Imprimatur G. Jane R. P. D. Henr. Episc Lond. Ã sac domesticis May 17. 1676. THE NOTION OF SCHISM Stated according to the ANTIENTS And considered with Reference to the NON-CONFORMISTS And the PLEAS for SCHISMATICKS examined Being Animadversions upon the Plea for the Non-Conformists With Reflections on that Famous Tract of Schism Written by M r. Hales In Two Letters to a very Worthy Gentleman LONDON Printed by R. W. for William Oliver and George Rose Booksellers in Norwich and are to be sold by them there and Nath. Brooks at the Angel in Cornhill and R. Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-yard 1676. TO THE READER THE Plea for Non-conformists tending to vindicate them from Schism came to my hands long after its Edition and then by accident too But the Schism being still continued I hope you will not think it too Late or Impertinent to publish these Animadversions upon that Tract Now should I protest against all Vanity and Popularity disavow all Interest and Sinister designs should I tell you in most Solemn and Sacred protestations that I have no other end in the publication of these Papers but the Honour of God and the Peace of his Church yet it were still at your mercy to credit these Asseverations or receive them as the usual pretensions of every Author Therefore I resolve against the Impertinence of an Apologie and leave you to the common liberty of Censure If I meet with the fate of St. Paul to pass through good as well as bad Report I shall have Honour and content enough If thou art a sound and sober member of the Church of England I know thy Temper cannot be Sullen or Ill-natur'd it is thy Genius to be Candid and Generous and thy Religion makes thee Charitable and therefore I am assured that thy Balms cannot break my Head and if these Papers may in any measure contribute towards thy firmer settlement in the Communion of this Church my principal End is then effected If thou art a Dissenter from this established Church but hast not lost that Christian Temper of Modesty and Humility read on there is hope of thy recovery that thou wilt not dye a Schismatick But if thou art one who hast given up thy Name and thy Reason too to the Leader of a Conventicle let me beseech thee to read no further for this little Discourse will but provoke thy Passion I have no Hope to prevail upon Pertinacious resolutions I never yet cleansed a Leper nor raised the Dead but if I had I should notwithstanding Despond of ever perswading any Obstinate or Passionate man for it does not appear to me evident in all the History of the Gospel that our Lord among his many Mighty Works and Miracles ever cured Perverseness If thou art a Romish Recusant let me intreat thee to Suffer thy Reason to recover its Liberty and not alwayes be in Vassallage to those Roman Dictators I know there are many of that Religion in this Nation who are Gentlemen of Complaisant Converse and Ingenuous Education but I wonder that ye who pretend so much Abhorrence of Fanaticism and boast of Loyalty to your Prince should yet degrade your selves to the same Level with the Basest Sectaries and live in constant Rebellion to the Laws of your Natural Soveraign There is great Reason that the Kings of England should ever have a peculiar Jealousie upon your Party for though your Bodies and Estates are Subjects of England yet your Souls or Religion are under the Empire of a Forreign Jurisdiction and as long as ye continue so there is no Reason in the world that can give the Crown sufficient Security for your lasting Allegiance As for those of your Religion who live under the Laws of the Romish Dominions I have great Charity for them for they can plead submission to their own Superiours and I am apt to believe that Plea may be very considerable when they come to appear before the Prince of Peace and the God of Order But for you whose Lot hath cast you under the Government of the Kingdom and Catholick Church of England and yet to Divide from their Jurisdiction and subject your selves to the Canons of a Forreign Church is not only a Disobedience against the Laws of this Church and State but a Violation of the Antient Canons of the Catholick Church and is so great a Disorder and unreasonableness that the Penalties inflicted for your Recusancy are as Just as they are Severe and ye merit no Compassion Indeed if your deserting the Romish would put you out of the Catholick Church I would never upon those hard terms perswade you into our Communion Our Profession of Faith ye will acknowledge to be the antient Catholick and Apostolick Creed I know your principal Prejudice is against the Succession of our Bishops and the Authority of our Priesthood But let me beseech you to do so much Right to us and so much Justice to your selves as impartially to peruse Mr Mason's Vindication of the Ministry of the Church of England and if his Transcript of those Acts and Monuments of our Church will not satisfie you let some of your subtilest Jesuits convict that Author of Falshood or Imposture and I will acknowledge that we are no Catholick Church and you no Schismaticks There are many of your Religion persons of great Honour and Estates in this Kingdom who may easily have the Advantage to view and examine the Original Records of the Consecration of our English Bishops in that great Crisis of our Reformation and methinks in so weighty a matter where your Estates if not some raster Interest are highly concern'd ye should be strictly inquisitive and not so blindly acquiesce in a popular Mistake and Jesuitical delusion In the mean time I charge you with the guilt of Schism in Dividing from the Church of England and if you think your selves injur'd by this Indictment let any of your Romish Champions be the Doctor 's Second and publish a Plea for your Vindication and though I am none of the Worthies of England yet I will engage for a Reply If any of you shall think fit to require it I dare undertake to prove that the Canons of the Romish Church do no more oblige any Subject of England than our Statute Laws do bind the Poles or Moscovites and that it is as great a Disorder and Impertinence for the Bishop of Rome to excommunicate any of the people of England as it were for the Lord Chief Justice of England to outlaw Don Juan of Austria And now Reader I leave you to enjoy your Humour to be Candid or Clamorous as your fancy inclines you To be wounded with the Arrows of Bitter Words is a very easie kind of Martyrdom and say what you please I am resolv'd to be unconcern'd and subscribe my self Your Christian Friend R. C. Worthy Sir I Not long since receiv'd from the hand of a Non-conforming Pastor by way of Answer to my impeaching
him of Schism this Tract Intitul'd A Plea for the Non-conformists tending to justifie them against the clamorous charge of Schism by a Doctor of Divinity whom the Dissenters call Dr. Owen And whether I may attribute it to the slighting or carelesness of our Clergie I know not but as yet I have neither seen or heard of an Answer to it Sir The true Friendship I have for you and your abilities which I am no stranger unto prompts me to put this Plea into your handling and beg your Animadversions upon it Supposing the Doctor has much wandered from that Notion of Schism deliver'd down to us from the Primitive Fathers the sense of which Sacred Priests I shall alwayes rather espouse in any point I find so clearly determin'd by them than the crude and partial if not Enthusiastick Writings of some Moderns whose heads seem rather flatus't with a prejudic'd Interest than ballac'd with an Apostolick Sobriety When I reflect upon this Intrigue of the present Dissenters from the Church of England in confounding the Notion of Schism with that of Heresie and by that jejune project would evade that Scandal of being Schismaticks a discrimination esteemed so odious and perilous among all good Catholicks in all Ages of the Christian Church I can fancy no other reason they can have than this viz. lest their Proselytes and followers should be justly affrighted at the dangerous guilt of Schism and Separation and consult their return to that Fold which they have deserted which is certainly their safest Interest Another Stratagem which has not been less useful for them than the former is their contemning an Apostolical Succession of Priesthood and thereby lessening the hazard of a Schismatick condition in the opinion of the people This unchristian humour they continually instill into the Populacy and inforce it with this Anti-Apostolick Maxim That there is no difference between a Priest and a Laick but that the first reads the Prayers of the Church and Preaches Morally as they call it and the other is gifted with continual Revelations for that they must mean if any thing by praying by the Spirit in their notion I must confess I am as yet unconverted to these Opinions and have an awful respect to your Sacred Order and I could be as easily Proselyted to Atheism as to think a Knipperdolling or an Hugh Peters were as true Priests of the Living God as a Tertullian or a Chrysostom Sir As an obedient Son of the Church of England and a Loyal Subject to my Soveraign and so oblig'd to be very solicitous of the Welfare of Church and State give me leave to sigh out some thoughts which have been and are afflictive to my Solitudes and may detect if not the causes at least the encouragements of our Schisms When I see the admir'd providence of our indulgent Prince so eminently expressed in his Royal Amnestie and Act of Oblivion for the obliterating all Animosities and Rancours which might still ferment in the hearts of men so Diametrically opposite and who had espoused Cases as contradictory as best and worst contemned and flouted by an undutiful and unchristian humour of persisting in the same stubborness wherewith they have check'd two Glorious Princes and Mated a third God bless the fourth and wherewith they brought upon our Church and Kingdom the late horrid and lamentable confusions Indignation prompts me to think that Sincere Religion cannot reside in an ungrateful heart nor true Piety and Loyalty where there are no Symptoms of their repentance And let me appeal to common sense and reason what a frightful face of Government there would appear in this Nation if all His Majesties evil-disposed Subjects should as boldly resolve to perpetrate all those Crimes prohibited by the Common and Statute Laws of this Realm as the Dissenters do temerariously transgress or fraudulently evade those Statutes relating to Conformity When I see some of your Sacred Order fly at a Dignity a Bishoprick and when they have truss'd it quarry and prune themselves upon it and live as if a Diocess were only designed to Gorge and Aggrandize the Bishop and he not concern'd to be a faithful Shepherd to his flock but negligent if not wholly careless in no small part of his Episcopal Function and Paternal charge witness the omission of that Solemn Office of Confirmation nor obliged to moderate over and inspect the manners of his inferiour Clergie who are in Law but his Curates and whose vices and disorders reflect a Blot upon himself and a Scandal to the Church then I think the longer time runs its sand will be the fuller of dust and I am ready to renounce my Philosphy and believe that Gold may rust and we have too many Rosy-Crucians in Divinity to make their Remarques When our Parochial Clergie shall out of good nature tepidity or perjury omit if not all at least some part of the Divine Service to curry their Males and coaks their Females when to please a weak Sister the Cross after Baptism must not be used and for a bribe the Sacrament shall be Administred to a sitting Bumkin and the Priest shall civilly be from home when a thing departed is to have the Burial of an Ass when every Parish shall have a singular Directory and every waxen Priest shall assume a Papism to dispense with Oath Canons and Statutes and the Diocesan shall be demurely compos'd into a posture of consent with closed eyes and folded arms are we then like to be blest with one faith and one way When too many of our Nobility and Gentry shall assume that honour and glory to list themselves in and be reputed Sons of our Church of England but by their Profaneness Debauchery and prodigious vice live Antipodes to that holy Profession and act below the dictates of uneducated nature then I think this must be influential upon the Manners of the Populacy and create an inclination to Schism if not an absolute contempt of Religion in them who are commonly capable of no other direction in their Morals and Piety than the vertuous examples of their Superiours When too many of our Nobility and Gentry shall desert their antient Seats and Countrey Interests to enjoy an urbane effeminacy immerge in the gulfs of Luxury and to enervate in the Venereal Laboratories of the Town with the greater Security to their names and less observation of the world this must be reputed no small cause of Schism in their Tenants and Dependents who in many Lordships and places of the Nation want nothing more than the antique Hospitality of England and the Orthodox practice of their Landlords and Patrons to secure them against the cantings of the Wolves and to shame them into a conformable obedience and were it seriously consider'd how easie and natural the motion is from immorality and Atheism to disloyalty and civile Apostasie these Monsters would be proscrib'd the Courts of Princes to learn humanity among flocks and herds But when the Sacred Name of Jesus
jejuno and so St. Augustin counsels Januarius Sic etiam tu ad quam forte Ecclesiam veneris ejus morem serva which plainly concludes that Christian peace and order requires that we should conform to the Rites and Canons of that Church in whose Jurisdiction we live The five Presbyters of Carthage were by St. Cyprian sentenced for Schismaticks because being within the Diocess of Carthage and so under his inspection they notwithstanding gathered to themselves Assemblies and exercised Ministerial Offices without his Authority And for the same reason Athanasius accused Ischyras of Schism for modelling a Congregation in Mareoles without any subjection or dependance upon him the Bishop of Alexandria unto whose Jurisdiction that Countrey belonged for he shews us his Title in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. All the Presbyters of this Province have their peculiar Cures or Parishes but all the Churches of this Region are under the Jurisdiction of the Bishop of Alexandria And the very same thing Epiphanius tells us in his second Book adversus Haereses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. That there were several Parochial Churches in which the Inhabitants might assemble with greater convenience and these Congregations were under the Ministery of peculiar Presbyters but all these Presbyters and their respective Churches were governed by the Superintendence of the Arch-bishop of Alexandria and this was the universal model of unity and order in all other Provinces of the Catholick Church Now the Arch-bishops of Canterbury and York have as much Jurisdiction over the Christians in England as Athanasius had over the Province of Alexandria or St. Cyprian in the Diocess of Carthage for beside the Right of Church-Government which their succession from the Apostles give them they are impowr'd to exercise their Jurisdiction by the Laws of our Christian Prince and therefore those Societies of Christians living under the Jurisdiction of the Arch-bishops and Bishops of England and yet do separate from their communion and Government are Schismaticks from the Church of England To conclude this if the Novatians and Donatists if the five Presbyters of Carthage if Ischyras in Alexandria were Schismaticks if from the Ascension of our Lord to his second Advent there was or can be a Schismatick then the Sectaries of England are Schismaticks not only from the Church of England but from the whole Catholick Church Having thus stated the antient notion of Schism and found it a henous impiety though our Non-conformists sport with it as an Ecclesiastical Scarecrow I shall next do them the justice to examine the Doctors Plea and see how well he vindicates them from the guilt of Schism First He denyes that there is any such creature as a National stated governing Church of England If the Doctor means by all these rumbling Epithets of stated National governing organical Church of England that there is no such distinct organical Church in England that is a separate body from the Catholick Church I am then of his opinion But if he means that the Bishops of England have no power of Government over the Christians in England it is a very foul mistake to speak in the modestest phrase for I have already prov'd that the Arch-bishops and Bishops have as much Jurisdiction in their respective Provinces and Dioceses of England as any other Patriarchs and Bishops of the Catholick Church ever had in theirs and if the Act of Uniformity be a Law I am sure there is such an establish'd being as a National Church In Pag. 30. his gravity drolls and gives us a very merry Argument to prove that there is no such creature as a National Church of England for sayes he Whoso will erect a stated National governing Church in England must find us an Officer clothed with Authority to excommunicate from Michael ' s Mount in Cornwall to Carlisle in Berwick Now Sir let this pass for a piece of wit though it is as wide from reason as Cornwall from Berwick What though the Bishop of Antioch could not excommunicate from Antioch to Constantinople and from thence to the borders of Persia must there therefore be no governing Church in Greece and might the Christians in Antioch by that Logick separate themselves from the communion and jurisdiction of their proper Patriarchs without Schism If our Author could have prov'd that there were any Provinces or Natives of England that were de jure exempt from the Canons of this Church and the jurisdiction of the English Bishops then there had been something of argument But if the Doctor for contumacy and disorder should be excommunicated from Church of England in Berwick I am sure without absolution de jure he could not communicate with any Assembly of the Church in England though he travail'd from Berwick to Carlisle and from thence to Mount Michael in Cornwall and this I fancy does strongly conclude That the Church of England is such a part of the Catholick Church which hath a proper and peculiar jurisdiction over all the Christians in this Kingdom Our Doctor pag. 10. sect 12. owns it as a confess'd principle That every individual member of the Church Catholick visible is bound in duty both to God and his own soul to joyn himself to some particular Society of Christians with which he may enjoy all the Ordinances of God so as may be for his souls advantage Well then why do they not communicate with the Church of England where all the Ordinances of God are observ'd and solemniz'd with as much gravity and faithfulness as in any other part of the Catholick Church To this he answers pag. 11. That the business is so stated by the Act of Uniformity that they cannot communicate with us without doing what they judge to be sinful There is nothing can justly be called sinful but what transgresses some manifest Law of God or Nature and could the Doctor have prov'd that any thing practised or enjoyn'd by the Church of England did violate any of those Divine Rules his Plea had been allowed and his Party might vindicate their Non-conformity But to Transgress a plain Law of God to disobey the Orders of our Governours and yet to give us no better reason for it than to say they fancy the things are sinful is so far from excusing that it aggravates the guilt For First Their disobedience is an affront to their Governours and then the doing this only upon the account of their own judgement or fancy is an affront to God for private conscience to usurp the Soveraignty of God and to lay such Divine Obligations upon the soul and mind which God never impos'd The nature and guilt of this disobedience is exactly represented by the story of the young Prophet 1 Kings 13. he was sent to prophesie against the Altar in Bethel now Jeroboam having cast off all the Priests and Levites of the Aaronical line and erected a new model of Religion therefore that the young Prophet might have no communion
invaded the Rights and Revenues of the Loyal Clergy should have been content with the publick remission and charity of the Act of Indemnity and not expect a Miracle that the Act of Oblivion should quite destroy the Church-mens memories for these ploughers had ploughed such deep furrows upon the Churches back that it was impossible such impressions should soon wear out The Doves were driven from their nest and their feathers of Gold pluck'd off by those ravening Vultures and they were forc'd in the Psalmists language to lye among the pots And yet after all this they must not so much as reflect upon all those rapines nor express any prudent caution against these Birds of prey but they must presently be accused of having too much gall His next charge is against the Zeal of Church-men to continue some Bishops the repute of Martyrs who had suffer'd for the vigorous inforcing of some of the things now enjoyn'd I observe the Doctor very warily covers the Blood of Charles the First but dares dip his fingers in that of the Bishops and yet I believe the King as well as the Bishop is left out from his Martyrologie Had the Bishops impos'd such Rites and Innovations as had been inconsistent with the reverence of Religion and the nature of Christianity had they urged such Observances which had never been practis'd in the Catholick Church nor required by the Church of England truly then the blood of Arch-bishop Laud should have no Rubrick in my Kalendar for then he had suffered as an evil doer But when those things required were founded upon good reasons of Religion the custom of the antient Church and enjoyn'd by the just Authority of this Nation I think the Arch-bishop who had the hard fate to fall in doing of his duty may in a sober sense be said to suffer for righteousness sake and be allowed the honour of some kind of Martyrdom Sir I do here declare my self an eternal enemy to that Religion which can consecrate Sacriledge hallow Rebellion and sanctifie Rapine and Injustice Nor will I ever have any communion with those men who Canonize the most infamous Traytors and Murderers for Saints and condemn the best King and Bishop in the World for Malefactors I don't see but by the Theorems of this Jewish Divinity Barabbas might have been Sainted and Christ recorded for an Impostor The next accusation brought against Church-men is their desire of filthy Lucre. I confess covetousness is one of the greatest shames of humane Reason and that it is a most absurd impertinence to see Spiritual men to fond upon the things of earth But if that must be called a desire of filthy Lucre when a man perhaps a little too passionately desires and enjoyes his own just Rights and Properties then sure it was the foulest Lucre for those men no invade the Revenues of the Church to which they had no Title neither by the Law of God nor the Statutes of the Nation Sure none but a Pharisee could have overseen so vast a beam in his own eye and taken such great notice of a little spot in his Brothers The Acts of Uniformity and that against Private Meetings are describ'd as Severe and Tragick as if they had been the Edicts of Nero or Dioclesian I do believe had the very same Laws been by the Roman Emperours imposed upon the Catholick Church in the first three hundred years they would have made a Jubilee and have been celebrated by the antient Christians with Hymns and Hallelujahs The Sentiments of these men differ so much from the judgement of the antient Christians as if they were not of the same Religion And Sir you may remember some Ordinances of Parliament that did more bloody execution than all the Laws and Canons Royal of England Sure you have not forgot when Loyalty to our Prince and faithfulness to the establish'd Religion was damn'd for Malignancy and the Loyal Nobility Gentry and Clergy of England were condemn'd to Axes and Halters Plunderings and Sequestrations Prisons and Banishment And yet all these Tragick Scenes must have a silken curtain drawn over them and must be interpreted as expresses of holy zeal and Rigour and Persecution charg'd only upon the Acts of Uniformity and that against Conventicles From pag. 3. to pag. 7. the Doctor labours to assert the great numbers of Non-conformists and insinuates that the prudence of our Governours could never have passed the Act of Uniformity if they had not been mis-informed that the numbers of Non-conformists were very inconsiderable I confess in State Logick number is a weighty argument and in Politicks it must be thought imprudence to disoblige a numerous party who are able to affront their Governours and cast away their cords from them Cum plurimi peccant impunes sunt But whether the establishing parties and divisions by a Law do consist with the Piety of a Christian Prince I shall leave to your Judgement to enquire But I see by the Doctor 's Maxims of Prudence if the World run after the Beast it is but the duty and wisdom of the Kings of the Earth to fall down and worship him and if the Arrian faction be great and popular it is Prudence in Constantius to Arrianize It is worth observing how these men to serve their Interest can quit their old impropriation of the little flock and to make themselves formidable will appear as the Syrians that cover the Land But this Popish Argument of Number is never urg'd but upon design for it is confess'd Multitude is no infallible argument of truth for Anti-christ will out poll us He complains that there is a vast number of Atheistical livers that seldom or never resort to Publick worship and yet these escape the Indictments of Law Censures of the Church but all the arrows are made ready against the servants of the Living God Whether the Title of the Servants of God which these men appropriate to themselves be not a Presumption I shall leave to be examin'd by Omniscience But I am sure they are guilty of some actions of so bad a tincture that may make the World justly suspect they wear the Livery of another Master But if there be a remisness of Government in England or a connivance to Atheâ—istical Separatists it is our complaint and lamentation as well as theirs The Doctor in the same Section makes the number of the Atheists in England not inferiour to the Non-conformists And then by the late insinuation their number will likewise plead for Toleration and it will not be prudence to molest them And where there are many Sectaries it is no wonder there should be as many Atheists You know Sir it was remarqued by a very observing Gentleman That there were more Atheists in the Seven Provinces than in the rest of Christendom we must now except England and he gives us this reason for his conjecture That there were so many Religions that there were great numbers of men that