to make a separation for such things as these, which neither are nor
can be fundamental, is to become heretics; for I do not think there is
any man arrived to that degree of madness as that he dare give out his
consequences and interpretations of Scripture as divine inspirations
and compare the articles of faith that he has framed according to
his own fancy with the authority of Scripture. I know there are some
propositions so evidently agreeable to Scripture that nobody can
deny them to be drawn from thence, but about those, therefore, there
can be no difference. This only I say- that however clearly we may
think this or the other doctrine to be deduced from Scripture, we
ought not therefore to impose it upon others as a necessary article of
faith because we believe it to be agreeable to the rule of faith,
unless we would be content also that other doctrines should be imposed
upon us in the same manner, and that we should be compelled to receive
and profess all the different and contradictory opinions of Lutherans,
Calvinists, Remonstrants, Anabaptists, and other sects which the
contrivers of symbols, systems, and confessions are accustomed to
deliver to their followers as genuine and necessary deductions from
the Holy Scripture. I cannot but wonder at the extravagant arrogance
of those men who think that they themselves can explain things
necessary to salvation more clearly than the Holy Ghost, the eternal
and infinite wisdom of God.

  Thus much concerning heresy, which word in common use is applied
only to the doctrinal part of religion. Let us now consider schism,
which is a crime near akin to it; for both these words seem unto me to
signify an ill-grounded separation in ecclesiastical communion made
about things not necessary. But since use, which is the supreme law in
matter of language, has determined that heresy relates to errors in
faith, and schism to those in worship or discipline, we must
consider them under that distinction.

  Schism, then, for the same reasons that have already been alleged,
is nothing else but a separation made in the communion of the Church
upon account of something in divine worship or ecclesiastical
discipline that is not any necessary part of it. Now, nothing in
worship or discipline can be necessary to Christian communion but what
Christ our legislator, or the Apostles by inspiration of the Holy
Spirit, have commanded in express words.

  In a word, he that denies not anything that the Holy Scriptures
teach in express words, nor makes a separation upon occasion of
anything that is not manifestly contained in the sacred text-
however he may be nicknamed by any sect of Christians and declared
by some or all of them to be utterly void of true Christianity- yet in
deed and in truth this man cannot be either a heretic or schismatic.

  These things might have been explained more largely and more
advantageously, but it is enough to have hinted at them thus briefly
to a person of your parts.

                        THE END
.