to the sincere and orthodox Christians which sir-name we take from our Mother the Catholique Church notified so for the single and onely Church of Christ by the Apostles Creed and in the sequence of ages as the tares grew up in the large field of Christianity the pure and sound part of the Church assigned this as a speciall and specificall difference between the Heretiques and the legitimate Christians and so it hath been accepted ever since as a notional discernment between them The word Catholike signifieth literally Universall and was meant to signifie that faith to be onely sincerely Christian which was universally and unanimously promulgated by the Apostles and conserved by the general conseat and fidelities of their disciples and so transmitted by all the concurrent testimonies of that age to the next succeeding it So as the Church is not called Catholike for the actuall extention of it into all nations but as the major part in respect of all Christian societies or in reference to the promise of this expansion over the whole world So that it hath alwaies been one of the visible markes of the Church the being the greatest society of Christians of any one communion And as all sects came out of the true Church she retaineth still the name of the whole as the body of the tree doth after many branches are torn off from it So as the Catholike Church neither is nor ever was a comprehender of all the sects of Christians but a compriser of a greater portion of them then any other profession which was separate from her and this majority the Catholike Church hath had in all Christian ages When we say then the Roman Catholicke Church we doe not meane to exclude all Churches from being Catholike besides the locall Church of Rome but as that is the head and spring of Catholike communion by way of dignity and preference above all other particular Churches we give Rome that single appellation as the head of all other Churches or by reason of the derivation of the Catholick faith from her to the rest of the Churches of the world as being the Chaire of S. Peter the Prince of the Apostles who was constituted head of the Universall Church and as the same authority and prerogative is descended upon his successors the Bishops of Rome in these respects in regard no Church is accounted nor is Catholicke that doth not adhere to her communion we stile the particular Roman the Catholike Church For if we speake formally and expresly the Catholike Church signifies the body of all particular Churches united in communion with the Vniversall and by way of participation any particular Church may be called Catholicke as it partakes with the intire body In this respect the Church of England before the separation was a Catholike Church and so are all Churches which remaine united to the Catholike Communion So as when you heare it objected that Roman and Catholike seem as incompatible as particular and Universall you may satisfy your selves that Rome doth not claime the title in that contradictory sense to say that the single and locall Church of Rome is the Universall Church but that Rome is the head of the Universall Church in which all particular ones are to be accounted Catholike in this sense of orthodox and true Churches as they are united to that head If the Protestants acknowledged any one particular Church to be the head of their communion that Church might be said to be the Universall Protestant Church by way of eminency and in this sense the Roman Church is stiled the Universall or Catholike Church I have said this as falling within the verge of the word Catholike without intending to passe further then the frontispice of the Church to read to you this inscription only of Catholike which is often misunderstood by those who will allow Universall Religion but no Catholike And I hope the signification of this your surname may minister great assurance to you when you consider that you suffer under that title and notion which hath alwaies been the discernment of true Christian Religion For S. Irenaeus one of the Primitive Fathers of the Church marketh that none of the sects of those ages did ever arogat this title of Catholikes Psal 90. With a shield his truth shall encompasse thee a thousand shall fall on thy side ten thousand on thy righthand but to thee it shall not approach It seems it hath been preserved miraculously among the insolences of all various errors which never durst lay violent hands upon this lovely intemerat virgin name of Catholicke the protection of the Psalmist hath been verifide upon this name Scuto circumdabit te veritas cadent à latere tuo mille decem mille à dextris tuis ad te autem non appropinquabit for of all the swarms of waspes and hornets which have flown out of the Church in all ages never any did so much as taint this name by their hiving themselves in it There hath alwaies descended upon the projectours of Babel this designe of Let us make to our selves a name Faciamus nobis nomen they have alwaies affected the celebration of their own name that have set up for themselves any new sect and their master hath payed them that vanity for labouring in his high way to allow the stamp of their owne names to be set upon the coine whereof he is the Prince and the Father This priviledge the divell hath allowed to all Arch-hereticks and hath communicated so much of his prerogative as to leave their names impressed as a signature upon their errors but none have been permitted to vitiate the name of Catholike by an imposition thereof upon any sophisticated Religion It is not my worke now to exhibit to you the proofes of the legitimate genealogy of your Religion from the true ancient Catholike stock I beleeve these very times may read to you the evidences of your antiquity by the aversion which all novelty declares against it I purpose only to convince the controversies of humane nature in the point of sufferings not to handle any contention in matter of faith beleeving you have more neede of helpe against the fingers of Pursivants then against the armes of Pulpits and this reflexion may serve you to confute the arguments of your flesh and blood against patience in all your persecutions in that you suffer under that notion which only can sanctifie the sufferings of any persecuted Christians Conclude then your selves happy in these times since you are in a capacity of making treasure of all your tribulations when others who it may be are under as heavy a temporall yoake as you drawing not in the same cariage of the Catholike faith will find the weight even in this world more intolerable They are much more to be lamented to whom we cannot apply S. Iohns comfort to the distressed Catholikes of his daies when he saith Apoc. 1.9 I your brother and partaker in
out of the strong shall issue sweetnesse The Lyon of the Tribe of Judah hath infused honey into the teeth of all these Lyons he le ts loose upon his Church and a resigned patient shall taste more the honey then he shall feele the teeth of the beast that quartereth him They therefore who will finde the suavity of persecution must suck it out of Christs Passion where it lyes ready made and not amuse themselves to work it out of the order of Gods providence wherein it rests implicated in the folds of many mysteries and our curiosity in seeking it will return us rather Sauls anxiety upon his enquiry of Samuels ghost then Sampsons sweetnesse in the Lyons jawes which he found when he looked not for it And out of S. Pauls mouth who was once a raging Lyon till he was killed by him of whom Sampson was a figure we may take this hony to dulcifie all those bitternesses of our lives 2 Cor. 4.18 Our tribulation which presently is momentanie and light worketh above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory in us Quod in praesenti est momentantum leve tribulationis nostrae supra modum in sublimitate aeternum gloriae pondus operatur in nobis HAving thus seene and considered Gods hand and manner in the figure of his dearly beloved Son upon the Crosse by which he conveyed him to his Coronation let us now consider also Christs method in ordering his Church after he professeth that all power is given him both in heaven earth so as the sufferings of the Body to such an Head must needs be by order not infirmity For after he had suffered sufficiently for more worlds then he shed drops of blood and for as many ages as worlds he might well have allowed the members of his body all joy and felicity for the rest of those few Ages this world was to subsist But he who was Wisdome it self chose another method as he told his dearest friends Ego dispone vobis sicut disposuit mihi Pater meus regnum He copyed his Fathers hand upon himselfe in his drawing and figuring his Church upon earth Lu. 22.29 I dispose to you as my Father disposed to me a kingdome so as after his glorious body was enthroned at the right hand of God he left his mysticall body hanging as it were upon the crosse in Calvary for some Ages wounded by the launces of the Gentiles and vilified by the scornes of the Jewes In this posture it hung exposed many yeers a scandall to the eyes of the one and folly to the understandings of the other insomuch as the extreme passions of this body might well have extorted out of flesh and blood a Deus meus ut quid dereliquisti me The afflictions were so intollerable as no body that had not a God for the head of it Mat. 27. My God why hast thou forsaken me could have growne and prospered in so bleeding an infancie It seemeth Gods unsearchable Wisdome designed Christs mysticall body to be formed on the face of the earth as his naturall body was in the wombe of the Virgin in the composition whereof there was onely the Spirit of God working upon the pure blood of the Virgin and in like manner the vertue of the holy Ghost came upon the blood of the Martyrs forming and animating the Primitive Church For in those times we find the vertue of the Spirit working most upon blood to forme and procreate the body of the Church And thus by the admirable vertue of Christs Passion it seemed not an effusion but rather a transfusion of all the blood was drawne conveying it into other veynes and the same spirits seemed to be carryed in it into other bodies which successively making the same use of it might make one think it had been the very same blood infused into other veyns which like channels rather then owners of it poured it out againe so freely and in this way of generation the Saints and Martyrs procreated the descent of the family of Christ for above three hundred yeeres The Apostles seemed to poure out their blood into the veynes of their Disciples and Successors and they in like manner to transfuse theirs into those discended from them and by this successive transmission the Progeny of the Church was deduced through the Primitive Persecutions This was the operation of that one heart Act. 4.32 and one soule the Apostle saith was then in the multitude of the Beleevers And indeed the records of those times may well make one reflect on the doctrine of Pythagor as in his transmigration of soules for in those times the spirit of acting and suffering which was transmitted from one to another seemed so much the same as one might fay there was a transmigration of the soules of the first Martyrs into the surviving issue of their spirit Herod is said to have suspected that the soule of S. John Baptist had passed into Christ when he said Mat. 14.1 This is John the Baptist he is risen from the dead and therefore vertues work in him Hic est Joannes Baptista ipse surrexit à mortuis ideo virtutes operantur in eo The doctrine of transition of soules from one body to another was much followed in those times But we may wel in a pious and sober sense say that the soule of S. Peter seemed transmigrated into his successors for many yeeres for the same spirit of fervour in watering with their blood the Rock whereon Christ had planted his Church possessed above thirty Popes successively after S. Peter and so all their bodies seemed to be cast as a mold of earth upon that rock whereupon the faith of the Romane Church did spring the plants whereof even all acknowledge their Churches to be who have now severed themselves from that radicall communion and forgetting the benefits of those Josephs who sed them in the famine of their Faganisme are now laying burthens on their children In this manner the Primitive Church was nourished in her cradle instead of having milk given her to make blood of she sucked blood and made milke of it by the which she hath nursed the succeeding times for in all the Churches following persecutions the faithfull have been sustained and refreshed by that milk which the blood of those times did make for them for their examples descending with their doctrines hath confirmed and strengthned as well as alimented all their future progenie It is an admirable evincement of the truth of Christian Religion to remark that as it was founded upon a supernaturall conjunction of a body that might suffer to a person that was impassible so it was propagated by the destruction of those bodies which were the organs of tradition of it to posterity for the wounds of the Apostles and the Martyrs seemed but so many more mouthes opened to speak out louder the mysteries of the Gospel and to prove those verities by daring to dye for them which were not to
the gate of our Lord the just shall enter into it Aperite mihi portas justitiae ingressus in eas confitebor Domino haec porta Domini justi intrabunt in eam Besides the obligation of this method which I have remonstrated to you there is a satisfaction resulting thereout which may be very agreeable to many who may be tempted to perplex themselves in search and investigation of the causes and irritations that have moved God to these severe examinations of you For when you recollect your comportments in the former times of more serenity if in the audit of your consciences you finde these old debts of an abuse and insensiblenesse of that calme you neede study no farther the matter of these meteors which was then exhaled out of the fatnesse of your earth Let every one therefore turne over his owne records and consider respectively to his condition what mundanities what riots excesses some can charge themselves withall others with what avarice worldly wisdome and over temporizing they can impeach themselves others of what indevotion tepidity or scandall they can endict themselves and they who find themselves standing convicted of these recusancies and inconformities to the Laws and Statutes of Catholike Religion let them not wonder to see these heavy fines set upon them for even the lightest of these misdemeanours deserveth a higher amercement then all your temporalities can be extended unto And truly I am afraid upon what I have heard of these latter times of moderation and indulgence that it may be too truly said as the Prophet Esay did Esa 26.15 Thou hast been favourable to the Nation O Lord thou hast been favourable to the Nation wast thou glorified in no unlike occasion Indulsisti genti Domine indulsisti genti nunquid glorificatus es And if you find your selves lyable to this impeachment you need enquire no farther for a cause of this judgement It is a harder taske of the two the giving a reason of Gods trusting you with this second mercy as I may well term it of paternall correction after your having abused your first trust of the indulgence benignity so that while you examine your cōsciences you may not only find a reason of your present afflictions but that reason may disclose to you this secret of their being such graces as you wanted most For surely if these infirmities which I may well call a spirituall scurvy were growing upon you ease repose and stilnesse would have much advanced this disease and now this revolution and exercise joyned with the grace of him that ministers them is very like to stay and cure this surreptitious infirmity which creeps in likely into the softnesse and conveniency of life and God knoweth when to work upon our nature with Simples and Benedicta as Physitians say and when to use Mineralls And we find by experience that this kind of steele is the proper key to this sort of obstructions and opilations in our minds of slacknesse desidiousnesse and indevotion Therefore you may well apprehend the hardnesse of your present conditions to be ministred to you as remedies of some indispositions breeding by the softer qualities of other times I beseech you therefore to conceive your selves in a course of Physick wherein nothing but your own ill diet can render it inefficacious as I hope I have before competently remonstrated unto you Upon these reflections I hope in God you wil confesse with the Psalmist Lord thou hast not dealt with us according to our iniquities Psal 102.10 and not fall under the censure of S. Ambrose upon the persecuted Catholikes of his time who complaines that Vidi multos humiliatos sed paucos humiles that he had seen many humiliated but few made humble But we confidently trust of you better things and neerer salvation although we speak thus and that you will resolve with S. Paul Phil. 1.19 That these things shall fall out unto your salvation by the subministration of the spirit of Jesus Christ and determining to rectifie all your former bendings and deflections from the straightnesse of your Religion every one of you may make his Catholike Protestation Phil. 1.20 Now Christ shall be magnified in my body whether it be by life or by death acknowledging to God this great toleration how that after your having been unfaithfull in the menaging of his indulgencies he would be pleased to give you occasions to redeeme that forfeited time by a virtuous correspondency to his present designe upon you in exhibiting patterns of constancy longanimity and fervour in all your tentations in order to the magnifying of the grace of Christ appropriated to the Catholike Church to the doctrines whereof you may peradventure sooner reconciliate your enemies by your practicall vertues of Patience meeknesse and charity then we by all our rationall evincements These your Apostolicall traditions of joy in tribulation longanimity suavity in the holy Ghost sincere dilection of enemies may work upon those that are never so averse and repugnant to tradition Therefore as I told you before you were all become Priests in one respect so now I may say to you in this relation you are now made Doctors to promulgate the Catholike Faith by the perswasions of your uncontroverted virtues For me thinks what S. Paul saith in comparison between the speaking with tongues and prophecying may be not unfitly applyed to your practicall parts and our speculative reasons towards the conversion of the unlearned 1 Cor. 14.27 and unbeleevers For they who hearing the arguments of the Schoole may be so uncapable of them as they may account them madnesse when they see all you Catholikes humbly and cheerfully accepting all your crosses rejoycing in your prisons singing Gods praises in the midst of the fornace wherein not so much as the garments of your minds your exteriour graciousnesse and composure are tainted by the flames and that your zeal and charity to your countrey and your enemies are onely the more inflamed in this your fiery tryall these evidences whereof the illiterate are capable may convince them so as falling on their faces they may adore God and not their private spirits pronouncing that God is in you indeed This is truly that sort of practicall reason which S. 1 Pet. 3.15 Peter saith every one should have ready to satisfie those that aske a reason of that hope which is in you not the arguing fencing with that sword of the Spirit which is so hard to weild even for the strongest hands and so we see how unhappily the children of this age cut and wound themselves when they are so bold with it You are not set by the providence of God so dangerous a taske as to wrastle with all arguments may be set upon you the Church hath her proper champions for that exercise your part is to exhibit demonstrations of the vertue of your faith by the practices of the verities you receive from a sure hand your Catholike Mother the
pillar and strength of truth That as the Prince of the Apostles adviseth his Disciples in your conditions 1 Pet. 8.9 you may be all of one mind lovers of fraternity modest humble not rendring evill for evill nor curse for curse but contrariwise blessing that in that which they speak ill of you they may be confounded which calumniate your good conversation in CHRIST This practical part of your Religion is that which falls within every one of your capacities this is the good fight you are to fight wherein you are not disarmed by being manacled For me thinks I may say as Seneca did of Seaevola That he was happyer in suffering then he could have been in acting as it is a more admirable thing to overcome an enemy by suffering the losse of our hand then by that of striking with it So this your suffering estate may prove more successefull to you then that desperate design of some few acting many years agoe which no good English Catholikes doe justifie for by your patience and equanimity charity for your Countrey in all your losses and sufferances you may perhaps overcome that is sweeten and mitigate the fiercenesse of your enemies by the most admirable and most Christian way that can be projected And thus proving your selves innocent of those combustions wherewith you are charged you may become holy incendiaries of true zeale and charity in your Country by these virtues shining and flaming in your sufferances In the close of this proposition to you I must recall to your memorie that as by these evidences of your solid virtue you may adorne the doctrine of our Saviour God in all things so there is no accesse unto these holy dispositions but through the entry whereunto I have directed you of humble and sincere sorrow and contrition for your sins whereof I shall not now need to inlarge any advises since it is a subject well handled by every body though the precepts are seldome well observed even with the help of affliction to enforce them Therefore I must close up this point presenting you with part of the three childrens prayer upon the occasion of their tryall in Babylon which may be apposite in many circumstances to your conditions in regard of the terrours and comminations you are now exposed unto Dan. 3. Because O Lord we are diminished more then all nations and are abused in all the land this day for our sinnes and there is not at this time nor sacrifice nor oblation that we may find thy mercy but in a contrite mind and spirit of humility let us be received so let our sacrifice be made in thy sight this day that is may please thee CHAP. X. Instructions in the duties of fraternall dilection SUpposing you now purified by this Christian ablution of sincere penitence having had as the Apostle saith your hearts aspersed with this cleansing water I will lead you to the Altar of Christ to make your oblation of Charity to your brethren as well as to those who are but your half brothers being of a diverse mother as to those who have their uterine fraternity with you as children of the Catholike Church And because there are two principall articles of your present examination your behaviour concerning the domestikes of faith and your discharge of the duties of your faith relating to the aliens of Israel I conceive it very pertinent to my subject the endeavouring by the grace of God to present you some brief animadversions in these two Christian offices and your present conditions facilitate your compliance with the first as they bring impediments to the correspondency with the later of them for the association in sufferings conducteth to the straightning of the bands of Charity between persons thus combined but the pressures of afflictions doe naturally loosen and relax our minds in those tyes whereby Religion conjoyneth our Charity to our enemies so that this unfortified part of our nature requireth a strong guard of Grace to defend it against our spirituall enemy when he stormeth it by the injuries of our owne brothers and headeth his fiery darts with the asperity of our owne former friends When the great Maligner of our nature bringeth in such enemies for the imbraces of our charity we had need have our brests well stored with those flames which many waters cannot extinguish when streames even of our owne blood Cant. 8. are thus powred out in enmities upon them and it requires surely much of that love which is stronger then death to return love to that animosity against us which is so much stronger then nature in friends and brothers In this case it must needs be specially requisite that you who are thus assayled by these most powerfull temptations should be furnished with the armour of God Ephes 6. for no lesse then the shield of the Catholike Faith to which is coupled the helmet of salvation can be of proofe against these fiery darts whereof there are now vollyes flying against you As touching the first of these two dutyes I may say as Saint Paul saith to the Thessalonians in the like occasion concerning the charity of the fraternity We have no need to write to you 1 Thes 4.9 for your selves have learned of God to love one another The remisnesse of our vitiated nature in this precept is commonly quickned and invigorated by the same degrees that a common persecution is strained upon us wherefore I may trust even Vox populi in these times to preach fervour to you in this practice It will be then more requisite for me to insist upon what the Apostle proceedeth to recommend in the same place That you walk honestly towards them that are without I shall then onely stay to set up some few lights before the shrine of this sort of Charity referred to your friends and fellow citizens of the Saints Eph. 2.16 and domestikes of God and proceed to the saying of the office more amply of the other part of Charity the dilection of enemies But indeed both these duties are but divers branches which have a continuity and unity in the same shaft before they part and break themselves into these two severall armes of acting for friends and affecting of enemies and so we cannot touch the one without some report and relation to the other For these two exercises are but lower and higher boughes growing upon the same shaft of the charity of God powred forth in our hearts by the holy Ghost which is given us Heaven is the orbe of mans joy and earth the element of his misery and love is both the conveyance of man to heaven and the consummation of his joy there and the holy Ghost contriveth the raising of this our conducting love very often out of our consortings in the miseries of this life for society in suffering here exalts mutuall love as communion in joyes there doth heighten reciprocall charity which is some accession to the blisse of heaven And in