THE REASONS OF THE CONVERSION OF Mr. John Sidway FROM The Romish to the Protestant Religion Together with what usage he hath since received in the Church of England As also a brief Account of his Travails Humbly Communicated to the High Court of PARLIAMENT LONDON Printed for Nevil Simmons at the Three Golden Cocks at the West end of St. Pauls and Langley Curtis on Ludgate Hill 1681. TO THE HIGH COURT OF PARLIAMENT JOHN SIDWAY wisheth Grace Mercy and Peace through Jesus Christ GReat and manifold were the Blessings most Noble and Magnificent Assembly which Almighty God the Father of all Mercies bestowed upon the People of England when your most Wise and Honorable Ancestors by a most impartial and happy Reformation expelled from the Church those Thick and Palpable Clouds of darkness that for many years had overshadowed this Land And as it yet giveth unto all that are well affected an exceeding great cause of comfort so the fruit thereof doth extend it self not only to the time spent in this Transitory World but to our safe conduct to that Eternal Happiness which is above in Heaven The occasions most August Assembly of my relinquishing the Romish way of Worship were the many exceeding gross Errors and most wicked Practices which I found I must necessarily be daily guilty of continuing therein And the Motives that enduced me to imbrace the Reformed Religion and be Reconciled to Protestancy were the most Sacred Scriptures and Antient Fathers unto whom I found the same agreeable both which having here exhibited I humbly Present to your High Court Humbly craving since things of this Nature have ever been Subject to the censures of ill meaning and discontented persons the same may receive Approbation and Patronage from so Learned and Judicious an Assembly as your High Court is That so although I am exposed hereby on the one side to the undeserved Calumniations of the Popish party who strive to keep the World in ignorance and darkness and on the other side to the Foolish Malignity of self-conceited Brethren who like of nothing but what is done by themselves or at leastwise framed after their own fancy I may rest secure supported within by the Truth and Innocency of a good Conscience having walked in the ways of Simplicity and Integrity as before the Lord and sustained without by the Powerful Protection of your most August Assemblies Grace and Favour which no doubt will ever give Countenance to honest and Christian endeavours against bitter Censures and Uncharitable Imputations The Lord of Heaven and Earth grant to this our Nation that by your wise endeavours Popery may be utterly Extirpated and Protestancy firmly established to all generations So that Peace and Happiness Truth and Justice Religion and Piety may ever flourish THE Printers Epistle TO THE READER Courteous Reader SInce he that is Cured of a most dangerous Distemper may do very good service in Relating to others the means of his Recovery The Author hath here exhibited to thy most Candid View and Serious Consideration what as may hereby easily be gathered with very great Cost hard and diligent Study long and tedious Travel and most eminent Danger he was several years in coming to the knowledge of The Book thou wilt find although but little is of very great and universal use For the Grace of God cooperating therewith art thou a Heathen Jew Turk or Infidel it will bring thee to the Faith of Christ art thou a Christian it will greatly confirme thee in thy Sacred Faith and exceedingly incourage thee in thy Religious Practice More particularly art thou a Papist it will cause thee to Relinquish thy Errors Idolatries Blasphemies and Superstitions and to adhere to the most Catholick Faith and most pure Practice of the Antient times Art thou a Protestant it will greatly fortifie and strengthen thee in thy most Renowned Primitive Christian Faith and Orthodox Profession In fine whatsoever thou art it will bring thee to imbrace the Commands of God and to avoid the Darts of the Devil if thou reapest the benefit thereby intended give God the Glory Vale. WHereas there is joy in the Presence of the Angels over a Sinner Converted and that we are Commanded to let our Light so shine before Men as that they may see our good Works and Glorify our father which is in Heaven I have here shewed to the World the Reasons of my Conversion from the Romish to the English Church I was Born at Dublin in Ireland but of an English Extract was Educated in a Jesuits Colledge at Bologna in Italy where I remained until I had not only Commenced Master of Arts but was by standing Batchelor of Divinity At my first coming to Bologna several Protestants often told me that the Roman Religion was not good and greatly indeavored to perswade me from it but perceiving their design herein was to bring me to their own I desired to know of them whether the Protestant Religion were Catholick had Antiquity Succession of Chairs Perpetual continuance wrought Miracles and had the greatest number of Christians which I looked upon being so instructed to be the Marks of the true Church but they being not able to shew it to be thus in the Romish sense I was so obstinate against Protestancy that I gave them such a repulse they never after troubled me The Jesuits in the next place after I had been a while there set upon me to enter into their order and did so assault me with such allurements and perswasions in order thereunto that I was so streightned to overcome their Temptations that many a time I have spent all the time allotted for recreation in Prayer to Almighty God that of his great mercy he would give me his assistance to defend me from them And as often as they tempted me thereunto I told them what I might have hereafter I knew not but as yet I had no inclination to enter into a Religious order but if I had ever such an inclination I would sooner enter into their order then any other And with this they seemed to be well satisfyed nevertheless it was but a meer put off for I did not at all approve their ways When I came to study Divinity reading the Fathers I often in the same observed divers passages which in my opinion made as exceedingly against both the Faith and Practice of the Church of Rome as might be which whether they do or no let the World Judge I have quoted them exactly as they are in their works making First against Purgatory Limbus Infantium THe just are called to refreshment Cyprian in his Book of Mortality Sect. 11 and the unjust are snatched away to Punishment there is presently given rewards to the Faithful and Punishments to the Wicked The Faith of the Catholicks by Divine Authority believeth the first place to be the Kingdom of Heaven Augustine in his 7th Tomb and 5th Book Hipognosticôn against the Pelagians p. 957. from whence as I
satisfaction Augustine in his ninth tome in his second Treatise upon the first Epistle of John Sins are forgiven you by his name and not by the name of any Man or of any thing of Man Cyprian in effect also saith the same in his Sermon of washing the Feet in the last Section Thirteenthly Against Pilgrimages NOt that we have been at Jerusalem Hierome in his Epistle to Paulinus about the Institution of a Monk tom 1. fol. 103. but that we have lived well at Jerusalem is to be praised that City is to be wished for not which hath killed the Prophets and poured forth the Blood of Christ but which the violence of a River maketh glad which being Scituated upon a Mountain cannot be hid which an Apostle proclaimeth to be the Mother of the Saints and in which there is gladness that it self hath a freedom with the Saints I do not in saying this reprove my self of inconstancy or condemn what I do or that I may seem to have left both mine and my Country after the Example of Abraham in vain but I dare not confine the Omnipotency of God in a strait corner and keep it in a little place of the Earth which containeth not Heaven for each one of the Believers are not profited by the diversities of places but by the merit of Faith And the true Adorers neither at Jerusalem nor on Mount Gazarim do Adore the Father for God is a Spirit and his Adorers ought to Adore him in Spirit and in Truth the Spirit Breatheth where it listeth The Earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof After that the whole World was watered with Celestial dew and made dry by the fall of the Jew many coming both from the East and the West sate down in the Bosome of Abraham It is to be noted that God ceased in Judea and his great Name in Israel but into every Nation went forth the sound of the Apostles and their words unto the Ends of the Earth Our Saviour speaking to his Disciples when he was in the Temple Said arise let us go hence and to the Jews your house shall be left to you desolate if Heaven and Earth shall pass away verily all things which are Earthly shall pass away Therefore both the Cross and the place of Resurrection are profitable to those which bear their Cross and rise dayly with Christ and shew themselves worthy for such a Habitation But they which say the Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord let them hear from the Apostle you are the Temple of the Lord and the Holy Ghost inhabiteth in you Both at Jerusalem and at Britain the Celestial Court is equally open for the Kingdom of God is within you Examine Anthony and all the Monks of Egypt of Mesopotamia of Pontus of Capadocia and of Armenia and they have not seen Jerusalem and it is manifest to them that without this City is the Gate of Paradise Blessed Hilarion when Palestina was and he lived in Palestina one only day saw Jerusalem that he might seem neither to contemn the Holy Place for its neerness nor again inclose the Lord in a Place Towards what place Hierome in the same place a little afterward canst thou say that these things were reiterated from a long beginning surely thou dost not think that any thing of thy Faith is wanting because thou hast not seen Jerusalem neither do we therefore esteem our selves the better that enjoy the Habitation of this place but whether here or elsewhere thou hast an equal reward by our Lord for thy works Claudius Taurinensis a Bishop of the Church against Theodemirus Abbot concerning Pilgrimage for Religion sake to the City of Rome in his fifth Tomb of Orthodox writing referred to Jonah Bishop of Aurelianensis in the third Book of the Worship of Images pag. 1570. Saith plainly also the like 14ly Against Sacrifice HE did not say Chrysostom upon the first ch of John Homil. 17. of the words of John the Baptist behold the Lamb of God he which taketh away the Sins of the World which shall take away or hath took away but which taketh away the Sins of the World that he may be understood dayly to take away the same for not only when he Suffered did he take away our Sins but from that time hitherto he taketh them away he is not always Crucified for he offered for our Sins one Sacrifice but always by that one he Purgeth us He hath indeed by his Death that one true Sacrifice offered for us Augustine in his third Tomb and fourth Book of the trinity ch 13. purged abolished and extinguished whatsoever there was of faults wherewith Principalities and Powers did detain us by the Law for to pay Punishments and by his Resurrection unto a new life hath called us that are predestinated hath justisied us that are called and hath glorified us that are justified Augustine also in his Enchiridium to Laurentius chap. 62. Plainly saith the like 15ly Against St. Peter's being the Head of the Apostles and the Pope's being the Head of the Church THis truly which was Peter Cyprian the Martyr in his Book of the Unity of the Church S. 3. and the other Apostles were endowed with an Equal consort both of Honor and Power Christ after his Resurrection gave to all his Apostles an equal Power In the same a â—ittle before Whosoever hath desired Primacy on Earth Chrysostome in his forty third Homily of imperfect works upon the twenty third Chapter of Matthew shall find confusion in Heaven neither shall he be accounted amongst the Servants of Christ that treats of Primacy Wheresoever a Bishop shall be whether at Rome or at Eugubium or at Constantinople or at Regium or at Alexandria or at Tanis Hierome in his Epistle to Evagrins he is both of the same merit and of the same Priesthood The power of Riches and humility of Poverty or loftiness or inferiority maketh not a Bishop but they are all the Successors of the Apostles None of the Patriarchs ever used universal in his denomination Pelagius the second Bishop of Rome in his Epistle to all the Bishops unlawfully called together by John of Constantinople for if any one Patriarch be said to be universal the name of the rest of the Patriarchs is diminished But bet his far from us let the faithful of whatsoever kind be far from the mind that any one should snatch or covet to himself this from whence it may seem that the honor of their Brothers by how little or small a part soever is diminished Wherefore your charity no Man ever nameth in his Epistles universal lest he diminish to himself a debt seeing he bestoweth upon another a honor being not due Let that name of Blasphemy be far from the hearts of Christians Gregory the Great in his fourth Book of Epistles from the Register Epist 32. which is to Mauricius Augustus in which the
have said is excepted he which is not Baptized the second to be Hell where every Apostate or Stranger from the Faith of Christ shall undergo Eternal Punishments The third place we are utterly ignorant of nor do we find it in the Holy Scriptures Feign thou Pelagian 4. place out of the Ware-house of thy Opinion Know for certain Augustine in his Book of the Vanity of the World Tomb 9th Chap. 1. that when the Soul is departed from the Body it is either presently placed in Paradice for its good works or certainly is cast headlong into the Pit of Hell for its Sins Choose you now what you will have and dispose of this now in your life-time either Perpetually to rejoyce with the Saints or without end to be Punished with the Wicked Let no Man deceive himself Augustine in his 10th Tomb of time Sermon 202. Augustine also saith the same in Effect in his 7th Tomb and first Book of the Deserts and Remission of Sins Chap. 28. And in his fifth Tomb and Twenty first Book of the City of God Chap. 25. my Brethren there are but two places and a third there is not for any he which deserveth not to Raign with Christ without all douht shall Perish with the Devil 2ly Against the Invocation of Angels and Saints departed and the making of them our Mediators and Intercessors FOr it behoveth not the Church of God to leave off The Councel of Luodicea can 35. and be gone and nominate Angels and make Congregations which are known to be forbidden if any one therefore shall be found observing this Occult Idolatry let him be accursed because he leaveth our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God Theodoret upon the third Chapter of the Epistle to the Colossâ—â—s and delivereth himself up to Idolatry For whereas they did command to adore Angels he commanded the contrary that both words and deeds might adorn the remembrance of Christ the Lord and saith through the sending forth of the Action of thanksgiving to God and the Father Clement Pope and Martyr in his second Book of Apostolical constitutions c. 32. by him and not by Angels Following also this Law of the Laodicean Councel and willing to be cured of that old Disease read it is to be taken heed least they should pray to Augels and least they should leave Our Lord Jesus Christ It is not lawful to come to Almighty God unless by Christ. And whereas notwithstanding he saith to us Origin in his Bighth Book against Celsâ—â— there is one God the Father of whom are all things he saith to us this word of himself and to all which would ascend to the most High God of Gods and to the most High Lord of Lords but he ascendeth to the most High God which inseparably and indivisibly Worshippeth him by Jesus the Son of God by whose only conduct he cometh to the Father He hath said Cyril in his Eleventh Book upon John c. 7. impelling them to ask with confidence affirming Amen Amen whatsoever you shall obtain by request from the Father you shall ask it in my name and hath added in my name to the end he may shew himself a Mediator for no Man cometh to the Father unless by the Son Athanasius also in his Fourth Oration against the Arians treating upon the words of Paul to the Thessalonians pag. 259. And Augustine in his Eighth Tomb in his Enarration of the â—undred and Eighth Psalm say plainly the like things 3ly Against one Mans works being applyed to another FOr the foolish Virgins Hilary in his Commentary upon Matthew Cannon 27. their Lamps being out cannot go forth to meet him They which were Wise were Prayed that they would lend them Oyle to whom they answered we cannot lend our selves because there is not perhaps that there may be enough for every one So that works and deserts done by others shall help no Man because it is necessary that every one buy Oyle for his own Lamp Leo the Great in his 81 Epistle which is to the Palestine Monks in the first Tomb of the Councels pag 791. And Leo the Pope in his 95 Epistle written to Leo Augustus do plainly also say the like Fourthly Against the Adoration of Angels Martyrs and Saints departed LEt Mary be had in honor Epiphanius in his third Book Haeres 79. and the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost be Adored Mary no Body Adoreth I say not that either Woman or Man neither do the Angels receive such glorification this Mystery is due to God The things which were ill writ in the Heart of the deceiver are blotted out The desire of the Tree is taken from the Eyes it is turned again a fiction to the Lord. Eve returned with Adam that she might Worship God only not that she might be led away by the voice of the Serpent but might remain in the Precept of God thou shalt not Eat of the Tree and it was a Tree not error but by him the Tree was made inobedience of Error Let not any one Eat of the Error which is for St. Maries sake for although the Tree was fair but yet not for Food so Mary is very fair and holy and honorable but not for Adoration These truly do again renew the mixture of Fortune and prepare a Table for the Devil and not for God as it is written and they are fed with the food of impiety and as the holy Scripture saith and the Women do bear fine Flower and their Children gather Wood to make Cakes with Oyle subdued to the Army of Heaven Such Women are repressed by Jeremiah that they may not trouble the World and lest they should say let us honor the Queen of Heaven Cyril of Alexandria in his Third Tomb and Sixth Book against Julian fol. 50 in the Letter A. Taphnas also knew to Punish these the places of these Edifices have known to receive Bodies to Corruption But we say the Holy Martyrs be neither Gods nor have we been wont to Adore them But we Praise them with reat Honors that they have striven valiantly for the truth and have observed the sincerity of Faith so that they despised their lives and their farewel sayings prevailed in the greatest Perils by the Terrors of Death and were of such fortitude as to stir up to themselves Statues of their life I do not say that we may not Worship and Adore the reliques of Martyrs Hierom in his second Tomb in his Epistle against Vigilantiâ—â— for the repair of the Priests p. 119. but also that we may not Worship and Adore the Sun and Moon not Angels not Arch-Angels not Cherubin not Seraphin nor any name which is named both in this World and in the World to come for we may not serve Creatures rather than the Creator which is Blessed in the World The Worship of dead Men is not a Religion for us Augustine in his first Tomb in his Book of