tribes of Israel were divided, the prophet Ahijah rent his garment. But because Christ's people cannot be rent, his coat being woven and conjoined throughout, was not divided by its owners. United, conjoined, co-entwined, it shows the inseparable concord of us, the people who put on Christ: so that in this holy instance of His garment, he manifests the unity of the Church."

(To be continued.)

OXFORD,

The Feast of St. Andrew.

These Tracts are published Monthly, and sold at the price of 2d. for each sheet, or 7s. for 50 copies.

LONDON: PRINTED FOR J. G. & F. RIVINGTON,

ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, AND WATERLOO PLACE.

1834.

GILBERT & RIVINGTON, Printers, St. John's Square, London.

TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.

RECORDS OF THE CHURCH.

No. XX.

THE HOLY CHURCH THROUGHOUT ALL THE WORLD DOTH ACKNOWLEDGE THEE.

St. Cyprian on the Unity of the Church, (continued.)

6.

The one Church Catholic, and one only, in every place.

WHO then is the criminal and the traitor, who so mad and reckless a schismatic, as either to credit the practicability, or venture on the attempt of putting asunder what God has made one; this garment of the Lord, the Church of Christ? He teaches, He warns us, in His Gospel, "There shall be one fold, and one shepherd." And does any suppose that there can be, in one place, either many shepherds or many folds? So too the Apostle, suggesting this same unity, implores and exhorts us; "I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms among you; but that ye be joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment." And again he says, "bearing one another's burthens in love, doing all to preserve the unity of the Spirit, in the bond of peace." Think you that any can stand and live, who retires from the Church, and forms for himself other habitations and a different home? whereas, it was said to Rahab, in whom was prefigured the Church, "Thy father, and thy mother, and thy brethren, and all the house of thy father, thou shalt gather unto thee into thine house, and it shall come to pass, whosoever shall go abroad beyond the door of thine house, his blood shall be on his own head." So the Paschal sacrifice contains this simple mandate in the law of Exodus, that the lamb which is slain, as prefigurative of Christ, must be eat in one house.

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"In one

house shall ye eat it, saith the Lord: ye shall not send its flesh abroad from the house." The flesh of Christ, the Lord's Sacrament, cannot be sent out of doors and believers have no other home, but the Church only. This home, this hostelry of love, the Holy Spirit designates and expresses in the Psalms, saying, "God who maketh men to dwell with one mind in an house." In the house of God, in the Church of Christ, men live together with one mind, in concord and simplicity continuing.

Therefore, likewise the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove a simple and joyous animal, not mischievous in its nature nor dangerous from the use either of its beak or talons; recognising in its affections one single home; each pair nurturing together their common offspring; consorting in their flight when they wander abroad, passing their lives in mutual intercourse; indicating by the gesture of their bills the peacefulness of their union, and every way fulfilling the law of love. The same singleness of mind ought to be seen in the Church, and the same intercourse of affection be maintained; our love of the brotherhood ought to have its pattern in the doves; our mildness and gentleness to be copied from lambs and sheep. Has the spirit of a Christian aught to do with the fierceness of the wolf, or the rage of the dog, the deadly poison of serpents, and the untamed ferocity of wild beasts? We should rejoice that such foes are shut out from the Church, lest they waste the doves and the sheep of Christ, by their cruel and poisonous contagion. There can be no amalgamation, no co-union of bitter with sweet, of darkness with light, of fair weather with foul, of war with peace, of plenty with dearth, of drought with fountains, of calm with storm.

7.

Schism an evidence of presumption and perverseness.

Let it not be thought, that those are good men who withdraw from the Church. The wind never carries away the wheat, nor do storms overthrow the tree which has a solid root to rest on. It is the empty straw that the tempest tosses, it is the sapless

tree that the blast of wind overthrows. It is men like these, that the Apostle John points out with a reproach, "they went forth from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, surely they would have remained with us." Hence, often have heresies arisen, and hence do rise, while the perverse spirit puts a period to peace, and perfidy and discord exclude unity. But the Lord permits and suffers these things to be done, maintaining the continuance of individual free-will, that while the heart and spirit are weighed in the balance of truth, the perfect faith of them that are approved may be distinguished and ascertained. The Holy Spirit forewarns us by the Apostle, and says, "it is needful also, that heresies should be, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you." Thus are the faithful approved, and thus the faithless detected: so that even before the day of judgment the souls of the righteous are separated from the unrighteous, the wheat distinguished from the chaff.

These are they who take upon them, God not willing, to preside over their rash companions, establish themselves in authority without any lawful ordination, and assume the name of Bishop, when no man gives them a Bishoprick. These the Holy Spirit marks out in the Psalms, as sitting in the seat of the noxious: a plague and infection of the faith, deceiving with the serpent's mouth, wise to corrupt truth, breathing out poison unto death with pestilential tongues; whose words eat like a canker; whose writings pour a deadly poison into every breast and heart. Against these the Lord cries out, and reins back and recalls his wandering people, saying, "Hearken not unto the words of the prophets which prophesy falsely, for the vision of their heart maketh them vain. They speak, but not from the mouth of the Lord; they say to those who cast away the word of God, there shall be peace unto you; and to all that walk in their own pleasures, every one who walketh in the error of his own heart, evil shall not come upon him. I have not spoken unto them, and they have of their own selves prophesied; if they had stood in me, and had heard any words, and had taught my people, I would have converted them from their evil thoughts." These same persons the Lord again designates and denotes, saying, 'They have deserted me, the fountain of living water, and have

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made for themselves broken cisterns, which cannot hold water." There can be but one true Baptism; and yet they think they can baptize. They desert the fountain of life, yet hold out the gift of a living and health-giving water. Men are not cleansed by them, but rather are made filthy: their sins are not wiped away, but verily are heaped up. They are born, not the sons of God, but sons of Satan : they are gendered of perfidy, they have lost the gift of faith, they cannot arrive unto the reward of peace, for they have destroyed the peace of the Lord by discord and fury.

8.

Conventicles have no claim to Christ's promised favours.

Let no man deceive himself by a mistaken interpretation of the Lord's words, "wheresoever two or three are gathered together in my name, I am with them." Those who corrupt and falsely interpret the Scriptures, state the latter part of the passage, and omit the former: they attend to one part, and the other they artfully suppress. As themselves are separated from the Church, so do they sunder the purport of a passage which should be undivided. For the Lord, in urging his disciples to maintain unanimity and peace, saith, "I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth, touching anything which ye shall ask, it shall be given you by my Father which is in heaven. For wheresoever two or three shall be gathered together in my name, I am with them." Showing that a value is put, not on the number of those who pray, but on their unanimity; "If" He saith, "two of you on earth shall agree together." Unanimity is put first: a peaceful agreement is the previous premise; He faithfully and firmly teaches, that we must agree together. Yet how can any individual be said to agree with another, when he does not agree with the great body and general brotherhood of the Church? How can two or three be gathered together in Christ's name, when they are beyond question separated from Christ, and from His Gospel? We do not leave them, but they leave us; and inasmuch as heresies and