James Durham often seems to defend union and unity in a denomination (in his day a state church) to extremes; no doubt it seems like that because we are far more used to schisms and rents when in his time he lived during the first great, and perhaps the nastiest church fight in the history of Presbyterianism. But he does not argue unity when there is division over matters of the form of church government, which involves all the parts of it, offices, vows, doctrinal standards and how we hold them, loosely or faithfully, honestly or with winks and nudges and hiding of the truth or true intentions (aka lying).
“debates about the nature and form of government, may be considered doctrinally, and so it is a difference of judgment. Some think one form of government lawful, and others not that, but another. If this difference is fairly carried [on], it need make no division in the church, as was in the foregoing part hinted.
It may be considered practically, that is, when men not only think so differently in their judgment, but accordingly they act, driving opposite designs, as if they were two parties seeking to get one church subdued to them, and neither of them acknowledges the other. This cannot be without division, for the ground of all union and communion in the visible church in all the ordinances of Christ is the unity of the visible church, as even in old times Augustine pressed. So ecclesiastic union must be made up and entertained in a church by a unity in the government thereof. For though there may be a forbearance and a kind of peace where the unity of the visible church is denied, or where there are divided governments that are not subaltern; yet there can be no church union, nor communion in ordinances, of Word, Sacraments and Government, which results from the former, and necessarily presupposes the same. We dare not, nor cannot offer any directions for making up an union here, save that men would unite in one form of government as is allowed by Christ; otherways it can be no union, because so it were not a duty, as union is.” James Durham, Concerning Scandal (1659; Naphtali Press, 1990), 309–310.
It may be considered practically, that is, when men not only think so differently in their judgment, but accordingly they act, driving opposite designs, as if they were two parties seeking to get one church subdued to them, and neither of them acknowledges the other. This cannot be without division, for the ground of all union and communion in the visible church in all the ordinances of Christ is the unity of the visible church, as even in old times Augustine pressed. So ecclesiastic union must be made up and entertained in a church by a unity in the government thereof. For though there may be a forbearance and a kind of peace where the unity of the visible church is denied, or where there are divided governments that are not subaltern; yet there can be no church union, nor communion in ordinances, of Word, Sacraments and Government, which results from the former, and necessarily presupposes the same. We dare not, nor cannot offer any directions for making up an union here, save that men would unite in one form of government as is allowed by Christ; otherways it can be no union, because so it were not a duty, as union is.” James Durham, Concerning Scandal (1659; Naphtali Press, 1990), 309–310.
