The True Catholic and Catholic Church Described, Part 3 – Part 5
II. My next address is, To them that are so sollicitous to know, which is the true Church among all the parties in the world that pretend to it. Silly souls! they are hearkning to this party, and to that party, and turn it may be to one, and to another to find the true Universal Church: I speak not in contempt, but in compassion: but I must say, you deal much liker Bedlams than Christians, or reasonable men. You runne up and down from room to room to find the house; and you ask, Is the Parlour it, or is the Hall it, or is the Kitchin, or the cole-house it? Why every one is a part of it; and all the rooms make up the house. You are in the wood, and cannot find it for trees: But you ask, Which of these sort of trees is the wood? Is it the Oak, or the Ash, or the Elm, or Poplar, or is it the haw-thorn, or the bramble? Why it is all together. You are studying, which of the members is the man: Is the hand the man, or is it the foot, or is it the eye, or the heart? or which is it? Why it is the whole body and soul, in which all parts and faculties are comprized. You wisely ask, Which part is the whole? Why no part is the whole? Which is the Catholick Church? Is it the Protestants, the Calvinists, or Lutherans, the Papists, the Greeks, the Aethiopians, or which is it? Why it is never an one of them, but all together that are truly Christians. Good Lord! What a pitifull state is the poor Church in, when we must look abroad and see such abundance running up and down the world, and asking, which is the world? whether this Countrey be the world, or that Countrey be the world? They are as it were running up and down England to look for England, and ask, whether this Town be England, or whether it be the other. They are as men running up and down London to enquire for London, and ask, whether this house be London, or that Street be London, or some other. Thus are they in the midst of the Church of Christ enquiring after the Church, and asking, Whether it be this party of Christians, or whether it be the other? Why you doting wretches, it is all Christians in the world of what sort soever, that are truly so, that constitute the Catholick Church.
Indeed if your Question were only, Which is the purest, or soundest, or safest part of the Church, then there were some sense in it, and I could quickly give you advice for your resolution; (but that is reserved for a following part of the Discourse) If you only ask, Whether the Parlour or the cole-house be the better part or room of the house? or whether the Oak or the bramble be the better part of the wood? I should soon give you an answer. So if you ask, Whether the Protestants, or Papists, or Greeks, be the sounder part of the Church? I should soon answer you. The same family may have in it both infants and men at age, sound men and sick men; some that have but small distempers, and some that have the plague or leprosie: and yet all are men, and members of the family. And so hath the Church of God such members.
Object. But will you make all Sects and Hereticks in the world to be members of the Catholick Church?
Answ. No: there are none members of the Church but Christians. If you call any Christians [Hereticks] those are members of the Church: but those Hereticks that are no Christians, are no Church-members. If they deny any essential point of Christianity, they are not Christians, but analogically, equivocally, or secundum quid. Again I tell you, all that are true believers, justified and sanctified, are true living members of the Church: And all that profess true faith and holiness are true members, and no others, at age and use of reason. Your enquiry therefore should be, Which are true Christians, and what is true Christianity, and what Heresies deny the essentials of Christianity? & then you may soon know, who are of the Church.
Object. Abundance of the Errours now common in the world, do subvert the Foundation, or destroy the Essentials of Christianity.
Answ. It is not every consequential destroying of the Essentials, that will prove a man no Christian. For almost every errour in the matters of faith and morality, doth consequentially subvert the foundation, because of the concatenation of truths together, and their dependance on each other. And so every man on earth should perish, if this were inconsistent with Christianity: For all men erre in matters revealed and propounded by God in Scripture to their knowledge and belief. He that holdeth fast the essentials of Religion by a practical belief, shall be saved by it, though he hold any opinions which consequentially subvert the truth, and doth not understand that they do subvert it. For this is the best mens case. But if he so hold the errour, as seeing that it overthrows an essential point, and so holdeth not that point which it is against, this man is not a Christian. Every drop of water is contrary to fire, and yet a great fire is not put out by a single drop. Every degree of sickness, or natural decay hath a contrariety to health and life: and yet every man is not dead that is sick; nor any man, I think: nor is it every sickness that procureth death. The promise is, He that believeth shall be saved: and therefore as long as he believeth all the essential verities, it is no contrary opinion that can unchristen him, or unchurch him.
Object. But how shall we know a visible Christian by this, when we know not whether he hold the truth, or not?
Answ. By mens profession the visibility of their faith is easily discerned. If they say, they believe that Christ rose from the dead, I am to take them as believers of it, notwithstanding they should hold some errour, that hath a remote opposition to it. But if they directly deny it, I have no reason to think they believe it, and if they will hold two directly contradictory propositions, they are mad men, and to be believed in neither. The Lutherans maintain, That Christ hath a true Humane Nature; and yet some of them say, That it is every where. Though this be contrary to the former by consequence, yet I am bound to judge, that they take Christ to be true man still, because indeed they do so, not seeing the contradiction.
But if a man by his contradiction in other terms, do manifest that he doth not believe the truth which he professeth to believe, but speaks the words while he denies the sense; this is to deny the matter it self: For it is the sense that is the Doctrine: and so he denies himself to be a Christian. For example: If he say, That Christ is risen, and by Christ tell you he meaneth his own spirit; and by rising he meaneth his rising from sinne, as the Familists do, and no more: This is to deny the Resurrection of Christ.
Object. But you will dishonour Christ and his Church, by taking in all Sects and erroneous persons, that hold the Essentials: What a linsey-wolsey garment will this be? What a large and mingled Church will you make?
Answ. The largeness is no dishonour to it: but by over-narrowing it, many Sects do dishonour it. The corruptions and infirmities are indeed a dishonour to it: but that reflects not at all on Christ, yea it maketh for his honour, both that he is so exceeding compassionate as to extend his love and mercy so far, and to bear with such distempers, and pardon such miscarriages of his servants: And should your eye be evil, because he is good? O how ill doth it beseem that man that needeth exceeding mercy himself, even to save him from damnation, to be opening his mouth against the mercy of Christ to others? Yea to repine at, and even reproach the mercy that he liveth by, and must save him, if ever he be saved. Why man, hast not thou as much need of tender indulgence and mercy thy self, to keep thee in the Church, and in the favour of God, and bring thee to Heaven, as Anabaptists, Separatists, Arminians, Lutherans, and many such Sects have, to continue them in the number of Catholick Christians? If thou have not their errours, thou hast others, and perhaps as bad, which thou little thinkest of: And if thou have not their Errours, hast thou not sinnes that are as provoking to God as they? Really speak thy heart man, be thou Papist or Protestant, or what thou wilt, wouldst thou have God less mercifull then he is? Or wouldst thou wish him to be so little mercifull as to damn all that be not of thy opinion, or to unchristen and unchurch all these that thou speakest against? Or wouldst thou have him to condemn and cast away all men that have as great faults as the errours of these Christians are? and consequently to condemn thy self? Moreover it is Christs honour to be the healer of such great distempers, and the cure at last shall magnifie his skill. In the mean time the Church, though black, is yet comely, in the eyes of Christ, and of all that see by the light of his Spirit. And our tender hearted Saviour disdaineth not to be the Physician of such an Hospital, as hath many sorts of diseases in it, and many of them very great. And when Pharisees make it his reproach that he thus converseth with Publicans and sinners, he takes it as his Glory, to be the compassionate Physician of those that are sick.
I beseech you therefore poor peevish quarrelsome souls, give others leave to live in the same house with you: Do not disown your Brethren, and say, they are bastards, because they somewhat differ from you in complexion, in age, in strength, in health, in stature, or any of the points wherein I told you a little before, that the members of the Church do usually differ in. Shew not your selves so ignorant or froward, as to make a wonder of it, that God should be the Father both of infants, and men at age, of weak and strong, and that the sick and the sound should both be in his family. Doth such cruelty beseem the brest of a Christian, as to wish God to cast out all his children from his family, that are weak and sick? Do not make it such a matter of wonder, that Gods house should have many rooms in it; and think it not a reproach to it, that the Kitchin or the Cole-house is part of the house. Wonder not at it as a strange thing, that all the body is not a hand or eye; and that some parts have less honour and comeliness than the rest. Hath God told you so plainly and fully of these matrers, and yet will you not understand, but remain so perverse? I pray hereafter remember better, That the [Catholick Church is One, consisting of all true Christians as the members.]
III. My next address is to those several Sects (I call them not so in reproach, but because they make themselves so) that sinfully appropriate the Catholick Church to themselves. Thus did the Donatists in Augustines time, to whom he gives a confutation of very great use to all that are guilty of that sinne in our dayes. But I shall only speak particularly now to these three Sects, that are most notoriously guilty: 1. The Quakers. 2. Some Anabaptists. And, 3. The Papists.
1. The Quakers are but a few distempered people, risen up within a very few years, in this corner of the world: and yet they are not ashamed to condemn the most godly Christians, Ministers and Churches of the world that are not of their way; as if the Church were confined to these few poor distracted erroneous persons. I do not think that they are all of a mind among themselves; some of them plainly deny the very essentials of Christianity. And for these to reproach the Church is no wonder: But to appropriate it to themselves, that are themselves no members of it, is as if Turks or Heathens should have perswaded the world, that they are the only Christians. In the mean time, I thank God that Christianity is in so much esteem, that even the enemies of it do pretend to it: But for those that go under that name, and deny not the Fundamentals; let them consider what I said before to the Seekers: If there be no Church there is no Christ? No Body, no Head? And no Church, no Christians; and no Justification or Salvation. And therefore I would know of them, Where was the true Church before the other day that the Quakers rose? If there were any, where was it? If there were none, then there was no Christ, no Head? I remember what a Boy told them lately near us [Your Church and Religion (saith he) cannot be the right, for I can remember since it first begun] Sure Christ had a Church before the Quakers.
2. The rigid Anabaptists do runne the same strain, and appropriate the Church to their Sect alone; and this upon the Popish conceit, That Baptism is either necessary to salvation, or else to the being of a member of the Church: None but the Rebaptized, or those that are Baptized at age, are taken by them to be members of the Church: (Though I know that many of the Anabaptists are more moderate, and make Rebaptizing necessary only in point of duty, and ad bene esse.) Of these men also I would know, 1. Where was a Church that was against Infant-Baptism, since the dayes of the Apostles (much less among them) till within this 500 or 600 years at most (perhaps this 200 or 300?) Had Christ a visible Church of such in all ages? If so, tell us where it was, and prove it. If not, tell us, how Christ could be a King without a Kingdom, a Head without a body. 2. And can your hearts endure so cruel a Doctrine, as to unchurch all the Churches of the world, except so few, and such as you? 3. And would you have men in their wits believe, that Christ hath been so many hundred years without a visible Church? Or that his Church hath had a false constitution, and that now he is constituting his Church aright in the end of the world? 4. Your errour is so much the greater and more cruel, as your party is the smaller, and more lately sprung up; that ever it can enter into your hearts to imagine that God hath no Church in all the world but you. But I shall say no more to you particularly, partly because you are an impatient generation, that take a confutation for a persecution; and partly, because I shall offend the more sober, by such needless words, to so gross an errour; and chiefly because that which I shall speak to the next party, will be also usefull to your information.