The happiness of the church, or, A description of those spiritual prerogatives wherewith Christ…The happines of the church, or, A description of those spirituall prerogatiues vvherewith Christ…

1. Not to fly from the Church, because there are some wicked men in it. Non propter malos boni sunt deserend•, sed propter bonos mali sunt tolerandi. Forsake not the good ¹because of the evil, but suffer the evil because of the good. when we can brook no imperfection in the Church, know then ^pDiabolum nos tume•acere superbia, that the Devil doth blow us up with pride; saith Calvin. I hold the Church, saith Augustin; full of both wheat and chaff: I better whom I can, whom I cannot I suffer. Fugio paleam, ne hoc sine non aream, ne nihil sim. I avoid the chaff, least I become chaff: I keep the floor, least I become nothing. ^qWe sin all in many things: and many in all things: let us fly from all sins, not from all sinners; for ^rthen we must go out of the world; out of our selves. But I believe the holy catholic Church; I believe it, though through the shadow of infirmities I cannot see it. Intelligit fides, quae non vides. If it was perspicuous to sense, there was no place to faith, no use or exercise of believing. But here ^swe walk by faith, not by sight. All the glory of the Kings daughter is Intus, within. Psal. 45. she is glorious within. wretched are they that forsake her, and when they speak of her, bless themselves that they are fled ⁶out of Babel. Blind fools, that will not know Jerusalem from Babel. Their fault is the more heinous for two causes. 1. They seemed our most zealous professors: and a lewd servant is easilyer brooked then an undutiful son. 2. They know so much, that their own conscience tells them; Ignorance cannot excuse their separation. An ignorant injury is in more hope, both of amends and mercy. All their hot urging, was our purging; not from our vices, but our good order: which when they could not effect, they purged themselves out of our company. And their very malice