Romes Ruin(1), Answer · Paragraph 12
PARAG. XII. Amplitude and eminent visibilitie no mark of the true Church.
CHALENGE.
To disprove us herein, we require that a protestant church with these marks may be shewed to have been always ext…t.
Answer.
To disprove you herein it is not requisit that a protestant church with these marks be shewed; it is sufficient to shew that these are not proper and inseparable marks of the true church.
To …anverse your whole discourse, we need no more than to ex…ge and rub out the false marks you have drawn of the church, which may be done with a wet finger. Of your …itie and succession, we suppose, you desire to hear no more: as for eminent visibilitie and u…iversalitie, it seemeth strange, that amplitude should be the mark of Christs little flock; eminent visibilitie and …ustre the character of the woman which fled into the wildernesse, and there hid her self a long time. If the outward conspicuousnesse of the church may not be sometime obscured and eclipsed, S. Ambrose was out; who Ambros. l. …: H…xa…. c. 8. Eccl…a … & … freq…s.compared her (in this respect) to the moon. You your self confesse, that before the days of Constanti…e the church was generally eclipsed, and I may as certainly add that, not long after the days of Constantine, during the raig… and fury of Arri… Emperours, and▪ bishops bearing the greatest sway, and occupying the chi…f sents in the church, she was again eclipsed, or rather turned into blood; and yet neither the heathen, nor the Arr… persecution, by the judgement of the best learned, may be compared to that foreign, that last and greatest tribulation by anti-christ; at which time, as those of your own side confesse, the publike sacrifice shall cease. And as S. Austine saith expressely, …cclesia non apparebit, impi…s ultra August. ep. 80. Quando solobscurabitur, &c. ecclesia non apparebit, &c. See the preface to the answer supra.modum saevientibus; the church shall not app…r, wicked m…n raging and cruelly persecuting her aboue measure. You see what becomes of your note of eminent visibilitie, and splendour: now for amplitude and multitude of professors, if it were safe following it, if that were the touch-stone of truth, if religion must go by voices of the many, the Greek church would carry it at this day from you; the Mahumetans from it, and the idolatrous gentiles from all. For, as a learned and judicious man hath exactly calculated it, the christians at this day possesse neer about a sixt part of the Prierwoods Inquiry, cap. 14.known inhabited world; the Mahumetans a fifth part, and the idolatrous gentiles, two thirds or little lesse; so that if we divide the known regions of the world into thirty equall parts; the christians part is as five, the Mahumetans as fix, and the idolatrous as nineteen. O lamentable estate of the world! Quis talia f…d… temperet a lachrymis? how much larger is the heard of satan, than the flock of Christ? if you restrain your note of universalitie to such as professe the worship of God in Christ, and thereby exclude the Payni…s and Mahum…tans, yet so it will not stead you; for it is most certain, that the partie of christians which oppose the papacy is incomparably the greatest in number. If to the protestants in the western church, you add the eastern churches professing christian faith in a great part of Europe, Asia, and Africa, they will bear down the scale to the ground. To speak nothing of the Ab…ssin… and AEthiopians largely dispread in the kingdoms of Pr…ster Iohn; to omit the patriarch of Muscovia, the archbishops of Mold…via, and Walachia. Under the Turk there are fo… p…triarchs at this day, to wit, the patriarch of Constantinople, of Al…x…ndria, Antiochia, and Ierusalem: and that these patriarchs are not like some of your bishops, whom P…normitan fitly calls nullatenenses, appe…rs by the catalogue of archbishops subject to the p…triarch of Con…, s…t Curop…l. d… Offic. …las. … & Offic. mag. eccles.down by Curopalata, which are these: 1. The archbishop of Cas… rea in C…pp…d…cia. 2. Ephesus. 3. Heracle…. 4. A… 5. … 6. Sardis. 7. Necomedia. 8. Nicea. 9. Calcedon. 10. Mitylene. 11. Thessalonica. 12. Laodicea. 13. Synadae. 14. Ieonium. 15. Corynth. 16. Athens. 17. Patrae. 18. Trupezuntium. 19. Larissae. 20. Naupactus. 21. Adrianopolis. These archbishops have many bishops under them; the archbishop of Ephesus. 2. of Moldavia. 3. of Walachia. 3. of Heraclea. 7. of Thessalonica. 9. of Corynth. 10. of Athens. 11. of Larissae. 13. of Muscovia. 17. not to overcharge your memory with more under the patriarchs. All those christians, besides many more of the Greek church professing Christ, differ from your Roman church in many substantiall points of faith. They …cknowledge no supremacy of the Pope; have no faith in his infallibility, nor trust in his pardons; they disclaim merits, and works of supererogation; purgatory, & transubstantiation are no articles of their faith; they allow marriage of priests; they cannot away with the mutilation of the sacrament by depriving the laytie of the cup; they teach the perfection and sufficiencie of the scripture; they have the scripture and the church lyturgie in their severall languages understood by their people. The Musc…vits in the Musc…vitish; the Ar…bians in the Arabick, the Georgians in the Iberick; the Carmonians in the Carmanick; the Col…hians, Slavonians, Grecians, in their known Greek or other peculiar languages; therefore it is not safe for you to put the truth of religion upon this poynt. Were the rule of multitude of visible professors of religion, cert…in and infallible, Mi…hea were to be condemned, and the 400. 1 King. 22. 6. Ierem. 18. 18. M…th. 27. 1… Theod lib. 2. foreign; Andrad. des. concil. Trid. l 2. p. 185. A…ri… virustā topere serpsit. ut Hicron. citante tres tantum aut 4. episcopos integrā fidem servasse sama fuer…t Hieron. cont. Lucifer.prophets of Aha… to be justified; Ieremy to be abandoned and all the prophets that were in Iuda and Ierusalem, whom …ose against him, to be followed. Nay Christ, the truth it self, to be traduced and reproved, and the co…cell of the chief priests and elders held against him to be maintained and approved. Had you lived in Athanasius his days, we know where to have had you, questionlesse not of his side, who had all the world in a manner against him, as the speech of the Arrian Emperou… to Liberius imports. Wh… a petty part art thou of the world? Who art thou, that …ette… thy self against the world? In S. Iohn… time, the whole world was set on wickednesse: and in Athanasius his time, up…n heresie; …o…us m…dus (saith S. Hierom) gemuit se fact… Arr…anum; the whole worl… gr…aned, because it became Arria…. What becomes now of your note of universa…itie? To this poynt I earnestly desire particular satisfaction, which I have not ye… received from any Rom… catholike; or universalist, (as they would be called.)