Short Reasons for Communion with the Church of England / Or, The Churchman's answer to the question, "Why are you a Member of the Established Church?"

by Thomas Tregenna Biddulph

REASON VIII.

I maintain communion with the Church of England, because a separation from her, without a sufficient reason, would, in my opinion, be a great sin.

“There is, undeniably, such a sin as schism, against which we are precautioned in the New Testament, as being one proof of carnality in a religious professor, (1 Cor. iii. 3.) and as being diametrically opposite to the duty of ‘endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace’.”

“By schism we are to understand a causeless secession from our Church, into the communion of which we have been solemnly admitted by baptism. And that such a secession would be causeless on our part, is evident from this simple consideration, that our Church neither proposes to our faith any doctrine which is not evidently contained in the Scripture; nor obtrudes on us any practice which the Scriptures forbids, nor restrains us from the observation of any rule which the Scripture enjoins.” [14]

It is not, in my humble opinion, a sufficient reason for a separation from the general Church to which I belong, that the gospel is not preached from the pulpit of the particular place in which I live. To admit for argument sake, the worst case that can occur, viz. that a Socinian clergyman had, through his own hypocrisy in subscription, got possession of the pulpit of my parish; my removal from that parish to another, if I could find no other way of remedying the calamity, would be a less evil than the act of separation, and the encouragement of a spirit of division in the Church of Christ. The word of God prohibits my making such a division; but it no where forbids me to make any sacrifice of temporal emolument or accommodation for the benefit of my own soul, or the souls of my family.