of CHRIST is Catholick that is to say Vniversall or generall and the Apostles by putting this word oblige us to follow that Church whose Faith and Religion is receiv'd and publickly profest the longest Time by the most Persons and in most Places and so the Faith of the Roman Church hath been 16. Read but the Annales of Baronius or of Gualterus or The longuest Time the works of Bellarmin or Coccius and You will see that ever-since the Apostles the Church hath had from age to age the same Articles of Faith which the Roman Church teaches at this present Reformers confess that during the first four hundred years the Roman was the true Church if this Present were new they ought to shew who was the first Authour of this novellty what was the new doctrin that was taught in what time and in what place fâ—om what Church the Roman did seperate when she embraced this new doctrin and who were they that opposed this novellty These things are noted in every little alteration of Religion and one cannot shew them in the great pretended changes of the Faith of the Roman Church 17 All those that have been converted to the Faith of CHRIST By the most persons and have embraced Christian Religion have always taken the Roman and were converted by Romanists Other Religions convert not infidells and have never extended the Empire of IESUS in any Province of the Earth 18. We must put out our Eyes and burn all Histories not In most Places to see that the Roman Church only hath been extended in all the places where IESUS CHRIST is or hath been adored and that no other Congregation of Christians has ever had publick exercise of Religion throughout the world But we may read in S. Ireneus Tertullian S. Cyprian and S. Athanasius that in their times the Catholick Church was already in all the inhabited Earth and this in accomplishment of what David had often foretold saying that the Reigne and Empire of JESUS CHRIST that is to say CHRISTS Church should be extended throughout all the earth I wil give thee Gentills for thy inheritance and thy possession the ends of the Earth He Psal 2. Psal 71. shal rule from sea to sea and from the river even to the end of the round world 19. Follow then the Faith of the Romane and Catholick Church since these Notes evidently agree to Her and to no other church Heb. 11. 6. and since with out true and entire Faith t is impossible to please God 20 Have and hold inviolable Vnity with this Church since all Faith without this Vnity will not save You There is but one Vniversall Church out of which nobody is saved sayd the great Council of Lateran consisting of a 1215. Fathers And S. Paul Gallatians 5. 20 himself does teach expressly that not Sects only but also Dissentions Divisions or Seperations shal not possess the kingdom of God Wherefore S. Cyprian in the book of Vnity says Whosoever seperats from the true Church is excluded from the promises of the Church and who hath abandoned the Church of CHRIST shal never com to receive the recompences of CHRIST He is a stranger he is prophane he is an enemie of God for He connot have God for his Father who hath not the Church for his Mother S. Chrysostom testifys that separation from the In Ep. ad Ephes. 4. p. 822. de papt cont Don. lib. 1. c. 8. lib. 2. c. 6. Church or dividing of it is no less sin then falling into heresy nay S. Austin holds that it is greater then that of infidelity and Idolatry and for proof of what he says he alleadges the example of Core Dathan and Abiron and other Schismaticks of the ancient Testament who were sent living into hell and punished more rigorously than Idolaters who doubts says he that this was committed more criminally which was revenged more severely But he says things yet more terrible for he assures us that all they that are not in the true Church though they live extraordinarily well tho they give great alms and also shed their Ep. 152. and. lib. 4. de Bap. blood for the love of IESUS CHRIST if they die out of the Church nothing will profit them but shal be damn'd eternally All those that were out of the Arke of Noah which was a figure of the Church perished by the deluge Only they that laboured in the vineyard reciv'd the recompence of the pennie that is eternal life Members that remain not united to the body cannot have life Branches cut of from the tree cannot bring-forth fruit IESUS CHRIST is the Saviour of his Body which is the Church He is the Espouse of the Church and cannot have or acknowledg other children then those of his Spouse 21. Let us then resolve to live and die in the bosome of the Catholick or Roman Church There we may avoid damnation there we shal be assisted to obtain Salvation For there is Communion af Saints that is communication of good works and of prayers There then every one may help his neighbor the Living may succour also the Dead in Purgatory and the Saints in Heaven can help by their merits and their prayers sinners upon Earth Amen DISCOURS XIII OF THE TENTH ARTICLE The Forgiveness of Sins 1. HE that should know well the monstrous nature and malice of Sin the ingratitude impudence and insolence of the sinner the infinite Greatnes Sanctity and Majesty of him against whom it is committed and should also know what the Scripture expressly tells us that a God is thereby irritated exasperated put into anger and fury against the sinner such an one I say could not by any light of reason hope for pardon it would seem to him impossible that sins committed against God should be remitted and he would need the light of Faith to believe that a sinner may obtain remission of them Who would ever think that a God who hath need of none who had not respect to the celestial Principalities and who spared not so great a number of noble Spirits but condemn'd them all without exception to eternal flames would shew favour to worms of the earth to so ungratefull and base creatures after they have so many and so many times offended Him multiplying sins upon sins and reiterating the same sins Here then we have need of Faith and therefore the Apostles make us to believe that God will pardon sins and since they except none that He will remit all sorts of them how ever great and enormous they may be by the Sacrament of Baptisme and after by Absolution as often as we shal do true penance for them 2. Here we meet with an error and one of the most great and most pernicious of some Reformers They say that it belongs not to a sinner to absolve others from their sins and that it is an injury to the Son of God to ask pardon of our sins of any other On this
goods works the Angells will rejoyce upon it in heaven the Faithfull will be edifyd upon earth Devills will rage for envy in hell The eternal Father will adopt you for his child the Son will make you one of his members the holy Ghost will dwell in you as in his Temple The B. Trinity will adorne you with a triple Crown they will make you happy by Beatifical Vision by perfect Fruition and by possession of eternal Goods Amen DISCOURS XLVIII of Purgatory 1. Though there be but one only Church in the world yet this may be divided into three Parts or Orders which according to their divers conditions beare different names and Titles That which reignes with God in Heaven and happily passed from the Combate to the Victory and from Victory to Tryumph is called the Tryumphant Church That which fights yet upon Earth and environed with Devills and with Sinners labours to vanquish the one and to convert the other is called Militant And that which Expiates its sins in the flames of Purgatory and satisfys the justice of God by the greatness of its paines is called Suffrante Of this I shal now treat and that the Living and the Dead may reap profit by this Discours I divide it into two Parts In the first I will shew that there is a Purgatory in which souls do suffer In the second we will see by what means we may and ought to help those poor soules 2. Beati mortui qui in Domino moriuntur Blessed are they who dye in our Lord who die so perfect in Faith and Charity who depart Apoc. 14. 13. hence so purged by true and entire Penance that they are free from all spot of sin and not lyable to any punishment due to it But they that are not so pure and clean as so many are not must necessarily feel the severity of Gods justice which leaves no sin unpunished and must be purged before they can be blessed as Scriptures Fathers and reason make evident to every vnbyassed understanding In the second Book of the Machabees we read that Iudas Machabeus that valiant Champion who was high Priest or chief Bishop of the Church and Defender of the true Faith and Religion sent 12. thousand Drachmes to Hierusalem that sacrifice might be offered for the Dead And the Authour of the book concludes It is a holy and salutary cogitation to pray for the dead that they may be delivered from their sins And this was the general practise of the Church as appears by their set form of Office for the Dead in their book Mahzor translated and set forth by Bishop Genebrard Munster and Fagius in Annot upon 14. of Deut Whitaker lib. 1. cont Dureum foâ— 81. 1. Ep. c. 4. This custome is yet observed by the Iews which is so evident that Protestants themselves confess it S. Peter in the new Testament furnishes us with a strong proof of Purgatory in the third chapter of his first Epistle He teaches us that the Son of God descended and Preached to them that were in prison who had been incredulous sometime in the days of Noah This passage connot be applyd to the Fathers that were detain'd in Limbo nor to the damned that were lockt up in hell For the first never were incrudulous as were those to whom the Son of God did speak The second deserv'd not that IESUS CHRIST should preach or Evangelize as the text says good news to them or should mitigate their torments by the happiness of his presence Since according to the Scripture in hell there is no redemption It remaines then that He speaks of the Souls in Purgatory and of those particularly that gave not credit to the preaching of Noah who nevertheless being moved by the deluge and by the present perill called upon God and converted themselves to him by penance But to Expiate the paines due to their sins were doom'd to prison and to punishment until the comming of the Redeemer who preached to them the grace of Redemption drew them out of prison and led them with Him into Heaven S Paul says That he who upon the foundation of faith makes a building 1. cor 3. 12. of Gold silver and precious stones That is of solid and perfect vertues He shal receive reward but he that hath made a building of wood hay stubble that is of imperfections or venial sins Aug. in Psal 37. Psal 6 shal be saved but by fire S. Austin explicates of Purgatory this text and cites moreover to the same purpose these words of David Lord reprove me not in your fury and correct me not in your anger Lord says David according to the explication of Saint Austin permit me not to be of the number of those to whom you will say Go ye accursed into Eternal fire and purify me in this life so that I may not need to be purged by the fire that corrects those lib. de Monog c. 10. who shal be saved Tertullian in the second age of the Church speaking of the devotions of Widdows of his time says that every year on the anniversary of their husbands death they made offerings for them and that they prayed God to give them refreshment they believed then that they were in paines We might alledge many other ancient Fathers But there is no need to cite them since lib. 3. Institut c. 5. n. 10. Calvin himself confesseth that the holy Fathers who lived a 1300 years before his time prayed for the Dead and that which he answers to this is the ancient Fathers were men who were deceived as if he were an Angel or rather a God that could not Erre But if we should have nither Scripture nor Tradition for this Verity yet common sense would teach it For let us suppose that there is a man as there may be who having committed blasphemies murders adulteries and other sins in great number and being upon his death-bed repents converts himself to God and dyes whither shal his soul go Not to hell for God never reiects a contrite and humbled heart and He hath promised mercy to all that shal conuert themselves by true and sincere penance Shal he go strait to heauen and as strait as one that hath serued God well and kept his commandements all his life what appearance of it and where would be the verity of this word of S. Paul a man shal reap that which he hath sown where would be Gal. 6. Psal 61 Rom. 2. 6. Apoc. 22 Matt. 16. the truth of this which the Royal Prophet the Apostle the Evangelist and our Saviour himself hath sayd God will render to every one according to his workes We need not but consider what is God and what is sin to avow a Purgatory in which an imperfect soul is purifyd before she may or would be pesented to God who is Purity it self 3. Wherefore a soul in Purgatory murmures not she complains not of too much rigour on the contrary she embraces
Geraseens to precipitate them into the lake of a thousand brutal actions and after into the pool of fire and brimstone of everlasting death It is certible to hear Isaye 1. 14. Malac. 2. 3. with what execration God speaks of holy days so Prophaned my soul hateth your Solemnityes I will cast upon your faces the dung of them 6. Let us say then with the Psalmist Turn ô my Soul into thy rest becaus our Lord hath don good to thee Psal 114. 7. Turn ô my Soul convert your self entirely to God on the sunday at least It is instituted for this end and it is called the day of our Lord becaus if we have been turned to our selves and to our affaires the other dayes we must at least turn to God and to his service this day which He hath reserv'd to himself It seems an usurpation of anothers goods and a sort of sacriledg to rob him of this day and to employ it prophanly against his will Turn ô my Soul into thy rest It is a great crime to refuse Obedience to a commandement so sweet other Masters urge their servants and cry out to them worke work ha God says to his my children I will not that you weary out your selves give some respit to your selves from labours rest in me who am the Center of your hearts and the true rest of your soules He calls this day by his Prophet The delicate or delicious Sabbath His Isaiah 58. 13. delights are to be and to convers with us why should we not then make it our delights to be and convers with Him Turne into thy rest becaus our Lord hath don well to thee The Sunday was instituted that we might have opertunity to serve God and more leasure to thanke Him for our Creation Preservation Redemption Sanctification and Vocation to his Service for all graces and good workes which He gives us for preserving us from a thousand infirmities miseries deaths and from so many occasions of sin He hath delivered says the Prophet my soul from death my eyes from teares my feet from sliding if we are grateful for benefits receiv'd we shal give him occasion to give us new if we employ weâ—l the time design'd for the service of God He will bless the time granted us to make provision for our selves and families do then the workes of God on holy dayes and He will do yours on other days and moreover make you pass from the figure to the Verity from the shadow to the light from the symbole to the reality and from the temporal rest of this life to the eternal repose of glory Amen DISCOVRS XXXII OF THE FOURTH COMMANDEMENT Honour thy Father and thy Mother AS the Commandements written in the first Table tend immediately to the honour and glory of the Creatour recommending ro us Piety and devotion towards Him So these of the second Table tend immediately to the salvation and the utility of men and recommend to us charity and justice towards all our neighbours that each one doing his duty in his state and condition the families and communites of Christians may be well ordered and disposed The most important of these dutyes is that of children towards their Parents and therefore it is exacted by the first commandement of the second Table and to move them more to it recompence is herein promised to those that shal honour their Parents with the triple honour of Reverence Obedience and Assistance 2. First with the honor of Reverence for our Parents are the images of God whose authority is a Ray of his Paternity they are Sources and Causes of our life after Him Organs and Instruments which He uses to give and preserve our Being Hence it comes that we ought to honor them be they whatsoever though your Father be vicious and deboist he is stil your Father a cause of your life an instrument of God and an image of his Paternity And becaus the chief part of this honour consists in the interiour you must esteem your Parents in your heart acknowledg them your Superiours respect and reverence their Authority And becaus they know not your interiour you are oblig'd to testify by exterior signes the honor which you have for them to speak to them humbly of them to others honourably to give them respect and reverence and to do nothing that savours of neglect or contempt The Queen Bethsabee was not of the Royal blood but of mean extraction and nevertheless the wise Salomon her Son though a great and powerfull Monark and sitting in the Throne of Iustice rose out of it to meet and reverence her and placed her in a Throne at the right hand of his Majesty This wise King was the figure of our Saviour who being King of kings and God of infinite Majesty disdained not on earth to be subject to his holy Mother and who elevated and placed her in heaven at Psal 44. his right hand Astitit Regina a dextris tuis 3. To honour your Parents you must moreover consult them before you undertake any thinge of consequence when you would marry commence a suit undertake a far journey or engage your self in any other thing of importance aske their counsell and follow it this shews you esteem their prudence and God blesses this proceeding the young Tobias had a great blessing was assisted by an Angel deliver'd from all danger replenished with riches and prosperity in his journey becaus he undertook it by the advice and direction of his Father 4 The second honour of our Parents exacted by this Commandement is that of Obedience This honor S. Paul often recommends to us and in the Epistle to the Ephesians he proves it by this commandement to be their due Obey your Parents in our Ephes. 6. Lord For this is just Honour thy Father and thy Mother He adds In our Lord For if they command you any thing against the commandements of God or of his Church or if they would avert you from Religion and his service S. Bernard tells you that Epist 104. 't is Piety to neglect them for the love of IESUS-CHRIST for He that sayd Honor your Father and your Mother says to you also He that loves his father or his mother more than me is not worthy of me But when they command just and lawfull things you must obey them they are your Superiours and the Causes of your Being they then as Superiours ought to move you and as Causes of your Being to be also the Authours of your operations And if a servant be oblig'd to obey his Master for a little nourishment and a smal salary he receives how much more a child his Mother who nourished him with her own substance and his Father who laboured so much to bring him up and endeavours to provide for him 5. I find in the holy scripture that your obedience to be perfect ought to have three conditions at the least it ought to be blind cordial and
would He have don to him if he had receiv'd and lost many and what will IESUS say to us what will he do to us if we shal have abused or not used and profited in vertue by the talents of the sacraments He hath given us what weeping what regrets what gnashing of teeth and what rage against our selves for having lost so good so easy and so frequent occasions to make good our salvation to advance in vertue to load our selves with merits and to enrich our selves for eternity But vertuous people will reioyce will admire their own happiness and will acknowledg their wisdom in receiving them often becaus they will see that these Sacraments were most rich talents and were gages and infallible promises of the inestimable incomprehensible and infinite glory which they shal possess for ever Amen DISCOVRS XLI Of the Necessitie and Nature of Baptisme WHen great S. Hierome says we are not Christians by birth he speaks of the carnal birth and not of the spiritual for in the Sacrament of Baptisme we are made Christians we are regenerated in the life of grace This Sacrament is a spiritual birth the first and the most necessary of all the Sacraments the door through which we enter into the Church To know evidently the necessity of it we must acknowledg three verities founded upon the principles of Christian Religion received by all Doctors and drawn from express passages of holy scripture 1. The first is that all Children which are conceiv'd by the ordinary way all except the Virgin are sported with original sin are enemies of God objects of his just wrath â—laves of the Devill Children of perdition and victimes of eternal death I say conceiv'd by the ordinary way to make you understand that the Son of God being not conceiv'd by this way but by the operation of the holy Ghost his Conception was not only exempt from all impurity but hath been the source and origin of all purity of our souls and bodys I have moreover added the Virgin excepted becaus according to the maxim of S Aâ—stin when we speak of sin we speak not of the Virgin she having been prevented with all the graces and advantaged with all the priviledges that an Omnipotent and loving Son could bountifully bestow on her whom He chose to be his Mother These two then excepted T is an Article of faith that all Children though their Parents be faithfull and in the state of grace are soiled with sin and are fruits of malediction and damnation They are soiled with sin For in Adam all have sinned says S. Paul and nothing that is soiled shal Rom. 5. 12. Apoc. 21. 27. Ephes. 2. 3. enter into heaven says S. Iohn They are the objects of Gods anger we were by nature the children of wrath says S. Paul and the anger of God is not a passion but a punishment the wrath of God upon this stilborne infant is never appeased For he that hath not faith the wrath of God remaines upon him says IESUS CHRIST in S Iohn but this infant hath neither actual nor habitual faith not actual for he is uncapable of it not habitual for he could 3. 36. not receive it but by the Sacrament and he is dead without it the wrath of God remaines upon him 2. After all this how do some flatter themselves in their sins and say that God made us not to cast us away that his mercy permits him not to be so rigorous as they say that he will spare us though we die in the state of sin made He these poor infants to cast them away and nevertheless He permits them to be lost the mercy of God is greater than you can possibly imagin and notwithstanding this great mercy this infinite mercy hinders him not to exercise such a severity upon these little creatures And if He be so severe to them for one only sin which they incurre by the misfortune of their condition what will He be to you for so great a number of sins which you commit not by ignorance constraint surprise but so freely and voluntarily 3. 'T is a second Verity that original sin was an evill so desperate and incurable that there was not any pure Creature possible that could remedy this evill that nothing less was necessary than the humiliation blood and death of a God for a medecine to t is mortal maladie 'T is easy to prove it by the malice of sin which offends an infinite Majesty but 't is not necessary since it is a common doctrine that 't is not but to extreme maladies that one applyes extreme remedies sin must be a very dangerous and extreme evill since a remedy so powerfull strange extraordinary and extreme was necessary for it Ha! you know not ô sinner what is a mortal sin for if you knew it you would rather die a thousand times than commit it you would rather eate your tongue than pronounce one only blasphemy or fals testimony you would rather burn your hand than reach it out to a dishonest or unjust action 4. This precious and inestimable treasure of the merits and passion of IESUS is a most powerfull remedy for original sin but nevertheless unprofitable and uneffectuall if it be not apply'd to us Suppose that you have here the best medecine in the world if the infirme person take in not it serves for nothing so though the precious blood of IESUS and the infinite merits of his passion be more than most sufficient to deliver us from sin if they be not appropriated and appli'd to us by the Sacrament they are uneffectuall and unprofitable So we see the Scripture attributes 1. Ep. 1. 7. Ephes. 5. 26. 1. Pet. 1. 19. Tit. 3. 5. Iohn 3. 3. 6. S. Austin ep 20. ad Hierom lib. 3. ep 9. ad Fidu Aug. lib. 3 de Orig. Animae 9. c. to the water of Baptisme the same effects it attributes to the blood of IESUS CHRIST becaus water aplyes the vertue of it The blood of IESVS CHRIST cleanses us says S. Iohn IESVS CHRIST cleanseth his Church by the Baptisme of wator says S. Paul S. Peter We are saved by the blood of the immaculate Lamb. S. Paul God hath saved us by the Baptisme of regeneration In S. Iohn IESUS repeats twice with great instance that none may pretend ignorance Amen Amen I say to thee if any one be not regenerated of water and the holy Ghost he shal not enter into the kingdom of heaven Hence the primitive Christians if an infant was in danger ran hastily to the Church and in great fear lest the infant should dye without the sacrament Hence S. Cyprian says without Baptisme infants are lost Hence S. Austin gives us this caveat say not teach not if you will be a Catholick that infants departing before Baptisme can com to remission of their original sins Now I make your selves Iudges whom we ought to belive either a Quaker or some other Reformer who say that t is not
contrary Parties do confidently affirm that they have the true sense and understanding of the Scriptures and that consequently they make to themselves Faiths Religions and models of Government to the utter destruction of Vnity Peace and Charity it self Is it not then Necessary for the avoyding of Heresies and Divisions and for the preservation of Vnity and Peace to harken also in this part to the Church and to adhere to her sense of the holy Scripture Wherefore the Apostles oblige us to follow her and to rest in her judgements to dispute against whom S. Austin with great reason tells us is Ep. 1 insolent madness And lest we might doubt which among all the Societies of men in the Christian world is the dwelling place of Faith the spring of truth an the true Church of the living God the Apostles mark her out to us by three evident Notes which are proper to her and distinguish her from all other Churches they teach us that she is One Holy Catholick 6. First they teach us that She is One for they make us not to say I believe Churches but I believe the Church which is the kingdom of the Son of God his flock and mystical Body You never find in the Gospell that the Son of God hath many kingdoms many flocks many mystical Bodys But always one kingdom one sheepfold one mystical Body In S. Matt. 4. 23. Ch. 13. 41. Iohn 10. 16. Rom. 12. Ephes 4. v. 4 Matthew JESUS went about preaching the Gospell of the kingdom And again He says in the Same Gospell that He will send his Angells and they shal gather all scandalls out of his kingdom There shal be made one fold and one Pastor We being many are one Body in Christ One Lord one Faith One Baptisme 7. I demand now the Church of England is it the true Church if so the Protestant Church in Holland is not that in Germany is not that in France is not there is but one true Church and these are many they have nothing that unites them they depend not one of another they have not the same Superiour But among Catholicks many Bishopricks many Republicks Nations and Kingdoms are one Church becaus they are united in the same Spiritual Head or supream Pastor 8. You will say that which unites us is Faith we are one Body by the Vnity of Faith But besides that this Vnity which also excludes not Schismaticks is not enough to make one Church We need not but look into the books of Luther Calvin Zuinglius to know the war they make with one another We need not but to read the Works of their successours to see their disagreement in Points of the greatest importance There is nothing for example so important to Faith as to know which are the Canonical Books in which we ought to learn the Christian Verities and they agree not as we have seen in them And if they agree not about the prime Principle How can agreement be expected in the things which are drawn from thence Many differences might be named about most important matters their pursuit also of those differences demonstrats they do not judg them light which stretches to the condemning one another for Hereticks and Schismaticks and sometimes to breaking into open arms one against another 9. But Catholicks however divided by countrey language particular interest civil dissentions or war Yet agree exactly in all points of Faith If you go to France Spain Poland Italy or the Indies You will see that they teach the same Doctrine that they make every where the same Catechismes 10. And are not there some will say to me Thomists Scotists And other Parties who dispute continually Yes but this is not but in school difficulties in Philosophical Points in Questions grounded upon humane reason as concerning Articles of Faith All agree in them not one contradicts not one questions them 11. Secondly the Apostles teach us that the true Church is holy I believe the holy Church This is not to say that All that are therein are Saints For she is the field of the husbandman Matt. 3. 21. Matt. 13. 47. Ron. 9. 21 where the Cockle is mixt with good corn She is the net which takes and holds bad fish with the good She is the house where there are Vessells of ignominy with those of honour She is the Arke of the true Noah where there are clean and unclean animalls Gen. 7. 2 But the true Church is holy becaus she hath means to Sanctify her self and many obtain it by those means We ask it there and obtain it of God by Sacrifice It is given by Sacraments conserv'd by the observance of the commandements of God increased by the practise of good and vertuous works 12. But Reformers have forbidden all these ways they have abolished among them the only sacrifice of the Mass they have diminished the Sacraments of seven that CHRIST instituted they retain but two Baptisme and the Eucharist which also they have made almost unprofitable For they say that Baptisme is not necessary for their children and so deprive them often of this remedy to the exclusion of them out of the kingdom of Heaven according to the express words of the Son of God They have used yet wors the Eucharist instead of the real Presence Iohn 3. 5. of our Lord and Savior Source of all sanctity who sanctifys our souls and bodys in this Sacrament they have not in their supper but a morcel of bread an inefficatious and empty Sacrament which contains not what it signifiys 13. As concerning the Commandements besyds that they preach but those which Moses gave and not those which JESUS-CHRIST added to sanctify his Church they say that they are impossible also with the grace of God And what man will undertake to execute that which he judges to be impossible 14. As touching good Works they deny the worth and merit of them And who will undergo difficulty to practise good works when he believes that they have no worth or merit that faith only justifys and suffices to salvation if these principles do not usher in the neglect of all good works it is not becaus the Doctrins do not afford it but becaus they act by some other motives What Sanctity then may one expect where there is no Sacrifice to obtaine it of God No efficatious Sacraments where by to receive it No possibility to obey the Commandements of God to preserve it no good works to increase it So they say not S. Luther S Calvin S. Beza as they say S. Gregory S Bernard S. Bonaventure whom they confess to have been of the Roman Church and experience shews that there are none so holy so vertuous so perfect None so devout towards God charitable towards their neighbor so sober chast modest and humble as are innumerable Souls who live entirely according to the maxims and the instructions of the Catholick Church 15. Thirdly the Apostles teach us that the true Church