of the Earth. He can call for another Alarick, not only to fack, but utterly to destroy her; he can make another Lewis Stamp upon his Coins, Perdam Nomen Babylonis, and another after him fulfil the Infcription. The Kings of the Earth, whom she hath made drunk with the Cup of her Enchantment, he can cause to hate the Whores, and make her defolate and naked, and eat her Flesh, and burn her with Fire. Do you think, Sir, that the four once great and glorious Oriental Churches of Ferufalem, Antioch, Alexandria and Conftantinople, which you now despise, were Sinners above all other Churches? I tell you, nay, but except your Church; your Church, which exalts her Throne above the Stars of God; your Church, which takes upon her to be the Mother and Mistress of all Churches; your Church, which ftill thinks fhe fits as Queen; unless she repent and reform, fhe fhall be brought into their Condition, if not finally perifh. I am no Prophet nor a Prophet's Son, but take upon me to foretel, that if she will still afcend above the height of the Clouds, and be as Lucifer, like the moft High, The fhall be brought down as low as Hell. God can make the Horfemen of Euphrates trample upon her, as well as upon the Oriental Churches; he can pull down the Crofs from the Dome of San Petro, and plant the Crefcent in its Place. Something he will do, to fomething he will call to destroy her; he will hifs for the Flie, and fend for the Horner, unless fhe repents and amends. May the rather prevent her Ruin by her Reformation. May God of his Mercy to the Chriftian

* Socrat. Hift. Ecclef. lib. vii. cap. x. τὴς ἐπὶ τὰ ἐκεῖ πορεύομαι· ἀλλά τις και βασανίζων, καὶ λέγων· ἀπιθείν πόλιμο

Ꮮ Ꮞ

Ovn isw kon it hovκαθ ̓ ἑκας ὀχλε Ῥομαίων πόρθησαν

World

World fend a double, a decuple Portion of Marcellus the Second's reforming Spirit upon his Succeffors, and fill the Conclave as he did the House, where the Apostles met on the Day of Pentecoft, with the Holy Spirit, that Rome may again become a holy Catholick and Apoftolick Church indeed, and all the Churches of her Communion be at last delivered from the Bondage of Corruption into the glorious Liberty of the Children of God.

B

CHAP. VIII.

UT I must haften to your fecond Proof of this Confequence, that if our Religion were true, yours would have been none at all. It is in your Eleventh Paragraph as follows: 2dly, I prove it out of the forefaid 19th Article of their own Church thus. The vifible Church of Chrift is a Congregation of faithful Men, in which the Sacraments be duly adminiftred according to Chriff's Ordinance: But in the Roman Catholick Church, according to their Doctrine, the Sacraments are not duly adminiftred: Therefore the Roman Catholick Church is not (was not when they left it) the vifible (nor a vifible) Church of Chrift. Sir, I grant both your Premiffes and your Conclufion from this Definition of the Church. For the Church of Rome is neither the vifible nor a vifible Church of faithful Men, in which the Sacraments are duly adminiItred according to Chrift's Ordinance, but a Church of unfaithful Men, in which the Sacraments are not duly adminiftred according to Christ's Ordinance and therefore she is neither the vifible nor a vifible Church. I grant you more than you require,

for

;

for I do not allow that you adminifter Baptifm duly; and yet, tho' you adminifter both Sacraments corruptly, but the one much more corruptly than the other, doth it follow from thence, that you are no Church at all, because in the Scholaftical or Theological fenfe of the Word Vifible, [for the Catus fidelium,] you are neither the, nor a vifible Church? Indeed, in the civil or vulgar Signification of the Word, you are a vifible corrupt Church, or, if you please, a Church moft vifibly corrupted in Doctrine, Worship, and Polity; for which Reafon, you can neither be the visible, nor a vifible Church, in the Theological Senfe of the Word, in which it is [reftrained to fignify] in general, the true holy Catholick Apoftolick Church difperfed over the Earth, or particularly any part of it, in which the pure Wod of God is preached, and the Sacraments duly adminftred according to Chrift's Ordinance. But your Argument is formed upon the civil ufe of the Word in common Converfation, and not as it fignifies in Controverfy and in the Schools; and thus you pervert our unskilful People with Fallacies; you jingle our ftraying Sheep from our fafe to your pernicious Fold, from us and from the Truth, and from the Vifible or Catholick Church of England, to your Uncatholick Church, with ambiguous founds of Words, for which you must one Day give an Account to God. The Catholick Church of Chrift or Univerfality of faithful Believers, came, as I obferved before, to be called the Vifible Church, because it ordinarily holdeth vifible Affemblies, in which it useth external Worship and Sacraments, and maketh open Profeffions of the Apoftolick Faith, and teacheth nothing as neceffary to Salvation, that is dubious, falfe, or damnable. This vifible Church

is not confined to place, nor to any number of Perfons beyond fo many, as may make a publick Affembly. And wherever it is, it is confpicuous and difcernable by the luftre of its pure DoEtrine, Worship, and Miniftry (excepting fome Seafons of Perfecutions) and like a light fet on a Hill, which cannot be hid, it fhines wherefoever it appears in the Eyes of Jews, Gentiles and Hereticks, and thereby calls and invites them unto it; and all diligent Enquirers who come to any part of it, may eafily difcern it by the purity of its Doctrine, Worship, and Miniftry, as by a light, that it is the true Catholick Church. Such a Church as this, greater or lefs, Chrift will always have in fome part of the World; and fuch a Church ours is, as it ftands reformed from yours; which is a true, but not a good Church, true or real in verity of Effence, though no part of the vifible Church, in this ftrict Theological Senfe of

the Schools.

II. YOUR third Proof in your twelfth Paragraph is of the fame fallacious Sort, and therefore I need but transcribe it to confute it. 3dly, Out of the forefaid Article, the vifible Church is a Congrega tion of faithful Men, in which the pure Word of God is preached, &c. But in the Roman Catholick Church, according to their Doctrine, the pure Word of God is not preached, therefore the Roman Catholick Church is not, nor was not when they went from it, the visible (or a visible) Church of Chrift. Sir, I grant the whole, for in its beft and pureft State, it never was the visible Church, but only a glorious part of it; but it is now many Hundred Years fince it was a vifible Church or a Congregation of faithful Men, &c. But because it is neither the vifible nor a vifible Church, neither the pure Catholick nor a pure Catholick Church,

therefore

therefore is it no Church at all? Did it lofe its Being with its Putity, or ceafe to be, when it ceased to be good? What think you of the corrupt idolatrous Churches of Judea and Ifrael, defcribed above, and of Pergamus and Thyatira? Were they Churches, or were they not, when God taxed them with their Corruptions, and fent his Prophets by Word or Writing to reform them? What think you of the heretical idolatrous Arian Church fpread over the face of the Empire, and diffused through the Oriental and Occidental Churches, when + almoft all the Latin Churches turned Arians? Did their Herefy or Idolatry_destroy_their Being as Churches? Were they in a State of Gentilifm? And did they become no Churches at all for denying the Divinity and eternal Generation of the Son, and worshipping what they believed to be but a meer Man? Or will you, dare you say they were incapable of being reformed, because they were no Churches, nor had any Christianity at all, because their Religion was corrupt? Will you allow this way of arguing against their Reformation, which you use here against ours? Will you ftand to the fame Confequences in both Cafes ? Pardon me, Sir, if I prefume to fay you will not, you dare not. You will not, because you cannot answer the Arguments of St. Hierom in his fore-cited Dialogue against the Luciferians; and you dare not, because you dare not oppofe fo great an Authority, and ftand to the Confequence

+ Item quando Arianorum, venenum non jam portiunculam quandam, fed pene Orbem totum contaminaverat, adeò ut prope cun&tis Latinis Sermonis Epifcopis partim vi, partim fraude deceptis Caligo quadam mentis offunderetur, &c. Vincent Lirinenfis Common. Cap. vi. vid. Fauftini Presbyteri libellum precum. Ingemuit totus Orbis, & Arianum fe effe miratus eft. Hieronymus adverfùs Luciferian,

of