The Unreasonableness of Separation, Part 3 · Section 23
Sect. 23. Having thus cleared the main difficulties which are objected by my more weighty Adversaries, the weaker assaults of the rest in what they differ from these, will admit of a quicker dispatch. Mr. A. objects,Mischief of Impos. p. 27. (1.) That if National Churches have Power to reform themselves, then so have Congregational; and therefore I do amiss to charge them with Separation. I grant it, if he proves that no Congregational Church hath any more Power over it, than a National Church hath: i. e. that there is as much evidence against both Episcopal and Presbyterial Government as there is against the Pope's Vsurpations. When he doth prove that,ibid. he may have a farther answer. (2.) That National Churches destroy the being of other Churches under them; this I utterly deny, and there wants nothing but Proof; as Erasmus said one Andrelinus was a good Poet, onelyonly his Verses wanted one Syllable and that was foreign.p. 29. (3.) By my description the Parlament may be a National Church, for they are a Society of men united together for their Order and Government, according to the Rules of the Christian Religion. But did I not immediately before say, that National Churches are National Societies of Christians, under the same Laws of Government and Rules of Worship? from whence it is plain that in the next words, when I went about to prove National Churches to be true Churches, I used such a general description as was common to any kind of Church and not proper to a National Church. p. 30.(4.) He gives this reason why consent should not make National Churches as well as Congregational; because it must be such an agreement as the Gospel warrants; and that is onelyonly for Worship, and not to destroy their own being. This is the reasoning of a horse in a mill; still round about the same thing. And therefore the same answer may serve.p. 31. (5.) Out come Mr. B.'s Objections, against a visible Head of this National Church; and the manner of union, and the differences among our selves; as though Mr. B. could not manage his own Arguments, and therefore he takes them and strips them of their heavy and rusty Armour; and makes them appear again in the field, in another dress, and if they could not stand the field in the former habit, they can much less doe it in this.
The Authour of the Letter saith, Letter out of the country, p. 24.I onelyonly prove a National Church a possible thing. He clearly mistakes my design; which was to shew that if there be such a thing as a National Church, then no single Congregations have such a power in themselves to separate from others in matters of order and decency where there is a consent in the same Faith. To prove that there was such a thing, I shewed that if the true Notion of a Church doth agree to it, then upon the same reason that we own particular Churches, and the Catholick Church, we are to own a National Church; so that the design of that discourse was not barely to prove the possibility of the thing; but the truth and reality of it. p. 25.But, saith he, Can it be proved that Christ hath invested the Guides of this Church, not chosen by the People, with a Power to make Laws and Decrees, prescribing not onelyonly things necessary for common order and decency, but new federal rites, and teaching signs and symbols, superadded to the whole Christian Institution? &c. I answer, that such a Church hath Power to appoint Rules of Order and Decency not repugnant to the word of God, which on that account others are bound to submit to; and to take such care of its preservation, as to admit none to its privileges but such as do submit to them; and if any disturb the Peace of this Church, the Civil Magistrate may justly inflict civil Penalties upon them for it. All which is no more than any settled Church in the world asserts, as well as ours. And I wonder this should be so continually objected against our Church, which all Societies in the world think just and necessary for their own preservation. As to the Guides of the Church not being chosen by the People, I shall speak to that afterwards. One objection more he makes, which the others did not, viz. I had said that by whole or National Churches, I understood the Churches of such Nations which upon decay of the Roman Empire resumed their just right of Governing themselves, and upon their owning Christianity incorporated into one Christian Society, under the same common ties and Rules of Order and Government. Such Churches, I say, have a just right of Reforming themselves, and therefore are not liable to the imputation of Schism from the Roman Church. Would one think, what unlucky Inferences he draws from hence? (1.) Then all that remain within the Empire,p. 26. were bound to continue in the Communion of the Roman Church. What, if I should deny the continuance of the Roman Empire? then all would be safe. But do I any where say, that being in the Empire, they were bound to submit to the Roman Church? No; but as the Nation resumed its just civil Rights, the Church might as rightfully recover it self from Papal Vsurpations; not laying the force of one upon the other, but paralleling them together: and the advantage of the argument is on the Churches side. (2.) Then where Princes have not resumed their just rights as to Reformation, they are Schismaticks that separate from Rome.Part 2. That doth not follow: for in the cases before mentioned separation is lawfull; but no Reformation is so unexceptionable, as when there is a Concurrence of the Civil Power.
My last Adversary doth not deny a National Church from consent in the same Articles of Religion, Rect…r of Sutton, &c. p. 2….and Rules of Government and Order of Worship; but then he saith, such ought to be agreeable to the established Rule of Holy Scriptures. And therein we are all agreed. So that after much tugging, this point is thought fit to be given up.