Romes Ruin(1), Preface to answer
The PREFACE to the ensuing ANSWER.
foreign, To the unknown reader.
BE not offended (courteous reader) at the epithete I give thee. For I call him to witnesse whom the schools rightly term primam veritatem, that I am, in respect of my present condition, to seek a man of quality and authoritie, to whom wronged truth may fly for succour and shelter. Albeit the ensignes are everie where displayed for the defence of the true protestant religion, for which both sides ingage their persons and estates: yet upon exact search it will be found that the flags and streamers lately in Ireland, and now also in England are dyed with protestant blood.
And for my self in particular, though in the former Halcyou days of peace I could scarce name more persons of worth and quality, then patrons of my weak endeavours against the common adversarie: yet now I may truly say with Gregory the divine, epist. 31. foreign foreign. Notwithstanding a… Cynegyrus in a sea-fight against the Persians, after his weapons were wrested from him, caught hold on the ship with his right hand; and when that was cut off, with his left hand; and after both, with his teeth: & as Crassus the famous oratour, when Philip the consul sorely threatned Cic ter…de eratnon tibi illa sunt caedenda si Crassum vis coercere, haectibi est …x…id…da lingua, qua vel …vulsa, spiritu ipso libidinem tuam liber…s mea refuta…i….him for speaking so freely for the liberty of the senate, answered like a true Roman senatour, if thou wilt have me hold my peace in so good a cause, thou must cut out my tongue, which aster thou hast pluckt out, with my very breath my liberty shall resute and confound thy tyrannicall humour and proud insolence: in like manner, though I have lost both libras and libros, all means of livelyhood and liberty too: yet I will never be wanting in the defence of Gods truth against Romish Idolatry and tyrannis, while I have a hand to write, or a tongue to speak;
dum memor ipse mei, dum spiritus hos regit artus.
Having therefore received a chalenge from a Romanist (whose name I know not) who defieth the host of the living God, and like Iliad 3.Paris in Homer,
foreign.
hath demanded a duell, a single combat with any that dare to enter into the l…sts with him in the quarrell of the Romish church: I could not contain my self, though restrained at the present, and unfurnished of my choicest weapons: but accepting of the chalenge I have met with him in the field pitcht by himself, I mean, the controversie touching the perpetuall visibilitie of the true church, and other difficult questions, both historicall and theologicall, depending thereon. Now because our Romish adversaries conceive that they have most advantage in this dispute of all other, and therefore seek to reduce all questions to it (as you hear in the chalenge) I hold it fit, in this proamble to the ensuing encounter, exactly to state it and set it upon its true bases.
In this question touching the visibilitie of the Catholike Church three terms are to be explicated.
1. Church.
2. Catholike.
3. Visible.
First church: by church we understand not a particular congregation or company confined to one certain place, parish, city, or country; for such a particular Church is not always visible. Where there have been visible professours in many famous cities, and countries, there are few or none now; and where there were none before, as in divers parts of America, there are visible churches now. The can…lesticks follow the light, and when the light, that is, the preaching of the gospel is removed, the congregations, that is, the candlesticks are also removed; and from what c…y or country soever both are translated, there is darknesse, and in darknesse no visibilitie.
Secondly, catholike is taken in a double sense, logicall, and theologicall: logicall, for a generic all notion of a church which is predicated of every particular church, tanquam genus de specie, as when we say the Greek or the Latine is a christian church. In this sense church is the object of the understanding, not of the sense; and catholike so taken is intelligible, not sensible or visible. For, universalia (qua talia) non cadunt sub sensum. Secondly theologicall, for the whole companie of all that are called to the knowledge of the truth, and outward means of salvation by Christ, having Gods word and ordinances among them. The catholike church so taken is spread over the face of the whole earth, and though not in the whole lump, yet in every part and parcel thereof is visible, so long as that part and parcel continueth a member or portion of the catholike church; and though some members, like branches of the golden tree in the poet, be cut off or wither, yet others rise up in their places, or upon some other boughs or arms of that great tree.
Thirdly visible, when we say the catholike church in a theological notion is visible, we mean in respect of outward profession of faith, and publike use of sacraments common to all christians, not in respect of the inward grace of the spirit and proper marks of the elect; for so it is not object to sense. Those marks are like the white-stone in the Apocalypse, which no man knoweth but he that receiveth it, and Apoc. 2. 17.in this notion the whole companie of the elect is by our divines called the invisible church: not that the elect in it are not seen, but because this cannot be seene or known by sense that they are elect. A child seeth a shining stone, which is a diamond, topaz, or some precious gem; but he knoweth it not to be a true jewell: all men knew Nathaniel to be an Israelite, but our Saviour only, the beams of whose eyes pierced into the hidden corners of his heart, could say, behold, a true Israelite in whom there is no guil.Ioh. 1. 47.
That a man is a true Israelite, that is, hath true faith, is a matter of faith; and the catholike church taken for a companie of such as they are such, is an article of our creed: credo sanctam ecclesiam catholicam, I beleeve there is such a holy catholike church, but neither I nor any man else can discover it to be such by sense. Yet to avoyd all mistaking, the church we beleeve in the creed is not a distinct church from that which we see in the severall and particular members thereof. For the elect which make the invisible church, are in the visible as the soul is in the bodie, or a diamond in a ring, or the apple in the eye, or gold in the oare: and we may properly call them the church of the church, as Demosthenes▪ called Athens the Greece of Greece and Cicero Leontium the Sicilie of Sicilie.
Of the catholike church, as it is invisible, we dispute not now; but as it is in the parts and members thereof visible: and our question is rather de modo than de re, not whether the church be always visible, but how farre it is visible, and whether such visibilitie be a proper and inseparable note thereof. We acknowledge there hath been and ever will be a true church visible, but not always eminent; conspicuous, but not always illustrious: known, but not always nutorio…s: fair and specious, but not always pompous and glorious. For what shew could a church make when it consisted but in Abel, and Aug. in Psal. 125.he was murdered? and afterwards in Enoch, and he was taken from the company of men to walk with God? or at the death of our Saviour, when, as Alen…s reacheth, the true faith remained onelyonly in the blessed virgin, and one candle alone left on Easter evening burning, after all the other are put out, in the Roman Church implyeth as much, if we may believe the interpreters of that ceremonie? Certainly the Church was brought to a low ebb when the deluge overflowed the whole world, and only eight persons were preserved in the ark, and it is a question whether all of them were eternally saved. I am sure, one of them, namely Cham was cursed of God. Shew me the glorious lustre of a visible church in the days of the Patriarks pilgrimage in Mesopotamia, or their posterities bondage in AEgypt, or captivitie in Babylon, in which sad times they who lived and belonged to the true church sighed to God often in private, but were not suffered to pray to him in publike: they lif…ed up their hearts no doubt continually, but not their hands, they were so streightly manacled: they often looked towards the holy city, and the place where Gods honour dwelt, but they could not stir their foot towards it, for they were fettered. All their sacrifices they could then offer were their broken and contrite hearts, and their sweetest incense their burning desires, and their drink offerings their tears, which they powred out by the waters of Babylon, and made them waters of Marah, salt and bitter. No marvail that the spouse of Christ hid her self in a strange land, and then covered her face, when it was swoln with grief and blubbered with tears; but did she ever so in her own country and kingdom. Did she ever wear a mask in Judah and Israel? Did she ever there shut up her self in her closet, and water her plants? Certainly she did, as we read 2 Chro. 15. 3. Now for a long season Israel had been without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without the law: but when they in their trouble did turn to the Lord God of Israel and sought him, he was found of them. v. 5. and in those times there was no peace to him that went out, not to him that came in, but great vexations were upon all the inhabitants of the countries.
What face of a church was to be seen in the days of Elijah, who maketh this grievous complaint against Israel? 1 King. 19. 10. The children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altats, and slain thy prophets with the sword, and I, even I only am left, and they seek my life to take it away. I suppose, a clearer evidence of the latencie and obscuritie of the church cannot be brought. Yet our Rhemists and Romanists seek to avoyd it, by laying the whole blame upon the ten tribes of Israel, and clearing Judah. But it is too manifest by the reformation of Ezekiah, 2 King. 18. 4. and Josiah 2. King. 22. 23. and the judgement of God upon Manasses, 2 King. 24. 3. that Judah was partaker with Israel, and therefore both are alike charged by the spirit of God, 2 King. 17. 13. Yet the Lord testified against Israel and against Iudah by all the prophets, and by all the seers, saying, turn you from your evill ways, and keep my commandements and my statutes, v. 14. notwithstanding they would not hear, nor obey, but hardned their necks, like to the necks of their fathers, v. 16. they made molten images, and worshiped all the host of heaven, and served Baal, v. 19. also Iudah kept not the commandements of the Lord their God, but walked in the sta…es of Israel which they made: therefore the Lord cast away all the seed of Israel and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hands of spoylers, and carried them into the land Ashur, where according to the prophesie of Hosea, c. 3. 4. the children of Israel abode many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, without an Ephod and without a Teraphim. A sad text to comment upon, no king, no priest, no scepter, no censer, no throne of David, no chayr of Moses, no court, no temple. Where was now the glorious hierarchie our adversaries dream of, where was the reverend assembly of prelates, the numerous congregations of people, the solemn feasts, the stately processions, the rich furniture, and pompous ceremonies, and glittering shews which make the lustre of such a church as they would have? Where was now the citie set upon a hill that cannot be hid, the tabernacle piched in the sun?
At this time, and afterwards in the days of Jeremie, and Ezekiel, and likewise after the death of our Saviour, during first the ten Aug. epist. 88. quae aliquando obscuratur & obnubilatur scandalorum multitudine.persecutions of the church by the heathen emperours, and in the middle by the Arrian, and last of all by antichristian princes and states, the true church was more like to the moon than the sun, which is ofttimes in the wane, sometimes in a partiall, and sometimes also in a totall eclipse; and true beleevers are compared to the sands which are by the sea shore, and appear innumerable in calm and fair weather, but in trouble som times, as it were in a rough sea, tribulationum & tentationum fluctibus operiuntur, atque turbantur, not a sand is to be seen. Such times have been, and we are to expect no better in the lees of time, and latter days. For then many false prophets shall arise and deceive many, Mat. 24. 11. and because iniquitie shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold: there shall be a falling away, or a generall apostasie from the christian faith, and the man of sin shall be revealed, the son of perdition: and the tail of the dragon shall draw the third part of the stars of heaven, and cast them to Apoc. 12. 12.the earth, and the divell shall rage the more, by how much his time is shorter: and the dragon shall give power unto the beast, and he Apoc, 13. 4. 7. 8.shall make war with the saints, and overcome them, and all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life. When iniquitie getteth the upper hand, and antichrist shall be in his highest elevation, shall the son of man then find faith upon the earth? that is, as the Romish commentators themselvs Luk. 18. 8. Ep 88. ecclesia est sol, luna & stellae: quādo sol obscurabitur & luna non dabit lucem suam & stellae cadent de coelo, ecclesia non apparebit, impiis eam ultra modum persequentibus.expound the word, any publike outward profession of faith, any beauty of holinesse, or appearance of a christian church? S. Augustine resolveth negatively; by the sun, moon, and stars, the church, in regard of her clearest lights and eminent professors, is understood, when the sun shall be darkned, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, the church shall not appear, wicked men persecuting her above measure. Against which times the Lord arm, and prepare his dearest servants that love the truth in sincerity.
Aldersgate London, from prison in Peter-house, August the first 1644. Thine in the Lord Iesus, D. F.