THE HONESTY OF THE PROTESTANT AND DISHONESTY OF THE Popish Divinity IN A LETTER TO A LADY Revolted to the Church of ROME By Anthony Horneck Preacher at the SAVOY The Second Edition London Printed for James Collins at his Shop by the Temple Church 1681. A LETTER Of a Protestant Gentleman to a Lady revolted to the Church of ROME Madam AND are you indeed got into the onely Catholick Church And are you sure the Men you have lately believed have not deceived you as you fancy we have done for tho you may be so Charitable as to think that we have not intentionally couzened you yet since you cannot suppose Us to be both in the Right you must necessarily conclude that we have at least ignorantly abused and imposed upon you and did you ever rightly consider what a truely Catholick Church does mean Men of Sense and Reason always believed that a Church which hold's the truely Catholick Faith is a true and sound Member of the Catholick Church and dares malice it self say that we do not hold the Apostles the Nicene and Athanasius's Creed The Church of ROME her self confesses that these Creed's contain the truely Catholick Faith And most certainly when the Nicene Councel was celebrated and in Athanasius's time that Church was counted a sound Member of the Catholick Church that held that Catholick Faith which is expressed in those Creeds and do we not hold that Faith do we not stand up at it to express our readiness to defend it and what have we done that we must not be counted a Catholick Church Is it because we will not receive things which the Church of Rome hath since added to the Catholick Faith Is it because we will not admit of the Doctrines which that Church was first induced to believe by the darkness and ignorance of the Ages it lived in and at last loath to part withal for fear they should be thought to have been so long in an Error Is it because we will not yield to things which we apprehend to be directly against the Word of God and destructive to that Catholick Faith the Christian World hath professed in all Ages Is it because we will not deceive the People of the Cup in the Blessed Sacrament which Christ intended as a mighty comfort to them Is it because we will not believe the Miracle of Transubstantiation against four of our Senses and Reason and Scripture to boot Is it because we will not suffer the Worship of God or that which is very like it to be given to Creatures because of the very appearance of the evil of Idollatry which we are commanded to shun as much as Idollatry it self Is it because we will not believe a Purgatory fire which cleanseth little but peoples Purses of their money Is it because we will not indulge the Pride and Arrogance of a Man at Rome who having first wheadled the Christian Princes out of their means and Power hath at last made that Power and Riches hereditary to his Successors under a pretence of a Legacy from Christ Is it because we will not believe contrary to the Apostles Rule that publick Prayers which are intended for the benefit are understanding of the Multitude must be said in a Tongue unknown to the People These must certainly be the reasons why we cannot now passe with the Church of ROME for members of the Catholick Church That these things were not in the Ancient Catholick Creeds I hope you are convinced for you have read them over and found none of all these Additions in them And now I beg of you in the name and by the mercy of that Jesus in whom you beleive to judge which is most likely to be the truly Catholick Church our's or their's our's that keeps to the truly antient Catholick Faith or their's that hath added things contrary to Scripture and reason and antiquity And dare you continue in a Church where your very Communion with it is an approbation of their Actions which are directly contrary to the command of Christ can there be any thing more contrary to it than their denying the Cup to the Laity And when you receive the Sacrament but in one kind contrary to Christs command do not you Sin and allow of the Sin of that Church you are in Is not your disobedience to Christs Command a Sin or can you imagine that you are more obliged to Obey men than Christ himself You confess you dare not live in any one Sin But how dare you live in this Sin You talk of the benefit of Confession and absolution when that very Priest to whom you confesse and who absolves you lives in that Sin you are guilty of and neither absolves himself nor you from it and you both continue in it as if the Blind had a mind to lead the Blind How dare you act thus against your Reason and Conscience Are you not affraid when you are going to confesse that God will laugh at your Mock Confession since you neither confesse that Sin of living contrary to Christs Command about the Cup nor are willing to part with it Tell me not here that you drink the blood of Christ in eating his Flesh if so to what purpose doth the Priest Consecrate Wine for himselfe if he drinks the blood of Christ in eating his Flesh But suppose the Bread were transubstantiated into the Flesh and Blood of Christ you know that the not giving the Cup of Blessing to those that come to the Lords Supper is contrary to Christs institution who distinctly consecrated the Cup and gave that to his Disciples who were representatives of all Believers as well as the Bread and peremptorily commanded Drink ye all of this and I hope you do not call eating the consecrated Wafer drinking the Wafer But let Us grant you your strange Doctrine that you do participate of the Blood of Christ in eating the Consecrated Wafer who gave your Church Authority to alter Christ's Institution How can Men dispense with an express Law of God Can they annull what God would have Established and continue to the Worlds end And can you consent to so great a Sacriledge Doth not some horrour seize on you when you seriously think that you approve of the Priests sinning against so notorious a Precept and which he that runs may read And pray Madam wherein have you bettered your self in going over to the Roman Church Is this your proficiency in Religion to forsake a Church where you felt the lively Oracles of Heaven coming warm upon your Soul and to joyn your self to a Church where you hear nothing but Latine Prayers and where the Priest if he be not a good man may as well Curse you as Bless you for any thing you understand of his Language or Devotion Is this Your proficiency in Religion to leave a Church where you were taught to Worship God in Spirit and in Truth and now to cleave to one where they teach your Prayers to
of it be considered there is nothing in nature can be more absurd or irrational and the Church of ROME had need oblige men to deny both their reason and senses to beleive a transubstantiation Here indeed a Faith is neeessary strong enough to remove mountaines and though never any Miracles were wrought but were wrought on purpose to convince our senses yet here we must believe one which neither sence nor reason can discover When Christ gave the Sacrament to his Disciples saith the Apostle 1 Corinth 11. 24 He brake the bread and said take eat this is my body which is broken for you It is a wonderful thing that the word is in the first Sentence this is my Body should have a litteral sense and in the very next sentence pronounced with the same breath cannot admit of a Litteral sense for the word is in the second sentence must necessarily stand for shall be because Christs Body when he gave the Bread was not yet broken If it will not admit of a Litteral Sense in the very next sentence because of the absurdity that would follow that Christ was Crucified before he was Crucified why should we understand it in the first sentence litterally when the absurdity is far greater Nay that the word is should not be capable of being understood litterally in the second essential part of the Sacrament This cup is the New Testament that here I say it should import and can import nothing else but signifies or is a sign of the new Testament and yet must not be understood so in the first part of the Sacrament is a thing we cannot comprehend And when the Apostle speaking of the Lords Supper or Eucharist 1 Cor. 10. 16. The Cup of blessing which we bless is it not the Communion of the Blood of Christ and the Bread which we break is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ Let the rigidest Papist that hath not quite banished his reason tell me how he will make sense of the word is here except he understand it figuratively most certainly it cannot be understood literally for the Cup is not that Communion but is a sign of it One would admire how men can be so obstinate in a thing as clear as the Sun and you might as well conclude that Christ is a Door made of boards and nailes because the Scripture sayth he is a Door and that he is a real Vine with green Leaves and Grapes about him because the Scripture saith he is a Vine But suppose the word is in these words This is my body must be understood literally how doth this make for transubstantiation Are the words is and is transubstantiated all one A thing may be said to be a thousand ways and yet without transubstantiation so that if by the word is you understand transubstantiation you your selves must go from the literal sense and assume a sense which is not expressed in that saying All the Jews are so well versed in the sense of Sacramental expressions that by the word is they understand nothing but signifies or represents and therefore it s a horrid shame that Christians meerly for fear of being laughed at for departing from an absurd opinion and losing the credit of a pretended infallibility should make themselves ignorant in that which the meanest Jew even before the Gospel understood without a Teacher for we may confidently beleive that no Jew before Christs time was so sottish to think when it 's said the flesh is the Passeover Exod. 12. 11. that the flesh or blood was really the Passeover but only a sign and representation of it or a token to them as Moses calls it ver 13. I will not here put you in mind of the strange absurdities that must follow from this Doctrine of Transubstantiation viz. that Christ when he did eat and drink in this Sacrament must have eaten his own flesh and that the Apostles must have eaten his body while he was at the Table with them and before it was Crucified c. I could tell you that this Doctrine is against the great Article of our Faith that Christ is ascended into Heaven and there sitteth at the Right Hand of GOD until the day of Judgment That it is against the Nature of a real Body to be in a thousand places at once And that from hence it must follow that the Body and Blood of Christ is capable of being devoured by Vermine capable of being poisoned and instead of giving life may be so order'd that it shall kill and murther witness Victor the third Pope of ROME and Henry the VIIth Emperour who were poisoned in the Sacrament not to mention a thousand more of such Monstrous consequences But since Madam you do insist so much upon that place of Scripture John 6. 53. Except you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in you I le but breifly shew you how ill a Logician you are either to believe that this is spoke of the Sacrament or that these words infer a Corporal manducation of Christs real Body and blood if they be meant of the Eucharist it will necessarily follow that Christ oblig'd the Jews and his hearers to come to the Sacrament at the time he spake these words for he speakes of their present eating and drinking Except ye eat c. But this he could not possibly do for the Sacrament of his body and blood was not instituted till at least a whole twelve months after nor did any of his disciples at that time dream of any such thing as his dying and being crucified nor doth Christ speak the least word of it in the whole Chapter which he must necessarily have done if he had intended the Sacrment by it which is all together founded in his crucifixion For this Sermon of Christ concerning eating and drinking his flesh and blood was delivered just about the Feast of the Passeover ver 4. After which feast as it is said John 7. 1. 2. the Jews celebrated the feast of Tabernacles and after this they kept another feast of the Passeover the last which Christ was at which was no less than a twelve month after John 11. 55. John 12. â—1 So that the Sacrament of Christs Body and blood not being instituted before the last Passover as all the Evangelists agree it was not possible that either the believing Jews or the Apostles could understand it of the Sacrament and I suppose Christ intended to be understood because there was no such thing as yet instituted Besides it is impossible that it can be understood of the Sacramental eating and drinking of the Body and Blood of Christ for without this eating and drinking there is no Salvation to be had as it is said Joh. 6. 53 54. and if it were to be understood of the Eucharist we must exclude all Christians from Salvation that are not in a capacity nor in a possibility of receiving it which I am sure your own Church will not
people run away from the Church of ROME as much as any thing indeed to consider the general termes GOD uses there Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven Image c. Thou shalt not only not Worship them but not so much as fall down before them would make a person that is not taken more with the Golden Legends than with Scripture afraid of prostrations before Images upon the account of devotion it is not all your plea that you do not terminate your worship on the Image but on the person represented by the Image that will excuse you at the great tribunal for not to mention that in the same manner the Heathen used to defend their grossest Idolatry and that you are forced to borrow their very Arguments your own Authors do confesse that the common people are apt to pay adoration and do pay adoration to the Images themselves and why will you lay such a Stumbling block before the people Much might be said of the adoration you pay to the consecrated Hoste you confess that the worship you give to it is the same worship you give to God What if that Wafer should not be turned into the Body and Blood of Christ what if it should remain as very a Wafer as it was before consecration what if it should not be God as you have all the demonstration that sense or reason can give you that it is not changed into another substance what monstrous Idolatry would this be Ay but we believe it to be GOD why Madam doth your belief that such a thing is God or Christ excuse you from Idolatry should you believe a Stone to be GOD and adore it might not you justly be charged with Idolatry you look upon the Heathens as Idolaters because they adore the Sun Ay but they believe that Sun to be God and how then according to your plea can they be Idolaters If there be such a Transubstantiation in the Sacrament as you fancy and an Adoration of the Hoste so very necessary what 's the reason the Apostles of our Lord that saw Christ before their eyes only could not believe that there were two Christs one sitting at the table the other reached out to them What 's the reason I say that they sate still and paid no Adoration to the Bread which according to you was Transubstantiated into Christ If they did not adore it what a presumption is it in you to give the highest Worship to the consecrated bread upon a pretence that that bread is God under the accidents of Bread But of this I have said enough before and could you but find time to read what our Authors have written upon this subject it could be nothing but hardness of heart and resolution to be blind could keep you in a Church that fills your head with Doctrines contrary to the nature of a Sacrament contrary to all that Moses and the Prophets nay and all sound Philosophers have said I will not say any thing here of your strange unbloody Sacrifice of the Mass a thing unheard of in the purer Ages of Christianity and which the Scripture is so great a stranger to that one would wonder how Mankind came to light upon the notion Nor of your Doctrine of Merits because I find your Priests have two strings to their Bow and tell the people one thing and their adversaries when they dispute with them another affirme and deny it as they see occasion and necessity requires Onlyone thing I must needs take notice of before I take my leave and that is the Gigantick Argument that some of your Gentlemen boast of and which strikes all Protestants dead at the first hearing of it If there be any thing true this must be true that there is a GOD if there be a GOD there must be a true Religion if there be a true Religion there must be a true revealed Religion if there be a true revealed Religon the Christian Religion must be that true revealed Religion and if the Christian Religion be true then the Religion of the Church of ROME must be true for the Argument that proves the Christian Religion to be true proves the Religion of the Church of ROME to be true which is this Either the Christian Religion was propagated without miracles or by miracles if by miracles then it must be divine if without miracles then it is the greatest miracle that a Religion so contrary to flesh and blood should prevail with sensual men The same say they is true of the Religion of the Church of ROME For if it be propagated by Miracles it must be divine if without Miracles it must be so much more because it prescribes things contrary to Flesh and blood as Penances Austerities c. And thousands of People do embrace it I will not make my self merry here in a thing so serious else I could have told you that I have hard of an Argument when I was at School somewhat like this He that drinks well sleeps well he that sleeps well commits no Sin He that commits no Sin will be saved therefore he that drinks well will be saved But I forbear And as to the aforesaid Argument whereby one of your Priests that hath printed it thinks to end all Controversies I will say no more but this First that as there is no Christian but must readily confess that the Miracles Christ and his Apostles wrought were a Confirmation of the Divinity of their Doctrine so there is no man of any brains can admit of the other part of the dilemma as Universally true that a Religion that goes against Flesh and blood if propagated without Miracles must therefore be necessarily Divine Secondly that so far as the Religion of the Church of ROME agrees with the truly Christian Religion so far it is undoubtedly true and it will naturally follow that if the Christian Religion be true the Religion of the Church of ROME so far as it agrees with the Christian Religion must needs be true And the same may be said of the Protestant Religion but that the Roman Religion must therefore be true where it goes away and differs from the truly Christian Religion revealed to us in the Gospel is a consequence which none but Children can approve of Thirdly with this Argument a man might prove the Divinity of almost any Religion in the World He that is no stranger to History must needs know what severities what austerities of life the Brachmans or the Heathen Friers in the Indies do both prescribe and practise and what Proselites they make and how full the Kingdom of the great Mogol is of them how some Wallow in ashes day and night how others go charged with heavy Iron Chaines all their dayes how others stand upright upon their Leggs for whole weekes together c. How in Japan and other places of the Indies the Priests perswade the people to fast themselves to death to go long Pilgrimages to give all they have to
the Priests to throw themselves down from steep rocks and break their necks and all to arrive the sooner to the happiness of another World c. I think there cannot be thingsmore contrary to flesh and blood than these and yet we see these Doctrines are propogated daily without any force of Armes only by Example and perswasion to be sure without any Miracle but I hope that doth not prove their Religion to be divine It 's a Dictate of the light of Nature that the way to Heaven is strait and therefore people that are religiously inclined are easily won over to those men whom they see exercise such severities upon themselves To Conclude Madam when all is done what the true Church is must be tryed by the Writings of the Evangelists and Apostles We see that even in the Apostles dayes corruptions crept into the Church Witness the Churches of Corinth Galatia and Colosse c. and the simplicity of the Gospel began even then to be perverted and mingled with idle and foolish opinions and practises and therefore we must needs think that after the Apostles decease the Church of Christ was subject to the same fate so that if there be any standard or touch stone left whereby the truth and sincerity of a Church can be tried and we must needs think so well of GODS providence that he would not leave his Church without some rule to rectifie their Errors by in case she should be infected with any it must be the Primitive institution of the Christian Religion and that Church as I said before which teaches things that approach nearest to that primitive institution must be the true Church And Madam do but once more for your Souls sake and for your Salvations sake compare the Doctrines and practises of the Church of ROME with the Doctrines and practises of the Gospel the Fountain of Christianity and try whether you can find there the Doctrines of Communion under one kind of publick prayers in a tongue unknown to the people of Purgatory of the Mass of Transubstantation of the Church of Rome's supremacy and infallibility of Worshipping and adoring the Virgin Mary and praying to Saints of Veneration of Relicks and Images of adoration of the Hoste c. Do not force any places of Scripture and try whether you can make sense of any of these Doctrines by Scripture View the Stream of the Gospel and search whether there be any thing like these Doctrines in it why will you make your reason a Slave to your Priests magisterial Sentences How can you answer it to GOD that you did not improve your reason more What have you your reason for but to judge what is agreeable to the Word of GOD and what is not Is not this acting like a Creature void of reason to be guided altogether by what a few blind guides say to you without enquiring at the Law and Testimony whether things are so as they say or no Wonderful stnpidity I stand amazed at it It is not all the seeming Holiness of those Priests you converse withal that make the Church you are in a true Church There is no Sect in the World but when they are under a Cloud necessity and the discouragment they are under and their desire to make Proselytes makes them outwardly Religious There may be and no doubt are Zealous and outwardly pious men in all Religions in the World but that doth not make every Religion true and divine An outward shew of Piety is the only way of propagating any Religion The Devil himself could not propagate Heathenisme and Idolatry but by the pretened Zeal and Piety and Abstinence and Mortification of Apollonius Tyaneus who yet by the confession of the whole Christian world was no better then a Wizard and Conjurer I make no application to any particular Priest in the Church of ROME I do not deny but men may be in great Errors and be very Zealous for their errours and seemingly very pious in their Zeal and when their Errors are not very wilful and destroy not the true Worship of GOD for ought I know they may find mercy in the day of our Lord. I grant there is a great shew of outward Piety in the Church of ROME very dazeling and very moving but the great danger lyes here that the Worship they give to GOD with one hand they strike and pull down with the other I know too well the practise of their Churches and a Heathen that should come into their Temples beyond Sea would verily believe that they Worship a Multiplicity of Gods as well as he whatever their pretentions may be to the contrary It is not what people say so much as what they do that GOD takes notice of and though you should Ten Thousand times protest that you Worship and adore GOD alone yet while GOD sees you adore the Virgin Mary with as great Zeal and reverence as you do him pray to her oftener then you do to him make as many bowes to her and other Saints as you do to him and other things of that nature how can he believe you Religion is a thing that will not bear jests and Hypocrisy GOD will not be put off with contradictions between speeches and Practises Madam I do from my heart Pitty you and as it might be the weakness of your Judgment that might lead you into this Erroneous Church so I beseech you for Christs sake to return to the Church you have rashly left where you cannot run a hazard if you will but follow the plain Doctrines of the Gospel besides which we preach nothing and enjoyn nothing as necessary to Salvation Should these entreaties and beseechings be alledged against you in the last day as things which you have contrary to reason refused and slighted how dreadful would your condition be I have discharged my Duty and given you warning I would not have your Guilt lye at my Door and therefore have let you know my real thoughts and Sentiments concerning your condition and the Church you are in The Great GOD of Heaven open your eyes that you may see and fear Time was when you would have believed us as much as you do now the Priests of the Church of ROME It 's strange that now they should speak nothing but truths and we nothing but falshood Do you think we do not understand the Scriptures and Fathers and Antiquity as well as they And can we all be so besotted with interest and passion that none of us should yied to the dictates of their Church if we could prevail with our sense and reason to believe that the things wherein they differ from us were agreeable to the Gospel sure we have a great many men among us that are great Lovers of Peace and would be glad that the whole Christian world were agreed and would these men stand out against that union if it could be done with a safe Conscience Certainly we have men as learned among us as ever
crept into that Church is not Material to determine it 's enough we found them there and it was GODS mercy not to give all the learned men of that age over to beleive a lye But it 's pretty to hear your Church-men talk of the novelty of our Religion when it is evident to all the understanding world that our first Reformers began no new Religion but desired only to keep to the Old All their endeavour was to keep to the Religion of the Bible and to cut off all superfluities and things prejudicial to Salvation and was there any hurt in that They saw that many things then in use in the Church of ROME were diametrally opposite to the Doctrines and practises of the Primitive Church and they justly thought it their duty to reduce the Church to the antient pattern the prouder Clergy of the Roman Church would not yield to it but would have all their new fangles and all their additions to the Antient Symbols received as articles of Faith though all perish'd and the coat of Christ were rent into a thousand pieces the more humble and more moderate of the Clergy saw the pride and insolence of the other and trembled and thus we and they parted we kept to the old Religion and your men chose the new and much good it may do you with it and pray Judge by this which is the Schismatick Church we or they we that would have healed Israel or they that would not be healed so that it is not our Religion that began so lately as 150 years ago about Luthers time but it 's yours that commenced then for you then embraced the new additions to the antient Catholick creeds with greater greadiness and were resolv'd to maintain that by bravado's which you were not able to defend with Arguments It s a very ordinary thing for people who once incline to the Communion of the Roman Church to demand of us before they go over whither a person may be saved in that Church The Charity and moderation our Divines usually express in their answer to this query I am sensible hath done our Church some harm whereas the Roman Priests being bold in their uncharitablâ—ness and damning all that are out of their communion make some weak people believe that they must be in the right because they are more daring in their asseverations We have far greater reason to be peremtory in excluding the members of the Church of ROME from Salvation than they have to exclude us for if that Church be guilty of Idolatry as I see your Divines find it a very hard task to answer the Arguments of our Learned men that prove it Those hat are guilty of this crime may soon be resolved by the Apostle what their lot is like to be in another world for No Idolater saith St. Paul meaning one that lives and dies so shall inherit the Kingdom of God 1 Cor. 6. 9 yet we are modest and whatever the principles of that Church may lead men to we hope there may be many in that Church that either while they live in the communion of that Church have an aversion from the dangerous and Idolatrous practices of it or sometimes before they die do heartily repent of the absurd and unreasonable Doctrines and worship they have too long asserted and complied with and of such we cannot but entertain a very favourable opinion and indeed I could name you some very famous men both in France and Italy who though they have continued in the Communion of that Church i. e. have not joyn'd themselves to any particular publick Protestant Church yet have not approv'd of such things in the Roman Church as manifestly obstruct mens Salvation and though like Nicodemus they have not dared openly to avow their dislike of such Errous for fear of danger yet in their hearts they have abhorr'd them and declared so much to their Friends and intimate acquaintance And though their seeming communion with a Church so Erroneous cannot be totally excused because it looks like a tacite approbation of her Errours yet since we read of Joseph that he was a Disciple of Christ secretly and notwithstanding his not confessing Christ publickly accepted of GOD we hope such mens continuing in the external communion of the Roman Church is not a willful Errour but rather a pardonable infirmity a timorousness which hath nothing of malice in it and therefore will not hinder them from Salvation We know not what mercy GOD may shew to many poor people in that Church who are invincibly Ignorant and never saw a Bible from whence they might rectify their mistakes and do live honestly in this present world but we must withal confess that the Servant who hath known his Masters will and hath not done it shall be beaten with many stripes and whether those that have been enlightened in our Church and have tasted the good Word of GOD and cannot but see our Agreement with the Gospel and after all this embrace the Errors of the Roman Church whether these will be excusable at the last day we justly doubt of To live in great Errours is to live in Sin but where that living in Errours is joyn'd with resistance of great light and knowledge there the Sin becomes all crimson which was but of a faint red before And if this be the Character of Christs Friends to do whatsoever he commands us then the inference is very easy that those cannot be Christ's Friends nor reign with him in Heaven that wilfully leave undone what they know he hath commanded and set up a new Worship which he hath no where commanded Madam had you never seen such a thing as the Scriptnre your going over to that Church might have deserved some apollogy but when you were surrounded with the beams of that light which shines in darkness as St. Peter calls the word with all those rayes about you to shut your eyes and desperately to venture upon a Church which enjoines men to live against some of Gods laws as against Exod. 20. 5 6. and Matth. 26. 27. c. and consequently obliges them to prepare for GODS displeasure this I confess is an action which as it favours of great willfulness so I question if you dye in 't without serious repentance whether the joys you hope for will ever fall to your share If your Church-men do mean honestly and do truly aim at the peace of Christendom and in good earnest design the Union of of men that profess the name of Christ why will not they part with those Doctrines that are so great an offence not only to all Protestants but to Jews and Mahometans too if that worshipping of Saints and Images be not necessary but only useful why will not they quit that Worship which by their own pretences is needless especially when they might do so much good by it if the Cup was formerly given to the Laity why will not they to effect the aforesaid Union restore it to
several controversies without reflecting on the importance of the points in question without studying a considerable time which Religion comes nearest to Scripture and which goes far thest off is such an Argument of impatience that you only seem to have yeilded to a dangerous temptation of the Devil If the Controversies between the Church of ROME and us are so intricate as you say and above your capacity to dive into them you have then run over to that Church in the dark and have as little reason to be satisfied with your proceedings as you believe you have with our way of Worship You plead that you have been sitting up whole nights and weeping and praying that God would discover to you which is the true way to Salvation and from that time forward you found inclinations to go over to that Church and is this a sufficient argument to justifie your forwardness when you had already begun to doubt whither our Church were a true Church or no because you found not that satisfaction in it your sickly desires wanted it was then an easie matter to give ear to confident People that magisterially and peremptorily assured you that you would find satisfaction in their Church and being fed with this hope your inclinations to that Church grew stronger every day as Our Mother Eve the hopes of being like GOD suggested to her by the Serpent did egg and spur her on to eat of the fatal Tree We do not forbid people to pray to GOD to lead or direct them into the right way though sometimes it may be a perfect tempting of GOD when People are in the right way to desire GOD to discover to to them by a Sign of their own choice whether they are in it or no. But then if we pray to GOD to direct us we must not neglect the means GOD hath appointed in order to our satisfaction but must compare Scripture with Scripture and Books with Books and Arguments with Arguments and search which Religion agrees most with the Doctrines and Practices of Christ and his Apostles and as the noble Berrheans did examine all the Doctrines obtruded to our belief by the Scripture and doing thus and continuing this search and these prayers together no doubt but GOD in his own good time will answer us and Direct us But to pray to GOD to direct Us and not to use the means in the use of which he hath promised to direct Us We do in a manner mock him or desire him to work a Miracle for Us or to vouchsafe Us some extroardinary Revelation when we have Moses and the Prophets and may hear them And I am confident had you joyned this way with your Prayer examined the Doctrines of the Church of ROME and compared them with the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ seen whether there be any thing like it in the Bible and searched whether Christ and his Apostles ever taught such Doctrines and done all this not slightly but seriously and solidly It s impossible you could ever have turned Papist for if our Gospel be true that Religion can never be true for there is nothing in the World can run more counter to the Gospel than the Doctrines of that Church wherein we differ from them and they had need put the Bible among prohibited Books for should the people have Liberty freely to peruse it the Church of ROME would grow very thin and despicable I am sensible your Priests find fault with our Translation of the Bible and Cry out that there are great defects in it but when they talk so they had need talk to Women not to men of Learning and that understand Greek and Hebrew the Languages in which the Word was Originally written The Honesty of our Translators appears sufficiently from hence because if any sentence in the Bible be capable of a double sense they express the one in the Text and the other in the Margin and where they do but in the least vary from the Original they either discover it by the Italick Character or give you notice of it in the Margin then which there can be nothing more honest And let any Papist of you all shew Us wherein any thing in our Bibles is ill Translated out of malice or design or expressed in words which the Original will not bear If We examine Translations by the Original then sure I am there is few translations go further from it than the Vulgar Latine or the Rhemist Testament as were an easie matter to prove if I intended more than a Letter You are much taken with their Mortifications and Pennances which you say we have not in our Church But it 's a signe Madam you did not rightly understand our Religion We are so far from condemning Mortification and severity of life that we do commend it provided it be in order to subdue the body of Sin and to raise our selves to a greater pitch of Vertue Provided these severities be separated from all opinion of merit and from an opinion of their being satisfactory and expiatory and used only as helps to work in us a perfect detestation of Sin And I will assure you there are more in the Church of England that use severities in this humble holy way than you are aware of We indeed do not ordinarily inflict them on all persons because we know not their constitution nor what their nature will bear nor have we any command for it in the word of GOD but these things we leave to every mans discretion Urging that where Sins require stronger remedies there men ought to make use of them and if their corruptions will not be gone by reasonings and Arguments that there they must inflict mulcts and penalties on themselves to drive the Unclean Spirit out Though I must say still that Religious severities and austerities are not certain signs of a true Religion for Heathens do use them as much as Christians nay more than Christians Witness the Brahmanes in the Indies and the religious Pagans dispersed through all the Eastern parts and if you conclude that therefore the Church of ROME must be in the right because they inflict great pennances and severities and make daily use of them I am afraid you only forbear turning Turk or Heathen because you never saw their far greater severities in Religion than the Church of ROME can boast of But still the Protestant Church hath not the real Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Sacrament which the Church of ROME hath And are you sure the Church of ROME hath it I am perswaded you did never tast it nor see it nor feel it nor Smell it and how do you know it what because the Priests of that Church do tell you so No say you It is because Christ saith in express termes this is my Body And here I confess I stand amazed that men with learning and reason about them can sink into an opinion so contradictory that if all the consequences
the Laity If the substance of the Sacrament and the comfort arising from it may remaine entire without obliging men to beleive a Transubstantiation or Adoration of the consecrated Wafer why will not they for peace sake lay aside such Doctrines which neither themselves nor any creature understands If Heaven and Hell are sufficient motives to a Holy life why will not they for quietness sake renounce their Doctrine of purgatory which by their own confession hath no ground in Scripture Madam I have that charitable opinion of you that if you had but taken a view of the Worship of the Church of ROME as it is practic'd beyond Sea in places where there is no fear of contradiction from any Hereticks where they may freely and securely act according to their principles had you seen the mode of Worshipping the Virgin Mary at ROME or in Spain or Italy the sight of it would have certainly discourag'd you from embracing that Religion which now you seem to be mainly delighted with for indeed the Religion of the Church of ROME at this time if a man were to guess from that which hath the greatest outward Veneration is little else then a Worship of the Virgin Mary The very beggers beyond-Sea in begging of alms beg more for the Virgin Marie's sake then for Christ's sake This Madam I know to be true who am no stranger to forreign parts and I will assure you that in those Cities or Towns where both Papists and Protestants have the free exercise of their Religion you shall live Twenty years in a Town before you hear that any Protestant is turned Papist so few charms are there in the Exercise of their Religion beyond Sea but you shall not be above a year or two in such a Town before you hear that several Papists are turn'd Protestants such a force hath truth The Religion of the Church of ROME as it is practis'd in England lookes harmless Now and then upon some great festival they shew you a Picture of the Virgin Mary or of some other Saint and the honest Priest qualifies every Doctrine makes the Errours soft and plausible and they dare not living in a Protestant Country serve the Host of Heaven I mean Saints and Angels with all their appertenances as they do in places where there are no Protestants to watch them Here their Religion seems to be without a sting and is clad in the fleece of Sheep but if you could but make a Voyage into Spain or Italy I doubt not but you would see the Venome of it and avoid it and the only way not to be of the Church of ROME would be to go to ROME provided you do not go without your Bible In good truth that Church hath turn'd Christianity into a meer outward pomp and splendor which ravishes the eye but can never content a mans reason The glistering Gold in their Temples the curious Images of Saints and Angels the numerons and Stately Altars the mighty Silver Statues the rich and glorious vestments you see up and down in their Churches strike the senses into a kind of ectasie and it must be sense only for a considerate mind that searches the inside of things as well as the outside cannot be so easily gull'd and deceiv'd and this outward pomp they make not the least sign of the truth of their Church not remembring that if this be a good signe the Idolatrous people in Japan and China whose Temples are infinitely more shining and glorious will have a better Title to the true Church than they I must confess that in policy and worldly craft and cunning the Church of ROME exceeds ours for they have not only turn'd the Spiritual Worship of the Gospel into a sensual service into outward Religious formalities a thing strangely pleasing to flesh and blood but they have shooes that will fit all sorts of feet great and small and have remedies for all distempers and you may go to Heaven in that Church either through the straight way or through the broad which you please they can fit the Melancholly person and the Jovial they have Monasteries and Nunneries and severities to content the one and know how to allow greater liberty to the other they can either send a man to happiness through a tedious task of mortification if he likes that method best or help him thither by a quicker dispatch by confession attrition and absolution upon a death bed when the man can hold Sin and the world no longer Live or die you cannot do amiss in that Church for living you may be forgiven and after Death you may be pray'd out of Purgatory sooner or later according as you will spend mony upon Masses for gold doth strangely quicken these supplications Such a Church Madam you have espoused and divorced your self from one that prefers the Wisdom of GOD and of the Gospel before the Wisdom of the flesh and glories in dealing plainly and honestly with all men that keeps close to the Scriptures and yet is not against those Pious customes of antiquity which are not contradictory to the Scriptures that generously maintains the prerogative of GOD and gives no other Honour to Saints and Angels but what may consist with the glory of her Creator that hath made no new Articles of Faith but keeps to the old and thinks it Rebellion against GOD to enjoyn things as necessary to Salvation which GOD never made so that urges the strictest life and encourages nothing but what may promote true piety and devotion that hath no more Ceremonies but what are decent and labours to free Religion at once from slovenliness and superstition that secures the Right of Soveraign Princes and Teaches her Children to live like good subjects and good Christians and though it be her misfortune that too many of her pretended members live like Enemies of Christianity yet that 's not long of her Doctrines and Constitutions but long of the stubborness of men who will not be reform'd by her Precepts As no man blames Christ or his Apostles because Judas was a Hypocrite or because Simon Magus profess'd their Religion so they betray great Ignorance and simplicity that for the Monstrous impieties of many that profess themselves members of our Assemblies despise and slight our Church which in her principles is most averse from all such practices a Church which as for mine own particular I have deliberately and premeditately embraced and chosen so I hope I shall never be so much forsaken of GOD or of my reason as to quit it to become a Papist I have not been altogether a careless observer of the several Christian Churches dispers'd through the world Desire of mine own Salvation hath made me take particular notice what corruption there is in them and what affinity they have with the Primitive Professors of Christianity And I must freely confess upon a serious Examination of the Scripture and the Fathers of the three first Centuries after Christ that from my heart I think there is no Church this day in all the Christian world be it Eastern or Western that in her principles and constitutions bears so much of the Image of the truly Primitive Church or comes so near it as the Church of England a Church which as your fore-Fathers had courage to burn for so I verily beleive that he understands not her Innocent designes and excellent rules that dares not dy a Martyr in her cause Once more your Faithful Friend to serve You. N. N. FINIS Some Books Printed for and Sold by James Collins at his Shop in the Temple passage in Essex street without Temple-bar THe Art of War by the most Honorable George Late Duke of Albemarle Fol. Seven Sermons Preached at White-Hall by Seth Lord Bishop of Sarum His Sermon at the Funeral of George Duke of Albemarle His Sermon Entituled Jorams case before the Peers the 30 of January Quarto An Exact table to Sir John Davis Reports fol. The Voice of the light unto the people called Quakers in relation to Tithes 8. A Discourse of Truth by the Late Reverend Dr. Rust Bishop of Dromore in Ireland together with a discourse of the way to Happiness by Jos. Glanvil Chaplain in ordinary to the King Twelves A Sermon Preached at the Funeral of Mrs. Dorothy St. John by Anthony Horneck Preacher at the Savoy A private Conference twixt a poor country Vicar and a rich Alderman by Dr. Pettis Pia Philosophia or the Religious Tendency of Experimental Philosophy by Joseph Glanvil Dr. Parkers answer to Mr. Andrew Marvels book called the Rehearsel Transpros'd Bishop Bramhals confutation of Mr. Baxters Grotian Religion with Dr. Parkers preface annexed 80. Bishop Sandersons seven Cases of Conscience in Oct. Dr. Fords Blessedness of being bountifull 8 The Capucin Fryer exactly described in all his wayes and practices 80. ADVERTISEMENT There is A Library in the hands of the said James Collins to be Sold consisting cheifly of History Philosophy and Politicks c. in divers Languages and a Set of Magick formerly the books of the famous Riolanus in divers Languages FINIS ERRATA Pag 35. lin 18. read eighth's p. 38. l. 4. r. Bishops p. 65. l. 7 r. or to conclude that p. 66. l. 9. r. Sacrament p. 69. l. 19. r. and that they are p. 158. l. 18. r. that are p. 163. l. 17. r. Scripture p. 170. l. 9. r. numerous Other litteral faults and mistoppings the Reader is desired to correct at his leisure