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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27045	The successive visibility of the church of which the Protestants are the soundest members I. defended against the opposition of Mr. William Johnson, II. proved by many arguments / by Richard Baxter ; whereunto is added 1. an account of my judgement to Mr. J. how far hereticks are or are not in the church, 2. Mr. Js. explication of the most used terms, with my queries thereupon, and his answer and my reply, 3. an appendix about successive ordination, 4. letters between me and T.S., a papist, with a narrative of the success.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Johnson, William, 1583-1663.	1660 (1660)	Wing B1418; ESTC R17445	166,900	438

Protestants are chief Members is clearly proved And the Papists exceptions against it confuted LONDON Printed in the year 1660. Qu. Whether the Church of which the Protestants are Members have been Visible ever since the dayes of Christ on earth Aff. THe terms explained 1. The Church sometime signifieth a particular Congregation actually met or associated for such personal meeting for Communion in Gods worship 2. Sometime it signifieth an Association of Churches and that either of sewer or of more as they have opportunity of Communion or correspondency by their Pastors and also the Assemblies of the Pastors of the particular Churches so associated Scripture useth it in the first sense and Later custome whether Scripture also I omit in the later 3. Both Scripture and Custome have used the word to signifie the Church Universal of which all particular Churches are Members This is the Church that we speak of in the Question Defin. The Universal Church of which the Protestants profess themselves Members is The Kingdome of Iesus Christ or The whole company of Believers or true Christians upon earth subjected to Iesus Christ their Head The constitutive parts or the Relate and Correlate are as in every Politick Body the Pars Imperans and Pars subdita which is Christ and Christians The form consisteth in the mutuall Relation The End is the common good of the Church and the glory of the Head and the accomplishment of the will of God 2. The Protestants Defin. Protestants are Christians protesting against or disowning Popery The word Protestant expresseth not the essence of our Religion And therefore it must not denominate the Universal Church of which we are Members we are not to call it A Protestant Universal Church Nor doth it signifie an inseparable proper accident For when the Catholick Church had no Popery there was none to protest against and therefore there could be no Protestants And Ethiopia India and other Nations that never had Popery or those Nations that never heard of it have no occasion to protest against it Nor doth it signifie any Positive part directly of our Religion but only the Negation or Rejection of Popery Even as when a man is called Homo purgatus sanatus liberatus à leprâ peste tabe c. a man purged healed freed from the leprosie plague consumption c. it is no positive part nor inseparable proper accident much less any essential part of the man that is signified by the word Healed Purged c. Nor is it necessary in order to the proving him a man or a healthfull man to prove that he was ever a purged or healed man We undertake not therefore to prove that there have been alwayes Protestants that is men Protesting against Popery Nor have we any need in order to the proof of our Thesis to prove that the Catholick Church hath all been free from Popery in all ages or in any age since the Apostles no more then that it hath been free from Pride Ambition or Contention But yet we shall do it ex abundanti The Religion then of a Protestant is Christianity and he knoweth and owneth no other Which is called the Protestant Religion as cleansed from Popery Members that is true integral parts Of which are By Profession We profess our selves to be of no other Church And before men a man is to be taken to be of that Religion and Church of which he professeth himself to be till he be proved false in that Profession If a Papist affirm himself a member of the Roman Church in disputing with him we will take it for granted that he is so every man being best acquainted with his own mind and fittest to describe the Religion which he owns So that two things I here include 1. It is only such a Catholick Church that hath been still visible that Protestants own 2. And only such that really they are of their Profession being valid Note also that it is not directly the inexistency by internal invisible faith that is in question among us or that I mean but the inexistency by external Visible Profession Bellarmine thinks the bare Professors that are wicked are best termed Dead members and the true Professors Living members we will not stick needlesly on words We take the Living members only to be in strict propriety members but Sincerity and Hypocrisie being known only to God and the possessors we speak of Professors as Professors abstractively from their Sincerity or Hypocrisie Hath been Visible 1. Not visible to man in its Internal faith but in its external Profession 2. Not Visible at once to any one man for no man can see all the Christian world at once But Visible in its parts both in Congregations and individual persons 3. Not Visible in the soundness of its professed faith unto Infidels and Hereticks For they cannot see that faith to be sound which they take to be fabulous and false But Visible in the soundness of its professed faith to themselves that know the soundness of faith 4. Not Visible in the excellent degree of soundness in the better parts unto the corrupter or infirmer parts For though de facto they may know what Doctrine the better part do hold as Infidels know what Doctrine the Church holdeth yet they know it not to be true and sound in the points wherein they differ And note again that it is not the Visibility of every accident of the Church nor of every Truth or duty that is but of the Integrity of Religion and necessary only ad melius esse Ecclesiae to the Better being of the Church but it is the Visibility of the Church that we speak of Lastly it is the Body and not the Head whose Visibility is in Question by us Though the Head also is truly Visible in Heaven and Visus or seen to the most excellent Triumphant part of his Body who are fittest to be his Courtiers and in his presence and as much seen on earth as the Pope is to most of the Church which is not at all Ever since the dayes of Christ on earth 1. But not still in one and the same place on earth It might be in one age much of it in Iudea at Ephesus Sardis Laodicaea Colosse Philippi and other parts of Asia and in other ages removed thence either wholly or for the most part It might be in one age in Tendu● N●bia and other great Kingdoms where it shall af●er cease to be But in some part or other of the earth it hath been still 2. Not equally visible in all Times and Places of the earth In some Times as in the Arrians prevalency it was so oppressed and obscured that the world groaned to find it self turn'd Arrian and the Arrians in General Councils and number of Bishops to whom the true Christians were very few did seem to carry away the Name and glory of the Catholick Church so that in their eyes and in the eyes of slanders by that were of neither

party the most Visible Catholick Church was theirs who yet had no part in it because they were not Christians as denying that which is essentiall to Christ the object of the Christian faith and therefore none of the Church and therefore though most visible and numerous yet not the visible Church And the Church which to others was as wheat hidden in this chaffe or rather a few ears among so many rares was yet Visible to it self in its Truth of faith and visible to its Enemies in its Profession and assemblies though in number far below them So also in some places it may be Latent through persecution the paucity of believers when in other places it is more Patent And its Degrees of soundness being various are accordingly variously visible One part may be really and visibly more strong and another more weak in the faith One part much more corrupt then others and other parts retain their purity And the same Countries increase or decrease in that purity as is apparent in the case of the Churches of Galatia Corinth the seven Asian Churches Rev. 2. and 3. c. Lastly note that it is only that part of the Church which is on earth whose visibility we assert though that in Heaven be also a true part of the Body of Christ. Nor is it in the same Individuals that the Church continueth Visible but in successive Matter So much for explication of the terms Thes. The Church of which the Protestants are Members hath been Visible ever since the dayes of Christ on earth Arg. 1. The Body of Christians on earth subjected to Christ their Head hath been in its parts Visible ever since the dayes of Christ on earth But the Body of Christians on earth subjected to Christ their Head is the Church of which the Protestants are Members Therefore the Church of which the Protestants are Members hath been visible ever since the dayes of Christ on earth I have not sagacity enough to conjecture what any Papist can say against the Major proposition The Minor is proved by our own Professions As the profession of Popery proveth a man a Papist so the profession of Christianity as much proveth us to be Christians α Those that profess the true Christian Religion in all its essentials are Members of that Church which is the Body of Christians on earth subjected to Christ the Head But the Protestants profess the true Christian Religion in all its essentialls therefore the Protestants are Members of that Church which is the Body of Christians on earth subjected to Christ the Head The Major is undeniable The Minor is thus proved 1. Those that profess so much as God hath promised salvation upon in the Covenant of Grace do profess the Christian Religion in all its Essentials For God promiseth salvation in that Covenant to none but Christians But the Protestants profess so much as God hath promised salvation upon in the Covenant of Grace Therefore the Protestants do profess the Christian Religion in all its essentials The Minor is thus proved All that profess faith in God the Father Son and holy Ghost our Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier and love to him and absolute obedience to all his Laws of Nature and holy Scripture with willingness and diligence to know the true meaning of all these Laws as far as they are able and with Repentance for all known sin do profess so much as God hath promised salvation upon Ioh. 3.16 17. Mark 16.16 Heb. 5.9 Rom. 8.28 1. Act 26.18 But so do the Protestants Therefore the Protestants profess so much as God hath promised salvation on 2. Those that profess as much and much more of the Christian faith and Religion as the Catechumens were ordinarily taught in the ancient Churches and the Competentes at Baptism did profess do profess the true Christian Religion in all its essentials But so do the Protestants Therefore c. 3. Those that explicitely profess the Belief of all that was contained in the Churches Symbols or Creeds for six hundred years after Christ and much more holy truth and implicitly to believe all that is contained in the holy Scriptures and to be willing and diligent for the explicite knowledge of all the rest with a Resolution to obey all the will of God which they know do profess the true Christian Religion in all its Essentials But so do the Protestants Therefore c. Ad hominem I confirm the Major and most that went before from the Testimonies of some most eminent Papists Bellarmine saith de Verbo Dei lib. 4. c. 11. In the Christian doctrine both of faith and manners some things are simply necessary to salvation to all as the knowledge of the Articles of the Apostles Creed of the ten Commandments and of some Sacraments The rest are not so necessary that a man cannot be saved without the explicite knowledge belief and profession of them These things that are simply necessary and are profitable to all the Apostles preached to all All things are written by the Apostles which are Necessary to all and which they openly preacht to all Costerus Enchirid. c. 1. p. 49. We deny not that those chief heads of Belief which are necessary to all Christians to be known to salvation are perspicuously enough comprehended in the writings of the Apostles But all this the Protestants profess to believe ● If sincere Protestants are Members of the true Church as intrinsecally informed or as Bellarmine speaks Living Members then professed Protestants are Members of the true Church as extrinsecally denominated or as it is Visible consisting of Professors But the Antecedent is true Therefore so is the Consequent The Reason of the Consequence is because it is the same thing that is professed by all Professors and existent in all true Believers and that as to Profession is necessary to Visibility of Membership and as to sincere inexistence is necessary to salvation The Antecedent or Minor I thus prove All that by saith in Christ are brought to the unfeigned Love of God above all and speciall Love to his servants and unfeigned willingness to obey him are Members of the true Church as intrinsecally informed But such are all sincere Protestants Therefore all sincere Protestants are Members of the true Church as intrinsecally informed The Major is granted by the Papists who affirm charity to be the form of Grace and all that have it to be justified And the promises of Scripture prove it to our Comfort The Minor 1. Is proved to others by our Professions If this be in our Profession then the sincere are such indeed But this is in our Profession Therefore c. 2. It s certainly known to our selves by the inward knowledge and sense of our souls I know that I Love God and his servants and am willing to obey him Therefore all the Papists Sophisms shall never make me not know what I do know and not feel what I do feel They reason in vain with me when

or may baptize many without their owning the Pope who yet would be Christians And a Pastor not known or believed or owned is actually no Pastor to them To your confirmation I Reply You misread my words I talk not of Invisible I say it is true that the Universal Church is united to Christ as their universall Head and is Visible 1. In the members 2. In the Profession 3. Christ himself is visible in the Heavens and as much seen of most of the Church as the Pope is that is not at all As the Pope is not Invisible though one of a million see him not no more is Christ who is seen by most of the Church and by the best part even by the glorified You know my meaning Whether you will Call Christ visible or not I leave to you I think he is visible But that which I affirm is that the universal Church hath no other visible universal Head or Pastor But particular Churches have their particular Pastors all under Christ. Of Eph. 4. I easily grant that the whole Church may be said to have Pastors in that all the particular Churches have Pastors But I deny that the whole have any one universal Pastor but Christ. Of that which is the point in controversie you bring no proof If you mean no more then I grant that the whole Church hath Pastors both in that each particular Church hath Pastors and in that unfixed Pastors are to preach to all as they have opportunity then your Minor hath no denyall from me Instead of prosecuting your Argument when you had cast the work of an Opponent upon me you here appeal to any true Logician or expert Lawyer Content I admit of your Appeal But why then did you at all put on the face of an Opponent could you not without this lost labour at first have called me to prove the successive visibility of our Church But to your Appeal Ho all you true Logicians this Learned man and I refer it to your tribunal whether it be the part of an Opponent to contrive his Argument so as that the Negative shall be ●is and then change places and become Respondent and make his adversary Opponent at his Pleasure We leave this cause at your bar and expect your sentence But before we come to the Lawyers bar I must have leave more plainly to state our case We are all agreed that Christianity is the true Religion and Christ the Churches Universal Head and the holy Scriptures the Word of God Papists tell us of another Head and Rule the Pope and Tradition and judgement of the Church Protestants deny these Additionals and hold to Christianity and Scripture only Our Religion being nothing but Christianity we have no Controversie about Their Papall Religion superadded is that which is Controverted They affirm 1. the Right 2. the Antiquity of it We deny both The Right we disprove from Scripture though it belongs to them to prove it The Antiquity is it that is now to be referred Protestancy being the Denyall of Popery it is we that Really have the Negative and the Papists that have the Affirmative The Essence of our Church which is Christian is confessed to have been successively visible But we deny that theirs as Papal hath been so and now they tell us that it is Essential to ours to deny the succession of theirs and therefore require us to prove a succession of ours as one that still hath denyed theirs Now we leave our case to the Lawyers seeing to them you make your appeal 1. Whether the substance of all our cause lie not in this Question Whether the Papacy or universal Government by the Pope be of heaven or of men and so whether it hath been from the beginning which we deny and therefore are called Protestants and they affirm and are therefore called Papists 2. If they cannot first prove a successive visibility of their Papacy and Papal Church then what Law can bind us to prove that it was denied before it did arise in the world or ever any pleaded for it 3. And as to the point of Possession I know not what can be pretended on your side 1. The Possession of this or that particular Parish Church or Tythes is not the thing in question but the universal Headship is the thing But if it were yet it is I that am yet here in Possession and Protestants before me for many ages successively And when possessed you the Headship of the Ethiopian Indian and other extra-imperial Churches never to this day No nor of the Eastern Churches though you had communion with them 2. If the Question be who hath Possession of the universal Church we pretend not to it but only to be a part and the soundest safest part 3. The case of Possession therefore is whether we have not been longer in Possession of our Religion which is bare Christianity then you of your superadded Popery Our Possession is not denied of Christianity Yours of Popery we deny and our denyal makes us called Protestants Let therefore the reason of Logicians Lawyers or any rational sober man determine the case whether it do not first and principally belong to you to prove the visible succession of a Vice-Christ over the universal Church As to your contradictory impositions I Reply 1. Your exception was not exprest and your imposition was peremptory 2. I told you I would be a Papist if you prove that the whole visible Church in all ages hath held the Popes universal headship you say that you have proved it by this argument that either he hath that supremacy or some other Church denying that he hath alwaies had it hath been alwaies visible and that Church you require should be named I Reply 1. Had not you despaired of making good your cause you should have gone on by Argumentation till you had forced me to contradict some common principle 2. If you should shew these Papers to the world and tell them that you have no better proof of the succession of your Papacy then that we prove not that it hath alwaies been denied by the visible Church you would sure turn thousands from Popery if there be so many rational considering impartial men that would peruse them and believe you For any man may know that it could not be expected that the Churches should deny a Vice-Christ before he was sprung up Why did not all the precedent Roman Bishops disclaim the title of universal Bishop or Patriarch till Pelagius and Gregory but because there was none in the world that gave occasion for it How should any Heresie be opposed or condemned before it doth arise But you fairly yield me somewhat here and say that you oblige me not to prove a continued visible Church formally and expresly denying it but that it was of such a constitution as was inconsistent with any such supremacy or could and did subsist without it Reply I confess your first part is very ingenuous and

cannot force our own understandings to believe all such things that you believe and meerly because the Pope commands it and when we cannot thus force our own understandings must we be burned or else called Separatists would you have the Communion of our Ashes or else say We forsake your Communion In your Churches we cannot have leave to come without lying against God and our consciences and saying We believe what our senses contradict and without committing that which our consciences tell us are most heynous sins We solemnly protest that we would do as you do and say as you say were it not for the love of truth and holiness and for fear of the wrath of God and the flames of hell but we cannot we dare not rush upon these errours and sell our souls to please the Pope And must we then either be murdered or taken for uncha●●●●ble will you say to so many poor souls that are ready to enter into another world Either sin against your consciences and so damn your souls or else let us burn and murder you or else you do not love us you are uncharitable if you deny us leave to kill you and you separate from the Communion of the Church We appeal from the Pope and all unreasonable men to the great God of heaven and earth to judge righteously between you and us concerning this dealing As for possessing our selves of your Bishopricks and Cures if any particular person had personal injury in the change being cast out without cause they must answer for it that did it and not I though I never heard any thing to make me believe it But must the Prince and people let alone delinquent Pastors for fear of being blamed for taking their Bishopricks Ministers of the same Religion with us may be cast out for their crimes Princes have power over Pastors as well as David Solomon and other Kings of Israel had Guil. Barklay and some few of your own knew this The Popes treasonable exemption of the Clergy from their Soveraigns judgement will not warrant those Princes before God that neglect to punish offe●●ing Pastors And I beseech you tell us ●hen our consciences after the use of all means that we can use to be informed cannot renounce all our sences nor our reason nor the judgement of the most of the Church or of antiquity or the Word of God and yet we must do so or be no members of your Church what wrong is it to you if we choose us Pastors of our own in the order that God hath appointed Had not the people in all former ages the choice of their Pastors we and our late forefathers here were never under your oversight but we know not why we may not now choose our Pastors as well as formerly We do it not by tumults we kill not men and tread not in their blood while we choose our Pastors as Pope Damasus was chosen The tythes and other temporal maintenance we take from none but the Magistrate disposeth of it as he seeth meet for the Churches good And the maintenance is for the cure or work and therefore they that are justly cast out of the cure are justly deprived of the maintenance And surely when they are dead none of you can with any shew of reason stand up and say These Bishopricks are yours or these Parsonages your●● It is the Incumbent personally that only ●an claim title saving the supereminent title of Christ to whom they are devoted But the successive Popes cannot have title to all the tithes and Temples in the world nor any of his Clergy that never were called to the charges If this be disunion it is you that are the Separatists and cause of all If you will needs tell all the Christian world that except they will be ruled by the Pope of Rome and be burned if they believe not as he bids them in despight of all their senses he will call them Separatists Schismaticks and say they disunite and are uncharitable again we appeal to God and all wise men that are impartial whether it be he or we that is the divider You ask me Is not charity subordination and obedience to the same state and Government required as well to make one Congregation of Christians as it is required to make a Congregation of Commonwealths men Answ. Yes it is But as all the world is one Kingdom under God the universal King but yet hath no universal Vice-King but every Commonwealth only hath its own Soveraign even so all the Christian world is one Church under Christ the universal King of the Church but ha●● not one Vice-Christ but every Church hath its own Pastors as every School hath its own Schoolmaster But all the anger is because we are loth to be ruled by a cruel usurper therefore we are uncharitable Your next reason against me is because They cannot be parts of the Catholike Church unless Arrians and Pelagians and Donatists be parts and so Hereticks and Schismaticks be parts Reply 1. You know sure that your own Divines are not agreed whether Hereticks and Schismaticks are parts of the Church And if they were yet it is not de fide with you as not determined by the Pope If it be then all yours are Hereticks that are for the affirmative Bellarmine nameth you some of them If it be not then how can you be sure its true and so impose it on me that they are no parts 2. Arrians are no Christians as denying that which is essential to Christ and so to Christianity Pelagianism is a thing that you are not agreed among your selves of the true nature of Many of the Dominicans and Jansenists think the Jesuits Pelagianize or Semipelagianize at least I hope you will not shut them out Donatists were ●chismaticks because they divided in the Catholike Church and not absolutely from it and because they divided from the particular Churches about them that held the most universal external Communion I think they were still members of the universal Church but I 'le not contend with any that will plead for his uncharitable denyal It s nothing to our case That the Aethiopians are Eutychian Hereticks I will see better proved before I will believe it Rosses words I so little regard that I will not so much as open his book to see whether he say so or not I know that Heresie is a personal crime and cannot be charged on Nations unless you have evidence that the Nations consent to it which here you have none Some are called Hereticks for denying points essential to Christianity these are no Christians and so not in the Church but many also are called Hereticks by you and by the Fathers for lesser errors consistent with Christianity and these may be in the Church The Abassines and all the rest have not been yet tryed and convicted before any competent Judge and slanderers we regard not 2. Many of your own writers acquit them of Heresie and say the

wits in and whence they might gather more matter of dispute to puzzle the weak And therefore Tertullian adviseth the ordinary Christians of his time instead of long puzzling disputes with them out of Scripture to hold them to the Churches prescription of the simple doctrine of the Creed But now come in the Papists and 3. will neither be content with Creed nor Scripture but must have a Church or faith partly made up of supplemental Traditions of more then is in all the Scripture and so run further from Tertullian and the ancient simplicity then these Hereticks and yet are not ashamed to glory in this Book of Tertullian as for them Of the Fathers judgement of the Scripture sufficiency see the third part of my safe Religion where I have produced Testimonies enough to prove the Antiquity of the Protestants Religion and the Novelty of Popery But nothing can be so plain and full which pre-engaged men dare not deny Let me instance but in one or two passages of Augustine so plain as might put an end to the whole Controversie Aug. de Doctr. Christian. lib. 2. c. 9. In his omnibus libris timentes Deum pietate mansueti quaerunt voluntatem Dei. Cujus operis laboris prima observatio est ut diximus nosse istos libros si nondum ad intellectum legendo tamen vel mandare memoriae He was not against the Vulgars reading Scripture vel omnino incognitos non habere Deinde illa quae in eis aperte pofita sunt vel praecepta vivendi vel regulae credendi solertiùs diligentiúsque investiganda sunt Quae tanto quisque plura invenit quanto est intelligentia capacior In iis enim quae apertè in Scriptura posita sunt inveniuntur illa omnia quae continent fidem moresque vivendi N. B. spem scilicet atque charitatem de quibus libro superiore tractavimus Tum vero facta quadam familiaritate cum ipsa lingua divinarum scripturarum in ea quae obscura sunt aperienda discutienda pergendum est ut ad obscuriores locutiones illustrandas de manifestationibus sumantur exempla quaedam certarum sententiarum testimonia dubitationem de incertis auferant You see here that the Scripture as sufficient to faith and manners to be read by all that fear God and can read and the harder places to be expounded by the plainer was the ancient Rule of faith and Religion And this is the Religion of Protestants Aug. lib. 3. c. 6. contra lit Petiliani pag. 127. Proinde sive de Christo sive de ejus Ecclesia sive de quacunque alia re quae pertinet ad fidem vitamque nostram non dicam Nos nequaquam comparandi ●i qui dixit Licet si nos sed omnino quod secutus adjecit si Angelus de coelo vobis annunciaverit praeterquam quod in Scripturis Evangelicis accepistis Anathema sit I must needs English this short passage to the utter confusion of Popery And therefore whether it be of Christ or whether it be of the Church or whether it be of any other matter that pertaineth to our Faith or Life I will not say if we as being not worthy to be compared with him that said Though we but I will say plainly what he added following If an Angel from heaven shall declare to you any thing besides that which you have received in the Legall and Evangelicall Scriptures let him be Anathema or accursed Was not the Church then purely Protestant in their Religion The Minor needs no proof but our own Profession My profession is the best evidence of my own Religion to another And I profess this to be my Religion which is contained in the holy Scripture as the Test or Law or Rule And let no man contradict me that knoweth not my Religion better then I do The Articles of the Church of England profess this also to be the Religion of the Composers And the Protestants commonly uno ore do profess it It is the great difference between us and the Papists The whole Universal Law of God that we know of and own is contained in Nature and Scripture conjunct But the Papists take somewhat else to be another part We allow by-Laws about mutable undetermined things as aforesaid to Governours But we know no Universal Law of faith and holiness but Nature and Scripture This is our Religion And this Religion contained in Nature and Scriptures hath been still received Obj. We confess Scripture is sufficient to them that have no further light All that is necessary to the salvation of all is in that perspicuously as Costerus Bellarmine and others say but more is necessary to salvation to some Ans. 1. Then at least it containeth all the Essentialls of Christianity which sufficeth to our present end 2. And what maketh more Necessary to me or others here in England if it be not necessary to all Is it because that more is Revealed to us But how and by whom and with what Evidence We are willing to see it and can see no such thing But if this be it if I may speak so plainly without offence it seems it concerneth us to keep out Friars and Jesuites from the Land as much if we knew how as to keep out the Devil For they tell us 1. That we must believe the Popes Soveraignty against the Tradition and judgement of most of the Catholick Church 2. And we must believe our selves to be void of Charity because no Papists contrary to our internall sense and knowledge 3. And we must believe that bread is not bread and wine is not wine contrary to the common senses of all sound men and if we will not thus renounce the Churches Vote Tradition our Certain knowledge Reason and all our Senses we must be damned where as before this doctrine was brought us we might have been saved as having in the Scriptures all things necessary to the salvation of all But the Papists must needs have us shew them where our Church was and name the persons Answ. 1. It were not the Catholike Church if it were confined to any place that is but a part of the Christian territories 2. Nor were it the Catholike Church if we could name half or a considerable part of the members As Augustin oft tells the Donatists it is the Church which begun at Ierusalem and thence is spread throughout the world Part of it may be in one Nation one year which may forfeit and lose it before the next God hath not tyed it to any place 3. To tell you where the Catholike Church hath been in every age and who were the Members or the Leaders requireth much knowledge in History and Cosmography which God hath not made necessary to salvation 4. There are no known Histories that deliver us the Catalogues of the Christians in every age of the world Had any been so foolish as to write them they would have been too chargeable to keep and too