of Images c. if they could endure their Superstitious Rites they would not stick at what might remain of a little Ancient Order and receiv'd Decency and were that all would as soon return to Rome as we Nothing can make an honest man suspect our Church of Popery but his Ignorance what Popery is He may take all that to be Popish which the Papists do and believe and presume those guilty of their Superstitions who do not dissent to their whole Creed and are not Nonconformists to their whole Practice and in his opinion the purest Church of the Reformation must be that which is most opposite to the Church of Rome But he forgets then that the Church of Rome is Christian still though abominably corrupted that to run contrary to her in all things must be to deny our God and Saviour that by this Rule we must lay aside their Scripture as well as their Traditions and neither give alms fast nor pray because it is the practice of that Church He considers not that such an Anti-Papist is in a much worse condition than the Papist himself and that if we take what the Pope proposes in gross and together it is infinitely more dangerous to reject all than to admit it By Popery therefore can be meant nothing but the Corruptions that Church has suffer'd and the Usurpations it has advanc'd For the Faith of that Church was once as far spoken of as now its Errors are and had she continued in that Purity we ought to have been of her Communion and now we are to depart from her no otherwise than she shall be found to have departed from herself to have varied from the Truth and to have corrupted the Doctrine that was once deliver'd from the Saints Now the Test whereby these Doctrines are to be examin'd whether they are Popish that is Corrupt or no is this Whether or no they are Consonant to the Holy Scriptures This being the Common Principle and Touch-stone with all Protestants That nothing is to be Believ'd or Practic'd as Necessary to Salvation but what is contain'd in the Scripture and that nothing is to be Believ'd or Practic'd in any manner whatsoever that is contrariant to it A Principle this is deliver'd to us with the New Testament by the first Ages that Receiv'd and Transmitted it By this Test their Additional Traditionary Doctrines fall their Infallibility proves the greatest Falsity and their Illimited Jurisdiction is cut off the number of the Sacraments is retrench'd their Worship of the Host of Images Prayers to Saints for those in Purgatory or in an unknown Tongue are taken away whatever was impos'd as necessary to Salvation and had no warrant from God's Word or was otherwise propos'd and yet repugnant to it Such errors and corruptions you will find mark'd out in our Book of Articles and there distinctly condemn'd But tho' nothing is to be enjoyn'd as necessary to Salvation but what God himself the Author of our Salvation has declar'd yet we are not to think that no circumstance is to be us'd in his service that he has not distinctly commanded This being no Protestant Doctrine but the greatest Falsity For then no Action that is even of necessity to be perform'd could be perform'd had not God prescrib'd the Circumstance too Whereas on the contrary there cannot be a plainer Truth than this in the World that he who orders an Action to be perform'd and orders no Circumstance must be suppos'd therefore to leave the choice of the Circumstance to Discretion And it is as clear that in such Cases where in private we are left to our private choice there in publick we are to be directed by the publick Discretion the Election of the Superiours Provided always that in both Cases no circumstance be us'd that is contrary to the Intention of the Action and the Will of God It was therefore in the Power of our Spiritual Governours after they had retrench'd what they were constrain'd to take away all that was unlawfully believ'd or practis'd Idolatrous Superstitious or Erroneous to retain or reject as they should see cause all indifferent circumstantial things Which as they were not commanded by God so neither were they forbidden by him Innumerable Ceremonies therefore they cut off Some inseparable Companions of the falsities and superstitions they had abolish'd some impertinent to the main action others choking or incumbring it And some too they left so few that they rather expected to be ask'd why no more and those the freest from offence and the fittest to be retain'd For they consider'd that an innocent useful Ceremony which had either been laudably us'd before Popery came in or was not proper to the superstition to which it had been annexed when purg'd of that superstition was restor'd to its Innocence and Indifference and might be us'd as lawfully now as in its first state And therefore though they took the liberty to leave off several rites however in themselves innocent and in use before Popery began because they were of little Edification yet they kept up others which appear'd more necessary to the Church and which at the same time might shew both their Temper and Moderation towards the Modern Roman which they were forc't to leave and their respect to the Primitive which they desir'd to imitate And with such a view as this if you will look upon the particulars for which we are accus'd you will see how little of Popery that is Corruption or Superstition there is to be found The Particulars in which we chiefly differ are these Government by Bishops a Liturgy of some Ancient Prayers Kneeling at the Communion the Cross at Baptism the Surplice and the Observation of some Christian Fasts and Feasts 1. First then as to Government by Bishops had it been a thing purely indifferent we might have lawfully retain'd it and our Church might have taken leave to have chosen a sort of Aristocracy as others have been pleas'd with a kind of Democracy But take it as it is intimated in the writings of the Apostles and manifestly of their Institution we then had been oblig'd to reduce it if the Roman Government had been Presbyterian When we found it therefore there what reason had we to abolish it Shall we allow the Pope so much Power as to make that unlawful by his Use which the Apostles and their Disciples have recommended to us by theirs 2. For our Liturgy of some Ancient Prayers is it Popish as a set form or as a form of those Prayers A set form is so expedient and necessary to the Church if but for the sake of the People that they may be sure to have no other Petitions suggested than what are fit that their Devotion may not suffer by the weakness or indiscretion of the Minister that they may know beforehand how to prepare their thoughts what frame of Spirit is to be brought to Church that I may take leave to say had a set form been us'd
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND Free from the IMPUTATION OF POPERY LONDON Printed for W. Abington next the Wonder Tavern in Ludgate-Street 1683. THE Church of England Free from the Imputation OF POPERY THE Case between the Church of England and the Dissenters from it The Imputation requiring not much of Learning or Speculation it might well seem to be no difficult matter to see into the bottom of it and clear the difference And indeed the Duty of Obedience in things indifferent and the obligation of each Christian to preserve the Unity of the Church are so convincing and the Expedience of some Ceremonies in general and the Innocence of ours in particular so plain that the Reconciliation of our Brethren to us upon the view of our Reasons and the Answers we have given to their Scruples might be easily expected were there not some General Prejudice upon the minds of otherwise well-disposed men that like an interposing mist either diverts the light that would otherwise come in or lets it not appear in its own colour And this seems to be no other than the Opinion many men have been poffest with that our Worship is Popery and that to return to our Communion is to make a step towards Rome to joyn company with those that are going thither For this conceit once entertain'd a Minister of the Church of England is a disguised Emissary of the Romish Church and all the Arguments and Perswasions he offers for Conformity are receiv'd no better than if he was endeavouring to pervert to the Papal Superstition If we speak to them of the Common Prayer they think of the Mass and while we discourse to them of the fitness and lawfulness of kneeling at the Communion they imagine nothing else but the Worship of the Host and the Doctrine of Transubstantiation By whose Malice and Artifice soever this Prejudice has been rais'd and cherish'd they we must confess have gain'd their point by it They have stopt the Ears and blinded the Eyes of those that otherwise would know the voice of their Brethren The Aversion of the people deservedly raised against Popery they have had the skill to turn against the greatest and best Church of the Reformation And they have had the pleasure to put her under the most sensible affliction of lying under an imputation she so much abhors and hearing her self reckon'd amongst those she has so openly and so justly condemn'd None can be ignorant how far this Prejudice has prevail'd and with what success tho's indeed it is a conceit so unlikely and inconsistent that we might well expect no rational person should have entertain'd it And did not Popery let us know what gross absurdities may find credit with the ignorant it would be very hard to imagine how any belief should be given to such an impossibility Transubstantiation it self being as conceivable a thing as that a Protestant really of our Church should be a Papist too and any other contradiction as easily reconcil'd as that Neither can they fairly object Ignorance and an Implicite Belief to the Papists who know so little the constitution of the Protestant Religion as not to see it in our Church and who resign themselves to their Teachers so far as with the same credulity to call our Chruch Popish with which the Papists are taught to call it Heretical So Causeless I hope and Groundless will this mischievous Calumny appear to all those that shall consider and all those who will be willing to consider that do not wilfully chuse a mistake so scandalously unjust to a great Reform'd Church and so destructive and ruinous to the whole Reformation As therefore they would not be found ignorant of the Religion they profess as they would not continue so highly uncharitable to their Brethren nor be guilty of the Ruine of what they would be thought so much to contend for if there be in them any love of Truth any care of Justice and tenderness of Conscience any concern for the publick cause and our common Religion let them think of these things In the first place therefore False to begin with the unreasonableness in general of this Jealousie wherewith some men are prepossess'd Who would not stand amaz'd to hear that Church stil'd Popish the purity of whose Faith has been declar'd so expressly so illustriously attested and spoken of through all the World Know they or care they what they say that say this of a Church that has solemnly and positively disown'd all the Usurp'd Authority and condemn'd all the false Doctrines of the Roman See its Supremacy Infallibibility Transubstantiation Idolatry of the Angels and Saints Purgatory c. that has not done this in a corner or in the ear but proclaim'd it on the House top that like a City set upon a Hill has been as high and eminent on the one side as Rome it self with its seven boasted Hills has been on the other and has as remarkably oppos'd the Errors of that Church as ever they had been advanc'd What a new wonder must this be to the World to hear the Church constituted by Cranmer and Ridley accus'd of Popery that Faith and Worship suspected to be un-reform'd which was deliver'd down to us by those great Martyrs Is this the reward of a Church whose Sons have given so loud Testimony against the Roman in their Lives and by their Deaths who have still born the burden and heat of the day who have felt the fiercest rage of the Enemy and have return'd them the dead-liest wounds who have been foremost still in all encounters all along in the last age and in our own the famous and the Victorious Champions of the Protestant Cause If this Church and these Men after the declaration made in our Articles after repeated subscriptions and abrenuntiations after all this zealous opposition of Popery must be yet suspected of Popery as well on the other side may the Decrees of the Council of Trent be said to comply with the Reformation and the Pope himself be thought a Protestant One would imagine from the suspitions of these men that traduce is that there was some small inconsiderable difference betwixt the Papists and us something that might easily be reconcil'd not that we differ as much from them and in as substantial points as those very persons that complain For let all the Harmony of Protestant Confessions be consulted and see if we are not of the Harmony and our Articles do not conspire with theirs if ours are not as express and as directly opposite to the Roman Church if there can be any hopes of reconciling us sooner than of reconciling them For though there are of the Protestants that retain not some indifferent Ceremonies which we have and that we might well do it you will see presently yet it is to be suppos'd they would not stand out against the Roman Church on that account if the rest were well agreed If they could once allow their Transubstantiation Idolatry
not only in the superstitions of Rome but in the Charms of a Magician it ought however to be us'd in the service of God If the Papists if the Heathens used set forms because it was the most certain orderly and best considered way fittest for the Worship of a God must we therefore be forbid because they did well are we therefore to do worse And so for the Prayers themselves they are most of them elder than Popery and no more Popish than the Lords Prayer And if there are any of their composure yet if they are good and according to the will of God why may they not be offered to him by us as well as by them Nay may they not be more acceptable to God as they may be a testimony how willing we would be to keep the Unity of his Church and to joyn with all Christians were we permitted in all their Devotions If our Accusers would shew us any Popery in our Prayers they ought to shew us where we pray to any but God or for any thing for which we want his Warrant where we use any Intercession but our Saviours or what part of our English Language is an unknown Tongue 3. The Surplice is nothing but an Innocent Habit made of Linnen which is appointed to be the Dress of the Priest when he officiates It cannot but be acknowledg'd that it is a fit point of Decency to assign all that are in Orders some certain fashion of Garment in publick if but in the streets and when they appear abroad And if this be a Gown and the Papists wear one too is a Gown therefore Popish In like manner as the Ministers of the Church are directed to an Uniform Decency abroad so particularly and with the same innocent intention they are order'd to wear a distinct Robe when they perform the Publick Service in the Church That as the Common Devotion is administred by a Person set apart in a Place and at a Time set apart so it may be done too in a peculiar Garment And if the Papists do so too even so let them they do well If they had invented the Garment we need not have scrupled to follow this one Italian Fashion But they took it up from earlier Custom and it is no more Popery then the Ministers then the Citizens the Lawyers or the Judges Garments If they could say we placed any Sanctity in it attributed any Efficacy to it it would be something but as we use it it may as well be a piece of Popery to be at Church with a Band or with a Crevat 4. Kneeling at the Communion is far too from being Popish that is either a Corruption or Superstition The Papists indeed kneel to the Host as to their God but not so particularly then when they Receive it as when immediately after Consecration it is Elevated and shewn to them for that purpose by the Priest But we that Kneel when we Receive the Communion Kneel not TO IT but AT IT And what Posture can there be fitter for those that in the deepest sense of their own great Unworthiness and of Gods unexpressible Mercy are going to take the Seal of their Pardon and the Pledge of their Salvation What better Posture would they have for those that at that time are to be in the Highest Acts of Devotion the most Relenting Contrition and the greatest Thanksgiving If on that Occasion the Papists Kneel too and with a Wrong Intention why should any Fault of theirs hinder me from expressing my Duty What they do on No Reason why should not I do on the Best especially when we have so solemnly disclaimed them and so expresly declar'd our own As we are not to disuse the Holy Sacrament because the Papists have made it an Idol So may we continue our Reverence tho' they have paid it Adoration 5. The Cross in Baptism or rather after Baptism has in it as little of Popery too To Worship the Cross to Ascribe any Vertue to the Sign or to promise ones Self any Defence from it may be Popery but to Use it as a Sign only to signifie and declare can never come under that Notion nor be term'd Superstition no more than it would be to pronounce the Word Tho' the Cross was Foolishness to the Greeks a Stumbling-block to the Jew and has been since to the Papists too a Stumbling-block and an Idol yet are we still to Glory in it and to have the Memorial of it in a high and precious Esteem neither concern'd onone hand at the Gentiles Mockery nor on the other at the Roman Superstition The Primitive Christians it is certain Us'd this Sign in the Earliest Times very frequently with that on all Occasions they put themselves in mind of our Saviour's Suffering for them and with that they Arm'd themselves against their own So they Saluted their Brethren and so they Defied the Heathen It was the common Token and Mark of those that belong'd to Christ and was afterwards the Imperial Banner of the Great Constantine the first Christian Emperour and under that by the Grace of God were those Victories obtain'd that put an end to the Heathen Persecutions Our first Reformers therefore finding the Crols of Christ made the Subject of much Superstition among the Romanists its Image Worship'd and I do not know what Vertue imputed to the Signs and yet remembring withal the Devout Practice of the First and Best Ages as they abhorr'd to Countenance the one to they were tender too of Condemning the other and in that Intention after the Sacrament of Baptism is Administred the Priest is Ordered when he declares Audibly the Admission of the Child into Christ's Flock to declare Visibly too by that known blessed Sign what that Shame is the Christian ought to despise how he is openly always and as it were on his Forehead to bear the Profession of his Faith what that Banner is under which he is now Listed and in what Warfare he stands Engag'd Our Church applying that to its Members once at least in their Lives which the Primitive repeated so often and doing that on so proper an Occasion which heretofore had been done on all in hopes of being excus'd on the part of the Ancient Christian by its Care to avoid the Faulty Practise of the Papists and in hopes of being justified to its Members and Brethren by so Great and so Reverend an Authority And that it might be impossible for any Stander by how weak soever to fall into any Superstition himself or to suspect it in the Minister he never uses the Action Dumb but Proclaims the Edifying Signification and speaks out in plain words the wholsome meaning A Sign This Nobly and Generously taken up by the Elder Christians in the midst of their Blaspheming Heathen Neighbours own'd now with like Courage under the insulting Mahumetan A Lesson as necessary for that part of Christendom that confines now upon the Turk not to be look'd upon as Unreasonable