To the extent possible under law, the Text Creation Partnership has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above, according to the terms of the CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). This waiver does not extend to any page images or other supplementary files associated with this work, which may be protected by copyright or other license restrictions. Please go to http://www.textcreationpartnership.org/ for more information.
LAstly we believe that this Church is indeed partly visible and partly also invisible, but in divers respects: to wit visible; in as much as it con∣sists of men, who visibly handle and hear the word of God, admini∣ster and partake the Sacraments, call upon God both privately and pub∣lickly,
exercise the offices of chari∣ty towards their neighbour, and glorify God in their whole conversa∣tion; which indeed cannot be per∣formed without falling under the perception of the senses: And if it were wholly invisible, how could it be discerned from the Synagogues of the wicked? Again, we say it is in∣visible; first, because, being it con∣taines a great number of hypocrites, acting all the same outward things with the elect, we cannot know how are the elect (of which alone the Church consists) but it is known onely to God, according to that, The Lord (alone) knoweth them that are his. To which also belongs that of the Apostle,* 1.1 He is not a Iew which is one outwardly; but he is a Iew which is one inwardly. Moreover, because that to the externall appearance the Church is alwayes oppressed with calamities in the world, the number of those that professe the faith of Christ is sometimes so diminish'd, and all the Christian Churches dri∣ven into those streights, that there may seem to be no longer any re∣maining,
namely when there appear no more publick assemblies in which the name of God is called upon, as both the holy and Ecclesiasticall hi∣stories do manifestly and at large testifie to have often hapned; not∣withstanding it is certain, God al∣wayes preserves a Church to himself upon the earth, as the Lord saith,* 1.2 And the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it; also, Behold, I am with you even to the end of the world: which is the same with what we confesse with the whole Church in the Creed, saying, I believe the holy Catholick Church, to wit, to have been from the beginning, to exist now, and to endure to the end of the world, upon the earth. For pro∣perly we alwayes believe those things which we do not alwayes see.* 1.3 This is our confession concerning the Church Militant: 1. What it is. 2. How it differs from the Trium∣phant. 3. How it is often divers from it self. 4. How one Catholick con∣sists of many particular. 5. By what marks the true may be distinguished from the false. 6. What succession
of Bishops, and what kind of consent is sufficient to demonstrate a true Church. 7. That the unity of the Church is not to be violated upon every difference, although it be in doctrine it self. 8. What is to be understood by the unitie of the Church, and wherein it consists; al∣so how great account is to be made of it. 9. How farre it may erre, and how farre it may not; and how out of the Church there is no salvation. 10. And lastly how farre it is visible, and how farre invisible. It remaines that we speake of the government of it.
Rom. 2.28, 29.
Matth. 16.18. Matth. 28.20.
Heb. 11.1.