XXXIII. ART. reproach to that which they profess, they must be cut off, and caft out; for if there is any fort of power in the Church, it muft terminate in this. This is the laft and highest act of their authority; it is like death or banishment by the civil power, which are not proceeded to but upon great occafions, in which milder cenfures will not prevail, and where the general good of the fociety requires it: so cafting out being the last act of Church-power, like a parent's difinheriting a child, it ought to be proceeded in with that flowness, and upon fuch confiderations, as may well juftify the rigour of it. A wilful contempt of order and authority carries virtually in it every other irregularity; because it diffolves the union of the body, and deftroys that refpect, by which all the other ends of religion are to be attained; and when this is deliberate and fixed, there is no other way of proceeding, but by cutting off those who are fo refractory, and who fet fuch an ill example to others. If the execution of this fhould happen to fall under great disorders, fo that many fcandalous perfons are not cenfured, and a promiscuous multitude is suffered to break in upon the moft facred performances, this cannot justify private persons, who upon that do withdraw from the communion of the Church: for after all that has been faid, the divine precept is to every man, to try and examine himself, and not to try and cenfure others. All order and government are destroyed, if private perfons take upon them to judge and cenfure others; or to feparate from any body, because there are abuses in the use of this authority. Private confeffion in the Church of Rome had quite deftroyed the government of the Church, and fuperfeded all the ancient penitentiary canons; and the tyranny of the Church of Rome had fet many ingenious men on many fubtle contrivances, either to evade the force of those canons, to which fome regard was ftill preferved, or to maintain the order of the Church in oppofition to the appeals that were made to Rome: and while fome pretended to fubject all things to the Papal authority, others ftudied to keep up the ancient rules. The encroachments that the temporal and spiritual courts were making upon one another, occafioned many disputes; which being managed by fuch fubtle men as the Civilians and Canonifts were, all this brought in a great variety of cafes and rules into the courts of the Church: fo that, instead of the firft fimplicity, which was evident in the conftitution of the Church, not only for the first three centuries, but for a great many more that came afterwards, there grew to be fo much practice, and fo many fubterfuges in the rules and manner of proceeding of thofe courts, that the Church has long groaned under it, and has wished to fee that effected, which was defigned in the beginnings XXXIII. ginnings of the Reformation. The draught of a reformation ART. of those courts is ftill extant; that so instead of the intricacies, delays, and other disorders that have arifen from the canon law, we might have another short and plain body of rules; which might be managed, as anciently, by Bifhops, with the affiftance of their Clergy. But though this is not yet done, and that, by reafon of it, the tares grow up with the wheat, we ought to let them grow together, till the great harvest comes, or at least, till a proper harvest may be given the Church by the providence of God; in which the good may be distinguished and separated from the bad, without endangering the ruin of all; which muft certainly be the effect of people's falling indifcreetly to this, before the time. ART. XXXIV. ARTICLE XXXIV. Of the Traditions of the Church. It is not necellap that Tzaditions and Ceremonies be T HIS Article confifts of two branches: the first is, that the Church hath power to appoint fuch rites and ceremonies as are not contrary to the word of God; and that private perfons are bound to conform themselves to their orders. The second is, that it is not neceffary that the whole Church fhould meet to determine fuch matters; the power of doing that being in every national Church, which is fully empowered to take care of itself; and no rule made in fuch matters is to be held unalterable, but may be changed upon occafion. As to the first, it hath been already confidered, when the firft words of the twentieth Article were explained. There the authority of the Church in matters indifferent was stated and proved. It remains now only to prove, that private persons are bound to conform themselves to fuch ceremonies, especially when they are also enacted by the civil authority. It is to be confidered, that the Chriftian religion was chiefly defigned to raise and purify the nature of man, and to make human society perfect: now brotherly love and charity does this more than any one virtue whatsoever: it raises a man to the likenefs of God; it gives him a divine heavenly temper within himself, and creates the tenderest union and firmest happiness poffible poffible among all the focieties of men: our Saviour has fo ART. enlarged the obligation to it, as to make it, by the extent he has XXXIV. given it, a great and new commandment, by which all the world may be able to know and distinguish his followers from the rest of mankind: and as all the Apostles infist much upon this in every one of their Epiftles, not excepting the shortest of them; fo St. John, who writ laft of them, has dwelt more fully upon it than upon any other duty whatsoever. Our Saviour did particularly intend that his followers fhould be affociated into one body, and join together in order to their keeping up and inflaming their mutual love; and therefore he delivered. his prayer to them all in the plural, to fhew that he intended. that they fhould use it in a body: he appointed Baptifin as the way of receiving men into this body, and the Eucharift as a joint memorial that the body was to keep up that of his death. For this end he appointed Paftors to teach and keep his followers in a body and in his last and longeft prayer to the Father, he repeats this, that they might be one; that they might be kept in Joh. xvii. one (body) and made perfect in one, in five feveral expreffions; 11. 21, 22, which fhews both how neceffary a part of his religion he meant this fhould be, and likewife intimates to us the danger that he forefaw, of his followers departing from it; which made him intercede so earnestly for it. One expreffion that he has of this union, fhews how entire and tender he intended that it should be; for he prayed that the union might be such as that between the Father and himself was. The Apoftles ufe the figure of a body frequently, to exprefs this union; than which nothing can be imagined that is more firmly knit together, and in which all the parts do more tenderly sympathize with one another. 23. Upon all these confiderations we may very certainly gather, that the diffolving this union, the diflocating this body, and the doing any thing that may extinguish the love and charity by which Chriftians are to be made fo happy in themselves, and fo useful to one another, and by which the body of Chriftians grows much the firmer and stronger, and fhines more in the world; that, I fay, the doing this upon flight grounds, must be a fin of a very high nature. Nothing can be a just reason either to carry men to it, or to justify them in it, but the impofing on them unlawful terms of communion; for in that case it is certain, that we must obey God rather than man; that we AAs xxiv. muft feek truth and peace together; and that the rule of keep- 16. ing a good confcience in all things, is laid thus, to do it first. towards God, and then towards man. So that a fchifin that is occafioned by any Church's impofing unlawful terms of communion, lies at their door who impofe them, and the guilt is wholly theirs. But without fuch a neceffity, it is certainly, both in its own nature, and in its confequences, one of the greatest Hh 4 of ART. of fins, to create needlefs disturbances in a Church, and to giveXXXIV. occafion to all that alienation of mind, all those rash cenfures, and unjust judgments, that do arife from fuch divifions. This receives a very great aggravation, if the civil authority has concurred by a law to enjoin the obfervance of such indifferent things; for to all their lawful commands we owe an obedience, Rom.xiii. 5. not only for fear, but for confcience fake; fince the authority of the magiftrate is chiefly to be employed in fuch matters. As to things that are either commanded or forbidden of God, the magiftrate has only the execution of these in his hands; fo that in thofe, his laws are only the fanctions and penalties of the laws of God. The fubject matter of his authority is about things which are of their own nature indifferent; but that may be made fit and proper means for the maintaining of order, union, and decency in the fociety: and therefore fuch laws as are made by him in thofe things, do certainly bind the confcience, and oblige the fubjects to obedience. Difobedience does alfo give fcandal to the weak. Scandal is a block or trap laid in the way of another, by which he is made to ftumble and fall. So this figure of giving fcandal, or the laying a ftumblingblock in our brother's way, is applied to our doing of such actions as may prove the occafions of fin to others. Every man, according to the influence that his example or authority may have over others, who do too eafily and implicitly follow him, becomes thereby the more capable of giving them fcandal; that is, of drawing them after him to commit many fins and fince men are under fetters, according to the perfuafions that they have of things, he who thinks a thing finful, does fin if he does it, as long as he is under that apprehenfion; because he deliberately ventures on that which he thinks offends God; even Rom. xiv. while he doubts of it, or makes a diftinction between meats, (for the word rendered doubts, fignifies alfo the making a dif ference) he is damned, (that is, felf-condemned, as acting against his own fenfe of things) if he does it. Another man, that has larger thoughts and clearer ideas, may fee that there is no fin in an action, about which others may be still in doubt, and so upon his own account he may certainly do it but if he has reafon to believe that his doing that may draw others, who have not fuch clear notions, to do it after his example, they being ftill in doubt as to the lawfulness of it, then he gives scandal, that is, he lays a stumbling-block in their way, if he does it, unless he lies under an obligation from fome of the laws of God, or of the fociety to which he belongs, to do it. In that cafe he is bound to obey; and he must not then confider the confequences of his actions; of which he is only bound to take care, when he is left to himfelf, and is at full liberty to do, or not to do, as he pleases. 23. |