Sect. 56.--The vulgarity of those judgments that wrap
the church of God in Strabo's cloak,<76> and restrain it
unto Europe, seem to me as bad geographers as Alex-
ander, who thought he had conquered all the world,
when he had not subdued the half of any part thereof.
For we cannot deny the church of God both in Asia
and Africa, if we do not forget the peregrinations of
the apostles, the deaths of the martyrs, the sessions of
many and (even in our reformed judgment) lawful
councils, held in those parts in the minority and
nonage of ours. Nor must a few differences, more re-
markable in the eyes of man than, perhaps, in the
judgment of God, excommunicate from heaven one an-
other; much less those Christians who are in a manner
all martyrs, maintaining their faith in the noble way
of persecution, and serving God in the fire, whereas
we honour him in the sunshine.
'Tis true, we all hold there is a number of elect, and
many to be saved; yet, take our opinions together, and
from the confusion thereof, there will be no such thing
as salvation, nor shall any one be saved: for, first, the
church of Rome condemneth us; we likewise them;
the sub-reformists and sectaries sentence the doctrine of
our church as damnable; the atomist, or familist,<77> re-
probates all these; and all these, them again.
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