interrupted innovated divided destroyed while the reverence of primitive customes and examples is so slighted abated by Popish innovators while the cords of Christian harmony and Church-policy are so loosened and ravelled on every side while the just honour and encouragements of learning and learned men are so much damped and exhausted while the Ecclesiastick Glory of his Nation which was the chiefest in being and owning it self as a true and Reformed Church of Christ is so much eclipsed to the great reproach of this present age and the infinite hazard of posterity which will hardly ever recover the honour order beauty and unity of Christian and Reformed Religion formerly enjoyed in this Church and Nation when once the Jewels of it the learned ordained orderly and authoritative Ministers of the Gospel with all their Ministry and Ministrations Come to be either trampled under feet by Schismatical fury or invaded and usurped by vulgar insolency which in time will rake them all up and bury them in the dunghil of Romish superstitions and Papal usurpations From the Deformities Divisions and Degenerations of Religion also the Falsifications Usurpations and Devastations which of later years have been made by the violent sort of Anabaptists and other furious Sectaries against the Unity and Authority the Sanctity and Majesty of the Church of England destroying its Primitive Order and Apostolick Government its Catholick Succession its holy Ordination its happy and most successful Ministry to the great neglect and contempt of all holy ministrations and duties of Religion I cannot but further intimate to your piety and prudence O my honoured Countrey-men that which is most notorious and no lesse dangerous both in religious and civil respects namely the great Advantagâ—s Applauses and Increases which the Roman or Papal party daily gain against the Reformed Religion as it was once wisely honourably and happily established professed and maintained here in England which is now looked upon by the more subtil superstitious and malicious sort of Papists as deformed divided dissolved desolated so conclamat for dead that they fail not with scorn to boast that in England we have now no Church no Pastors no Bishops no Presbyters no true Ministry no holy Ministrations no Order no Vnity no Authority no Reverence as to things Divine or Ecclesiastick Insomuch that we must in this sad posture not onely despair of ever getting ground against the Romanists by converting any of them from the errours of their way to the true Reformed Religion but we must daily expect to lose ground to the Popish party and their Proselytes there being no banks or piles now sufficient to keep the Sea of Rome from over-flowing or undermining us in order to advance their restless interests which have been and still are mightily promoted not by the reverend Bishops and the other Episcopal Clergy who are men of Learning Piety Prudence and Martyrlike constancy as some men with more Heat than Wit more Spite than Truth have in their mechanick and vulgar Oratory of late miserably and falsly declaimed but by those who have most done the Popes work while they have seemed most furiously to fly in the Popes face as popularly zealous against Popery and yet at the same time by a strange giddiness headiness and madness they have risen up against that Mother-Church which bare them and those Fathers in it who heretofore mightily defended them and theirs from the talons and gripes of that Roman Eagle and this not with childish scufflings or light skirmishings to which manner of sight the illiterate weakness and rudeness of our new Masters and Champions hath reduced those Controversies but with such a Panoply or compleat Armour of proof such sharp Weapons such ponderous Engines such rare dexterity of well-man-aged Powers raised from all Learning both Divine and Humane that the high places and defences of Rome were not able to stand before them heretofore when they were battered by our Jewels our Lakes our Davenants our Whites our Halls our Mortons our Andrews and the late invincible Vsher who deserved to be Primate not only of Ireland but of all the Protestant Forces in the world All these were Bishops Worthies of the first three seconded in their ranks by able and orderly Presbyters as Whitakers Perkins Reynolds Whites Crakenthorps Sutcliffs and innumerable others while our Regiments were orderly our Marchings comely and our Forces both united and encouraged Whereas now there is no doubt but the merciless mowing down and scattering of the Clergy of England like Hay with the withering and decay of Government Regularity and Order in this Church these have infinitely contributed to the Papal harvest and Romish agitations the gleamings of whose Emissaries will soon amount to more than the sheaves of any the most zealous and reformed Ministers in England By the Papal interest and advantages I do not mean the Roman Clergies preaching or propagting those truths of Christians Doctrine and Dâ—ties which for the main they profess in common with us and all Christian Churches if any of them be thus piously industrious I neither quarrel at them nor envy their successes but rather I should rejoyce in them with Saint Paul because however Christ crucified is preached by some whom common people will either more reverence or sooner believe than they generally do the decayed despised and divided Ministers of England who seem to have many of them so small abilities and carrying so little shew or pretence of any good authority for their work Ministerial nor can they be potent or esteemed abroad who are so impotent and disesteemed at home But I mean that Papal Monarchy or Ecclesiastical Tyranny by which the Church of rather the Court of Rome by such sinister Arts and unjust Policies as were shamefully used and discovered in the Tridentine conventicle seeks to usurp and continue an imperial power over all Churches and Bishops as if there had been but one Apostle or one Apostolick Church planted in the world also to corrupt and abuse that ancient Purity Simplicity and Liberty of Religion which was preserved among Primitive Churches and their co-ordinate Bishops Further without fear of God or reverence of man opposing some Divine Truths and undoubted institutions of Christ also imposing such erroneous Doctrines and superstitious Opinions upon all Christians to be believed and accordingly practised as become not the severity and sanctity of true Religion adding to that holy foundation which was indeed first laid by the great Apostles and continued happily for many hundred years by the successive Bishops of Rome those after-superstructures not of ceremonies onely which are tolerable many of them like feathers making but little weight in Religion but of corrupt Doctrines and superstitious Duties as seem at best impertinent to true Piety but some of them are erroneous sâ—crilegious pernicious In somethings they are boldly adding to or detracting from the Doctrine and Institutions of our blessed Lord Jesuâ— Christ in other things they impose for sacred and necessary
onely dashing and breaking upon each other but all of them battering the Honour and Stability of the Church of England as the great rampart or bank which stands in the way of the See of Rome mightily opposing and hindering heretofore both fanatick Confusions Papal Usurpations and Romish Superstions whose advantages now are evidently prepared and carried on by those that under the name of Reformation will most effectually at last overthrow it For after these petty spirits who have been and are the great Dividers Despisers and Destroyers of the reformed Church of England have a few years longer played their mad pranks in this sometime so flourishing and fruitful vineyard of the Lord pulling up the hedge of Ecclesiastical Canons and Civil Sanctions throwing down the wall of Ancient Discipline and Catholick Government breaking in pieces the wine-press of holy Ordination and Ministerial Authority and Succession pulling up both root and branch of holy Plants and regular Planters what I beseech you can hinder these subtle Foxes and wild Boars of Romish Power and Policy to enter in and not onely secretly but openly as occasion shall serve to destroy all the remaining stock of the true Protestants and Professors of the Reformed Religion who at first soberly protesting against Popish Errours and Deformities afterwards praying in vain for a joynt and just Reformation did at last reform themselves after the rule of God's Word interpreted by the Catholick Practise of purest Antiquity What without a miracle can hinder the Papal prevalency in England when once sound Doctrine is shaken corrupted despised when Scriptures are wrested by every private interpreter when the ancient Creeds and Symbols the Lords Prayers and Ten Comandments all wholsome forms of sound Doctrine and Devotion the Articles and Liturgy of such a Church together with the first famous Councils all are slighted vilified despited and abhorred by such Englishmen as pretend to be great Reformers when neither pristine Respect nor Support Credit nor Countenance Maintenance nor Reverence shall be left either to the Reformed Religion or the Ministry of it without which they will heardly be carried on beyond the fate of Pharaohs Chariots when their wheeles were taken off which is to be overwhelmed and drowned in the Romish red Sea which will certainly overflow all when once England is become not onely a dunghill and Tophet of Heretical filth and Schismatical fire but an Aceldama or field of blood by mutual Animosities and civil Dissentions arising from the variations and confusions of Religions All which as the Roman Eagle now fore-sees and so follows the camp of Sectaries as Vultures and Birds of prey are wont to do Armies so no man not blinded with private passions and present interest is so simple as not to know that it will in time terribly seize upon the blind dying or dead carkase of this Church and Nation whose expiration will be very visible when the Purity Order and Unity of Religion the Respect Support and Authority of the Ministry is vanished and banished out of England by the neglect of some the Malice Madnesse and Ingratitude of others your most unhappy Countrey-men Then shall the Israel of England return to the Egypt of Rome then shall the beauty of our Sion be captive to the bondage of Babylon's either Superstition or Persecution from both which I beseech God to deliver us As an Omen of the future fate how many person of fair Estates others of good parts and hopefull Learning are already shrewdly warped and inclined to the Church of Rome and either actually reconciled or in a great readiness to embrace that Communion which excommunicates all Greek and Latine Churches Eastern Western and African Christians which will not submit to its Dominion and Superstition chiefly moved thereto because they know not what to make of or expect from the Religion and Reformation of the Church of England which they see so many zealous to reproach and ruine so few concerned to relieve restore or pity As for the return of you my noble Countrey-men and your Posterity to the Roman Subjection and Superstition I doubt not but many of you most of you all of you that are persons of judicious and conscientious Piety do heartily deprecate it and would seriously avoid it to the best of your skill and power as indeed you have great cause both in Prudence and Conscience in Piety and Policy yet I believe none of you can flatter your selves that the next Century shall defend the Reformed Religion in England from Romish Pretensions Perswasions and Prevalencies as the last hath done while the Dignity Order and Authority of the Ministry the Government of excellent Bishops the Majesty and Unity of this Reformed Church and its Religion were all maintained by the unanimous vote consent and Power of all Estates Nay the Dilemma and distressed choice of Religion is now reduced to this that many peaceable and well-minded Christians having been so long harressed bitten and worried with novell Factions and pretended Reformations would rather chuse that there Posterity if they may but have the excuse of ignorance in the main controversies to plead for Gods mercy in their joyning to that Communion which hath so strong a relish of Egyptian Leeks and Onions of Idolatry and Superstition besides unchristian Arrogancy and intolerable Ambition that their Posterity I say shall return to the Roman party which hath something among them setled orderly and uniform becoming Religion than to have them ever turning and tortured upon Ixion's wheel catching in vain at fanciful Reformations as Tantalus at the deceitful waters rolling with infinite pains and hazard the Reformed Religion like Sisyphus his Stone sometimes asserting it by Law and Power otherwhile exposing it to popular Liberty and Looseness than to have them tossed to and fro with every wind of Doctrine with the Faedities Blasphemies Animosities Anarchies Dangers and confusions attending fanatick Fancies and quotidian Reformations which like botches or boiles from surfeited and unwholsome bodies do daily break out among those Christians who have made no rule of Religion but their own humours and no bounds of their Reformations but their own Interests the first makes them ridiculous the second pernicious to all sober Christians Whereas the Roman Church however tainted with rank Errours and dangerous Corruptions in Doctrine and Manners which forbid us under our present convictions to have in those things any visible sacred communion with them though we have a great charity and pity for them Charity in what they still retain good Pity in what they have erred from the Rule and Example of Christ and his Catholick Church yet it cannot be denied without a brutish blindness and injurious slander which onely serves to gratifie the gross Antipathies of the gaping vulgar that the Church of Rome among its Tares and Cockle its Weeds and Thornes hath many wholsome Herbs and holy Plants growing much more of Reason and Religion of good Learning and sober Industry of Order and Polity of Morality and Constancy of Christian Candor and Civility of common Honesty and Humanity becoming grave men and Christians by which to invite after-Ages and your Posterity to adhere to it and them rather than to be everlastingly exposed to the profane bablings endless janglings miserable manglings childing confusions Atheistical indifferencies and sacrilegious furies of some later spirits which are equally greedy and giddy making both a play and a prey of Religion who have nothing in them comparable to the Papal party to deserve your or your Posteritie's admiration or imitation but rather their greatest caution and prevention For you will find what not I onely but sad experience of others may tell you that the sythes and pitch-forks of these petty Sects and Plebeian Factions will be as sharp and heavy as the Papists Swords and Faggots heretofore were both to your religious and civil Happiness Rigid be not for Episcopacy Nor too much earnest for Presbytery No Faction espouse what e're it be For by that means may enter POPERY Mr. Hooker WIth our contentions their irreligious humor also is much strengthened nothing pleaseth them better than these manifold oppositions about the matter of Religion as well for that they have the more opportunity to learn on one side how the other may be oppugned and so weaken the credit of all unto themselves as also because by their hot pursuit of lower Controversies amongst men professing Religion and agreeing in the principal foundations thereof time will cause Alteration to grow For which purpose when they see occasion they stick not sometimes in other mens persons yea sometimes without any vizard at all directly to try what the most religious are able to say in defence of the highest points whereupon all Religion dependteh Now for the most part it so falleth out touching things that are generally received that although in themselves they be most certain yet because men presume them granted of all we are hardly able to bring such proof of their certainty as may satisfie gainsayers when suddenly and besides expectation they require the same at our hands which unpreparation and unreadiness when they find in us they turn it to the soothing up of themselves in that accursed fancy whereby they would fain believe that the hearty devotion of such as indeed fear God is nothing else but a kind of harm less Error bred and confirmed in them by the flight of wiser men Dr. Sutcliffe HAud vanus timor c. It s no vain fear which some wise men have entertained upon their experience of affairs that these unhappy Questions about indifferent things managed by the subtile Jesuites thereby to disturb the peace and settlement of our Church until at last they enjoy their long expected opportunity to set up themselves and restore the exploded Tyranny and Idolatry of the Church of Rome FINIS
such opinions and customes which are but the rust and drosse the disease and deformity of Christian Religion contracted in the long ignorance darknesse and almost barbarity of times which God winked at but now they appear highly and justly scandalous yea intolerable to more judicious and lesse credulous Christians who are very sensible not onely of that offence which many Papal Injunctions and Observations give to themselves as Christians but also to the very Heathens to Jews and to Mahometans who cannot teconcile in any Reason or Religion the Idolatrous use of Images and Hoasts among Papists to which they must submit if they will be in communion with them or converted to be Christians nor yet those Tridentine Terrours and Anathemas of eternal damnation which are thundered by them against all those who will not against God's expresse Words own as Truth and submit to as necessary those opinions and practices among Papists which seem either impious or impertinent as to true Faith and a good Conscience Against all which burthens too heavy for any wise and generous Christians to bear when once duly informed of the weight and danger of them and duly reformed from them as the great Wisdom Piety and Order of the Church of England in its sacred Ministry and holy Ministratious was heretofore the greatest barre and bulwark in all the Christian world so the disadvantge of the Reformed Religion are now so palpable and the danger of the people of this Nation as so obvious in their returning to that Egypt and Babylon again which is not the Church of Rome but its disease and opression that I know not in ordinary providence any means can be used or is left to stop the daily prevalencies of Popery and the great Apostasie of England to the Romish superstition and subjection in after-times unlesse God stir up such Wisdome Zeal and Care in those that have honest hearts joyned with publick power and influence not so much to fleece and depress Popish Recusants by pecuniary exactions which is to set Religion to sale and to make merchandize of mens errours rather than fairly to perswade and win them by the proper and perswasive engines of true Religion but rather duly to restore and speedily assert the Honour Order Succession Unity Authority and Majesty of this Reformed Church and its Catholick Ministry from which when the Papists see our selves to be such profound Revolters with what face can we expect they should ever come into our Reformation which they now behold with joyful and disdainful eyes so mangled so deformed so massacred by our owns hands How can we with Justice Honor or Humanity inflict severe penalties upon Papists as refusing to conform to our Church and Religion when they protest with so much truth to our faces they cannot see any Church any Religion among us as uniform publick authentick constant What they say formerly had the goodliest figure and fairest presence of a Christian Church and the best Reformed of any is now deformed ruined demolished nothing but scattered rafters and pieces of that ship-wrackt vessel now appear floating up and down in a restless and foaming sea of faction opposition and confusion between Bishops Ministers and People some are Episcopal others Presbyterian a third sort Independant all are disparate or opposite in Discipline some are Heterodox in Doctrine the Anabaptists rise against all and the Quakers so are above all To which of all these with many other Sects shall an honest-hearted Papist apply himself to be safe and setled in Religion If to the poor and depressed remains of Bishops and the Episcopal Clergie who yet adhere to the Church England alas they are weak and exhausted contemned by many pitied some but asserted by few or none according to their true merit in former ages or their present Worth Courage Constancy and Patience in this If the Romanists go to the Presbyterian party which like small shoots spring out so thick in England upon the cutting down of Episcopacy to which they all formerly submitted these besides their Levity Parity and In constancy as to their former Stations Opinions and Oaths seem so unseasonably insolent and magisterially domineering before they had got a full and just dominion that all sober men think them rather popular plebeian and impertinent in their heats transport and passions than so modest wise and grave as becomes those who will undertake to wrest Government out of the hands of their superiours and betters every way and to impose a novelty of untried and undesired Discipline upon such a great and stout Nation as England is which disdaining the insolency of Popes and offended at the indiscretion of some Bishops will hardly ever bear the pertnesse of petty Presbyters who cannot want Vanity Impudence and Arrogancy when they fancy themselves in a supremacy of Power above people Parliaments and Princes for they affect no lesse as Christ's due and theirs too If the tossed Romanists run to the spruce and self-conceited Independents for shelter because these fine new Masters seem to have patents for Christian Liberty and urge a Magna Charta from Christ to be accountable to none in matters of Religion but their own little Congregation Church or Body in which as in an Ecclesiastick Corporation or free Borough of Religion they may hang and draw exercise high and low Justice upon mens souls as they list in their little Conventicles yet here the poor Papist finds so much of a rude and exotick novelty such a grosse shew of Schisme such variety such an inconsistency such a plebeian petulancy such pitiful and ridiculous affections and arrogating of Church-power in some of the plebs and such contempt of it in others that he cannot think it is other than some pieces of Josephs bloody coat or some torn limbs of his body Compared to what Splendour Order Strength Beauty Unity Decency and Majesty in Doctrine and Discipline in Faith and holy Duties was formerly to be observed even to the envy and admiration of sober Papists in the Church of England how much more in the Antient and Catholick Churches grand combinations from which these petty fractions and crumblings of Christians seem most abhorrent and dissonant This goodly Cedar then of the Church of England being thus broken and hewn down and nothing like it or comparable to it planted in its room but such Shrubs and Mushromes as grow of themselves out of the rankness of the earth vulgar humours and passions under whose shade any Egyptian Vermine Frogs or unclean Birds may hide themselves no wonder if the Papists triumph in their sufferings and constancies if they despise all our Presbyterian Independent Anabaptistick and fanatick Novelties if they rejoyce in that vengeance which they conclude God hath made upon our Schismes Errours Obstinacies and Persecutions against them by our mutual confusions Hence must daily and necessarily follow secret inclinations and accessions to the Roman party by all those who are not well grounded in the Reformed Religion