OF

SCHISM.

CHAP. I.

Aggravations of the evil of schism, from the authority of the ancients. Their incompetency to determine in this case, instanced in the sayings of Austin and Jerome. The saying of Aristides. Judgment of the ancients subjected to disquisition. Some men's advantage in charging others with schism. The actors' part privileged. The Romanists' interest herein. The charge of schism not to be despised. The iniquity of accusers justifies not the accused. Several persons charged with schism on several accounts. The design of this discourse in reference to them. Justification of differences unpleasant. Attempts for peace and reconciliation considered. Several persuasions hereabouts, and endeavours of men to that end. Their issues.

It is the manner of men of all persuasions, who undertake to treat of schism, to make their entrance with invectives against the evils thereof, with aggravations of its heinousness. All men, whether intending the charge of others, or their own acquitment, esteem themselves concerned so to do. Sentences out of the fathers, and determinations of schoolmen, making it the greatest sin imaginable, are usually produced to this purpose. A course this is which men's apprehensions have rendered useful, and the state of things in former days easy. Indeed whole volumes of the ancients, written when they were actors in this cause, charging others with the guilt of it, and consequently with the vehemency of men contending for that wherein their own interest lay, might (if it were to our purpose) be transcribed to this end. But as they had the happiness to deal with men evidently guilty of many miscarriages, and for the most part absurd and foolish, so many of them having fallen upon such a notion of the catholic church and schism, as hath given occasion to many woful mistakes, and much darkness in the following ages, I cannot so easily give up the nature of this

evil to their determination and judgment. About the aggravations of its sinfulness I shall not contend.

The evidence which remains of an indulgence in the best of them, τῆ ἀμετρία τῆς ἀνθολκῆς in this business especially, deters from that procedure. From what other principle were those words of Augustine; Obscurius dixerunt prophetæ de Christo quam de ecclesia: puto propterea quia videbant in spiritu contra ecclesiam homines facturos esse particulas et de Christo non tantam litem habituros, de ecclesia magnas contentiones excitaturos.' Conc. 2. ad Psal. xxx. Neither the affirmation itself, nor the reason assigned, can have any better root. Is any thing more clearly and fully prophesied on than Christ? or was it possible that good men should forget with what contests the whole church of God all the world over had been exercised from its infancy about the person of Christ? Shall the tumultuating of a few in a corner of Africa, blot out the remembrance of the late diffusion of Arianism over the world? But Jerome hath given a rule for the, interpretation of what they delivered in their polemical engagements; telling us plainly in his Apology for himself to Pammachius, that he had not so much regarded what was exactly to be spoken in the controversy he had in hand, as what was fit to lay load upon Jovinian. And if we may believe him, this was the manner of all men in those days. If they were engaged, they did not what the truth only, but what the defence of their cause also required. Though I believe him not as to all he mentions, yet doubtless we may say to many of them, as the apostle in another case, Ολως ἥττημα ἐν ὑμῖν ἐστιν. Though Aristides obtained the name of Just, for his uprightness in the management of his own private affairs, yet being engaged in the administration of those of the commonwealth, he did many things professedly unjust; giving this reason, he did them Πρὸς τὴν ὑπόθεσιν τῆς πατρίδος συχνῆς ἀδικίας δεομένης.

Besides, the age wherein we live having, by virtue of that precept of our Saviour, Call no man master,' in a good measure freed itself from the bondage of subjection to the dictates of men (and the innumerable evils with endless entanglements thence ensuing), because they lived so many hundreds of years before us; that course of procedure,

though retaining its facility, hath lost its usefulness, and is confessedly impertinent. What the Scripture expressly saith of this sin, and what from that it saith may regularly and rationally be deduced (whereunto we stand and fall), shall be afterward declared. And what is spoken suitably thereunto by any of old, or of late, shall be cheerfully also received. But it may not be expected that I should build upon their authority, whose principles I shall be necessitated to examine. And I am therefore contented to lie low, as to any expectation of success in my present undertaking, because I have the prejudice of many ages, the interest of most Christians, and the mutual consent of parties at variance (which commonly is taken for an unquestionable evidence of truth) to contend withal. But my endeavours being to go, non qua itur, sed qua eundum est,' I am not solicitous about the event.

In dealing about this business among Christians, the advantage hath been extremely hitherto on their part, who found it their interest to begin the charge. For whereas perhaps themselves were, and are of all men most guilty of the crime; yet, by their clamorous accusation, putting others upon the defence of themselves, they have in a manner clearly escaped from the trial of their own guilt, and cast the issue of the question purely on them whom they have accused. The actors or complainants' part was so privileged by some laws and customs, that he who had desperately wounded another, chose rather to enter against him the frivolous plea, that he received not his whole sword into his body, than to stand to his best defence, on the complaint of the wounded man. An accusation managed with the craft of men guilty, and a confidence becoming men wronged and innocent, is not every one's work to slight and wave. And he is in ordinary judgments immediately acquitted, who avers that his charge is but recrimination. What advantage the Romanists have had on this account, how they have expatiated in the aggravation of the sin of schism, whilst they have kept others on the defence, and would fain make the only thing in question to be, whether they are guilty of it or no, is known to all. And therefore, ever since they have been convinced of their disability to debate the things in difference between them and us, unto

any advantage from the Scripture, they have almost wholly insisted on this one business, wherein they would have it wisely thought, that our concernment only comes to the trial, knowing that in these things their defence is weak, who have nothing else. Nor do they need any other advantage; for if any party of men can estate themselves at large in all the privileges granted, and promises made to the church in general, they need not be solicitous about dealing with them that oppose them; having at once rendered them no better than Jews and Mahometans, heathens or publicans, by appropriating the privileges mentioned unto themselves. And whereas the parties litigant, by all rules of law and equity, ought to stand under an equal regard, until the severals of their differences have been heard and stated; one party is hereby utterly condemned before it is heard; and it is all one unto them, whether they are in the right or wrong. But we may possibly in the issue state it upon another foot of account.

a

In the mean time it cannot be denied, but that their vigorous adhering to the advantage which they have made to themselves (a thing to be expected from men wise in their generation), hath exposed some of them, whom they have wrongfully accused, to a contrary evil; whilst in a sense of their own innocency, they have insensibly slipped (as is the manner of men) into slight and contemptible thoughts of the thing itself whereof they are accused. Where the thing in question is but a name or term of reproach, invented amongst men, this is incomparably the best way of defence. But this contains a crime; and no man is to set light by it. To live in schism, is to live in sin; which, unrepented of, will ruin a man's eternal condition: every one charged with it must either desert his station, which gives foundation to his charge, or acquit himself of the crime, in that station. This latter is that, which in reference to myself and others, I do propose: assenting in the gross to all the aggravations of this sin, that with any pretence from Scripture or reason are heaped on it.

And I would beg of men fearing God, that they would

a Solis nosse Deos et Cæli numina vobis

aut solis nescire datum.

not think, that the iniquity of their accusers doth in the least extenuate the crime whereof they are accused. Schism is schism still, though they may be unjustly charged with it; and he that will defend and satisfy himself by prejudices against them with whom he hath to do, though he may be no schismatic, yet if he were so, it is certain he would justify himself in his state and condition. Seeing men on false grounds and self-interest may yet sometimes manage a good cause, which perhaps they have embraced upon better principles, a conscientious tenderness and fear of being mistaken, will drive this business to another issue. Blessed is he who

feareth always.'

It is well known how things stand with us in this world; as we are Protestants we are accused by the Papists to be schismatics. And all other pleas and disputes neglected, this is that which at present (as is evident from their many late treatises on this subject, full of their wonted confidence, contempt, reviling, and scurrility) is chiefly insisted on by them.

Farther, among Protestants, as being reformatists, or as they call us Calvinists, we are condemned for schismatics by the Lutherans; and for sacramentarian sectaries, for no other crime in the world, but because we submit not to all they teach; for in no instituted church relation would they ever admit us to stand with them; which is as considerable an instance of the power of prejudice, as this age can give. We are condemned for separation, by them who refuse to admit us into union. But what hath not an irrational attempt of enthroning opinions put men upon?

The differences nearer home about episcopal government, with the matter of fact, in the rejecting of it, and somewhat of the external way of the worship of God formerly used amongst us, hath given occasion to a new charge of the guilt of the same crime on some; as it is not to be supposed, that wise and able men, suffering to a great extremity, will oversee or omit any thing, from whence they may hope to prevail themselves against those, by whose means they think they suffer. It cannot be helped, the engagement being past, but this account must be carried on one step farther. Amongst them who in these late days have engaged, as they profess, into reformation (and not to believe that to have been their in