the same which you suppose Victor 's to have been you say was the Case of St. Chrysostom and Epiphanius and some other Bishops in those Days who separated from each other as Mr. Chillingworth has it of them Divers times it hath happen'd as in the Case of St. Chrysostom and Epiphanius that particular Men and particular Churches have upon an overvalued Difference either renounced Communion mutually or one of them separated from the other Herein you agree with that great Champion that however they maintained Communion with the Catholick Church Yet how that is possible upon your grounds I cannot imagine But it seems poor Tertullian and his Followers were not worth your Pity and you would not vouchsafe them a taste of your Skill I should think upon your own Principles since two Churches which are not in Communion with each other cannot both belong to the same Body or the one Catholick Church that the Bishops with their Followers on the one side or other were extra Ecclesiam foris The Contradiction which I charged you with about occasional and constant Communion you would avoid by affirming that you no-where assert that the Communion of the Church does not make us Members of any particular Church you having added as such These Words I find elsewhere explained by as distinguish'd from the Vniversal Church And a little before you had said that this Membership may extend to the remotest Part of the World if the Body whereof we are Members reach so far This I think comes up to what I urg'd which I find no reason to retract I had produced Mr. Chillingworth to prove that it may happen that one is not obliged so much as sometimes to communicate with a sound Part of the Catholick Church because you live where there is such an one And this because such a sound Church may impose upon you the Belief of some Error not destructive of the Faith or some unnecessary Conditions of Communion if not unlawful And you Sarcastically call me a subtil Arguer for calling such a Church sound as if it might not however be sound in its Vitals and such an one as our Homilies would call a true Church Surely you do not consider what Advantage you give Dissenters in this But however a Man of your Parts knows how to bring himself off in any case And methinks 't is a wonderful Instance of your Art that what Mr. Chillingworth says in opposition to the Necessity of communicating with a corrupt Church having all the Face of Authority and that however Christ may have a visible true Church on Earth a Company of Men professing so much as was necessary to Salvation should be turned into his meaning a formed and visible Church-Society and pleading for the corrupt Church when he was justifying the Separation of private Christians When I had said that if our Church required Conformity to its Rites and Ceremonies as necessary to Salvation it could not blame Men for dividing from it you say The Church could and would blame Men in such case and whether you do not put the Church in Christ's stead may be worth a Thought The last Passage in my Letters which you thought worth your Notice was this He who tells us or he says nothing that the Divine Spirit confines his Influences to the Vnity of the Church in such Conformity not only makes such Conformity necessary to Salvation but imputes to the Church the Damnation of many thousands of Souls who might expect to be saved upon other Terms I am persuaded that there are very few of our Orthodox Clergy that will not concur with me in this and think that whoever makes such Conformity necessary to Salvation and will affirm that our Church warrants him in so doing brings the greatest Reproach upon it and gives the greatest Advantage to Separation imaginable and therefore will be far from thinking that he encourages the Dissenters in their Non-communion with us who removes so great a Bar to an entire Communion Before the Book of Common-Prayer there is a Declaration the Authority of which I hope you will not dispute which is That some Ceremonies are retained in our Church for a Discipline and Order which upon just Causes may be altered and changed and therefore are not to be esteemed equal with God's Laws Where I take it the Reason why they are not to be esteemed equal with God's Laws is not meerly because of their Mutability for God's own positive Laws have been changed but because they are enjoined only for Discipline and Order some Determination of which may be necessary to Government tho not to Christianity This I conceive may be a good Warrant for the above-mentioned Remark To serve which as you did that of the Divine Covenant you would have it spoke in relation to those that live elsewhere in any part of the World But as to them who live here to whom the Subject Matter related you do own that Subjection to Church-Authority in all lawful Things that is such Conformity is necessary to the Vnity of the Church and necessary to Salvation Tho some may not know what Idea to form of the Church of England distinct from other sound Churches but as incorporated with the State and relying on a Civil Sanction you cautiously confine this Question to Church-Authority Wherefore admitting that our Bishops have possession of the Churches by a Right antecedent to any Humane Authority and consequently may exercise Episcopal Jurisdiction within their respective Diocesses without any such Authority What will you say to that Statute which enacts That all Archbishops and Bishops of this Realm or any of the King's Dominions consecrated and at this present time taken and reputed for Archbishops and Bishops may by Authority of this present Parliament and not by virtue of any Provision or other Foreign Authority c. keep enjoy and retain their Archbishopricks and Bishopricks in as large and ample manner as if they had been promoted elected confirmed and consecrated according to the due Course of the Laws of this Realm Was this impertinent or presumptuous But as that very Act permits them to minister use and exercise all and every Thing and Things pertaining to 〈◊〉 Office or Order of an Archbishop and Bishop Quere Whether our Saviour himself did not set the utmost Bounds of their Power when having commissioned his Apostles to teach all Nations baptizing them he adds as it were by way of necessary Caution teaching them to observe whatsoever I have commanded you How extensive soever the Civil Power is it may be a Question from hence What Right they who claim to be lawful Successors to the Apostles have to command Things not forbid by Christ without being tied up to his positive Institutions And how comes it to pass that they who are entred into Christ's Church by Baptism and continue in the Profession of his pure Religion
for granted as I had reason that you went herein upon the Authority of the Church-Officers I ask'd Whether this would not put the Being of our Church upon an hazardous Issue and oblige your self to prove that 't was a true Church before the Reformation Which surely is no remote Consequence from the Supposition that the Church-Power was lodged with them of the Church of Rome before in opposition to which our Church was erected and out of which it was gathered But then you say to my second Query upon this That there was not the same Necessity for private Christians reforming from an Antichristian Church to usurp the Ministry as there is for a Lay-man in an Heathen Nation But you do not observe that the Force of this lies in the Supposition that the Power was lodg'd with the Popish Clergy upon which account the Acts of the Reformed Ministry in opposition to them would be but like the Acts of Lay-men And you know who has asserted That Recourse ought to be had to the Intention of the Church-Governors Ecclesiastical Power being their Gift And this does oblige all to a strict dependance on the supreme visible Power so as to leave no Place for Appeal concerning the Practice of such Government And they are the most certain as well as the most competent Judges of their own Intentions But should we have recourse to such Church-Governours pray do you think they would say you have Power of keeping up a Form of Church-Government in opposition to theirs or that your Officers are better than Lay-men To put this home to you I shall here subjoin a Passage of your own Should a Company of private Christians on their own choice separate themselves from their Bishops and unite into a Church-Society this were a Church-Faction and Schism and all they did were null and void Here you must admit that a Minister Episcopally ordained may possibly join with them in this Separation from the Bishop or else you will allow of what will overthrow your Assertion as to Separation even from the most sound Church Wherefore this being admitted and it being laid generally shew me if you can wherein this differs from Mr. D. at least how Separation from Papists or from whatever unlawful Terms of Communion can upon your Hypothesis be freed from Schism You assure us you do not charge our Dissenters with Schism from the Invalidity of their Orders but from their causless and sinful Separation And tho they have true Orders and are true Churches but yet divide Christian Communion by separating from any sound Part of the Christian Church they are Schismaticks nay if it were only in separating from each other Wherefore since Separation and ordinarily refusing to communicate where one never did but as you suppose ought come to the same thing you cannot blame me if I represent your Notion to be That where there are several Churches within a Nation which here you admit of whether one of these Churches has Authority over the Members of the other or no yet he who refuses to communicate with any one of these is a Schismatick And so you make it in relation to Churches in several Nations If this be your meaning as I take it to be then you have no reason to cry out of Mis-representation and blending together Things of a different Nature when I ask Query 4. Whether from the Supposition that there is to be but one Church-Covenant throughout the Catholick Church that there cannot be one true Church within another And that the Nature of Catholick Communion is such that one ought to be ready to communicate with any sound Church from which one is not hindred by reason of the Distance of Place It does not follow Here you stop me before you make an Answer as if I did not fairly to take every one of these Propositions for yours or in tacking together some Things not very consistent with each other Because you had in some place asserted that there could be but one Church in one Place therefore it seems not only our Dissenters but also Foreigners living here are without any Church Tho to avoid the Force of my Questions now you would admit that the Dissenters may have sufficient Church-Officers and Power but however that they are Schismaticks if it were only for dividing from each other You had said further that nothing can justify the Distinction of Christians into several Churches but only such a Distance of Place as makes it necessary and expedient to put them under the Conduct and Government of several Bishops What that Distance of Place is which makes this necessary and expedient you are not pleased to inform us But nothing it seems but Distance can with you justify a Distinction of Churches be the Terms never so unlawful which is but the same in effect with what you had said elsewhere as that 't is absurd to gather a Church out of a Church of baptized Christians Nay further here is more wholesom Doctrine which is That no Distinction of Churches is justifiable but under Bishops Yet alas you do not dispute against the Dissenters Form of Church-Government or deny their being rightly invested with Church-Power no not you But it lies not upon me to reconcile you to your self nor can you deny the having said a Thing in one place because of the contrary in another The only Proposition which you can seem to deny with any colour is That one ought to be ready to communicate with any sound Church from which one is not hindred by distance of Place But surely 't is full enough to this purpose that The Exercise of true Christian Communion in a particular Church is nothing else but the Exercise of Catholick Communion in a particular Church which the Necessity of Affairs requires since all the Christians in the World cannot meet together for Acts of Worship But there is nothing in all these Acts of Communion which does more peculiarly unite us to such a particular Church than to the whole Church Again To be in Communion with the Church signifies to be a Member of it and that not of any particular Church as distinguish'd from the whole Catholick Church but to be a Member of the one Body of Christ and of every sound Part of it Wherefore as a Man is a Member of every sound Church sure he may communicate with any sound Church if Distance do not hinder nay the refusing Communion in such Case is the very Schism which you all along declaim against Having thus fix'd upon you every one of these Propositions for the first of them I cannot believe that you will yet deny I shall consider with you what follows Wherefore I still assert Either that the French Protestants have no Church here but are Schismaticks in not communicating with ours Or that ours is guilty of Schism in making the Terms of Communion so streight that
call this a sinful Term in that Respect be pleas'd to consider again how a Church commanding things sinful and admitting none into Communion with it but upon those sinful Terms can avoid the Imputation of being Schismatical in its Frame and essential Constitution any more than the Independents for requiring a new Church-Covenant If you say the Church may quit those Terms and still continue a sound Church so may they and yet continue Independent But if I ought to learn my Catechism from our Church it self rather than from any Doctor in it I should think that whereever there is any Congregation or Fellowship of God's faithful and elect People built upon the Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ being the Head Corner-stone that must be such a Church as cannot possibly differ in its essential Frame and Constitution from any other sound Church But when you say 'T is impossible that a Church which is not Schismatical should excommunicate Schismatically 't is worth enquiring whether you mean That tho it does enjoin Terms sinful and unlawful in themselves and excommunicate them who cannot comply in such Matters it has by that exercise of its Power of the Keys deprived those Dissenters of Catholick Communion as not being Schismatical in its essential Frame and Constitution Being excellent good at leaving out the Force of any Question to which you are loth to give a direct Answer you say my three first Queries relating to the meaning of the Text come onely to this Whether every particular Church may not be called the Body of Christ Whereas it was Whether it might not be an entire Body And you yield my Question yet you say all the Churches in the World are but one Body and must be but one Communion Which if you will allow to be by virtue of a mystical or spiritual Union need not be disputed Yet it being a Question Whether you would yield a particular Church to be a proper Body of Christ why might I not ask Whether it may not at least be taken so in a Metaphorical Sence And surely you who have been charg'd to turn the Priesthood of our Saviour from proper into Metaphorical might well enough understand what I meant by this Word But if you consider the Force of the Question upon the Text it is to know your Warrant for arguing that it is always Schism to refuse the Communion of any sound Church where-ever you find it whether it has Authority over you or no from a Text which only charges Schism upon Members of the same particular Church or Body of Christ with which they did actually communicate For my 4th Query from the Text of the Nature of Schism you condemn me to the Drudgery of examining the Defence of Dr. Stillingfleet But as you speak not directly to it I shall here take it for unanswered yet I shall not deny it some Consideration in its due time But thus you say you have honestly answered all my Queries in my first Letter And truly the Judgment of Charity obliges me to hope that you have according to the Intention of your own Mind And yet 't is a very difficult thing to believe that you should not have discernment enough of your self to see through all your false Colours If they are Errors of your Understanding I hope God will not call you to so severe an Account for them as you threaten to well-meaning Dissenters My second Letter you may if you please term peevish for conjuring you as a Protestant Divine to answer my Doubts categorically and that without referring me to what Mr. D. or any profest Papist had writ on that Subject But perhaps very few Men that observe the Neighbourhood of the Doctrines through Mediums not far differing leading to the like End will much condemn the Caution which I there gave you Wherefore to vindicate my self to you I shall give a taste of your Agreement with Popish Mediums And since you disown D lism shall as much as conveniently may be strip your Positions of what is directly his way And perhaps it will not seem improbable that you should have borrowed some of those Arguments which I look upon as tending to or proceeding from Uncharitableness from the Author of Charity maintained by Catholicks His Labour is to prove all Protestants Schismaticks because they withdrew from the Communion of the visible Church that is in his Sence the Church of Rome and those that were in Communion with her And he cites St. Austin to prove That not a diverse Faith but the divided Society of Communion doth make Schismaticks From whence he argues That the Catholick or Universal Church is one Congregation or Company of Faithful People and therefore implies not only Faith to make them faithful Believers but also Communion or common Union to make them one in Charity which excludes Separation and Division He goes on By the Definition of Schism may be inferred that the Guilt thereof is contracted not only by Division from the Universal Church but also by a Separation from a particular Church or Diocess which agrees with the Universal You would prove That Men as they would avoid the Sin of Schism must communicate with the National Church or with some Church that is in Communion with it and reject the Communion of all other Parties and Sects of Christians Indeed you will say that you qualify it if the National Church be sound that is if there be nothing sinful in its Constitution and Worship Yet 't is a Question whether your Arguments go not as far as the Jesuit's For you suppose with him that there must be some particular Church with which we must communicate under Church-Officers Or to use your own Words We must of necessity join in the actual and visible Communion of the Church Suppose the Dissenters say with Mr. Chillingworth We don't leave the Church but only its external Communion You look upon that as absurd and wonder that they should assign Reasons why they cannot communicate with us and yet at the same time will not own that they have made any Separation Nay you affirm That for two Churches to renounce each others Communion or at least to withdraw ordinary Communion from each other from a profest Dislike and yet still to continue in a State of Communion with one another is a downright Contradiction Well be it so then it seems Protestants by withdrawing from the Communion of the Romish Church put themselves out of a State of Communion with the Christian Church just as Dissenters do Yet our great Champion thought he had furnish'd us with a litle Armour which might repel all the Jesuit's Batteries and could not understand it to be a Contradiction to say One leaves the Church by ceasing to be a Member of it by ceasing to have those Requisites which constitute a Man a Member of it as Faith and Obedience But we leave the external Communion of
part of the Catholick Church Is Christ's Body made up only of sound Members Are all that are unsound divided from the Body But if a true Member be of the Body as well as that which is sound do not you by refusing to communicate with any true Member upon your own Principles refuse to be of the Body especially when the only Unsoundness is that it differs by reason of some Accidentals from that Church where you exercise the Acts of Catholick Communion And it might be well to know whether you own that there is any sound Church besides the Church of England with which you can communicate how much soever you talk of Catholick Communion Or at least whether you are not Schismatical in dividing from some true Churches And may not you be charged with denying the very Notion of a Catholick Church and asserting that Christ has not one but twenty or a hundred several Bodies But whereas you affirm that he who divides from one sound Part divides from all is it not rather demonstrable that he who communicates with one sound Part or one true Part communicates with all as being united to Christ's Body As he that touches a Man's Finger touches his Body but it does not follow that one cannot touch his Body unless he touch his Finger But since you are so fond of this Notion give me leave to turn your own Artillery upon you and if you have condemned your self or the Church in which you live of Schism and dividing from Christ's Body you may thank your self If it follows from the Identity of Christ's Body that whoever is divided from any sound Member is divided from the whole being that Member is united to the Body so it must necessarily be if you divide from any true Member unless a true Member is no Member And you your self being sensible of this have taught that 't is absurd to gather a Church out of a Christian Church and divide Neighbour-Christians into distinct Communions Nay you left your self no possible Evasion when you affirmed that the only thing that can give us in particular a Right to the Blessings of the Covenant is that we observe the Conditions of this Covenant and live in Vnity and Communion with all true Christian Churches in the World If therefore there be any true Christian Church with which you refuse to communicate have you not made a good Rod for your own Back The Church of Rome as you own is a true tho a corrupt Church but you I suppose refuse to communicate with this true Church are you not therefore cut off from Christ's Body You will say perhaps you cannot communicate but upon sinful Terms But what 's that to the purpose If this is stil a true Church and Member of Christ's Body you know Christ has but one Body one Spouse one Flock one Church And if we be no Members of this one Church we are not united to Christ The Parts of this Body must be united to each other that they may be united to Christ else it would be as if the Parts of the natural Body should divide from each other and hang together by a magical kind of Vnion with the Soul AndVnion to the Body consists in being united to that part of the Body which is next You have foreclosed your self from saying that you are united in what is essential to its being a Member of Christ's Body and have a participation of the same vital Heat and animal Spirits but think it hard that one Member should be charged with the putrid Sores or Wounds of another and to speak plainly that you forsake it only in its Uncatholick Terms This would come too nigh that very Fanaticism which you deride And you having told us that a Compliance with the Order Government Discipline and Worship as well as the Doctrine of the Catholick Church is absolutely necessary to Catholick Communion 'T is upon your own Grounds necessary to comply with every true part of the Catholick Church in all these as well as with every sound Part. Wherefore might not the Papists beat you into their Church with those Weapons which you have forg'd against others Might not they tell you that you want Christian Charity unless you are united in one Communion with this one Body That you want the chief Branch of Holiness without which none shall see God That all the Blessings of the Gospel are promised to us in a Church-State That the Effects and Application of the Grace Merit and Satisfaction of Christ Jesus is confined to this Body consisting of Members sound and unsound That the Gospel-Covenant is confin'd to the Communion of the Christian Church That to remit Sins is to restore Men to the Peace and Communion of the Church and to retain them is to cast Men out of the Church or keep them under Church-Censures which is a plain Demonstration that Sins are forgiven only in the Communion of the Church But yet further 't is a Question whether you are in Communion even with every Church which requires nothing sinful as a Term of its Communion and is upon that account sound and Orthodox You say indeed you should make no scruple to communicate with the Lutheran Church if it did not require of you the Belief of Consubstantiation Yet certainly you did not attend to your own Grounds when you said so For if that be not in Communion with our Church you know you would be a Schismatick if you communicated with it But that their Church is not in Communion with ours appears upon your own Rule for that the Governors are not in Communion with each other which you make essential to the Communion of particular Churches And for this 't is not necessary to shew that the Governors of each side condemn the others Constitution 'T is enough if the Governors of that Church which you are of do condemn the Constitution of the other or of any part of it You say indeed that our Church is so far from condemning Foreign Reformed Churches for the want of Bishops that it has always lived in Communion with them If this be so then as a Bishop in the same Communion with us might with the leave of English Bishops exercise his Episcopal Office in any Church in England so might a Protestant Minister ordained abroad without Episcopal Ordination But I take it you will not say that he may If he may not this is a condemning with a witness For if any of them have no Orders amongst them where is their regular Church-Society Nay as you believe the Right of Episcopal Government 't is questionable whether you do Divine not deny that such have any proper Church-Officers And further that you may not take the Difference about the Constitution of Churches or the Validity of a particular kind of Ordination to be meerly between the Bishops of our Church and the
who you say shall at the last day be judged not as Infidels but as wicked and Apostate Christians 7. The seventh Query which goes upon that Ground which you give and do not yet recede from for the Belief of your lodging Church-Power so with the Clergy that they who conform not to them or who incur their Displeasure would be in a woful Case you answer only with a Scoff but say not whether the Clergy are the Church Representative or whether what I urge would follow from that Supposition or no. These were the general Questions and whether most of them were impertinent or are now fairly answered 't is for others to determine From hence I am obliged to follow you to my three Sets of Queries as you call them relating to sveral Propositions and the parting-blow of four Queries relating to the Text. Because of my asking Questions concerning your Sense of our Saviour's Promise to his Apostles which you seem to suppose to go along with Church-Governours in Succession as distinguish'd from the Body of Christians and without allowing private Christians that share which the Words of the Promise import you intimate my designing to confute our Saviour and burlesque his Institution But to use mostly your own Expressions if my design of Charity and to deliver that blessed Institution from the Freaks of an Enthusiastick Fancy and to expound it to a plain and easy Sense such as is agreeable to the Vnderstanding of Men and worthy of the Spirit of God be to burlesque Scripture I acknowledg the Charge To my first Qustion Whether our Saviour's Promise of Divine Assistance did not extend to all the Members of the Church considering every Man in his respective Station and Capacity as well as to the Apostles as Church-Governours You answer That there are Promises which relate to the whole Church and Promises which belong to particular Christians as well as Promises which relate particularly to the Apostles and Governours of the Church Well for the comfort of us poor Lay-men there are some Promises which relate to us It being so then I may well ask 2. Whether it signifies any thing to say there is no Promise to particular Churches provided there be to particular Persons such as are in Charity with all Men and are ready to communicate with any Church which requires no more of them than what they conceive to be their Duty according to the Divine Covenant You think it hard to know what this Query means But surely 't is material to know whether or no such Men may be saved otherwise than under Church-Governors And truly you tell us pretty plainly I wish for your own sake it had been a little more covert that such have no Promises but as Members of the Church that is of the visible Church under Church-Officers if you answer to the purpose You add indeed When Communion may be had upon lawful Terms I hope this implies that 't is possible the Terms may be unlawful Which yields me my fourth Question upon this Matter But it likewise yields That if the Terms are unlawful private Christians are entitled to these Promises tho not visibly admitted into a Church-State which is contrary to what you all along drive at But it seems however your Charity to these Men who think the Terms such as they ought not to comply with is so great to believe them guilty of Schism as adhering to their own private Fancies in opposition to Church-Authority out of Pride and Opinionativeness which God alone can judg 3. The third Query is Whether if the Promise you mention be confined to the Apostles as Church-Governors it will not exclude the Civil Power To which you answer That the Civil and Ecclesiastical Power are very distinct but very consistent But such a Power in the Church-Officers as would make them the Church-Representative and prevent a National Reformation tho by the Civil Power is of another Nature Nor do you think fit yet to declare what the Power is which you would have lodged in Church-Officers But for fear you should go beyond your Warrant in this Matter I shall mind you of what our Church teaches us which is that We must not think that this Comforter was either promised or else given only to the Apostles but to the Vniversal Church of Christ dispersed through the whole World And speaking of Christ's Promise that the Spirit of Truth should abide with them for ever and that he would be always with them he meaneth saith our Church by Grace Vertue and Power and that it says was indifferently to all that should believe in him through their the Apostles Words that is to wit for his whole Church To my Inferences from the second Proposition which I consider apart You make such an Answer as if we had been at cross Purposes For my Questions were grounded upon your asserting without any limitation That 't is absurd to gather a Church out of a Church of Baptized Christians And indeed it is but a Golden Aphorism wherein you epitomize a great Part of your Discourses on this Subject And you answer That the Independents are out in their way of gathering Churches and that we separated not from the Papists upon their Principles Which is nothing to the purpose But you do confess indeed that we may separate from any Church of baptized Christians if their Communion be sinful But wherein the Difference lies I know not except by Separation you would only have a withdrawing from Communion but will not allow the setting up a distinct Church-Communion be the Cause of withdrawing never so just Which unless you mean I hope you will be so ingenuous to confess this was not so warily worded and so sound as might have been But if you have a Patent to make Words signify what you please besides their natural and presumable Intendment to make generals particular or vice versâ much good may it do you provided they afford you not a Loop-hole for the most uncharitable Censures Yet give me leave before I quit this to demonstrate that you have not answered fairly in restraining this as if spoke only of Independents These were your own Words When there is one Church within the Bowels of another a new Church gathered out of a Church already constituted and formed into a distinct and separate Society this divides Christian Communion and is a notorious Schism This is the plain case of the Presbyterian and Independent Churches and those other Conventicles of Sectaries which are among us They are Churches in a Church Churches formed out of the National Church by which means Christians who live together refuse to worship God in the same Assemblies Pray Sir would you have me fancy some general Scope and Design which no Man can understand from the Words you utter in any particular Place This I suppose may satisfy reasonable Men that all my Queries under this Head
should be Schismaticks and cut off from his Body meerly for disobeying Additions the Authority of which they soberly dispute You say in one part of your Answer to me That whatever Variety and Difference in the Rules of Worship is consistent with one Communion may be granted when the Prudence of Governours sees it fit and expedient Where as you condemn such Indulgence as is inconsistent with one Communion it may be thought to be equally conclusive against the Imposition of any Thing inconsistent with one Communion or the great Law of Catholick Communion And when you confess that the Government of the Church since the Apostles Days was never so entirely in the Bishop's Breast that what he did should be thought the Act of the Church any further than he complied with those Laws by which the Church was to be governed You having likewise set aside the Civil Authority and admitted that Dissenters have sufficient Church-Power amongst them I again ask How they can be Schismaticks for dividing from the Bishops upon the account of suspected Rites and Ceremonies which they believe not to agree with those Laws by which the Charch was to be governed as being greatly prejudicial to if not inconsistent with one Communion And I would willingly be satisfied how you can bring within the foregoing Rules what you assert but within three Pages where having held that there was no Schism between the Latin and Asian Churches yet you will have it that private Christians at Rome could not receive the Asians into the Communion of the Church without the Bishop's Authority But to word this Matter according to your Hypothesis Tho Conformity to the Church of England that is Obedience to the Church-Governours the Bishops is not essential to the Vnity of the Catholick Church yet it is for all that live here I should have been contented to have the Controversy confin'd to Persons living here but that you tempt me further You say indeed That Christians who live under the Government and Jurisdiction of other Churches may and do preserve the Vnity of the Church without Conformity to the Church of England But pray can they preserve the Unity of the Church without Catholick Communion to which as you have told us a Compliance with the Order Government Discipline and Worship as well as the Doctrine of the Catholick Church is absolutely necessary And then All the Churches of the World are but one Church or one Society and have the same Right or Obligation of them to communicate with each other as Opportunity serves in all those Duties for the sake of which Christian Churches are instituted as the Members of a particular Church are There are some other Passages in my third Letter which perhaps might want to have something said to them but I shall only refer the Whole with what I have here wrote to your second and cooler Thoughts But I must confess I wonder how I escap'd unrebuk'd when I observ'd that you your self made a sufficient Excuse for some even causless Separation And if the Sinfulness of Separation lies in not observing your Terms of Catholick Communion the Dissenters would think themselves pretty sake under Mr. Chillingworth's Defence against the Papists not only when he affirms That the Gospel of Christ is the whole Covenant between God and Man nor when he blames the Papists for making Salvation depend on Things casual and in the Power of Man to confer or not to confer But if it were only because of the Obscurity and Doubtfulness if not Inconsistency of the Grounds whence the Obligation to constant Communion with the Church is inferr'd for he thought it Demonstration that nothing is necessary to be believed but what is plainly revealed Now Sir I take leave to tell you that I have faithfully followed you in all your subtil Windings I am sure I have nowhere perverted your Discourses how much soever I may have mistaken them And 't is no easy matter to take his Sence rightly who is inconsistent with himself It has not been the least nor perhaps the least pertinent part of my Task to fix your own Principles upon you some of which need no other Exposure but to be set in their proper Light where like the Cadmoean Issue they may be left to destroy each other If you forget in one place what serv'd your purpose in another or go to prove too little or too much for what possibly might be your general Scope and Design I hope you will for the future be more cautious of condemning Men for Dishonesty in arguing upon what they find By this time 't is likely I may in a double Sence have tir'd your Patience which you value your self upon I must confess the Substance of what lies in Dispute between us might be brought into a much narrower Compass But perhaps it was no more than requisite to put several Questions to you to prevent all colourable Evasion that one might take up what might be artfully slipt over upon another And certainly any one that observes what Skill you use in the management of this Controversy will think that many Things which might have seem'd superfluous were but necessary to oblige you to speak out Thus when I had ask'd Whether a Man has a Right to be of a particular Church as he is a Christian that is as I then thought and still do a true Member of the Catholick Church I should not have added Or becomes a Christian only as received into a particular Church were it not that I wrote to one who seems to think no Man can be a true Member of the Catholick Church before he has been actually receiv'd into some particular Church But you taking no notice of the last Branch of the Question wonder I should ask you Whether a Man has a Right to be of a particular Church as he is a Christian when you say The whole Design of your Tract is to prove that every Christian by being so is a Member of the Catholick Church and has a Right to communicate with all sound Parts of the Catholick Church and bound to communicate with that Part of it in which he lives Now 't is odds but it may be as evident upon this your whole Design that every particular Church is bound to receive every Christian as such into its Communion without imposing any Terms but meer Christianity as that a Christian must communicate with that sound Part where he lives even in other Terms Yet here you speak not one Word to the Question how a Man becomes a Christian whether it be only as received into a particular Church Indeed you had said in your Resolutions which I thought you might have either justified or retracted That no Man can be in Covenant with God or a Member of his Church who is not at least visibly admitted which must be by some particular Church and surely no Man can be