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A96097 The arch-rebel found, or An answer to Mr. M. H.'s Brief enquiry into the true nature of schism By T.W., citizen of Chester ... T. W. 1690 (1690) Wing W111A; ESTC R43946 21,021 35

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this digression which I think not impertinent and then I 'll close The Prayers made for the the Wednesday Fast cannot be Charged with Popery as your Party have the Liturgy Supplications fitted to the Occasion and for all capacities imposed by Lawful Authority by them who have the Rule over us What account can you give to God to the Government and to your own Conscience why you omit or refuse so indispensible a duty The Apostle saith Obey them that have the Rule over you and Commands this duty of Obedience to our Governors upon the Severest and Highest Penalties Rom. 13. v. 1 2. Whosoever therefore resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation How can you reconcile your Practice with this Apostolical Injunction Unless you can charge the Prayers with something not lawful or not reasonable to be offered to God you are highly Criminal in the Apostles Judgment God Almighty hath now settled the Government where there is as true and real Abhorence of Popish Delusions as you or any of your Party can pretend to yet you yield not obedience to them even in a Religious Duty All your pretence is that your Prayers are more purely Spiritual you seek God in more apt and pleasing words words which immediately flow from the Spirit What is this but to limit and restrain the Holy Scripture to your way and to your Faction as if no Prayers but those hammered out of your own Brains could bear the stamp of the Holy Spirit of God and is it * Swoppery in Robbery not highly Prophane if not Blasphemy to impure all your Levites and Impertinencys to the immediate dictates of the Spirit of God though this Holy Spirit you pretend to can no where be found but in the Holy Catholick Church and Communion of Saints where alone our Blessed Lord hath Promised it shall be to the end of the World All the Impostors in the world who have set up before you even Mahomet himself and a great number of Hereticks and Schismaticks in the Christian Church pretended to inspiration and by it have deceived many But this your pretence to inspiration can never proselyte any but the Ignorant and Undescerning and those who are given to Change unless you can produce the Credentials of a Miracle All our Prayers in our Liturgy are directed to God Almighty and are presented in the name of the Blessed Jesus and all we supplicate for are for no other things but what is allowed of and required in our holy Religion Now why any but Atheists and those that are Antichristian joyn not with us in those Prayers and Praises especially considering that it is the Apostle Saint Paul's Judgment Rom. 15.6 That we might with one mind and with one Mouth glorifie God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ I know not unless for the same Reason that you refuse those Prayers for the Fast added to the Liturgy viz. Obstinacy and Disobedience Now Sir to close up all you cannot but see your Guilt I Address to you in all Meekness and Christian Charity that you will seriously consider the dangerous and desperate State and Condition you are in for all the great and precious promises made by God in Christ Jesus are only to them who are Members of the Mystical Body of Christ the Holy Catholick Church and Communion of Saints they who are not of the Catholick Church and Communion of Saints may flatter themselves with Unwarrantable and Groundless Fancies but can have no real Title or Right to any of those precious Promisses and therefore as you love your Soul suffer not filthy Lucre Interest or Pride to with-hold you any longer out of the Catholick Church wherein alone Salvation can be had it is not your purer Administrations or any other pretence can avail or stand you in any stead they only who are of this Society which is the Mystical Body of Christ here on earth have any Right Heb. 12 vers 22.23.24 to come to the Mount Sion and unto the City of the living God the Heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable Company of Angels to the General Assembly and Church of the first born which are Written in Heaven And to God the Judge of all and to the Spirits of just men made perfect And to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant that you may have Right and Title to all this I heartily Pray with the Church in the Liturgy That it may please God to bring you into the way of Truth and all such as have erred and are deceived Amen FINIS
by holding Communion with the particular Church wherein they live that Church not being Schismatical all the particular Churches through all the World being the Members that make up the Mystical Body of Christ the one Catholick Church Sir having shewed you as clearly as I can the true Notion of the Catholick Church and Communion of Saints Schism is so clearly unmasked that a man may though not from the same impulse yet with as much certainty pronounce and declare you a Schismatick as the Prophet Nathan did King David's Sin when he said Thou art the Man For it is most manifest that all who pretend Christianity and wilfully refuse Communion with the Catholick Church do cut themselves off from and cease to be Members of the Body of Christ for he hath but one Body that is his Church and this in the Language of the Scriptures and the Judgment of the Fathers in the Primitive Times is Schism And this agrees too with the Nature and Signification of the Word Sir though it be above my Education yet since I undertook your Enquiry I have made search and do give you this following account of these Fathers whose Judgments are against you St. Irenaeus Bishop of Lugdunum Lib. 4. adver Her cap. 43. who was Cotemporary with Policarpus a Disciple of St. John who must in Reason be allowed to know the Primitive Apostolick notion of Schism better than you or any who are of your Faction exhorts all Christians to harken to those Presbyters who were in the Communion of the Catholick Church and that they might not be deceived describes them Qua propter is qui in Ecclesia sunt Presbyteris obaudire oportet iis qui Successionem ha●ent ab Apostolis c. Wherefore they are oblig'd to obey those Presbyters who are within the Pale of the Church who as we have shown are the Successors of the Apostles who have received the sure gift of Truth together with an Apostolical right of Succession according to the De●ree of the Father● Reliquos vero qui abs●stunt a principali Successione quocunque loco colliguntar c. As for those who renounce the Apostolical Succ●ssion and Assemble themselves in any place whatsoever suspect and esteem them as Heretical and Damnable Opinions who flatter themselves with hope of Lucre and Vain Glory but as for them who rend and tear in pieces the Unity of the Church they shall receive punishment of God as Jeroboam did St. Ignatius the Second Bish●p of Antioch from St. Peter in his Ep. ad Tralian●s ad Smyrnen●es and in those to the Phil●ippians c. frequently charges 'em to keep in the Unity of the Christian Church by a regular obedience to the Bishops and by Communicating with those Presbyters who were set over them by Authority of Episcopal Order that to disobey those Bishops and their Presbyters and to separate from them is in those Epistles charged with Schism St. Athanasius brands Ischyras for a Schismatick and gives this Reason for it that Ischyras did Usurp a Ministerial Authority without regular Ordination from the Bishops of the Catholick Church and gather'd to himself a Congregation separate from the Bishop of Alexandria in whose Province he liv'd St. Cyprian Ep. 4. ad populum Carthaginensem de quinque Presbyteris exhorts them to have no Communion with those who had divided themselves from their Bishops assuring them that to be sine Episcopis was to be extra Ecclesiam And in his Book De Vnitate he gives this Notion of Schism Contemptis Episcopis Derilictis Dei sacerd●tibus constitu●re aliud Altare aut Conventicula diversa constituere That it was Schism to dispise and forsake the Bishops and Priests of God and to set up another Alter or to set up distinct Conventicles Sir though I pretend not to the Originals yet having found these Instances produced by men of unquestionable Sincerity and great Learning I presume to present you with them I have more of this kind before me but these Testimonies are sufficient to shew how different from and far short your discription of Schism is from the Notion of Schism the Fathers had in the Primitive times and that in their Judgment you are Guilty of Schism Sir you cannot by this time but see your Guilt and though you as Criminals usually before our Tribunals plead not Guilty 't is your own phrase yet I beseech you consider your Trial must be before that Tribunal which cannot be deceived or bassled you had better try and judge your self now that you be not judged To live in Schism you ingeniously acknowledge is a black and hanious Crime to promote and patronize it as you do must then be a great agravation of it it is to be out of the Catholick Church and Communion of Saints out of which there is no ordinary means nor any firm ground to fix any hope of Salvation its plain Acts 2.47 The Lord dayly added to the Church such as should be saved no being added to the Church no being saved there is no other way revealed by which you may be saved And it concerns you highly to consider how you can answer for all those many poor Souls that you seduce into Schism and so industriously keep out of Christs Fold I caution you in all Meekness and Christian Charity and out of a sincere desire of your eternal welfare and if you have that preparedness of mind that Meekness and Sel●-denial which the Holy Jesus requires in the Gospel you will no longer contend with Flesh and Blood but immediately surrender your self into the Communion of that Church where if you will not be wanting to your self you will find all the satisfaction that a Christian can desire there being all things exhibited to you that appertain to Life and Salvation Having thus finished what I designed as sufficient to shew you the true Notion of Schism and your mistake in the Nature of it I proceed to make some Remarks upon your Brief Enquiry c. THe Scope of all you say till your Instance of Eldad and Medad amounts to no more but that Schism is an Arch-Rebel c. a deformed Brat c. a Crime so black no body will plead Guilty to the Indictment And then comes another Law term Hue and Cry c. 't is an hanious Crime but 't is very difficult and scarce possible to find it it cannot be described All I need say to this is the difficulty is removed I have plainly shew'd you how to describe it and so to make a true Judgment who are Guilty whether they plead Guilty or not Guilty The Instance of Eldad and Medad is nothing to the purpose of Schism for they were not if I mistake not to administer in Holy things not any thing of the Priest-hood but that Spirit of Prophecy which they received was to qualifie them for the ease of Moses in the Civil Government and a Crime in the State is Sedition not Schism Yet they did