think, that you had given up the Caufe to me, by granting all that I demanded? But it feems this is not to be expected (to return you your own words) from one that is perpetually at war with himself, and to which I add, from one that hath no better way of arguing, than by begging the Question: For you take it for granted, that this Communion may be had by us without Sin, which is ftill the Controverfy between us. Befides, had it been for your turn, you might have obferv'd that what I there granted was only a Right of Communicating in any Church of Chriftians, whither he fhould come, not that it was any ones duty actually to joyn in External Communion, where the Terms are finful or doubtful. What I there further wrote on this Head, I fhall not here repeat, nor am I yet afham'd to own; but refer the Reader to it.

P. 18,

You cenfure me for imagining that you hold it neceffary that all Churches Should bave the fame Ceremonies, and all the Inferences that I drew from it, you call a fighting with my own fhadow, and that you are not concerned in the fuccefs of the Combat. What the Opinion is which you hold, as a Secret to your felf, I cannot divine; but pray. confider, Was it not the Unity of the Church that you were there infifting on, and that not of this or that Particular, but of the Catholick Church, however it be difperfed in the World, and that

this Catholick is one Political Body. For Difc. p. 29. it is the Univerfal Church, that is faid in Scripture to be one Body. With this one Catholick Political Church, you tell us we must, on pain of being cut off from Chrift, hold Communion, not only in Faith, and in Baptifm, and the Worship of the One true God, and in all thofe things that are of the Effence of it as Chriftian, and which are one and the fame all the Chriftian World over; but that we are equally oblig'd to

hold

hold Communion with this Church in all its Rituals and External Modes of Worship, and whatfoever is made and appointed by Men as the Condition of this Outward Communion with it. And if fo,

1. Do you not then make thefe Matters and Conditions of Outward Communion as Effential to the Church, as its Faith or any thing else?

2. Is there any of the required Outward Communion to be held with this Church,without a ftrict obfervance of all its Ceremonies?

3. Is it not neceflary then that all these required Conditions of Outward Communion with it, be as Catholick, and as much One, as its Faith, or Baptifm. or any thing else?

If it must be One, is it poffible to deviate from it, or to vary its Forms and Terms of Outward Communion with it, without a Schifmatical Dividing and Rending it in pieces? Muft not all Particular Churches then, which are but the Conftitut ing, or Integrating parts of the Whole Catholick Church, have the very fame Rites, and Ceremonies, and Conditions of Outward Communion? Or elfe have you gotten the Art of dividing One into an Hundred or more, and yet continue it perfectly One ftill, even in that refpect wherein it is divided? Dic fedes & eris mihi magnus Apollo. Or elfe, will you make your Catholick Church an Ens Rationis, or a Materia Prima, capable of all Forms to be introduc'd by the Wit and Will of Man"? For by the Catholick Church I hope you do not mean that which fome others in the World do. 5. Befides, Wa there not a time when the Catholick Chriftian Church was but One Individual Church, yea a Congregation at Jerufalem? If Rites and Ceremonies were as neceffary to Communion with that Church as the Doctrin of Faith, Baptifm, Repentance, or any other thing, would it not have B 3

bee

been as neceffary that all its Rites and Terms of Outward Communion fhould be afcertain'd, and enter'd into the Canon, that all the Particular Churches that should ever fpring from her, might know how, and wherein to hold Communion with her, and not be damn'd for Schifmaticks For how is it poffible for any Particular Church to feparate from her in the matters of Outward Com munion, and yet be therein One with her? Now, Sir, with whofe Shadow it is that I have been fighting, let others judge, and how far you are concern'd in the iffue of the Combate.

8. 19.

·P. 21.

But whatever your Premises were,

you now hope to fet all right by denying the Conclufion; and tell us that you never beld it neceffary that all Churches fhould have all the fame External Rites, or that any One of them should be the Oracle, or give Laws to all the reft. And you tell us too, that this is the Senfe and Practice of the Church of England, as it was of the Ancients in things of this nature. And that the Churches of diftant Countries may differ in their Ceremonies, and yet maintain the Catholick Unity. But methinks the Confiftency of This, and of your Notion of Catholick Unity is not fo very clear. For you have not yet told us, on what Reason, or by what Law, or Right, any of those Churches that firft iffued, and were numerically divided from that Original Catholick Church and Congregation, did vary, as to their Rites, and Terms of Outward Communion, from that out of which they sprang, or how it could be done without what you call Schifm. Were they not, by your Hypothefis, bound, while they continued in that Church, to obferve all the Rites and Ceremonies of it? How then came they at this Liberty of taking, or leaving, or altering or adding of thefe things, when feparated from

it? Yea, were not all the Defcendent Particular Chriftian Churches in the World, in the fame relation to that first Catholick Church, as the Members of any Particular Church are to it? And fhould not the Catholick Union be as entirely preferv'd, by your Principles, in Rites and Ceremonies, as in Faith, &c. Unless you can produce the Licenfe from that Mother Church, Authorizing them so to do; or unless you will grant they did it by vertue of a Natural Right, and Power in themfelves fo to do, immediately on their being thus feparated from it. And if fo, then 'tis but for a Church to feparate from another, to which they once belonged, and they are at Liberty, as to Rites and Ceremonies, and yet fafe as to Catholick Unity: And this, perhaps, is the bottom and truth of the cafe. All particular Churches, being of equal Power and Authority inter fe, have a Natural Right to order all matters that are but of Humane Inftitution, and allowable by the general Rules of the Scriptures, according to occurring Circumftances of Times and Places, for their own particular Edification, and to alter and change them as the Cafe of the Church fhall require. And then I hope you will give me leave hence to infer, That all other, efpecially Reformed Churches of Chrift in the World, whether Lutheran or Calvinistical, have an equal Right and Intereft in this Liberty, as the Church of England: And then Geneva and Scotland, and the poor envied Churches of the Presbyterians (to defcend no lower) in England and Ireland, are justify'd in their Ecclefiaftical Conftitutions, as out of the danger of being cut off as Schifmaticks from the Union of the Catholick Church, notwithstanding they are not of the Church of England's Communion in Rites and Ceremonies, unless you will adventure to fay, that our not having Bishops, that is, Diocefan Bishops, over us, is that which will

inevitably deftroy us; and if fo, then farewel to all the Reformed Churches, befides yours, and the Lutheran. But could we have obtain'd but one good Bishop to have caft off all these controverted matters, and fo to have been our Head, we had been fafe, unless you would throw the Bishop into Hell with us for a Schifmatick too. And if this be not, pray tell us what is, the sense of your Arguings.

Will you be fo kind, as to grant, what I think you cannot well deny, That fuch a Liberty as this may be allow'd, Provided that this Separation, or Divifion of a Church into more Particular Independent, or Co-ordinate Churches, be made by the Authority and Establishment (for perhaps meer To"leration will not do) of that Church out of which the Divifion is made, as in the Propagation of the Church in Foreign Dominions, and under diftinct Civil Governments; or by a Neceffity, as in cafes of Perfecution? Then I will ask you, (1.) What Provifion you will allow in fuch Cafes of neceffary Reformation, as cannot be affected without Separation, which, you know, was the cafe of Proteftant Reformers? Were they Schifmaticks because they feparated without the confent, or Authority of that Church they separated from? If fo, you will do well to reconcile us again to our Old Mother; but that which juftify'd that Reformation, will justify another. (2.) If this Liberty must depend upon, and be determin'd by the bene placitum, and Extent of the Empire of the Civil Government, then, either thefe Rites and Ceremonies, about which the Liberty is concern'd, are no Sacred things, or else it is a profaning of that which is Sacred, and a justifying the Whore of Babylon,in extending the Cup of her Fornications according to the bounds of the Empire on which the fits. (3.) If the cafe of Perfecution will do it, as it did at Jerufalem, then have

the