لله A RESOLUTION Of fome CASES O F CONSCIENCE Which respect Church-Communion. VIZ. I. Whether to Communicate with fome Church, efpecially in fuch a divided State of the Church, be a neceffary Duty, Incumbent on all Chriftians. II. Whether Conftant Communion be a neceffary Duty, where Occafional Communion is Lawful. III. Whether it be Lawful to Communicate with two Churches, which are in a State of Separation from each other. The Second Edition. LONDON, Printed by Henry Hills, Jun. for Fincham Gardiner at the White Horfe in Ludgate-street. 1683. '2 4·27-43 R.C.S Church-Communion: 'N order to ftate fuch cafes as particularly relate to Church-Communion with all poffible clearness, I it will be neceffary to premife a brief explication of fome words, which must be used in questions of this nature, but are not fo commonly understood. As, 1. What is meant by a Church, and a Chriftian Church. 2. What Church Communion is. 3. What is meant by Fix't Communion and by First, What is meant by a Church. Now the plaineft defcription I can give of a Church is this, That the Church is a Body or Society of Men Separated from the rest of the World, and United to God, and to themfelves by a Divine Covenant. I fhall briefly explain this description B 22. 15. description to fit it to the meanest understanding. 1. Then a Church is a Body or Society of Men, for I fpeak only of the Church in this World, and therefore fhall not enter into that difpute, in what sense Angels belong to the Church. And when I call the Church a Body or Society of Men, I oppofe a Body to fingle Individuals, or particular Men, and to a confused Multitude, without any order or Union among themselves. For tho the Church confifts of particular Men, and when their Numbers are encreafed, of great Multitudes, yet the Church confifts of fuch particular Men, not confidered in a private and feparate capacity, but as United into a regular Society, which is called a Body, in allufion to the natural Body, in which all the parts and members are United in an exact Order, Eph.4 16, 1 Cor. 12.15,16, &c. For God is not the Author of Confufion, but of Peace, as in all the Churches of the Saints. And if the meanest Societies cannot fubfift without Order wherein their strength and beauty and usefulness confift, much less the Church of God, which is a Society Instituted for the molt fpiritual and SupernaturalEnds. And therefore we find, that God ordained a most exact Order and Government in the Jewish Church, which for the greater ftrength and Unity he formed into a religious Common-wealth: And our Bleffed Saviour ordained the Apostles, and committed the Government of his Church to them, and their Succeffors, with a promife to be with them to the end of the World. And the Christian Church with refpect to the Eph. 2. 21, firm and clofe Union and orderly Difpofition of all its Parts, is not only called a Body, but a Spiritual Buil1 Tim. 3. ding, and Holy Temple, and the House of God. But But then the Church is a Body, or one Body, in oppofition to many bodies, for Chrift has but one Body, and one Church, and he is the Saviour of this Body. The Jewish Church was but one, and therefore the Christian Church is but one, which is not a new diftinct Church, but is grafted into the Jewish stock or Root. Believing Jews, and Chriftians being United into one Church, built upon the foundation of the Apoftles and Prophets, Jefus Chrift himself being the chief Rom. 11. corner ftone: Who unites Jews and Gentiles into one Church, as the corner ftone unites both fides of the House, and holds them together. Upon the fame account the Church is called the Building, the Houfe, the Temple of God, and we know the Temple was but one, and was to be but one, by the exprefs command and Institution of God. And for the fame reason Christ tells us, that there should be but one Fold under one Shepherd. 17, 18. 16. And indeed it is extreamly abfurd and unreasonable, John 10. to say, that the Chriftian Church, which is built upon the fame foundation, which worships the fame God and Saviour, which profeffes the fame Faith, are Heirs to the fame promifes, and enjoy all priviledges in common, fhould be divided into as diftinct and separate bodies, tho of the fame kind and nature, as Peter, James and John, are distinct Persons, tho they partake of the fame common nature. That is, it is very absurd to say, that where every thing is common, there is not one Community.Peter,and James, and John, tho they partake of the fame common nature,yet each of them have a diftinct effence and fubfiftence of their own (as it must be in natural Beings, otherwife there could be but one Man in the World) and this makes them distinct Perfons: But where the very nature and effence of a Body or Society confifts in having all things com B 2. mon, |