I. PART condole with them in their sufferings; to pray for their constant perseverance in the true Christian Faith, for their reduction from all their respective errors, and their re-union to the Church in case they be divided from it, that we may [1 Pet. ii. be all one sheepfold under that One Great "Shepherd and 25.] Bishop of our souls ;" and, lastly, to hold an actual external communion with them in votis'-in our desires, and to endeavour it by all those means which are in our power. This internal communion is of absolute necessity among all Catholics. Wherein external commu consist. External communion consists, first, in the same Creeds or Symbols or Confessions of Faith, which are the ancient nion doth badges or cognizances of Christianity; secondly, in the participation of the same Sacraments; thirdly, in the same external worship, and frequent use of the same Divine Offices or Liturgies or forms of serving God; fourthly, in the use of the 58 same public rites and ceremonies; fifthly, in giving communicatory letters from one Church or one person to another; and, lastly, in admission of the same discipline, and subjection to the same supreme ecclesiastical authority, that is, Episcopacy, or a general Council: for as single Bishops are the Heads of particular Churches, so Episcopacy, that is, a general Council, or Ecumenical assembly of Bishops, is the Head of the universal Church ". [Internal commu nion may Internal communion is due always from all Christians to all Christians, even to those with whom we cannot communinot,] exter- cate externally in many things, whether credenda or agendamunion opinions or practices. But external actual communion may suspended; sometimes be suspended more or less by the just censures of nal com may, be the Church, 'clave non errante.' As in the primitive times some were excluded 'à cœtu participantium'-only from the use of the Sacraments; others moreover 'à cætu procumbentium'both from Sacraments and Prayers; others also 'à cœtu audientium'-from Sacraments, Prayers, and Sermons; and, lastly, and with some 'à cœtu fidelium'—from the society of Christians". And as external communion may be suspended, so likewise it may sometimes be waved or withdrawn by particular Churches or persons from their neighbour Churches or Christians in their drawn, a [Compare Bingham's Orig. Eccles., bk. xvi. c. 1.] b [Compare Bingham's Orig. Eccles. bk. xvi. c. 2. § 7; bk. xviii. c. 1.] II. innovations and errors: especially when they go about to DISCOURSE obtrude new fancies upon others for fundamental truths and old articles of Faith. Christian charity is not blind, so as not to distinguish the integral and essential parts of the body from superfluous wens and excrescences. The canons do not oblige Christians to the arbitrary dictates of a Patriarch, or to suck in all his errors; like those servile flatterers of Dionysius the Sicilian tyrant, who licked up his very spittle and protested it was more sweet than nectar". not the like communi cating in all Praver Neither is there the like degree of obligation to an exact There is communion in all externals. There is not so great conformity necessity of to be expected in ceremonies, as in the essentials of Sacraments (the Queen's Daughter was arrayed in a garment externals. wrought about with divers colours'); nor in all Sacraments [Ps. xlv. 10. improperly and largely so called by some persons at some book Vers.] times, as in Baptism and the Holy Eucharist, which by the consent of all parties are more general, more necessary, more principal Sacraments. Neither is so exact an harmony and agreement necessary in all the explications of articles of Faith, as in the articles themselves; nor in superstructions, as in fundamentals; nor in scholastical opinions, as in catechetical grounds: nor so strict and perpetual an adherence required to a particular Church, as to the universal Church; nor to an ecclesiastical constitution, as to a Divine ordinance, or Apostolical tradition. Human privileges may be lost by disuse, or by abuse; and that which was advisedly established by human authority, may by the same authority upon sufficient grounds and mature deliberation be more advisedly abrogated. As the limits and distinctions of provinces and Patriarchates were at first introduced to comply with the civil government, according to the distribution of the provinces of the Roman Empire, for the preservation of peace and unity, and for the ease and benefit of Christians, so they have been often, and may now be, changed by sovereign and synodical authority, according to the change of the Empire, for the peace and benefit of Christendom. commu Neither the rules of prudence nor the laws of piety do Christian oblige particular Churches or Christians to communicate in all opinions and practices with those particular Churches or plies not [Athen., Deipnos., vi. 13.] nion im unity in all opinions; PART I. Christians with whom they hold Catholic communion. The Roman and African Churches held good communion one with another, whilst they differed both in judgment and practice about rebaptization. Cannot one hold communion with the Fathers that were Chiliasts, except he turn Millenary? The British Churches were never judged schismatical, because they differed from the rest of the West about the observation of Easter. We see that all the famous and principal Churches of the Christian world, Grecian, Roman, Protestant, Armenian, Abissene, have their peculiar differences one with another, and each of them among themselves. And though I am far from believing, that, when logomachies are taken away, their real dissensions are half so numerous, or their errors half so foul, as they are painted out by their adversaries (emulation was never equal judge); and though I hope 59 [Matt. xxv. Christ will say "Come ye blessed" to many, whom fiery zealots are ready to turn away with "Go ye cursed;" yet to hold communion with them all in all things is neither lawful nor possible. 34. 41.] [but sometimes ad mits and Yea, if any particular Patriarch, Prelate, Church, or Churches, how eminent soever, shall endeavour to obtrude mands se- their own singularities upon others for Catholic verities, or paration.] shall enjoin sinful duties to their subjects, or shall violate the even com undoubted privileges of their inferiors contrary to the canons of the Fathers; it is very lawful for their own subjects to disobey them, and for strangers to separate from them. And if either the one or the other have been drawn to partake of their errors upon pretence of obedience or of Catholic communion, they may without the guilt of schism, nay they ought, to reform themselves, so as it be done by lawful authority, upon good grounds, with due moderation, without excess, or the violation of charity; and so as the separation from them be not total, but only in their errors and innovations; nor perpetual, but only during their distempers :-as a man might leave his father's or his brother's house, being infected with the plague, with a purpose to return thither again so soon as it was cleansed. This is no more than what Gerson hath taught us in sundry places :-' It is lawful by the law of nature to resist the injury and violence of a Pope;' d Regulæ Morales, tit. De Præcept. Decalog. [Op. P. ii. fol. 131. Paris. 1521.] II. and, "if any one should convert his Papal dignity to be an DISCOURSE instrument of wickedness to the destruction of any part of the Church in temporalities or spiritualities, and if there appears no other remedy but by withdrawing oneself from the obedience of such a raging power, .... until the Church or a Council shall provide otherwise; it is lawful." He adds farther, that it is lawful to slight his sentences,' yea, "to tear them in pieces, and throw them at his head." Bellarmine in effect saith as much ;-" As it is lawful to resist the Pope, if he should invade our bodies; so it is lawful to resist him invading of souls, or troubling the commonwealth; and much more if he should endeavour to destroy the Church; I say it is lawful to resist him by not doing that which he commands and by hindering him from putting his will in execution "." We ask no more. The Pope invaded our souls by exacting new oaths and obtruding new articles of Faith; he troubled the commonwealth with his extortions and usurpations; he destroyed the Church by his provisions, reservations, exemptions, &c. We did not judge him, or punish him, or depose him, or exercise any jurisdiction over him; but only defended ourselves, by guarding his blows and repelling his injuries. I may not here forget St. Ignatius the Patriarch of Constantinople, whom Pope John the Eighth excommunicated for detaining the jurisdiction of Bulgaria from the See of Rome; but he disobeyed the Pope's censures, as did also his successors, and yet was reputed a Saint after his death whom Baronius excuseth in this manner,-"Neque est ut quis ob litem hanc, &c."-"let no man think that for this controversy Ignatius was either disaffected to the Roman Sce, or ungrateful, seeing he did but defend the rights of his own Church, to which he was bound by oath under pain of eternal damnation"." If it be not only lawful but necessary (in the judgment of Baronius), yea, necessary under the pain of damnation, for every Bishop to defend the rights of his particular See against the encroachments and usurpations of the Roman e Lib. de Auferibilitate Papæ, Consider. 14. [Op. P. i. fol. 35.] De Unit. Eccles., Consider. 10. [Op. P. i. fol. 38.-" Possunt occurrere casus, in quibus . . . liceret, &c."] De Roman. Pontif. lib. ii. c. 29. [Op. tom. i. p. 820. A.] Baron. Annal. tom. X. num. 42. an. 878. I. PART Bishop, and to contemn his censures in that case as invalid; how much more is it lawful, yea, necessary, for all the Bishops in the world to maintain the right of their whole Order, and of Episcopacy itself, against the oppressions of the Court of Rome, which would swallow up, or rather hath swallowed up, all original jurisdiction and the whole power of the Keys. The sorts of [mere] schism. From this doctrine Dr. Holden doth not dissent; "Non tamen is ego sum, &c."—" yet I am not he who dare affirm, that diseases and bad manners and humours may not sometimes be mingled in any society or body whatsoever; yea, I confess that such kinds of faults are sometimes to be plucked up by the roots, and the over-luxurious branches to be pruned away with the hook." It is true, he would not have this reformation in essential articles; we offered not to touch them: nor without the consent of lawful superiors; we had the free and deliberate consent of all our superiors both civil and ecclesiastical. A little after he adds, "I confess also, that particular and as it were private abuses, which have only infected some certain persons ... or Church, whether Episcopal or Archiepiscopal or... national, may be taken away by the care and diligence of that particular congregation';" we attempted no more. We see then what mere schism is; a culpable rupture or 60 breach of the Catholic communion, a loosing of the band of peace, a violation of Christian charity, a dissolving of the unity and continuity of the Church and how this crime may be committed inwardly;-by temerarious and uncharitable judgment, when a man thinks thus with himself, "Stand from me, for I am holier than thou;" by lack of a true Christian sympathy or fellow-feeling of the wants and sufferings of our Christian brethren; by not wishing and desiring the peace of Christendom and the reunion of the Catholic Church; by not contributing our prayers and endeavours for the speedy knitting together and consolidating of that broken bone and outwardly ;-by rejecting the true badges and cognizances of Christians, that is, the ancient Creeds; by separating a man's self without sufficient ground from other Christians in the participation of the same Sacraments, or in i Append. de Schismat. art. 4. p. 516. [Ibid. pp. 517, 518.] k [Ibid. p. 517.] |