The Successive Visibility of the Church, Title page 1 – Preface
THE Successive Visibility OF THE CHURCH OF Which the PROTESTANTS are the soundest Members.
I. Defended against the Opposition of Mr. William Iohnson.
II. Proved by many Arguments.
By Richard Baxter.
Whereto is added, 1. An account of my judgement to Mr. J. how far Hereticks are or are not in the Church.
2. Mr. Js. Explication of the most used terms; with my Quere's thereupon, and his Answer, and my Reply.
3. An Appendix about successive Ordination.
4. Letters between me, and T. S. a Papist, with a Narrative of the success.
LONDON, Printed by R. W. for Nevil Simmons Bookseller in Kederminster, and are to be sold by Francis Tyton at the three Daggers in Fleet-street. 1660.
The Preface.
Reader,
IF thou meet me at the threshold with a [What need any more against Popery then is written?] I must answer thee, [No need, if all that is already written, were improved. Nor were there need of any writings, if men would not renounce their common senses. We cannot hope or pretend, by any writings, to bring any controversie to a plainer, better issue, then to resolve it by the judgement of the common senses of all the world: and yet this doth not end the controversies between us and the Papists; whether Bread be Bread, and Wine be Wine, when they are seen, felt, tasted, &c. But some writings are usefull to awake men to the use of Reason, and to help them to improve their other helps. And, as Seneca saith, Multum egerunt qui ante nos suerunt; sed non peregerunt: suscipiendi tamen sunt] Though I thought I had said enough before in three or four former writings, yet the weight of the Question here debated, and the common use thats made of it by the Papists, have perswaded me, that this also will be usefull to the Church.
And I must confess the moderation and ingenuity of the Gentleman that I contend with, did not only tempt me into the undertaking at the first, but also did incline my thoughts to a publication; there being here no stinking breath to annoy and drive away the Reader. I have learned by experience, that its only prudent, charitable, self-denying, humble men, that are fit to be engaged in controversies. We bring fire to Gun-powder, when we deal with proud malignant wretches, (such as I have lately had to do with,) that have souls so forsaken, and consciences so seared, as that they seem to make malicious lies, their glory and delight. Some think that the contending with such, is a needfull, though an unsavoury work: I confess, a Lyar is not to be encouraged, nor our just reputation to be prodigally cast away, or contemptuously neglected. Duo sunt necessaria, saith Augustine, Conscientia & fama: Conscientia propter Deum; fama propter proximum. But for our selves, Gods approbation is enough; and for others, if Duty satisfie them not, contending will not.
Bacchae bacchanti si velis adversarier,
Ex insana insaniorem facies; feriet saepius, saith Plaut.
If Truth make blinded men our enemies, and the performance of our duty be our greatest crime, and no purgation be left us, but by becoming erroneous or ungodly, its not worth our labour to word it with such men. Pride and Malice hearken not to Reason: Apologies will not cure the envy of a Cain, or the pride of a Diotrephes, or the hypocrisie and persecuting fury of a Pharisee. But (as August.) Conscientiam malam laudantis praeconium non sanat; ne… bonam vulnerat convitium.] Praise healeth not an ill Conscience; and reproach cannot wound a good one. Conscience respects a higher tribunal. Could a Calumniator be believed, it were a small thing to be judgeed by man: and
Conscia mens recti famae n…e…dacia ridet.
But when they make themselves the objects of the common compassion or derision, they spare me the labour of a confutation: Its enough to say with the Philosopher, [Ego sic vivam, ut nemo illi credat] [I will so live, that no man shall believe him;] when they themselves will so lie that no man (or next to none) shall believe them. Its a far more necessary and profitable employment, to oppose our sins then our accusers; and to see that we are blameless, then that we are so reputed: and to escape the temptations of Satan, rather then the calumnies of his instruments. Its better this wind offend our ears, then guilt should wound our hearts. Penalty is heavier then injurious persecution, because of its relation to guilt: but culpability it self is worse then both.
Poena potest demi, culpa perennis erit.
Mors faciet certe, ne sim, cum venerit, exul.
Ne non peccarem, mors quo que non faciet.
And even when God hath fully pardoned us, Litura tamen extat. A soul that knows the evil of sin, and seeth by faith the dreadfull Majesty, and the judgement to which he must stand or fall, is taken up with greater cares, then the defence of his reputation with men; except as Gods honour, or the good of souls may be concerned in it.
Another thing that encouraged me to this engagement was, that my Antagonist seemed exceeding desirous of a close syllogistical way of arguing, which put me in hope of a speedier and better issue, then with wordy wandring Sophisters I could expect. I never liked, either the feasts that consist of sawce and ceremony with little meat; or the bawling rooks, that will not receive a bit without a troublesome noise.
Sed tacitus pasci si posset corvus, haberet
Plus depis, & rixa multo minus, invidiae que
Nor the prodigal covetousness that turns the Cock when none requireth it; and plucks up the flood-gates, and sets the mill a going when there is no grist; & omnia vult dicere, & nihil audire.
When words are too cheap, it either proves them worthless, or makes them so esteemed. The sentence of an Orator, and the very syllables of a Disputant should be short. There should be no more dishes then are necessary for the meat: nor no more straw then is necessary to sustain the grain. Frugality of speech, and sermonem habere rebus parem, do shew and make our speeches valuable. Truth would be adorned, but not covered: attended, but not crowded; proclaimed, but not buried in an heap of words. Arguments are like money, that is valuable according to the mettal and the weight, and not according to the number of pieces, or curiosity of the stamp.
And a third thing that made me the willinger to this task, was; that the assaults of Juglers, that thought to catch me under the names and mask of Seekers, Behmenists, and such other sects, had possessed me with so much indignation and distaste, that I was glad to meet with a bare-fac't Papist, that was not ashamed of his Religion, but would profess himself to be what he is. I could never hear that the Papists won so many, and so considerable persons this threescore years, by open dealing, as I have cause to think they have won by fraud under the vizor of Se…kers, and Sectaries, within a few years past. I fear no Papists, but Protestant Papists, that come to Church, and take the oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance, as many did the engagement but a while ago; or that wear some other vizor of dissimulation. Hypocrisie is nowhere so odious as in Religion, where men have to do with a heart searching God, and deal in matters of everlasting consequence. He hath no Religion, that thinks it his duty to lie for his Religion. For he hath no Religion that believeth not in God. And he that believeth him to be a Lover of Lies, believeth not that he is God. Verba (inq. August.) propterea instituta sunt, non ut per ea se invicem homines fallant, sed ut eis quisque in alterius noticiam cogitationes suas proferat.] Verbis ergo uti ad fallaciam, non ad quod sunt instituta, peccatum est. — Longe tamen tolerabilius est, in his quae à religione fidei sejuncta sunt mentiri, quam in his, &c.—] Truth is great, (and the greatest advantage to a Disputant:) and will at last prevail. Lying is a remedy that needeth a remedy; easing for the time by palliation, but much increasing the disease. [Magna est viis Veritatis quae contra omnium ingenia, calliditatem, solertiam, contra fictas hominum insidias, facilè se per ipsam defendit, saith Seneca.
Three Questions about Popery have put the world to much dispute. Qu. 1. Whether it be the right and safe Religion? 2. Whether it may be tolerated? 3. Whether it be our duty to enter into reconciliation and communion with the Papist, (though not subjection) and on what terms?
The first I have debated in this and divers other writings, (viz. three Disputations, called the safe Religion, a Key for Catholikes, &c. a winding-sheet for Popery, and the true Catholike, and Catholike Church discribed.) It is one of the reproaches of humane nature, that ever it could be corrupted into so sensless, unreasonable, impious, uncharitable a thing as Popery: And one of the prodigies of misery, in the world, that any save one that Inguinis & capitis quae sunt discrimina nescit, should be fully, and seriously a Papist.
But four things I find are the pillars of their Church, and propagates their corruptions: 1. One is the love of themselves and of the world in unsanctified hearts: which makes them be of the Religion of their Rulers; and resolve to be of no Religion that shall undo them in the world: And therefore to escape reproach, and torment, and death, they will do any thing, and as they speak, will trust God with their souls, rather then men with their bodies: The meaning is, they will rather venture on the wrath of God, then of man; and save their bodies, then their souls; and secure this life (as long as they can) then life everlasting.
2. Another is Custom and Education, possessing men with blinding stupifying prejudice, together with a contempt of truth and happiness, that keepeth sluggish souls from that diligent search and tryal that is necessary to a conquest of that temptation, and to a saving entertainment of the truth. And the name and reverence of their forefathers, emboldeneth them against the name and reverence of God. Adeò à teneris assuescere multum est. Saith Seneca, Inter causas malorum est quod vivimus ad exempla, nec ratione componimur, sed consuetudine abducimur. Quod si pauci facerent, nolumus imitari; quum plures facere caeperunt, quasi honestius fit, quia frequentius sequimur, & recti apud nos locum tenet error, ubi publicus factus est. Not what God saith, but what man doth, is made the rule of this humane apish kind of Religion. And so the Tyrant Custom ruleth them: Et gravissimum est imperium consuetudinis, Senec. Educatio & disciplina mores facit: & id sapit unusquisque quod didicit: Id.
3. Another cause is superstitious fears which the false doctrins of Purgatory, and no salvation out of their Church, &c. have cast into mens minds. The Priests rule their subjects, as one of their Captains ruled the Thracians, by making ladders, and making them believe he would climb up to Iuno to complain of them.
4. And it is not the least support of Popery, that it maketh light of heynous sins, as …ornication, drunkenness, swearing, forswearing, lying, equivocation, &c. and provideth for them the easie remedies of confession, and such gentle pennance as the sagacious tractable Priest shall impose. But holy water will not wash out their spots. God judgeth not as the Pope or Mass Priest. Let no man deceive you with vain words: for such things (as fornication, uncleanness, filthiness, foolish talking, &c.) cometh the wrath of God on the children of disobedience, Eph. 5.3, 5, 6. For all the flatteries of indulgences, and pardons, and the name of Venial sin, yet conscience hath not pardoned all that is pardoned by the Pope. And,
Prima est haec ultio, quod se
Iudice nemo nocens absolvitur —
And its no great ease to have an external pardon, and neither an Eternal, nor Internal; but Nocte dieque suum gestare in pectore testem. How many must be damned by Christ, that were pardoned by the Vicechrist.
Qu. 2. And for the second Question, about the Toleration of Popery, let him that desireth it, but procure a Toleration of the Protestant Profession in Spain, Italy, Bavaria, Austria, &c. and then I undertake to give him a satisfactory answer of this question. In the mean time, I shall only say as Seneca, Nemo ex imprudentibus est qui relinqui sibi debeat: especially men that renounce all their senses and reason ▪ so far, as not to believe that bread is bread, and wine is wine, should not be left without a guardian. But in general, we must on one hand avoid inhumane cruelty (and leave them those means that are suited to their cause:) and on the other hand we must take heed that we betray not the Gospel and the souls of men, to the subtilty and pernitious fraud of trained deceivers. We must vigilantly and strenuously defend, though we must tenderly and sparingly offend, any further then is necessary to such defence.
Qu. 3. And for the third question, about Reconciliation, I have spoken to it, and offered the terms in other writings (especially my Key for Catholikes) I only add now, that the Peace-makers no doubt are blessed; and if it be possible, as much as in us lyeth, we must live peaceably with all men. But for the terms, we cannot possibly meet every corrupted party half way in their sins and errors, that we may be friends. Let us hold to the immutable sufficient Rule, indited by the Holy Ghost, and judge of all that swerve from it, according to the degree of their deviation, and unite in the ancient simplicity of Doctrine, Worship, and Government, and lay our unity only on things necessary: For whosoever deviseth any other Rule and terms of unity then these, shall never attain it, but raise up a new Sect, and encrease our wounds. I am as much for unity as ever was Cassander, Erasmus, Grotius, or any of the Reconcilers: But I am certain that to subscribe to the Trent Decrees and Creed, and to turn Papist, or Semi-Papist, or participate of any sin for peace, is not the way. Let some plead for all the Greek corruptions, and some for the Popes supremacy regulated by Canons; and some for his meer Primacy as principium unitatis, and his Government of all the West as Patriark; let them digladiate about a Pope and Council, as wisely as Greece and Troy did fight ten years for a beautiful whore; I am sure that none of these are the way to the Churches Unity and Peace (as I have opened in my description of the true Catholike Church) Nor will their design be more successeful, that would so discordantly agree us all with the first three hundred years, as to deny the first hundred, or two hundred to be our pattern, and to make all the forms and ceremonies to be necessary to our concord, which the third or fourth Century used but as things indifferent, with diversity and mutation, and mutual forbearance.
But of the terms of Catholike Vnity, I have spoken, as in the forecited papers, so in a Pacificatory Letter of the Worcestershire Ministers to Mr. J. Dury: and if God will, shall do it yet more …ully.
And of the evils in Popery, that move me to distast it, having given a Breviate in an Epistle before another mans Book, which I perceive is seen of very few, I shall here annex so much of that Epistle, as is pertinent to the present business.