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 ...…

VI. I much more dread to separate from almost all Christ's Church on Earth. For if Christ have no Church, he is no Head, King, or Saviour of it. And to say, that he accepteth not of their Worship, is to say, that he presenteth it not to God, as their intercessor. The Article of our Believing the Holy Catholic Church, and the Communion of Saints, is a practical Article. If there be no such Body, I can be no Member of it. And this seemeth a renouncing of my part in the Prayers of almost all the Church, when I take them to be intolerably sinful, and not accepted by God: Whereas I take it to be my great Duty, to put up no one Prayer to God, but in mental Communion with all the Church on Earth: that is, As a Member of that Society. And I would not take all the Riches of the World for my part in the Love, Prayers and Communion of the universal Church. If I cut off my self from the Body, I cut off my self from the Head, and am a withered Branch: to be united and baptized into Christ, and to the Church, are two effects of one action; and so would it be to separate.

VI. I much more dread to separate from almost all Christ's Church on Earth. For if Christ have no Church, he is no Head, King, or Saviour of it. And to say, that he accepteth not of their Worship, is to say, that he presenteth it not to God, as their intercessor. The Article of our Believing the Holy Catholick Church, and the Communion of Saints, is a practical Article. If there be no such Body, I can be no Member of it. And this seemeth a renouncing of my part in the Prayers of almost all the Church, when I take them to be intollerably sinful, and not accepted by God: Whereas I take it to be my great Duty, to put up no one Prayer to God, but in mental Communion with all the Church on Earth: that is, As a Member of that Society. And I would not take all the Riches of the World for my part in the Love, Prayers and Communion of the universal Church. If I cut off my self from the Body, I cut off my self from the Head, and am a withered Branch: to be united and baptized into Christ, and to the Church, are two effects of one action; and so would it be to separate.

And I take it for such a Crime against Christ to say, that almost all his Church is not His, but Satan's; as it would be against the King to say, that almost all his Kingdoms are none of his but his Enemies. I may say, that the Irish, the Highlanders, or Orcades, are the most ignorant barbarous part of his Dominions; but not that they are none. And a slander of almost all the Christian World, is a very great one.