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3. The Catholic Church in after ages was but that pri- ́ mitive Church enlarged, and diffused into many particuJar Churches, as in Antioch, Ephesus, &c. and all the Churches that sprang out of it were still incorporated and united to it, and made up one Church.

4. Those Churches into which it was diffused were not separate and independent Societies, but similar parts and members of the same Society, which held communion with one another, not only in faith and worship, but also in government and discipline, by which they maintained Catholic order, peace, and unity, as strictly as if there had been but one particular Church.

5. By virtue of this Catholic unity whosoever became a member of one particular Church did thereby become a member of all, and whosoever ceased to be a member of one particular Church, ceased to be a member of all.

6. Men cease to be members of particular Churches two ways, viz. by just Excommunication, or unjust Separation, commonly called Schism; and whosoever is cut off from any particular Church by just Excommunication, is thereby cut off from all other Churches, and by consequence from the Catholic Church. To make this plainer. Put the case a man had cut himself off from one of the two particular Churches into which the Catholic Church was at first multiplied, then he had cut himself off from the other; or from one of the three particular churches, then he had cut himself off from the other two. In like manner when a man cuts himself off from any one of an hundred thousand particular Churches into which the Catholic Church is diffused, he cuts off himself from all the rest.

7. This hath always caused a distinction betwixt the Church and Schismatical communities which cut themselves off from the Church: and when we so distinguish them in any place, we do not thereby distinguish the Church of that place from the Church of Christ, as some men falsely say, but from the Schismatical Community or Communities that withdrew from it, and the distinction between any particular Church, or the Catholic Church, of which it is a similar part, and a Schismatical community, is true and natural, and ever was a distinction since there was Schism in any particular part of the Catholic Church.

8. Every Community of Schismatics, how great and powerful soever, acting as a Church under Schismatical

Bishops

Bishops and Presbyters, though at first they were duly ordained and authorized, is but a faction in the Catholic Church: but for a Community of Schismatics to act as a Church under schismatical and titular ministers that were never duly ordained and authorized to their ministry, is à further aggravation of their Schism,

9. There cannot likely be a greater Schism than for the Presbyters of any Church to rise up against their own lawful Bishops, and without just cause to separate from them, and set up opposite Churches and Altars to them; and no tract of time or prescription can make such Churches, or a succession of them, true, lawful, and regular Churches, by reason of their first obliquity and nullity, which makes their continuance a continuing of Schism against the Universal Church.

10. Whoever separates from any Church upon the account of Episcopacy, or forms of Prayer, separates for a reason for which, had he lived in the best and purest ages, he must have separated from the Universal Church.

11. To separate from any lawful Church in which a man may hold communion without sin, under the pretence of greater purity, is to separate for an endless pretence that will destroy all the Churches in the world.

These things ought to be seriously, closely, and impartially considered by you, and I pray God give you grace so to consider them, and all other things that I have written for your sake in this paper, which I hope you will look upon as a testimony of the pastoral care and effection of your most

Faithful friend and servant in Christ Jesus.

REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Extracts from a Work entitled Appello Evangelium, or the true Doctrine of the Divine Predestination, concorded with the Orthodox Doctrine of God's Free Grace, and Man's Free Will. By John Plaifere, B. D. sometime Fellow of Sidney-Sussex College, Cambridge, and late Rector of Debden, in Suffolk. 8vo. pp. 114. and Preface xviii. Rivingtons.

TH

HIS is the fifth number of that seasonable publication the CHURCHMAN'S REMEMRRANCER, H2

and

and glad are we to observe that the editors continue their exertions in defence of the best principles with so much judgment and christian zeal. The whole of Mr. Plaifere's excellent performance was printed in a collection of scarce and valuable, Tracts, at Cambridge, in 1719, with an Appendix on the Salvability of the Heathen, which we inserted in that part of our Miscellany appropriated to Extracts, volume IX. p. 125,

Of this re-publication, and the reason for it, the editors say,

In the present day no less than in the times when this tract was written, it is the practice with too many, who profess extraordinary zeal for the Gospel, to represent all who subscribe to the articles of our Church in any other than a Calvinistic sense, either as guilty of dishonesty, in subscribing to what they do not believe, or as entertaining very defective notions of the Christian scheme. To preach the Peculiarities of Calvin is, by them, too often identified with preaching the Gospel; and true Churchmen are to be ascertained (according to their views of the subject) by this sole criterion of Orthodoxy."

Plaifere's Appello Evangelium is, among other excellent properties which it possesses, well calculated to remove these prepossessions, and to shew, that a man may interpret the Scriptures, and subscribe to the Articles of the Church of England, in an Anti-calvinistic sense, without any perversion of the word of God, or any departure from the principles of our Church. The work is written in a style rather didactic than polemical; the author intending (as appears no less from the tract itself, than from his own declaration in the introductory part of it) impartially to examine and compare the several opinions relating to the great leading questions in the predestinarian controversy; and to form such clear and satisfactory notions concerning them, as should be consonant with the sense and spirit of the Holy Scriptures, with the judgment of the ancient fathers of the church, and with the doctrine of the Church of England, contained in the Book of Common Prayer, the Articles, and the Homilies. With this view he first lays down five several opinions, maintained by Calvinists, Arminians, and others, relative to the doctrine of predestination, as the principal point on which the other controverted questions depend; subjoining to each opinion his obser vations on its particular merits. He then proceeds to a detailed consideration of the several questions branching out of this doctrine: treating, first, of those truths which

were

were antecedent to the creation of man, viz. God's knowlege, will, providence, election, and reprobation; secondly, of those which were subsequent to that event, viz. the fall of man, his restoration, "vocation, and con version, divine grace, free-will, perseverance, and the last judgment. The doctrine of the whole book is then briefly recapitulated; and a distinct chapter is annexed, coutaining an analysis of the seventeenth article of the Church of England, and shewing its conformity to that opinion respecting the main question, which the author, throughout his Treatise, maintains,

From this work the editors have thought fit to select for republication, the twenty-first chapter, which treats of the seventeenth Article of our Church; prefixing the Introduction, and the Sir First Chapters, as explanatory of the several opinions to which the author adverts, and therefore necessary to the full elucidation of the subject. The questions of predestination and election, being those on which all the other points in the controversy depend, whatever affords a solution of these questions will serve to clear the rest. Having, therefore, in a former number, revived Dr. Winchester's valuable Dissertation, designed to shew what were the real sentiments of the compilers of this article, on the subject of the Divine decrees, the editors apprehend, that these extracts from Plaifere's admirable Treatise, containing arguments drawn from the Article itself, to ascertain its time, purport, and signification, will be received as an useful Appendix to that Dissertation. For, as it has been sometimes insisted, that the Compilers of our Articles were known and avowed Calvinists, and therefore that this article must necessarily have been intended to convey Calvinistic doctrine; so has it conversely been argued, that the article itself is manifestly Calvinistic, and therefore it must be inferred, that the compilers of it were of that persuasion. That the antecedent in the former syllogism is unfounded, Dr. Winchester's Dissertation affords irrefragable proofs:that the antecedent in the latter is equally untenable, we trust the present publication will abundantly evince.

Little is known of the author of this tract, but in addition to what the Cambridge editors gave in their pre-. face; we have here a few particulars, by which we learn that Mr. Plaifere was admitted Fellow of Sidney-Sussex College in the year 1600; that he was in that same year ordained both Deacon and Priest, by John, the suffragan

Bishop

Bishop of Colchester; and that he was presented in the year 1605 to the rectory of Debden, in Suffolk, in which he continued above twenty-five years.

The following memorandum is drawn up from the archives of Sidney College :

"The name of JOHN PLAYFER does not appear to be entered in the register of admissions, but it is to be found in the list of Fellows in the master's possession, in which he is said to be---ex F. S. R. de Depden Com. Suff :---i. e. Fellow on the Foundation of Mr. Smith, and rector of Depden; to which description there is the following addition in a different hand, Autor Libri docti et acuti cui nomen Appello Evangelium.

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"Mr. Leonard Smith, the founder of the Fellowship, directed by his will, that William Durant, M. A. and then of the College, be first admitted to it, and after him JOHN PLAIFORD, if he shall be found fit. In the audit book, J. P. appears to have received a stipend as Fellow, for the first time in the year 1602; which shews that he must then have been a Master of Arts, no Fellow of Sidney being allowed any emolument till he has completed that degree. It shews also, that he must originally have been a member of some other college, no admissions into Sidney having taken place before 1598."

The subsequent extracts are taken from the Register of Depden church.

"JOHANNES PLAYFERT, clericus, sepultus fuit vicesima quinto Aprilis, 1632."

"Margaretta, uxor Thomæ Silvester, et prius relicta reverendissimi viri JOHANNES PLAFERT, quondam Rectoris Ecclesiæ Pastoralis de Depden, placidè obdormuit in Domino, decimo octavo die Novembris, anno ætatis suæ septuagesimo sexto, sepulta vicesimo die mensis ejusdem, 1666."

In forming the present publication, regard has been had to the original edition of 1653; occasionally, however, are inserted the translations given in the Cambridge edition of the Greek and Latin quotations; and the quotations themselves are transferred from the text to the foot of the page.

The following character of the work, as given by the editors at the close of their preface, is so just and so completely expresses the sentiments which we have always had of Plaifere's performance, that with it we shall close our report.

"The sound learning and laborious investigation which the tract exhibits, as well as the great candour and dispassionate

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