The successive visibility of the church of which the Protestants are the soundest members…

what if I be utterly ignorant whether he that ordained him, were himself ordained? or had intentionem ordinandi? how shall I then be sure of his authority that is ordained? And how can the people be acquainted with the passages in Election and Ordination that are necessary to the knowledge of their authority? especially of the Popes and prelates. And what if you tell me your own opinion, of the sufficient means by which I must be convinced ⟨p. 322⟩of the Popes and Priests authority? how shall I know that you are not deceived; and that these are the sufficient means indeed, unless a General Council have defined them to be sufficient? And if they have, if it were not as an Article of faith, you'll say I am not bound of necessity to believe their definition. And what if I have sufficient means to know the authority of a thousand Priests, but am culpably ignorant of it in some few through my neglect? Doth it follow that therefore I am out of the Church? Is my obedience to each Priest as necessary, as my belief of every Article of my faith? If so, I know not whether your multiplying Articles, or multiplying Priests, doth fill hell faster, if men must be judged by your laws. But it is our Allegiance to our Sovereign, that is the character of a Subject in the Common-wealth, and not our Allegiance, or duty to every inferior Magistrate: the rejection of one of them may stand with subjection, though not with innocency: It is not treason to reject a Constable: why then should more be necessary to our Churchmembership and salvation? But still you make your Church invisible: For as no man can know that liveth in the remote parts of the world, whether your ⟨p. 323⟩Popes themselves are truly Popes, as being duly qualified and elected, nor which is the true Pope, when you have oft had more then one at once; so you can never know concerning your members, whether their dependence on their Pastors be extensively proportionate to the means that discovered their authority? and whether their disobedience unchurch them or no? I earnestly crave your answer to the thirty uncertainties, which I have mentioned in my Safe Religion, p. 93, to 104. And tell us how all our Pastors may be known. And whether every particular sin unchurch men? and if not, why the contempt or rejection of a drunken Priest doth it, while all the rest are (perhaps too much) honoured?

what if I be utterly ignorant whether he that ordained him, were himself ordained? or had intentionem ordinandi? how shall I then be sure of his authority that is ordained? And how can the people be acquainted with the passages in Election and Ordination that are necessary to the knowledge of their authority? especially of the Popes and prelates. And what if you tell me your own opinion, of the sufficient means by which I must be convinced