consequence and admirably serving the turn of the rankest Sectaries Who not being able to keep up their Congregations any longer or to keep their Disciples from ours by trivially declaiming against our Ceremonies They ferment them now by instilling into them new fears and jealousies of our Doctrines Warning them away from our Churches as if there was some strange Fury working or some Innovations contriving in the Church of England and as if we were allowed to preach and maintain even in our City-Pulpits new Articles of Faith Socinian or Pelagian in opposition to the Catholick and truly Primitive How unsufferably J. O. for one has reflected not only upon some particular Persons but upon the whole Church of England and its Governers upon this account any one may read that does but run over his Survey of a discourse concerning Ecclesiastical Polity No wonder then if now they are transported with joy when an Author appears as one dropt down from heaven to plead their Cause vouching himself a Son of the Church of England teaching as one having Authority like a Father venturing at first dash upon the tenderest Point in the World concerning Articles of Faith implying and supposing all along that some are extremely to blame for improving the Faith not by confirming but enlarging it asking whether the state of Salvation be alter'd ' and what need any other Articles In what Church does he ask these Questions and how monstrous impertinent are they here if we do nothing like it Well! to begin with him and follow him step by step through his many turnings and windings and sometimes nothing but a rope of Sand to guide me He makes a discovery to us in the first place that That which we commonly call the Apostles Creed is the sum of Christian Faith And again that the Primitive Church received this as the sum total of Faith necessary to salvation Why not now I answer it is so now and all true Sons of our Church hold it so now Then why this Question Why that which follows Is the state of Salvation alter'd No doubt the terms of Belief on which Salvation is ordinarily attainable are never changeable but like God himself who establisht them fixt and immoveable But still he follows his blow though he fights with the Air If it be compleat saies he what need any other Articles There may have been needful heretofore not only other Articles but other Creeds for the farther explication of those Articles in the Apostles Creed and yet in those new Creeds not one new Article The Apostles Creed is the sum of Christian Faith True yet I hope he will not think the Nicene the Constantinopolitan and the Athanasian Creeds were superfluous and unnecessary And in his Chapter about preaching he seems concerned for this last the Athanasian and yet his censure is so bold upon Constantine the Emperour and some godly Bishops he conceives more zealous than discreet and so do some godly Bishops conceive of this Author and his pique at the new word Homoousios carries such an ugly reflection upon that Creed that I scarce dare understand him But we shall have more of this hereafter He would have men improve in Faith but rather Intensivè than Extensivè to Confirm it rather than Enlarge it And yet 't is certain that all formal and mortal Hereticks that are not Atheists are justly condemn'd for want of due extension in their Faith He prays us to remember the Treasurer to Candace Queen of Aethiopia whom Philip instructed in the Faith His time of Catechizing was very short and soon proceeded to Baptism This is soon pronounc'd as he uses to do but not prov'd It does not appear how long or how short was the time of his Catechizing or how many Leagues they travelled together before they proceeded to Baptism 'T is true there needs no great length of time to propose and demonstrate Christianity as St. Peter and the Apostles did it in few words and especially out of the Prophesies of the Old Testament which the Eunuch was then reading But then a great deal must and may be learnt in a little time as the prime Articles of Faith are so strongly and rationally knit together that 't is indeed impossible to teach or learn any one of them without teaching or learning them all Whereas then our Author proceeds thus But Philip first required a confession of his Faith and the Eunuch made it and I beseech you observe it I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and straightway he was baptized How no more than this no more What! nothing of the Holy Ghost till he heard of him in the Baptismal form What does he mean then by that which immediately follows This little grain of Faith being sound believed with all his heart purchased the kingdom of Heaven Had he believed the whole Gospel with half his heart it had been of less value in the sight of God 'T is not the quantity but the quality of our Faith God requireth I answer the true and full notion of Saving Faith is embracing from the whole heart the whole Fundamental truth of the Gospel Why does he talk then of the whole Heart and yet supposes but half or a part of this Fundamental truth Does he dream that St. Philip the Evangelist Christen'd the Eunuch after Christ's Ascension into Heaven only as St. John the Baptist brought men to his Baptism before Christ appeared in his Ministry upon earth and made him such a Disciple as those whom St. Paul found in Ephesus that had not so much as heard whether there were any Holy Ghost to whom thereupon St. Paul proved Christianity from their Master the Baptist's Testimony and to make them perfect Christians which they were not before but only a sort of Disciples Baptized them in the Name of the Lord Jesus Acts 19. Yet this Author will not let go his hold and will needs be thus objecting against himself But sure the Eunuch was more fully instructed It may be you are sure of it but I could never yet meet with any assurance of it nor any great probability of it Yes I am sure of it if he means by more fully instructed taught other Fundamental Articles beside this one that Jesus Christ is the Son of God And I will give him one demonstration of what I say which is more than a Probability out of the story it self and he might have met with this demonstration in it himself if he could have seen but an inch before him for we find in the story that the Eunuch himself made the motion to the Evangelist and reminded him of baptizing him Therefore 't is evident they had discourst before even of this particular though we are told no more in express words but that St. Philip preacht to him Jesus the Faith of Jesus Yet he had brancht out this Faith into all its Fundamental Articles and had declar'd to him even the necessity of Baptism which he understood
not at all if he did not apprehend it aright and as it was presently to be celebrated in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost Why this very short Baptismal form is a perfect Creed by itself if it be throughly penetrated and explained in its full latitude for it seems the Name of the Son was by a divine Criticism chosen and interpos'd between the other two Persons whose God-head was confest and acknowledg'd by the Jewish Church rather than that of the Word to denote the Second of the 3 Persons of the most equal and inseparable Trinity as God of God from the Eternal Father and also to connote the Co-eternal Son made man in the fulness of time and therefore born of a Woman the Virgin Mary Why here 's a great part of the faith already And then the Baptismal action it self the Immersion and Emersion out of the Water did in its full and plain importance as no doubt the Eunuch was made to understand it before he was brought to it acquaint him and instruct him abundantly in those other great points of Faith the Dying Burying and Rising again of Christ for our Justification from our sins as also with the whole Practical duty of a Christian man that being the Inward part or Thing signified in the Sacrament of Baptism viz. a Death unto Sin the great comprehensive duty of Mortification and a New birth unto Righteousness where he must needs be told the mystery of the First and Second Covenant that being by nature born in sin Original sin and a Son of wrath he had hereby Forgiveness of sins was adopted and made a Child of Grace and Heir and Co-heir with Christ in the Communion of Saints to live with him after the Resurrection in life everlasting Now this Author may see what use and need there was of the Constantinopolitan Creed that put in One baptism for the Remission of sins Since the true understanding of that Sacrament is so instructive of all other Fundamentals For all this our Apostle St. Paul supposed as the common Notions all Christians should have of their Baptism Know ye not that as many of us as were baptiz'd unto Jesus Christ were baptiz'd into his death Therefore we are buried with him by Baptism into death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father even so we should walk in newness of life For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his Death we shall be also in the likeness of his Resurrection Ro. 6. 3 4 5 c To as liâ—tle purpose then is his next Application of that passage in St. John Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God 1 Joh. 4. 2. Why the Mahumetans confess in some sense that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh as a great Prophet sent from God Will a Mahumetan or a Socinian confession of this suffice For the Socinians will admit the Apostles Creed as the sum of Faith the words I mean but not the Catholick sense of it And they will say through Jesus Christ our Lord at the end of their own Prayers in their own distorted sense of it But if confessing Jesus Christ be as St. John means it confessing the God and the Man otherwise it is not indeed confessing the same Jesus Christ whom Christians ought to confess this takes in whole Christianity that is all its few primary Fundamentals are coucht in this All these no question were virtually contain'd in St. Peter's short confession of faith Thou art Christ the Son of the living God for which confession he was blest and upon which faith Christ declared he would build his Church as upon a Rock And all these no doubt St. Paul preach to the Corinthians when yet he determin'd to know nothing amongst them but Jesus Christ and him crucified 1 Cor 2. 2. But whereas in the next place he charges some with introducing new and many Articles of Faith I hope he does not mean all our 39 Articles most of which as a late Right Reverend and learned Praelate Bishop Lany Lord Bishop of Ely styles them in one of his 5 Sermon p 48. are Articles of Peace and consent in certain Controversies not Articles of Faith or Communion Not as if the Subscribers to these Articles engaged themselves to no more than not to contradict them or never to preach against them No the Church is so just to her self as to exact for the security of her own Peace that all whom she trusts with teaching others or whom she recommends to the world with University Degrees shall subscribe to these Articles as their own Opinions and what they believe as convinc'd in their own Judgments that they are true Yet this I take to be one of her greatest Ecclesiastical Policies that she admits the many thousands and hundred thousands without any Subscription to these Articles ad Communionem Laicam that is not to Half-Communion as some would ignorantly construe it because they have Sacrilegiously taken away the Cup from the Laity but to that which the Primitive Church called the Communion of Laicks that is such a Communion as was given without such Conditions as were anciently requir'd of Ecclesiasticks But my best excuse for him is that though he be scuffling in the dark yet he strikes at the Papists especially and would narrow their Faith rather than ours 'T is true they have introduc'd many a new Article of Faith which is bad enough and which is worse many a one that has not a syllable of truth in it He puts the Papists Lutherans and Calvinists all together One cries this is a Demonstration Another saies he cries no such matter c. He may make as bold with any of these as he pleases for we are none of these and I am not bound to make war in their vindication In the 4th page concerning the Procession of the Holy Ghost he does implicitly condemn the Catholick Church both in the East and West for being so presumptuous in her Definitions 'T is modestly done of him But he means we have no comprehensive knowledg of the matter declared His meaning is good and true But his Inference is stark naught if he means therefore we understand not at all that this or that is declared And I am sure I do him no wrong in fixing this meaning upon his words for these are his very words If then our Reason understands not what is declared how can we by Reason make any deduction by way of Argument from that which we understand not Is it even so Then let us put the case with reverence That Almighty God who assuming I suppose the shape of an Angel treated with Abraham face to face as a man does with his friend should for once have spoken in the same manner to Arrius or Socinus and made this one declaration to either of them that the Catholick Church's doctrine of the
that will not hear the Church let him be unto thee as a Heathen and a Publican spoken of private differences between man and man to be referr'd to the Determination of the Church that is the Congregation of the Faithful which they usually and by order should assemble in and refer this to the Church in General in matters of Faith not in the least pointed at there He will have much ado to make us believe that a man is not bound to tell his Brother of Heresie a matter of so great Consequence and to tell it to the Church if his Brother will not hear him and yet prove that he is bound to do this in matter of private difference or petty quarrel between them Wherefore to borrow his own Conclusion of this matter I pass this over as very Impertinent And so is that which follows I do not believe nor am I bound by Scripture to believe such Expositions as the Popish Church makes of this place That the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church Who bids him believe the Popish Expositions But if that place be not spoken of the Roman Church therefore does it signifie nothing to prove the Visibility or Indefectibility of the Catholique Church But 't is plain he advances the notion of a Church Invisible a Church that shall be driven into the Wilderness where her Ninety nine Ceremonies are to be left to attend her scarce visible in the World whereas the Learned understand that place of the Churche's Persecutions the first three hundred years which made it the more illustriously visible and our nineteenth Article calls it the visible Church of Christ Now he proceeds to the business of General Councils whether they may Err in some points of Faith The Church of England acknowledges they may Err and have Err'd in things pertaining to God No doubt of it But this Author immediately flies higher with a why not in some points of Faith All the Evangelical Doctors grant says he that the later General Councils have Err'd if so why not the former what promise had the former from Christ more than the later True there is no more promise to a Council of the fourth Age or to that of Nice than to one that should be held in the seventeenth if it were as General and as free He asks concerning this promise The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church what 's this to a general Council which is not the thousandth part of the Clergy nor the thousand thousandth part of the Church We shall find him mistaken in this Account at long running Lastly he shews his charitable Divination in foretelling how much more mischief General Councils would have done if more of them had been conven'd But say you says he No General Council determin'd those errors Why because none was call'd about them had any been call'd who can doubt but they would have avow'd that in the Council which they all taught in their Churches This he says but his Yea's and Nay 's are no Oracles with us For why should they be when a General Council is not so with him Then presently he humbly craves pardon for his bold presumption viz. of these hard sayings against General Councils And I as humbly beg leave to speak for them in behalf of the Church of England and the Law of the Land both which I 'me sure I have on my side and both give much deference to General Councils The twentieth Article of our Church has these words The Church has Authority in matters of Faith And the Statute of the Land runs thus Eliz. 1. c. 1. That none however commissioned shall in any wise have authority or power to order or determine or adjudge any Matter or Cause to be Heresie but only such as heretofore have been determined ordered or adjudged to be Heresie by the authority of the Canonical Scriptures or by the first four General Councils or any of them or by any other General Council wherein the same was declared Heresie by the express and plain words of the said Canonical Scriptures or such as hereafter shall be ordered judged or determined to be Heresie by the Court of Parliament of this Realm with the Clergy in their Convocation But for all this we do not confess or acknowledge all or many of those for General Councils which they at Trent or which Bellarmine is pleas'd to account for such a parcel of eighteen of them But those very few we count for General which the Church Universal before the unhappy breach between East and West receiv'd for General But now to unravel the skein which is much entangled and ruffled in his confused way the diminutions he puts upon general Councils may be reduc'd to these three Heads 1. That General Councils may err in points of Faith because they have no promise to the contrary 2. Because they want Numbers even of the Clergy being not the thousandth part of them and therefore to put this Argument as far as ever it will go are not truly General 3. Because of the prejudices they that should sit in Council would bring along with them then who can doubt but they would avow that in the Council which they all taught in their Churches 1. In answer to his first Exception I premise these limitations If by erring in some points of Faith he means some points belonging to the Piety of Faith as Divines use to speak or to the Perfection of Faith or remotely belonging even to the essence or necessity of Faith and wounding it by far-fetcht Consequences I will not deny but even great Councils may possibly be circumvented for a time yet I may safely venture with our Learned Pious Dr. Hammond in his Paraenesis to reckon it among the pio credibilia or a thing piously credible as we say that God will not permit a Council truly General and Free to err in Fundamentals which thus far only I presume to explain that God will never permit them to deny and declare against any Fundamental Truth and much less to affirm and declare any Fundamental Errour to be a Truth and least of all to declare it a Fundamental Truth And if this Author asks which of God's Promises give us encouragement to hope and believe this I refer him to the Prophet Isaiah ch 30. v. 20. And though the Lord give you the bread of Adversity and the water of Affliction yet shall not thy Teachers be removed into a Corner any more but thine eye shall see thy Teachers That this Chap. is Evangelical will not I suppose be denied and so is that Isai 54. 17. and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment shalt thou condemn If this be denied to be spoken of the Christian Church I prove it undeniably from our Saviour's application of the Context And all thy Children shall be taught of God It was then a Prerogative of the Christian Church that her Teachers should be driven into
a kind of Chest that was fram'd for the purpose and plac'd them so that their Tayls should be gently screwed up through certain holes in a board and so they should be fastned all along in a row and Needles under their Tayls so dispos'd or plac'd that as the Musician struck the Keys the Needles prickt their Tayls which so nickt the Cats when the Organist came to play a lesson upon them that still as they were toucht they set up their Notes some high some low according to their several Capacities which made such harmony saies he as made the Rats dance and the men ready to burst with laughing Just such a Machine of a Church would this Author make us as this Musical Instrument if instead of our Screwing up the Non-conformists which we do not or their Screwing us up which once they did sufficiently he could screw them into the Church without more ado by this Project of his for Universal Toleration at least of all or very many Sects except the Papists for by what he delivers not only concerning the Ceremonies but also concerning Articles of Faith we may well conclude that he would not only have the Presbyterians who seem to stand out only upon Punctilio's of Ceremonies but also Independents Anabaptists and I know not how many more Sects if they call themselves Protestants taken into the Church or rather into the Drag-net as Bishop Laney calls it in his Sermon about Comprehension large and capacious enough to hold the Leviathan himself whom this Author follows a great way in his Notions of Sufficient or Insufficient Means for Peoples Conviction And when all such are received into the Church what will they do but set up their Cries and make their rude Noises in it if any thing in it afterward happens to pinch them Then instead of any Harmony or Concord I doubt there would be nothing in the Church but such a Discord as would make us only ridiculous to all that come near us Animadversions upon his Chapter concerning Church-Service HIS next discourse concerning Church-Service is all of a piece with the foregoing one about Ceremonies but one comfort is 't is not of so great length and every whit as remarkable for shortness of Reason Yet here as he makes his entrance he is a pretender to Reason for he slights and passes by some with whom he has no Reason to expect that reasonable Arguments should prevail Is he then for Reasonable Arguments But he should have added this Caution Provided they be not deduc'd from Scripture for you have seen he thinks it unsafe to make Deductions that is to Reason from thence Well he Supposes there is nothing in our Common-Prayer-book that is directly contrary to the Word of God and I may justly suppose till the contrary be proved that there is nothing in it contrary to the Word of God either directly or indirectly and p. 29. He also Conceives it absolutely necessary to have some Form prescribed to be used by all c. But now In Christ he humbly beseeches the Governours of the Church calmly to consider Were it not better to have such a form of Service as would satisfie most It is to be doubted or rather 't is out of doubt that most who are so unsatisfied with this are disgusted with all Sett Forms or would not be satisfied with any other Therefore we must be excus'd from trying his trick till he or some other Undertaker have corrected Magnisicat and the People the People whom he would have so caress'd have declared themselves satisfied with it or else have subscribed a Blank to be satisfied with whatever the New Projectors shall introduce His next Pique is at our saying the Second Service at the Altar which he saies was retain'd by the Fathers and first Reformers from Popery as carrying some resemblance with the Mass the Peoples delight which being now become the Peoples hate should for the same Resemblance by the same Reason be taken away For our Reading the Second Service at the Altar any one that can but read and is not a mere stranger in the Old Liturgicks knows that the Prayers were at the Altar many whole Ages before Popery either Name or Thing was heard of Therefore unless this Author knew the Reformers thoughts he can have no reason to put it upon them not at all for their honour though he would fain have it so that they prescribed this as carrying some resemblance to the Mass the peoples delight Why should he dream they did it to follow the Multitude in the Novelties of Popery and not rather to follow the Primitive Church I suppose the Reformers meaning in prescribing the Priest's going up to the Altar still was to declare and testifie to the Christian World that the Church of England highly approves Communion upon all High Daies as the Christian Sacrifice of Commemoration and the most Sacred Office in our Publick Worship and as it was constantly used in the Ancient Church upon every Lord's Day and every Solemn Festival They would no longer allow the Priest to receive the Sacrament alone because there was no ground either in the Scripture or the Fathers for such a Solitary Communion The very terms sound like a Contradiction But for all that the Reforâ—ers from Popery kept up the Communion Service at the Communion Table and so the Rubrick orders it still where the Place will bear it for it must be confess'd many of our Parish Churches are so built that the Second Service cannot be audibly read from the East end But where it can there it ought to be for a very sufficient reason that the memâ—ry at least of Weekly if not Daily Sacraments might not be lost and that if the Peoples Devotion could be raised again which the Monkery of those times had turned into the Formality of Communicating once a year as the Roman Church requires no more of Lay persons then the Priest should be in his station to shew himself ready to Administer not only thrice a year which is all our Church has thought fit to exact hitherto but every Sunday and Holy-day It were better then that we fell to our prayers and endeavours that the People may be so well fitted and prepared to Receive as the Primitive frequency of Sacraments may be restor'd than to sit and make wishes that Reading the Second Service at the Altar may be taken away How consistent he is with himself in that which follows in the same page requiring Uniformity and Conformity after such and such Amendments I have already discoursed and shew'd it unpracticable even upon his own Principles As for his varying the Phrase and saying that again p. 24. which he had said over and over that Certainly his Religion is vain that would abandon the substance for want of the Ceremonies which he acknowledges to be no way necessary I answer that certainly his Religion is as vain if not vainer that would abandon the Substance as they do
Admonition to all Non-conformists I Find little to complain of in his Charitable Admonition but that it is no longer O si sic omnia dixisset In the Close he bespeaks them at this rate and I will do him the courtesie to transcribe a great deal in his own words that so they may be reprinted with a License though they were printed without one I beseech you saies he to consider the great mischief you bring upon this Church and Nation by your Separation from the Church you pretend to be the great Zealots against Popery and yet give me leave to say your indiscreet disobedient Zeal mainly brings it in your separation and many following divisions have caused many to abhor our Church and turn to Popery and doubtless you are to give an account to God for the ruine of those Souls for I can never yield that you have any reasonable and true conscientious cause of Separation but merely mistaken-Reason and Conscience which I much pity but no way approve and therefore I must lay the advance of Popery to your charge to your Separation for I am sure 't is the main Snare wherewith they catch unstable Souls perswading them our Church is not guided by the Spirit of Truth seeing it is so confounded by the Spirit of Division it cannot be of God who is both Verity and Unity Now though it be well known to the Learned that their Church hath neither Verity nor Unity yet this is not so discernible to weak Souls c. 'T is true indeed after great Searchings of heart occasioned by our Divisions many set up their rest upon Popery though the Principles upon which the Church of Rome pretends to judge o◠Controversies do clash and fight even with one another and therefore are most unfit to quiet other mens thoughts yet because that Church is a Great Promiser they take Sanctuary there resolving as Joab did that if they Perish it shall be at the Horns of the Altar But I would fain know of this Author if our Divisions fright so many from our Church then would not streightning the Terms of our Belief as in his Chapter concerning Articles of Faith and abolishing all our Ceremonies and blending our Orders be the cause of more Divisions and consequently of more Separations from the Church of England Would not this give the highest advantage to the Romish Party And would not they be sure to urge it upon their coming Proselytes that we had abandon'd our former Principles That we had receded from our own Articles by which we gave so good an account of our selves to the whole Christian World at the Reformation That we had banisht not only all exterior Beauty but Order and Decency out of our Publick Worship That we had been false to God and to the Church of God in breaking so many Protestations as we had made heretofore against such proceedings as these and consequently false as all Cowards are to our selves Therefore whilst he has so much Charity for some that will have their own will as he tells us he must be intreated to have a little Charity too for our Understanding and not to expect we should give away our Religion in a fit of Complaisance and throw our Church out at window in a frolick His greatest Argument why all this ought to be yielded is grounded only upon Policy And perhaps he is as much mistaken in his Policy as in his Divinity They are not born to be any Repairers of our breaches that are the Authors of such rash Counsels as these which are worse than those Dolabella gave Cicero his Father-in-law when the Commonwealth was in a manner lost Reliquum est ubi nunc est Respublica ibi simus potius quà m dum illam veterem sequimur simus in nullâ But this Author would not have us take things as we find them but make them worse because they are no better Thus What the Romans scorned to do after the battel of Cannae What the Venetians never did when they had lost all their Terra firma That Men are Now taught to think a Vertue and the sign of a Wise and good man Desperare de Republicâ They are the words of the Christian Cicero as I presume to style him the present Lord Chancellour in his Speech to both Houses of Parliament April 13th 1675. And since I am fallen by chance into the Roman History I will conclude with a remarkable passage out of Livy lib. 5. When the Gauls a Barbarous People had sackt the City of Rome and cut the Senators Throats as they sat in the Streets and when afterwards Camillus a Banisht man had driven them away and restored the Common-wealth yet the People seeing the City so defac'd and spoiled were importunate to remove the Imperial Seat from Rome and settle at Veii whilst the Senate were debating it very warmly and rather inclining to remove as the Regiment that had the Guard that day pass'd through the Forum the Centurion that Commanded gave Orders aloud so that the Senate over-heard him into the Senate-House Signifer statue Signum Sta miles hic optimè manebimus Ensign set down the Colours Souldiers stand this is the best place for us to make our Station Whereupon the Senate took the Omen rose immediately from their Consultation and all the People approv'd their Generous Resolution There is a Thundring Legion of those that are at their prayers and tears and who keep as it were God-Almighty's Watch for the preservation of the most Apostolical Church in the World And as a Holy Bishop bid Monica the Mother of St. Augustine before he was any Saint go away and be comforted for it was impossible the Son of so many tears as He had cost her should perish And this saies that good Father was received as a Voice from heaven So I hope the Mother over whom so many of her own Sons are weeping and as it were wrestling with God in secret can never miscarry But if the Question be now whither we shall remove the Ancient Land-marks and carry our Church either toward Rome or Geneva the miraculous Providence of God in restoring it together with his Majesty after so many years Banishment and ever since preserving it may as a voice from Heaven animate us to resolve that this is the best place where we are fixt and here may we keep our station FINIS
a corner no more that is be always Visible even when the Lord gave them the bread of affliction that is even in times of Persecution as the lawful Catholick Bishops were never more Visible than when the intruding Arrians that were far enough from being Lawful Bishops persecuted them away from their Bishopricks and drove their Persons indeed into Corners yet they held intelligence and kept exact correspondence with one another still and with all their Flock's that persever'd in the Faith and disowned the uncanonical Arrian Bishops This they did by their Literae Formatae by this method the Church preserv'd in her Communion her own Members amidst their Dispersions and before any General Councils except at Jerusalem held by the Apostles themselves though the greatest Heresies arose early by this means they proclaim'd their Faith loudest of all then when they were silenc'd and excluded by the Arrians from their own Pulpits as the Sufferings which happen'd to St. Paul fell out rather to the furtherance of the Gospel So that his bonds in Christ were manifest in all the palace and in all other places and many of the Brethren in the Lord waxing confident by his bonds were much more bold to speak the word without fear Phil. 1. 12 13 14. And if the Church has a power of Condemning in judgment every tongue that rises up against her I think this amounts to a promise a glorious promise and there are many such that all or near all the Bishops in the Christian world shall never apparently fall from an Outward Profession at least of the Catholick Faith in Fundamentals and profess the quite contrary Heresies instead of them And he that will not allow thus much at least to the Church must run into wild aery suppositions of sheep without any shepherds People without any Priests a Church without any Orders and as invisible as the Leviathan makes it in his parallel between the Church of Rome and the Kingdom of Fayries Thus sar methinks this Author should go along with me for all his asking What 's this to a General Council for the promise was made to the whole Body of the Church since even he acknowledges that the Gates of Hell would prevail against Her if the Devil could so wound the whole Body of the Church as to destroy the Vitals the Fundamentals And if this be not a mortal wound to the Body to lose all its Pastors and Teachers by their falling into formal and mortal Heresie then nothing at all can wound it deadly but a total Dissolution of all and every one of its members and at this rate this Author may fancy as a certain great Enthusiast did before him that Himself alone might be the Catholick Church and that it might wholly subsist in his Single Person But he would fain avoid this inconvenience though a General Council should fall into such Fundamental Errour and persist in it because Secondly says he 'T is not the thousandth part of the Clergy nor the thousand thousandth part of the Church which in the Scripture is always put for the whole Body of the Faithful though of late it be translated into quite another notion and taken for the Clergy only I answer if the Church be always put for the whole Body yet the Clergy sure are the voice or the mouth of that Body and God has promised Isa 59 20. And the Redeemer shall come to Zion to put it out of doubt that all this Chapter is Gospel and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob saith the Lord As for me this is my Covenant with them saith the Lord my Spirit which is upon thee and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy seed nor out of the mouth of thy seeds seed saith the Lord from henceforth and for ever Farther I add out of the Author 's own confession in his Chap. concerning Bishops and Priests The Church was always governed by Bishops that is by one whatsoever you please to call him set over the rest of the Clergy with Authority to ordain to exhort to rebuke to judge and censure as he found cause no other form of Government is mentioned by any Author for fifteen hundred years from the Apostles downwards I make account then that a General Council of Bishops is as Tertullian styles it Representatio totius nominis Christiani a Representative of all that are called Christians Inferiour Clergy as well as Laity And what then if they are not the thousandth part of the Clergy nor the thousand thousandth part of the Laity nay to strengthen his Argument what if there is not actually met in Council the twentieth part of the Bishops that are in the Christian World Suppose that all are invited with assurance of safe conduct to a place of security and time enough allow'd for their convening all which can never be effected without the consent of Kings and Princes and without that it never must be attempted nevertheless because very many cannot possibly take such a voyage and must needs be absent it was never pretended to have the force of a General Council till it was manifestly accepted by those absent Bishops of the Church Universal wheresoever dispersed or at least by the visibly Major part of them so that it might appear to any one at first glympse as they say and without any scrupulous enquiry which way their much greater number had declared themselves If there be still a few Dissenters 't is inconsiderable as what were seventeen Arrian Bishops for there were no more Arrians that were lawful Bishops in the Council of Nice where there were three hundred and eighteen Catholique Pastors equal almost to the number of Servants bred up in the House of Abraham I know not then what they mean that would evacuate and annihilate almost the whole authority of general Councils by sending us to Ortelius's Mapps or Geographical Tables bidding us take a survey of all the great Cathedrals or Metropolitical Churches and then demand of us whether there were ever any Councils so Oecumenical from which above half the Bishops of these Sees were not absent True but if they were present upon their own Charges and did but what would be certainly required and exacted of them there or wherever they were they must needs accept subscribe recite publish and preach and cause to be preacht over all their Dioceses the Decrees concerning the Faith such as the Nicene Creed or the Constantinopolitan Nay the Bishops did many times summon Provincial and National Councils to sit a little before and at the same time with the General on purpose to ratifie and spread their Decrees And if any Council was pretended to be General and Free when it was not so as was the second of Nice which being overaw'd by an Imperious woman Irene decreed Image-worship Immediately two or three other great Western Councils as that of Francfort in Germany