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 ...…

XII. If men will turn a voluntary consultation for concord, into the Nature of a Law, tho they call it but Communion, the Church should not own their Usurpation: As the Princes of Europe are bound to do the best they can to promote by their concord the interest of Christ, and may well hold Diets or Meetings for that end; yet no man calls that Diet a Kingdom, nor hath the Major Vote a power to bind the Minor to consent, when the reason of the thing doth not bind them. So is it in the concord of foreign Churches: All are bound to agree in what Christ commandeth: But in circumstantial determinations, no man is bound further than the End and Reason of the thing requireth: Communion here is not Subjection.

XII. If men will turn a voluntary consultation for concord, into the Nature of a Law, tho they call it but Communion, the Church should not own their Usurpation: As the Princes of Europe are bound to do the best they can to promote by their concord the interest of Christ, and may well hold Diets or Meetings for that end; yet no man calls that Diet a Kingdom, nor hath the Major Vote a power to bind the Minor to consent, when the reason of the thing doth not bind them. So is it in the concord of forreign Churches: All are bound to agree in what Christ commandeth: But in circumstantial determinations, no man is bound further than the End and Reason of the thing requireth: Communion here is not Subjection.

XIII. There is an Excommunication which is a governing act: This no Church or Bishop can use over others: And there is a mere renunciation of Communion which equals may use.

XIII. There is an Excommunication which is a governing act: This no Church or Bishop can use over others: And there is a meer renunciation of Communion which equals may use.