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IRREGULAR FORMATION OF CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES.

In short, there is no imaginable limit to the schisms that may be introduced and kept up through the operation of these principles, advocated especially with a view to the repression of schism.

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and wise, and necessary, that they should regard themselves as constituted, by the very circumstance of their position, a civil Community; and should assemble to enact such laws, and appoint such § 32. Some have imagined however magistrates, as they might judge most that since no rule is laid down in Scrip- suitable to their circumstances. And ture as to the number of persons requisite obedience to those laws and governors, to form a Christian Community, or as to as soon as the Constitution was settled, the mode in which any such Community would become a moral duty to all the is to be set on foot, it must follow that members of the Community: and this, persons left to Scripture as their sole even though some of the enactments decisive authority, will be at liberty,-all, might appear, or might be, (though not and any of them, to form and dissolve at variance with the immutable laws of religious Communities at their pleasure; morality, yet) considerably short of per-to join and withdraw from any Church, fection. The King, or other Magistrates as freely as if it were a Club or other thus appointed, would be legitimate such institution; and to appoint them- rulers: and the laws framed by them, valid selves or others to any ministerial Office, and binding. The precept of "submitas freely as the members of any Club ting to every ordinance of man, for the elect Presidents, Secretaries, and other Lord's sake," and of "rendering to all functionaries. their due," would apply in this case as completely as in respect of any Civil Community that exists.

And it is true that this license has been assumed by weak and rash men; who have thus given occasion to persons of the class who mistake reverse of wrong for right," to aim at counteracting one error by advocating another. But so far are these anarchical consequences from being a just result of the principles here maintained, that I doubt whether, on any other subject besides Religion, a man would not be reckoned insane who should so

reason.

To take the analogous case of civil government: hardly any one in his right mind would attempt a universal justification of rebellion, on the ground that men may be placed in circumstances which morally authorize them to do what, in totally different circumstances, would be rebellion.

And yet these men would have been doing what, in ordinary circumstances, would have been manifest rebellion. For if these same, or any other individuals, subjects of our own, or of any existing Government, were to take upon themselves to throw off their allegiance to it, without any such necessity, and were to pretend to constitute themselves an independent Sovereign State, and proceed to elect a King or Senate,—to frame a Constitution, and to enact laws, all resting on their own self-created authority, no one would doubt that, however wise in themselves those laws might be, and however personally well qualified the magistrates thus appointed, they would not be legitimate governors, or valid laws; and those who had so attempted to established them, would be manifest rebels.

A similar rule will apply to the case of ecclesiastical Communities. If any number of individuals, not having the plea of an express revelation to the purpose, or again, of their deliberate conviction that the Church they separate from is fundamentally erroneous and un

Suppose, for instance, a number of emigrants, bound for some Colony, to be shipwrecked on a desert island, such as afforded them means of subsistence, but precluded all reasonable hope of their quitting it or suppose them to have taken refuge there as fugitives from intolerable oppression, or from a conquering enemy; (no uncommon case in ancient times) or to be the sole survivors of a pestilence or earthquake which had destroyed the rest scriptural-take upon themselves to conof the nation: no one would maintain that these shipwrecked emigrants or fugitives, were bound, or were permitted, to remain-themselves and their posterityin a state of anarchy, on the ground of there being no one among them who could claim hereditary or other right to govern them. It would clearly be right,

stitute a new Church, according to their own fancy, and to appoint themselves or others to ministerial offices, without having any recognized authority to do so, derived from the existing religious Community of which they were members, but merely on the ground of supposed personal qualifications, then however wise in them

selves the institutions, and however, in arrangements or institutions, &c., which themselves, fit, the persons appointed, would tend to check the free intercourse, there can be no more doubt that the guilt and weaken the ties of brotherhood, of Schism would be incurred in this case, among all Christ's followers throughout than that the other, just mentioned, would the world, should be as much as possible be an act of rebellion. avoided.

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Or again, if certain members, lay or This, however, is no exception to the clerical, of any Church, should think fit general rule, but an application of it. to meet together and constitute them- For, those enactments which should tend selves a kind of Synod for deciding some to defeat, without necessity, one of the question of orthodoxy, and should pro- objects which the Apostles proposed, ceed to denounce publicly one of their would (however good in themselves) evibrethren as a heretic, there can be no dently not be the best, for that very reason. doubt that-whether his doctrines were But it would be absurd to maintain right or wrong, these, his self-appointed that men placed in such a situation as judges (whatever abhorrence of Schism has been here supposed, are to be shut they might express, and however strongly out, generation after generation, from the they might put forth their own claim to Christian Ordinances, and the Gospel be emphatically the advocates of Church unity) would be altogether schismatical in their procedure. If the Apostle's censure of "those that cause divisions" does not apply to this case, it may fairly be asked what meaning his words can have. On the other hand, men placed in the situation of the supposed shipwrecked emigrants or exiles above spoken of, would be as much authorized, and bound, to aim at the advantages of a Religious, as of a Civil Community; only with this difference, arising out of the essential characters of the two respectively; that they would not be authorized in the clearly pointed out to them by the one case, as they would in the other, to resort to secular coercion.* Compliance with civil regulations may and must be absolutely enforced; but not so, the profession of a particular Creed, or conformity to a particular mode of Worship.

covenant. Their circumstances would constitute them (as many as could be brought to agree in the essentials of faith and Christian worship) a Christian Community; and would require them to do that which, if done without such necessity, would be schismatical. To make regulations for the Church thus constituted, and to appoint as its ministers the fittest persons that could be found among them, and to celebrate the Christian Rites, would be a proceeding not productive, as in the other case, of division, but of union. And it would be a compliance,

Providence which had placed them in that situation,-with the manifest will of our Heavenly Master, that Christians should live in a religious Community, under such Officers and such Regulations as are essential to the existence of every Community.

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Another point of distinction between the formation of a Civil and Ecclesias- To say that Christian ministers thus tical Constitution arises out of this cir- appointed would be, to all intents and cumstance, that it was plainly the design purposes, real legitimate Christian minisof the Apostles that there should be as ters, and that the Ordinances of such a much as possible of free intercommunion, Church would be no less valid and effiand facility of interchange of members, cacious (supposing always that they are among Christians Churches. Conse- not in themselves superstitious and unquently, when it is said, here and else- scriptural) than those of any other where, that each of these is bound to Church, is merely to say in other words, make such enactments respecting non- that it would be a real Christian Church; essentials, as its governors may judge possessing, consequently, in common best, it is not meant that they have to with all Communities of whatever kind, consider merely what would seem in the essential rights of a Community to itself best, and supposing they were the have Officers and By-laws; and possessing only Christian Community existing; but also, in common with all Christian Comthey must also take care to raise up no munities, (i. e. Churches) the especial unnecessary barrier of separation be- sanction of our Lord, and his promise of tween the members of their own and of ratifying ("binding in Heaven") its other-essentially pure-Churches. Any enactments.*

* See Appendix, Note (A.)

*See in Appendix, Note (N,) a quotation

PRESUMPTION IN FAVOUR OF OUR OWN CHURCH.

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It really does seem not only absurd, boast the greatest antiquity, or, which is but even impious, to represent it as the established by the Civil Government. Lord's will, that persons who are be- The Church, whatever it is, in which lievers in his Gospel, should, in conse- each man was originally enrolled a quence of the circumstances in which his member, has the first claim to his alleProvidence has placed them, condemn giance, supposing there is nothing in its themselves and their posterity to live as doctrines or practice which he is conHeathens, instead of conforming as vinced is unscriptural and wrong. He is closely as those circumstances will of course bound, in deference to the allow, to the institutions and directions higher authority of Christ and his Aposof Christ and his Apostles, by combining tles, to renounce its communion, if he themselves into a Christian Society, regu- does feel such a conviction; but not lated and conducted, in the best way from motives of mere fancy, or worldly they can, on Gospel principles. And if advantage. such a Society does enjoy the divine blessing and favour, it follows that its proceedings, its enactments, its officers, are legitimate and apostolical, as long as they are conformable to the principles which the Apostles have laid down and recorded for our use: even as those (of whatever race "after the flesh") who embraced and faithfully adhered to the Gospel, were called by the Apostle, "Abraham's seed,"* and "the Israel of God."+

The Ministers of such a Church as I have been supposing, would rightly claim "Apostolical succession," because they would rightfully hold the same office which the Apostles conferred on those "Elders whom they ordained in every City. And it is impossible for any one of sound mind, seriously to believe that the recognition of such claims in a case like the one here supposed, affords a fair precedent for men who should wantonly secede from the Church to which they had belonged, and take upon themselves to ordain Ministers and form a new and independent Church according to their own fancy.

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All separation, in short, must be either a duty, or a sin.*

And the Christian's obligation to submit to the (not unscriptural) Laws and Officers of his Church, being founded on the principles above explained, is independent of all considerations of the regularity or irregularity of the original formation of that Church; else, indeed, no one could be certain what were his duties as a member of a certain Church, without entering on long and difficult researches into ecclesiastical history: such as are far beyond the reach of ninety-nine persons in the hundred. A certain Church may, suppose, have originated in a rash separation from another Church, on insufficient grounds; but for an individual to separate from it merely for that reason, would

belonged to that; nor would such a reform confer on the Bishop of Rome any power over the Anglican Church.

* It may be necessary perhaps here to remind and renouncing, some Church: not of merely the reader that I am speaking of separating from, joining and becoming a member of some other. This latter does not imply the former, except when there is some essential point of difference between the two Churches. When there is none, a man's becoming a member of another Church member of the Anglican Church, on going to reon changing his residence,-as, for instance, a side in Scotland or America, where Churches essentially in agreement with ours exist-this is the very closest conformity to the principles and practice of the Apostles. In their days (and it would have been the same, always, and every where, had

from an Appeal of Luther's in 1520, cited in their principles been universally adhered to) a D'Aubigné's "History of the Reformation."

Rom. v. 16.

† Gal. vi. 16.

See Rhetoric, Part I. ch. 3, § 2. § Accordingly, if we suppose the case of the Romish Church reforming all its errors, and returning to the state of its greatest purity, although we should with joy "give the right hand of fellowship" to its members, it would be utterly unjustifiable for any member of our Church to throw off his allegiance to it and go over to the Church of Rome, on the ground of his ancestors having

Christian of the Church of Corinth for instance, on taking up his abode, suppose, at Ephesus, where there was a Christian Church, differing perhaps in some non-essential custoins and forms, but agreeing in essentials, was received into that Church as a brother; and this was so far from implying his separation from the former, that he would be received into the Ephesian Church only on letters of recommendation* from the Corinthian.

* 'EzioTonai ovorarmal. See 2 Cor.

be not escaping but incurring the guilt of Schism.*

It may indeed often be very desirable to attempt the re-union of Christian Communities that had been separated on insufficient grounds; but no individual is justified in renouncing, from motives of mere taste or convenience, the communion of the Church he belongs to, if he can remain in it with a safe conscience.

As for the question, what are, and what are not, to be accounted essential points, -what will, and what will not, justify, and require, separation,—it would be foreign from the present purpose to discuss it. The differences between two Churches may appear essential, and non-essential, to two persons equally conscientious, and equally careful in forming a judgment. All I am insisting on is, that the matter is one which does call for that careful and conscientious judgment. A man should, deliberately, and with a sense of deep responsibility, make up his mind, as to what is, or is not, to the best of his judgment, essential, before he resolves on taking, or not taking, a step which must in every case be either a duty or a sin.

§ 34. It may be said however that it is superfluous to enter at all on the consideration of what would be allowable and right under some supposed circumstances, which are not our own; and to decide beforehand for some imaginary emergency that may never occur; at least never to ourselves.

It may be represented as an empty and speculative question to inquire whether our Ministry derive their authority from the Church, or the Church from them, as long as the rights both of the Church and its Ministers are but acknowledged. And if any one is satisfied both that our Ministers are ordained by persons descended in an unbroken series of Episcopal Ordination from the Apostles, and also that they are the regularly appointed and recognized Officers of a Christian Community constituted on Apostolical principles, it may be represented as impertinent to trouble him with questions as to which of these two things it is that gives them the rightful claim to that deference which, as it is, he is willing to pay to them.

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It is in this way that the attempt is often made, and not seldom with success, to evade the discussion of important general

* For some very sensible and valuable remarks on this subject, see Hinds' History of the Rise and Early Progress of Christianity, vol. ii. P. 42.

principles, and thus to secure an uninquiring acquiescence in false assumptions which will not stand the test of examination, and which when once admitted will lead to very important and very mischievous practical results. Why should we unsettle men's minds-one may hear it said-by speculations on any imaginary or impossible case, when they are satisfied as they are? As long as any one will but believe and do what he ought, what matters it whether his reasons for acquiescence are the most valid or not? And then, when, in this way, men's minds have been "settled" in false notions, some of them are likely to follow out a wrong principle into the pernicious consequences to which it fairly leads; and others again become most dangerously, and perhaps incurably, unsettled, when the sandy foundation they have been taught to build on happens to be washed away.

If, as has been above remarked, a man is taught that view of Apostolical succession which makes every thing depend on the unbroken series between the apostles and the individual minister from whom each man receives the Sacraments, or the individual bishop conferring Ordination,— a fact which never can be ascertained with certainty-and he is then presented with proofs, not of this, but of a different fact instead, the Apostolical succession, generally, of the great Body of the ministers of his Church;—and if he is taught to acquiesce with consolatory confidence in the regulations and ordinances of the Church, not on such grounds as have been above laid down, but on the ground of their exact conformity to the model of the "ancient Church, which exact conformity is, in many cases, more than can be satisfactorily proved, and in some can be easily disproved, the result of the attempt so to settle men's minds, must be, with many, the most distressing doubt and perplexity. And others again, when taught to "blend with Scripture," as a portion of Revelation, the traditions of the first three, or first four, or first seven, or fifteen centuries, may find it difficult to understand, when, and where, and why, they are to stop short abruptly in the application of the principles they have received: why, if one general Council is to be admitted as having divine authority to bind the conscience, and supersede private judgment, another is to be rejected by private judgment: and that too by the judgment of men who are not agreed with each other, or even themselves, whether the

CASES OF MORAL NECESSITY FOR SEPARATION.

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Council of Trent, for instance, is to be re- which inculcates a true religion, it would angarded as the beginning of the Romish be justly inferred that he was conscious Apostacy, or as a promising omen of im- of something unsound in his principles, provement in the Church of Rome. That from his evading a test that goes to ascerman must be strangely constituted who tain whether he regards religious truth s can find consolatory security for his faith and the command of God, as things to be in such a guide;-who can derive satis- adhered to at all events, or merely, when factory confidence from the oracles of a coinciding with the requisitions of GoProteus!

vernment.

§ 35. Moreover, the supposed case of So also, in the present case: when a Christians deprived of regular succession Church possesses Ministers who are the of Episcopally ordained Ministers, and left regularly appointed officers of a Christian to determine what course they ought, Community constituted on evangelical under such circumstances, to take, is not principles, and who are also ordained by inconceivable, or impossible, or unprece- persons descended in an unbroken series dented; nor again, even if it were, would from those ordained by the Apostles, the the consideration of such a question be two circumstances coincide, on which, necessarily an unprofitable speculation; according to the two different principles, because it will often happen that by putting respectively, above treated of, the legia supposed case (even when such as could timacy and apostolical commission of not possibly occur) we can the most easily Christian Ministers may be made to deand most clearly ascertain on what prin- pend. Now in order to judge fairly, and ciple a person is acting. Thus when to state clearly the decision, which foundaPlato* puts the impossible case of your possessing the ring of Gyges, which, according to the legend, could make the bearer invisible, and demands how you would then act, he applies a kind of test, which decomposes, as the chemists say, the complex mass of motives that may influence a man, and calls on you to consider whether you abstain from bad actions through fear of the censure of the world, or from abhorrence of evil in itself.

So again to take another instance-if any one is asked how men ought to act when living under a Government professing, and enforcing under penalties, a false religion, and requiring of its subjects idolatrous worship, and other practices contrary to Scripture, if he should object to the question, on the ground that there is no prospect of his being so circumstanced, and that he is living, and may calculate on continuing to live, under a Government

tion we resolve to rest on, it is requisite to propose a case (even supposing—which is very far from being the fact that it could not actually occur) in which these two circumstances do not come together; and then to pronounce which it is that we regard as essential.

36. As a matter of fact, there can be no reasonable doubt that the Apostles did" ordain Elders in every city." Even if there had been no record of their doing so, we might have inferred it from the very fact of their instituting Christian Societies; since every Society must have Officers; and the founder of a Society will naturally, take upon him to nominate the first Officers; as well as to "set in order the rest" of the appointments.* And those Officers, acting in the name and on the behalf of the Community, would, of course, appoint others to succeed them; and so on, from generation to generation. As long as every thing ** Atque hoc loco, philosophi quidam, minime went on correctly in each Church, and mali illi quidem, sed non satis acuti, fictam et its doctrines and practices remained sound, commentitiam fabulam prolatam dicunt a Platone: there would be nothing to interrupt this quasi vero ille, aut fictum id esse, aut fieri potuisse orderly course of things. But whenever defendat. Hæc est vis hujus annuli et hujus it happened that the Rulers of any Church exempli, si nemo sciturus, nemo ne suspicaturus departed from the Christian faith and quidem sit, cum, aliquid, divitiarum, potentiæ, dominationis libidinis, causâ feceris, si id diis homini- practice which it is their business to prebusque futurum sit semper ignotum, sisne facturus. serve,-when, for instance, they corrupted Negant id fieri posse. Quanquam potest id qui- their worship with superstitions, made a dem; sed quæro, quod negant posse, id si posset, traffic of, "indulgences," and " taught for quidnam facerent? Urgent rustice sane: negant doctrines the commandments of men," by

enim posse, et in eo perstant. Hoc verbum quid blending" human traditions with Scrip

valeat, non vident. Cum enim quærimus, si

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possint celare, quid facturi sint, non quærimus, possintne celare," &c.-Cic. de Off. b. iii. c. 9. Rhetoric, p. i. c. 2, § 8.

ture, and making them, either wholly or

* 1 Cor.

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