authority of his church, denies our Christ to have been the Messiah. I will not repeat, only ask these few questions further. 1. Who was this living judge before the flood? for the Bishop says there must be always such an one in being. 2. Was Abraham, who was known only to a few neighbours, and wrought no miracles to convince others, was he, I say, given as such a guide or judge to the whole earth? And Christ was not so great a traveller as Abraham. 3. Where was this living judge when Christ was dead? And if there was none for three days, it might be so for three, or three hundred years, or for good and all, because the argument fails for the necessity of such a judge always in being. You will not say the church can fail for three days. The promises of God can never fail, no, not for a moment.

L. Christ founded his church before he died, and left his apostles for guides, chiefly Peter the prince and principle of unity to them all.

G. And yet of the apostles, one betrayed him, another forswore him (and that was Peter); all forsook him.

L. That was human frailty and personal. But they retained the true faith, they were in no error as to that.

G. The greatest that could be, "For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead." John, xx. 9. "And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain ye are yet in your sins." 1 Cor. xv. 17. And the reason given for choosing

Matthias into the room of Judas was, "That he

might be a witness with the other apostles of the resurrection of Christ." Acts, i. 22. And what faith could they have in him whom they had quite given over, and never expected to see him more? They trusted that it had been he who should have redeemed Israel." Luke, xxiv. 21. But when he was dead, all their hopes were gone, they expected no redemption from him. This was far from a Christian faith, and could there be a Christian church without this faith?

To avoid all this, and secure the promise of indefectibility, to the church, some of your authors of greatest name have said, that the church was then preserved in the Virgin Mary. And thence infer that the Catholic church may be preserved in one woman, as it was then, and that so it may be again, in the times of Anti-Christ, and the great defection is foretold will be before the "second coming of Christ, when faith shall not be found upon the earth," that is very hardly, when it may be confined to one laic, a woman, or a baptized infant, as others of your doctors

allow.*

L. This is giving up the church quite, as a society, with government, discipline, &c. and I hardly believe any of our approved authors have said so much, and not been censured for it.

G. They are no less men than Alensis, the author of the Gloss upon the Decretals, Lyra, Occam, Alliaco, Panormitan, Turrecremata, Peter de Monte, St. Antoninus, Cusanus, Clemangis, Jacobatius, J. Fr. Picus, &c. And to save repetition, your lordship

* Bannes com, in 2, 2. Quest. In Art. 10. Dub. i.

will find their books and words quoted, in this small treatise in my hand, intituled, The incurable Scepticism of the Church of Rome, printed here 1688. p. 22, &c. I name this little tract, because it is short, and will give your lordship no great trouble, and proceeds upon the same argument I have undertaken with your lordship, instead of the particular points in dispute betwixt the church of Rome and us, as invocation of saints, purgatory, &c. to go at once to the bottom of the cause, and examine the ground and foundation of faith, as taught in the church of Rome; which is shewed, I think to a demonstration, to be wholly precarious and uncertain: and that there is no greater difference and confusion among any sort of men, upon any subject whatsoever, than there is among the divines of the church of Rome, concerning her rule of faith, and infallible judge of controversy. And every one of the different opinions about it, is in flat contradiction to all the others, so that if any one of them be true, all the rest must be false and yet they all pretend to believe with divine faith, and think it necessary in this case, because it is the foundation of their faith.

Now if according to these learned doctors, the whole church failed upon our Saviour's death, then the gates of hell did prevail for a time. And if the Virgin Mary were excepted, that would not do much as to the standing of the church. But have they any revelation to ground divine faith upon, or upon what grounds do they believe that the Virgin Mary knew the Scriptures or the Resurrection of Christ, more than the Apostles,

and was not under the same despondency as they were? This seems to be that sword which Simeon told her, should" pierce through her own soul also," Luke, ii. 35.

And that

L. To avoid all these things, some suppose that the Christian church was not formed till the descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, when Peter converted about 3000, as told in the 2d of the Acts. it was of this Christ spoke when he told Peter that he would build his church upon him, and called him a rock, and that it was fulfilled at this time, when Peter was made the instrument of that first and great conversion, which was the foundation of all that followed.

G. If the Christian church was not formed, as some think, till after the Resurrection, because our redemption was not till then compleated: Or, as others think, till the Ascension, when Christ commissioned his apostles to "go and teach all nations," Matth. xxviii. 19; or till the descent of the Holy Ghost, when they were "endued with power from on high," Luke, xxiv. 49; yet any of these ways it will follow that there was no Christian church before the death of Christ. And then that the Jewish was the only true church while Christ lived in the world. For the Jewish church was to last till the Christian was formed, else there was no church at all after Christ came, till his Resurrection. And then it would follow that the only true church in the world did reject our Christ. And then there will be no choice left us, but either to acknowledge the fallibility

of the church, or to reject Christ from being the Messiah. But if the Christian church was formed upon the first appearance of Christ in the world, or upon his ordaining the Twelve Apostles, and sending them out to preach, or upon any other act done in his life; then, as said before, the whole church failed upon his death. But if the church cannot fail, no not for a moment, because of the necessity of a living infallible judge always in being, the succession of the monarchy of the church ought to be hereditary, where the King never dies. For this scheme will not admit of an interregnum for months or years that may be spent in the election of a Pope; in all which time the church has no head or monarch: much less when there are Popes and Anti-popes, which has occasioned twenty-six schisms in the church of Rome, some of them of long continuance. And who is judge in such a case Is every man left to his own private judgment? And is it all one which of the contending Popes he adheres to, whether to the right or the wrong? Or can the church have two or three opposite heads at the same time?

L. Therefore in France, where I received my education, they place not the infallibility in the Pope, but in a general council.

G. I told your lordship before that there never was a council truly general. That there are disputes in your church concerning general councils, some receiving those, or parts of them which others reject. And who shall be judge in this case?

But suppose you were agreed among yourselves con