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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36253	Separation of churches from episcopal government, as practised by the present non-conformists, proved schismatical from such principles as are least controverted and do withal most popularly explain the sinfulness and mischief of schism ... by Henry Dodwell ...	Dodwell, Henry, 1641-1711.	1679 (1679)	Wing D1818; ESTC R13106	571,393	694

such a Separation as denies not only Actual Obedience but the Lawful Jurisdiction of Superiors and withdrawes Subjects from the proper Legal Coercions of such a Society especially if continued in the same Districts where Separation from Government is not intelligible without opposition to it must needs be Schismatical For where there are two Governments not Subordinate there must needs be two Bodies Politick and therefore that Separation which interrupts this Subordination and erects an Independent Government must consequently dissolve this Political Vnity and be Schismatical This therefore being the true ground of this Notion of Schism must be the principal thing requisite to be proved against our Adversaries And whether it be proved directly that the Church is such a Body Politick and it be thence inferred that such a Separation as that I have been speaking of is properly Schismatical or whether the Separation be first proved Schismatical and this Political Vnity of the Church be thence deduced both ways of proceeding will come to the same event § XLII ESPECIALLY considering 2. that though indeed we can by Reason prove it very convinient and avaylable for the Salvation of particular Persons that they be thus confederated into Political Societies yet we cannot prove it so necessary as that Antecedently to all Positive Revelation we might have been able to conclude that God must have thus confederated them For besides the great Presumption and Vncertainty of this way of Arguing what God must have done from what we esteem fit and convenient acknowledged by all Equal Persons in Instances whereof they may be presumed Equal Judges that is when this Argument is produced in favour of Adversaries the Argument is then more especially Weak and Imprudent when the conveniences are no greater than still to leave many things to the determination of Humane Prudence and such they are here and when we can have securer ways of Arguing as none will doubt but that it is much more secure to Enquire what God has actually done from actual Revelation than from our own fallible Conjectures what was fit to have been done by him especially in things so Indifferent and Arbitrary as these are concerning which I am at present discoursing If therefore it may appear that God has actually made the Church a Body Politick it will follow that resistance to Ecclesiastical Governors must be actually comdemned by God as Shismatical and on the contrary if it appear that God has actually condemned Resistance to Ecclesiastical Officers as Schismatical it will also follow that he has made the Church a Body Politick there being no other difference betwixt these two ways of Arguing but that one of them is a priori the other a posteriori but in both of them the Connexion is equally certain from its own rational Evidence § XLIII 3. THEREFORE As this actual Constitution of the Church is most proper to be proved from Scripture so the most satisfactory way of proving it thence will be not only to prove thence the Duty of Obedience to be required from Subjects to their Ecclesiastical Superiors but also to discover from thence the mischief likely to befall Subjects upon their Disobedience For 1. it is in vain to constitute a Government or a Body Politick properly so called without a Coercive Power over its particular refractory Members And therefore if in the Constitution of the Church as established in the Scriptures there appeared nothing Coercive over its particular Members to force them to the performance of their Duty under pain of a greater Prejudice to be incurred by them in case of refusal than that of barely acting irrationally and indecorously this very Omission would make it suspicious that the Duty exacted from them were no more than that Reverential respect which we commonly conceive due to Persons of excellent accomplishments or from whom we have received particular Obligations though they have no Right of Jurisdiction over us but not that Obedience which is properly due to Governours of Societies by virtue of their Offices without any regard to their Personal accomplishments and our Obligations to them So that this real Prejudice which is likely to be incurred by the Subject in Case of Disobedience is very necessary to be discovered from the nature of the Constitution of the Church as it is expressed in the Scripture even in order to the clearing the Nature of the Duty and the extent of the obligation of this Authority § XLIV AND 2. the Church being on this Supposal an External Body Politick its Coercive Power must also be External And therefore though the validity of her Censures be derived from Gods seconding them that is from his remitting or binding in Heaven what she remits or binds on Earth yet this power will indeed be very little Coercive if Gods confirmation be thought easily separable from the Churches Act. For seeing that a Society of this nature cannot imply any External Coercion of the External Act all the Coercion she can pretend to can be no other than a Deprivation of those Priviledges which are enjoyed and may be pretended to by virtue of her visible Membership and an exposing the Person so deprived to all the Calamities consequent to such a Deprivation But if the Confirmation of these censures by God be wholly resolved into the merit of the Cause for which they were inflicted they can never be feared nor consequently prove Coercive to their Subjects who are not convinced of the merit of the Cause it self Which in the event will make them never properly Coercive at all especially in regard of a Government which is acknowledged Fallible as the Church is generally by Protestants For it is to be presumed that all who stand out so obstinately against the Churches Authority as to provoke her Censures either are not or pretend not to be satisfied with the Justice of her Decrees and therefore if their own Judgments may be taken as all the Coerciveness of such Censures as these are which are not Externally Coercive must be derived from the Judgments of the Persons lying under them concerning their validity there can be no hopes of reclaiming them by Censures who are not already such as may be presumed satisfied concerning the Justice of the Cause for which they were inflicted and yet such alone are the proper Objects of Coercive Power § XLV BESIDES those Censures which are supposed only Declarative not Operative are not properly the Acts of Authorized but Skillful Persons for it is Skill not Authority that is a Prudent Presumption that any thing is such as it is Declared and therefore the Opinions of Learned Doctors though but private Persons would in this way of Proceeding be much more formidable than the Peremptory Sentences of Ecclesiastical Governours as they are considered only under that Relation I cannot see how this can be denied by those who conceive the Declaration to be purely-Speculative and to be of no further force for obliging particular Persons than as upon

Men would have for such Persons must needs go far to recommend their advices and Instructions And yet all these usefulnesses would be in a great measure lost if this Perfection were practiced any where else than in the visible Communion of the Church where all Men might observe it And particularly how very useful would they prove to the Publick who had attained to the Perfection of Prayer How generous and noble how free from corruption and base designs must those excellent Souls prove who had by this exercise raised themselves above the World and temporal considerations With what a vigorous Zeal with what courage and confidence must they be animated both to undertake and dispatch their great designs when they undertook them purely for the sake of God and the love of Goodness and when they might therefore confidently expect his irresistible assistance Who could have the confidence to oppose them when they might justly fear least they should oppose God himself in doing so This is an obligation to the Publick from which Perfect Persons are so unlikely to be excused on account of their Perfection as that indeed their being supposed Perfect is a stronger Argument to prove them obnoxious to it CHAP. XI Prayers for Persons out of the Church have no encouragement that they shall be accepted THE CONTENTS 7. The Scripture gives us no encouragement to believe that any Prayers shall be heard which are made out of the Communion of the Church or even in the behalf of those that are so excepting those which are for their conversion This proved from St. John who was the only Apostle who lived to see the Case of Separation § I. St. John xvii 9 § II. Where by being given to Christ is meant a being given by external Profession § III. By the World all they are meant who were out of the visible Society of the Professors of the Christian Doctrine § IV.V. They are said to be in the World purely for this reason because they did not keep to the Society of the Church § VI. The same thing proved from 1 St. John v. concerning the Sin unto Death The Argument according to the Alexandrian Ms. § VII According to the Vulgar Reading The Sin unto Death is leaving the Oxthodox Party § VIII IX.X.XI The same thing proved from 2. St. John 10 11. § XII Pardon possible for Persons out of the Church's Communion upon their admission into it according to the Doctrine of those times but much more difficult for Relapsers than others The latter part proved from 2 Pet. II. 21 § XIII and from Heb. X. 25 26 27. § XIV.XV. and from Heb. XII 15 17. 1 Joh. V. 16 § XVI and from other Arguments § XVII XVIII The actual practice of the Primitive Church not to pray for Spiritual benefits for those who were not actual Members of the Churches Communion § XIX.XX. An application of what has been said § XXI Object That these things are spoken of a total relapse from Christianity not from one Party of Christians to another § XXII That Life was properly ascribed to the true Christ as the Messias according to the Notions of the Ordinary Jews § XXIII and according to the sense of the generality of the first Converts to Christianity That the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was thought to be the proper Principle of Life § XXIV That the Messias as Messias was to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also § XXV Answ. 1. It were well our Brethren would allow the same Candor in expounding other Texts produced by them as they do in these produced against them § XXVI 2. It is not likely that the Antichrists of those times did generally deny the true Christ to be so § XXVII XXVIII.XXIX 3. Whatever the occasion was yet the reasoning used in those Disputes is to prove their being separated from Christ from their being separated from the External Communion of the Visible Church § XXX § I BUT to speak yet more closely to the Case of Prayer I consider further 7. That the Scriptures give us no encouragement to believe that any Prayers shall be heard which are made out of the Communion of the Church or even in the behalf of those who are so excepting those which are for their conversion And no Prayers can be thought to supply the want of the Sacarments but only such concerning which the Person who makes them may be confident that they shall find acceptance I know this will look like a Paradox to them who have been accustomed to believe otherwise But I shall intreat them to consider what I shall say concerning it impartially because they are very highly concerned if they should prove mistaken concerning it Of all the Apostles St. John is the only Person concerning whom we have reason to be confident that he lived to see the open separation of the Hereticks from the Church's Communion at least so as to convene in opposite Assemblies Hegesippus assures us that till Trajans time the Church of Hierusalem at least Apud Eus. L. III. Hist. Eccl. C. 32. L. IV. 22 continued a pure Virgin So far he says that if there were any of them they did yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lurk in dark dens a Metaphor taken from hurtful Beasts But that after the Apostles were all gone by different sorts of deaths and that that generation was past of them who had had the honour to hear the Divine wisdome with their own ears then began the conspiracy of Atheistical Error by the deceit of other Masters who when none of the Apostles were now left to confront them had then the confidence to preach up their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in opposition to the Preaching of the Truth Though the Case be here mentioned only of Hierusalem yet the reason extends to all other places whilest any Member of the Apostles were living And it is very probable that it was in memory of these happy times of Unity as far as he was capable of remembring them which was not very far that St. (a) Ep. ad Florin apud Eus. L. v. c. 20. Irenaeus tells us that Polycarp when he saw the multitude of Heresies in the second Century used to cry out O God to what times hast thou reserved us From St. John therefore we have reason to expect that he should speak more distinctly to our Case than any of the rest because he lived to see more of it than they did § II AND in him we have our Saviours Intercession on Earth no doubt a pattern of what we have reason to believe is continued by him in Heaven only for Members of the Church I (b) John XVII 9 pray for them I pray not for the World but for them whom thou hast given me And least we should understand this Intercession to have been proper for the Age wherein it was made he afterwards expressly adds (c) v. 20 I pray not for them only but for all those who shall hereafter