seen with their Eyes taught and established by the first Planters of Christianity No I know no such thing Though this would have been a strange favour to the World would the Almighty Creator have wrought such a Miracle in favour of Ignorant Man But what then Did Jesus Christ after the manner of Moses write a Book of all Christian Rites and Observances or did he not at least command some one of his Twelve Apostles or all of them together to write some such Book so full so compleat so plain as none that would not willingly mistake could possibly mis-understand it Certainly he could not but foresee what disputes would arise about observances of Days and Sacraments amongst Christians in future Ages Why did he not tell us plainly by some Authentick Writing or other His pleasure was that all the Mosaical Rites and Observances of Days should be abolished and instead of them he would have no Exterior Rites and Days at all or else if he would have any why did he not take care that some Book or other should be written wherein every one that could read might see how many Rites called Sacraments he would have to be used amongst Christians and how and to whom and by whom he would have them to be administred Whether he would have certain days observed by Christians in memory of his Birth Death Resurrection and Ascension or no any set days of Fasting any distinction of Garments in Priests from the People or no But himself to write never a Book to this purpose nor any of his Apostles to write any thing but his Holy Life and Death four times over and some little of the Life of some one or two of his Apostles and a few occasional Letters of two or three of his Followers to particular Christians whom they had fully instructed by word of mouth what can we conclude from all this But that surely Jesus Christ has left us some other means than those written Books we have fully to instruct us in the whole Counsel of God in Order to our Eternal Salvation Indeed I find an Ancient Prophesie that in the latter days God Almighty would write his Laws in his Peoples Hearts Was this to intimate to us that whosoever would find fully and clearly the Laws of Jesus Christ in the latter days he must not so much consult written Books as the Hearts of Christians And truly there is no other way without a miraculous Revelation by the Ministry of Angels or some such means for us who live now to know what was taught or practiced sixteen hundred years before we were born but only by Books written in that time or near that time or else without Books by the oral Tradition of Fathers to their Children But what Certitude can there be in this Could we speak with every Father and Son that has lived since the Apostles days and should they tell us unanimously that they had been taught to believe and practice thus and thus For Example to Baptize Children or not to Baptize them to abstain from Flesh on Fridays or not to abstain in memory of our Lords bitter Death and Passion and to humble our selves for our sins and such like no body could doubt of the truth of such a Testimony more than he does mistrust his own Eyes or other Senses But all the intervening Fathers and Sons 'twixt us and the first Age wherein our Lord Jesus lived except only our Fathers and Grandfathers being gone to another World my Grandfather can tell me certainly what his Father taught him concerning Fasting on Friday Baptizing of Infants Reverencing such a Book as of Divine Authority written by a Holy Man talled Mathew sixteen hundred years ago but what assurance can he give me that all his Progenitors have practic'd and believ'd after the same manner ever since the Apostles days Why what assurance could a Jew that lived in our Blessed Savioms time have given to a Pagan or to one of his own Children that the Books of the Law of Moses were written by a Holy Man called Moses who familiarly conversed with God so many hundred years ago He could only have discoursed to him after this manner Thus I was told by my Father and thus all our Neighbouts were told by their Fathers and 't is impossible in any Age since our Great Moses all our Ancestors should agree together to tell their Posterity so great a lye to their own and their Posterities Eternal damnation One Man may tell an impudent notorious lye but a whole Countrey cannot conspire in a lye which they know to be a lye or could they some neighbour Nation would tell the Cheat to Posterity In like manner must the Apostolical Christian answer when he is demanded an account why he reveres such and such Books as Apostolical writings or observes such and such Rites as Apostolical Ordinations And this is the belief and practice of an Apostolical Christian in general VVhatsoever this present Age or any other Age since the Apostles time in several Nations and Countries unanimously attest that they have received from their Forefathers from the Apostles and he cannot positively show that it was of a later date begun for Example in or near such a time by such and such he submits to it as Apostolical and this though it cannot positively be proved that for Example such a Book or Practice was received in every Age since the Apostles days by positive Testimonies out of Authentick writings of every particular Age. And thus much satisfaction and no more could Jacob have given to his Children why he kept the Sabbath day commanded by Almighty God to our first Parent Adam above two thousand years before He had neither Scripture nor other Record of writing for any such Institution the use of writing being unknown to the world till afterwards when God Almighty wrote the Ten Commandments in Two Tables of Stone He could only tell them thus he and his Neighbours had been immemorially taught to believe And their objecting how could they tell but some body out of a supersttious opinion of more Sanctity in every seventh day than in every sixth or eighth might have introduced the will-worship of such an Observation such an Objection I say as this would not have excused them before God from such an Obligation which the whole present Generation told them they had observed immemorially from Adam And indeed though it were granted that according to the Holy Scriptures we Christians are obliged to keep every first day of the week Holy yet it cannot be proved out of Scripture or any other Book or by any other Argument but the immemorial tradition and practice of several Christian Countries that the day we now observe is the true first day of the week from that first first-day on which our Blessed Savour rose from Death to Life And yet that there should be Christians who should make no distinction betwixt Friday and the other days of the week
Lady from the danger of Popery I confess a Protestant to whom I read a Dialogue in that Maunal said Surely some body to disgrace his Lordship had Printed it under his Name But on the other side it is not credible that a Book should be publickly sold all over England for four years together under so Great a Persons Name and yet be none of his if there were any thing in it his Lordship was asham'd to own I well foresee what I have written will be ill taken by many but I dare not but discharge my Conscience and profess as in the sight of God I wtite not thus to disgrace any Mans Person but meerly to dis-abuse my well-meaning Relations who I am sure have such a Zeal of Godliness and true Sanctity that they would love Papists and their Holy and strict Religion with their Hearts were not they and their Religion mis-represented unto them To defame a particular Person is a great wickedness but to slander a whole Church is a Detraction of a higher rank and assuredly does oblige the Detractor to revoke his Calumnies God be merciful to us we have faults but too too many what need of belying one another Let us believe one another what we say our Tenets of Religion are and dispute against those and not against the uncharitable surmizes of our own Brains To judge my Neighbours to be guilty of most horrid Blasphemies when they protest they abhor them no less than my self if this be not to Judge my Neighbour which is notwithstanding most severely prohibited me by my Blessed Saviour I know not what is Now for a Grave Doctor to accuse not some private Authors but the whole Roman Church of all those Blasphemies and Absurdities I but now mentioned and yet not that so much as one single Papist you can meet with will own so much as one of them I am at a stand what to think Surely no Man could be so malicious to write such things on purpose to abuse a poor Lady and on the other side to think that a Doctor of Divinity could be so ignorant of the Tenets of Papists as to believe that no body can be a Papist but he must necessarily believe the Pope is a God that he may have leave to commit almost any sin at a known price when he will that the Gospel is a Fable c. Had he in plain terms told the good Lady some Roman writers as he understood them or as Protestants cited them held such and such Absurdities and Blasphemies but not one Papist she could meet with would own so much as one of them this would have signified nothing to the retaining of her in the Protestant Communion For the Reply would have been easie Either you mis-understand the Authors or else they are at most but the phrensies of some particuler Men and consequently I may be a Papist and hold none of them but abominate and detest them all But that he might be sure to preserve the Lady from the danger of Popery under the disguise of a Dialogue he makes a Papist give for Reasons why he cannot become Protestant the Blasphemies and Absurdities above which is as much as to tell her if she will turn Papist such and so Blasphemous must her Faith and Religion be Methinks knowing many of his Catholick Neighbours to be Men of good Judgment and honest Conversation he should have demanded of them whether such things were generally believed by them or no before he had printed them as Reasons why a Papist could not change his Religion for if one may be a sound Papist and hold none of them then all his Lordships discourse falls to the ground whatsoever some particular Doctors may hold concerning them Though that also be a meer calumny and should any be so extravagant as to assert such Diabolical phrensies he would be cast out of our Church as a Blasphemer And that you My Dear Relations may see that I have not at all wronged the Doctor I have thought fit to transcribe some few Lines out of his 7th Chap. Page 101. The next to his Dialogue The foregoing Sixth Chapter says he gives an account of some of the Blasphemies and Abominations of the Roman Church many more might be instanced c. Where in plain terms as before under the disguise of a Dialogue he charges not barely some particular Authors but the whole Roman Church and all Roman Catholicks with the Blasphemies in the foregoing Dialogue He goes on Where is their Piety towards God while they affirm that the Gospel is but a Fable of Christ c. Nay even that the Bishop of Rome is a God c. Where is their Sobriety and Chastity while they Authorize Stews allow Whoredom all the year long c. Scarce a known sin but there is a known price for it and at their Market-rate you may commit them when you will c. Such extravagant Discourses though they may hinder some from ever examining the Catholick Religion yet they are oftentimes God Almighty out-shooting the Devil in his own Bow happy occasions of the Conversions of others I remember to have read of a German Count who reflecting how divers of his Catholick Neighbours were Persons of a very sound Judgment and Understanding he began to think with himself how they could believe such strange Doctrines as were by his Ministers commonly laid to their charge hereupon he resolved to inquire into their Tenets and he found for a great part they held no such Doctrines as they were commonly taxed with and as for what they did indeed hold they had very good Reasons for their Faith And so by the merciful Grace of God became a happy Convert to that Religion the which before he impartially examined it seem'd so exotick and incredible unto him Which I hope My Dear Relations will one day be your happy lot also Take but pains candidly and diligently to inquire and I doubt not but it will But if you will needs go on to think your Catholick Neighbours to be such Monsters of Men and to hold such horrid Blasphemies and Absurdities which they profess no less to abhor and detest than your selves I hope I have done the duty of a Christian Kinsman and to my grief must one day bear witness against you that I told you how grosly you mis-apprehended the True Worshippers of Christ but you would neither believe me nor seriously use any means to inform your selves aright But I hope better things concerning you Another great cause of all your mistakes is the scandalous lives of too too many Roman Catholicks For the truth is no Catholicks believe so much as one of the above-mentioned Absurdities yet many of them Christ Jesus mend us all live so as they may seem to a prejudiced beholder to believe divers of them Considering their Mock-prayers Mock-fasts and Mock-confessions without any Amendment of life c. But to help you against this you must remember the Counsel
of St. Augustin to cast your Eyes not only upon the Cockle but also upon the good Wheat and if you will needs be comparing the Professors of our several Religions together do not compare the best of your own Religion with the worst of ours but the best of ours with the best of your own and the worst of ours with the worst of your own and do not consider how little our Fasting-days or Holy-days or Confession of sins c. conduce to Piety as they are observed by the Libertines of our Church but what helps they would be to make all the world better were they observed in a due and Christian manner Another great cause of your mistakes is that great Lye devised by the first Reformers viz. That the New Testament is a Compleat Rule of Faith and Manners for all Christians Hence whatsoever Practice or Ceremony you cannot find there you reject it as a Superstition and Will-worship And this makes you quarrel with all Abstinence from certain kinds of Meats on Fasting-days and with all Holy-days except Sundays with the Sign of the Cross c. Whereas Christian Doctrines and the Evangelical way of Worship were first taught the world by the Apostles before they writ any thing at all Nor did ever any of the Apostles or all of them together go about to write a Book of the whole Body of the Christian Law like to those of Exodus and Leviticus written by Moses as is manifest to any one that considers the Nature of the Books of the New Testament The four Gospels are a History of our Blessed Saviours Life and Death who lived as to the External Rites of Religion according to the â—ewish Law and so we cannot reasonably in any of them expect what Holy-days or Fasting days or Ceremonial Rites we Christians are to observe in the time of the Gospel Indeed had the Acts of the Apostles been intended as an exact Narration how the Apostles lived as to the whole course of their life what days they kept Holy and what they fasted and how and what Sacraments they administred and now and with what Rites c. we might reasonably have expected there some mention of Ascension and Christmas-day of Lent and Abstinence from Flesh on Fridays of Renouncing the Devil and the Sign of the Cross in Baptism c. But that Holy Book making mention only of some few particular passages of two or three of the Apostles lives the Apostles might well keep divers Holy-days besides Sunday and abstain from Flesh in Lent and upon other Fasting-days and use the Sign of the Cross c. and teach the same also to their first Converts and yet there be a profound silence of them in the Book of their Acts. As for St. Johns Prophetical Book it looks nothing like a Ritual or an Account of what days and Rites in the Divine Worship are pecular to us Christians The rest of the New Testament are Epistles or Letters of Spiritual Counsel written by St. Paul or some other Apostle to Persons already instructed in the Christian way of Worship And why they should make mention therein of all Christian Exterior Rites and Days I understand not unless perchance the Persons they wrote unto had been deficient in such Observances The Adequate Rule of our Faith and Manners are the Doctrines and Practices taught the World by the Apostles of our Blessed Saviour And the Holy Scriptures are an Excellent but not the only means whereby we may assuredly come to know what Truths were taught and what Practices were set on foot over the whole Earth by by the same Apostles We must consult the immemoral Faith and Practices and unanimous attestations of several Christian Countries and what they joynly witness immemorally to have received from Father to Son from the Apostles whether it be a Book written as they tell us by the Apostles or a Doctrine taught by them or a Ritual Observance ordained by them we safely submit unto it as Apostolical For that the several Christian Inhabitants all over the World could never possibly meet together to forge a lye And it is no small cause My Dear Friends of all your mistakes that you conceit you know the Holy Scriptures to be the infallible Word of God by their own light There 's no doubt but any one that reverently reads those Holy Books cannot but acknowledge that there are very many Excellent Truths declared in them but that every thing in them is infallibly true and that they were written by Men un-erringly inspired by the Holy Ghost it 's not possible we should ever have come to know so much but by the teaching of our Parents who from our Infancy imprinted upon us a Reverence to those Sacred Writings above all others And did we but reflect that the assurance we have that the Books of the New Testament were written by Apostolical Persons is only this that so all Christian Countries since the Apostles have immemorially believed our Discourse would strait tell us there 's all reason we should ask of those several Countries from whom we have received those Divine Books in what sense they have been always taught to understand them and interpret them accordingly and what Rites and Observances they received together with them and admit them with the like Reverence And it will be hard to give an Account to our Blessed Saviour why with such awful dread you submitted to the four Gospels or Epistles of St. Paul as most Sacred and Divine and yet dared to reject as superstition and Will-worship certain Practices and Observances delivered to you by the same Hands immemorially from the Apostles Mistrust not the Providence of our Dear Redeemer he has in all Ages had a Watchful Eye over his Holy Church not permitting her to Apostarize by Idolatry or be defiled with Superstition or to deliver to posterity her own Inventions for Apostolical Traditions But more of this hereafter Till you hear further from me my Dearest Friends let me only obtain this favour of you to do your selves this right to converse familiarly with Roman Catholicks and to hear impartially what they have to say for themselves wherein they differ from you and not to fancy they believe a thousand Absurdities which they no less detest than your selves Yours ever W. H. FINIS
Christ I Absolve thee from thy sins does as perfectly free you from all obligation to Eternal Torments as if you had never sinn'd And as for the temporal pains in Purgatory which may be due to you for want of a true sorrow and a hearty purpose to amend 't is but saying Seven Pater Nosters and as many Ave Maries upon such a Saints day in such a Church and you go strait to Heaven clear from all spot and stain There are many more ridiculous absurdities which this sadly deluded Papist believes and practises but these I think are sufficient to make any Man in his wits to abhor Popery as the greatest piece of Non-sense imaginable And understanding by Popery what has been said and yet that is not half of that Ridiculosity which the Generality of people in England understand by it he that should turn Papist be he for Religion Protestant Jew or Turk he must certainly for understanding be a Mad Man Child or Fool either one that has lost his wits or one that is not yet come to his wit or one that never had nor ever shall have any wit But were not our Ancestors here in England for many ages together all Papists Are not whole Nations France Spain Italy and others generally Papists Have we not some thousands of Papists still remaining in our own Countrey Are all these Children Fools or Mad Men Let them look to that You and I are sure that no Man that has half the understanding of a Man can think that such a bundle of ridiculous Tenets and Absurdities can look like any such thing as a Religion revealed from Heaven And if they confess themselves to be Papists and to hold those witless absurdities the Conclusion unavoidably falls upon them They must be Children Mad Men or Fools Unless you will say they know well enough all those ridiculous absurdities how irrational and senseless they are as well as you and I but for temporal ends in their Hearts being of no Religion at all they make a profession of believing and revering all the above-mentioned Fopperies And this I must confess is another strange folly in these Papists and a contradiction not to be paralel'd in the most blockish uncultivated Indians For the Happiness Riches Honours and Pleasures of this life they make a show of believing most seriously a thousand absurdities which they laugh at in their Hearts and yet they are so senseless as they 'l loose their Lives Estates Dignities and all rather than abjure those very absurdities Further They are so ashamed of their doltish Religion that charge them with any of their stupid opinions and they 'l profess by all that 's Sacred they neither believe nor practice any such things as you lay to their charge And yet you and I know most assuredly that they do in the very bottom of their Hearts so strongly adhere to them that they would part with Life and all that 's dearest to them rather than forego them But how come you and I to know they hold such and such absurd fancies they so constantly professing they hold no such thing Can any body know their minds and practices better than they themselves That 's a considerable Question and shall be answered afterwards Sure if this be their Case That indeed they do not Worship and Pray to Pictures and Stocks and Stones as Gods nor believe any such extravagant power in their Holy Father at Rome to pardon or give leave to commit sin for Money and a thousand other absurdities which commonly they are charged with And yet they will rather endure all losses of Estate Liberty or Life then relinquish the said detestable abominations methinks they do not deserve so much to be persecuted sequestred imprison'd hang'd drawn and quarter'd for Traytors as to be pitied and cast into Bedlam for Mad Men or to have their Estates begg'd for Natural Fools There is some Mystery lies hid here which we have not yet discovered Either they are grosly and stupidly mistaken in matters of Religion or else we are strangely mistaken in them and what is indeed their Religion But for Gods sake as you desire our Eternal Wellfare which you seemed in the beginning of your discourse so heartily to pretend unto of what Religion are you your self who write thus for the satisfaction of your deluded Puritanical Kindred and Acquaintance whom you so pity and compassionate If you be neither Puritan Prelatick Protestant nor Papist what are you A Jew Turk or Pagan No I thank the All Good God I am a Christian An Apostolical Christian That is one that believes whatever Doctrine can be proved to him to have been taught the World by the Apostles of Jesus Christ One that admits of any practice introduced into the World by the same Apostles One that reverences all Books or Writings as of an in allible Divine Authority left by them Nay if the Holy Apostles left any in Commission as their Successors to make Ordinations observable by all Christians I receive all Decrees of such Delegates of the Apostles also But these are general terms what do you believe in particular as to the Worship of God in this World and the state of departed Souls in the other and such line controverted points betwixt Papists and Protestants Do you believe all those Papistical Doctrines you mentioned above or no I thank my God there 's not one of them which I do not detest as Hell it self But what do you positively believe I do believe whatsoever Jesus Christ taught his Twelve Apostles and what his Twelve Apostles taught the VVorld And I do believe Almighty God has left us who live in this Seventeenth Age from our Dear Saviour certain and infallible means to know what they taught the VVorld in that first Age in which they lived at least so much of what they taught and established as is needful for us to know and practice to dispose us for Beatitude in the other life For that otherwise the universal Redeemer should not have been a sufficient Saviour of all the VVorld but only of that part of it which had the happiness to live in that first Age of Christianism or at most only of such Ages as were so near that Primitive Happy Time that they could certainly and infallibly know what Truths were taught and what practices in order to the bettering to the preparing of Mankind for Heaven were set on foot by Jesus Christ or his infallible Delegates Substitutes or VVitnesses But what means has Jesus Christ left us at this distance from the time wherein he illuminated the VVorld by his Divine resence to know how he lived and how he taught his followers to live to come to Eternal Life Has he in some strange Island preserved some Hundreds of Venerable Old Men who have been kept alive ever since that first Age to testifie to all Generation what kind of Doctrin they had heard with their Ears or what kind of Worship they had
great Lord Jesus in Heaven represented by those Figures Put all that has been said together and you will see there is no great wonder in it that the commonalty of our sadly divided Countrey should believe a thousand lies in matters of Religion concerning their Catholick Neighbours especially if you add that those who have been about 150 years slandering of them have withall told the vulgar that Catholicks are such a cunning and deceitful people that you may not believe them in one word what they say to you concerning their Religion but being asham'd of their Fopperies they will deny them if you lay them to their charge Or if at any time you meet with any whose candor and sincerity you are so convinced of that you cannot think he would tell you a lye Then you must imagine him to be of a particular belief and temper from all other Catholicks and though he hold no such absurdities by reason of his better understanding learning c. yet the generality of the people most certainly hold them all O the craft and cunning of the Devil and deceitful Men thus to blind and miserably impose upon the simple and well-meaning vulgar Jesus of his Mercy open their Eyes and make them see who they are that thus sadly delude and cheat them Besides the Laws being very severe against Catholicks many are afraid to have a better opinion of them than they are taught to have though they even see they are much slandered lest they should be convinced of the truth of their Religion and then be obliged either to damn their Souls if they would not embrace it or loose their Estates and Preferments if they did embrace it Finally Catholick Religion is a Holy and Strict Religion and therefore no wonder if the Professors of it be hated and ill spoke of by the wicked and loose world Libertines willingly speak ill of those that are strict and very conscientious in their ways but being ashamed to revile them for their Vertues though that be the real quarrel which they have with them they mis-interpret their innocent and good Actions and calumniate their persons with a thousand slanders For Example Catholick Religion teaches that if any one have wronged his Neighbour by cheating cozening or stealing any thing from him he 's bound if he be able under pain of damnation to make restitution and without this no Tears no Prayers no Faith in the Blood of Christ can save him The same Religion teaches also that you are bound under pain of damnation to confess your most secret sins to a Priest and that if you be truly penitent and resolved to lead a new life upon the Priests absolution on Earth you are most certainly pardoned in Heaven It teaches also that you have a like obligation to abstain from Flesh in Lent and upon other days of Abstinence Fridays Vigils c. Now Flesh and Blood does not like these Restraints And hence those that have no mind either to make Restitution of ill gotten Goods or to discover their shameful sins to a Priest or to abstain from Flesh on certain days and understanding that Priests when people confess to them enjoyn them to make Restitution and if they be not able to fast enjoyn them oftentimes to give Alms in lieu of it and in such cases dispense with the Ecclesiastical Law of Abstinence this is ground enough to calumniate poor Papists and to tell the simple Multitude that they can buy pardon of their sins for Money and have leave from their Priests to break any Law of God for Money and let them commit what villanies they please 't is but confessing them to a Priest and this without any repentance or purpose of Amendment Misereor super turbam What Christian Heart would it not make to bleed to see how the well-meaning Multitude are abused and imposed upon by their deceived Guides My Dear Relations For the love you have to your Immortal Souls do your selves that right as but familiarly to converse with your Catholick Neighbours and with as little passion as you can do but ask them an account of their Religion and do not against all common sense and reason believe the Testimony of their Adversaries concerning them and their Religion rather than them themselves and if you do not find that you have been taught a thousand lies concerning them and that they hold nothing nor practice nothing but what they are able to give a very satisfactory Account of to any impartial Enquirer then say I am a Knave a Lyer and a Cheat one that deserves no Mercy from God or Man in this World or the next but if you find what I have said to be most true pray for those that have deceived you and think seriously what it behoves you to do and whetehr you have not reason to suspect those Church-men who stand in need of such notorious lies and slanders thereby to defend themselves against their Adversaries If Popery be such a doltish and senseless Religion then what need of belying it and slandering it to make it odious to the People and what fear of Its overspreading the Nation by a free and unlimited Toleration But the truth is it 's a Holy and most rational Religion and such as Men must cease to be Men or they cannot but acknowledge the Finger of God in it when it is duly and truly represented as it is in it self devoid of all those fopperies and lies with which it is calumniated by its Adversaries For the love of God what Papist in the world believes that the Gospel is but a Fable of Christ that the Bishop of Rome is a God Not any sin but is or may be indulged amongst them and scarce a known sin but there is a known price for it and at their Market-rate you may commit them when you will that they allow Whoredom all the year long and the practices of other uncleannesses not to be named among Men in some Months of the year that mortal sins are put away by Agnus Dei's by little parcels of the Gospel by Popes and Bishops Pardons c. That Christ is the Saviour of Men only but of no Women for Women are saved by St. Clare and Mother Jane That the Pope may check when he pleases the Epistles of St. Paul and controul any thing avouched by all the Apostles That we must simply believe the Church of Rome whether it teach true or false and if the Pope believe there is no life to come we must believe it as an Article of our Faith What Papist in the world believes one of all these Madnesses and Blasphemies and yet the whole Roman Church is charged with them all by no less a Man than the present Arch-Bishop of York if that Book be his Grace's which is commonly sold in London with his Name to it and the Printers also under the Title of a Manul of Active Positive and Oppositive Divinity written by him to preserve a Noble