The safe religion, or, Three disputations for the reformed catholic religion against popery proving…The safe religion, or, Three disputations for the reformed catholike religion against popery proving…

Next he shows that it must not be out of Parables, Allegories or such Scriptures that make no more for one side then the other (what then? doth he tell them that it is all such, and send them to Rome to know the sense? no) but it is the plain Scripture of which he produceth abundance that must tell us which is the true Church. And he thus begins the 19 Chap.

Next he shews that it must not be out of Parables, Allegories or such Scriptures that make no more for one side then the other (what then? doth he tell them that it is all such, and send them to Rome to know the sence? no) but it is the plain Scripture of which he produceth abundance that must tell us which is the true Church. And he thus begins the 19 Chap.

Omissis ergo, &c. Letting pass therefore the snares of delays let him show their Church,¹ &c. and so show it, as not to say, Its true, because I say it, or because my colleague said it, or these colleagues of mine, or those Bishops, or Clerks, or our Layity, or therefore its true^* because these or those wonders were done by Donatus or Pontius, or any other, or because men pray and are heard at the Memories (or shrines) of ours that are dead, or because such or such things happen there, or because that brother of ours, or that sister of ours saw such a sight waking, or had such a dreaming vision sleeping. Away with these either fictions of lying men, or wonders of deceiving spirits: For either the things that are said, are not true, or if any wonders are done by heretics, we must the more beware, seeing the Lord when he told us there would come deceivers, who by doing certain signs would deceive if it were possible, even the elect, addeth, Lo I have foretold you, — And if any be heard praying at the Memories of heretics, it is not for the desert of the place, but the desert of his desire ⟨p. 313⟩that he receiveth good or evil. — No man can have Christ for his head, that is not in his Body, which is the Church: which (Church) we must know as we do Christ himself in the sacred Canonical Scriptures, and not to inquire into the various rumours of men and their opinions, and deeds, and sayings, and sights. — But let them show me whether they have the Church, no way but by the Canonical books of the divine Scriptures: Because neither do we therefore say, that they ought to believe us that we are in the Church of Christ, because that (Church) which we hold is commended by Optatus Melevitanus, or by Ambrose of Milan, or innumerable other