Certain disputations of right to sacraments, and the true nature of visible Christianity defending…

and yet at last he could bring it but to this, [Dico episcopum malum, presbyterum malum, Doctorem malum, esse membra mortua, & perinde non vera corporis Christi, quantū attinet ad rationem membri, ut est pars quaedam vivi corporis, tamen esse verissima membra in ratione instrumenti, id est, pap•m & episcopos esse vera capita, &c. & ratio est, quia membra viva constituuntur per charitatē; qua imp•i carent: at instrumenta operativa constituuntur per potestatem sive ordinis sive jurisdictionis.] And what is this more then the wooden leg, or silver teeth, which our Divines compare them to? But the new Papists, since Bellarmine, do see a necessity of a further distinguishing the Church as a visible political society, from the Church as truly sanctified: But that which we and all the ancients do make to be but the Profession distinct from the thing professed, the body distinct from the soul; the chaff distinct from the wheat; the shell distinct from the kernel; they make to be as the lower order which is the way to a higher, as the Alphabet or lower Rudiments, which are the way to Grammar; as an apprenticeship to a trade; I mean as a state of preparation, to a state of infallible salvation. And because it favoureth their main design, they seem to draw near to the same conceit which they were wont falsely to fasten on the Protestants, viz. that there are two churches, one Political and visible, the other regenerate & Invisible. And Bellarmine confesseth that some of them were of this mind in his time. And all this stir is, that they may advance their visible Church in the estimation of men, & thereby the more easily keep the rule in their own hands, ⟨p. 51⟩and exalt themselves above Scripture, and draw as many as may be into their society: and therefore they drive the poor ignorant Americans by hundreds to be baptized, as we drive our beasts to watering, or our sheep to be washed; and in stead of staying till they make Profession of a saving faith with any seeming seriousness, they make Baptism an entrance into the state of the Catechumeni, which was wont to be the passage thence into the state of Christians: that per fas aut nefas they may engage people to themselves under pretence of engaging them to Christ; therefore it is that they so over extol the visible Political state of the Church, as Dr. Prideaux saith, Lect. de visibil. eccles. pag. 128.

and yet at last he could bring it but to this, [Dico episcopum malum, presbyterum malum, Doctorem malum, esse mēbra mortua, & perinde non vera corporis Christi, quantū attinet ad rationem mēbri, ut est pars quaedam vivi corporis, tamen esse verissima membra in ratione instrumenti, id est, papm & episcopos esse vera capita, &c. & ratio est, quia membra viva constituuntur per charitatē; qua impi carent: at instrumenta operativa constituuntur per potestatem sive ordinis sive jurisdictionis.] And what is this more then the wooden leg, or silver teeth, which our Divines compare them to? But the new Papists, since Bellarmine, do see a necessity of a further distinguishing the Church as a visible political society, from the Church as truly sanctified: But that which we and all the ancients do make to be but the Profession distinct from the thing professed, the body distinct from the soul; the chaff distinct from the wheat; the shell distinct from the kernel; they make to be as the lower order which is the way to a higher, as the Alphabet or lower Rudiments, which are the way to Grammar; as an apprentiship to a trade; I mean as a state of preparation, to a state of infallible salvation. And because it favoureth their main design, they seem to draw near to the same conceit which they were wont falsly to fasten on the Protestants, viz. that there are two hurches, one Political and visible, the other regenerate & Invisible. And Bellarmine confesseth that some of them were of this mind in his time. And all this stir is, that they may advance their visible Church in the estimation of men, & thereby the more easily keep the rule in their own hands,