Will is you should do and with all your endeavour apply your selves to follow the same First you must have an assured Faith in God and give your selves wholy unto him Love him in Prosperity and Adversity and dread to offend him evermore Then for his Sake Love all Men Friends and Foes because they be his Creation and Image and Redeemed as you are Cast in your Minds how you may do good unto all Men unto your Powers and hurt no Man Obey all your Superiours and Governours Serve your Masters Faithfully and Diligently as well in their absence as in their presence not for dread of Punishment only but for Conscience Sake knowing that you are bound so to do by Gods Commandments Disobey not your Fathers and Mothers but honour them help them and please them to your Power Oppress not Kill not Beat not neither Slander nor Hate any Man but Love all Men speak well of all Men help and Succour every Man as you may yea even your Enemies that hate you that speak Evil of you and that do hurt you Take no Mans Goods nor Covet your Neighbours Goods wrongfully but content your selves with that which ye get truly and also bestow your own Goods Charitably as Need and Case requireth Fly all Idolatry Witchcraft and Perjury Commit no Adultery Fornication or other Unchastness in Will nor Deed And Travelling continually during this Life thus in keeping the Commandments of God wherein standeth the Right Trade and Pathway unto Heaven you shall not fail as Christ hath promised to come to that Blessed and Everlasting Life where you shall Live in Glory and Joy with God for ever 'T is as impossible as any thing can be that they who do these things and continue in them to the end of their Lives should miss of Eternal Glory and Happiness To say that such a Faith such Obedience such a Life as our Church propounds and Teacheth persisted in till they pass out of this World cannot through the Merits of Christ Save Men is to Damn the Blessed Apostles and all the Primitive Saints and Martyrs who if they went to Heaven at all went thither by believing and Living according to the Scriptures and call upon us to follow their Faith their pure or unspotted Lives considering the end of their Conversation the Glories in which they shine in the Blessed mansions above This is the Rock upon which we of the Church of England Build our hopes of a Crown of Glory this is a Guide that cannot deceive but will lead us safely to the Blessed place we aspire after they that walk by this Rule the Rule of the Holy Scripture are in a sure way to Salvation and if they persevere cannot miss of it But if we remove our Thoughts now to the Church of Rome it will be Evident that there is at most but a Possibility of Salvation in the Communion of it because of its disagreement with and repugnancy to the Holy Scriptures So far is this Church from doing them the Right and the Honour as to confess that they comprehend all things necessary to Salvation that it affirms the contrary that they do it not without the help of Traditions which they of that Communion receive and Honour with an equal Devotion and Reverence So saith the Council of Trent expresly Sacrosancta oecumenica generalis Tridentina Synodus in spiritu sancto Session the 4th page 19 Legitimè congregata c. This Holy Oecumenical and general Council of Trent being Lawfully called together in the Holy Ghost having this ever before their Eyes that all Errours being destroyed or taken away the very purity of the Gospel might be preserved in the Church which being promised before by the Prophets in the Holy Scriptures our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God with his own Mouth first publish'd and afterwards Commanded it to be Preach'd to every Creature by his Apostles as the Fountain of all saving Truth and Discipline or Instruction of manners and knowing this Discipline and Truth to be contained in the written Books and in Traditions not written which being received by the Apostles from Christs own Mouth or by the Apostles themselves the Holy Ghost prompting them to it as it were handed down are come to us This Council following the Examples of the Orthodox Fathers doth with equal Devotion and Reverence receive and honour all the Books of the Old and New Testament because the same God is the Authour of them both and the Traditions themselves belonging both to Faith and Manners as deliver'd by Christ by word of mouth or dictated by the Holy Spirit and kept by continual Succession in the Catholick Church So that their Rule of Faith consists of two distinct parts the Scriptures and Traditions the word of God written and the word of God not written but transmitted by word of Mouth from Age to Age from Generation to Genertion Now though it be certain that the word of God be equally true and equally obligatory to all Persons whether it be written or not written which way soever it be propounded or convey'd to them yet how shall it appear or be proved that what they call the Unwritten word of God is really so not a wicked cheat imposture They say it is his word we say it is not the Primitive Church saith nothing at all of it but asserts and maintains the sufficiency or fullness of the Scriptures or written word of God that is that it contains all things necessary to be believed and done to the obtaining Eternal Life and Happiness as is fully proved by many Protestant Writers And when the Ancient and Orthodox Fathers speak of Traditions and call upon any to observe and obey them they either mean by those Traditions the Doctrine of Christ deliver'd to the Christian Church in the Writings of the Apostles or the Ordinances made either by the Apostles themselves or the Bishops that succeeded them in their Apostolical Office for the decent and orderly performance of Gods Worship The first is indeed the Word of God but then it is his written word the other are not the word of God at all but humane Constitutions and no farther Obligatory than they are agreeable to the General Rules the Scriptures give for Conducting the Circumstances of Religion the Church having Power as Ours truly affirms to Decree Rites and Ceremonies and Authority Article the 20. in Controversies of Faith though it be not Lawful for the Church to Ordain any thing that is contrary to Gods word written This is all the Ancient Fathers mean by Traditions when they speak of or require the Observation of them but they make no such Distinction as this of the written and unwritten word of God neither do they say that the first is imperfect or doth not sufficiently instruct Mankind to Salvation unless it be supply'd with the other This is a Blasphemy which the Apostate Church only is guilty of but was never heard of in the
made up of such excellent and desireable Ingredients as these First I say he would injoy his full Authority Subsect 1. all the Priviledges and Prerogatives belonging to his Royal Place and Dignity all the Rights that God hath annex'd to it he would be a King not an Image of one exercise his Regal Power in the full latitude or extent of it not have it restrain'd or limited to a few things and those the meanest and most inglorious parts of his sacred Office This he cannot have in the Church of Rome for there the Mitre Perks up above the Crown the Pope I mean is Lord over the Prince claims a Superiority pretends to a Power and Jurisdiction over all Kings or Soveraign Princes by Divine Right a Power to Excommunicate and depose them to declare them fallen from all Dominion and Rule to dispose of their Kingdoms and give them to whom he pleaseth to unty the bonds of Obedience or absolve and discharge their Subjects from their Allegiance The first that is the Popes pretended Superiority over him impairs and lessens the Princes Honour makes him a Subject instead of a Soveraign Prince degrades him from the high Station thrusts him lower than Heaven hath placed him renders him not Gods but the Popes Vicegerent or Deputy makes him a Servant to him who is but a Fellow Servant with all the Bishops of Christ and is as strictly and indispensably bound as they are by the express Command of St. Paul to be Subject to the higher Powers that is Kings and Soveraign Princes Let every Soul be Subject to the higher Powers every Man that is whether he be of the Clergy or Laity if of the Clergy tho' a Prophet an Apostle an Evangelist a Patriarch a Metropolitan a Bishop all are included in it and must be Subject to the higher Powers so was St. Paul nay St. Peter himself from whom his Holiness claims Superiority over Kings unto that Cruel Emperour Nero both of them suffering Martyrdom under him and so far was St. Peter from claiming that Supremacy which his pretended Successors have so proudly challeng'd so unjustly usurped since that he gives it to Kings Commanding the Christians to whom he writ to submit themselves to every Ordinance of Man for the Lords sake to the King as Supream as the chief or highest Minister of God upon Earth And if every Soveraign Prince be Supream or the highest Minister of God within his own Dominions as St. Peter calls him how can he have any Superiour To make two such as they of the Church of Rome do in every Kingdom one to superintend the Affairs of Religion the other Civil Rights or Matters of State besides that it is impudently and faucily to divide and separate the Powers that God hath joyn'd together Kings and inferiour Magistrates as the Apostle exhorts being to be pray'd for That we may lead quiet and peaceable Lives in all Godliness and Honesty but how absurd is it that we should pray to God they may do that which according to the Doctrine of the Romish Church they have no Commission nor Authority from him to meddle in that is to provide that their Subjects may lead quiet and peaceable Lives in all Godliness as well as Honesty to take care that their People not only deal Justly one with another but also Worship God aright profess the true Faith and the Holy Religion of Christ and be taught to lead their Lives according to it Besides I say the guilt of dividing the Powers that God hath conjoyn'd or united it is the very dregs of contradiction to make two Supreams in one Kingdom for how can one be Summus or Supremus the chief or highest if the other be equal to him 't is as evident as the Sun when it shines brightest that these are inconsistent one cannot be the greatest if the other be as great nor one the highest if the other be as high and therefore to give the Pope a Supream Power in all the concerns of Religion is however it may be colour'd or guilded over to make the Prince his Slave to give him not an equal but a subordinate and dependent Authority for he that Rules Religion must needs Rule all and therefore the Assertors of the Popes Supremacy as they give him a direct and absolute Power in Spirituals so they give him an indirect and relative Power in Temporals in order to Spiritual and Religious concerns when the Interest of Religion requires it he may Exercise a Temporal Power or Jurisdiction over Princes Excommunicate or Depose them give their Kingdoms to others absolve their Subjects from their Allegiance give them Commission or Warrant to take Arms against them nay to Murder or Destroy them So that the Pope where he hath the Supremacy is really the Kings Master and absolute Lord over him his Dominion is but precarious during the pleasure of his Holiness for so long as he behaves himself humbly and dutifully towards his Holy or Spiritual Father Executes all his orders observes all his injunctions though never so barbarous bloudy and inhumane so long he shall have his Blessing and injoy his Favour and being so dependent he must needs have a tottering Throne and an uncertain Authority the Crown sits loosly on his Royal Head ready at every turn to drop or fall off If he dispute the Commands of his great Master the Pope complain of his Exactions remonstrate against any of his proceedings though never so modestly if he express any sorrow for the intolerable oppressions of his People if he be unwilling to Butcher and Cut their Throats like Sacrificed Beasts or to make Bonefires of Innocent and harmless Men meerly for professing the True Faith and obeying the Holy Religion of Christ If the Divine Goodness be pleas'd to inlighten his Royal Soul with the knowledg of the Truth and by the splendour of that Light he see and condemn the errours and corruptions of the Romish Church then he is an Heretick and they say of him as the Jewish Zealots did concerning St. Paul Away with such a Prince from the Earth for it is not fit that he should Live Excommunicate curse him with Bell Book and Candle then it is meritorious to kill him and his Holiness hath a Ravilliack or a Jaques Clement or some such Villain to assassinate or murder him wholf he effect the execrable Parricide shall be well rewarded upon Earth or if he Perish in the attempt be made as far as the Pope can do it a Saint in Heaven Consider then what Charms or Allurements such a Church can have to invite a Prince into its Communion These certainly are so far from being attractives that they are the strongest disswasives imaginable and instead of drawing him to must needs deter and drive him from it A Prince that knows and hath had Communion with a better must first run out of his Wits before he can joyn himself to such a Church A Church in which he cannot ascend his
fifth Commandment taught that it is their Duty to Honour and Obey the King and all that are in Authority under him Every time they come to Prayers the Loyal Supplications Intercessions and upon special occasions Thanksgivings of our excellent Liturgy for the King and the Royal Family and the Inferiour Magistrates remind the People of the true Obedience and Subjection they owe and must pay to them and humbly beseech Almighty God to give them Grace to do it If they read the Pious and Venerable Homilies of our Church there theâ— Divine Original and Institution of Kings is fully proved the necessity of Obedience demonstrated the horrid guilt the dreadful mischiefs the woful Calamities of Rebellion explicated and detected the heavy Wrath and Vengeance of God upon Rebels and Traytors in this World and the horrible Damnation that attends them when they pass from hence Faithfully represented and described in a most Lively manner that all who Read them may Heartily abhor and carefully avoid so execrable a wickedness Nor doth the Loyalty of our Church lye Dead in the Books and Writings of it but Lives and Reigns in the Hearts of all the true Members of it and exerts or shews its Life and Vigour in their undaunted Courage Resolution and readiness to stand by and defend the Sacred Person Honour and Authority of their Prince against all that dare be so impudent and wicked as to assault the first to impair the second or to infringe the third I challenge all the World to shew me one true Member of our Church that so long as he continued so was found guilty of any Disloyal Practices No so far are they from that that the numbers cannot soon nor easily be told that have Sacrifiz'd their Lives Estates every thing that was dear to them in the Cause and Service of their Prince His and their Enemies could and did in the late times Deprive them of their Liberty Plunder them of their Goods Sequester their Estates strip them of all things else but their Loyalty they could not take from them this they preserv'd pure and untainted in the midst of all the Oppressions Cruelties and ill Usage they endured and when they were permitted to Live no longer to give any farther Testimonies of it bequeath'd it as the Choicest and Richest Legacy to their Off-spring Descendents nay by their true Christian Patience and Undaunted Courage at their Death a Glorious Death to them to which they were Condemn'd for serving their Prince did Recommend it to many that came to see them Dye A Loyalty not Limited or Conditional that Dyes if it be not cherish'd and kept alive by the Princes peculiar Favour and Bounty and continues no longer then he Pleases and Humours them but absolute and inconditional that cannot be shaken nor removed by any wrongs or ill usage but is the same when he Frowns upon as when he Favours them If he Oppress them in their Estates they Submit if he cause the Sentence of Death to be unjustly pass'd upon them they refuse not to Dye nay do it with the Meekness Patience and Charity of the Primitive Martyrs they will not lift up their Hands nor open their Mouths against him let him use them as he pleaseth The Fires of Queen Mary could not consume nor burn up their Loyalty nor scare them from their Allegiance she had never gain'd the Crown if the Loyal Protestants had not assisted her and the great Opposer of her Advancement to the Royal throne was the Duke of Northumberland who though he pretended to be a Protestant yet was really a Papist for so he declared himself to be upon the Scaffold at his Death Such a People make a Prince happy are his greatest Safety and Security and nothing but a guard of Angels from Heaven can be a better defence to him which by their Pious and Holy Prayers they are careful to call down to Protect him that no harm nor danger may happen to him And being sure by continuing in our Church to have such a Loyal Obedient People if the Crown should descend to him what Reason Motive or Inducement could his Royal Highness have to forsake it and joyn himself to the Papists People that are Infamous all the World over for Killing Kings Plotting Treasons Raising Seditions and Rebellions against them That are Obedient to their Prince no longer then he is a Slave to the Pope for how often did they Mutiny make Insurrections and Rebellions against King Henry the Eighth for renouncing and casting off the Popes Usurped Authority and resuming the Supremacy which belong'd to him by Divine Right as a Soveraign Prince Though he was a Zealous Professor and maintainer of the Romish Religion yet he was Alarum'd by frequent Tumults and Seditions and his owning that could not keep the Catholicks so they call themselves in Obedience to him unless he would be altogether a Slave to him that pretended to be the prime Minister of it And though a Prince Study to Please and Humour them all he can yet their Loyalty must needs be very fickle and precarious because the People of the Romish Communion have a mighty Dependence upon and are wholly at the Devotion of the Clergy and the Clergy are exempted from the Princes Jurisdiction and Sworn Subjects to the Pope The People are wholly at the Devotion of the Clergy who manage and govern them at their Pleasure and they must needs be so because they believe they can forgive their Sins absolutely whilst they Live and pray them out of Purgatory when they are Dead by forcing them to come to Confession they have Opportunity to know all their Errours Sins and Follies nay all their Thoughts Purposes and Intentions which renders them very Subject and Dependent Their Power also of Inflicting Penances and denying them Absolution if they do not please humour them keeps the People in great Slavery to their Priests because they think God will not if they do not forgive them so that the People are absolute Slaves to them and do every thing they require of them And the Clergy that thus Govern the People are wholly at the Popes Devotion they own him for their Lord and Master Swear Obedience to and depend upon him as their great Patron and Benefactor all their Preferments being if not in his Donation yet such as depend upon his Approbation and Confirmation so that if they do not receive them from his Bounty yet they Injoy them by his Favour which is Tantamount This makes them flatter and adore him as the chief if not sole Monarch and despise their Prince as an underling or meer Cypher that signifies nothing And at every little quarrel or disgust between his Holiness and him the Prince is sure to feel the sad effects of their Power with the People either in the Disturbance they cause in the State or the attempts they make upon his Person for if they cannot run him down with the pretence and
needs be an Abominable Cheat which they call the Unwritten word of God because by this they evacuate or make the other voy'd and of no Effect Command what in the Scripture God forbids and forbid what he Commands condemn what he allows allow what he condemns make that necessary which he leaves Arbitrary or Indifferent and that Indifferent which he makes necessary using the Scriptures as one Procustes a Theevish Inn-keeper in Germany is said to have Treated his Guests who having but one Bed for all Comers if he that was to lye in it was too long for the Bed he would cut off his Feet or Legs till he had made him of an equal length for it if too short he would rack and stretch him out till he had made him of a fit size for it Thus doth Rome by her Traditions inlarge and alter add to and take from pervert and wrest the Scriptures to her own and the Destruction of Multitudes of those that give up themselves to her Conduct For I desire it may be considered what an horrid injury and affront it is to the Laws of God to those Sacred Books that contain so Choice and most Precious a Treasure as the Words of Eternal Life which they propound to us must needs be to use them thus Nay what abominable insolence and contempt of God it is to accuse them of Inperfection to affirm they do not give Men sufficient Instruction to Salvation which they say they do Is there any thing that Princes do more highly resent or more severely Punish than the contempt of their Laws and Royal Edicts when instead of paying a ready and cheereful Obedience to them any Persons censure and carp at them Falsly call them obscure and defective Institutions that do not reach the ends or designs they were made for and take upon them to forge new ones to put out Counterfeit Edicts and Mandates in the Princes name which he knew nothing of and gave no consent to Just thus doth the Church of Rome treat the Great Lord and Ruler of all the World accuses his Laws contained in the Scriptures of Imperfection say's they are obscure and defective dark and unintelligible Institutions in themselves and forges new ones which it calls his Traditional or Unwriten Laws and is Fonder of or Prefers them before the other which must needs provoke his Anger and bring down his most fearful Judgments upon it even all the Woes Plagues and Curses denounc'd in Scripture against them that commit so Insolent and Hainous a Wickedness And as they affront and dishonour the Scriptures by receiving Traditions with equal reverence and devotion so in defiance to them they have Inlarged the Faith Multiply'd the Sacraments Chang'd all the Principal parts of Religion which they propound to the Christian Church They neither Believe nor Worship God according to the Scriptures but to the Faith once delivered to the Saints they have added new and false Propositions and instead of the Pure and Holy Worship God requires disgrace and provoke him with their Images and leaving the old Paths and the good way of his appointing they have invented new means and conditions of Salvation For all the points Controverted between Them Us are plainly and evidently Repugnant to the Scriptures as would appear by a particular Examination of them But this is not proper to the Subject I have in hand and hath been so fully and Unanswerably proved by many Eminent Divines of our Church Famous in their Generations Men of Renown the excellent Bishop Jewel Dr. Feild the two Whites the Arch-deacon in his way to the true Church and his Brother the Bishop of Ely in his Defence of it By Arch-Bishop Laud in his admirable Book against Fisher by the Reverend Bishop of Down in the Defence of his Disswasive from Popery to the Learned and Excellent labours of which worthy Men I refer the Reader that it is needless for me to do it again But if any of the Church of Rome think I wrong their Mother by charging her with forsaking the Scriptures I am ready to make it good when they require it of me and will prove the points in Debate between the Church of England and theirs to be contrary to Scripture and therefore most dangerous Errours and Innovations And if they depart from the Scriptures as t is certain they do which only are able to make Men wise unto Salvation and by which all Christians shall be judged at the last and great Assize of the World there must needs as all the Reformed Churches truly believe and teach be great peril of Damnation in the Communion of that Church They are out of the way which God commands all Men to walk in that would obtain the Immortal Glories and Felicities of his Heavenly Kingdom and therefore if they be Saved it must be by extraordinary ways or means 'T is possible that God whose Mercies are Infinite may save the Ignorant and well meaning People amongst them that follow the Romish Guides in the Dr. Potter Answer to Charity mistaken page 78 79. Simplicity of their Hearts Who either have not as a learned Person of our Church observes sufficient means to find the truth or else after the use of the best means they can have find not Sufficient motives to convince their Conscience that they are in Errour 'T is possible also that they who lived all their days in the Communion of the Church of Rome may repent at their Death humbly beseech God to pardon all their Sins and Errours known and unknown and so find Mercy from him who is not extreme to mark what is done amiss But if that Ignorance or this Repentance do not help them though we take not on us to pass the Dreadful doom upon them yet our Charity to their Souls obliges us to tell them their Condition is exceeding Dangerous 'T is therefore great Uncharitableness to himself for any Man that Considers what a Blessed and Desirable thing Eternal Happiness is that thinks what it is to live with God his Angels and Saints in Glory unconceivable in joys unspeakable and endless to venture his Soul in the Romish Communion where there is the greatest hazard of losing it and at most but a poor Possibility of saving it A Church which I cannot better describe than in the Words of the Person I last mentioned who was a learned and a moderate Man She brings forth Children unto God by their Baptism but then Poysons them in their Breeding Dr. Potter pages 14 15 16. When they ask for Bread she gives them a Stone and Serpents instead of Fishes To the Word of God she adds and equalls her own Traditions she reads unto them that Word but in an unknown Tongue teaches them to Pray but in Latin which they understand not directs them to call upon God but withal upon Saints and Angels to Worship God but also dumb Blocks and Images She sends them to Legends and Pictures for much
of their Instruction and for Direction of their Conscience to such Casuists as their own Men say have Dishonour'd Christian Religion with their Abominable Lessons She feeds them with a dry Communion and bids them obey Jesus Christ and the Pope if they will be Saved She hath also her Bishops Priests Masses Monks Monasteries but such as have nothing almost common with those of the Primitive times save only their Names In brief with all possible Artifices she labours to keep her poor Laity Hoodwinckt in Ignorance for Blind Men are more Tractable and Obedient unto their Leaders She tells them it is Creed enough for them to believe only the Catholick Church that is to Resign up to her self their Understanding but if any of them be farther Curious to know more Especially if they will be Prying into that Dangerous Book the Bible she sends them into the Inquisition to be there better Catechised Thus she deals with her own But for all Us that are in her Opinion Hereticks if her power were answerable to the Malignity of her desires no Remedy we should all pass through the Inquisition into Hell To go from a safe Church as Ours is wherein there is a Certainty of Salvation to such a Dangerous Church as the Roman is wherein there is but a meer Possibility of it is a wilder and more unaccountable Errour or oversight than if a Man that was to Sail in a Rough Dangerous and Tempestuous Sea full of Rocks and Sands should refuse a stout and well built Ship that had Skilful Careful and Honest Pilates and chuse one that is Crasy and full of Leaks or Breaches to let in the angry and devouring Billows and is steered by such Pilates as are either Treacherous or Careless Ignorant or Knavish His Royal Highness then had no reason to change his Religion upon this account his Eternal Happiness and Salvation being certain and undoubted by his stay in our Church that is by believeing and living as it teaches and requires all its Members to believe and lead their lives But exceeding doubtful and hazardous no more than possible in the Romish Communion And being neither for his Interest in this nor his Happiness in the other World to turn Papist his Royall Highness could have no just Motive or Inducement to do it These Arguments as they prove the Duke ought not so they will Oblige all that consider them to question whether he hath changed his Religion for being a wise Prince how can he be Guilty of so Deplorable an Errour as to do that which is against his interest now and his Happiness for ever that will make him Inglorious whilst he lives and Miserable when he is Dead and gone But the Excluders will say this is to doubt whether the Sun Shines when he appears in Subsect 5. his highest or noon day Glory to question matter of Fact for did not his Royal Highness refuse the Oaths and Subscription against Popery and do not Colemans Letters speak of his Zeal for the Romish Church and Religion and if he be not a Papist why doth he not declare himself and satisfy the Nation that he is of the Establish'd Religion these things they say make it Evident to all that will not shut their Eyes that the Duke is a Papist As for the first his Refusing the Oaths and Subscription against Popery That is no evidence of his being a Papist because he might have reasons for that Refusall He might think it a dishonour to him being a Prince of the Blood and next Heir to the Crown to take the Oaths and make the Subscription which every Justice of the Peace and every Captain in the Militia and persons inferiour to these were by that Law Obliged to do Is there any thing that a brave generous Prince such as his Royal Highness is Is more tender of than his Honour And would it not have been a lessening and impairing of that a descending from his greatness a stooping much below himself to take those Oaths and Subscribe as every person that hath any Office Civil or Military is by that Law required to do Sure there is some difference to be put and some distinction to be made between a Prince and Men of lower degree between a Son of the late and a Brother the only Brother of this present King and other Subjects 'T is true indeed the Duke whilst the King lives is but a Subject but then he is the highest the greatest Subject next to the King both in Blood and Dignity and hath such a property and capacity as no other Subject hath and therefore what may be Honourable enough for other Subjects to do may look meanly in him and be in his own Apprehension if not in the Opinion of others a lessening his Esteem and impairing his Honour The Dukes Refusal too might proceed from a just dislike and aversion to the great Contriver and Promoter of that Law which requir'd the taking those Oaths and the making that Subscription a Man Popular Ambitious Busy and Designing and as since appears most Trayterous and Disloyal who had misbehaved himself towards his Royal Highness and without any Provocation was become his Enemy and openly profess'd or declared himself so to be the Duke I say might justly hate the Child for the Fathers sake refuse to observe a Law Contriv'd and Promoted by his open Enemy to comply with and do those things at the Motion of Such an One being both dishonourable in it self and that which would encourage the Man to more and greater rudeness and sauciness towards him and set his invention a work to frame new Impositions and lay greater Burthens upon him there being no end of some mens Projects and Impertinencies and if they be humour'd in one thing they will demand an hundred and grudg if they be not satisfied and if you do not let them lead you by the Nose as long and as far as they please your first complyance is Slighted or Contemn'd as a thing of no worth nor merit and therefore the best way to be freed from such Troublesome and Imposing persons is to withstand or give them a repulse at the first for if they find a Man resolute and not to be wrought upon they will be discouraged and in time give over their Impertinent and Saucy attempts Besides the Dukes taking the Oaths and Subscribing could not have acquitted him from the Suspition of Popery with them that were desirous he should be reputed that they might treat him as a Papist for so long as his Holiness pretends a power to grant Dispensations and is willing to exercise or put that power into practice which he will do as long as he hath any Zeal for the Catholick cause or any Concern for his own gain and profit so long they that love to brand others with the hatefull name of Papists will think or call them so notwithstanding all the Oaths they can take and the Subscriptions they can make
go about to satisfie Men that will never be satisfied A time may come and I hope it is approaching when such a Declaration will not only be believ'd but receiv'd with the joyful Acclamations and grateful Acknowledgments of both Houses and if it be thy Blessed will Oh God let such a time a time so much desired by all good Men come and that quickly But for my part I do not think it civil or decent for those that are unacquainted with the greatest affairs of State to take upon them to prescribe to his Royal Highness or to tell him when or in what manner he should declare himself because this would Savour of Rudeness and Presumption and therefore they must leave it to his own Prudence and the Wise Determinations of those Great and Honourable Personages that understand and conduct the weighty concerns of the Government it being for Them to know the times and seasons of so important an Action and not for Men of privacy and low degree Stay a while then and consider what you are doing be not too confident Oh ye Excluders make not so much hast nor such a stir to shut the door upon a Prince that you are not sure is gone from you believe it possible for you to Err or be Mistaken in your Opinions of him you see he hath no Reason to be a Papist and the Arguments for it are insufficient do not prove it therefore be not too confident he is so SECT IV. So far I have consider'd the first Question Whether his Royal Highness be a Papist The next and great Enquiry is Whether if he be so that Forfeits his Right That it doth not I assert and am now to prove In order to which I affirm That it is possible for a Good Conscientious and well meaning Man one that desires to go the Right way to Heaven to turn Papist Errour may look so like Truth and Superstition be so adorn'd with the paint and fair colours of true Piety that Men of good understanding and great integrity may be deceived and deluded by it Thus the excellent Chillingworth a Pious and Learned Man was seduced to the Romish Church though by the Grace of God he saw his errour return'd to our Church and lived and died in the Holy and Apostolical Faith which it professeth and not long after his return to it mindful of that sacred precept of our Lord to St. Peter when thou art converted strengthen by Brethren writ his excellent Book St. Luke 22. 32. in which he fully and unanswerably proves that which is the Subject or Title of it That the Religion of Protestants is a safe way to Salvation a Book highly meriting the perusal of all that either need or desire satisfaction in that Great and most weighty point In the Preface to it he tells his Readers the Motives that perswaded him to turn Papist which though they were as he truly calls them and to which he there gives full and satisfactory answers silly Sophisms and false Suppositions yet they so abused that good Man as to Proselyte him to the Church of Rome And why may not others as Pious Prudent and Conscientious as he be deceiv'd and misled into Popery by these or such fallacious Arguments or Reasons 'T is very well known that the Jesuits and Missionaries of the Roman Church are Persons Learned and Subtile trained up by the most expert Masters and not suffer'd to go abroad till they are thoroughly skil'd and instructed in the controversies between them and us and furnish'd with all manner of Arts and Abilities to seduce and deceive People And cannot Persons so prepared and fitted for it make gross errours and the foulest practices look fair and plausible varnish them over so with Apologies or Excuses extenuate their guilt pare off the Absurdities adhereing to them with Distinctions and set them out to such advantage that an honest Man shall not only think them Innocent things such as have no harm nor venome in them but be very much enamour'd of or taken with them They that read their Books must acknowledg if they will speak the truth that nothing is wanting in them that either Wit or Zeal can invent to defend or put a fair gloss upon the errours of their Church though what they plead in Justification of them be false or deceitful Argumentations poor idle Sophisms meer Paint Varnish no better than Gilding a Rotten Post or Cloathing Errour in the dress and vestments of Truth yet they seem so plausible look so fair and inviting that a Good Conscientious and well meaning Man as I said before may be so abus'd and deluded by them as to become a Proselyte to the Roman Church And being so is he not a Christian A Papist I suppose cannot truly be deny'd to be a Christian because the Church of which he is a Member is a Christian Church though lapsed into great Errours and Impieties a Christian Church it must needs be because it makes Profession of the Faith and Religion of Christ ascribes enough to him to secure to it self the Glorious Title and Denomination of Christian for the Council of Trent in the Explication of the Article of Justification gives this account of it Hujus Justificationis causae sunt c. Session 6. cap. 7. page 35. The Causes of this Justification are these The Final Cause is the Glory of God and of Christ and Eternal Life The Efficient Cause is the Merciful God who freely washeth aod sanctifieth signing and anoynting with the Holy Spirit of promise who is the the earnest of our Inheritance The Meritorious cause is the most beloved and only begotten Son of God who when we were Enemies for his great Love wherewith he Loved us did by his most holy passion upon the Cross Merit Justification and give Satisfaction to God his Father for us By which it is Evident that the Church of Rome holds That the Merits of Christ are the moving or procuring Cause of our Justification so absolutely necessary to it that as that Council speaks a little after Nemo possit esse justus nisi cui page 36. merita Passionis Domini nostri Jesu Christi Communicantur no Man can be Just or Righteous but He to whom the Merits of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ are Communicated Now they that acknowledg or own this Great and Fundamental Truth that we are justified by the Merits of Christ and consequently that he is our only Saviour and do adore him as the Christ or Son of God which they cannot be deny'd to do though that Acknowledgment this Worship of theirs be mixt and accompany'd with many and those very dangerous Errours must be acknowledg'd to be a Christian Church And if the collective Body be such the particular Members must be so too I suppose then it will be easily granted me by the greatest Zealots against Popery it being but a reasonable concession and such as I shall not