THE REV. R. BINGHAM, JUN., M.A. FORMERLY OF MAGDALEN HALL, Oxford, AND FOR MANY YEARS CURATE OF TRINITY CHURCH, GOSPORT. A NEW EDITION IN TEN VOLUMES. VOL. X. OXFORD: AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. M. DCCC. LV. TO THE MOST REVEREND FATHER IN GOD, THOMAS, BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE, LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, PRIMATE OF ALL ENGLAND, AND METROPOLITAN, AND ONE OF HER MAJESTY'S MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL, &c. MAY IT PLEASE your Grace, IN regard to the eminency of your office and station in the Church, which entitles you more than ordinarily to be a defender of the present constitution, and a patronizer of all honest endeavours that are used to support it, I do with great submission present to your Grace this following Discourse; which contains a modest vindication of the doctrine, worship, government, and discipline of our Church, from the chief objections of Dissenters, and returns answer to them upon the principles of the Reformed Church of France. The argument, I confess, is something singular: there being few that have trod in the same path before, and none, that I know of, who have set themselves purposely to examine the French Synods with any design to justify the Church of England thereby. But I hope the rareness of the argument will be so far from being a prejudice against it, that it will excite the curiosity of those for whose benefit it is intended, to make a new search into these matters: and when they find so exact an harmony and agreement betwixt the French and English Church upon the chief points controverted, that may perhaps induce them to lay aside their prejudices and mistakes, and [Dr. Thomas Tenison, from 1694 to 1715. ED.] a return to their ancient communion again, from which, if the French Church may be allowed to be judge, they have unreasonably departed. The business of lay-communion I have not very much insisted on, because that dispute seems to be almost at an end : it being confessed by Dissenters themselves, as well in their writings as practice upon some occasions, that lay-communion with the Church of England is not unlawful. But that which is now chiefly pretended to keep up the present unhappy separation is the difficulty of clerical communion; that is, the hard terms and conditions which are required of those that are to enter into the ministry. I have therefore more industriously all along in this Discourse set myself to examine these; and, by stating things exactly, made it appear that the terms of clerical communion are not more difficult in the English Church than they are in the Reformed Church of France and that if Dissenters will allow themselves to be determined and concluded either by the opinion and judgment, or the synodical rules and discipline of the French Church, they ought to submit to the settled rules and orders of the English Church, and put an end to the present separation. The mischiefs of division are so apparently great and dangerous at this juncture, that they will authorize any man to offer an argument in a rational and peaceable way, which may tend to put a stop to them. I have done what I could towards this in the present Discourse: and therefore, as I cannot doubt of your Grace's favourable acceptance and approbation of it, so I will presume to hope it may do some service to the Church and Dissenters together, in promoting the great ends of unity and peace, which is the only thing aimed at therein by him who is, 1706. With all due observance, Your Grace's most obedient servant, JOSEPH BINGHAM. 4-3-47 OF THE GENERAL RULES AND EXPEDIENTS FOR PRESERVING THE UNITY AND PEACE OF THE CHURCH; SHOWING THAT THE SAME CHAP. I. Of the use and expediency of ecclesiastical synods, to preserve the unity and peace of the Church; and of the contrary principles of Latitudinarians and Independents, condemned by the French Church, 7-11. CHAP. II. Of the expediency of uniformity, to preserve unity and peace in the Church, and that it is no less required by the Church of France than the Church of England, 11-13. CHAP. III. That subscription and oaths, the third expedient for unity, are rather more required in the French Church than in the Church of CHAP. IV. That subscription in some points is rather more difficult in the Church of France than in the Church of England, 19-27. CHAP. V. That the French Discipline allows not of nonconforming ministers, or separate meetings, 27-32. CHAP. VI. That the French Church condemns and censures occasional communion, as much as the Church of England does; and in one thing exceeds her, viz. in admitting none to civil offices but such as have |