essentially necessary for the making of one a member of the Church Now the profession which she required of all that were to receive Baptisme was for the Agenda or practicall part an abrenuntiation of the Divell the World and the Flesh with all their sinfull workes and lustes and for the Credenda the things to be beleeved an acknowledgement of the articles of the Creed which being solemnly done she then baptised them in this faith intimating thereby sufficiently that this was that one Faith commended unto her by the Apostles as the other that one Baptisme which was appointed to be the Sacrament of it This Creed though for substance it was the same every where yet for forme was somewhat different and in some places received moe enlargements than in others The Westerne Churches herein applyed themselves to the capacitie of the meaner sort more than the Easterne did using in their Baptisme that shorter Forme of Confession commonly called The Apostles Creed which in the more ancient times was briefer also than now it is As we may easily perceive by comparing the Symbol recited by Marcellus Ancyranus in the Profession of the faith which he delivered to Pope Iulius with the expositions of the Apostles Creed written by the Latin Doctors wherein the mention of the Fathers being Maker of heaven and earth the Sonnes Death and Descending into Hell and the Communion of Saints is wholly omitted All which though they were of undoubted veritie yet for brevities sake seeme at first to have beene omitted in this short Summe because some of them perhaps were not thought to be altogether so necessary for all men which is Suarez his judgement touching the point of the descent into Hell and some that were most necessary either thought to be sufficiently implied in other Articles as that of Christ's death in those of his crucifixion and buriall or thought to be sufficiently manifested by the light of reason as that of the creation of heaven and earth For howsoever this as it is a truth revealed by God's Word becommeth an object for faith to apprehend Heb. 11.3 yet it is otherwise also clearely to be understood by the discourse of reason Rom. 1.20 even as the unitie and all the other attributes of the Godhead likewise are Which therefore may be well referred unto those Praecognita or common principles which nature may possesse the minde withall before that grace enlightneth it and need not necessarily to be inserted into that Symbol which is the badge and cognizance whereby the Beleever is to be differenced and distinguished from the Vnbeleever The Creed which the Easterne Churches used in Baptisme was larger then this being either the same or very little different from that which we commonly call the Nicene Creed because the greatest part of it was repeated and confirmed in the first generall Councell held at Nice where the first draught thereof was presented to the Synod by Eusebius Bishop of Caesarea with this Preamble As wee have received from the Bishops that were before us both at our first catechizing and when we received Baptisme and as we have learned from the holy Scriptures and as we have both beleeved and taught when wee entred into the Ministery and in our Bishoprick it selfe so beleeving at this present also we declare this our faith unto you To this the Nicene Fathers added a more cleare explication of the Deitie of the Sonne against the Arrian heresie wherewith the Church was then troubled professing him to be begotten not made and to be of one substance with the Father The second generall Councell which was assembled fiftie-six yeares after at Constantinople approving this confession of the faith as most ancient and agreeable to Baptisme inlarged it somewhat in the Article that concerned the Holy Ghost especially which at that time was most oppugned by the Macedonian Heretickes And whereas the Nicene confession proceeded no further than to the beliefe which we have in the holy Trinitie the Fathers of Constantinople made it up by adding that which was commonly professed touching the Catholicke Church and the priviledges belonging thereunto Epiphanius repeating this Creed at large affirmeth it to haue been delivered unto the Church by the Apostles Cassianus avoucheth as much where he urgeth this against Nestorius as the Creed anciently received in the Church of Antioch from whence hee came The Romane Church after the dayes of Charles the great added the article of the procession of the Hâ—ly Ghost from the Sonne unto this Symboll and the Councell of Trent hath now recommended it unto us as that principle in which all that professe the faith of Christ doe necessarily agree and the firme and ONELY FOVNDATION against which the Gates of Hell shall never prevaile It is a matter confessed therefore by the Fathers of Trent themselues that in the Constantinopolitane Creed or in the Romane Creed at the farthest which differeth nothing from the other but that it hath added Filióque to the procession of the Holy Ghost and out of the Nicene Creed Deum de Deo to the articles that concerne the Sonne that onely foundation and principle of faith is to be found in the unitie whereof all Christians must necessarily agree Which is otherwise cleared sufficiently by the constant practice of the Apostles and their successours in the first receiving of men into the Societie of the Church For in one of the Apostles ordinary Sermons we see there was so much matter delivered as was sufficient to convert men unto the faith and to make them capable of Baptisme and those Sermons treated onely of the first principles of the doctrine of Christ upon the receiving whereof the Church following the example of the Apostles never did denie Baptisme unto her Catechumeni In these first principles therefore must the foundation be contained and that common unitie of faith which is required in all the members of the Church The foundation then being thus cleared concerning the superstruction we learne from the Apostle that some build upon this foundation gold silver precious stones wood hay stubble Some proceed from one degree of wholesome knowledge unto another increasing their maine stock by the addition of those other sacred truthes that are revealed in the word of God and these build upon the foundation gold and silver and precious stones Others retaine the precious foundation but lay base matter upon it wood hay stubble and such other eyther unprofitable or more dangerous stuffe and others goe so farre that they overthrow the very foundation it selfe The first of these be wise the second foolish the third madde builders When the day of tryall commeth the first mans worke shall abide and hee himselfe shall receive a reward the second shall lose his worke but not himselfe he shall suffer losse saith the Apostle but he himselfe shall be saved the third shall lose both himselfe and his worke together And as in this spirituall
structure verie different kindes of materialls may be laid upon the same foundation some sound and some unsound so in either of them there is a great difference to be made betwixt such as are more contiguous to the foundation and such as be remoter off The fuller explication of the first principles of faith and the conclusions deduced from thence are in the ranke of those verities that be more neerely conjoyned to the foundation to which those falsities are answerable on the other side that grate upon the foundation and any way endanger it For that there be diverse degrees both of truthes and errors in Religion which necessarily must be distinguished is a thing acknowledged not by us alone but by the learnedest also of our Adversaries There be some Catholick verities say they which doe so pertaine to faith that these being taken away the faith it selfe must be taken away also And these by common use wee call not onely Catholick but verities of Faith also There are other verities which bee Catholick also and universall namely such as the whole Church holdeth which yet being overthrowne the faith is shaken indeed but not overturned And in the errors that are contrary to such truthes as these the faith is obscured not extinguished weakened not perished Neverthelesse though the faith bee not altogether destroyed by them yet is it evill at ease and shaken and as it were disposed to corruption For as there be certaine hurts of the bodie which doe not take away the life but yet a man is the worse for them and disposed to corruption eyther in whole or in part as there be other mortall hurts which take away the life so likewise are there certaine degrees of propositions which containe unsound doctrine although they have not manifest heresie In a word the generall rule concerning all these superstructions is that the more neere they are to the foundation of so much greater importance be the truthes and so much more perillous be the errors as againe the farther they are removed off the lesse necessary doth the knowledge of such verities prove to be and the swarving from the truth lesse dangerous Now from all that hath beene said two great Questions may be resolved which trouble manie The first is What wee may judge of our Fore-fathers who lived in the communion of the Church of Rome Whereunto I answere that wee have no reason to thinke otherwise but that they lived and dyed under the mercie of God For wee must distinguish the Papacie from the Church wherein it is as the Apostle doth Antichrist from the Temple of God wherein hee sitteth The foundation upon which the Church standeth is that common faith as we have heard in the unitie whereof all Christians doe generally accord Vpon this old foundation Antichrist raiseth up his new buildings and layeth upon it not hay and stubble onely but farre more vile and pernicious matter which wrencheth and disturbeth the very foundation it selfe For example It is a ground of the Catholick faith that Christ was borne of the Virgin Mary which in the Scripture is thus explained God sent forth his Sonne Made of a Woman This the Papacie admitteth for a certaine truth but insinuateth withall that upon the Altar God sendeth forth his Sonne made of Bread For the Transsubstantiation which these man would haue us beleeve is not an annihilation of the Bread and a substitution of the Bodie of Christ in the stead thereof but a reall conversion of the one into the other such as they themselves would have esteemed to be a bringing forth of Christ and a kinde of Generation of him For to omit the wilde conceits of Postellus in his booke De Nativitate Mediatoris ultimâ this is the doctrine of their graver Divines as Cornelius à Lapide the Iesuite doth acknowledge in his Romane Lectures that by the words of consecration truely and really as the bread is transsubstantiated so Christ is produced and as it were generated upon the Altar in such a powerfull and effectuall manner that if Christ as yet had not beene incarnate by these words Hoc est corpus meum he should be incarnated and assume an humane bodie And doth not this new Divinitie thinke you shrewdly threaten the ancient foundation of the Catholick beleefe of the Incarnation Yet such as in the dayes of our fore-fathers opposed the Popish doctrine of Transsubstantiation could alledge for themselues that the faith which they maintained was then preserved among the laitie and so had anciently beene preserved And of mine owne knowledge I can testifie that when I have dealt with some of the common people that would be counted members of the Romane Church and demanded of them what they thought of that which I knew to be the common Tenet of their Doctors in this point they not onely rejected it with indignation but wondered also that I should imagine any of their side to be so foolish as to give credit to such a senselesse thing Neither may we account it to have been a small blessing of God unto our ancestors who lived in that kingdome of darkenesse that the Ignorance wherein they were bred freed them from the understanding of those things which being known might prove so prejudiciall to their soules health For there be some things which it is better for a man to be ignorant of than to know and the not knowing of those profundities which are indeed the depths of Satan is to those that have not the skil to dive into the bottome of such mysteries of iniquitie a good and an happie Ignorance The ignorance of those principles of the Catholique faith that are absolutely necessarie to salvation is as dangerous a gulfe on the other side but the light of those common truthes of Christianitie was so great and so firmely fixed in the mindes of those that professed the name of Christ that it was not possible for the power of darkenesse to extinguish it nor the gates of Hell to prevaile against it Nay the verie solemne dayes which by the ancient institution of the Church were celebrated for the commemoration of the Blessed Trinitie the Nativitie Passion Resurrection and Ascension of our Saviour Christ did so preserve the memorie of these things among the common people that by the Popish Doctors themselves it is made an argument of grosse and supine Ignorance that any should not have explicite knowledge of those mysteries of Christ which were thus publikely solemnized in the Church And which is the principall point of all the ordinary instruction appointed to be given unto men upon their death-beds was that they should looke to come to glorie not by their owne merits but by the vertue and merit of the passion of our Lord Iesus Christ that they should place their whole confidence in his death onely and in no other thing and that they should interpose his death betwixt God and their sinnes betwixt
beyond her line and boast her selfe to be the root of the Catholick Church but be contented to be born her selfe by the root aswell as other particular Churches are For a streame to sever it selfe from the common Fountaine that it may bee counted a Fountaine it selfe without dependance upon any other is the next way to make an end of it and dry it up The Church of Rome may doe well to think of this and leave off her vaine boasting I sit a Queen and am no Widow and shall see no sorrow Other Churches may faile and the gates of hell may prevaile against them but it cannot fall out so with me Whereas she might remember that they were Romanes unto whom the Apostle so long since gave this admonition Be not high minded but feare For if God spared not the naturall branches take heed lest he also spare not thee Behold therefore the goodnesse and severity of God on them which fell severitie but towards thee goodnes if thou continue in his goodnesse otherwise THOU ALSO SHALT BE CUT OFF. The Romanes therefore by their pride may get a fall as well as others and the Church of Rome by infidelity may be cut off aswell as any other congregation and yet the Catholick Church subsist for all that as having for her foundation neither Rome nor Rom's Bishop but Iesus Christ the Sonne of the living God And yet this proud Dame and her daughters the particular Church of Rome I meane and that which they call the Catholick Romane or the faction rather that prevaileth in them both have in these latter ages confined the whole Church of Christ within themselves and excluded all others that were not under the Romane obedience as aliens from the Common-wealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise The Donatists were cryed out against by our forefathers for shutting up the Church within the parts of the South and rejecting all others that held not correspondency with that patch of theirs And could they thinke well then of them that should conclude the Church within the Western parts of the world and exclude all other Christians from the body of Christ that held not by the same root there that they did It is a strange thing to me that wise men should make such large discourses of the Catholique Church and bring so many testimonies to prove the Vniversalitie of it not discern that while by this means they think they have gotten a great victory over us they have in very truth overthrowne themselves for when it cōmeth to the point in stead of the Catholick Church which consisteth of the cōmunion of all nations they obtrude their own peece unto us circumscribing the Church of Christ within the precincts of the Romish jurisdiction and leaving all the world beside to the power of Sathan for with them it is a resolved case that to every creature it is altogether of necessitie to salvation to be subiect to the Romane Bishop What must then become of the poore Moscovites and Grecians to say nothing of the reformed Churches in Europe What of the Aegyptian and Aethiopian Churches in Africk what of the great companies of Christians scattered over all Asia even from Constantinople unto the East Indies which have and still doe endure more afflictions and pressures for the Name of Christ than they have ever done that would be accounted the onely friends of Christ Must these because they are not the Popes subjects be therefore denied to be Christ's subiects Because they are not under the obedience of the Romane Church doe they thereupon forfait the estate which they claime in the Catholick Church out of which there is no salvation Must we give all these for gone and conclude that they are certainly damned They who talke so much of the Catholick Church but indeed stand for their owne particular must of force sinke as low in uncharitablenesse as they have thrust themselves deep in schisme wee who talke lesse of the Vniversalitie of the Church but hold the truth of it cannot finde in our hearts to passe such a bloudy sentence upō so many poore soules that have given their Names to Christ. He whose pleasure it was to spread the Churches seed so farre said to East West North and South Giue it is not for us then to say Keepe backe He hath given to his Sonne the heathen for his inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession wee for our parts dare not abbridge this grant and limit this great Lordship as we conceiue it may best fit our owne turnes but leave it to his owne latitude and seek for the Catholick Church neither in this part nor in that peece but as it hath beene before said in the words of the Apostle among all that in every place call upon the Name of Iesus Christ our Lord both theirs and ours Yea but how can this be will some say seeing the Catholike Church is but one and the principall reason for which it is accounted one is the unitie of the faith professed therein How then can this unitie of faith bee preserved in all places if one speciall Church be not set as a Mistresse over all the rest and one chiefe Bishop appointed for a Master over all others by whom in matters of faith every one must be ruled And out of such different professions as are to bee found among the divided Christians in those severall parts of the world how can there be fit matter drawne for the making up of one Vniversall Church To this I answer and so passe from the Matter of the Building to the Structure that it is most true indeede that in the Church there is one Lord one Faith one Baptisme for so we are taught by the Apostle in this chapter But yet in the first place it is to be considered that this unitie of the faith must be compassed by such meanes as God hath ordained for the procuring of it and not by any politicke trickes of mans devising Now for the bringing of us all to this unity of the faith the Apostle here telleth us that Christ gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers If he had thought that the maintenance of this unitie did depend upon the singularitie of any one Apostle or Pastor or Teacher is it to be imagined that hee would have overslipped such a singular person even in that very place where of all others his presence was most requisite and runne altogether as he doth upon the plurall number That the multitude of Teachers dispersed over the world without any such dependancie or correspondencie should agree together in laying the foundations of the same faith is a speciall worke of Gods Spirit And it is the unity of the Spirit which the Apostle here speaketh of and exhorteth us to keepe in the bond of peace Whereas the unity of which our Adversaries boast
them and Gods anger So that where these things did thus concurre in any as wee doubt not but they did in many thousands the knowledge of the common principles of the faith the ignorance of such maine errours as did endanger the foundation a godly life and a faithfull death there we have no cause to make any question but that God had fitted a subject for his mercy to worke upon And yet in saying thus wee doe nothing lesse than say that such as these were Papists either in their life or in their death members of the Romane Church perhaps they were but such as by God's goodnes were preserved from the mortalitie of Popery that raigned there For Popery it selfe is nothing else but the botch or the plague of that Church which hazardeth the soules of those it seizeth upon as much as any infection can doe the body And therefore if any one will needs be so foole-hardy as to take up his lodging in such a Pest-house after warning given of the present danger wee in our charitie may well say Lord have mercy upon him but he in the meane time hath great cause to feare that God in his justice will inflict that judgement upon him which in this case he hath threatned against such as will not beleeve the truth but take pleasure in vnrighteousnesse And so much may suffice for that question The second question so rise in the mouthes of our Adversaries is Where was your Church before Luther Whereunto an answere may bee returned from the grounds of the solution of the former question that our Church was even there where now it is In all places of the world where the ancient foundations were retained and those common principles of faith upon the profession whereof men have ever beene wont to be admitted by Baptisme into the Church of Christ there we doubt not but our Lord had his subjects and wee our fellow-servants For wee bring-in no new Faith nor no new Church That which in the time of the ancient Fathers was accounted to be truely and properly Catholick namely that which was beleeved every where alwayes and by all that in the succeeding ages hath evermore beene preserved and is at this day entirely professed in our Church And it is well observed by a learned man who hath written a full discourse of this argument that whatsoever the Father of lies either hath attempted or shall attempt yet neither hath he hitherto effected nor shall ever bring it to passe hereafter that this Catholick doctrine ratified by the common consent of Christians alwayes and every where should be abolished but that in the thickest mist rather of the most perplexed troubles it still obtained victorie both in the mindes and in the open confession of all Christians no wayes overturned in the foundation thereof and that in this veritie that one Church of Christ was preserved in the midst of the tempests of the most cruell winter or in the thickest darknes of her waynings Thus if at this day we should take a survay of the severall professions of Christianitie that have any large spread in any part of the world as of the Religion of the Romane and the Reformed Churches in our Quarters of the Aegyptians and Aethiopians in the South of the Grecians and other Christians in the Easterne parts and should put-by the points wherein they did differ one from another and gather into one body the rest of the Articles wherein they all did generally agree wee should finde that in those propositions which without all controversie are universally received in the whole Christian world so much truth is contained as being joyned with holy obedience may be sufficient to bring a man unto everlasting salvation Neither have wee cause to doubt but that as many as doe walke according to this rule neither overthrowing that which they have builded by superinducing any damnable heresies thereupon nor otherwise vitiating their holie faith with a lewd and wicked conversation peace shall bee upon them and mercie and upon the Israel of GOD. Now these common principles of the Christian faith which we call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or things generally beleeved of all as they have Vniversalitie and Antiquity and Consent concurring with them which by Vincentius his rule are the speciall characters of that which is truely and properly Catholick so for their Duration wee are sure that they have still held out and beene kept as the Seminarie of the Catholique Church in the darkest and difficultest times that ever have beene where if the Lord of Hostes had not in his mercy reserved this seed unto us we should long since have beene as Sodom and should have beene like unto Gomorrah It cannot be denied indeed that Sathan and his instruments have used their utmost endeavour either to hide this light from mens eyes by keeping them in grosse ignorance or to deprave it by bringing-in pernicious heresies and that in these latter ages they have much prevailed both wayes aswell in the West and North as in the East and South Yet farre be it for all this from any man to thinke that God should so cast away his people that in those times there should not be left a remnant according to the election of grace The Christian Church was never brought unto a lower ebbe than was the Iewish Synagogue in the dayes of our Saviour Christ when the Interpreters of the Law had taken away the key of knowledge and that little knowledge that remained was miserably corrupted not onely with the leaven of the Pharisees but also with the damnable heresie of the Sadduces And yet a man at that time might have seene the true servants of GOD standing together with these men in the selfe-same Temple which might well be accounted as the House of the Saints in regard of the one so a Denne of theeves in respect of the other When the pestilent heresie of the Arrians had polluted the whole world the people of Christ were not to bee found among them onely who made an open secession from that wicked company but among those also who held externall communion with them and lived under their Ministery Where they so learned the other truthes of GOD from them that they were yet ignorant of their maine errour God in his providence so ordering matters that as it is noted by S. Hilary the people of Christ should not perish under the Priests of Antichrist If you demand then Where was Gods Temple all this while the answer is at hand There where Antichrist sate Where was Christs people Even under Antichrists Priests and yet this is no justification at all either of Antichrist or of his Priests but a manifestation of God's great power who is able to uphold his Church even there where Satans throne is Babylon was an infectious place and the infection thereof was mortall and yet God had his people there whom hee preserved from the
mortalitie of that infection Else how should he have said Come out of her my people that yee bee not partakers of her sinnes and that ye receive not of her plagues If the place had not beene infectious he should not have needed to forwarne them of the danger wherein they stood of partaking in her sinnes and if the infection had not beene mortall he would not have put them in minde of the plagues that were to follow and if in the place thus mortally infected God had not preserved a people alive unto himselfe he could not have said Come out of her my people The enemie indeed had there sowne his tares but sowne them in the LORDS field and among the LORDS wheate And a field we know may so bee overgrowne with such evill weedes as these that at the first sight a man would hardly thinke that any corne were there at all even as in the barne it selfe the mixture of the chaffe with the wheate is sometime such as a-farre off a man would imagine that he did see but a heape of chaffe and nothing else Those worthy husbandmen that in these last 600. yeares have taken paines in plucking up those pernicious weedes out of the LORDS field and severing the chaffe from his graine cannot be rightly said in doing this eyther to have brought in another field or to have changed the ancient graine The field is the same but weeded now unweeded then the graine the same but winnowed now unwinnowed then Wee preach no new faith but the same Catholique faith that ever hath beene preached neyther was it any part of our meaning to begin a new Church in these latter dayes of the world but to reforme the old A tree that hath the luxurious branches lopped off and the noxious things that cleave unto it taken away is not by this pruning and purging of it made another tree than it was before neyther is the Church reformed in our dayes another Church than that which was deformed in the dayes of our fore-fathers though it hath no agreement for all that with Poperie which is the Pestilence that walked in those times of darkenesse and the destruction that now wasteth at noone day And thus have I finished that which I had to speak concerning the unitie of the faith for the further explication whereof the Apostle addeth and of the knowledge of the Sonne of God Wherein wee may observe both the Nature of this Grace and the Object of it For the former we see that Faith is here described unto us by Knowledge to shew unto us that Knowledge is a thing that is necessarily required in true beleeving Whereof this may bee an argument sufficient that in matters of faith the Scripture doth use indifferently the termes of knowing and beleeving So Iob 19.25 I know that my Redeemer liveth Ioh. 17.3 This is life eternall that they know thee the onely true God and Iesus Christ whom thou hast sent Esai 53.11 By his knowledge shall my righteous servant iustifie manie As therefore in the fundamentall truthes of Christian Religion unitie of faith is required among all those that belong to the Catholick Church so in those maine grounds likewise there is unitie of knowledge generally required among all that professe the name of Christ. For some things there be the knowledge whereof is absolutely necessarie necessitate medij vel finis as the School-men speak without which no man may expect by Gods ordinarie law to attaine unto the end of his faith the salvation of his soule And in these a man may lose himselfe not by Heresie onely which is a flat denying but by Ignorance also which is a bare not knowing of them these things being acknowledged to be so necessarie that although it lay not in our power to attaine thereunto yet this invincible Ignorance should not excuse us from everlasting death Even as if there were one onely remedie whereby a sicke man could be recovered and freed from corporall death suppose the patient and the Physitian both were ignorant of it the man must perish as well not knowing it as if being brought unto him he had refused it And therefore in this case it is resolved that from the explicite faith actuall knowledge of these things nothing can excuse but onely such an incapacitie as is found in infants naturals and distracted persons and that in all others which have the use of reason although they want the meanes of instruction this Ignorance is not onely perillous but also damnable The danger then of this Ignorance being by the confession of the most judicious Divines of both sides acknowledged to be so great the wofull estate of the poore Countrey wherein I live is much to bee lamented where the people generally are suffered to perish for want of knowledge the vulgar superstitions of Poperie not doing them halfe that hurt that the ignorance of those common principles of the faith doth which all true Christians are bound to learne The consideration whereof hath sometime drawne mee to treate with those of the opposite party to move them that howsoever in other things we did differ one from another yet wee should joyne together in teaching those maine points the knowledge whereof was so necessary unto salvation and of the truth whereof there was no controversie betwixt us But what for the jealousies which these distractions in matters of Religion have bred among us what for other respects the motiō took small effect so betwixt us both the poor people are kept still in miserable ignorāce neither knowing the grounds of the one religion nor of the other Here the case God be thanked is farre otherwise where your Maiesties care can never be sufficiently commended in taking order that the chiefe heads of the Catechisme should in the ordinarie ministerie be diligently propounded and explained unto the people throughout the land Which I wish were as duely executed every where as it was piously by You intended Great Scholars possibly may thinke that it standeth not so well with their credite to stoop thus low and to spend so much of their time in teaching these rudiments and first principles of the doctrine of Christ. But they should consider that the laying of the foundation skilfully as it is the matter of greatest importance in the whole building so is it the very master-peece of the wisest builder According to the grace of God which is given unto mee as a wise master-builder I have layd the foundation saith the great Apostle And let the learnedest of us all try it when-ever wee please wee shall finde that to lay this ground-worke rightly that is to apply our selves unto the capacitie of the common Auditorie and to make an Ignorant man to understand these mysteries in some good measure will put us to the tryall of our skill and trouble us a great deale more than if we were to discusse a controversie or handle a subtile