sensible of your own infirmities! Have you so many errors and sins among you, and yet are none of the church but you? Methinks an humble soul should say, Alas, I am so bad, that I am more likely to be cast out than they; I am unworthy of the communion of saints!

8. Yea, you trespass against common reason itself. Do you think it reasonable for us to believe, that all those that we see walk uprightly with God and men, earnest in prayer, and study to know the truth; holy, and humble, and heavenly Christians, are yet out of the church, and state of life, because they be not re-baptized with the Anabaptists, or because they believe not in the Pope of Rome, with the Papists? It is hard to imagine that he that pretends to believe such unreasonable things as these, doth well believe Christianity itself.

9. And how could you honour and gratify the devil more, and magnify his kingdom, than by teaching men that most of the churches are his? Will you not be content to let him go away with all the unbelieving world, and all the hypocrites also in the church, but you will proclaim him the king of Christ's inheritance, even of the best and greatest part of his disciples, because they are not of your opinion, or your sect? What dealing is this for a Christian to be guilty of?

10. Lastly, consider what uncomfortable doctrine it is that you deliver, especially to yourselves? You will not believe that all these sects and differing parties that hold the essentials are members of the catholic church: You scorn at such a church, and say, What a medley church is this! Will Christ entertain men of so many opinions, and of so much corruption? Yea; or else woe to you, and such as you are! Methinks you should rather say, 'Alas, what will become of me, if sinners and erring persons may not be Christians, but must all perish? O what sins have I that are greater than many of their errors! And who is more likely to err than such an ignorant wretch as I!' Take heed lest you cut a shoe too little for your own foot; and lest you shut out so many that you must yourselves go out with the first. I must profess, after long, impartial studies, if I were of the opinion that most of the Christian world are, out of the catholic church, I could not believe that the Papists are in it.

Consider now of these aggravations of your sin: To

think and say, 1. That one piece of the church is the whole church: 2. Yea, and a piece that is no greater: 3. That none of the best, nor far from the worst: 4. Nor any of the ancientest, whatever is pretended. 5. And to exclude the greatest part of Christians for such a matter, as not believing in the Pope of Rome: And 6. Lastly, to do all this in pretence of unity, even to cast away the most of the church to unite it. What an unreasonable, unchristian course is this! Dividing spirits may plead what they will, but God will one day shew them their sin in a fouler shape than here I have opened it, though it seem to them but pious zeal.

V. My next address is to the Papists, for answer to their great question, 'Where was your church before Luther? Give us a catalogue of the persons of all ages that were of your church?'

Answ. Of OUR CHURCH! Why, sirs? Do you think we have a catholic church by ourselves? Is there any more universal churches than one? Do you not know where the catholic church was before Luther, and in all ages? Why, there was our church; for we have no other, we know but one. Do you not know where there were any Christians before Luther, or in all ages? Or would you have us give you a catalogue of Christians? Wherever there were true Christians, there was our church. Would you have the world believe that there were no Christians but the subjects of the Pope? Can you believe it yourselves? Doth not your Canus confess, as before cited, that most of the churches and bishops of the whole world were against the privileges of the church of Rome, and had the arms of emperors on their sides? Doth not your Reinerius long ago say, or whoever was the author of that conclusion, "The churches of the Armenians, Ethiopians, and Indians, and the rest which the apostles converted, are not under the church of Rome." (Contr. Waldens. Catal. in Biblioth. Patr. T. 4. Page 773.) What fuller confessions can we desire? Nay, do we not know how small a part of the world did believe your universal sovereignty till almost a thousand years after Christ; and none at all for many hundred years after him, that any credible history tells us of? and yet do you ask us, where was our church?

But you must have us tell you where was a church that had all our opinions? To which I answer, 1. When you

have shewed us a catholic church that held all your opinions, we shall quickly tell you of one that held ours. 2. It is not all our opinions that are essential to a Christian, and the catholic church. It is Christianity that makes us Christians and members of the church: It is not inferior truth. That which makes us Christians and catholics, all true Christians in the world have as well as we: And, therefore, we are of the same catholic church. Æthiopians, Syrians, Armenians, Egyptians, Georgians, Jacobites, the many nations of Greeks, Muscovites, and Russians, and all other that are against the Roman sovereignty, are of the same religion and catholic church as we and so are all among yourselves too that are Christians indeed. The points which we agree in make us all Christians, and church-members: but the points in which we differ from the Papists do make us so much sounder and safer Christians than these, that I would not be one of them for all the world. A sound man is but a man; and so is a man that hath the plague: but yet there is some difference, though not in their manhood.

If, therefore, you will at any time try whether your doctrines or ours be the sounder, we are heartily willing to appeal to antiquity! Spit in his face, and spare not, that will not stand to this motion: That the oldest way of religion shall carry it: and they that are of latest beginning shall be judged to be in the wrong. I abhor that religion that is less than sixteen hundred years of age, and therefore I cannot be a Papist. I confess in the streams of after-ages there have been divisions in the integrals of Christianity, or the points that tend to the soundness of the churches. And in this, I say, let the oldest be the best. But for the essentials of Christianity, and the Church, there never was division among true Christians: for they could not be Christians that wanted any essential part. And, therefore, that one church which contained all the Christians in the world was our church before Luther; and the catalogues of the professors are our church rolls: but we count by thousands, and by countries, and not by names.

But perhaps you will say, 'You cannot be of the same church with the Greeks, or us, or the other parties that you name; for we and they do all renounce you.' answer, as if it were in your power who shall be no member of Christ and his church by your renouncing him! Your renouncing

may prove you no Christians yourselves perhaps, by proving you, in some cases, uncharitable: but it can do nothing to unchurch or unchristen others. If I should say myself, I am no member of the church, that doth not make me none. as long as I am a Christian: much less can your saying so. Saith Paul, "If the foot shall say, because I am not the hand, I am not of the body: is it therefore not of the body? and if the ear shall say, because I am not the eye, I am not of the body: is it therefore not of the body?" (1 Cor. xii. 15, 16.) The words of a man's mouth make not another to be what he is not, or cease to be what he is. Every one is not a bastard, or a whore, that another in railing passion calleth so. If Christ do but consent we will be members of his body, whether the Pope will or not.

And now, beloved hearers, you have been acquainted from the Word of God of the nature and unity of the catholic church, I beseech you resolve to retain this doctrine, and make use of it for yourselves and others. If any man ask you what church you are of, tell him, that you are of that particular church where you dwell: but for the catholic church you know but one, and that you are of. Thrust not yourselves into a corner of the church, and there stand quarrelling against the rest: make not sectaries of yourselves, by appropriating Christ, and the church, and salvation to your party: abhor the very thoughts and name

of any universal church of Christ, which is of narrower extent than Christianity, and containeth fewer than all true Christians, and is pretended to be confined to a sect. It is not the Papists that are the catholic church, nor is it the Greeks, no, nor the Protestants, much less the new prelates alone; but it is all Christians through the world, of whom the Protestants are the soundest part, but not the whole. Again, consider what a lamentable case it is, that so great a part of the church do seem to be at a loss about the church, as if they knew not where it is? up and down the house of God, complaining that they cannot find the house, and know not which room it is that is the house. But in the house of God are many rooms and mansions: one for Greeks, and one for Ethiopians, one for Armenians, and Georgians, and Syrians; one for many that are called Papists; one for Lutherans and Arminians; one for Anabaptists, and one for many that are truly guilty of

That they run

schism and separation from particular churches: there is room for Episcopal, Presbyterians, Independents and Erastians: there is room for Augustinians, called Jansenists, and room for Calvinists: but yet no room for any but Christians and catholics. Alas, that after so many warnings in plainest words of Scripture, and the history of so many ages, so many Christians should yet be so carnal, as to be saying, I am of Paul, and I am of Apollos, and I of Cephas, that is, Peter: Yea, that after Cephas is here named as a party, the Papists should be so wilfully blind as still to make him the head of a party! That one is for Rome, and another for Constantinople, and another for Alexandria! When that Augustine hath so long ago decided this point against the Donatists, and told them which is the catholic church, even that which begun at Jerusalem, and is extended over the world wherever there be Christians: alas, that still men are so stupid in their divisions, as to be crying out, 'Here is Christ, and there is Christ: here is the church, and there is the church: we are the church, and you are none of it:' When the body of Christ and its unity is so frequently and plainly described in the Scripture. I know that none are members of the church that deny any essential point of Christianity but I know that many other mistaken parties are. Consider what an uncharitable, dangerous thing it is to give Christ's spouse a bill of divorce, or cast his children out of his family. And in the name of God take heed whilst you live, 1. That you never confine the church to a sect or party. 2. Nor ever cast out the least true Christians, seeing Christ will never cast them out.

But because this disease hath miserably tormented us for so many ages, and because we see so many sick of it at this day, distractedly looking for the catholic church in this or that party, and thinking that all others are shut out, I shall here tell you what are the causes of this distraction, and in the discovery of the causes you may see the remedies. And withal I shall shew you the hindrances of the concord and peace of the church, while so many seem to be all for peace! For it may seem a wonderful thing to hear almost all men cry up the church's peace and concord, and yet that it flieth further from us, when it is in our power to be possessors of it, if we were but truly and generally willing, as we pretend to be, and think that we are.