A78005:52
A vindication of Mr Burroughs, against Mr Edwards his foul aspersions, in his spreading…A vindication of Mr Burroughes, against Mr Edwards his foule aspersions, in his spreading…
A vindication of Mr Burroughs, against Mr Edwards his foul aspersions, in his spreading Gangræna, and his angry Antiapologia. Concluding with a brief declaration what the Independents would have. / By Jer: Burroughs.A vindication of Mr Burroughes, against Mr Edwards his foule aspersions, in his spreading Gangræna, and his angry Antiapologia. Concluding with a briefe declaration what the Independents would have. / By Jer: Burroughes.
London: printed for H. Overton, 1646
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.
He and others make a great out-cry against Schism, they think and say that men leaving a true Church, cannot be freed from the charge of Schism.
He and others make a great out-cry against Schisme, they think and say that men leaving a true Church, cannot be freed from the charge of Schisme.
To that I would only say thus much, Suppose the Non-conformists, or those of the Scottish Nation, who lived in the City in former times, who could not acknowledge the Bishops authority, nor communicate in the Sacraments in the parishes where they lived without sin to them, still acknowledging them to be true Churches, yet if the Parliament had made an Act whereby they should have had two or three places in the City appointed for them, wherein all that could not conform to the Discipline then established, should have had liberty to have had the Sacraments and other Church-Ordinances together in those places by themselves, freed from the burden of Ceremonies, and subjection to Episcopal Authority, would they not have blessed God for this liberty, had they been Schismatics, in the enjoyment of this liberty? Certainly the allowance of the State will not alter the case; if it be Schism to do thus without allowance of the State, and venturing upon suffering, it is Schism when the State does allow it, when they are freed from suffering, Schism is a Church sin. What ever offence against Order of State men may be charged with, who gather thus without allowance of the State, yet they are not therefore Schismatics, because they do that without the allowance of the State, which if the State did allow of, would not be Schism: where the Lutherans & Calvinists have liberty to live in one Country together, and yet not communicating one with another; are all the Lutherans, or ⟨p. 15⟩all the Calvinists, Schismatics? Suppose the Greek Churches had liberty to live among us, would they be all Schismatics to us, or should we be so to them? Many of the French and Dutch Churches who live in our parishes, though they understand our language well enough, yet would not communicate in the parishes where they live, because of the Ceremonies and subjection to Bishops, were they all Schismatics too? Do not men ordinarily in London and elsewhere for the outward advantage of trade or otherwise, leave one Church and go to another? and may not a man for any advantage of enjoyment of Ordinances that he cannot have in the Church he formerly lived in, not in that purity, but that it will be sin in him to continue in it, remove to another Church? and what if his dwelling be not removed to the other side of the street, does that make it Schism?