Catholic communion defended against both extremes, and unnecessary division confuted in five parts ...…Catholick communion defended against both extreams, and unnecessary division confuted in five parts ...…

XLV. 9. If true and sound Christians mistakingly think one or many things to be heinous sins, (as Perjury, Lying, Renouncing Obedience to God, and Repentance, &c.) which are things indifferent, but of so great difficulty that most Learned and Godly and Willing Men cannot discern the Lawfulness and agree, and yet are not necessary nor just conditions of Ministry or Communion, and so it is the Imposer that entangleth them by difficulty in their dissent, it is not lawful for these men therefore to forbear all Church Worship, but must use it as they can.

XLVI. 10. If any Church unjustly excommunicate such men; or others, they must not forbear all Church order and worship because men so excommunicate them. No man must Sin to escape Excommunication; and every man in the World is a sinner; And therefore all the World must be excommunicated, if all Sinners must be so. As I before said, the times oft were when almost all the Bishops in the Empire were excommunicated by one another: ⟨p. 31⟩Councils and Popes have oft excommunicated some for trifles and some for Truth end Duty. And such must not therefore renounce all Church Worship and Communion.

The Church of England do by their standing Law ipso facto excommunicate all (as aforesaid) that affirm any thing to be repugnant to Gods Word or sinful, in their whole Church Government, Articles, Liturgy and Ceremonies, and so to stand till they Publicly revoke this as a wicked Error. Now many Lords and Commoners in Parliaments, have spoken against some of these particulars; and some out of Parliament: Many Ministers have done the like when the King Commissioned them to treat for Alterations; And many when the Accusations or demands of others have called them to give a Reason of their Actions. Some have maintained that it is repugnant to Gods word that Lay Civilians should have the decretive Power of the Keys, and that the Parish Minister must cast out of Communion all that the Lay Doctors or Chancellors excommunicate, and all that dare not receive kneeling, and that they should deny Christendom to all that scruple the English sort of God-Fathers Covenants, and the transient Symbolical Image of the Cross, with abundance such things: Now all these are ipso sacto excommunicate. And though they be not bound to avoid the Church till this be applicatorily declared, yet actually excommunicate they are, and that by a higher authority thn the Bishops; and they know the Churches decree; and the Priests are sworn to Canonical Obedience; And he that will not tempt them to be forsworn, nor come into a Church that hath excommunicated him, seems therein excusable: But must he therefore renounce the Church of God?