CHAP. XXII. Their plea that the Church of Rome is a True Church, and therefore we are Schismatics for
CHAP. XXII. Their plea that the Church of Rome is a True Church, and therefore we are Schismatics for separating from it.
D etect. 13. Another deceit that they manage with great confidence, is this; say they, If the Church of Rome be the true Church: then yours is not the true Church, and then you are Schismatics in separating from it:
But the Church of Rome is the true Church; For you will confess it was once a true Church: when Paul wrote the Epistle to the Romans: and if it ceased to be a true Church, tell us when it ceased, if you can: If it ceased to be a true Church, it was either by heresy, or Schism or Apostasy: but by none of these: therefore, &c.
A man would think that children and women should see the palpable fallacy of this Argument; and yet I hear of few that the learned Papists make more use of. But to lay open the shame of it in brief I answer 1. The deceit lieth in the ambiguity of the word [Church.] As to our present purpose, observe that it hath these several significations. 1. It is taken oft in Scripture for one particular Church, associated for personal communion in God's
Worship. And thus there were many Churches in a Country, as Judea, Galatia, &c. 2. It is taken by Ecclesiastical writers often for an Association
of many of these Churches for Communion by their Pastors; such as were Diocesan, Provincial, National Churches; whereof most were then ruled by Assemblies, where a Bishop, Archbishop, Metropolitan or Patriarch (as they called them) did preside. 3. It is taken oft in Scripture for the Body of Christ, the holy Catholic or Universal Church containing all true Believers as mystical, or all Professors of true faith as visible. 4. It is taken by the Papists oft for one particular Church which is the Mistress or Ruler of all other Churches.
And now I come to apply these in answer to the argument. 1. If the Question be of a true particular Church, we grant you that the Church of Rome was a true and noble Church, in the days of Paul and long after; and thus Paul owneth it in his Epistle as a true Church. And to the question when it ceased to be a true Church: I answer, 1. What matter is it to us whether it be ceased or not anymore then whether Corinth, Ephesus,
Colossae, Thessalonica, or Jerusalem be true Churches or ceased? In charity we regard them all: but otherwise what is it to the faith or salvation of the world, whether Rome or any one of these be yet a true Church, or be ceased? I know not well whether there be any Church at Colossae or Philippi, or some other places that had then true Churches: And doth it therefore follow that I am not a true believer? What would you say to such a fellow that should argue thus concerning other Churches, as these men do of Rome? And say, e. g. [If Philippi, be a true Church, then England are no true Churches, If it be not, when did it cease to be a true Church?] Would you not answer him, [What is it to me whether Philippi be a true Church or not? May not we and they be both true Churches? How prove you that? And whether it be ceased or not ceased, doth no what concern my faith or salvation, further then as my charity is to be exercised towards them] So say
we of Rome: It was a true particular Church in the Apostles days. And if it be still a true Church what hinders but we may be so to? But whether it be so or not, is little to me. It concerneth not my faith or Salvation to know whether there be any such place as Rome on earth, or whether it were consumed long ago. If a man were so simple as to believe a report that Rome was destroyed by Charles of Bourbon, and never inhabited, or had a Pope since, he were but such a Heretic as Pope Zacharias and Bishop
Boniface made of Virgilius, for holding there be Antipodes (though further from the South.) 2. And if you take the word [Church] in the second sense, for a Diocesan or Patriarchal Church, or Association of Churches; supposing such forms proved warrantable, the same answer serveth as to the first.
3. But (to come to the true state of our Controversy) If by [a true Church] you mean either of the two last, that is, 1. The whole Universal Church: or 2. A Mistress Church that must Rule all the rest, it was never such a true
Church in Paul's days.
And therefore here we turn this argument of the Papists against themselves. If the Church of Rome were neither the whole Catholic Church, nor the Mistress of all other Churches when Paul wrote his Epistle to them, then it is not so now, nor ought to be so accounted. But the former is proved: 1. That the Church of Rome was not the whole Catholic Church then, no man thats well in his wits can doubt, that reads what a Church there was at Jerusalem, what a Church at Ephesus, and Philadelphia, Smyrna,
Thyatira, Laodicea, Corinth, and abundance more. Prove that all or any of these were parts of the Church of Rome if you can. 2. Where doth Paul once name them either the Catholic Church, or the Mistress or Ruler of all
Churches? Or give the least hint of any such thing? Or mention any Pope
among them whom the whole world was to take to be their Sovereign Head? Is it not an incredible thing that Paul (and all the Apostles) would forget to make any mention of this privilege, or teach them how to use it, or teach other Churches their duty in obeying the Church of Rome, if indeed they had been made the Mistress Church? Men that can believe what they list, may say what they list. But for my part I will never think so hardly of Paul and all the Apostles, as to accuse them of so great oblivion or negligence. And therefore I conclude, Rome was neither the Universal
Church, nor the Mistress Church then (not many an age after) and therefore it is not so to be accounted now. So that you see how easily this silly
Argument shows its shame.
But (though it concern not our main question) I shall tell them further, that the Matter of the Roman Church must be distinguished from its New
Political Form. For the Matter, so many of its members as are true Christians, are part of the Catholic Church of Christ, though not the whole:
And for the form, 1. There is the form of its several parts, and the form of the whole. The form of any parts of the Roman Church that are
Congregations or particular Churches of true Christians, may make those parts true Churches: that is, there may be many a true Parish Church that yet live under the Papal Yoak. But as to the Political form of their Roman
Catholic Church, as it is a Body Headed by one claiming a Universal Monarchy, so the form is false and Antichristian, and therefore the Church as Papal, must be denominated from this form; and can be no better.
And this is our true answer to the question, whether the Church of Rome be a true Church? There are I doubt not among them many a thousand true members of the Catholic Church, and there may be true particular Churches among them, having true Pastors and Christian people joined for God's
worship (though I doubt there is but few of them but do fearfully pollute it: and I am confident that salvation is much more rare and difficult with them, then it is with the Reformed Catholics; yet that many among them are true
Christians and saved, I am fully persuaded, especially when I have read such writings as Gersons, Guil. Parisiensis, Ferus, Kempis, &c.) And I think the better of Bellarmine himself for saying of Kempis de imitatione Christi
[Ego certe ab adolescentia & usque in senectam hoc opusculum saepissime volvi, & revolvi, & semper mihi novum apparuit, & nunc etiam mirifice cordi meo sapit. Bellarm. de Scripter. Eccl. p. 298.]
But the Pope as a pretended Universal Monarch is a false Head, and consequently their Papal Church, as such, is a false Antichristian Church, and no true Church of Jesus Christ.
And (by the way) I conceive you are thus to understand a clause in a late oath of Abjuration drawn up by the last Parliament to be offered to the Papists, viz. that [the Church of Rome is not the true Church] that is, 1. Not the whole Catholic Church, but part of it, as they are Christians. 2. Nor a true Church at all as Papal, and so formally as the Now Romish Church.
But all this is little to our main Question.