under which they doe so peevishly militate A Satyre would be the best stile to describe the animosities they prosecute each others Opinion with and no lesse would it become all those angry fits that they expresse in their severall wandrings and errors they throw a Sea of gall and bitternesse after those who upon mature examination relinquish those Mazes they leade their followers in What should one speake of the fruitfull Independency big with all sorts of Opinions Brownists Anabaptists Arminian Zwinglian Aecolampadian and all these the English Church Protestant Episcopall banishes excludes from them The bosome of the Catholique Church is spread wide to intertaine all whom with earnest Prayers and endevors it invites and desires zealous of their salvation which onely in an ordinary way is to be had there The ancient Heretiques Arrians Nestorians Vtichians whose reliques yet possesse some place in the World are excluded likewise by themselves who make this objection and besides their owne Reformation hath been a varied unconstant one that except they would fal in love with this Word Reformation I know not well what can be understood by it H. 8. first onely threw out the Pope but retained the seven Sacraments after by degrees they were taken away and new Doctrines brought in with relaxations of Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction and sometime it hath been wholly submitted to the Presbyterian humour in confusedly going to their Churches and so generally using their Directory whereas according to their own opinions vvithout Bishops no Ordination can be Quo teneam nodo They complaine That the opinion of the Church of Rome are obtruded upon them for Artikles and Fundamentals in Faith Doth not all the Wildernesse of their opinions their opiniotive Idolatries each one avouching their Doctrine with Thus saith the Lord Doth not all their Anarchies and irregularities flow in upon them by letting those antient bulworks goe into neglect which stood betwixt a Sea of error and themselves that is in stead of standing upon the old wayes to view and discover truth from they have onely disdainefully trampled upon them and in stead of asking the Fathers to see vvhat they held and thought they will make bold to thinke the Fathers mistaken if they finde themselves contradicted by them and hold and thinke of them as not worth asking Thus doe they discountenance Tradition and the establishments of the Church The Apostle saith When he should come he would order things Now saith the Father what hath beene universally observed was ordered by him St. Augustine de Bap. contra Donatist That which the Universall Church holds and is not Instituted by Councels but alwayes retained it s probably beleeved not to be delivered but by Apostolicall authority Their error that oppose the authority of the Church and the prerogative of the Apostolicall Seat flowes from this wretched pudled Fountaine that is Reducing Reformation to the Scripture it selfe interpreted by mens perticular judgements The holy and sacred letters are the blessed records of our salvation Celestiall Messages Angels of peace winged with love which hover over mens soules with celestiall protections comforts and graces they are the glasse wherein is beheld the beauty of holinesse the splendor of the Eternall Father the Image of his Sonne Yet as S. Austine saith The words of the Scripture are to be so understood as the world hath beleeved which it self foretold should beleeve they were writ upon severall occasions to perticuler Churches which faithfully kept what was committed unto them whether by writing or by word of mouth the Scripture confessing That if all had been writ the world would not have contained the Books and every where they enjoyne the hearkning to the Church which who should not heare are excluded from Christian communion by their holy censure The Church was then establisht when divers of these sacred letters were directed to them and by them and what other rules were delivered taught them they governed taught administred corrected and absolved so that they were like the Testimony in the Arke the Church of God had the custody and interpretation of them so that who should Sacrilegiously steale the testimony out of the Ark and run away with Scripture and impaile Congregations about with new goverments and cry The Word of the Lord and quarrell at the other orders and Traditions of the Church he would be judged by all to have ravisht the spheares of government to have disordered the Divine dispensation of his goodnesse towards us Neither can they pretend any right over those Laws who are condemned by those Laws Waters out of their own channels beget strange and forraine tasts and this is the grand and unhaypy sophistry of this age a bene conjunctis ad male divisa Scripture divided from the Church seems to countenance every party in their fancies making it like a Looking-glasse wherin they doe but see their owne Image not Gods and by an inward delusion view the reflections of their owne wits flattering their understandings whilst by a foreprepared conceipt they finde some countenance to their own inward thoughts Whereas Scriptures the Oracles of God are truth not the Pen or the Presse being writ because they were true not true because they were writ They say neither their Religion Reason nor Charity will permit them to acknowledge the Church of Rome for their Mother I shall now view the use of Reason in the election of Religion and see if it well directed doth hinder them When that which flows from well establisht authority shall be call'd in question or disputed through the violence and disorder of Factions the upholders of Government and Justice have recourse to the Origens and Fountaines of Justice shewing how all their Acts and Decrees received their obligatory nature from the agreement they had with those rules of Reason and those severall Laws which constituted them to be good and just so that they who before found onely the effects of peace by a due obedience to them now search into the reasons and causes why they were of such power to produce such effects And those who before pleasantly lived in the building laboriously now seeks the Foundation The mysteries of Religion being above reason were confirmed with mirakles which are above nature but whether this or that Religion be the same with that which was so confirmed must be examined according to all those rules which though divinely given must now by reason be examined whether they be conformable to them or not The protitipe was from Heaven the originall supernaturall but for to prove the continuance of it we must compare and examine it according to all that hath been delivered concerning the same formerly And it s no small difficulty to chase truth through its severall channels The Laws of Gods Church challenge our obedience the opposing wherof is Scisme because we are kept in one intire body by the observation of them the neglect whereof cuts us off from that communion Civill Governments and
Church which is the house of God notes upon it thus Of which Damasus then Pope is at this day ruler And againe Primà adversus Ruffinum fidem suam quam vocat camque qua Romana pollet Ecclesia Si Romana respondent ergo Catholici sumus St Augustine of the fifth Age lib. 11. cap. 2. contra Faunsâ—um Vides in hac re quid Ecclesiae Catholicae valeâ—t authoritas quae ab ipsis fundatissimis seâ—ibus Apostolorum usque ad hodiernum diem succedentium sibi met Episcoporum serie populorum consensione firmata St. Jerom of most austere life a profound Schollar and generall Linguist lived unmarried a Monke a Priest said Masse St. Augustine was Bishop of Hippo confessedly a Priest and offered up the body and blood of Christ in Sacrifice for the living and the dead Saint Basil a Monke Priest unmarried did not they all live and dye in the communion of the Church of Rome and did detest Scisme I remember one told me at Venice pleasantly discoursing of the difference which that Republique had with the Pope We would have become saith he any thing to have been ad oppisitum with the Pope Lutherans or Calvenists but that we were satisfied with the truth of all opinions of the Church from our own Records which have been in violated and kept intire and delivered then with as great vigor as now observed for about a thousand years which time that City hath stood never taken or plunderd nor burnt the two great winding sheets of humane things Will not the Laws and constitutions of all ancient governments declare and demonstrate the same even of those places which have revolted from them must all men in so many grave Councels resorting from all parts of the Christian world relating one to another what in the severall places whence they came hath been held and so from time to time an universall establishment of such things as have been found to be the generall Traditions and Doctrines of the Church and yet must all these be thought to have walked in a vaine shadow Rocks Cities Woods must be thought to move while their eyes dwelling too much upon the currant of the times breeds this deception that they are thought to move from the little Boats when it is the Ship boats departing from them Thus it is evident who thrusts the Church of Rome upon them and what hath thrust them from the Church of Rome When parties are once engaged though testimonies be as lowd as Thunder yet the ball must be kept up poore pretences must undergoe the opinion of inevitable necessities all sticks seen in that Water must be crooked Non persuadebis etiamsi persuaseris They say It must not be obtruded upon them as Catholique it excluding three parts of foure of the Christian World All Christians in all Ages have pronounced that Artikle I beleeve the holy Catholique Church if mens saith should not vary the object must never faile and in all Ages downe from our blessed Saviours time they have most stedfastly pronounced this Artikle in the bosome of the Church of Rome which taken locally is but a Parish Church but in respect of retaining with others that same Doctrine which the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul delivered them whether by writing or by word of mouth in that sence it is called Catholique and so Orbis in Vrbe est When Heresies sprung as there must be Heresies they had recourse still to what was delivered by way of Doctrines to them wherby they did repel all false and erronious opinions as constantly maintain their own Doctrine When diverse parts of Scripture were called in question it was the Churches Authority did pronounce them Divine now the Church was to be deceived in its Sentence or not If it was then infallible why not now and in the interpretation and exposition as well as the Letter when Scripture is not Scripture but rightly Expounded As touching an externe and adventitious condition of the Church it suffers sometime dilatation and inlargement other time persecution and contraction yet still ever the same The Arke that was the type of the Church vvas sometimes on the Waves sometime in the Wildernesse travelling againe in the Temple in peace and glory When the Arrian Heresie had so catchingly surprized the World no doubt but the Catholique Church did exclude them and because it vvill not now let every stinking puddle of Opinion and every infectious currant of Faction run into its Sea or that like the Sea it will not let any dead or corrupt thing lye in its bowels therefore forsooth it must not be obtruded upon any as Catholique it excluding three parts of foure of the Christian World If it should have so much good nature to admit all its Doctrine would not be Catholique that is what was profest at all times the holy Catholique Church is but one Episcopacy is but one saith Saint Cyprian as Streames from the same Fountain Branches from the same Root here is nothing but that fidelity which a Spouse owes to her Betrothed no intertainment of Forraine loves or unlawfull mixtures Those that are called Reformists exclude not one another when they would appear a great body of opponents of the Roman Church they exclude them not from opposing the same Authority though in manner and in their own opinions they oppose and exclude one another like that Image part whereof was Clay part Iron that by cleaving together resembled a body though never incorporated Harmony of Confessions B. Hall of the Churches of Holland and France They are enemies of a good Catholique malice whilst they would unite all the different Formes of Scisme wherein every ones Fancy was their guide and of these would make an angry union to gratifie their humour of opposing their Mother Church and if one should lend a severe aspect into their own Commonwealths and Interests he shall seem to retreave the ancient Chaos each Sect so differing from other and every one dissenting from what themselves were at first When they shak'd hands with the Church of Rome every one departing a severall way according to the concernments and ends of their Leaders or the Genius and nature of the People or the accidents affaires of those times which steared their furies and indignations The Lutherans hold the Calvenists for the Phaetons of Europe and in a late Sinod have condemned them guilty of all the Warres and disasters in these late times Calvin allowes of Episcopacy yet his followers make it ground enough of an immortall quarrell to have them extirpated In every Country that ill Seed that Calvin sowed came up of a different fashion as he well perceived who described their severall humors of Genevizing Anglizing Scotizing What Wars are raysed in the mutuall opposition of each others Doctrine every one of them having some perticuler Opinion wherein they magnifie themselves being their Eurika and sets it as it were in the Van for an Ensigne of the Faction
forwardnesse or slownesse in this cause in titling to Divinity this their delusion with such heats doe they imbrace what was never heard of in Gods Church this fourteene hundred yeares and this doe they extoll to be the height of Reformation 2. All other sects and sorts that discent from them who will not be subject to this spirituall bondage have their bucklers of defence out of Scripture too the measure and judge whereof is their own interpretation they alledge That when two or three are gathered together God is in the midst of them whereas the Fathers say in their Expositions That when two or three of the Church are gathered together for devotion sake God is in the midst of them not that the gathering of two or three together doth make a Church thus in the Son of Gods Word doth swarmes of gnats and flyes play not capable of being governed And though both these Reformations be contrary to each other yet both oppose a third Reformation established by Parliamentary Laws which retained a solemnity of Forme and Ceremony and from its first angry leaving onely to acknowledge the Authority of the Roman Bishop fell by degrees to leave off one thing after another And as it served them to be able to bandy against the Church of Rome complide with those other reformists as they call themselves who in no other thing agreed with them but in disagreeing from it It s owne proper temper stood not upon termes irreconcilable but pretended the cause of new Doctrines received in the Church of Rome to be that which forced their departure the most ingenious and ingenuous owned this Modell whose parts I highly esteem whose persons I honour having had establishment of civill authority decency of Ceremony and Forme of Liturgy I endevoured to observe in the Writings of the chiefe upholders of it their freer and lesse compeld judgement concerning the Church of Rome such as fell from them in the intervals of their calentures heats of contradiction I found the Bishop of Canterbury against M. Fisher acknowledging that if they were another Church from the Church of Rome he would soon return to it Hooker denies to damne them who have been the authors of their salvation Others part stakes betwixt Truth and Faction saying The Church of Rome hath the truth in it as Silver lying hid among Rubbage I have heard a Learned Bishop yet living confesse All the difference was onely in words and termes Thus doe they date their Religion a new from some accidentall thing bringing in new Epochaes and accounts from changes and alterations which they terme Reformatition whereas the firme principle of the Church was ever a pleading an uninterrupted succession of Pastors and Doctrine from the Apostles time to this Saint Cyprian saying in his Epistles He hath not Ecclesiasticall Ordination who keeps not Ecclesiastical union but they have cut this Scepter which whilst whole every one did bow to into contemptible little coyne which are severall parties bearring different impressions which are onely currant with those whose perticular marke and character is set upon it CAP. II. A View of the whole Question betwixt the Church of Rome and the Episcopall party by answering the perticulars of that grand Objection which I repeate in the words of Doctor Bramhal Pag. 29. against Molatair If you seeke to obtrude upon us the Roman Church with its adherents for the Catholique Church excluding three parts of foure of the Christian World from the communion of Christ OR The Opinions thereof for Artikles and Fundamentals of Catholique Faith neither our Reason nor our Religion nor our Charity will suffer us to listen to you Thus doe they Patronize their opposition to the Church of Rome under the challenged protection of Religion Reason and Charity and with as great applause as the naming of these things can afford they celebrate the triumph of error They be few words I confesse but such as govern and constitute all the actings and reasonings of man by their light and influence But to Write over the Doore where the Plague is all the Medicinable names in Physicke will not preserve men from Infection onely the greater danger is that men more easily under the title of good things are deceived into places of mortality And because this Objection seemingly is framed up and upheld by all those things that are worthy of man I will leave pecking at stones in the field and will impartially view the inward strength and force of this building They finde fault that any should obtrude upon them the Roman Church with its adherents for the Catholique Church excluding three parts of foure of the Christian World from the communion of Christ Who is it that would obtrude the Roman Church with its adherents upon you is it onely in this age urged by a Faction Who is an enemy to your most necessary Reformation and for ambition and profit sake will not apply themselves to the innocency and purity of Gods true Religion Is it obtruded onely by those whom you have justly offended warranted thereto by the Laws of God and the Church Is it by those onely who by their erronious tenents makes justifiable your departure from them and bandying against them to returne to them again were to forfit your zeale in Gods cause to betray your Reason Religion and Charity but if on the contrary it prove onely a perverse proceeding to maintaine a Scisme if it be onely your calumny and ill dealing with your Mother from whose lap peevishly and without reason you have withdrawne your selves if it be you onely who take scandal at the Church which can be none to you though they may be to it Tunc alta ruunt subductis tâ—cta columnis then have you Passion for Zeale Opinion for Faith and confusion for the effects St. Iraeneus who lived in the second age in his Booke against Heresies reckons up a succession of the Bishops of Rome from St. Peter to the Pope then present and pronounces it necessary for all Churches to hold communion with those that adhere to the Church of Rome Ad hanc enim Ecclesiam propter potentiorem principalitatem necesse est omnem convenire Ecclesiam hoc est omnes qui sunt undique fideles in quâ semper ab his qui sunt undique conservata est ea quae sit ab Apostolis traditio fundamentis igitur Ecclesiam Apostoli Lino Episcopatum c. then were they plain and positive in the declaring the duty of all to desert all perticular Churches which did not adhere and hold communion with the Sea of Rome Tertullian of the same Age De prescriptione Hereticorum si autem Italiae adjaces habes Romam unde nobis auctoritas praesto est St. Ambrose of the fourth Age or century of the Church How happy is that Church upon which the Apostles have poured out all Doctrine with their bloods Saint Jerom of the same time upon the first Epistle to Timothy The
against the day of wrath for without doubt these satisfactory punishments doe greatly recall us from sin and as it were with a certaine bridle restraine us and make penitents more cautious for the future they cure likewise the reliques of sin they take likewise away ill habits got by vitious living but contrary acts of vertues nor at any time is there a surer way in Gods Church to remove punishments then that men frequent these works with true griefe of mind and it draws to this that whilst we by satisfying suffer for our sins we are made conformable to Christ Jesus who satisfied for our sins enjoying also the most certaine earnest that if we suffer together with him we shall likewise be glorified together with him Neither is this our satisfaction such which we pay for our sins that it is not made by Christ Jesus for we who of our selves as of our selves can doe nothing yet he co-operating who strengthens us we can doe all things so man hath not whence he may glory but all our glorying is in Christ in whom we live and merit in whom we satisfie doing worthy fruits of pennance which have their force from him and are offer'd from him to the Father and by him are accepted of the Father It was ever held in the Church of God the ordinary means of the forgivenesse of sins and is so farre from being a cause to drive men from the Catholique Church that to enjoy the benefit of it they should come with humble minds and teares in their eyes to beg the comfort of this onely approved sure way for their pardon St. Augustine in his Enchirid. saith God hath given liberty to none to sin though by his pittying of us he blot out our sins if sitting satisfaction be not neglected How wholesome must it be for our minds Fruits Piety to discharge themselves to ayre our minds by confession to have the state of our soules judged of all men being partiall censurers of themselves and thence fitting Physicke prescribed after his inspection of our inward complexion what comforts are conveyed into our breasts in liew of all vitious affections or acts we part with thence in Confessions our pardon is confirmed in Heaven as it is granted here on Earth How many thicke and foggy selfe-delusions false opinions desperate feares ill grounded doubts doe all vanish from that soule that hath dispersed those clouds by clearenesse of Confession What recruits of graces spirituall satisfactions healthfull directions are acquired here is exercised an act of that most acceptable humility in throwing your selfe down at the Feet of Gods Embassador in detestation of your selfe exercising your Faith likewise in beleeving that Whose Sins they remit they are remitted this being the second table after shipwracke Purgatory and Praying for the Dead It is the generall confession of those who call themselves the Reformed that Prayer for the Dead was anciently used some few testimonies of which I le shew you St. Augustine in his Booke pro Mortuis writes That if no where it should be read in the Old Testament yet the authority of the Vniversall Church is not small which is so cleare in the custome of this where in the Prayers which the Priests poure out to their Lord God at the Altar a recommending of the dead hath place also And the same Father ad Laurentium in the Enchiridion There is a certaine manner of living saith he not so good that it doth not require these things after death nor yet so ill that these things may not profit him after death Aerias was condemned of the whole Church for condemning this One may perceive by the constant practice of the Church how these Texts in Scripture are to be understood of being neither pardoned in this World nor in the World to come And that other place concerning those who build hay and stuble upon the Foundation they shall be saved yet as by Fire Martyrdome saith Clemens Alexandrinus is a purgation of sinnes with glory And St. Augustine saith That the recitall of the names of Martyrs at the Altar is more that they may pray for us then that we may pray for them For the pains in Purgatory one cannot conceive how there should be a Purgatory without suffering pain Heare what Boethius saith a thousand yeares since But I pray saith he remaine there no punishments after this life yes great certainly saith he for some saith he I take to be exercised with bitter punishments Liber 4. others with element purgations The fruits pietie To a Skoffer there shall never want matter but as he saith Cave sed fiat nè Jocus iste Focus When St. Paul mentions tryall by fire it s blowne away with a hundred light Interpretations an Atheisticall spirit would quarrell with that expression of the damned gnashing their teeth which they say is an effect rather of cold then of fire But as a Father saith Heresie is not from the Scripture but from the sence of Scripture which the Church by the providence of God safely preserves It must rayse no small comforts in the minds of those who have parted with what were their joy here to be able by devout Prayers to recommend them to a more advanced state of Joy It doth inlarge the subject of our charity whilst death it selfe doth but quicken our devotion for our Friends parting with them as men not without hope It sweetens our passage hence being not out of the pertaking of the benefit of Prayers Almes and the good Works of those we leave behind the Communion of Saints and for the effects that the opinions of postumous and after suffering must have upon the minds of men it must needs tend to the making the soule disgust these inferiour appetites and affections which breathe upon the soule an earthy vapor and foulenesse which it must be cleansed from with penall purgation before it can be admitted into those purer joyes to see God which only is granted to them that are cleane of heart The perverting and disordering the dispensation and application of Gods grace who though Gods merits be all-sufficient and our Redemption compleat and the Divine Promises large yet thinke that notwithstanding all their life time their judgements have been abused with the too great esteeme of the empty delights and glories of the world their wills following the impulse of carnall pleasures nor any Celestiall sparke ever kindling their affections yet by a swimming fancy in the head that Christ hath dyed for them thinke they shall presently jumpe into Paradise It is a merry conceit so was it of that Foole That thought that all the ships that came into the Harbor were his owne If we suffer together with him we shall likewise be glorified with him was held to be the surest earnest of Everlasting Joy Of Free-will He who hath made you without your selfe will not save you without your selfe saith a Father God is the way means and end all
is from him and to him but how much more noble thought have they of the Deity who conceive him to deale with man as endowed with free operations then with us as with stockes and stones that are meerly patient It is the meere grace of God that gives good works their force and value yet no such necessity that any thing is done whether man will or no Apolig Epist For who could either prayse or discommend that who can imagine such actions to be rewarded or punished or that soule to be immortall and performe Religion which should want free and reasonable actions the arguments and pledges of immortality but we are to admire the wisedome of Gods Church which agreeth the aeternall prescience of God with the temporall co-operation of man that it leaves the first infallible and yet proveth the temporall action appetite and delight or consent to any thing to be voluntary free and in the power of man to be effected or omitted rewarded and punished Of the use and Veneration of Pictures and Images Upon this is waged a perpetuall warre Hic illius arma hic currus fuit The Reformists generally take it for Idolatry and what ever is spoken against Idolatry in Scripture they presse and urge upon the use of Pictures But before they tax our Mother with so odious a crime they might please to consider the nature of the objection and how farre the extent of it is and withall they might consult the opinion of ancient devout Fathers who would rather have lost a thousand lives then have committed Idolatry touching it and withall they might have considered the use of them before they should be frighted from their Mothers bosome a place of protection into wandrings and errors where are layd the snares of the enemy Church story informes us That the ancient Christians would fall downe before the Statues of the Emperors which was then the manner and posture used to doe reverence as sometime to be bare before the Cloath of State doth signifie the like though they would rather dye then salute so the Images of the false gods But for the like postures to be forbid to be used to the Pictures of Saints or of our blessed Saviour none can shew a prohibition for those outward signes of honour signified by gesture are indeed common towards God Grotius Angels and Men no perticular one being set a part or commanded to be peculiarly used to signifie onely Divine Worship when we frame a thought of that good Shepheard in our minds if we would deliver it in writing why might we not write it in Hyreogliphies as well as Letters which are not so ancient no other thing is so worthy as the mind of Man but if the Image of our Saviour Crucified be there drawne and viewed by the understanding why may not our corporall Eye behold it drawn on Paper or other materiall since they doe but serve to recall and revive those former Ideas in the mind which other objects might distract or steale away And by severall Persons the severall Attributes of God may be signified as a King for Royalty c. St. Augustin saith in the Visitation of the sicke There is added upon the Crosse the Image of a Man humbly imbrace this and weekely venerate it The honour done to the Image is refer'd to whose Image it is saith Basil and Chrisostome I know these things are proposed in vain to those who will admit of no other Tribunall then their own breasts who exercise an Arbitrary and Tyrannicall power over the Consciences of their followers whom an imaginary exposition of some dark prophesie of Anti-Christ doth unhinge their minds and judgements from off what they ought to turn on which is obedience to the Church whose sacred Authority ought to binde in the luxuriant and forward imaginations of mens owne braines But I have onely instanced in these few perticulars without using any illaqueation of Arguments or finnesse of discourse Thus are all the Churches Doctrines Practises and Ceremonies advancements and meanes to Salvation and Piety the establishment of its regiment on Earth of Pope Patriarchs Arch-Bishops Bishops Priests Deacons sub-Deacons Exorcists Lectors where the mistery of our Redemption is so esteemed and remembred that no Holy day no part of Divine Service is celebrated but represents to us one benefit or another no Ceremony in the holy Sacrifice no action of the Priest no Ornament or Attire he weareth no Benediction he gives no Signe of the Crosse he makes but hath its religious signification and Preacheth to us and speaks nothing but Christ Crucified therefore though the great worke of our redemption may be thought not to be hindred by opposing things of an inferiour nature yet it is no small matter the opposing the Authority of the Church tending to the dissolving that power Richworths dialogue by which the greatest things are maintained Common-wealths punish with death a small stealth because it s an offence against the nature of Government Heretofore men proved Doctrines to be true from the authority of holy Church and now they would annull her authority from her Tenents and from her Articles would throw durt in her Face as if she had lost her being for being the faithfull Keeper of what was committed to her and had forfeited her breasts the Scriptures for feeding us with their milke CAP. IIII. The falling away from the Church under the Notion of Reformation the cause of troubles of State and from the same grounds they build their opinions on arises the grounds of the disturbance of Governments THe Church being Divinely Founded as it hath survived all the malices and practises of the greatest Tyrants its enemies so have those who breaking of that Ecclesiasticall league which kept them in the limits of the practice and beleefe of the same things mist of that inlargement and lastingnesse of commands which they expected by altering the sight and mark they took their ayme by they have straide the most from what they chiefly took their ayme at whilst they sought a perticular prosperity seperated from the peace of the Church against which the musterd forces of mens malice and Hells fury became ever weake and impotent The blood of the first Bishops of Rome was the fruitfull compost of the Church their Ashes were Generative all the furious conflagrations sackings and spoylings of the City of Rome by the Goths Huns Visegoths Halaricus were like stormy winds whose Gole and end was onely to dye and expire while Rome triumphed over their spoyles in the continuance of that never fayling Church I will not name Attila nor Limprandus the one retiring from Rome by Saint Leos means the other by Pope Zacharies strangely and miraculously Those barbarous Saracens whose rage was glutted with the conquest of the Eastern Emperor the glory of whose armes and conquest of Candy increased who made Africa feele the effects of the advancement of their Armies and strucke terror into a great part of