An answer to Dr. Stillingfleet's Mischief of separation being a letter written out of…An ansvver to Dr. Stillingfleet's Mischief of separation being a letter written out of…

Yea, and it may be moreover added, That our course being accounted lawful, must also (as the Doctor speaks in another case) be thought a duty: For the things that are as means necessary to our salvation, are also necessary by Divine Precept. We are commanded to hear Gods Word, to devote our selves and our Children to God in Baptism; and, at the Lords own Table, to remember him, and show forth his death till he come. And if we compare together ⟨p. 18⟩certain Positions of this Reverend Author, we cannot see but he must, as our case is, acknowledge our obligation to the practice which he here seems to blame. For in his Iren. p. 109. He asserts, That every Christian is under an obligation to join in Church-society with others; because it is his duty to profess himself a Christian, and to own his Religion publicly, and to partake of the Ordinances and Sacraments of the Gospel, which cannot be without society with some Church or other. And he after adds (on the same page) It had been a case disputed by some (particularly by Grotius the supposed Author of a little Tract, An semper sit communicandum per symbola? When he designed the Syncretism with the Church of Rome) whether in a time when Churches are divided, it be a Christians duty to communicate with any of those Parties which divide the Church, and not rather to suspend communion from all of them. A case not hard to be decided; for either the person questioning it doth suppose the Churches divided to remain true Churches, but some to be more pure than other; in which case, by virtue of his general obligation to Communion, he is bound jo adhere to that Church which appears most to retain its Evangelical purity. To which purpose he further tells us, page 110. He knows not whether Chrysostom's act were to be commended, who after being made a Deacon in the Church of Antioch by Meletius, upon his death; because Flavianus came in irregularly as Bishop of the Church, would neither communicate with him, nor with Paulinus another Bishop at that time in the City; nor with the Meletians but for three years time withdrew himself from communion with any of them. And p. 113.

Yea, and it may be moreover added, That our course being accounted lawful, must also (as the Doctor speaks in another case) be thought a duty: For the things that are as means necessary to our salvation, are also necessary by Divine Precept. We are commanded to hear Gods Word, to devote our selves and our Children to God in Baptism; and, at the Lords own Table, to remember him, and shew forth his death till he come. And if we compare together