structure verie different kindes of materialls may be laid upon the same foundation some sound and some unsound so in either of them there is a great difference to be made betwixt such as are more contiguous to the foundation and such as be remoter off The fuller explication of the first principles of faith and the conclusions deduced from thence are in the ranke of those verities that be more neerely conjoyned to the foundation to which those falsities are answerable on the other side that grate upon the foundation and any way endanger it For that there be diverse degrees both of truthes and errors in Religion which necessarily must be distinguished is a thing acknowledged not by us alone but by the learnedest also of our Adversaries There be some Catholick verities say they which doe so pertaine to faith that these being taken away the faith it selfe must be taken away also And these by common use wee call not onely Catholick but verities of Faith also There are other verities which bee Catholick also and universall namely such as the whole Church holdeth which yet being overthrowne the faith is shaken indeed but not overturned And in the errors that are contrary to such truthes as these the faith is obscured not extinguished weakened not perished Neverthelesse though the faith bee not altogether destroyed by them yet is it evill at ease and shaken and as it were disposed to corruption For as there be certaine hurts of the bodie which doe not take away the life but yet a man is the worse for them and disposed to corruption eyther in whole or in part as there be other mortall hurts which take away the life so likewise are there certaine degrees of propositions which containe unsound doctrine although they have not manifest heresie In a word the generall rule concerning all these superstructions is that the more neere they are to the foundation of so much greater importance be the truthes and so much more perillous be the errors as againe the farther they are removed off the lesse necessary doth the knowledge of such verities prove to be and the swarving from the truth lesse dangerous Now from all that hath beene said two great Questions may be resolved which trouble manie The first is What wee may judge of our Fore-fathers who lived in the communion of the Church of Rome Whereunto I answere that wee have no reason to thinke otherwise but that they lived and dyed under the mercie of God For wee must distinguish the Papacie from the Church wherein it is as the Apostle doth Antichrist from the Temple of God wherein hee sitteth The foundation upon which the Church standeth is that common faith as we have heard in the unitie whereof all Christians doe generally accord Vpon this old foundation Antichrist raiseth up his new buildings and layeth upon it not hay and stubble onely but farre more vile and pernicious matter which wrencheth and disturbeth the very foundation it selfe For example It is a ground of the Catholick faith that Christ was borne of the Virgin Mary which in the Scripture is thus explained God sent forth his Sonne Made of a Woman This the Papacie admitteth for a certaine truth but insinuateth withall that upon the Altar God sendeth forth his Sonne made of Bread For the Transsubstantiation which these man would haue us beleeve is not an annihilation of the Bread and a substitution of the Bodie of Christ in the stead thereof but a reall conversion of the one into the other such as they themselves would have esteemed to be a bringing forth of Christ and a kinde of Generation of him For to omit the wilde conceits of Postellus in his booke De Nativitate Mediatoris ultimâ this is the doctrine of their graver Divines as Cornelius à Lapide the Iesuite doth acknowledge in his Romane Lectures that by the words of consecration truely and really as the bread is transsubstantiated so Christ is produced and as it were generated upon the Altar in such a powerfull and effectuall manner that if Christ as yet had not beene incarnate by these words Hoc est corpus meum he should be incarnated and assume an humane bodie And doth not this new Divinitie thinke you shrewdly threaten the ancient foundation of the Catholick beleefe of the Incarnation Yet such as in the dayes of our fore-fathers opposed the Popish doctrine of Transsubstantiation could alledge for themselues that the faith which they maintained was then preserved among the laitie and so had anciently beene preserved And of mine owne knowledge I can testifie that when I have dealt with some of the common people that would be counted members of the Romane Church and demanded of them what they thought of that which I knew to be the common Tenet of their Doctors in this point they not onely rejected it with indignation but wondered also that I should imagine any of their side to be so foolish as to give credit to such a senselesse thing Neither may we account it to have been a small blessing of God unto our ancestors who lived in that kingdome of darkenesse that the Ignorance wherein they were bred freed them from the understanding of those things which being known might prove so prejudiciall to their soules health For there be some things which it is better for a man to be ignorant of than to know and the not knowing of those profundities which are indeed the depths of Satan is to those that have not the skil to dive into the bottome of such mysteries of iniquitie a good and an happie Ignorance The ignorance of those principles of the Catholique faith that are absolutely necessarie to salvation is as dangerous a gulfe on the other side but the light of those common truthes of Christianitie was so great and so firmely fixed in the mindes of those that professed the name of Christ that it was not possible for the power of darkenesse to extinguish it nor the gates of Hell to prevaile against it Nay the verie solemne dayes which by the ancient institution of the Church were celebrated for the commemoration of the Blessed Trinitie the Nativitie Passion Resurrection and Ascension of our Saviour Christ did so preserve the memorie of these things among the common people that by the Popish Doctors themselves it is made an argument of grosse and supine Ignorance that any should not have explicite knowledge of those mysteries of Christ which were thus publikely solemnized in the Church And which is the principall point of all the ordinary instruction appointed to be given unto men upon their death-beds was that they should looke to come to glorie not by their owne merits but by the vertue and merit of the passion of our Lord Iesus Christ that they should place their whole confidence in his death onely and in no other thing and that they should interpose his death betwixt God and their sinnes betwixt
them and Gods anger So that where these things did thus concurre in any as wee doubt not but they did in many thousands the knowledge of the common principles of the faith the ignorance of such maine errours as did endanger the foundation a godly life and a faithfull death there we have no cause to make any question but that God had fitted a subject for his mercy to worke upon And yet in saying thus wee doe nothing lesse than say that such as these were Papists either in their life or in their death members of the Romane Church perhaps they were but such as by God's goodnes were preserved from the mortalitie of Popery that raigned there For Popery it selfe is nothing else but the botch or the plague of that Church which hazardeth the soules of those it seizeth upon as much as any infection can doe the body And therefore if any one will needs be so foole-hardy as to take up his lodging in such a Pest-house after warning given of the present danger wee in our charitie may well say Lord have mercy upon him but he in the meane time hath great cause to feare that God in his justice will inflict that judgement upon him which in this case he hath threatned against such as will not beleeve the truth but take pleasure in vnrighteousnesse And so much may suffice for that question The second question so rise in the mouthes of our Adversaries is Where was your Church before Luther Whereunto an answere may bee returned from the grounds of the solution of the former question that our Church was even there where now it is In all places of the world where the ancient foundations were retained and those common principles of faith upon the profession whereof men have ever beene wont to be admitted by Baptisme into the Church of Christ there we doubt not but our Lord had his subjects and wee our fellow-servants For wee bring-in no new Faith nor no new Church That which in the time of the ancient Fathers was accounted to be truely and properly Catholick namely that which was beleeved every where alwayes and by all that in the succeeding ages hath evermore beene preserved and is at this day entirely professed in our Church And it is well observed by a learned man who hath written a full discourse of this argument that whatsoever the Father of lies either hath attempted or shall attempt yet neither hath he hitherto effected nor shall ever bring it to passe hereafter that this Catholick doctrine ratified by the common consent of Christians alwayes and every where should be abolished but that in the thickest mist rather of the most perplexed troubles it still obtained victorie both in the mindes and in the open confession of all Christians no wayes overturned in the foundation thereof and that in this veritie that one Church of Christ was preserved in the midst of the tempests of the most cruell winter or in the thickest darknes of her waynings Thus if at this day we should take a survay of the severall professions of Christianitie that have any large spread in any part of the world as of the Religion of the Romane and the Reformed Churches in our Quarters of the Aegyptians and Aethiopians in the South of the Grecians and other Christians in the Easterne parts and should put-by the points wherein they did differ one from another and gather into one body the rest of the Articles wherein they all did generally agree wee should finde that in those propositions which without all controversie are universally received in the whole Christian world so much truth is contained as being joyned with holy obedience may be sufficient to bring a man unto everlasting salvation Neither have wee cause to doubt but that as many as doe walke according to this rule neither overthrowing that which they have builded by superinducing any damnable heresies thereupon nor otherwise vitiating their holie faith with a lewd and wicked conversation peace shall bee upon them and mercie and upon the Israel of GOD. Now these common principles of the Christian faith which we call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or things generally beleeved of all as they have Vniversalitie and Antiquity and Consent concurring with them which by Vincentius his rule are the speciall characters of that which is truely and properly Catholick so for their Duration wee are sure that they have still held out and beene kept as the Seminarie of the Catholique Church in the darkest and difficultest times that ever have beene where if the Lord of Hostes had not in his mercy reserved this seed unto us we should long since have beene as Sodom and should have beene like unto Gomorrah It cannot be denied indeed that Sathan and his instruments have used their utmost endeavour either to hide this light from mens eyes by keeping them in grosse ignorance or to deprave it by bringing-in pernicious heresies and that in these latter ages they have much prevailed both wayes aswell in the West and North as in the East and South Yet farre be it for all this from any man to thinke that God should so cast away his people that in those times there should not be left a remnant according to the election of grace The Christian Church was never brought unto a lower ebbe than was the Iewish Synagogue in the dayes of our Saviour Christ when the Interpreters of the Law had taken away the key of knowledge and that little knowledge that remained was miserably corrupted not onely with the leaven of the Pharisees but also with the damnable heresie of the Sadduces And yet a man at that time might have seene the true servants of GOD standing together with these men in the selfe-same Temple which might well be accounted as the House of the Saints in regard of the one so a Denne of theeves in respect of the other When the pestilent heresie of the Arrians had polluted the whole world the people of Christ were not to bee found among them onely who made an open secession from that wicked company but among those also who held externall communion with them and lived under their Ministery Where they so learned the other truthes of GOD from them that they were yet ignorant of their maine errour God in his providence so ordering matters that as it is noted by S. Hilary the people of Christ should not perish under the Priests of Antichrist If you demand then Where was Gods Temple all this while the answer is at hand There where Antichrist sate Where was Christs people Even under Antichrists Priests and yet this is no justification at all either of Antichrist or of his Priests but a manifestation of God's great power who is able to uphold his Church even there where Satans throne is Babylon was an infectious place and the infection thereof was mortall and yet God had his people there whom hee preserved from the
so much which is nothing else but a wilfull suffering of themselves to be led blind-fold by one man who commonly is more blind than many of themselves is no fruit of the spirit but of meere carnall policie and may serve peradventure for a bond of peace betwixt themselues and their owne partie such as the Priests of Antichrist were to have and as many as would be content to yeeld themselves to the conduct of such a Commander but hath proved the greatest block that ever stood in the way for giving impediment to the peace and unity of the universall Church which here we looke after And therefore Nilus Archbishop of Thessalonica entring into the consideration of the original ground of that long cōtinued schisme whereby the West standeth as yet divided from the East and the Latin Churches from the Greeke wrote a whole booke purposely of this argument wherein he sheweth that there is no other cause to be assigned of this distraction but that the Pope will not permit the cognisance of the controversie unto a generall Councell but will needs sit himselfe as the alone Teacher of the point in question and have others hearken unto him as if they were his Scholars and that this is contrary both to the ordinances and the practice of the Apostles and the Fathers Neither indeed is there any hope that ever wee shall see a generall peace for matters of Religion setled in the Christian world as long as this supercilious Master shall be suffered to keepe this rule in Gods house how much soever he be magnified by his owne Disciples and made the onely foundation upon which the unitie of the Catholick Church dependeth Now in the next place for the further opening of the unitie of the faith wee are to call unto minde the distinction which the Apostle maketh betwixt the foundation and that which is builded thereupon betwixt the principles of the doctrine of Christ and that which he calleth perfection The unitie of the faith and of the knowledge of the Sonne of God here spoken of hath reference as we heard to the foundation as that which followeth of a perfect man and the measure of the stature of the fulnesse of Christ to the superstruction and perfection In the former there is a generall unitie among all true beleevers in the latter a great deale of varietie there being severall degrees of perfection to be found in severall persons according to the measure of the gift of Christ. So we see in a materiall Building that still there is but one foundation though great disparitie be observed in sundry parts of the superstruction some rooms are high some lowe some darke some lightsome some more substantially some more slightly builded and in tract of time some prove more ruinous than others yet all of them belong to one building as long as they hold together and stand upon the same foundation And even thus is it in the spirituall Building also whether we respect the practicall part of Christianitie or the intellectuall In the practicall we see wonderfull great difference betwixt Christian and Christian some by Gods mercy attaine to a higher measure of perfection and keepe themselves unspotted from the cōmon corruptions of the world others watch not so carefully over their wayes and lead not such strict lives but are oftentimes overtaken and fall fowly that he who looketh upon the one and the other would hardly thinke that one Heaven should receive them both But although the one doth so farre outstrip the other in the practice of new Obedience which is the Christian mans race yet are there certaine fundamentall principles in which they both concurre as a desire to feare Gods name repentance for sinnes past and a sincere purpose of heart for the time to come to cleave unto the LORD Which whosoever hath is under mercie and may not be excluded from the Communion of Saints In like manner for the intellectuall part the first principles of the Oracles of God as the Apostle calleth them hold the place of the common foundation in which all Christians must be grounded although some be babes and for further knowledge are unskilfull in the word of righteousnesse other some are of perfect age who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discerne both good and evill The Oracles of God containe aboundance of matter in them and whatsoever is found in them is a fit object for faith to apprehend but that all Christians should uniformely agree in the profession of all those truthes that are revealed there is a thing that rather may be wished than ever hoped for Yet the varietie of mens judgements in those manie points that belong to Theologicall faith doth not dissolve the unitie which they hold together in the fundamentall principles of the Catholick faith The unitie of the faith commended here is a Catholick unitie and such as every true Christian attaineth unto Till wee ALL come in the unitie of the faith saith the Apostle As there is a common salvation so is there a common faith which is alike precious in the highest Apostle and the meanest beleever For we may not thinke that Heaven was prepared for deepe Clerkes onely and therefore beside that larger measure of knowledge whereof all are not capable there must be a Rule of faith common to small and great which as it must consist but of few propositions for simple men cannot beare away many so is it also requisite that those articles should be of such weight and moment that they may be sufficient to make a man wise unto saluation that howsoever in other points learned men may goe beyond common Christians and exceed one another likewise by many degrees yet in respect of these radicall truthes which is the necessarie and common food of all the children of the Church there is not an unitie onely but such a kinde of equalitie also brought in among all sorts of Christians as was heretofore among the Congregation of the Israelites in the collection of their Manna where he that gathered much had nothing over and hee that gathered little had no lacke If then salvation by beleeving these common principles may be had and to salvation none can come that is not first a member of the Catholick Church of Christ it followeth thereupon that the unitie of the faith generally requisite for the incorporating of Christians into that blessed societie is not to be extended beyond those common principles Which may further be made manifest unto us by the continuall practice of the Catholick Church her selfe in the matriculation of her children and the first admittance of them into her communion For when shee prepared her Catechumeni for Baptisme and by that dore received them into the congregation of Christs flock we may not think her iudgement to have beene so weake that shee would omit any thing herein that was