Full and easy satisfaction which is the true and safe religion in a conference…Full and easie satisfaction which is the true and safe religion in a conference…

D. But though all these set together are more than the Church of Rome, yet no one Sect of them is so great; and what matter is it how many various Sects are?

R. 1. The Greek Church is judged by wise men, to be yet bigger than the Roman, even in this its broken state: But there is no doubt but it was much bigger long after the first division, before the Turk did win the Eastern Empire. ⟨p. 168⟩2. But, if it were not so, your objection is frivolous. The Question is either of Different Churches, or of Different opinions and parties in the same Church. As to the first, There are but two opinions in the Christian world, that I know of, about the Constitution of the Catholic Church. The one is the opinion of the Papists only, ☞ that The Catholic Church is essentially constituted both of Christ, and the Pope as his Vicar and universal Monarch, with all his subjects; as the pars Imperans and pars subdita. The other is the judgement of all other Christians, (that I know or hear of,) that The Catholic Church is essentially constituted only of Christ as the supreme Head, or King, or pars Imperans, and his subjects as the pars subdita; ☞ And that Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops, &c. are but Officials & subditi primarii vel nobiles, constitutive parts indeed of their particular Churches (some humane, and some Divine) but no essential parts of the Catholic Church. ☞ This is the Grand difference between the Papists and all other Christians in the World, What the Catholic Church is? Whether it have any Constitutive Universal Head or Monarch besides Christ? Now seeing that Greeks, Abassines, Armenians and all agree with us in this against the Papists, it is evident to them that are willing to see that we are all of the same Catholic Church, though not of the same particular Churches, nor all for the same Official Ministers; Because we are all for the same Constitutive Head, and his subjects as such, and agree in all the Essential parts, ☞ So that our differences among all these parties or particular Churches or ⟨p. 169⟩Countries is but the difference of Opinions and parties in one and the same Church; and not a difference of Catholic Churches (which can be but one.) And if that be the question, I undertake to prove that there is no one Sect of Christians known under Heaven, that hath so many different opinions within it self, (if half so many,) nor have written half so much against one another, as the Papists have done. 3. But I must not here anticipate my further work: