Catholic communion defended against both extremes, and unnecessary division confuted in five parts ...…Catholick communion defended against both extreams, and unnecessary division confuted in five parts ...…

Ans. I pray you remember this happy agreement, that we agree of the Churches Essence. But is not [A Body] the Singular Number? If I say, that a man is corpus organicum, and a rational soul united, do I need to put in [One Body, or One Soul], while unum is entis inseparabilis affectio? Good Doctor, why must not Verum and Bonum be named with every eus in a definition, as well as Unum? Can it be a Body, and not One Body? O! what a Jest will School-boys make of us for such disputing?

3. But the pretended disagreement is much worse asserted. Is that the Controversy, Whether Christ have One Body, or a Thousand? Would you make men believe that we deny the Unity of the Universal Church? If you would, prove it, or blush. 2. Do you your self deny the being of Thousands of particular Churches, which are parts of the Universal? When ⟨p. 13⟩you have seemed long to do it, you come again and confess such Churches, and condemn us as separating from them. 3. Is the Controversy whether these single Churches, de nomine, may be called so many Bodies of Christ? 1. Name the men that so call them, and prove it, or confess your self a false Accuser. 2. If they did, an unfit Name is not an error, de re. I never heard man so speak. We say, that the word [Church] used for the [Universal] and the [Particular], is not univocally used, but analogically, expenuriâ nominum. As oft the whole and part have one Name. We say, that as an hundred Cities and Counties may make one Kingdom, and were they all equivocally called Republics, or Kingdoms, it would be no change in the Doctrine: All the Christian World call the universal and the particulars by the name of [Church]. And yet, if to help us out of the Equivocation, you will invent a better Name, and get men to consent to it (not reprehending the Scripture-use), we will hearken to you. But as One Kingdom is individuate by One King, and yet subordinate Societies may have subordinate individuating Heads; so is it here. And it's grossly unfit to say Christ hath many Bodies, tho he have many Churches in one; as the King hath many Cities, but one Kingdom here.