Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

not' that so you may neither causelessly trouble yourselves with scruples, nor trouble the church by sinful schism.

[ocr errors]

I. There must be an union among all churches and Christians in these following particulars. 1. They have all but one God. 2. And one Head and Saviour, Jesus Christ. 3. And one Sanctifier, the Holy Ghost. 4. And one ultimate end and hope, even the fruition of God in heaven. 5. And one Gospel to teach them the knowledge of Christ, and contain the promise of their salvation. 6. And one kind of faith that is wrought hereby. 7. And one and the same covenant (of which baptism is the seal) in which they are engaged to God. 8. And the same instrumental founders of our faith, under Jesus Christ, even the prophets and apostles. 9. And all members of the same universal body. 10. And all have the same new nature and holy disposition, and the same holy affections, in loving God and holiness, and hating sin. 11. They all own, as to the essential parts, the same law of God, as the rule of their faith and life, even the sacred canonical Scriptures. 12. Every member hath a love to the whole, and to each other, especially to the more excellent and useful members; and an inclination to holy communion with each other. 13. They have all a propensity to the same holy means and employment, as prayer, learning the Word of God, and doing good to others. All these things the true living members of the church have in sincerity, and the rest have in profession.

II. There will be still a diversity among the churches and particular Christians in these following points, without any dissolution of the fore-described unity. 1. They will not be of the same age or standing in Christ; but some babes, some young men, and some fathers. 2. They will not have the same degrees of strength, of knowledge, and of holiness: some will have need to be fed with milk, and be unskilful in the word of righteousness. 3. They will differ in the kind and measure of their gifts: some will excel in one kind, and some in another, and some in none at all. 4. They will differ in their natural temper, which will make some to be more hot and some more mild, some more quick and some more dull, some of more regulated wits and some more scattered and confused. 5. They will differ in

spiritual health and soundness; one will be more orthodox and another more erroneous; one will have a better appetite to the wholesome word than others that are inclining to novelties and vain janglings; one will walk more blamelessly than another; some are full of joy and peace, and others full of grief and trouble. 6. They differ much in usefulness and service to the body; some are pillars to support the rest, and some are burdensome and troublers of the church. 7. It is the will of Christ that they differ in office and employment; some being pastors and teachers to the rest. 8. There may be much difference in the manner of their worshipping God; some observing days and difference of meats and drinks, and forms and other ceremonies, which others observe not: and several churches may have several modes. 9. These differences may possibly by the temptation of satan, arise to vehement contentions, and not only to the censuring and despising of each other, but to the rejecting of each other from the communion of the several churches, and forbidding one another to preach the Gospel, and the banishing or imprisoning one another, as Constantine himself did banish Athanasius, and as Chrysostom and many another have felt. 10. Hence it followeth, that as in the visible church some are the members of Christ, and some are indeed the children of the devil, some shall be saved and some be damned, even with the sorest damnation, (the greatest difference in the world to come being betwixt the visible members of the church,) so among the godly and sincere themselves, they are not all alike amiable or happy, but they shall differ in glory as they do in grace. All these differences there have been, are, and will be in the church, notwithstanding its unity in other things.

14

III. The word 'schism' cometh from 'oxw,' ' disseco, lacero,' and signifieth any sinful division among Christians. Some Papists (as Johnson) will have nothing called schism, but a dividing one's self from the Catholic church: others maintain that there is nothing in Scripture called schism, but making divisions in particular churches. The truth

e The true placing the bonds of unity importeth exceedingly. Which will be done if the points fundamental, and of substance in religion were truly discerned and distinguished from points not merely of faith, but of opinion, order, or good intention. This is a thing that may seem to many a matter trivial, and done already; but if it

is, (obvious in the thing itself) that there are several sorts of schism or division. 1. There is a causing divisions in a particular church, when yet no party divideth from that church, much less from the universal. Thus Paul blameth the divisions that were among the Corinthians, while one said I am of Paul,' and another, I am of Apollos,' &c. 1 Cor. iii. 3. And 1 Cor. xi. 18. " I hear that there be divisions among you :" not that they separated from each other's communion, but held a disorderly communion. Such divisions he vehemently dissuadeth them from, 1 Cor. i. 10. And thus he persuadeth the Romans, (xvi. 17.) to "mark them which cause divisions and offences among them, contrary to the doctrine which they had learned, and avoid them;" which it seems therefore were not such as had avoided the church first. He that causeth differences of judgment and practice, and contendings in the church, doth cause divisions, though none separate from the church.

2. And if this be a fault, it must be a greater fault to cause divisions from, as well as in, a particular church, which a man may do that separateth not from it himself: as if he persuade others to separate, or if he sow those tares of error which cause it, or if he causelessly excommunicate or cast them out.

3. And then it must be as great a sin to make a causeless separation from the church that you are in yourself, which is another sort of schism. If you may not divide in the church, nor divide others from the church, then you may not causelessly divide the common from it yourselves.

4. And it is yet a greater schism, when you divide not only from that one church, but from many; because they concur in opinion with that one, (which is the common way of dividers).

5. And it is yet a greater schism, when whole churches separate from each other, and renounce due communion with each other without just cause: as the Greeks, Latins, and Protestants in their present distance, must some of them (whoever it is) be found guilty.

6. And yet it is a greater schism than this, when churches do not only separate from each other causelessly,

were done less partially, it would be embraced more generally. Lord Bacon, Essay iii.

but also unchurch each other, and endeavour to cut off each other from the church universal, by denying each other to be true churches of Christ. It is a more grievous schism to withdraw from a true church as no church, than as a corrupt church; that is, to cut off a church from Christ, and the church Catholic, than to abstain from communion with it as a scandalous or offending church.

[ocr errors]

7. It is yet cæteris paribus' a higher degree of schism to divide yourselves (a person or a church) from the universal church without just cause, though you separate from it but secundum quid,' in some accidental respect where unity is needful (for where unity is not required, there disunion is no sin): yet such a person that is separate but ⚫ secundum quid,' from something accidental, or integral, but not essential to the Catholic church, is still a Catholic Christian, though he sin...

8. But as for the highest degree of all, viz. to separate from the universal church simpliciter,' or in some essential respect, this is done by nothing but by heresy or apos tasy. However the Papists make men believe that schismatics that are neither heretics nor apostates, do separate themselves wholly or simply from the Catholic church, this is a mere figment of their brains. For he that separateth not from the church in any thing essential to it, doth not truly and simply separate from the church, but secundum quid,' from something separable from the church. But whatever is essential to the church, is necessary to salvation; and he that separateth from it upon the account of his denying any thing necessary to salvation, is an heretic or an apostate: that is, if he do it, as denying some one (or more) essential point of faith or religion, while he pretendeth to hold all the rest, he is an heretic: if he deny the whole Christian faith, he is a flat apostate; and these are more than to be schismatics.

The word heresy' also is variously taken by ecclesiastic writers. Austin will have heresy to be an inveterate schism: Jerome maketh it to be some perverse opinion; some call every schism which gathereth a separated party from the rest, by the name of heresy; some call it a heresy if there be a perilous error though without any schism; some call it a heresy only when schism is made, and a party se

Some

parated upon the account of some perilous error. say this error must be damnable, that is, in the essentials of religion; and some say, it is enough if it be but dangerous. Among all these, the commonest sense of a 'heretic' is, one that obstinately erreth in some essential point, and divideth from the communion of other Christians upon that account. And so Paræus and many Protestants take heresy for the species, and schism for the genus. All schism is not heresy; but all heresy, say they, is schism. Remember that all this is but a controversy de nomine,' and therefore of small

moment.

[ocr errors]

By this that I have said you may perceive who they be that are guilty of church divisions: As, 1. The sparks of it are kindled, when proud and self-conceited persons are brain-sick in the fond estimation of their own opinions, and heart-sick by a feverish zeal for propagating them. Ignorant souls think that every change of their opinions is made by such an accession of heavenly light, that if they should not bestir them to make all of the same mind, they should be betrayers of the truth, and do the world unspeakable wrong. When they measure and censure men as they receive or reject their peculiar discoveries or conceits, schism is in the egg.

2.. The fire is blown up, when men are desirous to have a party follow them and cry them up, and thereupon are busy in persuading others to be of their mind, and do speak perverse things to draw away disciples after them. And when they would be counted the masters of a party.

3. The flames break forth, when by this means the same church, or divers churches do fall into several parties burning in zeal against esch other, abating charity, censuring and condemning one another, backbiting and reviling each other, through envy and strife; when they look strangely at one another, as being on several sides, as if they were not children of the same Father, nor members of the same body; or as if Christ were divided, one being of Paul, and another of Apollos, and another of Cephas, and every one of a faction, letting out their thoughts in jealousies and evil surmises of each other; perverting the words and actions of each to an ugly sense, and snatching occasions to represent one another as fools or odious to the hearers, as if you should plainly

« ForrigeFortsæt »