' Catasceuastical and anasceuastical are old logical terms, equivalent to constructive and destructive; and the clavise means, " arguments in support of the one, and in refuta- tion of the other." — En.
SG4 A VINDICATION OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS ON FIAT LUX.
sidered how little advantage unto your end you were like to obtain thereby; and therefore you make use only of that part of logic which teacheth the nature and kinds of sophisms, in particular that of confounding things which ought to be distinguished. However, your discourse, such as it is, shall be examined, and that by the rules of that logic which yourself commend.
You say, p. 51, " The church says, ' I must have a bishop,' or other- wise she will not have such a visible head as she had at first. This that you may enervate, you tell me ' that the church hath still the same head she had, which is Christ, who is present with his church by his Sj)irit and his laws, and is man-God still as much as ever he was, and ever the same will be; and if I would have any other visible bishop to be head, then it seems I Avould not have the same head, and so would have the same, and not the same.' "
This is but one part of my answer, and that very lamely and im- perfectly reported. The reader, if he please, may see the whole of it, chap. ix. p. 223,^ etc., and therewithal take a specimen of your in- genuity in this controversy. It were very sufficient, to render your following exceptions against it useless unto your purpose, merely to repeat what you seek to oppose; but because you shall not have any pretence that any thing you have said is passed over undiscussed, I shall consider what you offer in way of exception to so much of my answer as you are pleased yourself to express, and, as may be sup- posed, thought 3^ourself qualified to deal withal. Thus, then, you proceed : —
" I cannot in reason be thought to speak otherwise, if we would use true logic, of the identity of the head, than I do of the identity of the body, of the church. This body is not numerically the same ; for the men of the first asre are lomj asfo gone out of the world, and another generation come, who yet are a body of Christians of the same kind, though not numerically the same. So do I require, that since Jesus Christ as man, the head immediate of other believing men, is departed hence to the glory of his Father, that the church should still have a head of the same kind, as visibly now present, as she had in the beginning; or else, say I, she cannot be completely the same body, or a body of the same kind visible, as she was. But this she hath not, this she is not, except she have a visible bishop, as she had in the beginning, present with her, guiding and ruling under God. Christ our Lord is indeed still man-God, but his manhood is now separate ; nor is he visibly present as man, which immediately headed his believers under God, on whose influence their nature de- pended. His Godhead is still the same in all things, not only in itself, but in order to his church also, as it was before equally invisible, ' fcjce Images 86, 87 of this volunio.
CHRIST THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 865
and in tlie like manner believed; Lut tlie nature delegate under God, and once ruling visibly amongst us by words and examples, is now uttei'ly withdrawn. And if a nature of the same kind be not now delegate with a power of exterior government, as at the first there was, then hath not the chuich the same head no^v which she had then. ' Qui habet aures audiendi audiat.' "
How you have secured your logic in this discourse shall afterward be considered; your divinity seems, at the first view, liable unto just exceptions. For, — 1. You suppose Christ in his human nature only to have been the head of his church ; and therefore the absence of that to necessitate the constitution of another. Now, tliis supposi- tion is openly false, and dangerous to the whole being of Christianity. It is the Son of God who is the head of the church ; who as he is man, so also is he "over all, God blessed for ever;" and as God and man in one person is that head, and ever was since his incarnation, and ever will be to the end of the world. To deny this is to over- throw the foundation of the church's faith, preservation, and conso- lation, it being founded and built on this, that he was " the Son of the living God," Matt. xvi. And yet into this supposition alone is your imaginary necessit}^ of the substitution of another' head in his room resolved. 2. You plainly confess that the present church hath not the same head that the church had when our Lord Christ con- versed with them in the days of his flesh. That, you say, was his " human nature, delegate under God ; which being now removed and separate, another person so delegate under God is substituted in his place:" which not only deprives the church of its^irs^ head, but also deposeth the human nature of Christ from that office of headship to his church which you confess that for awhile it enjoyed, leaving him nothing but what belongs unto him as God, wherein alone you will allow him to be that unto his church which formerly he was. Con- fessing, I say, the human nature of Christ to have been the head of the church, and now denying it so to be, you do what lies in you to depose him from his office and throne, allowing his human nature, as far as I can perceive, to be of little other use than to be eaten by you in the mass. 8. You make your intention yet more evident, by intimating that the human nature of Christ is now no more head of the church than tlie present church is made up of the same nume- rical members that it was constituted of in the days of his flesh, What change you suppose in the church, the body, the same you suppose and assert in the head thereof; and as that change excludes those former members from being present members, so this excludes the former liead from being the present head. Of old the head of the church was the human nature of Christ, delegate under God; now that is removed, and another person in the same nature is so