A30241:2821
CXLV expository sermons upon the whole 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St.…
CXLV expository sermons upon the whole 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St. John, or, Christs prayer before his passion explicated, and both practically and polemically improved by Anthony Burgess ...
London: printed by Abraham Miller for Thomas Underhill, 1656
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
1. That if such be the corruption of the Church, that thou canst not keep fellowship with her but by partaking of her sins, Then before thou leavest that place take the way the Scripture commands, Be sure that it be not for some less corruption, but that which doth eat up the very vitals of Religion; Do not thou leave it till God leaveth it; Do not thou unchurch it till God doth.
1. That if such be the corruption of the Church, that thou canst not keep fellowship with her but by partaking of her sins, Then before thou leavest that place take the way the Scripture commands, Be sure that it be not for some lesse corruption, but that which doth eat up the very vitals of Religion; Do not thou leave it till God leaveth it; Do not thou unchurch it till God doth.
2. Let thy endeavours be in thy place to inform and heal before thou dost depart; Plead and strive with thy mother, as Hos. 2. because she hath committed whoredoms: And then Lastly, Let thy secession be unwillingly; Thou art compelled to make this departure because the Enemies of all godliness will not suffer thee or endure thee under their power; These things observed, then thou art not guilty of any schism or breach, but those that gave the occasion to it; When those of the people of Israel would not join with Jeroboam in his Idolatry, but separated themselves, and went to Jerusalem, where the pure worship was; They did not make a schism, but Jeroboam 2 Chro. 11.13, 14, 15. Thus it is with the reformed Churches; The Papist calls the Protestant a thousand times over a Schismatic because he withdraweth himself from Obedience to the Pope as Head of the Church, but we say, ours was not a schism but a secession; They were Schismatics in falling from the primitive order and institutions in the Church, insomuch that the Pope is the grandest Schismatic that ever was in the Church, and further we departed not from Rome because of petty corruptions, no, she was a Babylon ere we left her, and then we left her unwillingly: They drave us out persecuting with fire and fagot, so that we may say as Musculus, there is a good Schism and a bad Schism, a good schism is when we divide malè unita things evilly joined, a bad when benè unita things well united.