The English nonconformity as under King Charles II and King James II truly stated…

Chap. XXVIII. Point XXV. Of Publishing the Excommunications of Canon 9th, 10th, 11th. Of such as call Dissenters a Church.

M. These Canons made against Schismatics and Conventicles do Excommunicate all that say such are true Churches that have groaned under the burden of grievances, &c. And is this a just cause of Excommunication? I wish they had no such burden laid on them to make them groan. But suppose them quite mistaken; if a weak mistaken Christian may be a true Christian, tho' faulty, why may not a mistaken Congregation be a true Church tho' faulty? I hope no man of Protestant Faith and Charity will take the Errors of such as they describe for worse than the Papists; and yet how many have written (tho' confusedly) to prove the very Church of Rome a true Church, tho' sinful. Yea I hope few Protestants will say that our Separatists have half so great Ignorance, Error and Corruption, as the Muscovites, Greeks, Abassines, Copts, Jacobites, Nestorians, Armenians, who yet are commonly by us confessed to be true Churches. If they be no true Churches, it is either because of the greatness of their Errors, or because they go against the Law or Will of Governors; not the first, as the foresaid instances show not the latter; for no man ever yet owned that Principle, that it can be no true (tho' faulty) Church, that is gathered against the Rulers wills. For many hundred years the Orthodox did it justly; and afterward when some did it unjustly, the culpability made it not a nullity. Else what a case was the Roman Church in, that for many hundred years was kept up by Rebellion against their Lawful Emperors and Princes? And how oft have a great part of the Greek Churches been guilty of it? ⟨p. 117⟩And do not the Condemners hereby imitate the Separatists in the sin, and reviling as they are reviled. The Separatists falsely say that you are no true Churches, and you requite them with saying falsely the same by them.