CHAP. deemed to err, so may it reasonably supersede that larger VIII. trouble of the reader in this place, which the view and ex amination of the severals would cost him, it being thus far evident, that it is our avowed wish and our care,-should it be denied to be our lot, a special mark of the Church of England's reformation, to preserve the unity of the apostolical faith and primitive practices as entire as we would have done Christ's body or garment, and the probability being not weak on our side, that the fact of the crucifying soldiers, which hath so much of our abhorrence and detestation, shall never be our choice, our known or wilful guilt, or if it be, that we so far recede from our profession. This free from commu CHAP. IX. THE SECOND SPECIES OF THIS SCHISM EXAMINED, AS IT IS AN OFFENCE 1. Now for the second branch of this second sort of schism, as it is an offence against external peace or commubreach of nion ecclesiastical. This cannot with any colour be charged nion eccle- on us, of whom these six things are manifest, and that by siastical. the tenure of our reformation; 1. that we have always reby six con- tained the form of government in and under which the Aposiderations. stles founded ecclesiastical assemblies or communion, viz., As appears The first. The second. r that of the bishop, and his inferior officers in every Church, and so in that respect are, in Ignatius' phrase, ¿vtòs [TOû] θυσιαστηρίου, "within the altar," have no part of that breach of ecclesiastical communion upon us which consists in casting out that order; 2. that as we maintain that order, so we regularly submit to the exercise of it, acknowledge the due authority of these governors, profess canonical obedience to them, submit to their censures and decrees, and give ourselves up to be ruled by them in all things that belong to The third. their cognizance, secundum Deum, "according to God;" 3. that the circumstances which are necessary to the πɩσvvaywyía, the "assembling" ourselves together for the public worship, whether 1. that of place,—our churches consecrated r [S. Ignat. Ep. ad Eph. cap. 5.] IX. to those offices,-or 2. that of time,-the Lord's day, and CHAP. other primitive festivals and fasts, and in their degree every day of the week,-or 3. that of forms of prayer and praises, celebration of sacraments, and sacramentals, preaching, catechizing, &c.-or 4. that of ceremonies, such as the practice of the primitive Church hath sent down recommended to us, -or lastly, that of discipline to bind all these performances upon every member of the Church in his office or place, are all entered into our confessions, settled by article as part of our establishment, and so the want of either or all of those are not imputable to our reformation. 2. Fourthly, that in every of these three, whatsoever the The fourth. Romanist requires us to add further to that which we voluntarily and professedly receive,-1. the supreme, transcendant, monarchic power of the pope; 2. the acknowledgment of and obedience to his supremacy; 3. the use of more ceremonies, festivals, &c.,-is usurpation or imposition of the present Romanists, absolutely without authority or precedent from the ancient primitive Church, from whom we are so unwilling to divide in any thing, that we choose a conformity with them rather than with any later model, and if by receding from the ordo Romanus in any particular we do not approve ourselves to come nearer to the first and purest times, it is the avowed profession of our Church, the wish and purpose of it, which I may justly style part of our establishment, to reduce and restore that, whatsoever it is, which is most pure and primitive instead of it. 3. Fifthly, that as we exclude no Christian from our com- The fifth. munion that will either filially or fraternally embrace it with us, being ready to admit any to our assemblies that acknowledge the foundation laid by Christ and His Apostles, so we as earnestly desire to be admitted to the like freedom of external communion with all the members of all other Christian Churches, as oft as occasion makes us capable of that blessing of the one heart and one lip, and would most willingly, by the use of the ancient method of literæ communicatoriæ, maintain this communion with those with whom we cannot corporally assemble, and particularly with those which live in obedience to the Church of Rome. 4. Sixthly, that the only hindrances that interpose and The sixth. CHA P. obstruct this desired freedom of external communion are IX. A consideration concern ing our Church. wholly imputable to the Romanists. 5. First, their excommunicating and separating from their assemblies all that maintain communion with the Church of England, which we know was done by bull from the pope about the tenth year of Queen Elizabeth,-before which time those English which had not joined in our reformation might and did come to our assemblies, and were never after rejected by us but upon their avowed contumacy against the orders of our Church, which consequently brought the censures on them,-and to that it is visibly consequent that we that were cast out cannot be said to separate, as in the former part of this discourse hath been demonstrated. 6. Secondly, their imposing such conditions on their communion,―belief of doctrines and approbation of practices which we neither believe nor approve of, and are ready to contest and maintain our negatives by grounds that all good Christians ought to be concluded by,-that we cannot without sinning, or seeming to sin against conscience, without wilful falling on one side, or dissembling and unsound confession on the other side, or at least the scandal of one of these, accept of their communion upon such conditions as hath formerly been demonstrated also. 7. And in this matter it were very well worthy our considering how far the articles of our Church of England proceed in accord with the present Roman doctrines and practices, and in what particulars éπéxoμev, we cannot persuade ourselves to consent to them, and then to offer it to the umpirage of any rational arbitrator whether we that unfeignedly profess to believe so much and no more, nor to be convinced by all the reasons and authorities, proofs from Scripture, or the first Christian writers,-those of the first three hundred years, or the four general councils produced by them,being in full inclination and desire of mind ready to submit upon conviction,-are in any reason or equity, or according to any example or precept of Christ or His Apostles, or the ancient primitive Church, to be required to offer violence to our minds, and to make an unsound profession, or else,-for that one guilt of not doing so,-to be rejected as heretics, and denied the benefit of Christian communion, which we IX. heartily desire to extend and propagate to them which deny CHAP. it to us. All this thus put together, and applied to this present matter, will certainly vindicate us from all appearance of guilt of this second branch of the second sort of schism. CHAP. X. THE THIRD SPECIES OF THIS SCHISM, AS AN OFFENCE AGAINST THAT due from 2. Despis ing. 1. LASTLY, as schism is an offence against that charity Contrary which is due from every Christian to every Christian, so it to charity will be best distributed, according to what we see noted by all to all. the Apostle in the Jewish and Gentile Christians, into the judging and despising of others, either of which was, if not 1. Judging. formally schism, yet soon improvable into it, when it would not be repressed by the Apostle's admonitions. The Jewish Christians we know judged and damned all that would not observe the Mosaical law, and would not associate or com- Separating municate with the gentiles; and the like height Diotrephes, of both. and some of the gentiles believers, who began with the other branch, that of vilifying the weak Jew, at last arrived to "not receiving, forbidding to receive, and casting out the [3 John brethren." And whether the Romanists or we are thus guilty will soon be discernible. the effect 10.] rating the 2. For the former, that of judging, and so separating from Of judging their brethren, if yet we may be allowed that title, it is evi- and sepadent by their own acknowledgment how guilty they are, and Romanists how guiltless we. guilty ex professo. 3. It hath been a special motive and argument to gain proselytes to their party for some years, that by our confession there is salvation to be had among them, but in their judgment no possible hope of it for us. This weapon of theirs used so studiously against us, to anticipate and prejudge in general whatsoever can be particularly said to assert our doctrines and practices, will certainly be as useful in our hands as Goliath's sword in David's to give this wound, I wish it may not prove as fatal,-to our vaunting xvii. 51.] enemies; for certainly if there be any truth in that motive, [1 Sam. X. CHAP. then are they professedly the men that judge their brethren, and as confessedly we the men that do not judge them. And if St. Cyprian's rule be true,-who had as well considered the nature of schism, and as diligently armed the Christians of his age against it, and given us as sure rules to judge by in this matter as any,-that they that maintain any difference in opinion against other Christians must, if they will avoid the evil of schism, manage it with this temper, neminem damnantes, neminem a communione nostra arcentes, never condemn any, or forbid them our communion," then is the schism, because the uncharitableness, on their parts, not on ours. And it is not the saying we are heretics, and so certainly excluded salvation, schismatics, and so out of the Church, the way to salvation, that can give this sanguinary judgment any meeker a title; for that we are such, being as much denied as any thing, and that negative offered to be proved and vindicated by all those evidences by which any matter of doctrine, from whence this question depends, can duly be cleared, this unproved affirmation that we are such is certainly a petitio principii, "a begging of the question," a supposing that in the debate which they know we are as far from confessing as they from having proved, and that is the most certain proof that such judging is uncharitable; I wish there were not so many other as pregnant indications of it. Of despising. We are guilt less of it. 4. And for that of despising or setting at nought the brother, which is the Apostle's argument also that they walk not charitably, and the effect whereof is evident, the casting them out of the Church, if the cause may be concluded by the effect the guilt lies on the Romanists' side, not on ours, as hath formerly appeared. And truly we are so sensible of the many prepossessions and strong prejudices which, by the advantage of education, the prescribed credulity to all that the Church shall propose, the doctrine of infallibility, the shutting up the Scriptures in an unknown language, the impossibility that the multitude should search or examine tradition with their own eyes, the prosperous flourishing estate of the Roman Church, and the persecutions, and calamities, and expressions of God's displeasure on the Church of England, the literal sound of hoc est corpus meum for their principal espoused doctrine of transubstantiation, and some |