good Man having had Disputes with others of the Primitive Fathers the Doctor tells us Whether ever he was reconciled to Catholick Communion appears not 't is certain for the main he forsook the Cataphrygians and kept his separate Meetings at Carthage and his Church was yet remaining in St. Augustine's time By whose Labours the very Reliques of his Followers called Tertullianists were dispers'd and quite disappeared What our Church determines in this case we may see in the 19th Article And I will leave it to Dr. Sherlock to reconcile himself to its Doctrine in this Point Which is That The Church visible of Christ is a Congregation of faithful Men in which the pure Word of God is preached and the Sacraments be duly ministred according to Christ's Ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same If any Man tax me with undermining the Authority of the Church in objecting against Dr. Sherlock's way of supporting it Dr. Stillingfleet has furnish'd me with a sufficient Apology Men of any common understanding says he would distinguish between the necessaries of Life and of civil Society So would any one but S. C. or N. O. of the Necessaries to Salvation and to the Government of the Church For Men must be considered as Christians and then as Christians united together As in Civil Societies they are to be considered first as men and then as Cives To say that a Man hath all that is necessary to preserve his Life as a Man doth not overthrow the Constitution of a Society altho' it implies that he might live without

has wrote on this Subject unless you will avow all that they have said on the necessity of the intention of the Priest to concur with his Acts or otherwise Your last Discourse occasions only my adding this farther Query Whether if the nature of Catholick Communion requires a readiness to communicate with any sound Church and yet a Church obliges us to communicate with that alone while distance does not hinder the occasional and frequent communion with others Is not that Church guilty of Schism in such an Injunction contrary to the nature of Catholick Communion Or at least is it not impossible that he who communicates sometimes with one True Church sometimes with another can be a Schismatick or any more than an Offender against a positive humane Law Be pleased to send me your thoughts upon the particulars of my enquiry to c. directed to SIR Your Servant Anonymus Feb. 4. 1682 3. The Third LETTER Feb. 19. 1682 3. SIR SInce it is more than probable that I have occasioned the speedy printing of your Discourses concerning Church-Communion I am now become a Debtor to the Churches of God to publish those Objections which arose in my mind and which you have not yet thought fit to answer though earnestly press'd thereunto And me-thinks you who have heretofore been a zealous Patron for universal Grace should be very ready to clear your self from the least imputation of stinting it more than our most gracious God nay than your most narrow principled Adversaries have ever done Though he who questions the Dictates of his Spiritual Guids had need run to the protection of Obscurity yet one would think that he who prints in the dark what he publish'd on the House top before the Face of the Congregation brings a foul suspition upon his Doctrine 'T is well known that the Pulpit is more licensed from Contradiction than the Press wherefore the former is most properly assigned for a Clergy-mans Recantation Nor indeed did I think you far from making publick satisfaction when you own'd in your Sermon preach'd Feb. 11. on Luke 12. vers 4 5. That the Censures of the Church are formidable only when duly applied and that God Almighty has not trusted fallible Men with a power of shutting out those whom he will receive Keep to this and make good your Notion of Schism if you can If Schism be as you say a very great Sin and such as will damn us as soon as Adultery and Murder God forbid that it should consist in such ticklish Points as would place many thousands of truly charitable and pious Men within the fatal Roll. But to my thinking while you blame Men for having no Notion at all of a Church or no Notion of one Church and that they know not wherein the Unity and Communion of this Church consists you remove their Guilt and grant that their Schism is involuntary and only an Error of their Understandings Alas mistaken honest Men how unhappy is your condition who must be damn'd for not understanding Dr. Sherlock when he fancies that he puts Matters past all doubt tho others may think he only amuses People with equivocal Words and Terms I beg of you to consider whether you do not impose upon your self or would not upon others by a confused notion of the Church and of separation from it wherein you make Schism to consist Great is Diana of the Ephesians and great is the use of the word Church when good Crafts-masters have the handling of it and of all Men those of Rome have succeeded best at this play of words By the using it indefinitely as you do the Pope keeps the Kevs of Heaven and Hell at his Girdle and truly this in some Cases comprehends things as different as Heaven and Hell are such as shall be sav'd and such as are already under the dominion of Satan If you use it for several purposes I hope for the future you will define what you mean by the Church when you are to consider it as Catholick and Universal what when you take it in a more restrain'd sence otherwise you speak not like a Minister of the Gospel but as one that would pervert that use of words which in you especially God Almighty designed for instructing us candidly in the Truth Indeed you may play a little more securely with the word Schism because unless it be taken to lie wholly in want of Charity People may not so well understand what it is how distinctly soever the Notion of Churches be taught them surely 't is much a question whether it lies wholly in causless separation from a sound part of the Catholick Church To my thinking St. Paul when he speaks of it supposes a continuance still of the same Body and ascribes it to Christians continuing such nay and communicating with each other Thus writing to the Corinthians of whom he says Ye are the Body of Christ and Members in particular He tells you to this effect that there is but one Spirit which communicates it self amongst them in various Dispensations and enables them according to their different Capacities and Attainments to promote each others growth in Grace And then having compared them to the several parts of a natural Body God saith he hath tempered the Body together having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked That there should be no Schism in the Body but that the Members should have the same care for one another Which seems no more than that God obliges the Members of his Church to live together charitably and to be ready to assist each other from the consideration of the distribution of his Gifts and Graces in such manner that even the meanest and most despised Christian may administer Aid and Comfort to those that are in the highest Station But all this was written to the Church at Corinth that Body of Christ there which assembled together in the same place and yet the Apostle charges them with real Schism for says he Whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions are ye not carnal and walk as Men But from the Apostle's Notion of Schism I shall come to yours as you have jumbled it together with the equivocal word Church of which you would make one believe that there can be no true Idea but as particular visible nay and that national too wherefore be pleased to weigh a little with your self 1. Whether you do not appropriate that to the National Church which belongs to the Catholick visible and invisible As where you say No Man has a right to any Act of Christian Communion but he who is in a state of Communion with the Christian Church that no Man is in Communion with a Church which he is not a Member of And that he is no Member of the Church who is not at least visibly admitted into God's Covenant by Baptism Now I would ask you this plain Question Whether