AN Apologetical Vindication OF THE Church of England: IN ANSWER To Those who reproach HER WITH THE ENGLISH HERESIES AND SCHISMS, Or suspect HER not to be a Catholic Church, Upon their Account.  
London: Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Church yard. MDCLXXXVII.   

THE INTRODUCTION.  
EVER since the Dissenters left the Church of England, and form themselves into Separate Churches, the Roman Catholics have not been wanting to take advantage from her sad Misfortune, to expose her at home and abroad, as a Church, that amidst so many monstrous Sects, and so many opposite and irreconcilable Communions, can have no right to the glorious Title of Catholic, nothing really answerable to the true Idea of a Church, nor any pretensions to the Promises of Christ, especially those two, of preserving his Church against the Powers of Hell, and of sending his Spirit of Truth, which is but one, to guide her into all Truth.  
They endeavour to make the World believe, That a Church so overrun with Heresies and Schisms, and so shattered and torn with intestine Divisions, as ours is, cannot be a true, or good Church; nay, they will ask us by a figure of Reproach, Where they shall find her, among such a Crowd of Dissenters? And thus using all manner of Artifice, on the one hand in setting forth the many Divisions in Religion among us, and on the other, the great Unity in Doctrine and Worship among themselves, they hope to unsettle us yet more, and make our People suspect, or believe, that ours is not a part of the One Catholic and Apostolic Church.  
It is now one of their Common Places to talk of our Schisms, and argue from them upon all occasions, in diminution of the Church of England. They generally begin there, when they first attack any of her Sons, or Daughters; and when ever we engage with them, or they with us, in a Dispute about the Two Churches, we must be content to hear of our Divisions at both Ears. Sometimes they seem to lament them, sometimes to upbraid us with them, and sometimes to dispute downright upon them; but be their Style and Method never so different, when they speak or write of the English Heresies and Schisms, their common Aim and Design is the same, viz. to bring us out of conceit with our Church, and persuade us, that a Church so full of imbred Divisions in Religion, hath not the Characters of Christ's Spouse, no Marks of his Favour, nor any Similitude with the Catholic Church, that heavenly Jerusalem, which is as a City, that is at peace and unity in itself.  
We are told, That it is a sad thing to consider, what a world of Heresies are crept into this Nation, where every man thinks himself as competent a Judge of the Scriptures, as the very Apostles themselves— and that that part of the Nation, which looks most like a Church, dares not bring the true Arguments against other Sects, for fear they should be turned against themselves. Your Church (saith another) hath Unity, or not? if not, than she is not the Church of Christ? If she hath, why are there so many Sects and Schisms among you? Saith another, who not long since was one of her Priests, What would I have once given to have found such an Union among Protestants, nay, to have found one County in my own dear Country, or perhaps one single Family, so united a Brotherhood.— And in another place he professes, That he cannot tell, how the Church of England is able to find herself, in an innumerable Huddle of ten times more Dissenters, Dissemblers, (whereof he himself was many years one) and Indifferents, than her number is able to make.  
At this rate, and to this purpose, they are also apt to talk in their private Conversation. For where I live, the Place rings with their Reflections on the Church of England, upon the account of our English Separations; and having not heard that any thing is yet published, to help the People to defend themselves, and the Honour of our Church, against them, I thought I could not better spend the Christmas Vacation, than to write a short Tract, on purpose to show, That the English Heresies and Schisms are in reality no diminution to the Honour of the Church of England, and that the Consideration of them, aught to scandalise no man against her, or make us believe, that she is in any degree less Catholic and Apostolic, than her greatest Admirers take her to be.  
This is the main Design of my present Undertaking; and that I may omit nothing of moment, which ought to be spoken of such a Subject in such a short Treatise, I will proceed in the following Method.  

I. I will show from Reason, and the History of the Christian Religion, that all Churches are subject to the Misfortune of Schisms and Divisions.  
II. That Schisms and Divisions, and the consummation of them, in opposite Communions, are no good Argument against the Truth, or Goodness, or Reputation of a Church.  
III. That bare Unity, or want of Schisms and Divisions in Religion, are no sound Argument for the Truth, or Goodness, or Reputation of a Church.   
After I have demonstrated these three Propositions, I will make enquiry into the true Causes of Schisms and Divisions, and more particularly into the Causes of these in England: Then I will say something of the Prevention and Cure of them: And in the Conclusion, make such Addresses to the People of the Roman Communion, to the People of the Church of England, and to the Dissenters from it, as I hope may become a good Christian, and the Author of such a peaceful and charitable Discourse, as I hope the Reader will find this to be.   

AN Apologetical Vindication OF THE Church of England.  

Chap. I. Showing from Reason, and the History of the Christian Religion, that all Churches are subject to the Misfortune of Schisms and Divisions.  
1. I Will show from Reason, and the History of the Christian Religion, that all Churches are subject to the sad misfortune of Schisms and Divisions, and to the consummation of them in opposite Communions. This, to argue first from Reason, is as demonstrable of Ecclesiastical, as Civil, or Military Societies, men being as subject by their own evil Passions, and the Temptations of the Devil, to mutiny, and make Insurrections in Churches, as in Camps, or Cities, or other Fraternities of men. Nay it being more for the Interest of Satan, and also more easy to divide a Church, than a Kingdom, or a Camp, men are so much the more in danger of being tempted to do the one, rather than the other: and accordingly we find that Churches are more infected with intestine Divisions, than States, and Kingdoms; and whereas formerly one Emperor was able to quell many Mutinies and Rebellions, a succession of Christian Emperors sometimes were not able to quell one Schism. Wherefore to pursue my Argument, as Christian Armies are subject to Mutinies, because they consist of Soldiers, which may be tempted to Mutiny, and Christian Cities and Kingdoms to Rebellion, because they consist of Subjects, that may be tempted to rebel; so all Christian Churches are subject to Schisms, and Heresies, because they consist of Members that may be drawn in to begin, and carry on Heresy, and Schism.  
The Catholic Church, notwithstanding its holiness, and all the particular Churches in it, are Bodies politic, that like other Corporations consist of peaceable and unpeaceable, dutiful and undutiful Members; and it is really no stranger that a Diotrephes, Montanus, or Novatus, should prove a Schismatic, then that Judas should prove a Thief, and a Traitor, or the lustful Corinthian commit Incest in the Church of God. What hinders that this or that Member of a Church may not become a Schismatic, as well as a Murderer, Drunkard, or Adulterer? Is it not consistent with the wisdom of God, or the honour and oeconomy of the Catholic, or a Catholic Church, to leave the Members of it in a capacity to commit Schism? 
Fieri vero haec dominus permittit, & patitur manent: propriae libertatis arbitrio, ut probatorum sides integra manifeslâ luce clarescat. Cypr. de Vnit. Eccles.  Doth the nature of a true Church require, or hath God any where promised to overrule the free wills of orthodox Christians, so that they shall not fall into Schism, as well as other sins? Hath he either made them impassable, as to this single vice, or restrained the Devil from tempting them to it? If he hath, let those who upbraid us with our Divisions show it, and if he hath not, than it must follow, that the Clergy and Laity of all the Churches in the World, being left as free to commit Schism, as Rebellion, or any other wickedness, all Churches whatsoever must be subject to the sad misfortune of Heresy, and Schism. The natural Body is not more subject to Diseases, than the Body politic of the Church is subject to Divisions: though she have the honour to have Christ for her Head, yet is she not exempted from having her Peace broken, or her Unity divided. That is only the privilege of the Church triumphant, where Charity is perfected; and therefore to pass from Reason to the History of the Christian Religion, we find as many Cautions, and Exhortations in the Scriptures, against Heresies, and Schisms, as against any other mortal sin. What an excellent Admonition against Schism did St. Paul give the Bishops and Presbyters of Ephesus, or rather all the Bishops of Asia Minor, assembled at Miletus. Take heed (saith he) unto yourselves, and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers,— For I know, that after my departure, shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of yourselves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them, therefore watch, and remember that by the space of three years, I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.  
The Apostle knew very well, that God in his wisdom thought it not fit to prevent Heresies and Schisms in the most Apostolical Churches, by his Almighty power, but to suffer them as well as other sins, for the manifestation of the good from the bad, and that in such a mixture, as a Church must be, they were necessary to sift the Wheat from the Tares, to separate the Gold from the Dross, and distinguish those that are sincere, steadfast, and genuine Sons of any Catholic Church, from those that are not. Thus in his 1. Ep. to the Church of Corinth, which I suppose was a very Apostolical Church, he tells them, that God thought fit to let Heresies and Divisions arise among them, that the faith and constancy of some, and instability, vanity, and hypocrisy of others, might be made more evident. I hear (saith he) that when you come together into the Church there are divisions among you, and I partly believe it, for there must be also heresies [or dividing into Sects] among you, that they which are 
* Avolent quantum volent paleae levis fidei quocunque afflatu tentationum, co purior Massa frumenti in horreâ domini reponetur. Tertull. de prescript. Haer. 3.  approved, may be made manifest among you. So saith St. John of the Antichrists, which in his time arose in the Catholic Church: They went out from us, but they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us, but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.  
And our Blessed Lord, who was the Founder of the Church, and may be presumed to have best understood the nature of it, had no other notion thereof, then as of a Body Corporate, that was subject like other Societies, to the great inconvenience of intestine Divisions, and falling into opposite Sects and Schisms. It must needs be (saith he, considering the nature and future estate of the Church) that offences come, but woe unto the man by whom the offence cometh. And in his Sermon on the Mount saith he unto his Disciples, Beware of false Prophets, which come to you in sheeps-clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. And in the 24th. Chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, 
‖ 
Memores simus tam dominicarum praenuntiationum, quàm Apostolicarum literarum, quae nobis & faturas haereses praenuntiarunt, & sugiendas praefinierunt. Tertull. ibid.  
Instruit dominus multos esse venturos sub pellibus ovium rapaces Lupos. ibid.   he foretold the sad condition of the primitive Church before the destruction of Jerusalem, that about that period there should arise false Christ's, and false Prophets, and should show great signs, and wonders, and deceive, if it were possible, the very Elect. This prediction of the Blessed Jesus was fulfilled in the time of the Apostles, who were all infallible Guides of the Church: for St. Paul in his 2. Ep. to the Thessalonians saith, That the mystery of iniquity was then a working, and the wicked one to be revealed, whose coming was after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceitfulness, to bring them that perish to commit unrighteousness, because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. So St. Peter in his 2. Ep. general, to the Catholic Church, tells the Christians, That as there were false Prophets in the Church of the Jews, so there should be false Teachers among them, who should privily bring in damnable Heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and that many should follow their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the truth should be evil spoken of. Every one that is versed in Ecclesiastical Story, knows that these Apostles mean Simon Magus, who was baptised by Philip, and the rest of the Ring leaders of the Gnostical Heresies, who were all Magicians, as well as Heretics, and wrought wonders to prove that Jesus was not the Christ. For this Reason they are called 
* Johannes in Ep. eos maximè Antichristos vocat qui Christum negarent in carne venisse, & qui non putarent Jesum esse filium Dei. Tertull. de prescript. Heret. 33.  Antichrists by St. John: Little children, (saith he) it is the last time, and as you have heard that Antichrist should come, even now there are many Antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last time, of which our Lord spoke. And lest any should think, that these Monsters of Heresy and Sorcery, which afflicted the primitive Church, were not Christians, it follows, They went out from us, but they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us, but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. And so in his 2. Ep. saith he, Many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, this is a deceiver, and an Antichrist; and then knowing in what danger the faithful were, of being seduced by them, saith he by way of Caution to them, Look to yourselves, that ye lose not those things which ye have wrought, but that ye receive a full reward by enduring to the end. So to see the sad estate of the primitive Church more fully out of St. Paul's Writings, he saith in his 2. Ep. to Timothy, This know that in the last days perilous times shall come, for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, etc. having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof, from such turn away for of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women, etc. Now as Jannes and Jambres [the Egyptian Sorcerers] withstood Moses, so these resist the truth, men of corrupt minds, and reprobate concerning the faith.  
But besides the Simonians, or Gnostick Heretics, who divided the primitive Church, and form themselves into separate Sects, there are evident footsteps in the New Testament of many other Divisions and Schisms. So in the Church of Rome itself there were many schismatical Members, as we find by the words of the Apostle: I beseech you Brethren (saith he unto the Romans) mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which you have received, and avoid them, for they that are such serve not the Lord Jesus, but their own belly, and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. So in his 1. Ep. to the Corinthians, how often doth he charge them with envying, strife, and divisions while one said he was of Paul, another that he was of Apollo's, and a third that he was of Cephas, or St. Peter. So in the Text I cited before, I hear (saith he) that there be divisions among you; and truly these Divisions, notwithstanding all his Authority and Doctrine to the contrary, were come to such an height, that we find him in the 11th. Chapter using the very same Apologue for substance to persuade the to peace, and unity, and submission to their Superiors, that Menenius Agrippa used to appease the seditious Commons of Rome, and persuade them to return to their obedience to the Senate. As the Body (saith he) is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one Body being many, are by union made one Body, so also is the Church of Christ, with much more to that purpose. At the same time also there was many among them, that denied the 
* Paulus in primd ad Corinthios not at negatores, & dubitatores resurrectionis. Haec opinio propria Sadducaeorum, partem ejus usurpat Martion & Apelles, & Valentinus, Tertull. depraescript. Haeret. 33.  Resurrection, or doubted of it, which the Roman Catholics, which are so ready to note our Schisms and Heresies, will not deny to be downright Sadducism. Let them hear the Apostle arguing against it: If Christ be preached that he risen from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead, for if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is not Christ risen, and if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith vain, yea and we are found false witnesses of God. In his ad. Ep. to them we find him telling them of false Apostles, and deceitful workers, that were then among them, who transformed themselves into the Apostles of Christ. These counterfeit Apostles had got a mighty esteem, and interest among the people, for it was in reference to them that he said, Ye suffer if a man bring you into bondage [to the Jewish Ceremonies] if a man devour you, if a man take [money] of you, if a man exalt himself over you, and smite you [as it were] on the face. And that they should not think it strange that such fair pretenders to the Apostolical Office should be false Apostles, Marvel not at this (saith he) for Satan himself is transformed into an Angel of light, and therefore it is no great thing, if his Ministers also be transformed as the Ministers of righteousness. In his Ep. to the Galatians, we find they had those among them, whom the Apostle wished out off, because they had perverted the Gospel with 
‖ Et ad Galatas scribens invehitur in observatores & defensores circumcifionis & legis: Hebionis haeresis est. Tertul. ibid.  Judaisme, and so bewitched the people with an opinion of the necessity of Circumcision, and other legal Rites, that they had brought them from the Gospel which the Apostle preached, into another Gospel, which gave him occasion to say, If we, or an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel unto you then that which we have preached, let him be accursed. In his Ep. to the Colossians, he bids them beware lest any man should spoil them through vain philosophy, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ; and prays them to take care, that no man beguiled them in a voluntary humility, and worshipping of 
* Simonianae autem magiae discipiina Angelis serviens, utique & ipsa inter Idololatrias deputabatur. Tertull. de praescrip. Haeret. 33.  Angles, intruding into those things which he had not seen, and vainly puffed by his fleshly mind. In his 1st. Ep. to Timothy, he tells him, That the Spirit saith expressly, that in the latter time some shall departed from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving, of them which believe and know the truth. In that Ep. he also charged him to hold the faith, and a good conscience, which, saith he, some having put away concerning the faith have made shipwreck, of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus, whom I have delivered to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme. And again, O Timothy, avoid profane and vain babble, and opposition of science falsely so called, which some professing have erred concerning the faith. In his 2d. Ep. to Timothy, we find him complaining in the 1st. Chapter, That all they in Asia had turned away from him, especially Phygellus and Hermogenes. In the 2d. Chapter he warns him against Hymenaeus and Philetus, who had overthrown the faith of some, teaching that the resurrection was passed. And in the last we find him complaining of Demas, and Alexander the Coppersmith, for resisting his Apostolical Authority, and doing of him much mischief; and so dangerous a Schismatic he was, that he did Timothy beware of him, and prayed God to reward him according to his works. When he wrote to Titus, Heretics were so common in the Church, that he said unto him, An Heretic after the first and second admonition reject. And in his Ep. to the Hebrews, we find that there were many among the Primitive Christians, who fell back into Judaisme, and embraced Gnosticism, not only after they were illuminated, or baptised, but after they were made partakers by Baptism of the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost, and the Powers of the World to come. They apostatised maliciously, and out of spite to Christ forsook the Church; for, as the Apostle observed, they did despite unto Spirit of Grace, counting the blood of the Covenant an unholy thing, whereby they put him that shed it to open shame, and as it were crucified him afresh. I have already observed out of the 2d. Ep. of St. Peter, what dangerous and damnable Heresies there were in his time. I refer the gentle R.C. Reader to the 2d. Chap. of his 2d. Ep. and to the Ep. of St. Judas, for a full description of them, and then will entreat him to tell me, if this Church of England, in the midst of all the Dissenters and their widest Doctrines, be in any worse condition than the most primitive Catholic Church. I desire him also to accompany me to the 
* Johannes vero in Apocalypsi Idolothyta edentes, & slupra committentes jubetur castigare. Tertull. in prescript, Haeret. 33.  Revelation of St. John, and there I will show him a Synagogue of Satan, in the apostolical Church of Smyrna, and in that of Sardis those who held the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, and the doctrine of Balaam, teaching that it was lawful to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit fornication. The like there were in the Church of Thyatira, whom the Spirit sets forth under the name of Jezabel. And in the church of Ephesus, the mother-Church of them all, there were numbers of counterfeit Apostles, which said they were Apostles, and were, not but upon trial were found liars. These were all Apostolical Churches, and therefore it is a wonder to me, that any man should think it fair and reasonable to reproach the Church of England with the English Heresies and Schisms, or to think it jusitisiable to forsake, or undervalue her Communion upon that account.  
The Church Catholic to this time, and all the Catholic Churches in it, were governed by the apostles, who undoubtedly had the personal gift of Infallibility, or by their Disciples, and immediate Successors, upon whom the Spirit of God was visible in many 
* Euseb. H. E. l. 3. c. 38.  miraculous gifts, and who were chosen to be Bishops by the particular 
‖ Clement. Epad Corinth. ed. Oxon. 42.  designation of the Holy Ghost. I say, the whole Church then, and every part of it, was God's House, and God's Building, and God's Temple, which was built upon the Foundation of the Prophets and Apostles, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner Stone; and yet we find that God's Husbandry abounded then with Tares, and that his Building, in almost all the Apartments of it, was shaken into pieces by Divisions, even whilst those Husbandmen and Architects were alive, who were Labourers with God, and had the Spirit of God, without which no man searcheth the deep things of God. The Church, with all the Powers which Christ lest unto it, was not able to secure itself from Heresies and Schisms, and an innumerable huddle of Dissenters; as is evident from St. John, who in his general Ep. to the Church Catholic, bids the Faithful try the Spirits, before they believed them, because many false Prophets were gone out into the World. And if it were so in the green Tree, what must it be in the dry? If Churches, watered and planted by the Apostles, and Apostolic men, who wrought Miracles, were so infested with Divisions, can we expect that Churches planted and governed by their Successors at this distance, should be exempted from them?  
But let us go on to examine the Apostolic Age, and the Ages nearest unto it, and then we shall find that the former Times were not better than these. For in the Church of Jerusalem which was the Mother of all Churches and the Church wherein St. Peter made his first Sermon, this primogenial Church, which for 
* Euseb. E. H. l. 4. c. 5.  15 Successions was governed by the 
‖ Euseb. E. H. l. ●. ●. c. 7.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or Kindred of our Lord, continued no longer 
† Euseb. E. H. l. 4. c. 22.  undeflowred with Heresy and Schism, than she was under the inspection of James, our Lords, Brother, who was her first Bishop. For when he died, Simeon the Son of Cleophas, was chosen to succeed him, because he was our Lord's Cousin-german by the Mother's side. But 
* Euseb. H. E. l. 4. c. 22.  Thebuthis being offended because he was not chosen Bishop in this vacancy, began to corrupt the Church, which hitherto had remained a pure Virgin, with vain Doctrines, which he took from the seven Sects, of which that of Simon, surnamed Magus, was one, who divided the Unity of the Church, saith Hegesippus, by strange adulterous Doctrines against God and Christ. No Bishop ever suffered more by Sectaries, than this good old Simeon did in those Times, for without any regard to his prey hairs, who was sixscore years old, 
‖ Euseb. E. H. l. 3. c. 33.  they accused him before Atticus, Proconsul of Syria under Trajan, for being a Christian, and descended of the Royal Family of David, and so procured him, after many Torments, to be put to death.  
St. Ignatius, who was St. John's Scholar, and Bishop of the Church of Antioch, wrote Epistles to several Churches, and in that to the Church of Smyrna; we find that there were Heretics among them, who would not believe that Jesus Christ had a true and real Body, and upon that account abstained from the holy Eucharist, and the Prayers of the Church. This Sect, as unreasonable as it was, was one of the first which the Devil sowed in the field of the Church. St. John alluded to it in the beginning of his first Ep. general, where he saith, That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, and which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the word of life, that which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. In his Epistle to the Philadelphians, and Magnesians, he complains of the judaizing Christians, who went back from Christ to Moses. And in his Ep. to the Trallesians and Philadelphians, he prays them to abstain from the evil Herbs, which Christ did not cultivate, because they were not of his heavenly Father's planting, alluding to the words of our Lord, who said, Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted out. Furthermore to show what kind of Heretics and Schismatics there were in those days, he calls them 
* Ep. Ignat. ed. Amst. p. 3.  Beasts in humane shape, 
† P. 21.  Beasts and mad Dogs, which ought to be avoided, 
‖ P. 26.  corrupters of the faith, who should go into unquenchable fire, and 
* Ad Philadelph.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Wolves in sheep's clothing, 
† Ad Trall. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  Wolves, that if it were possible, would deceive the very Elect.  
About 10 years after the death of St. Paul, there happened a most 
‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. ep. p. t.  ungodly and detestable Sedition, in the Church of Corinth, which occasioned St. Clement, Bishop of Rome, to write that famous Epistle to them wherein he tells them, that the Schism among them was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a shameful, a very shameful thing, and unworthy of the name of Christians. And in the Pastor of Hermas, there are also manifest indications of Faction and Schism among Christians when he wrote. 
* L. 1. Visio 3.  First, In his Vision of the building of the great Tower upon the Waters, where by the Stones that had Clefts and Schisms in them, he understands contentious and 
† Qui autem scissuras habebant, high sunt qui alius adversus alium in cordibus discordiam habent, & non habent pacem inter se, etc.  quarrelsome Christians, who could not agree together, nor keep the peace of the Church among themselves, but had heart-burnings one against another. Secondly, By the 
‖ Lapides quos vidisli longè projectos à turni, & currentes in viâ, & volvi de viâ in loca deserta, two sunt qui crediderunt quidem, dubitatione autem suâ reliquerunt viam veram— errand autem & miseri sunt ingredientes in desertas vias.  Stones that were seen to roll up and down at a great distance from the Tower, he understands the unstable sort of Christians, who having left the Church, miserably wandered in by-paths, and desert ways. So in his 8th. similitude of the third Book, he sets forth four sorts of men in the Church. First, Those who bring in strange and vain Doctrines into the Church, tho' they do not leave the Communion of it. Secondly, Those who are of an unpeaceable and quarrelsome disposition, and make Feuds in the Church, tho' they do not proceed as far as Schism. Thirdly, Those who tho' they keep the right faith, yet through Envy and Emulation, quarrel with one another about Bishoprics, and Places of Dignity in the Church. And fourthly, Those who apostatise from the faith, and separate from the Church. 
* Lib 3. Sim. 8. §. 6, 7.  The first sort were set forth by withered Rods, which were not rotten; the second by half withered Rods, in which were clefts; the third by green Rods, in which were clefts; and the last by Roads both withered and rotten: And tho' our Adversaries could show of all these sorts that do, or did belong to the Church of England, it is no new, nor extraordinary thing.  
Justin Martyr 
† Apol. 2. p. 69, 70, 71.  complains grievously of the blasphemous Heresies, which to the great prejudice of the Church were taught in his Time. He recites the Names of some of the Founders of them, as 
‖ Ibid.  Simon, Menander, Martion, 
* Dial. cum Thyph. p. 253. edit. Paris. 1615.  Basilides, Saturninus; and tells the Emperors that they were but nominal Christians, the name of Christian being as common to Sects in Christianity, as that of Philosopher was to every absurd Sect in Philosophy. And in his Dialogue with Trypho he saith, That the being of Sects and Heresies confirmed their faith the more, because they were foretold by our Saviour in his Parable of the Tares and Wheat; and where he said, False Christ's and false Prophets shall arise; and beware of false Prophets which come to you in sheeps-clothing, but inwardly are ravening Wolves.  
Irenaeus, towards the latter end of the 2d. Century, wrote an Account of all the Gnostical Heresies, such as that of Simon, Menander, Cerinthus, Carpocrates, Saturninus, Marcius, Martion, the Ebionites, Valentimans, and Colarbasians, and others, which in his time infested the Church, seducing great numbers with a show of Perfection, and false Miracles, especially multitudes of Women, and particularly in his own 
* Irenaeus, l. 1. c. 9.  Diocese; and yet notwithstanding all those that went out after those impute Heresies, Irenaeus remained a Catholic and Apostolic Bishop, and the Gallican Church, a pure, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.  
Tertullian wrote against the Valentinians and Marcionites, and many other Heresies, in the beginning of the third Century; and because they pretended to Antiquity, he wrote a 
† Di praescriptione ●…licorum.  Book, on purpose to show, that the oldest Heresies were later than Truth. The Church at that time was so infested with Heresies, that many 
‖ Non opritue nos mirari super haereses islas— van●è, & in consideratè plerique hoc ipso scandali ●antur q●●●l tanti●n haereses valiant— quare ille sidelssimi, prudenti●●ni & usitatision in Ecclesiâ in iltam partem transierunt? Tertull. ib. 1, 2, 3.  wondered, and were scandalised at the number and prevalence of them, and that so many eminent men fell and relapsed into them. This gave occasion to the Father, in the beginning of that Book, to tell the Faithful, that they were not to take offence, nor wonder at the number, or quality of those that forsook the Church. He bid them remember that Saul was an eminent person, before be fell away from God, and that good David, and gracious and wise Solomon apostatised, the one into Adultery, and the other into Idolatry, and that it was the privilege only of the Son of God himself to be perfect, and impeccable, and by consequence it was no Argument for the truth of any Heresy, tho' a Bishop, or Deacon, or Doctor, or a holy Widow, or Virgin, or even a Confessor, fell into it, because we were not to judge of the Faith by the persons of men, but of the persons of men by the Faith. He bid them consider, That the Traitor Judas was an Apostle; that many of Christ own Disciples forsook him; that Phygellus, and Hermogenes, and Hymenaeus, and Philetus, forsook Paul; and that we should not wonder to see the Church so deserted, and suffer after the example of Christ. Saith he, They went out from us, because they were not of us; and we should remember the Predictions of Christ and his Apostles, who forewarned us of Wolves in sheep cloating, of false Apostles, false Prophets, and false Teachers, and that Heresies and Offences would come; and indeed (saith he) Heresies are as necessary as Persecutions, to prove the Faithful, and try who will endure to the end. This Apology which the Father made for the sad estate of the primitive Church, will, I hope, serve as well for ours. I commend it in all humility to the consideration of the R. C.s. especially to the Minister of Putney, who in his late Book seems to take so much pleasure, in twitting us, and our Mother the Church of England, with the English Schisms.  
But to proceed in the History of Heresy and Schism. Clemens Alexandrinus makes the like Apology for the Heresies of the same Age. 
* Sero●…. 〈…〉 p. 753.  He saith, They are to Truth, as Tares are to Wheat, that our Lord foretold they must come, and that therefore they must be; and to show what variety there was then in the Christian World, he reckons up in one 
† Strom. l. 7. p. 765  Page about a dozen sorts: The Valentinians, Marcionites, Basilidiams, P●ratics, Phrygians, Encratites, Dociles, Haematites, Caj●…ists, Ophiants, and Entychites, which I think sold as ill, as Presbyterians, Independents, Anabaptists, and Quakers, with which, I remember, we were reproached not long since, in the Colleges of Navarre and Rochel, in the former with more Raillery, and in the latter with more Zeal.  
Origen in his Book of 
* §. 13.  Prayer, lately Printed at Oxford, mentions a sort of Heretics that rejected Baptism, and the Lord's Supper, who, I suppose, may pass muster with our Quakers, and another sort that hold it 
† §. 14.  superfluous and unprofitable to pray: And in his Answer to Celsus, he makes occasional mention here and there of most of the Heresies his Time, and saith, That 
* Lib 3. p. 119. 〈◊〉 5. p.  Celsus, who professed to despise and undervalue Christianity, because there were so many Sects of Christians, must for the same Reason despise and undervalue Philosophy and Medicine; for, saith he, whatsoever is excellent and profitable for men to know, they will apply themselves to the study of it, from whence will naturally arise divers Questions, and divers Opinions, and by consequence divers Sects. For this Reason, saith he, there are Sects among the Greeks, and Sects among the Jews, some understanding the Writing of Mose and the Prophets in one sense, and some in another, and so Christianity appearing to be 
† 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  a great and venerable thing, not only to men of meaner Parts, but to the greatest Wits among the Greeks, they set themselves to the study of it; and from thence arose Sects, some understanding the Scriptures, which they all believe, in one sense, and some in another: But yet (saith he) no man of sense will reject Christianity for that Reason, no more than he will reject Medicine or Philosophy for it, or despise the holy Books of Moses and the Prophets for the Heresies among the Jews. This (saith he) I think, is a sufficient Apology for the Christian Religion, concerning which I cannot but think of the admirable Saying of St. Paul, There must be Heresies among you, that those that are approved may be made manifest. And therefore (saith he again) if the School of Christ must be disgraced for the Sects that have come out of it, let the School of Socrates be condemned too, because so many opposite Schools of Philosophy arose out of it; and let the Philosophy of Plato also suffer the like censure, because his Scholar Aristotle differed so much, and in so many Opinions from him. This admirable Apology the Father made for the Church Religion in his Time, and let those who urge Celsus his Argument against us, consider if it is not as applicable to ours. Nay we find by the 
* Respons. ad quaest. 5.  Answers to certain Questions falsely ascribed to Justin Martyr, that God was pleased to allow Heretics in the primitive Times, to do Miracles, which, praised be his holy Name, he never suffered any Heretic or Schismatic since the Reformation to do among us. But if he had, we could have made the same defence, which that Author and St. Cyprian did viz. that Miracles alone, as 
† Prophetare, & daemonia excludere, & virtates magnas in terris facere, sublimis utique resest, & admirabilis, non tamen— Cyprian de unit. Eccles. edit. Oxon T. p. 144.  splendid gifts as they are, are no demonstration of the Truth; for Christ hath declared, that many will say unto him in the day of Judgement, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works? and than he will reply unto them, I know ye not, depart from me ye that work iniquity. So saith St. Paul, Tho' I speak with the tongue of men and Angels, and tho' I have the gift of Prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and tho' I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have no charity, I am nothing. The like Apology St. Austin made against the pretended Miracles of the Donatists: I hear (saith he) that Pontius doth Miracles, and that when Donatus Magnus prayed, God answered him by a voice from Heaven, but God hath cautioned me against those 
‖ Contra istos Mirabiliarios cautum me fecit Deus— Aug. Expos. in Evang. Joh. tract. 13.  Miracle-mongers, who make Divisions, saying, False Christ's and false Prophets shall arise, and shall show signs and wonders, to deceive, if it were possible, the very Elect, but take ye heed, behold I have foretold you all these things. And when his Disciples told him with joy, that the Devils were subject to them in his Name, saith he, Rejoice not in this, that the Devils are subject unto you, but that your Names are written in Heaven. Wherefore my Brethren, let no man deceive you, he that works miracles, and doth not keep unity, is nothing. Towards the latter end of the 4th. Century, Epiphanius in three Books wrote an Account of all the Heresies that had been in the Church till that time, and they amount in number to 
* Sancti Epiphanii respons. ad Epist. Acacii & Pauli.  fourscore, such a world of Tares grew up with the Wheat from the first sowing of the Word. St. Augustine hath given a compendious Account of all these Heresies out of Epiphanius, and some more of his own Time, in a Discourse ad Quod-vult-Deum. But setting aside all the rest, I shall only take notice of the Montanists, Novatians, Donatists, and Arians, which did so much mischief to the universal Church of God, and all the particular Members thereof.  
The Montanists pretended to Prophecy, and divine Inspiration, and tho' they were 
† Euseb. H. E. l. 5. c. 15, 16, 18, 19  resisted by many brave Bishops, and many learned men wrote against them, yet they spread their Infection far and near, and 
‖ Epiphan. vol. 1. p. 416.  perverted all Phrygia, Cappadocia, and Cilicia, and afterwards their corrupt Doctrine went Westward, as far as Constantinople itself.  
The Novatian Schism began in Rome itself, and was so called from Novatus, whom the Greek Writers confound with Novatianus, a Presbyter of that Church. He 
* Euseb. l. 6. c. 43.  taught, that it was not lawful to admit those who had fallen in the Decian Persecution, upon their repentance, to communion with the Faithful, and getting himself ordained Bishop in a sinister manner, he drove many under that pretence from the Church, and then there was Bishop against Bishop, Church against Church, and Altar against Altar, even at Rome itself. Neither Cartwright, nor Travers, nor any other Presbyter of the Church of England, did ever do her so much mischief, as Novatus did the Church of Rome. The Schism which he raised, lasted 200 years, and had not Cornelius been well assisted by the Catholic Bishops, not only in Italy, but over all the Christian World, this pestilent Schism, under the pretence of greater Purity, would soon have driven him out of Rome.  
The Schism of the Donatists first began in Carthage, and they were so called from Donatus Casensis, the Head of the Party, which first erected Altar against Altar in that metropolitical City, setting up Majorinus against Cecilian, who was rightfully ordained Bishop of that Church. Of all the Schisms upon record, this was one of the most unreasonable, dishonourable, stubborn, impudent, and bloody, as will appear from this short Account thereof.  
First, It was very unreasonable, because it was made by a Party, which had nothing to object against the Doctrine, Discipline, or Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of Carthage, but only against the Canonical Incapacity of Cecilian to be Bishop of it, as one who was a traditor, and worshipper of Idols in the Dioclesian Persecution, which notwithstanding appeared upon many Trials to have been a malicious Accusation, nothing of this having been laid to his charge, when he was elected and ordained.  
Secondly, It was a most dishonourable and shameful Schism, as having been begun and carried on by a rich proud and insolent 
* Lucilla.  Woman, who was obnoxious to the Rod of Cecilian, and corrupted Secundus the Primate of Numidia, and many other African Bishops, into a Faction against him, together with those sacrilegious Presbyters, whom Cecilian had called to account for the Plate, and other Goods of the Church, which had been committed to their Trust in the time of the Persecution.  
Thirdly, It was a most stubborn and prevalent Schism, which would not yield nor submit to the Authority of the Emperor, the Sentence of two 
† Romanun: & Arelatense.  Councils, the Determination of the Proconsul of Africa, nor the Judgement of the universal Church. On the contrary, the more it was condemned, it grew the more insolent, and powerful, and oppressed not only the Church of Carthage, where it first began, but made almost the whole Church of Africa revolt.  
Fourthly, It was a most impudent Schism, the Schismatics esteeming themselves as the only pure People of the World, and the Catholics as Pagans and Idolaters, plundering their Churches, burning their Altars as polluted, and treading their holy Sacraments, which they found upon them, under their feet. They also denied them Christian Burial, and rebaptized and re-confirmed as many of them as revolted to them, and truly so general was the Revolt in all Parts of Africa, that the Catholic Communions looked more like Conventicles, than the Catholic Church.  
Lastly, It was a most bloody and cruel Schism, as appears by the Feats of the 
* So called, quod circum cellas vagantur. August. T. 7. p. 76. G. T. 8. p. 334. M. T. 8.335. D. E.  Circellians, or Circumcellians, whom the Donatists called Agonistici, because they fought for them, and destroyed the Catholics in a most barbarous manner. For they were the 
† Habebant Donatistae per omnes penè Ecclesias suas perditum hominum genus perversum, ac violentum, velut sub professione continentium ambulantes qui Circumcelliones dicebantur, & erant ingenti numero, à turbâ per omnes ferè Africanas regiones constituti, qui malis imbuti doctoribus, audacia, superbiâ, & termeritate illicitâ, nec suis, nec alienis aliquando parcebant, contra jus, fasque in causis interdicentes hominibus, & nisi obedissent damnis gravissimis, & caedibus afficiebant, armati diversis telis, bacchantes per agros villasque ad sanguinis effusionem accedere non metuentes— intoberabiles persecutiones unitati Ecclesie compacti faciebant, ipsisque sacerdotibus Catholicis & ministris aggressiones nocturnas atque diurnas, direptionesque rerum omnium vi inserebant. Name & multos dei servos caedibus debilitaverunt— Possidonius in vit. August. Vid. August. Ep. 48. & 50. De Haeresibus ad Quod-vult-deum? Ep. 68 Contra Crescon. l. 3. Enarrat. in Ps. 10.  Zealots of the Faction, who thought they did God good service in making havoc of the Catholics, nay they were such furious Enthusiasts, that when they had none to kill, as St. Aug. saith, they would kill themselves. They laid wait for the Catholics in the ways, and murdered both the Clergy and the People, they took them out of their Houses by force, to kill them, they beat them to death with Clubs, poured Lime and Vinegar into their Eyes, plundered and burnt their Houses, and murdered Bishops and Priests at the very Altar, and marched about day and night doing these horrible Exploits, under the conduct of Donatist Bishops and Priests. Nay the whole Sect was all Cruelty and Pride, for a Catholic no sooner turned Donatist, but he altered his temper, and became impatient, furious, haughty and contentious, and indeed the many Massacres and Devastations the whole Party committed, shows they delighted in Cruelty and Blood. Such was the Schism of the Donatists, and it deserves to be well considered by those, who are apt to make uncharitable Reflections upon the Church of England, or have a mean opinion of her Communion upon the account of the English Schisms.  
The Arian Schism first began in Alexandria, and had its Name from Arius, a Presbyter of that Church. At the first broaching of his Heresy, he was opposed by Alexander his Bishop, and part of the Clergy and People adhering to the Bishop, and part siding with Arius, from this small spark, saith 
* Lib. 1. c. 6.  Socrates, came such a fire, as made a Conflagration in the universal Church. First, It inflamed the Churches of Egypt, Lybia, and the upper Thebais, and from thence was blown into all the other Churches, when, as 
† De vit. Constant. l. 2. c. 62.  Eusebius writes, one might have seen not only Bishops contending with one another, but the People rend into Factions, some inclining to this Party, and some to that, and when the Pagans also took advantage from those Divisions of the Christians, to expose Christianity in their Theatres, and turn it into ridicule.  
This sad estate of the Catholic Church, drew tears from the eyes of Constantine, and moved him to call the Council of Nice to compose this Difference, and another not much less, about a matter of far less moment, which had risen between the Eastern and Western Churches, about no greater matter than the observation of Easter. day.  
The unanimous Decree of the Council against Arius, and his Doctrine backed with the Authority of the Emperor, did for the present silence the Arian Controversies; but his Son Constantius turning Arian, it broke out with more fury then formerly, and caused so much Sedition and Bloodshed in Christian Cities, especially about the 
* Socrat. lib. 2. 〈◊〉, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 16, 28.  choice of Bishops, and so many Subdivisions in opinions among the Arians themselves, that one may well wonder, how ever Christendom came to be at peace and unity again. Than not only Bishops were divided against Bishops, but Councils contradicted Councils. Then were made at several Times and Places, no less than nine Forms of Confession, most of them differing from one another, and all from the Nicene Creed. Nay then not only the Arians were divided among themselves, but the Orthodox, about the manner of receiving the convert Arians into Communion, 
† Faustin. & Marcell. lib. precum ad imper. Val. Theodos. & Arcad. Socrat. l. 3. c. 9  Lucifer and his Party standing upon stricter terms than the rest. I have given this short Account of the Arian Schism, to show how not onlyh this and that Church, but the whole Catholic Church, may at one time labour under Schism. And upon making particular enquiry into particular Churches, we shall find how in many of them there was Bishop against Bishop, Altar against Altar, and Communion against Communion, which made Julian the Emperor scoptically say, That the Son of Mary had now verified his own Saying, that he came not to send Peace upon the Earth, but a Sword.  
At Alexandria there were two opposite Churches owning two opposite Bishops; the Orthodox, who still adhered to Athanasius, present, or absent, and the Arians, who received Gregory, and George, and the rest that were put in his Place.  
At Antioch there were at one time three opposite Churches; one of the Arians, of which Euzoius was Bishop, one of converted Arians, of which Meletius was Bishop, and one of those who never sell into Arianism, of which Paulinus was Bishop, and yet the divided state of Christendom at this time, was no offence, or wonder to a wise Pagan, I mean the Philosopher Themistius, who in a 
* Socrat. H E. l. 4. c. 32.  Speech which he spoke to the Emperor Valens, to persuade him to moderate his cruel Persecution of the Orthodox, told his Majesty, That he ought not to admire at the disagreement of Opinions among the Christians, which was but small, if compared with the multitude and confusion of Opinions among the Greeks, among whom there were above 300 different Sects. Nay he prayed him to consider, that the most excellent and useful Arts had never arrived to such perfection, but by difference of judgement, and strife among the Artists themselves; nay that Philosophy, the Mother of all good Arts, had risen from small beginnings, to such a height of perfection, by differences among learned men.  
At Constantinople, and in many other Cities, there were form Churches of Arians and Novatians, under their respective Bishops, opposite to one another, and both in opposition to the true Catholic Church. From this toleration of separate and opposite Churches, arose many 
† Socrat. H. E. l. 6. c. 22.  Differences, 
‖ Id. l. 5. c. 13.  Tumults, Quarrels, and Bloundshed, as when the Arians assembled in the Piazz's of Constantinople by night, and from thence went through the Streets of the City, singing alternative Hymns against those who believed three to be one Power. Chrysostom, the Catholic Bishop, fearing lest the People might be drawn from the Church by such Hymns, appoints some of the Catholics, in opposition to the Arians, to go about singing nocturnal Hymns against their Opinions, upon which the 
* Socrat. l. 6. c. 8.  two Parties meeting one another, and being more willing to fight then to sing, they fell to violence, and in the Conflict many on both sides were wounded, and some slain.  
Nay in Rome itself, which now boasts so much of its Unity under one Head, in Rome the pretended Centre of Christendom, there have been as shameful, wide, and violent Schisms, as any were ever in the Christian World, Schisms 
* 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Socrat. E. H. l. 4. c. 29.  not upon the account of any pretended Heresy, or dislike of Ceremonies, nor consisting in a separation of the Clergy and People from the Bishop, but Schisms of a more dangerous and scandalous nature, betwixt Rival Popes and their Parties, when there were several Pretenders to the Chair of St. Peter, and some adhered to this Pope, and some to that. Thus in the Reign of Valentinian, upon the death of Pope Liberius, the Clergy and People of Rome were divided in the choice of a Bishop to succeed him. The holy part of the People which adhered to Liberius in his Banishment, against the perjured and usurping Pope Felix, being convened by Vrsinus, Amantius, and Lupus, chose 
† Alias Ursicinas'.  Vrsinus, but the perjured part of the Clergy, which broke the solemn Oath they had made, not to choose a Bishop during the Banishment of Liberius, and that part of the People which adhered to them, chose Damasus Bishop, who was one of those who broke his faith with Liberius. Ursinus was ordained Bishop by Paul of Tibur, and Damasus was ordained by others in the Lateran Church, and part of the Clergy and People adhered to one, and part or the other, with very great Animosities on both sides. Where was the Unity of the Roman Communion, when the Roman Church had two opposite Popes, and the People were divided into two separate churches under them? Damasus indeed prevailed, not by the merits of his Cause, or that he had the better claim, but by bribing the Courtiers, and great men of Rome, and intrigueing with the 
‖ He was called, Matronarum Auriscalpius.  Matrons of the City, and so procuring the Banishment of Vrsinus, who was chosen by the faithful and holy part of the People, which suffered their blood to be shed for him, and the justice of his Cause, and after his Banishment owned themselves to be his Flock, and refused communion with Damasus, believing him to be the rightful Pope. Damasus from the first was so enraged against them, that he hired the Rabble to outrage them; they made a great slaughter of them for three days together at the Temple of Julius, then in the Church of Sicininus, called also the Church of Liberius 
* Vid Marcellini hist. l. 27. c. 3. , where they killed an hundred and sixty, and wounded very many more, whereof a great part died of their Wounds. But all this did not deter them from meeting together, but three days after they assembled again, reciting against Damasus those words of our Lord, Fear not those who can kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul. Then they sang out of the Psalms, The dead bodies of they servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the air, and the flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the field, their blond have they shed like water on every side of Jerusalem, and there was no man to bury them. And often meeting together in the Church of Liberius, they cried out, O Christian Emperor! let all the Bishops meet at Rome, let them try the Cause between Vrsinus and Damasus, and drive the Murderer from St. Peter's Chair. These Complaints of the People coming to the ears of the Emperor, he called back Ursinus from Banishment; the People met him with great joy, but Damasus by bribing the Court gets him banished again. After this, he invited the Bishops of Italy to a Feast upon his Birthday. Some of them came, whom he would have persuaded both by good words and money to depose Vrsinus, but they desired to be excused, telling him, that they came to celebrate his Birthday, and not to condemn a man unheard.  
This Account which I have given of the Schism between Damasus and Vrsinus, is taken our of the Preface of Marcellinus, a Roman Presbyter, and Faustinus a Roman Deacon, before the Libellus precum, or humble Supplication, which they presented to the Emperors, Valentinian, Theodosius, and Arcadius. I refer the Reader to it in the 
† A. D. 1628.  Oxford-Edition of Faustinus, and if he please to consult it there, he will find all that I have written, and some more remarkable passages, which, for brevity sake, I thought fit to omit. I know very well that Baronius hath said all he can to render this Account suspected, because it invalidates the Title of Damasus, and interrupts the lawful Succession to St. Peter's Chair.  
First, He pleads that Marcellinus and Faustinus were Heretics, and that their testimony is no more to be believed, than the testimony of Thiefs against those they have rob. But was the Luciferian Heresy, so called, an Heresy indeed? 
* August. de Heres, ad Quodv. Luciferianos' a Larcifero Caralitano Episcopo exortos, & celeriter nominatos, nec Epiphanius, nec Philaster inter hereticos posuiticredo tantummodo schisma, non haeresin eos condidisse, credentes.  St. Augustine observes, that neither Epiphanius, nor Philastrius, put the Luciferians in the number of Heretics, and is very willing to excuse them from Heresy. Or if it were a Heresy, was it of such a nature as to deprave and infatuate the Souls of men, and to deprive them at once both of truth and common sense, in making of them write a heap of Lies to the Emperor, while Damasus was alive, with many more eye-witnesses of the Schism, whom they might conclude would have publicly exposed their Account, if it had been false? Was not Lucifer himself a very holy and excellent Person, notwithstanding the severity of his opinion, and a great Champion of the Church against the Arians, and might not those who stood up with him for the strictness of Church-discipline, and purity of Communion, out of hatred to Arianism, notwithstanding their excusable error, be as holy men as he? I am confident no unprejudiced man, that will observe what an excellent strain of Piety and Zeal runs through their Works, can suspect them capable of writing such gross Forgeries, as the Preface indeed contains, if it be not true.  
But Baronius objects, that they assert Vrsinus to have been ordained Bishop before Damasus, contrary to St. Hierom in his Chronicon, who saith, that Damasus was ordained first. But by his favour, their words in the Preface do not necessarily import so much, as the learned Annotator in the Oxford Edition hath observed; but if they did, why is not their Testimony as good against St. Hierom, as St. Hierom's is against theirs? and why may not he be supposed to have strained a little in favour of his Master Damasus, who had so obliged him, as well as they, to have prevaricated out of hatred to him?  
secondly, He opposes the Authority of Ruffinus against them, who relates the Story in favour of Damasus. But was not Ruffinus, as learned men observe, a very careless and oscitant Historian? How many Mistakes doth the learned Valesius observe in his History, in his Annotations upon Socrates? and which is it most reasonable to believe; an unaccurate man, that writes by hear say, and at a distance, and in a general History: or men that with great accuracy write of any Fact, which they had all the means of knowing exactly, and could not, unless they would wilfully, mistake.  
Thirdly, He most frigidly objects, that Vrsinus must needs have been the schismatical Bishop, because he was ordained by the Bishop of Tibur, and not of Ostia, to whom, he saith, it did belong to ordain the Bishops of Rome. It is true, it was the custom of the Metropolitans and Patriarches, to be ordained by some of their neighbouring com-provincial Bishops, as St. Aug. observes, in defence of Cecilians Ordination against the Donatists,; and this he proves by the example of the Bishop of Ostia, who usually ordained the Bishop of Rome. But what tho' that Bishop did usually ordain the Roman Bishops, 
Non expectaverit Cecilianus ut princeps à principe ordinaretur, cum aliud habeat Ecclesiae Catholicae consuetudo, ut non Numidiae, sed propinquiores Episcopi Episcoporum Ecclesiae Carthaginis ordinent: sicut nec Romanae Eccliesiae ordinat aliquis Episcopus Metropolitanus, sed de proximo Ostiensis Episcopus, Aug. in brev. collat. di●● 32. ●. 3.  doth it follow from thence, that he was Judge of their election, and that if the See was vacant, or the Bishop of it sick, or absent, or superannuated, and could not, or had no mind, and would not do that office, that another, for example, the bishop of Tibur, might not do it as well? Some of these perhaps might be the Case when Vrsinus was elected: for we do not read that the Bishop of Ostia ordained Damasus; or if he had for certain ordained him, might not Damasus have corrupted him, as well as the Courtiers and Magistrates of Rome, or Preface saith he would have engaged the Bishops of Italy to condemn Vrsinus? and methinks if his had been the juster Cause, he should for his reputation have committed the hearing of the whole Matter to a Council of Bishops, and got him and his Party condemned, as Cornelius got Novatus and his: but this he never did, which is no small presumption, that his Election was not so justifiable, and his Right so clear, as Baronius would have it to be. But whether it were or no, doth not directly concern my present Design, which is chief to show, what a violent, dangerous, and scandalous Schism this was, which happened in the Roman Church. It was so violent, that according to 
* Vtreplerentur humano sanguine orationum loca.  Ruffinus, and the Greek Historians, out of whom I might have described it, it caused a great deal of Bloodshed in Churches; so dangerous, that the Souls of many on the one side or other must needs have miscarried in it; and so scandalous, that it gave occasion to a 
† M. Marcellinus in loco supra citat.  Pagan Historian to make such Reflections, as I wish, for the honour of the Roman See, and the holy Episcopal Office, had never been made. It happened in the year 366, and after the death of Pope Zosimus, there happened another scandalous and horrible Schism, between Boniface and Eulalius, in the year 419, which caused such great and dangerous Tumults in the City, that Honorius the Emperor, who was then at Milan, was not without apprehensions what might be the consequence of it, and therefore to prevent and all present danger, commanded both of them to be put out of Rome. To pass over many intermediate Schisms in after Ages, there happened many more of a very scandalous nature, between contradictory Popes assisted by contradictory Parties and Councils, who could not agree about the rightful Pope. Thus in the year 891, the Church of Rome was miserably divided between Formosus and Sergius, who were both chosen in Rome by different Parties; and tho' Formosus prevailed, yet Stephen the 6th. his next Successor but one, abrogated and nulled all his Orders, and degraded all whom he had ordained, and gave them new Orders. In the year 965. there happened a great Schism after the death of John the 12th. betwixt Benedict the 5th. and Leo the 8th. Platina could not determine which was the right Pope, but puts them both in his Lives; but Onuphrius, in his Annotations upon the Life of Benedict, and in his Ecclesiastical Chronology, faith expressly, that Benedict was the Schismatic, and Leo the lawful Pope. 
* In anno 965. Tom. 10.  Baronius is of the contrary opinion; he makes Leo the Antipope, and Benedict the Pope; and 
† In Chron. p. 827.  Genebrard confesses, that their Historians are not agreed which of the two was the rightful Successor to St. Peter's Chair. In the year 1080, the whole Peace of Christendom was disturbed by the Schism, which happened betwixt Clement the 3d. and Gregory the 7th. 8th. and Gelasius the 2d. and Gelasius dying, it continued between Clement, and Calixtus the 2d. who was chosen in the room of Gelasius. The Emperor was for Clement, but the Kings of England and France were for Calixtus, tho' the English Clergy and People were much divided in their opinions, some maintaining the one, and some the other, and some again that neither Party was duly elected: but Calixtus having taken his Rival prisoner by the help of a good Army put an end to that Schism. After the death of Adrian the 4th. in the year 1159, happended a grievous Schism, betwixt 
* Maximum Ecclesiae Schisma oriri coepit quod nineteen annls miserabiliter duravis, Orton, Frising. Chron. Lib. 7. Cap. ult.  Victor the 4th, and Alexander the 3d. which for 19 years mightily disturbed the Christian World, some of the 
† Cardinals in seditionem conversi geminâ electione scindunt Vnitatem. Radevic. Frisingensis. L. 2. C. 43.  Cardinals chose the one, and some the other, and after their respective elections both were ordained, and sent out 
‖ Id. I. 2. C. 50. 51.  Circular Letters with contradictory protestations and remonstrances, attesting God to the truth of what they said. Alexander called God to witness in his Letters, that he was chosen by all the Cardinals but three, and yet the Cardinals of Victor's Party in a 
* Radevic. Frising. L. 2. Cap. 51.  public declaration protest that he was chosen by nine Cardinals.  
The Emperor, to put an end to this Schism, calls a Council at Pavia, and to that end wrote to Alexander, and the Cardinals, and also to the Tramontan Bishops to meet there. The 
† Id. l. 2. c. 64, 65, 66, 67.  Council being met, the Emperor made a speech to them, to exhort them with Fasting and Prayers to commend the Cause of the Church to God, and after seven days discussion of the Controversy between the two Popes, they gave sentence in behalf of Victor, and the Canons of St. Peter at Rome, in a Letter to the Emperor and the Council, did assure them, that the uncorrupt and better part of the Cardinals were for him; whereupon the Emperor ratified and confirmed his Election, and by his Edict commanded he should be received as Pope. He died after he had sat four years, and was succeeded by Paschal the 3d. Callistus the 3d. and Innocent the 3d. all opposite Popes to Alexander the 3d. whom the Roman Writers affirm to have been the true Pope. But the most grievous Schism of all the rest, was that which began in the year 1378. between Vrban the 6th. and Clement the 7th. Vrban kept his Seat at Rome, but Clement at Avignion, and the Germans, Hungarians, English, and part of Italy, stood for the former, and the French and Spaniards for the latter: Vrban created 54 Cardinals, and Clement 36.  
The Schism between these two Popes and their Successors, lasted about 50 years, or according to 
* History of Popish, etc.  Mr. Foulis (who accounts the Schism of Felix against Eugenius as a part of it, because it sprung from it) above 70 years, during all which time, excepting the interval between Clement and Felix the 4th. there were two opposite Lines of Succession to St. Peter's Chair, till Felix, whom the Council of Basil set up against Clement, upon the earnest entreaty of the Emperor, resigned up all his Interest to the Popedom, and left Nicolas the 5th. Successor in the Line of urban, sole sovereign Pontif in the Roman Throne. Nay during the time of this Schism, there were sometimes three Popes; for the Cardinals thinking to end the Schism, called a Council at Pisa, where they deposed Gregory the 12th. one of Vrban's Successors, and Benedict the 11th. one of Clement's Successors, and chose Alexander the 5th. who died before he had sat a year. Alexander was succeeded by John the 23d. who created 16 Cardinals, and sat seven months, till the Council of Constance persuaded him to recede, and become a private man again. A man would think, that of all Christians in the World, a Roman Catholic should be most backward to upbraid the Church of England with Schism, considering what frequent and violent Schisms his own Church hath laboured under in former Ages; Schisms that have rend the Union, and split, if not interrupted the Line of Succession in the one Catholic Church, and brought it to such a sad condition, that the secular Authority has been fain to determine of two or three Popes, which was rightfully elected, and which not. Thus in the Reign of 
† 2, & 3 Rich. 2. c. 6. A.D. 1378.  Rich. the 2d. the Parliament of England did declare in an Act for that purpose, that urban the 6th. and not his Antagonist Clement, was duly chosen Pope, and aught to be accepted and obeyed in this Realm. I never saw the Original, but shall set down the Abridgement of it, out of Sir R. Cotton's Exact Abridgement of the Records, in the following words.  
An Act that Pope Urban was true and lawful Pope, and that the Live of all Cardinals, and other Rebels to the said Pope, shall be seized in the King's hands, and the King to be answered by the Profits thereof, and that whosoever within this Realm shall procure or obtain any Provision, or other Instrument, from any other Pope than the said Urban, shall be out of the King's protection.  
Sergeant Rastall hath another Abridgement of this Act, somewhat different in one passage, but in all the rest to the same effect.  
An. 2 R. 2. c. 7. It was agreed, that Urban was duly elected Pope, and aught to be obeyed as Head of the Church, and that all Benefices and Possessions of Cardinals, and other the King's Enemies, should be seized. And it was enacted, 
R●slal●'s Statutes, Tit. Provision and Praemunire. p. 356. 8.  that if any purchased by provision, any Benesice or Grace, by any other named Pope then of Pope Urban, or be obedient to any other Person as Pope, he should be out of the King's protection, and his Goods seized.  
I should not have brought this Act upon the Stage, but that the Gentlemen of the Roman Communion, are so apt to miscall our Church a Parliamentary Church, and our Religion a Parliamentary Religion, only because our Laws confirm and establish the Sanctions of the Church of England, as the Imperial Laws and Edicts formerly did the Decrees of general Councils; particularly, as, 
* The external Bishop of the Church.  Constantine the Great, who sat in the Nicene Council, confirmed the Nicene Creed, and all other things that were ordained by the Council of Nice, when he was but a Catechumenus, or Learner of the Christian Religion. He said of himself, that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉' E 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and after his death, the Fathers surnamed him, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; 
Equal to the Apostles.  and whosoever will take the pains to run over, but with a cursory eye, the Novels of Justinian, the Nomocanons, and Basilicks, the Capitularia of the old French, 
Spelm. council. vol. 1  and the Laws of our Ancient Saxon Kings, will find, that our religious Princes, since the Reformation, have intermeddled no more with the Affairs of the Church, than Christian Princes formerly did.  
But to return thither, where I broke off, I desire the Reader to take notice, That of 29 or 
* Onuphrius reckons so many.  30 Schisms in the Church of Rome, I have taken notice but of nine, and that if it were requisite to say more of the Roman Schisms and Differences, I could add another Account of Anti Cardinals, and Anti-Councils, to this short one of the Anti-popes'.   

CHAP. II. Showing, That Schisms and Divisions, and the consummation of them, in opposite Communions, are no good Argument against the Truth, or Goodness, or Reputation of a Church.  
II. HAving in the former Chapter, I hope, clearly demonstrated, that the universal Church, and all the particular Members of it, are subject to Heresies and Schisms, I proceed in this to show, that they are no Argument against the Trueness, or Goodness or Reputation of any Church, because what is incident to the whole Church, and all the parts of it, cannot be a good Argument against any one. If the Body may lose an Arm, it can be no disparagement to the Hand to have a Finger drop off; or if a Tree, to which St. Cyprian compares the Catholic Church, may have a Bough rend off from its Body, it can be no disgrace to a Bough to lose a rotten Branch, or to a Branch to lose a rotten Twig. If the Hand cannot in reason or prudence upbraid the Foot with the loss of a Toe, because it may lose a Finger, then certainly nothing aught to be concluded from a common Affection of all Churches, to the prejudice or dishonour of this, or that particular Church.  
When our Saviour was told of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate mingled with their Sacrifices, Suppose ye (saith he unto those that told him of it) that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things, I tell you nay, but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish; or those eighteen upon whom the Tower in Siloe fell, think ye that they were sinners above all the men that dwelled in Jerusalem, I tell you nay, but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Our blessed Redeemer teacheth us from these Examples, how unreasonable and uncharitable it is to censure particular Persons, when the common Misfortunes of Mankind fall upon them. For the Galileans, who were murdered by Herod at their Devotion, were no greater Sinners than other men; and those upon whom the Tower in Siloe fell, were, it seems, as good as their Neighbour, tho' the Jews were so apt to think and speak hardly of them for their Misfortune, contrary to the Doctrine of their own Scriptures, which taught them, that there is one Event unto all, and that no man can know the Love or Hatred of God by all that is before him. All things (saith the Preacher) come alike to all, there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked, to the clean and to the unclean, to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not. And as it is with particular men, in reference to the common Misfortunes of Mankind, so it is with particular Churches, in reference to Divisions and Separations, which are common Accidents to all Churches, good, or bad, true, or false, pure, or corrupt, Catholic, or un-Catholick, that are called by the Name of Christ. They are all alike subject to Divisions, and sub Divisions in Religion; and therefore those who argue against any Church upon that score, treat her in the time of her Calamity, as Job's Friends treated him, who turned his Misfortunes, which might have fallen upon themselves, into Arguments against him, to prove that he was an Hypocrite, and not pure and upright, as he pretended to be.  
But in the primitive Times, men were not such miserable comforters of Churches afflicted with Divisions. Then they were better Logicians, and better Christians, than to think a Church was not Catholic, or in the favour of God, because Heresies and Schisms arose in it; as appears from the Salutations which St. Paul gave unto the Church of Corinth, when it abounded with Heresy, Faction, and Dissensions, as I shown in the former Chapter. In the beginning of both his Epistles, he salutes them in this manner: Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, unto the Church of God which is at Corinth. It was still the Church of God, tho' there were Heretics, and factious Parties of men in it; nay so far was he in his infallible judgement, from unchurching the Flock of Christ there upon the account of Divisions, that he in effect apologized for them, and for the goodness and wisdom of God that suffered them; for (saith he) there must be 
* Ac si diceret; ob hoc haereseôn non statim divinitùs eradicantur authores, ut probati manifesti siant, id est, unusquisque quam tenax & fidelis, & fixus Catholicae fidei, sit amator, appareat. Vincent. Lirin.  heresies among you, that those who are approved may be made manifest.  
So St. Clement gins his Epistle to the same Church, which was written upon the occasion of a great Schism, in this manner, The Church of God at Rome, to the Church of God at Corinth. It seems the Church at Corinth, rend and torn as it was with intestine Divisions, was the Church of God as well as that of Rome, in which there were then no Divisions at all. St. Peter's next and immediate Successor bewailed the sad Misfortune of the Corinthians, but he did not unchurch them for it; he told them, how it occasioned their venerable and illustrious Name to be evil spoken of, but nevertheless he called them the 
* §. 1.  elect of God. And so Constantine the Great, in an Epistle which he wrote to the Alexandrians, when they were very infamous, upon the account of the deadly Feuds and Separations which divided their Communion, salutes them in these words: 
† Socrat. H. E. 〈…〉. 9  Constantine the Emperor, to the Catholic Church of Alexandria. Not long after, when the Arian Bishops 
‖ L. 1. c. 27.  conspired against Athanasius, to get the Emperor to depose him, and his Majesty upon hearing his Cause, found their Accusations to be false, he wrote a Letter in his behalf to the Alexandrians, of which this is the Title: 
* Athan opera, vol. 1. p. 779.  Constantine, the great Emperor, to the People of the Catholic Church, which is at Alexandria. When he wrote this Letter to the People of Alexandria, it abounded with Melitians and Arians, who had form themselves into opposite Communions, and yet those schismatical opposite Communions, were in the judgement of that learned Emperor, no Argument against the Alexandrian Church. So Constantine junior, shortly after his Father's death, before he assumed the Title of Augustus, directed Letters to the Church of Alexandria, in favour of Athanasius, with this Superscription: 
† Socrat. H. E. l. 2. c. 3.  Constantine Caesar, to the People of the Catholic Church of the Alexandrians. Notwithstanding all the Sects and Sectaries of Alexandria, the Church still remained Catholic, in the Communion of the Faithful, who retained the ancient Apostolical Doctrine and Discipline. These wise Emperors considered, that the Tares could not alter the property of the Wheat; and therefore tho' there were a World of Heretics and Schismatics in Alexandria, and all the Regions round about it, yet they called the Church a Catholic Church. It was every jot as Catholic then, as it was before the Melitian and Arian Schisms, when the People were of one mind, and one Communion; for it is not the great number of Church members is any Diocese, Province, or Patriarchat, but the cause and nature of the Communion, that makes a true Church. Otherwise, if Churches must be no longer reputed truly Catholic and good, than all the Members which are, or aught to be of it, are unanimous, and communicate together, than it must follow, that both the Church universal, and every particular Member of it, long since lost their Catholic nature, and were no true Churches in the eyes of God. What, for instance, became of the Church Catholic, after the Council of Ariminum, when almost the whole Christian World became Arian, except a very 
* Libellus precum, p. 8, 9, 10, 11. Vincent. Lirin. c. 6.  small number of Bishops, who stuck to the profession of the Catholic Faith? More particularly, what became of the Church of Rome, when Pope Liberius embraced the Arian Communion, and subscribed to the Sentence of the Arian Bishops against Athanasius, as 
† Eccles. Ann. T. 3. p. 761, 762, 763.  Baronius acknowledges, tho' he endeavours to prove, that he never subscribed to the Arian Confession, or Heresy? Nay what became of it, especially upon their Principle, when Pope 
‖ Vid. Nili Archiepiscop. Thessalon. de primatu Papae, lib. [qui est ad calcem Salmas. de primatu Papae,] p. 33, 34, 35, & p. 61.  Honorius the 1st. fell into the Heresy of the Monothelites, for which he was condemned by the 6th. General Council, and anathematised for it after his death by the 2d. Council of Nice, which they receive for the 7th. General Council? Nay, if Heresies and Schisms are good Arguments, or just matter of Exception against any Church, what shall we say to the Church of Rome, upon the account of the Novatian, and all the other Antipapal Schisms mentioned in the former Chapter? Or to go farther back into Antiquity, what Apology shall we make for her, when 
* Euseb. H. E. l. 5. c. 15.  Blastus, and Florinus, a degraded Roman Presbyter, raised a great Schism in Rome, endeavouring to introduce new Doctrines, which 
† C. 20.  Irenaeus confuted in Books written for that purpose? Their Doctrines were very absurd, as well as inconsistent, with the Faith and Tradition of all Churches, and yet they drew away many from the Church of Rome, and enticed them to embrace their Opinions. Nay, what shall we do to defend her in the Time of Pope Victor and Zephyrinus, when she was infested with the Heresy, 
Euseb. H.E. l 5. c 28.  which asserted our Lord to be a mere man? This damnable Heresy was first taught at Rome, by Theodotus, no better a man then a Tanner, for which he was excommunicated by Pope Victor; and afterwards in the Time of his Successor Zephyrinus, it came to a perfect Schism, when the Heretics made Natalis the Confessor, a Bishop of the Heresy, and settled a Maintenance upon him. One of the Scholars of Theodotus the Tanner, was another Theodotus a Banker, a great promoter of the Schism; and therefore I cannot but wonder, that any Roman Catholic, who understands Antiquity, should upbraid the Church of England, with the Preaching of Mechanics and Tradesmen, when a Tanner and a Banker, in the 2d. Century, were the Ringleaders of such a pestilent Heresy in the Church of Rome, and as an Author of that Time reports, impudently took upon them to adulterate the Scriptures, and reject the Canon of the primitive Faith. Why should men, pretending to Sense and Learning, use and Argument that is so easily retorted upon themselves, and when it is pursued into all its Consequences, makes it impossible for them to defend either the Church Universal, or any particular Member thereof? What will they say for the primitive Church, by way of defence against the Gnostical Heresies, if they argue against that, as they are wont to argue against the Church of England? Or to pass over the Schisms, of which I have given some Account in the former Chapter, how can they by their way of arguing, maintain the Church of Antioch to have been Catholic, in the Time of Paulus Samosatensis, who revived the Heresy of Theodotus, and taught, that Christ by nature was no more than a mere man? For this Reason, he held Communion with the Followers of Artemon, the Author of this damnable Heresy, teaching that Christ was from the Earth, and damning the Hymns which used to be sung in Churches to his honour, as novel Composures, and letting his Followers chant forth Hymns to his own praise in the Church, and tell the People that he was an Angel sent from God. Was there ever such an heretical and blasphemous Archbishop in the Church of England since the Reformation, as this? But if there had been more than one such, the Church of England nevertheless would have been a truly Catholic Church, as this of Antioch then was in the judgement of the Council that deposed Paul For in that excellent 
* Euseb, H.E. l. 7. c 30.  Epistle, which the Council wrote to the Bishops and Presbyters of the whole Catholic Church under Heaven, they tell them, after a long recital of Paul's Impieties, that they were necessitated to depose him, and ordain another in his stead over the Catholic Church.  
I might also ask them, upon their way of treating the Church of England, upon the score of the English Heresies and Schisms, what they can say for the Church of Constantinople, in the Time of Macedonius and Nestorius, who were both Patriarches of that Church, and both fell into Heresy and Schism? When a Bishop and much more a Patriarch, leads the Flock into by-paths, the Schism is more deplorable, but yet it is not the Apostasy and Secession of one, or two, or more Bishops, if that should happen, that can destroy the Catholic and Apostolic nature of any Provincial, Patriarchal, or National Church. For, as I observed before, it is not the number of Communicants, but the cause or soundness of Communion, that makes a true Church; and therefore were there both for kind and number, ten times as many more opposite Sects and Communions, as there are in this Nation, and Bishops at the Heads of them all, yet upon supposition that the Church of England is sound and Apostolical in Doctrine, Worship, and Discipline, that 
* una est pars in quâ sunt multi Episcopi, sed ubi sunt multi, illic— sacra fides Christi violata est, ubi verò paucissimi sunt, fides Christi vindicatur, Libel. precum, p 9, 12, 13.  small number adhering to her Communion, must be the true Church. Nay if all the Bishops of England, but one, should fall away from the Church of England, that 
† Non dubitandum est paucos Episcopos esle pretiosoes merito consessionis, & inviolabilis sidei, multos vero nullifieri merito haereseos— in causâ religiovis, & sacrae fidei non numerus numero comparandus est, sed pura illa Apostolica fides probata exiliis, probata cruciatibus licet unlus, Multorum infidelitatibus praeponenda est. ibid.  one Bishop, and the Flock adhering to him, would be the true Church of England, and as true and Catholic a Church, as if there were not one Dissenter in the Land.  
The learned Papists, know this very well, and therefore I wonder, that men pretending to Letters and Ingenuity, should argue against the Church of England, from the English Heresies and Schisms. Furthermore, if this be a good way of arguing against Churches, than the Church of the Jews was twice involved in the consequences of it; once by the Schism of Corah, and then by that of Jeroboam, who set up a Priesthood and Altar a Bethel, in opposition to that of Jerusalem, and by the separation out off ten Tribes in twelve from the true Church of God. Nay if this modish way of arguing be true, than the separation of th' Church of England, and other National Churches, from that of Rome, are as strong Arguments against it, as the Sects and Schisms among us are against the Church of England. There is no difference in the Case, because they say, that all the Protestant Churches are schismatical for falling off from them, as we say the Congregational Churches are for falling off from ours; and if ours indeed is not a Catholic Church, but apparently under God's displeasure, because forsooth they can tell us of the Presbyterians, Independents, Anabaptists, and Quakers, than we may by just consequence say as much of theirs, because we can tell them of the Waldenses, Albigenses, and Wiccliffians of old, and of late of the Lutherans, Calvinists, and Church of England-men, who are all Separatists from the Communion of Rome. As those we repute Schismatics, sprang out of our Church and Communion, so those whom they repute Schismatics, sprang out of theirs; and therefore would not any man wonder, that they should so far forget themselves, as to use such Arguments against the Church of England, and make such Reflections upon it, as may be easily retorted upon themselves, to overthrow their own Pretensions to Catholicism, and weaken the Cause, and Reputation of their Church.  
The Church of Rome (say they) is the Catholic Church, and the Church which Christ left upon Earth, and the Church of England hath separated from it; and therefore, say we, in their lose way of discoursing, the separation of the Church of England, is a good Argument against the Goodness and Reputation of that Church, which Christ left upon Earth. Nay, say they, Christ can have but one Church upon Earth, and we believe none can be that Church, but that which is called the Roman Catholic Church; but then, say we, a world of Heresies and Schisms have been bred in that one Church, the Catholic Church of Rome, and therefore it is long since this one Church of Christ was one, or a true, and good Church. Your Church (say the two late Converts to us) hath Unity, or not? if not, than she is not the Church of Christ; if she hath, why are there so many Sects and Schisms among you? Now, not to provoke such Gentlemen to 
* A Net for the Fishers of Men, p. 111.  paint, and rip up the Sores of Protestancy, your Church (may a Turk say to them) hath Unity, or not? if not, than she is not the Church of Christ; if she hath, why are there so many Sects among you? You say, you are the one Catholic Church, but what shall we do to find it in such and buddle of Dissenters as are in the Empire, France, Great Britain, Sweden, Denmark, and other Northern Countries; and of 
* Ex to ordine [scilicet Cardinalium] sunt quatuor, aut quinque, quorum nomina possum proffer, si vellem, quibus reverâ probetur nostra doctrina, saltem magna ex parte, & Romana exosa sit. Sed vae illis cum filius Dei enunciaverit fore ut is qui nôrit voluntatem Domini & non fec●…it vapulet pluribus, quam qui non noverit. Vae illis iterum, poeitentiam agant, nec ament gloriam hominum magis quam gloriam Dei. P, Vergerius in Annot, in Catalogum Haereticorum, p. 262.  Dissemblers and Indifferents in Italy, Spain and Portugal, and even in Rome itself. If a Mahometan, Pagan, or Jew, should argue thus against them, as they argue against us, they must either renounce their own Consequences, or sink under the weight of them; nay, if an Atheist, or Infidel, of any other kind, should take that advantage against Christianity, from the Schisms and Divisions of it, which they do against the best Church of Christendom, the Church of England, I appeal to their own Consciences, whether they must not deny their own Conclusions, or expose and betray the Cause of Christ. The Pagans argued so against Christianity in the primitive Times, because so many Sects grew up with it, and therefore the variety of Heresies and Schisms, which have sprung up in England since the Reformation, can be no Argument against the Church. It is no blemish to her to be in the same condition with the best and purest Churches, in the best and purest Times; it was so when the Apostles governed the Church, and the Spirit of God bid the Christians, Try all things, and hold fast that which is good.  
Hitherto I have proved, that Divisions and Separations can be no good Argument, or matter of just reproach against any Church, because they are incident to all Churches, as I have showed by a sufficient Enumeration of Particulars; and this will farther appear, if we consider, that they may be Arguments for, as well as against a Church, and a cause of just praise and commendation of it, as well as of just reproach. When they are just and reasonable, then indeed they are good Arguments against the Church where they arise, and give men just cause to reproach it; but when they are not just and reasonable, but proceed from mistake in those that make them, or from worse Causes, they they are good Arguments against the dividing Parties, and just matter of reproach to them, but none at all to the Church. Wherefore it argues want of Ingenuity, or great weakness of Judgement in men, to exclaim against a Church, upon the score of Divisions and Separations, before they have examined whether the Church or the Separatists are in the fault. In Reason and Charity this aught first to be done, before either the Church, or the Separators, or both, be condemned; but our Adversaries of the Roman Church, without any regard to the Case betwixt the Church of England and the Dissenters, loudly defame her in all Places with the Dissensions and Separations, and object to our People the great difficulty and uncertainty of finding out, among so many opposite Churches and Religions, which is the right, if there be any such, and therefore exhort them to take Sanctuary in that Church, which is at unity in itself, and looks so like the one Catholic Church. But God be praised, the People of the Church of England are generally better instructed, then to be imposed upon with such lose Talk. They understand very well, that as Separations from corrupt and impure Churches is a necessary duty, so as long as there are Devils to tempt men, there will also be unjust Separations from found and Catholic Churches, and that therefore Separations and Divisions in the general, can neither make for, or against any Church. They know very well, that Churches, like natural Bodies, are of different Tempers and Constitutions, and that when any of them chances to undergo a separation of Parts, the particular nature and constitution of it must be examined, before a man can safely conclude, whether the blamable Parts went off, or remained with the Church. In the separation of Gold from the drossy and spurious Parts; of Wine from the Lees; of Wheat from the Chaff; and of the excrementitious Parts from the Chyle and Blood, the base and impure, and unprofitable Parts go off, and the good, and pure, and profitable, stay behind: but in the separation of Wheat from Tares, of Flower from the Bran, and in all Chemical Separations, the good, the generous, and spiritual Parts go off, and the refuse and feculent stay behind. I have made use of this familiar Comparison, to show how Separations and Divisions in the general, can be no rational Argument for or against any Church, until it be known what king of Body that Church was before the Separation; sound or corrupt; pure or impure; Catholic or not Catholic; Apostolical or un. Apostolical: And when this is once stated, than it will appear, whether the Divisions and Separations which were made from her, make for her or against her. I say, when it is first known what kind of Church a divided Church was, before the beginning of the Division, than it may be known, whether the Division objected against it, be an Argument for or against the Trueness, Soundness, and Purity of it; but to argue pro or con, from Separations, before this is stated, is but to talk at Random, which it doth not become men of Learning and Ingenuity to do. According to this Rule, the Divines of England first proved, that the Communion of the Roman Church was not pure and Apostolical, and thence justified the Separation of the Church of England from it as necessary; and on the contrary they have proved, that the Communion of the Church of England is pure and Apostolical, and thence condemn the Separation of the Dissenters from it as needless. They argue à priori against both: on the one hand proving, that the Wheat went off from the Tares, and on the other, that the Chaff went off from the Wheat. But to argue à posteriori, and in general against a Church, merely upon the score of Divisions, before we examine the Constitution of the divided Church, and state the Case between her and the Dividers, doth become no men especially no Churchmen, but such as having a weak Cause, must make use of popular, for want of found Arguments, and make the best they can of Sophistry, when Reason is not on their side.   

CHAP. III. That bare Unity, or want of Schisms and Divisions in Religion, are no sound Argument of the Truth, Goodness, or Reputation of a Church.  
III. HAving showed in the second Chapter, That Divisions and Separations are no Argument against the Trueness, or Reputation of any Church, I proceed to show in this, That bare Unity, or want of Divisions, is no Argument for the Trueness, or Reputation of a Church; and this I shall endeavour to demonstrate three ways: First, By showing, That it is not the Unity, but the things in which a Church is united, that truly recommend and justify a Church. Secondly, That Church-Unity may be the effect of culpable Causes, And thirdly, That all Churches, true or false, Catholic or not Catholic, are united in themselves, and particularly, that the Church of England hath more potential and actual Union in it, then that of the Church of Rome.  
First then, It is not bare Union, but the things in which a Church is united, that must truly recommend and justify it to the Christian World, and prove it to be the Church of God. This is a self-evident Proposition, which all the Churches in the World will admit at first hearing, and the very Test, by which when Disputes arise, they must be content to be tried. For as to this Particular, it is just in Ecclesiastical, as it is in Civil Law and Government, where it is not the Union, but the Things or Cause in which men are united, that distinguish lawful from unlawful Societies and Meetings; otherwise if bare Union and Agreement, how strict soever, were a Sign of, or a good Argument for the true and Catholic Church, than Aaron the high Priest, at the Head of that Congregation, which worshipped the golden Calf, was the true Church of the Jews. He was their supreme and lawful Pastor, and they were very unanimous in making the Calf after his direction, and in building an Altar before it, and in oftering up Burnt-offerings and Peace-offerings, to use the new phrase, in the presence of it. They sat down to eat and drink before it, and said with one unanimous Acclamation, These be thy Gods, O Israel, which brought thee out of the Land of Egypt. I believe there never was a more perfect Union and Agreement in the Church of Rome, then among the Communicants of this sinful Congregation, nevertheless it was no Schism to divide from them, because they united in a sin. Their Union was their Crime, because the object of it was highly criminal, and God was provoked to consume them, because they agreed in a thing that was so abominable in his eyes.  
So the Corahites were as firmly united under Corah, as the true Church was under Moses and Aaron. Two hundred Princes of the Assembly, with a great number of People, were firmly united together in a Cause, wherein they stuck together to the death, even till the Earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and they went down alive into Hell. So likewise the ten Tribes were as firmly united at Bethel, as the two were at Jerusalem; they had number as well as union to plead, but notwithstanding both their number and union, they were but a great Schism, because they united in Innovations contrary to the will of God. So to pass from the Jews to the Christians, there hath been at several times as strict an Union among Heretics and Schismatics, as among the Catholics. The Novatians in particular were remarkable for their Concord, Unity, and Unanimity. So were the Arians generally all of one Communion, and very unanimous against the Homousian Doctrine, and yet they were but a great prevailing Schism when they were at the highest, and had almost gained the whole Christian World.  
From these Examples it is plain, that in passing judgement upon Churches, we are not to look at the Union, so much as the Cause in which they are united. We are to consider if their Doctrine and Discipline be Apostolical, and their terms of Communion truly Catholic, and if they be so, than their Union in them is holy and laudable, and such as makes them true Churches of God. A concurrence of these things, is the genuine badge of a 
* Ad bane it aque formam probabuntur ab illis Ecclesiis quae licet nullum ex Apostolis, yet Apostolicis Autorem suum proserant ut multò posteriores, quae denique quotidie instituuntur: tamen in câdem fide conspirantes, non minùs Apostolicae deputantur pro consanguinitate doctrinae. Tertull. de prescript. Haeres.  truly Catholic and Apostolical Church, and if those of the Roman Communion, would have us admire their Union, and be made Converts by it, they must first make it appear to us that they are united in these things. Otherwise their Unity, instead of being an Argument for their Church, is a strong Argument against it, to prove that it is but a Conspiracy, and an overgrown Schism, from the one Catholic and Apostolical Church.  
But secondly, Church-unity may be the effect of culpable Causes; and by culpable Causes, I mean, only such as in a great measure make the embracing of any Religion, an inspontaneous, or unwilling action: and these are only two, Ignorance and Compulsion, when men either are of a Religion, which they would not be of, if they knew the faults of it, or when knowing the faults of it, they would certainly forsake it, were they not under force, but left to their own free choice.  
First then, Church-unity may be the effect of Ignorance, which was one great cause of the Unity and Agreement of almost all Mankind in Paganism: and therefore their ignorance of the Gentiles, is called darkness in the New Testament; as where our Lord is compared to the Dayspring, or Sunrising, which gave light to them that sat in darkness, and in the shadow of death. So the Apostle of the Gentiles told them, It was their duty to show forth the Praises of him, who had called them out of darkness into his marvellous light; and truly their spiritual darkness was so great, that God did in some measure excuse their gross error, in thinking that the Godhead could be like unto Gold, or Silver, or Stone, graven by Art, or man's device. Tho' men, who were worthy and absurd Idaea's of him, yet, as the Apostle told the Athenians, The times of their former ignorance God winked at, but then commanded all the Gentiles every where at their utmost peril to repent.  
There never was a more strict and general Union among the Jews, or Christians, than there was among the Greeks. For Paganism was become the Catholic Religion, or Superstition, (as Catholic signifies universal) and was spread far and wide upon the Earth; and yet, as the Apologetical Writers replied to the Greeks, when they argued from the extent of their Religion, and the consent of Mankind in it, their great agreement in Idolatry was the effect of their Ignorance; as plainly appeared from the preaching of the Gospel, upon which they forsook those dumb Idols unto which they were carried, even as they were led, and turned from their former Vanities and Superstition unto the living God. They worshipped the Gods, and observed their impure Rites, because they knew no better; but when their Understandings came to be well informed, than they made a new and manly choice, such as proceeded from all the Principles of humane Actions, and plainly showed, that Ignorance had hitherto been the Mother of their Idol-devotion, and by consequence, that the choice of their former Religion wanted a sufficient measure of knowledge, to make it a rational and truly willing choice.  
I wish those who pride themselves so much in the Unity of the Roman Catholics, would consider, how far the Sons and Daughters of the Church of England, may use this Plea in their own defence, against their so much celebrated Union. It is certain, that upon the Preaching and Writing of the Reformers, People came off in shoals from the Church of Rome, in all Places where the Reformation was taught. Whole Kingdoms revolted as one man, to the astonishment of the Beholders on both sides; and, I believe, no one man in the World, St. Paul excepted, ever made so many Proselytes as Luther, the Protevangelist of the Reformation in Germany, did; which is no small presumption, that their former adhesion to the Roman Communion, was the effect of involuntary Ignorance, which is not consistent with a truly free and rational choice. I am the more confirmed in this opinion, when I consider, that in Countries, where there is the free exercise of both Religions, the number of Proselytes from the Roman Religion to the Reformed, is daily much greater, then from the Reformed to the Roman; particularly in France, notwithstanding all the progressive Discouragements, which came like Wave after Wave upon the Protestants, for every Proselyte Popery got from the Reformed Church, it perhaps gained ten from Popery, while it was lawful for it to receive Converts; and I appeal to the Consciences of the R. Cs. whether in all likelihood there would not soon be as many Protestants in Italy or Spain, as there were in France, if there were allowed the like measure of Knowledge and Liberty in those Kingdoms, as there was in this. Let the Spaniards and Italians have but the free use of the Scriptures, which is their Christian Birthright; give them but the Translations which Cyprian de Valera made of the Bible in one Language, and 
* He was Abbot of the Monastery of St. Michael de Lemo, of the Order of St. Benedict, and his Translation of the Bible in Italian was Printed in the year 1477. when Sixtus Quartus was Pope.  Nicolaus de Malhermis, and 
† He translated the New Testament from the Original into Italian, and it was Printed at Antwerp in 1538. and dedicated to St. Hercules Conzaga, Cardinal of Mantua, and the Dedication or Preface is almost nothing else but a Panegyric of the Scriptures; but this and all his other Works were prohibited in that Index of prohibited Books, which P. P. Vergerius put forth with Annotations, and which was the first of that kind.  Antonio Brucioli, both their own men, made in the other, before the Reformation; and if upon the free use of these Bibles, and the Preaching of such men as Cyprian, and Savanorola, and allowance to their Bishops, to act according to the Powers of their Apostolical Function, there do not arise a sudden and mighty Episcopal Reformation in both those Kingdoms, than I would acknowledge, that the Unity in the Roman Church is perfectly Apostolical, and that the secession of ours from the Church of Rome, is an Apostasy from the one Catholic Church.  
It is very well known, what 
‖ Sleidan. Commentar. l. 15 in An. 1543.  Herman, Archbishop of Cohen, Duditius, Bishop of Five Churches, and the two 
* Sleidan. Comment. l. 21. in An. 1548. Hist. Council of Trent, l. 2. Meum etiam Germanum fratrem Baptistam Vergerium Polae Episcopum ob Paraphrafin in Psalmum 119. scriptum condemnant. P.P. Vergerius Annot. in Catal. Heret. p. 263.  119. seriptum condemnant. P. P. Vergerius Annot. in Catal. Heret. p. 263. Vergerii, Brothers of immortal memory, not to mention other Bishops, did in the Time of the Reformation; nay, Posterity knows very well, how far the Spanish Bishops in the Council of 
† Hist, Council of Trent, l. 7.  Trent, maintained the divine Right of Episcopacy, in spite of the Legates, and that Bishops derived their Authority immediately from Jesus Christ, and not from the Pope. And no man that is acquainted with History, can doubt, that if the Bishops of the Roman Communion might maintain this Doctrine safely, they would maintain it freely and openly, and so wrest the Keys out of the Pope's hand. They would, if they durst, let his Holiness know, that they are his 
* Non est nostri Romani Papae, non est tanta majestas ut terrere debeat: ficta est illa temporalis & sastuosa majestas, usurpata est, nulla est. Frater noster ille est, Collega, & Comminister. Antonius de Dominis in Consilio Profectionis. §. 13.  Fellows, and Colleagues, and co-Boishops, as St. Cyprian called Pope Stephen; but they are quiet and peaceable, because they are under Compulsion: By which I understand, such a mighty degree of penal Force and Violence, as ordinarily speaking, will compel men to comply with corrupt Churches, against the Dictates of their own Understandings; as extremity of ill Wether will constrain a Master of a Ship, with great reluctance, to cast his Cargo overboard, to save his own life, and the lives of his men. And when such great Exigences force men to do any thing, which otherwise they would not do, they are said to do it unwillingly, and to act against their Judgements, and Inclinations; and particularly, when for fear of ruining and exterminating Penalties, which, humanely speaking, are intolerable, men conform to any Religion, which otherwise they would disown; tho' as to outward Conformity, and Communion, they are of it, yet they are not for it in their hearts. I confess, me ought to endure any thing, rather than conform to any Religion, which they believe to be false, or subscribe to any Confession, which they believe not to be true; but yet we see the frailty of humane Nature is such, that extreme Severity will make them comply, against their wills, with a Religion they certainly know, and firmly believe to be false. Thus Plato, for fear of the Fate of his Master Socrates, continued in the profession of Polytheism, against the Dictates of his own Conscience. He knew there was but one true God, the Creator of all things, but he durst not stand up for him, but, sore against his will, frequented the Temples of the false Gods. So tho' Cicero knew the Vanity of the popular Gods, as he called them, in opposition to the one great God, yet he went to their Temples with the People, and said, That their Ancestors Religion was nevertheless to be had in Reverence, and retained, Reipublicae gratiâ that is in effect to say, A man ought not to descent from it, for fear he should lose his Skin. So the 
* Cum iram regis metuunt, cum non dignantur pro Christo filio Dei exilium perpeti— rescindunt quod piè vindicaverant, & suscipiunt quod ut impium damnaverant.— Episcopi plus iram regis terreni timuerunt, quàm Christum verum Deum, & sempiternum regem.  Catholic Bishops, in the Time of the Arian Controversy, for fear condemned the Faith, against their own Consciences, which they had publicly asserted before: Even good old 
† Sed & ipse Osius accersitus ad Constantium regem, minisque perterritus, & metuens ne senex & dives exilium pateretur, dat manus impietati, & post tot annos praevaricatur in fidem. Libel precum.  Osius, who had so long stood Champion for the Catholic Faith, fearing the Displeasure of the Emperor, did set his Hand to the Arian Confession; and in the Reign of Valentinian, when the 
‖ Socrat. H. E. l. 4. c. 15, 16, 17.  Catholics were so contumeliously used by the Arians, and were afflicted with most insufferable Evils, they turned Arians apace, to avoid the violence of the Persecution, tho' they ought to have endured it to the end. When Complaints signified nothing, but to end in the ruin of the Complainers, and the most eminent of the orthodox Clergy were burnt alive, for presenting a Petition to the Emperor, than all the World almost became Arian on the sudden, and was externally united in the Arian Faith. But as he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, neither is that Circumcision which is outward in the flesh, so in this forced Conformity, all were not Arians that seemed to be Arians, but many were so in external Communion, who hated Arianism in their hearts. And the like success that the Arians had against the Catholics, by methods of Severity, have some 
* Eò enim nostris temporibus redactares est ut Ecclesiasticae controversiae, non Theologis ampliùs, non Conciliis sed tortoribus, sed carnificibus sed sicariis, sed sanguinarris, sed parricidis defendendae Romae, an't Româ committantur. Anton, de Dominis in Consilio.  severe Popes and Princes had against those, that have divided, or attempted to divide the Roman Church, which made Cardinal Soderinus tell Adrian 
† Hist Council Trent, l. 1.  the 6th. That the best way of rooting out Heretics was by Crus●●●… and by exciting Princes and People to root them out; and to that end he bid him remember, that by these means Innocent the 3d. and his Successors, happily subdued the Alhigenses of Languedoc, the Waldenses Picards, poor men of Lions, Arnoldists, Speronists, and P●●vines; of whom there remained nothing but the very Names. And it should seem that Pope 
‖ P. P. Vergerius in Secret. Pont. Act. 2. Tamen scio cum Paulus III anti paucos annos literas gravissimas (Breve appellamus) ad Caesarem & Rom. Regem dedisset in quibus erat scriptum, illos consultiùs esse facturos, si bello contra Turcas omisso, bellum adornarent contra Lutheranos, quip qui essent Turcis ipsis lange perniciosiores, & deteriores, etc.  Paul the 3d. was of that Cardinal's opinion, who in a Brief to the Emperor Charles the 5th. and his Brother Ferdinand, King of the Romans, tells them, That it were more advisedly done, if they would clap up a Peace with the Turks, and bend all their Force against the Lutherans, who were far worse, and more pernicious than the very Turks. 
* Hist. Council Trent. l. 5.  So Paul the 4th. importuned the Kings of France, and Spain, to settle the Inquisition in their Dominions, as the only means to extirpate Heresies; and at his Death, he recommended nothing to the Cardinals, but the Office of the holy Inquisition, which, he said, was the only Expedient to preserve the Church, exhorting them to employ all their Endeavours to get it established in Italy, and wheresoever else they could. He used to say, It was the principal Secret, and Mystery of the Papacy; but whether it were so or no, it cannot be denied, but that the Union of the Roman Church is in a great measure beholding to it, where it is most entire. 
† Id. l. 4.  After the Death of that Pope, Philip the 2d. King of Spain, rooted out Lutheranism, which had taken happy Root in that Kingdom, by extreme Severity. He no sooner arrived from Flanders at Sevill, 
Id. l. 5.  on the 24th. day of September, 1559. but he caused Johannes Pontius, Count of Bayleno, with a Preacher, and some others of the College of St. Isidore, where the Religion was entered, together, with some Ladies of Quality, in all 13 Persons, to be burnt for Lutherans; as also the Statue of Constantinus Pontius, Confessor to his Father Charles, who served him in his Retirement, and held him in his Arms when he expired. Afterwards, at Valladolid, he caused 28 of the prime Nobility of the Country to be burned in his presence. The Spaniards, especially the Nobility, had at that time a great aversion to the See of Rome; but this extreme Severity of Philip made them conceal their inward Resentments, and every one, who knows that piece of History, must confess, that the Church of Rome is obliged for its Unity in Spain to the memory of that Prince, and the continuance of the Inquisition from his Time till now. The Heresy, as 'tis miscalled, was rooted out of the Low-countrieses, by the destruction of 50000 Persons: And we know by what Methods it hath been since extirpated in other Places, where thousands of Souls, who would have counted Death a mercy, have been brought to subscribe a Confession, contrary to their former Religion which they still believe in their hearts. P. P. Vergerius saith, That in that Age, (the Age of the Reformation 
* Quantus est numerus nostrâ aetate non mod●●orum, qui mortis, carcerum, atque triremium, sed etiam qui exitiorum tulerunt, & serunt etiamnum martyria? Qui jam migrârunt ad dominum deum nostrum per vestra, inquam, martyria, sunt fermè millia centum.— Cum his vero conjunguntur voces circiter 15000 exulum, qui desertâ patriâ, desertis parentibus, desertis amicis, atque bonis alibi vivunt. P. P. Vergerius Annot, in Catalogue. Haeret. ,) almost 100000 Souls had been put to death, for refusing Communion with the Roman Church, besides those that were, condemned to Prisons, Galleys, and Banishment. And these Instances are enough, without any more, to make it appear, That the Unity of the Roman Church, is in great part the effect of Force and Compulsion, which much diminishes the Reputation of it, and might prevail with our Neighbours of the Roman Communion, if they considered it aright, not to admire it, and talk of it so much, and ring us in the Ears with it in all Places, as if it came not at all from Violence, but altogether by Inspiration from the Spirit of God.  
But in the last place, Bare Unity, or want of Divisions, is so far from being an Argument for the Trueness, or Honour of any Church, that it is a common Affection which belongs to all Churches, true or false, good or bad, Catholic or un-Catholick, small or great, as they are Societies of men; and besides, the Church of England hath more Union, both potential and actual in it, than the Church of Rome. To prove the first Part of this Assertion, we need but remember, That it is Union and Agreement under certain Laws and Rules of Government, which makes all Societies among Men and Angels, and wicked Societies are many times as well form, and as firmly united, as the pure, the holy, and the good. Lucifer and his angels are a Guild, or College of Spirits, as well as Michael and his, and are under a political oeconomy of the same nature; and he that understood it very well, said, That Satan was not divided against Satan, because if he were, his kingdom could not stand. But it hath stood firm and undivided, ever since it was first form, before the sensible Creation, it was never yet shaken with intestine Divisions, there was never two or three opposite Sovereigns at one time in that cursed Hierarchy, nor two or three Pretenders to the Chair of Lucifer: And therefore, I hope, bare Unity, or want of Divisions, will never hereafter pass among considering men, for a mark of a truly Catholic Church. And as it is among Spirits, so 'tis among men: The worst Fraternities have sometimes the firmest Union; as we of this Nation very well remember the Time, when those of the great Rebellion boasted, that God had united the Hearts of his People in his Cause as one Man; nevertheless those pretended People of God, whose Hearts and Hands were so united, that we could not break their Bonds of Union asunder, were no better than a Band of Rebels, and their Cause downright Rebellion against God, and the best of Princes, tho' they acted in it as if they had been all informed with one common Soul. The like hath often happened in Ecclesiastical Societies: The Samaritans, who had neither Sadduces, nor Pharisees, nor Essenes', nor Herodians, nor Cabalists, nor Carraites, among them, for that Reason had a firmer Union among themselves, than the Church of the Jews had, and yet they were not the true Church. So among the ancient Christians, the Novatians lived in perfect Peace and Unity among themselves, when there were many Feuds and Contentions among the Catholics: Which shows, that bare Unity is not a good Test whereby to try Churches; or if it were, I am confident, the Church of England, upon a fair trial, would carry the Garland from the Roman, and appear to be the more Catholic Church.  
Can there be found any fit and indifferent Judge between them, I durst, as far as I am concerned, put the merit of the Controversy between us and the R. Cs. upon this single point of Union, and would engage to render myself a Proselyte, if their Church carried the Cause. Perhaps they may think his a very bold Challenge, because of the great number of Sectaries that have gone out from us; but then they are to consider, that as the Protestants, which in several Parts of Europe, under several Denominations, have gone out from them, are now nothing unto them, so neither are the Congregational Sects, which went off from us, any thing, or of any account to us: But take our Church, and theirs, as they are precisely in themselves, without any regard to their respective Separations, and I am very confident, for all their boastings of Union, that the Church of England will be found to have both more potential and actual Union in it, than the Church of Rome. For first, as to potential Union, however the Church of Rome is actually united, it hath the seeds of Division in its Bowels; and as Rebeckah once had different Nations, so has she different Churches struggling in her Womb. The Principle of the Pope's Supremacy, is itself sufficient, were there no more, to cause continual Feuds and Factions in the Popedom; and 
* In his excellent Tracts, De causis dissentionum in Ecclesiis, & de primatu Papae ad calcem Salmasii de primatu Papae.  Nilus' Bishop of Thessalonica, did most judiciously assign it, for the cause of all the Divisions that then tore the Catholic Church into pieces, the Bishops of Christendom not being able to endure the Usurpation, nor other Churches, contrary to their fundamental Liberty, to be Subjects to the Roman Church. The exercise of this usurped Power of the Pope's, being the supreme ordinary of the Universal Church, is that, which makes the Roman Bishops themselves sigh and murmur in private, and say with Spalatensis, where they can say it safely, Frater noster ille est, Collega, & Coepiscopus nobiscum; and however they conceal their Resentments, as the Spanish Prelates did before the Council of Trent, yet they are willing, upon the first opportunity, to assert their Apostolical Equality, and like the English Prelates, at the time of the Reformation, will be glad when they can do it with a prospect of success, to cast off the Yoke, which makes Christendom groan, and which neither they nor their Predecessor were able to bear. Let but Christian Princes say the word, and then we shall see what the Bishops will do; or let there be but a free and general Council indeed, and then let us see if the Pope shall not be told in both ears, That the Church Universal is a great College, and the Government of it Aristocratical; that the Episcopat is one, but that it is divided among all Bishops, whereof every one hath his share; that the Apostles received equal Power and Authority from the same Masters; that the Bishops were their Successors, and that the other Bishops receive their Authority no more from the Successor of St. Peter, than he doth from them, but that all receive it alike from Jesus Christ. When it shall be safe, the Bishops of the Roman Church will talk and write as much to this purpose, as ever the English Divines did, who in asserting this Doctrine, follow the Example of their Ancestors before the Reformation; I mean, the Saxon Bishops, one of whom in his Advice to his Clergy, speaks thus: 
* Goe sceolon eac ƿitan þat eoƿre hades syndan þa aesteran hadar aester urum hadum. and us þa nystan. gelice þa biscopas syndan ongeƿrixle þara Apostola on þaere haligþa gesomnunge. sƿa syndan þa maesse preostas on þam geprixle ●pister þegna. þa B●sc●opas Aapones. and þa maesse preostas ƿone had his suna. Spelm. Concil. vol 1. p. 586.  Ye ought to know, that your Order is next after, and next to ours; for as the Bishops are in the place and stead of the Apostles, over the holy Church, so are the Priests in the place of the Disciples. The Bishops are of the Order of Aaron, and the Priests have the Order of his Sons.  
This Doctrine, in all likelihood, will one day revive against the Sovereign Pontif; for the Spirit of the Archbishop of Granata will for ever be upon the learned Prelates, who like Elastic Bodies under pressure, are under a constant inclination to recover their liberty, and will recover it, as soon as they can.  
The next dividing Principle in the Church of Rome is, The Doctrine of Transubstantiation, which is a Doctrine more full of Contradictions, than perhaps any other, which Men or Angles can invent. It is contrary to all the Senses and Reason of Man; to the plain and obvious sense of those very words upon which it is grounded; to the Belief of the ancient Catholic Church; to the Principles of almost all Sciences: It multiplies the hypostatical Union; it makes Christ to have offered up himself a propitiatory sacrifice, before he was offered upon the Cross: In a word, the Contradictions involved in it, are almost innumerable, by which it equally chokes the learned and unlearned; and as it hath made, so it will for ever make Dissenters in great abundance, and no man, nor any Church, can ever want a just pretence of dividing from the Church of Rome, as long as it is an Article of her Faith. These two Principles, without naming any more, naturally tend to making of Divisions after Divisions among them, notwithstanding all the actual Union of which they boast. But the Church of England hath no such dividing Principles, theoretical or practical, in her Constitution; nothing is required to Communion with her, but what is primitive and Apostolical, and how much soever she hath been, or is broken, and divided, yet her Communion is truly Catholic, and tends to Peace and Coalescence, and even now her Wounds are closing apace, and ready to heal of themselves.  
And as the Church of England hath more potential Union in her, then that of Rome, so hath she more actual Union too; for her Clergy and People have no such fierce and bitter Contentions among them, as there are betwixt the Irish Remonstrants and Antiremonstrants, the Molinists and Jansenists, as well as Thomists, and Scotists, and Jesuits, some of which opposite Parties will not communicate with one another. And as for the Difference among them, concerning the Judge of Controversies, and whether the Pope be subject or superior to a general Council, it tends naturally, and by due rational consequence, to the dissolution of their Communion; and who knows but we may live to see the Comedy of Basil acted over again, and one part of the Roman Church declaring for a general Council, and the other for the Pope.  
Nay I may say, that at this present the Clergy of the Church of England have been, and are united, to Admiration and Envy, and better than the Clergy often happened to be in the ancient Catholic Church. Had our Bishops ever such Broils among them, as happened betwixt the Bishops of the Eastern and Western Churches, about no greater a Matter, than the keeping of Easter? And between Cpyrian, and Dionysius, and Firmilian, three Metropolitans, and their Adherents on the on side, and the Bishop of Rome, and his, on the other, about rebaptisation, when they made no bones of 
* Vid. ●●. Firmiliani contra Ep. Stephani in cyprian. edit. Rigalt. p. 143.  taxing the Pope with Inhumanity, Insolence and Folly? Or had we ever reason to take up that Complaint against them, which 
† H. E. l. 3. ●. 1.  Eusebius made against the Bishops of the Catholic Church, before the Dioclesian Persecution, That they were, as it were, at War among themselves, and wounded one another with words, as with Darts and Spears, nay, that they dashed and split like capital Vessels one upon another, striving for pre-eminence, and enlarging the bounds of their Dioceses, which causes great Factions among the People? Or, to descend to more particular Instances, Was there ever such a tragical Quarrel between any of our Archbishops, or Bishops, since the Reformation, as happened between Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, and John Chrysostom, Patriarch of Constantinople? Epiphanius, who sided with Theophilus, and Chrysostom, 
‖ Socrat. l. 6. c. .14.  cursed one another, 
* Socrat. l. 16. c. 17.  much Blood was s; head on both sides, and the Cathedral Church of Constantinople, with the Senate-house, were burnt in the Quarrel down to the ground. 
Sozom. l. 8. c. 21.  Sozomen protests, he was ashamed to tell many things which happened in this Quarrel, lest Infidels should come to the knowledge of them; and saith 
† An. 400. n. 31.  Baronius, going to tell the Story of it: I shall now describe a cursed Persecution, not of Pagans against Christians, or of Heretics against Catholics, or of wicked against good men, but, what is monstrous and prodigious, of Saints and holy men, one against another.  
to proceed, Did the Bishops of England, since the Reformation, ever accuse one another in written Libels before the King, as the 
star; Sozom. l. 1. c. 17.  Bishop in the Nicene Council did before the Emperor? Or is there now any occasion of using against them the words, which 
† Vit. Nazianz. ●●ae●ixa operibus Nazianz. G●ae●è ●…tis Paris. 1630.  Nazianzen spoke in a Council of Constantinople, which went about to depose him: It is a shame, my fellow-Pastors of Christ's Flock, and not befitting you, to fall to war among yourselves, while you are to teach others peace, and persuade them to live in unity. To conclude, How many such sharp Contentions have happened among our Bishops, as we read happened between Paul and Barnabas, Acts 15. 39 and between Paul and Peter, Gal. 2.11. where we read, that because Peter was to be blamed, he withstood him to his very face. Had the Clergy, and People of our Communion, been long or often exercised by such Broils as these, the R. Cs. would have had a fair pretence to reproach us with want of Unity; but the God of Union be praised for it, we have no such Feuds and Contentions among us, but quite contrary, are as fast cemented among ourselves in Love and Union, as I believe any Church of the like extent ever was in the World.   

CHAP. IU. An Enquiry into the True Causes of Schisms and Divisions.  
HAving showed from several Arguments in the foregoing Chapter, That bare Unity, or want of Divisions, is no Argument for the Trueness or Reputation of a Church, I shall, for the farther advantage of my Plea, proceed in this, to make enquiry into the Causes of Divisions and Schisms, and more particularly, into the Causes of these in England, with which the Christians Roman Communion are pleased so to upbraid our Church.  
Now in this enquiry into the Causes of Divisions and Schisms, I should very much forget both the ancient Jewish and Christian Theology, if I did not in the first place name the Devil, by whom we are not to understand any single evil Spirit, but the whole society of apostate Angels, who are most malicious and implacable Enemies of God, and of Man for God's sake, and of the Church, above all other Societies of Men. This Doctrine we have not only from the Scriptures of the Old and New. Testament, but from the most ancient primitive Christian Writers, who, as it were, with one voice, ascribe unto the Devil, Idolatry, Persecution, Heresy and Schism. He is meant by the Enemy in our Saviour's Parable, who took his opportunity while men slept, to sow Tares in the Field of the Church: And accordingly St. Paul, who was not ignorant of his devices, calls Heresies the doctrines of Devils, 1 Tim. 4.1. saith he, The Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter days some shall departed from the truth, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of Devils: And in Ephes. 6.12. saith he, Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickednesses, or wicked spirits in high places. All these are several expressions for that society of apostate Spirits, which make up the kingdom of darkness; as is plain from the 1st. and 2d. Verses of the 11 th'. Chapter of the same Epistle, where he saith, Ye were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, who cannot be persuaded to believe the Gospel. Wherefore the Combats, for which Christians are to fortify themselves, are not only against humane Enemies, but the powers of darkness, the whole society of Devils, who were the Gods of the Gentile World. They are always plotting and contriving, against the Church, and when they cannot hurt it with Idolatry, Polytheism, or Persecutions, than they strive to get Altar set up against Altar in it, and distract it with Heresy and Schism. Accordingly St. Ignatius in his Ep. to the Ephesians, calls Heresies and false Doctrines, Herbs, or Plants of the Devil's planting; and tells them in the same Epistle, That to meet often together, and receive the holy Eucharist in peace and concord, was the only way to weaken the powers of Satan, and prevent the ruin and destruction he would otherwise bring upon them by Division; and to convince them how malicious and vigilant an enemy he is to the Church, he tells them, That there were three Mysteries of the Christian Religion which were kept from his knowledge, The Virginity of Mary, her bringing forth, (or the Nativity of her Son) and the Death of our Lord. Had Satan come to the knowledge of these Mysteries, unless God had chained him and his evil angels up, they would have made ill use of them against the great design of man's Redemption; and accordingly many learned men have given his for one Reason of the obscurity of the Prophecies, and why God was pleased so artificially to conceal many things in them, lest Satan coming to the knowledge of them, should endeavour to prevent or obstruct the fulfilling of them, or enervate the certainty and demonstration of them, after they were fulfilled. Thus Justin Martyr in his first, commonly called the second Apology, observes, That he did beforehand to the best of his skill, teach and institute many things among the Pagans, which had some semblance with the future Mysteries of the Christian Religion, that so when they came to pass, they might not seem such divine and wonderful Mysteries, as indeed they are. The like is observed by 
* Tert●ll dep●●● script. Haeres, 〈◊〉 40.  Tertullian after him, and made out by many particular Instances, to which I remit the curious Reader, which shows, That he hath a great and active spite against the Church of God, more especially against such parts of it as are pure in Doctrine or Worship, to sow Heresies and Schisms among them and divide the unity of their Communion: And therefore the same St. Ignatius, in his Ep. to the Trallesians, bids them beware of Separations and Divisions, as of the Snares of the Devil; and in his Ep. to the Philadelphians, he prays them in his wont phrase, to abstain from the evil Herbs, which Christ never cultivated, because they were not of his heavenly Father's planting, meaning the Weeds of false Doctrines, which Satan had sowed among them, and which, he saith, did not only cause different Parties among them, but a perfect separation of many from the Church. So Justin 
* P. 403.  Martyr in his Dialogue with Trypho, ascribes all the impious and blasphemous Doctrines, which were then taught in the Name of Christ, to the Inspirations of the unclean spirit of the Devil; and accordingly when St. Polycarp met Martion the Heretic, he told him, He knew him to be the eldest Son of the Devil, as being a man who was acted with diabolical Impulse and Inspirations; and Tertullian, in the Book above-cited, saith expressly, That the Devil is the Author of Heresy as well as Idolatry. The like is observed by St. Cyprian and Theodoret, who ascribe all Heresies to the invention and artifice of the Devil; and all the Histories of Heresies and Schisms in Ecclesiastical Writers, are still ushered in with prefatory Complaints of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the envious and wicked Devil, whose business hath been from the beginning to deceive, and molest the Church of God. Nay, the purer any Church is in Doctrine and Worship, the more, we may be sure, he will stickle against it, and endeavour to weaken and disgrace it by intestine Divisions, and persuade the dividing Parties to form themselves into opposite Schisms.  
Indeed where Churches are already corrupted in Doctrine and Worship, and firmly adhere to those Corruptions, 'tis his interest to let them alone, and not to hazard the Reformation of them, by stirring up Contentions and Divisions in them; but in Churches, where the Doctrine and Worship are kept pure and Apostolical, by the care and vigilance of the Pastors; in Churches, where the Scriptures are openly taught and read, and the whole Worship of God, but more especially the holy Sacraments, are duly administered by lawful Ministers, and the Communion of Saints carefully maintained: In such pure and Apostolical Churches as these, he hath no other game to play, but to get them, as far as he can, extirpated by Persecutions; or where that fails, to make Mutinies, and Divisions, and Schisms in them, and so to weaken the common Interest of the whole, by dividing it into parts. Where he cannot unite the Members of a Church in pernicious Doctrines and Practices, he will labour hard to dissolve them by pernicious Schisms; where he cannot unite them against Truth, he will strive to divide them against Charity; and where they will not agree, he will make them, if he can, differ to their own destruction: And therefore considering him as the principal Cause of Divisions, all that can be concluded, upon that Consideration, against any particular Church, is only this, That the Members of it are subject, like the Members of all other Churches, to be deceived and drawn away by the Devil; and if upon special enquiry, it be found, that she is pure and Apostolical in her Doctrine, Worship, and Discipline, all that can then be concluded, is no more than this, That the Devil is become her particular Enemy, and hath a particular spite against her, upon the account of her Excellence and Worth. This is the worst Consequence that can be drawn from Divisions and Separations, against such a Church as ours, and we are willing to admit it, we are willing to acknowledge, that the Devil hates the Church of England more than many Churches, and, if those that object our Divisions to us please, very much more than the Church of Rome. We are willing to look upon the many Heresies and Schisms among us, as the effects of his Revenge against her, for the damage he hath sustained by her; as 
* Videns ille idola derelicta & per nimiùm credentium populum sedes suas as templa deserta, excogitaverit novam fraudem, ut sub ipso Christiani nominis titulo fallat incautos: herese invenit & schismata, quibus subverteret sidem, veritatem corrumperet, scinderet unitatem. Cyprian de Vnit Eccles.  St. Cyprian thought the Heresies and Schisms of his Time, were purposely invented by him, to be revenged of the Christian Religion, for destroying his Worship among the Gentiles. All this we are willing to admit upon the Theory that ariseth, from considering the first Cause of Divisions and Separations, and let those who love to reproach the Church of England with the English Divisions Religion, make the best of it they can.  
But then to proceed farther in this Enquiry: After we have found out the principal, we must look after the instrumental Causes of Divisions and Separations, and they, according to the Ancients, who spoke what they knew to be true by long Experience and Observation, were ignorant, overcurious, ambitious, covetous, and contentious men. These are the proper Instruments by which the Devil acts, in broaching false Doctrines, and making Divisions and Separations. He is a sagacious Spirit, and can find out the weak and blind side of every man, where he will be sure to ply him with Darts of Temptation, as a skilful General will be sure to attack the weakest part of the Wall, or that part of it which is least defended, when he storms a Town.  
The first Instrument then by which Satan works, in making Schisms and Divisions, are ignorant men, or men ignorant in the Scriptures, whose Ignorance makes them confident, and think they understand the Scriptures, when for want of knowing the received sense of them, they do not. This St. Chrysostom complains of in one of his Sermons: 
* Hom. 37 T. 5. p. 245.  Saith he, The ignorance of the Scriptures is a dangerous Precipice, and a deep Gulf of destruction, and a great betrayer of men's Salvation. It is that which hath brought forth Heresies, and which turns all things upside down. So in his 
† T. 3. p. 1.  Preface to St. Paul's Ep. to the Romans, saith he, A thousand Evils come from ignorance of the Scriptures, and the manifold sorts of Heresies have sprung from thence. To this purpose speaks a more ancient Author in Answer to this Query, Why God, if he was able to do it, did not root out all Errors and Heresies. 
‖ Author. respons. ad Orthodoxos in resp. ad 1. Quaest.  Saith he, When God abrogated Judaisme, he introduced the New instead of the Old Testament, and if all those who embrace Christianity, do not agree in their Opinions, but some believe right, and some otherwise, this is not the fault of God, nor to be ascribed to any defect of care, or power in him, but the fault of their own carelessness and negligence, nor ought any man to be offended at the small number of orthodox Christians, because it is written, That many are called, but few chosen; and that straight and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. It is observable, that these ancient Fathers did not lay the blame of Heresies and Schisms, upon the free and common use of the Scriptures, but upon the careless and negligent reading of them, and to ignorant men's presuming they understood them, when they did not: The fault was not in the Scriptures, but in those who through ignorance abused them; the Scriptures were always common in all Churches and Languages, and I dare say boldly, saith 
* De prescript. Heret. § 39  Tertullian, That the Scriptures are so contrived by the will of God, that they should afford occasion for Heresies, because I read that there must be Heresies, and Heresies cannot be without the Scriptures. What I have observed out of these ancient Fathers, is no more in effect then what St. Peter observed of the Epistles of St. Paul, which are one great part of the Scriptures. Saith he, Account that the long-suffering of the Lord is salvation, even as our beloved Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you, as also in all his Epistles speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrist, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction. The Scriptures, it seems, suffered very much by unlearned men in the Time of St. Peter, and yet he did not order them to be kept from the People, neither in the Church of Rome, nor any other Churches. He knew that they were holy, true, just, and good, and were designed by God for public use and benefit, and if ignorant men, by the instigation of the Devil, and their own natural Enthusiasm, did misuse them, and draw false Doctrines from them, it was at their own peril, and the fault was in their own giddiness and presumption, and not in the Word of God. They should have only meddled with the plain Passages of them, which contain all things necessary to Salvation, and not with those which are hard to be understood. No! if they had had a mind to understand the difficult Places of them, they should have consulted the Apostles, or those whom the Apostles set over them, about the Apostolical Doctrine or Tradition; and if they did not, but, as ignorant men are apt to do, would precipitate themselves into Errors, and make Doctrines to themselves, which the Church never taught, that was their own fault, and could not without very much harm to Christianity, supersede the use of the Word of God. God in his great wisdom intended it for the common Rule, or Canon of the ancient Catholic Faith; and if unlearned men will be so head strong, and Enthusiastical, as not to try their Conceptions by it, but it by their private Conceptions, it nevertheless remains a Standard and Rule, and no less than their Souls must be the price for their Heresies and Schisms. The Devil understands this very well, and therefore being a subtle and cunning Spirit, he is never wanting to tempt Sciolists, and men that want true Learning, especially those who are by nature powerfully inclined to Enthusiasm, to wrest the Scriptures, 
* Sequamur universitatem, antiquitatem consentionem. Vincent. Lirin. adversus Haeres. c. 3.  against the consent of universal Antiquity, to their own admired Notions; and that being done, it is no difficult matter to persuade them to set up for Teachers, altho' they have really need, that one teach them again, which be the first Principles of the Oracles of God, and are such as have need of Milk, and not of strong Meat.  
The second sort of Instruments by which Satan works, are overcurious, and over-inquisitive men, who trusting too much to their own Understanding, love, as the Apostle speaks, to intrude into things which they have not seen, and are vainly puffed up with their fleshly Mind. 
† De prescript. Haeres. § 14.  Tertullian, in his Tract against the Heresies of his Time, complains grievously of these men, who were always moving nice and curious Questions, about things which it was better to be ignorant of then to know, and who, as his phrase imports, loved to exercise the 
‖ Quantumlibet quaer as, & tracts, & omnem libidinem curiositatis essundas.  whole lust of their Curiosity about doubtful and obscure things. Their Curiosity, as he complains, was above their Faith, and their vainglorious affectation of being counted learned and witty, above the care of their Souls; and therefore they must search the Scriptures, to find out new Doctrines and Opinions, and if they cannot find them there, they will be sure to bring them thither, tho' never heard of before, and never so contrary to the unanimous Tradition of all the Apostolical Churches. These men he complains of, for the great Adulterators of Scripture; and of such as they were, the Apostle is to be understood, 1 Tim. 1.4. I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other Doctrine, neither give heed to Fables, and endless Genealogies, which minister Questions, rather than godly Edifying which is in the Faith. So in Chap. 6.3; 4. If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to Godliness, he is conceited, knowing nothing, but doting about questions, and disputes about words, whereof cometh envy, strife, rail and surmisings. So in his 2d. Ep. 2.23. saith he unto him, Avoid foolish and unlearned questions, knowing that they gender strife. And so in his Ep. to Titus, Chap. 2.9. Avoid foolish questions, and Genealogies, and contentions, for these are unprofitable, and vain, and a man that is an Heretic, after the first and second admonition reject. These overcurious and too inquisitive Wits, who hunt after new Discoveries, and rack their Inventions, as well as the Scriptures, to publish some new thing, are well disposed by temper for Heresy. They think indeed they know something, but really they know nothing as they ought to know, when they begin to despise the Simplicity of the Christian Religion, and the Doctrine and Tradition of the Elders, and by the wantonness of their Wits and Understandings, give occasion to Satan, who observes all men's Tempers, to tempt them into Heresy and Schism 
*— Longum est universa ipsus opera commemorare, quibus profecto summis Aedificatoribus Ecclestae par esse potuisset, nisi profanâ illâ haereticae curlositatis libidine novum nescio quid invenisset, quo & cunctos labores suos velut cujusdam Leprae admixtione soedaret.— cap. 16.  Vincentius Lirinensis observes, that Apollinaris fell into Heresy through this lust of Curiosity; and that 
† Tantus, ac talis dum gratiâ dei insolentiûs abatitur, dum ingenio suo nimium indulger, sibique satis credit cum parvi pendit antiquam Christiane religionis simplicitatem, dum se plus cunctis sapere praesumit, dum Ecclesiaticas traditiones, & verterum magisteria contemnens quaedam Scripturarum capitula novo more interpretatur, meruit ut de se quoque Ecclesia dei diceret. Si surrexerit in medio tui propbeta.—  Origen also, through too great a confidence in his own Parts, and too much fondness and indulgence for his own Notions, of the greatest Doctor the Church ever had, became plainly such a one, to whom one might justly apply those words of Moses, Si surrexerit in medio tui propheta, If there arise among you a Prophet— saying. let us go after other Gods, thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that Prophet, for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul.  
The next sort of Instruments which the Devil makes use of, in inventing and propagating Hercsie and Schism, are ambitious and aspiring men, who would fain be Governors in the Church, and sit in the Thrones of the Apostles; and when they cannot compass their Designs, than out of Envy and Revenge they strive to turn all things topsy-turvy, and bring confusion upon the Church. Such as these was Diotrephes, who loved to have the preeminence: He would fain have had St. John's Chair, and to that end raised Sedition against him, prating against him with malicious words, and persuading the Church not to receive him. Such also was Thebuthis, the first Heretic and Schismatic in the Church of Jerusalem, as I have showed in the first Chapter. Such also were Montanus, Novatus, Arius, Natalis the Confessor, and almost all the famous Heresiarches in the ancient Church. Such also was Melitius, a Bishop of Egypt, who being deposed from his Bishopric, for denying the Faith, and sacrificing unto Daemons, in the Dioclesian Persecution, became the Head of that, which from him took the Name of the Melitian Heresy and Schism. He loaded Achilles his Superior, who deposed him, with all manner of Calumnies and Reproaches; as also his Successors, Peter and Alexander, who ratified the Deprivation of him, and conspired with Arius against the latter, that he might be revenged on the Church. For Pride and Ambition is the Mother of Envy, Revenge and Discontent; it was the original Sin of the Devil, and when he meets with proud men after his own image, his work is half done, and it will cost him but little trouble to tempt them to break the Peace, and divide the Unity of Churches, whereof they are Members. So an ancient 
* Respons●ad orthodox, quaest. 〈…〉  Author, in Answer to this Question, Whether it is just to damn Heretics, who do their best Endeavours to know the Truth, and cannot: Saith he, It is manifest that all Heresies arise from a vain affectation of Glory, and study of opposition in the Authors and Ring leaders of them; and therefore the Apostle calls them, grievous Wolves: And saith St. Chrysostom, in his first Homily upon the first Epistle to Timothy, Because they do not love their Brethren, they envy those that have a good Report, and from this Envy proceeds a desire to be above them, and to rule, and from this desire to rule come Heresies. So saith Theophylact on Galat. 5. The desire of Ruling is the Mother of all Heresies: And saith another 
* Isidorus Pelusiota, p. 441.  ancient Writer, From affectation of Government, and getting above others, which are two domineering Passions, I think most Heresies arise, for those who do not love to be in the rank of Subjects, sow new Doctrines, that they may be Chief of a new Sect. And indeed this was the temper of Simon Magus, the first Heretic, and false Apostle; he affected to be a great man, and to have the People from the least to the greatest give heed unto him, as the great power of God: Though he renounced the Devil at his Baptism, yet he kept fast hold of his Soul by this evil Affection, which was the gall of bitterness, that poisoned his mind, the bond of iniquity whereby Satan held him, when he made him the first of his Apostles, the first of those very Antichrists, who in that Age of Miracles came after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, to deceive, if it were possible, the very Elect.  
The fourth sort of Instruments which Satan employs, in making Divisions and Schisms, are covetous men, who love to be at the Head of a Sect, or Party, because it is the ready way to get a good Maintenance, and become rich. There were such as these in the Apostles days; as is plain from that notable passage, 1 Tim. 6.5. where he mentions perverse dispute of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is Godliness, and from such (saith he) withdraw thyself, for we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. There were such men as these in the Church of Corinth, who made Parties among the People for their own ends, which gave the Apostle occasion to rebuke them in words to this effect: 
* 2. ep. cap. II. ver. 19, 20  As wise as you think yourselves to be, you do with pleasure, bear with fools, nay ye suffer worse than fools, for you love men that bring you into bondage, you love men that devour you, and take Presents of you, nay you love them, best that insult over you, and as it were smite you on the face. So St. Judas tells us, That the Gnostical Heretics ran greedily after the Error of Balaam for reward: And in the Apostle's Epistle to Titus, we find him forewarning him of certain unruly and vain talkers, and deceivers whose mouths (saith he) must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not for filthy lucre's sake. So 
† 2 Mand. 12.2.  St. Hermas, who was St. Paul's Scholar, and wrote not long after him, speaks of false Spirits in his Time, who received Reward for their Divination, and if they do not receive, (saith he) they do not continue long to prophesy. So 
‖ Euseb. H. E. l. 5. c. 18.  Montanus the Heretic, and false Prophet, after he had gathered a great concourse of People together, at the Place which he called the New Jerusalem, he appointed Collectors of Money, who under the Name of Offerings took Gifts and Presents of the People, and his pretended Prophetesses took not only Gold and Silver, but fine , by way of Present; nay, saith Apollonius, those who are called Prophets among the Montanists, take Money not only of the rich, but of the poor, and Orphans, and Widows; and therefore (saith he) either let them deny that their Prophets take Money, which we will prove by an hundred Testimonies, or else let them deny that they are true Prophets, because they take Gifts. So I shown in the first Chapter, that Natalis the Confessor was hired with Money to be a Bishop of that schism in Rome, which taught, that Christ was a mere man; saith the Historian of him, Being tempted with the Bait of Primacy among those of that Sect, and of filthy Lucre which is the destruction of many men, he was scourged all night long by the holy Angels, and risen betimes in the morning, and having put on Sackcloth and Ashes, he went in great haste, and with tears in his eyes cast himself down before Zephyrinus the Bishop, and fell down not only before the feet of the Clergy, but of the Laity also, and after much entreaty, and showing the Stripes which he had received when he was a Confessor, he was admitted into the Communion of the Church. Before he was beaten by the Angels, our Lord frequently admonished him of his Sin by Visions in his Sleep, being unwilling that a Confessor for Christianity should perish in Heresy and Schism; but the love of Pre-eminence and Money so bewitched him, that he was fain to use severer Methods with him, and give him a Thorn in the Flesh, before he would repent. He was constrained to lash him out of the Circle in which he stood enchanted by the Devil, and as it were by force and violence break the double Chain of Ambition and Convetousness, with which he had bound himself to Satan, and save him by a Miracle, as great as his Sin.  
The last sort of men by which the Devil propagates and promotes Divisions and Schisms, are contentious and litigious men; as it is written by the Apostle, If any man be contentious, we have no such custom, nor the Churches of God. I confess there is a contentious Disposition, which is the effect of Ambition, and so is co-incident with the third particular Cause, which I assigned of Heresy and Schism; but then there is a contentious Disposition of another sort, which proceeds from a sophistical disputatious Humour, and a little sort of pride in men, that makes them love to oppose and contradict every thing for contradictions sake. This contentious Humour is most visible in men who are hot and choleric, and it naturally puts them upon Controversies and Disputes, and maintaining Paradoxes, and calling received Doctrines into question, and opposing things that are established, and rather than sit down and be quiet, it will be opposite to itself, and be against that for which it was before. This restless, unquiet sort of Spirit, hath bred much mischief in all Societies, but especially in the Church of God. It seems to me to have been the Temper of the Elder Arius, who as the 
* Socrat. l. I. c. 5.  Historian tells us, was expert in Logical Subtleties and 
† Ex 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  out of a contentious humour opposed his Bishop, discoursing a little too curiously about the mystery of the holy Trinity. If this litigious humour at any time happen to be for the Truth, it is not out of love to Truth, but with a design to oppose others; as we read of some who preached the Gospel, not out of good intent, but merely to oppose the Apostle: Some indeed (saith he) preach Christ of mere envy and strife, and some also of good will; the one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds, but the other of love, knowing I am set for the defence of the Gospel. To conclude, this litigious Humour is expressed in Greek by a word, which signifies the love of Contention, because it is the delight and pleasure of contentious men, to be of a Party, and live in the dust of Controversy; they are no longer easy and happy, than they are engaged in some Quarrel: And therefore saith they are engaged in some Quarrel: And therefore saith Theophylact on Galat. 5.20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. All Heresy proceeds from the love of Contention, and the contentious person striving to have his own will and humour, doth thereby form a Schism.  
Thus have I shown the instrumental Causes which the devil uses, in sowing Differences and Divisions, and making Separations and Schisms in Churches: And perhaps of such men, acted and inspired by the Devil, as much as of the Devils themselves, St. Peter is to be understood, 1 Ep. 5.8. where he exhorted the Christians to be sober, and vigilant, because their adversary the devil as a roaring lion walked about, seeking whom he might devour, whom (saith he) resist, steadfast in the faith. If the Devil had so many Instruments of dividing the Catholic Church then, methinks it should not seem strange, that he hath so many now. Nay methinks the Gentlemen of the Roman Communion, out of the particular Veneration they have for St. Peter, whom the whole Christian World ought to honour, should not so delight to upbraid the Church of England with the English Heresies and Schisms, it being evident from this and other Passages in his Catholic Epistle, cited in the first Chapter, that there were almost as many, and altogether as great Division, while he governed in the Church, as there are now in England, and most other Parts of the Christian World.  
Wherefore all that can justly be concluded upon the Church of England, from the English Heresies and Schisms, if we consider the instrumental Causes of them, is no more than this, That there are, and have been, many ignorant, over curious, ambitious, convetous, and contentious men among us, which, as I shown before, hath been the common Calamity of all Churches, and what is common to all Churches, at least according to our Logic, can be no just matter of reproach against any one. I am so confident, that there is no Inconsequence in this way of Apologizing for the Church of England, that I believe our Adversaries cannot find a better way of Apologizing for the Divisions that have formerly risen, or may hereafter arise in the Church of Rome. If they were reproached by others, as they reproach us, they could not but say, that the Causes of Divisions are common to all Churches; and therefore craving leave to set the Church of England in the midst of all other Churches, I desire that Church may cast the first Stone at her, which hath remained from the beginning a pure Virgin without Heresy or Schism. If there be a Church in any corner of the Earth, which is exempted from the common Causes of Divisions, or of so happy a Constitution, as not to be capable of suffering by them, let that Church come forth, and reproach the Church of England with the English Heresies and Schisms; but let not the Church of Rome do it, which hath so many old Scars to show, and so many and great Rents yet visible in many parts of her Coat, as none of her most curious Workmen, with all their art and skill, will probably ever be able to make up.  
I have said thus much by way of Apology for the Church of England, from considering the general Causes of Church Divisions and Separations, and shall find yet more to plead for her, upon making a more particular Enquiry into the Causes of our English Heresies and Schisms. Now in this Enquiry, no man that knows the state of Great Britain, betwixt the beginning of the great Rebellion, and his late Majesty's happy Restauration, but must needs look upon the ruin of the Church and State, to have been such a Cause of Heresies and Schisms, as perhaps never happened before to any Church in the World. Was it any wonder to see Errors, and Heresies, and Blasphemies, abound among us, in a Time of such strange Disorder and Confusion, when there was no King, nor Priest in Israel? Can we imagine the Devil should be idle in such an Opportunity? Or can our Adversaries imagine, that the like would not happen in any other Church or Kingdom of the Roman Religion, should God in judgement dissolve the Government of them, as he did that of ours? I refer the candid Roman-Catholick Reader, to Mr Edward's his Gangraena, for an Account of the Errors. Heresies, Blasphemies, Sects, and Opinions, that sprung up in the British Isle, In a few years after the Church of England was pulled down, and her Liturgy cast out of the Churches, and Liberty of Conscience, as they called it, was set up in its stead. He was a Minister of the Presbyterian Party, and a mighty Bigot for the Cause, and yet he could not but acknowledge, that there came in a Deluge of Heresies and Impieties after the removal of the Prelates; and I appeal to any man of Ingenuity, if it be Reasonable, or Christian, or Gentile, to reproach our Church with Sects that arose among us, when she was fast bound in misery, and the Iron entered into her Soul. Were not her Pastors driven from their Flocks, when the Wolves entered in? and all the time she was in the House of Bondage, was it not a time of Liberty for every man to do what was good in his own Eyes? Nay, I desire those that are most petulant in upbraiding us with our Divisions, to tell me truly, if they do not think, that as many, and as monstrous Swarms of Errors and Heresies would breed in Spain or Italy, as there did in the late Times of Confusion in England, if the Divine Providence, (which God prevent) should suffer the same Tragedy to be acted in those Countries, that was acted in ours. How would Sects verminate any where in Twenty Years of such Confusion? Methinks our Adversaries should have the Ingenuity to consider this; but since they seem not to do it, I hope they cannot find fault with us, for putting them in mind of it by way of Apology for our Church.  
There are many other special Causes of our English Divisions, which might fall under consideration, but for brevity sake, I shall mention but one, which is this; That we have reason to suspect that our Divisions, both in the beginning and progress of them, may have been influenced from abroad. I do not know whether this will pass for misrepresenting, but some Observations have been made to this purpose. And if the Gentlemen of the R. Communion know or believe it to be true, I beseech them by our Common Saviour Jesus Christ, they would no longer upbraid the Church of England with the English Heresies and Schisms. 
In Foxis and Firebrands, in Ravialac Redivinus, p 72. of the 2d. Edition, fol. 1682. And in several Letters which passed between the Archbishop of Armagh and other eminent persons, which may be seen in a late printed Collection of Letters.  If the Tares which were sown in the Field of our Church were indeed brought from other Places, than I hope they will grant, that it is not ingenuous for them of all other Christians to reproach us with them; but rather to blame those who sowed them, and who transplanted those strange Plants, which are not of our heavenly Father's planting, into the Vineyard of our Church. I confess it is very good Policy to divide us, that they may weaken us; but than it should be remembered, that no Humane Policy, nor the greatest Advantage that can follow upon it, can justify the Dividing of any Church, though never so Heretical, by inventing new Doctrines. The Catholics formerly durst take no such course to divide the Arians, they remembered that Anathema which St. Paul laid upon the Apostles themselves, and the very Angels of Heaven if they should teach any other Doctrine; and I wish for the Honour of Christianity others would do so too.   

CHAP. V Of the Cure of Schisms and Divisions.  
AFter this Enquiry into the Causes of Schisms and Divisions, and more particularly into those of our own Country, I proceed to say something concerning the Prevention and Cure of them; where, to keep close to the design of my Apology for the Church, I must declare upon a serious reflection of what I have hitherto written, that I know no sure and infallible way that is lawful, of preventing them, where they are not, or of curing them, where they are. First then, I know no sure way that is lawful of preventing of them, but some unlawful ways I confess there are, which are inconsistent with the Design of the Gospel, and the Rules of Christian Charity: but then the Remedy in such cases is worse than the Disease; and accordingly we see that the state of Christianity is much more deplorable in some Countries, where Divisions are prevented by such methods, than in England, where no such methods have been taken to prevent them: but of lawful and justifiable means, which are consistent with the reputation and well-being of Christianity, I believe there are none that will absolutely prevent Divisions and Schisms: I confess Humane Foresight and Diligence may, by God's blessing, prevent them in a great measure, but it will not always, nor altogether do so. But as Diseases will happen to the Natural Body, notwithstanding all the care and endeavours to prevent them: So Divisions and Schisms will happen to the Body Politic of Christ, and all the Parts and Members of it, notwithstanding all that man can lawfully do to prevent them; as is evident from the state of the Church, while it was governed by the Apostles. For they were most holy, most wise, and most vigilant Pastors, and therefore the greatest holiness and wisdom of the most vigilant and diligent Pastors, are not sufficient to preserve Unity, and prevent Schism. Nor are Miracles joined with the Sanctity and Endeavours of the most vigilant Pastors able to prevent it; for the Apostles and their Assistants wrought Miracles, and yet in the miraculous age of the Apostles, there were Heresies and Schisms, even in Churches where God bore them witness with Signs and Wonders, and divers Miracles and Gifts of the Holy Ghost. Nay, Miracles are so far from having a Sovereign Virtue to prevent Schisms, that in the Church of Corinth, which abounded with miraculous Gifts, there were Envyings, Strifes, Contentions, and Divisions: Nay, as I shown in the First Chapter, many of those who had he gift of Miracles in the Apostles time, wilfully fell away from Christianity, to which they had born witness, and did thereby despite unto the Spirit of Grace.  
And, as Miracles joined with the utmost Sanctity, Wisdom, and Diligence of Pastors, are not sufficient to prevent Divisions; so neither is Infallibility added to all the rest: for the most holy, the most wise, and most vigilant Apostles, were all infallible Judges certainly endowed by God with the personal Gift of Infallibility; and yet in their time there were as many, and as great Heresies and Schisms, as perhaps have been since in any age of the Church. To use some of the emphatical words of another Author, every one of them was such a Judge of Matters Spiritual, from which there needed no Appeal; every one of them had Authority and Ability to Interpret the Scriptures, and decide in Matters of Conscience, and yet there were as many Controversies and Differences about Matters of Conscience and Religion then, as are now to be seen in England, or herhaps any other Country of the Christian World. Do what the Apostles of the Circumcision or Uncircumcision could, they could not prevent the Enemy from sowing of Tares, nor the Tares from growing up, to the great prejudice and detriment of the Wheat: Heresies and Offences would come, notwithstanding the Infallibility of S. John, who lay in our Lord's Bosom, and of S. James who was his Brother, and of S. Paul who was rapt into the third Heaven, and of St. Peter, to whom Christ said, Thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my Church. The R. Cs. may see from this little which I have said, that if they had an infallible Judge, his Infallibility would be no certain Remedy against Heresies and Schisms, if they had no other ways that would not hinder but that Divisions might multiply among them as much as in the days of the Apostles, or as much as they are now multiplied in England, where the Church professeth to have no infallible Judge. I say, if they had an infallible Judge, his Infallibility would not be able to secure them against Divisions but alas! they have no infallible Judge, for though they are all agreed, that their Church is infallible, yet they differ about the Seat of the Infallibility; they cannot tell us for certain where it is lodged: and truly to have an Infallible Judge, and not to know who, or where he is, is in effect to have none at all. What then, is there no certain way of preventing Heresies and Schisms? Certainly there is no lawful way certain; which Consideration alone methinks might be Apology enough for the Church of England, against the reproach which she now suffers upon the account of the English Heresies and Schisms.  
And as there is no certain way of preventing Heresies and Schisms where they are not: so there is no certain way of curing them where they are. Provincial and General Councils, where all emergent Differences may be freely and fairly debated, have by experience been found to be the best means which God hath been pleased to bless with success; but tho' they are very good means, and have often proved very successful, yet as we learn from the History of Councils, they are not always infallible Remedies, as is evident from the first General Council, in which the Apostles and Elders, and Brethren met at Jerusalem, to determine whether or no it was needful for the Gentile Christians to be Circumcised and keep the Law of Moses. St. Peter after much Dispute on both sides, first stood up, and declared, That to oblige the Gentile Disciples to the Mosaical Observances, was to put a Yoke upon their Necks, which neither the Jews nor their Fathers were able to bear; then James having first heard Barnabas and Paul, declared it was his sentence, that the Gentile Christians should be troubled with no more Jewish Observances, but to abstain from Pollutions of Idols, from fornications, from things strangled, and from blood. To him the Apostles, and Elders, and the whole Church consented, and said, it seemeth good to the holy Ghost, and to us, and yet the Authority of this infallible and unanimous Council, did not quite put an end to the Controversy: for, as it appears out of several of St. Paul's Epistles, and more especially out of that to the Galatians, & some 
* Ad Magnesios', ad Philadelph.  Epistles of St Ignatius, there were those afterwards who taught the Gentile Christians Judaisme, and commanded them to be circumcised, and keep the Jewish Law. So I need not relate, how the ecumenical Council of Nice, tho' backed with the Authority of the Emperor, was not able to extinguish the Arian Schism, nor make the Arians acquiesce in its Determinations: And, to multiply no more Instances, the learned R. Cs. know very well, how far the Christian World was from submitting to the second Nicene Council, which they call the seventh general Council, in its Determinations for Image-worship. Quite contrary the Northern and Western Bishops unanimously opposed that Council, and its Doctrine; and in another 
† Concilium Franco surtes A. D. 79●.  Council, wherein about 300 of them met together, they condemned it and its Decree for Image-worship, and proscribed it out of the number of general Councils, and the Church of England at the Time was so far from acquiescing in its Determinations, that her Pastors received that Decree for worshipping of Images, with great indignation and contempt.  
But then, tho' it appears from these Examples, that general Councils are not infallible Remedies for Heresies and Schisms, yet it must be acknowledged, that they are very good ones, and the best that can be had, when they are truly 
* Cum dicunt Concilium: Catholicum, aut universale, hoc intelligunt ut in eo debeant adesse viri pii, docti, & prudentes ex omnibus nationibus. P. P. Vergerius in secretary. pontific. Act. primâ.  general and 
† Cum dicunt Liberum, volunt ut liceat tum publicis, tum privatis personis, sub fide publici salvi conductûs praesliti venire, stare, & discedere, quoties illis libitum fuerit, & ante omnia, ut liberè sine ullo metu, aut impedimento loqui liceat, suamque sententiam dicere in ipso Concilio. ibid.  free. And therefore as Nilus of Thessalonica proposed a free and general Council, as the best Expedient for ending all Differences between the Greek and Latin Church above 300 years ago, so I hope I may without offence, propose it now, as the most hopeful Remedy to heal all Differences between the Church of England and the Church of Rome. It would be an Enterprise worthy of the Greatness, and holy Character of the Pope, dispensing with the Pontifical Oaths, to use his Interest among Christian Princes, for the procuring of a free and general Council, wherein 
* Statuerunt etiam quod amnes definitiones, & conclusiones articulorum, de quibus suerit disputatum, sierie debeant ex divinâ, & sacrâ Scripturâ, doctrinàque antiquorum patrum, &. ibid. Scripturae eloquia aliter atque aliter, alius atque alius interpretatur, aliter nameque illam Novatianus, aliter Photinus, aliter Sabellius, aliter Donatus exponit, aliter Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, aliter Apollinaris, Priscillianus, aliter Jovinianus, Pelagius, Caelestinus, aliter postremo Nestorius, atque idcirco multùm necesse est propter tantos tam varii erroris ansractus, ut Prophetice. & Apostolicae interpretationis linea secundum Ecclesiastici & Catholici sensûs normam dirigatur. Vincent Lirinens. adversus haeres. cap. 2.  the holy Scriptures, and the Writings of the ancient Fathers, should be laid open, and the Differences of the two Churches fairly tried by them, as the Difference between Nestorius and his Antagonists, was tried in the third general Council. The Differences happened in the following manner. Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, openly taught, that it was not lawful to call the Virgin Mary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or the Mother of God. This alarmed cyril of Alexandria, and many other Bishops, who suspected that Nestorius had a design, under the covert of that Assertion, to bring into the Church the Doctrine of Paulus Samosatensis, and Photinus, who asserted, that Christ was a mere man. Upon these Suspicions they stoutly opposed Nestorius, and his Adherents, for their new Opinion, and the Contention grew so high, that the Emperor was fain to call a Council at Ephesus to compose it; and the Bishops being met together, after some previous Altercation, at last thought it the most Catholic, blessed, and desirable way of determining the Controversy, to produce the Opinions of the holy Fathers, who had been Martyrs, or Confessors for the Faith, or at least had continued in the true profession of it unto the end of their lives. Upon this were brought into the Council the Writings of St. Peter Patriarch of Alexandria, St. Athanasius, St. Theophilus, St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nazianzum, Gregorius Nyssenus, St. Cyprian, St. Ambrose, and St. Foelix, and St. Julius, Bishops of the Imperial City of Rome, with the Writings of other Fathers; all which being examined, it did appear that Nestorius was an Innovator, and that Cyril was in the right, who said, that the ancient Fathers used to call the Blessed Virgin, the Mother of God. I have taken this short account of the manner in which the Council of Ephesus proceeded against Nestorius, because it is proposed by 
† Quod ne praesumptione magis nostrâ quàm, autoritate Ecclesiasticâ promere videremur, exemplum adhibuimus Sancti Concilii, quod ante triennium fermè in Asiâ apud Ephesum celebratum est, Viris clarissemis Basso Antiochoque consulibus. Vbi cum sanciendis sidei regulis disceptaretur ne qua illic forsitan prophana novitas in modum perfidiae Ariminiensis obreperet, universis Sacerdotibus, qui illo ducenti sere numero convenerant hoc Cacholicissimum, faelicissimum atque optimum factu visum est, ut in medium sanctorum patrum sententiae proferrentur, etc. Vincent. Lirin. adversus. haeres. cap. 42.  Vincentius Lirinensis, as the best method of ending Controversies in Religion; and I am persuaded, if the same Apostolical course was taken in a General Council now, the Differences between the Church of Rome, and the Churches that descent from it, would come to an happy Conclusion, and by God's Blessing, make them all unite into one Communion, and become one Catholic and Apostolical Church. I know very well that the Gentlemen of the Roman Communion are apt to tell us, that the Council of Trent was a Free and General Council, but we know the contrary, that it was neither Free nor General, or if it were, why may not the Church be represented anew in another Free and General Council, as She was represented in the Council of Chalcedon, shortly after the second Council of Ephesus, and in the second Council of Nice, within thirty years after the seventh General Council of Constantinople, which expressly condemned the Worship of Images? But they say the second Council of Ephesus, and the 
* This Council did not err in condemning the worship of Images.  seventh General Council Constantinople erred, and decreed false Doctrine: so say we of the Council of Trent, and therefore let another Free and General Council be called to umpire the Controversy between the Church of England and the Council of Trent; and if upon a fair trial by the Scriptures, Fathers and Councils, such a Council shall condemn the Church of England, than I will leave her Communion, and own I have been guilty of Heresy and Schism. I think no Son of the Church of England need scruple of say as much, nor fear to promise to stand to the Determinations of such a Council, as will freely and impartially try all Controversies by the ancient Touchstone of 
† In Ipsâ catholicâ Ecclesiâ magnopere curandum est, ut id teneamus, quod ubique quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est.— Hoc ita demum fit si sequamur Vnisversitatem, Antiquitatem, Consentionem. Vincent. Lirin. Cap. 3. Vide etiam Cap. 38.  Universality, Antiquity, and Consent. This was the Catholic Test of old, and aught to be so still, and to show how indifferent I am between the two Churches: I hearty beseech Almighty God that She may flourish and prevail, which is most willing to undergo, and best able to abide this Test.   

The Conclusion.  
HAving now finished the Apology, which I undertook to make for the Church of England, against those who love to ridicule Her with the English Divisions in Religion, and lay an heavy Charge of undue Consequences upon her, merely upon their score: I think I cannot answer the Design of my Undertaking better, than in concluding with a practical and friendly Address to the Candid READER, of what Persuasion soever, whether he be a Roman Catholic, or Church of England Catholic, or a Dissenter from them both.  
I shall first begin with the Roman Catholics, who have been the occasion of writing this Discourse; and I humbly beg them to consider, That it is not for their Honour to use such Arguments against the Church of England, now, as the Heathens of old used against Christianity; nor for their Advantage to put us upon defending Her in the very same manner, as they must be forced to defend the Christian Religion against the Mahometans, who are mightily prepossessed by the multitude of Sects among the Christians, against the Truth and Goodness of Christianity itself, Nay, it is their Interest as much as ours, to leave off this way of Arguing against the Church of England, because the Atheists and Sceptics, and irreligious persons of both Churches argue the very same way against the Truth of the Christian Religion; they take advantages from the great number and variety of Sects in Christendom, whereof every on a pretends to be the true Church, to think that really there is no Religion; and therefore methinks all serious and piously disposed persons among the R. Cs. into whose hands this Apology shall fall, should so far become my Proselytes, as hereafter to forbear this way of Arguing, which gratifies. the common Enemies of Christianity, and concludes as severely against the Universal Church, as they would have it do against ours. Secondly, I desire them to consider, whether it be prudently done of them to reproach us with our Divisions, when they do not know how soon we may have occasion to turn their own Reproaches upon them, and do unto them, if Christian Charity should not restrain us, as they now do unto us. They do not know how soon their Unity, of which they boast so much, may be broken into Divisions, and the Peace, which they pretend to have among themselves, be turned into a spiritual War. The Spirit of Strife and Contention, and of setting up Altar against Altar, may, for all their present assurance, come upon them, as sorrow upon a Woman in travail; and than whether the Sects, which shall arise among them, be real, or only reputed Heresies and Schisms, they will be taken in their own Snare, and the full weight of their own Arguments against us, will fall upon their own heads. Let him that thinketh the standeth (saith the Apostle) take heed lest the fall; and let the Church of Rome, which perhaps the R. Cs. may think so secure in her Politics of Union, take heed she fall not into pieces, and be broken in shivers like a Potter's Vessel, by him that ruleth with an Iron Rod. They should consider that God can send the Spirit of Luther upon their Monks, the Spirit of Savanarola upon their Friars, the Spirit of Herman and Cranmer upon their Prelates; the Spirit of Vergerius & Contarenus upon their Nuncio's and Legates; the Spirit of Cardinal 
† Vid. Vergerii Annotat, in cattle, Heret. 261, 262.  Fregosius upon the Conclave; the Spirit of 
* Of Brandenburg.  Albert & 
† Of Saxony.  Frederic upon Sovereign Catholic Princes; and the Spirit of Marcellus secundus upon the Pope himself. They should remember, especially the Learned among them, from what a slight accidental occasion, the Arian Schism began; and God who was pleased to suffer an universal Conflagration to arise from such a small Spark, can in a moment raise up many Arius' Rome, and make the Princess of the Provinces sit solitary, and all her Friends become her Enemies. Nay, he is able, as it were, by a Voice from Heaven, to say unto her people, Come out of her, lest ye be partakers of her sins. 
† Saltem Petrarchae parcerent, Praesertim cum fuerit ex praelatorum numero parumque absuerit, ut à Benedicto XII. fuerit Cardinalis creatus— Homo Italus atque idem ex praecipuis Praelatis unus, summâ Erudition, & sapientiâ vir, quem Papa, quem tota Apostolica Sedes, quem tota Italia maximi facit atque colit. PP. Vergerius Annot. in Catal. Haer. fol. 259, 260.  Petrarch one of her most Eminent Writers in Prose and Verse, who was the Pride and Glory of Italy, and the Delight of Rome, where he received the Laurel; Petrarch one of her Celebrated Churchmen, who narrowly miss a Cardinal's Cap; the Learned, the Eloquent, the Charming Petrarch applied this, and many more such Texts unto Her in an 
* Part of which Epistle is translated and cited by Vergerius. Ibid. fol. 259, 260.  Epistle, wherein he Paraphrased the 17th. Chapter of the Revelations; and how do they know, but God may make the people hear, and obey the Voice of Petrarch, and come out of her in as great numbers beyond the Alps and Apennineses, as they have done on this side of them. The Pectilent Northern Heresy, as one called it, may soon scale the Mountains, and invade the Southern Climates, and they themselves do not know how suddenly God may make Province after Province, and Nation after Nation, fall off and separate from the Church of Rome. What hath been done, may be done again; and upon supposition this should happen, I would fain know of from the Roman Communion, would be a good Argument against the Trueness or Goodness of the Church of Rome. Wherefore methinks is point of Prudence, they should not take up Arguments against us, which they do not know how soon we may have occasion to retort upon themselves. They should remember that they cannot secure their Church against Contigencies, that are common to all Churches, and that to flesh should glory in the presence of God, who sometimes chooses the weak things of the World, to confound the mighty; and things that are not, to bring to nought things that are. It is his Prerogative to do whatsoever he pleaseth in Heaven and Earth; and who knows his Counsels? who knows what secrets of Providence are in the Wombs of their Causes ready for the birth?  
In the next place, I address myself to our dissenting Brethren, whose Divisions and Separations from the Church of England, and from one another, are now become popular and plausible Arguments in the mouths of the R. Cs. to unsettle weaker judgements among us, and bring them over to theirs, which they call the one Catholic Church. I beseech them therefore by the Sacred Names of Unity and Charity, to consider ho'w different the Church of England, and her Children now appear, from what they misapprehended them to be. Great numbers of them took up an Aversion to the Church, because they thought her Popish in her Constitution, and her Children, especially the Clergy, Popish in their Affections: but now seeing by Experience how much they were mistaken, methinks they should be willing to make Reparation; methinks the sense of their former mistake, should help to overcome their present prejudice, and make them willing to be better informed, and bring their old Scruples, with Minds desirous of satisfaction, to the Test; to see if indeed they are such as will justify their separation from a Church, which they acknowledge to be Orthodox in her Doctrine, and which they could never yet prove enjoined any one thing in her Worship, which God and forbidden, or to have forbidden any thing in it, which he had enjoined, Is not this the time for them to peruse the Books that have been lately written with the greatest Candour and meekness for their better Information? And doth not the Zeal, which they have always professed against Popery, oblige them to have a good opinion of her Divines, who have all along been contending earnestly for the Faith which was once delivered to the Saints? Doth not God by the Voice of his Providence call upon them, as plainly as if it were by a Voice from Heaven, to consider whither their Divisions tend, and should not the serious consideration of the dismal Effects that may follow upon them, if they continue in them, make them doubly afraid of the sinfulness of Schism? What a dreadful account will they have to make at the Day of Judgement, if it should then appear, that the Church gave them no just occasion to separate from her? They must then answer to God for all the direful Consequences of their Separation; and therefore it concerns them all to look upon her whom they have pierced; it concerns them all, as they would not die in so fatal a Mistake, and be responsable for the downfall of the Church, to examine impartially, if the Communion of the Church of England be not truly Catholic, and whether she is not such a Church, as hath fellowship with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.  
If she be such a Church, as the Divines of all reformed Churches abroad will tell them she is, than they must be guilty of Schism, which is a separation without a just cause from the Church, as a Church, without any regard unto the State. For Schism or Separation, without a just cause, is a pure spiritual Crime, and was reckoned a damnable Sin, before the Church Christian was united to the Empire, as also in those unhappy Intervals of Persecution, when the Church and Empire were disunited again. For example, it was a damnable Sin, when St. Paul charged the Ephesians to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, because there was but one God, and one Lord and one Faith, and one Baptism, and one Body of Christ. It was a damnable Sin, when he told the Corinthians, That we were all baptised by one Spirit into one body, and that as the natural body was made one by the union of many members in it, so also was the body, meaning the Body politic of Christ. It was a damnable Sin, when St. Ignatius taught the Churches, That nothing should be done without the leave of the Bishop, or in opposition to him, and that, that was only a valid Eucharist which was administered by him, or by one licenced and appointed by him, and that makers of Schism could not inherit the Kingdom of God. It was a damnable Sin, when St. Cyprian called private Meetings, in opposition to the public, Conventicles of the Devil; and said, that private Altars were no Altars; and that if a Schismatic should die for Christ, he could be no Martyr, nor have any right to the Crown of Martyrdom; for which he alleges the words of the Apostle, Tho' I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth nothing. Dionysius Alexandrinus in his Ep. to the Arch-Schismatick Novatus, writes unto him in this manner. If thou wast constrained, as thou sayest, against thy will, to separate from the Church, thou oughtest to declare the same, by returning willingly to it again. Thou shouldst have suffered any thing rather than rend the Church of God, neither is that Martyrdom, which a man shall suffer for refusing to rend the Church, less glorious, then that which Christians daily suffer for denying to sacrifice unto Devils. Yea, in my judgement, it is a more glorious sort of Martyrdom, for in the one a man suffers Martyrdom only for his own Soul, but in the other for the Universal Church. Wherefore persuade the Brethren, or constrain them to return to Union, such a meritorious act would be greater than the crime of seducing them, and thou wouldst be more commended for that, than ever thou wert censured for this. However if thou canst not persuade the rebellious and disobedient to return to the Church, at least save thine own soul, by embracing Peace and Unity thyself.  
So great a Sin did the ancient Father's account Schism, before the happy union of the Church and Empire, when the Meetings of the Schismatics were as much tolerated by the State, as the Meeting of the Catholics; and upon the same Principle, Donatism and Arianism were counted as damnable Schism every jot, under the Reigns of those Emperors, who granted toleration to them, as under the Reigns of those who made Laws against them. Nay, all the Laws which Constantius and Valens made in favour of Arianism, and for the establishment of it, did not alter its damnable nature in the judgement of the Catholics; neither indeed is the obliquity of Schism alterable by humane Laws and Constitutions, as being a transgression of a divine positive Law, which God hath made for the preservation of the Body politic of his Church, to which Schism is as destructive in its nature, as Rebellion is to the State.  
The being and well-being of the Church are incompatible with it, and it is not only evil because God hath forbid it, but God hath forbid it because he knew it was evil, and pernicious in its nature to his one Catholic Church. The Roman Catholics themselves will join with us in this Principle, and acknowledge this Doctrine to be true, and if our Dissenters are either afraid, or convinced of the truth of it, it concerns them, as they tender their own Salvation, to inquire into the nature of their respective Separations, whether they the Schisms, or no? They all profess great tenderness of Conscience, and they will but act according to their pretensions, to be very scrupulous in embracing those Communions; which, if they be not, yet look so like Schism. Methinks they should be as much afraid of sinning one way as another; methinks their Consciences should boggle as much at a suspected Communion, as at a suspected Ceremony, and be very much afraid of making damnable Separations, as they will assuredly do, if the Church of England, from which they do, or shall separate, be a true and sound Member of Christ I entreat them for the sake of their own Souls, to set the Terror of this Consequence before their eyes; especially I desire those among them to consider it, who by their occasional Communion (as they call it) with the Church of England, have declared to all the World, that they think if such a Church, to which men may join themselves without sin. Shall the expectation of a little temporary Preferment, or the fear of a little temporal Punishment, bring them to Church, and perhaps to the highest act of Communion in it, and shall not the fear of Damnation, and the foresight of the dismal Events, which are like to happen upon their Separations, not make them do the same? If it be sinful to communicate with the Church of England in her Ordinances, why did they ever do it? And if it be not, why do they not do it always, according to the Doctrine of the Apostle, who beseeched the Corinthians by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they should all speak the same thing, and be perfectly joined together in the same mind and judgement, that there should be no Schisms nor Divisions among them. I beseech our dissenting Brethren, by the same saving Name, and for the sake of the Gospel, for which they pretend to have so much zeal, not to divide Christ any longer among us, nor grieve the holy Spirit of Union by their causeless Separations, but to return to the Fold from which they have wandered as lost Sheep, that so we may become one Fold under one Shepherd, and one Building framed together into an holy Temple unto the Lord. They know there is nothing wanting to any Christian man's Salvation in the Church of England; they may be as holy and unblamable in the Communion of it, as the most holy Saint, or Martyr, if it be not their own fault; and certainly Jacob would rejoice, and Israel would be glad, may I dare say, there would be joy among the very Angels in Heaven, to see them return to their Mother, whom they have forsaken, and compass her Altars in Sincerity and Truth. This would be the way for them to atone for their former Mascarriages, and undo all the Injuries they have formerly done the Church, which upon their Return would be beautiful as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem,, and terrible as an Army with Banners, and provoke her Adversaries, who now insuit over her Divisions, to confess, that she is the very Beauty of Holiness, and that God was in us and among us of a truth.  
In the last place I address myself to my Brethren of the Church of England, for whose Satisfaction I have written this Apology, That seeing how Heresies, Divisions, and Schisms, have been incident to the best Churches, in the best and purest Ages, the Age of the Apostles, and the Age next unto them, they should neither be offended nor discouraged, to see so many Altars erected in this little Isle, all opposite to one another, and to the Church. I have showed them, that her condition is neither new, nor singular, and that as many and great Divisions have been made from the Churches of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, Rome, Carthage, and all the famous Churches in the World. Nay, I have showed more particularly of the Church of Rome, that very shameful and scandalous Schisms have formerly arisen in her, and that not withstanding her pretended present Union, the Church of England, in the midst of all the English Divisions, hath more potential and actual Union than she, I have had good success in private, with a shorter Discourse of this nature, in confirming of some, who began to have mean and despicable thoughts of the Church of England, upon the score of our English Schisms, and to suspect whether or no the were a true and good Church. They were made believe, of all Churches she was most deserted by God, and that he seemed to have very little savour for her; and than while they were casting about for Reasons, why God should seem, as they were taught, to have so little care of her, it was easily suggested, that he was displeased at her, and left her to herself, because she had left the Church of Rome. And as I have known some, so I have heard of others, who have been just so affected; and it is for curing such Fears and Suspicions where they are, and preventing them where they are not, that I have made this Apology, which I hope my Brethren will accept, as a Work well intended, with all its imperfections and defects. I know it is but a very indifferent Performance, in comparison to what others have done, and are a doing; but such as it is, I offer it with all submission to the whole Household of God, in the Church of England, which as it now stands without any farther emendation, is, I verily) believe, as sound and pure a Church, both for Doctrine and Worship, as ever was established in any Province, or Nation of the World, I hearty thank Almighty God, by whose good providence I have been bred up in her Communion, and am called to the great Honour of being one of her Priests; and I beseech him of his infinite goodness, to give all her Clergy, and People, Grace, to live up strictly to her Principles; to her Principles of Piety towards God, of Loyalty to the King, of Justice and Charity to others, and of Temperance and Sobriety towards themselves. I am sure it must be ours, and not her fault, if we be not the best Christians, the best Subjects, and the best Friends and Neighbours in the Worlds; and I shall confirm my own Opinion of her, with the Testimony which a late 
* S. L. J.  great, and good, and learned Man, gave of her in his last Will and Testament, saith he, I do declare, That by the grace of God, I die a Christian in the Communion of the Church of England, as it is now established by God's Providence, and the Laws in force; I do believe this Church to be a true and sound Member of Christ's Catholic Church, which he hath purchased with his Blood. Cloth her, O Lord, with a strict and exemplary Holiness in her Priests and People, and maintain her in her Truths, Peace, and Patrimony, unto the World's end. Amen.  
FINIS.