Certain queries tending to accommodation and communion of Presbyterian & Congregational churches by Mr…Certain queries tending to accommodation and communion of Presbyterian & Congregationall churches by Mr…

Indeed 'tis true, that it hath been accounted by the Prelates and the Prelatical party, a very disorderly and unlawful thing, and that which did expose to the greatest of their spiritual censures, for people ordinarily to go to the Assemblies of Christians out of their own Parish. But their Account doth not make or prove it to be so: neither doth it seem really and in truth to be so: For,

Indeed 'tis true, that it hath been accounted by the Prelates and the Prelaticall party, a very disorderly and unlawfull thing, and that which did expose to the greatest of their spirituall censures, for people ordinarily to goe to the Assemblies of Christians out of their owne Parish. But their Account doth not make or prove it to be so: neither doth it seem really and in truth to be so: For,

1 The Constitution of Parochial or ⟨p. 17⟩Parish Churches, is not of Divine, but of humane Institution, and that too in the very darkest times of Popery and Superstition, viz. about 700 years ago, as learned Mr. Selden (in his Book of Tithes, ch. 9.) seems to intimate. So that although it may seem a disorder, (in regard of that limitation of Parishes) for the Parishioners of one place to join themselves unto the Church Assemblies in another; yet not in regard of any thing appearing to the contrary from the Scripture, which is the rule for Christians to walk by, especially in matters belonging to Church-Administration, and Government. Neither will it (I suppose) be affirmed by any intelligent Christian (who understanding in any measure the true Nature of a particular Church) that Parish-bounds are the constituting cause of a particular Church or Congregation; for it cannot be maintained that every individual person living in such a Parish bounds, is therefore a Member of that Church there, except it can be proved, that professed Turks, or Jews, or Indians (who through providence may be brought into the ⟨p. 18⟩Land, and so necessarily reside in some Parish or other, there being hardly any parcel of ground free in any part of England, from belonging to the bounds of some Parish or Town) are as real and true Members of the Church there, as any Christian man or woman in the Parish. I conceive it neither any solecism or Paradox to affirm, that there may be a Parish where there is no true Church of Christ, and a true Christian Church where there is no Parish.