very Antichrists Oh that none of your Souls may come into their secret or have fellowship with them but yet this is not all in which they declare plainly that they erre grosly from the Faith and Truth of Christ and the true way of his Worship Behold it still in other particulars For 4. Whereas the Lord Jesus in the Night in which he was betrayed instituted his Holy Supper to be Celebrated in commemoration and remembrance of him In which He gave to his Disciples and ordered his Apostles to do the like to the Churches afterwards a Commemoration of his death and passion in two distinct Elements of bread and wine the one before and the other after and bad them all expresly drink of the cup and the Apostles plainly tell us that they delivered to the Churches that which they also received of Christ Jesus and so that they both gave the bread to be eaten and the cup to be drunk by them Witness the writings of the Apostle Paul in 1 Cor. 10.15 16. Where not directing them to some eternal infallible Judge Determiner of their understanddings he bids them as wise men to judge of his sayings and mentions both the cup of blessing which they blessed calling it the communion or fellowship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the blood of Christ and the bread that they brake calling it the communion of the body of Christ and in chap. 11.23 24 25 26. Where repeating the words and order of Christs instituting his Supper in both branches or parts of it he saith for as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye shew forth the Lords death till he come and let a man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 any man of the Church indefinitely Lay or Clergy as they are now a days distinguished examine himself and so let him eat of this bread and drink of this Cup. He saith not only let him eat of this bread but also let him drink of this cup. And whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this Cup of the Lord unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself And the Apostle saith also in chap. 14.37 as we noted before that the things He wrote were the Commandments of the Lord yet this Church of Rome most audaciously and with a non obsunt or notwithstanding all this presume to deny the cup to the Laity yea and to the Clergy too say some if any of them be present beside the Priest that celebrates or saieth Mass making nothing of Gods or Christs authority to the contrary Surely therefore to them may most truly and fully be applyed those words of our Saviour spoken by him against the Scribes and Pharisees in whose steps they walk viz. well hath Isaiah prophesied of you Hypocrites as it is written this People honoureth me with their lips but their hearts are far from me Howbeit in vain do they worship me teaching for doctrines the Commandments of men For laying aside the Commandments of God ye hold the Tradition of men c. And full well ye reject the Commandments of God that you may keep your own Tradition making the word of God of none effect through your Tradition which ye have delivered Mar. 7.6 7 8 9 13. For what is their doctrine of Concomitancy but their own Tradition wherein they teach their Followers to believe that the Cup is in the bread as it were the blood of Christ is in his body and they as well taken together For were they not so when Christ being yet alive instituted the Supper And after his Resurrection when the Apostle and the Primitive Christians observed it in both kinds And can the supposal of both together in one be so lively a resemblance representation and commemoration of his death as when they are given seperately The end of our Saviours instituting and of the Churches observing this Ordinance is to shew forth the Lords death till he come 1 Cor. 11.26 And is not his death more lively set forth and represented when the Elements are given apart and so the body represented as without it's blood and the blood as separated from the body than when both are supposed to be given together in one In Christs state of death his blood was shed forth from his body and in the supper as instituted of Christ the cup was given by it self as a representation of his blood shed for the remission of our sins So that here is in this bold contradiction to our Saviours precept and practice both a rejecting of his commandment and a making null the end of his institution the shewing forth of his death Though yet neither is this all nor the half of that in which this bad Church dares to confront the authority of God For 5. They also leave out in their Catechismes the second Commandment Thou shalt not make to thy self any Graven Image c. And to make up the number of ten they divide the last into two both contrary to the express voice and command of God who gave the second as audibly as any of the rest and with more express sanction by way both of threatning added as a jealous God punishing the Offenders and promise of blessing to them that love him and keep his Commandments and to the practise and manner of the Christian Church in all it 's Primitive times Because they confront Gods Commandment in their practise setting up and injoyning Images and the Likenesses and the Representations of things and Persons to be erected and worshipped though God hath expresly commanded the contrary Oh audacious Church and Congregation of evil doers And can any be so blind as not to see palpably in this and the other particulars that they both can and do err And how then can it be possibly imagined that they are Infallible Nay rather verily it is far righter to say that they are incorrigible impenitent and impudent in their notoriously evil Principles and Practises God saith thou shalt not make to thy self any Graven thing nor the likeness or similitude of any thing either in Heaven above or in the Earth beneath thou shalt not bow down to them nor worship them And these men do make the similitude of many things in Heaven and Earth as of the Virgin Mary the Saints deceased the Cross of Christ yea as they pretend of God himself c. bow down to them worship them yet they say they are innocent so did the adulterous Church of Judah when they upon every high Hill under every green tree wandred play'd the Harlot yet they said they were not polluted they had not gone after Baalim they were innocent and therefore surely Gods anger would turn away from them Jer. 2.23,35 Even so doth this corrupt and erroneous Church plead not only that she is innocent but also that she cannot err But we shall have occasion to say more to this anon Besides all this 6. What is their Doctrine of Transubstantiation but a
here was not a taking Gods name in vain and a notorious leading men to debauch their consciences I know not what is as for the fourth commandment they keep not that while they keep Markets on the Sabbath day and less observe it than many of their own instituted holy days the fifth commandment how little they reguard their often absolving Children from ingagements to honour their Parents and obey them yea their stirring up Children somtimes against them as Gregory the ninth stirred up Henry the Son against his Father Frederick the second Emperour of Germany and how often they have discharged subjects from their due allegiance and obedience to their lawful Sovereigns stirred them up to rebel and rise in War against them both our own Cronicles and the Histories of other Nations do abundantly evidence And then as for the sixth commandment their Murthering of Princes and the many great Slaughters and Massacres yea destructions both of Souls and Bodies occasioned and caused by the Roman Church and her Bishops before hinted at sufficiently declare how little care they have thereof That they little reguard the seventh both their forbiding Marriage to their Priests without any order or command of God and Christ to that purpose nay contrary to the express permission and allowance thereof of God in the Scriptures for both our Lord Jesus Christ himself chose Married Persons to be Apostles at least Peter was such when he chose him for we read before that of his Wives Mother Mark 1.30 with 3.16 Which he would not have done surely had he judged a Wedded State incompatible or inconsistent with the Ministry which he instituted yea and that St. Peter and other Apostles led their Wives about with them when they were Apostles is evident in 1 Cor. 9.5 And the Apostle expresly both in his Orders about Bishops and in those about Deacons orders and much more allows that they be Husbands of one Wife and have their Children in subjection which they would not have done had they forbidden Marriage to the Bishops and Ministers of the Church or judged it unfit for them as these according to his predictions of false Teachers that would depart from the faith do 1 Tim. 3.2.4.11.12 with 4.12.3 By which means they often put them upon the practice of uncleanness whoredoms furnications and the like mischiefs and allow them to keep Concubines for Money besides the Practice of Sodomy even in the Popes themselves some of them and the notorious Wickedness of one of their Cardinals that wrote and Wrote published a Book in commendation thereof their allowing publick Stews for Mony even in Rome it self are sufficient Proofs And that they as little keep the eighth Commandment their insatiable covetousness and many frauds to get Mony some whereof have by the way been hinted at yea their grasping whole Kingdoms to themselves from their lawful Princes as they did a great part of Italy yea and Rome it self from the Emperours to which they belonged and our Kingdom of England in King Johns time and taking away by force the Kingdoms of some Princes from them and giving them to others whom they have incouraged to get them from them as appears in the History of the Albingenses and the attempts of their Popes and Sea of Rome against our late Queen Elizabeth are sufficient demonstrations besides the most horrible theft of all others they are guilty of in stealing or taking forcibly from men the word of God not suffering men to know or be instructed into that therein taking away the key of knowledg and shutting up the Kingdom of Heaven against them and robbing their Souls thereof a theft which God complained of in the false Prophets of Israel when he saith Behold I am against the Prophets which steal my word every one from his Neighbour Jer. 23.30 Against the ninth Commandment is all their reproaching and branding falsly as Hereticks those that will not subscribe to their corruptions stirring up Princes and People against them to make Havock of them And that the tenth commandment is little set by their Doctrine that denyes the first stirrings and motions of Sin to be Sins and their Doctrine of venial Sins and their insatiable covetousness may be evidence enough so that they are horribly guilty of not keeping the commandments of God the like may be observed too of their keeping the things given in commandment by our Lord Jesus Christ that they keep none of his commandments purely and incorruptly for whereas he commanded Baptism into the Name of the Father of the Son of the Holy Ghost they have corrupt that with many devises as of oyl and cream and spettle and the like Fopperies his commandment of his Supper to take and break and eat Bread set a part with blessing to that purpose and drinking the Cup in Remembrance of him and as a commemoration of his death they have horribly corrupted and changed into a sacrifice propitiatory and unbloody available for obtaining remission of Sins for the quick and for Dead and into private Masses and half Communions and the Pageantry of carrying the consecrated Host as a God in Procession the command of Preaching the word sincerely they have exchanged into teaching for Doctrines of men that is their own precepts and devises and his command about prayers and supplications unto God they have corrupted by injoyning Prayers in unknown Tongue and to others besides God even to Saints and Angels But what needed I to have been so larg in going over these several commandments when the complexion of much of their divinity is a clear patronage of all manner of Sin and Naughtiness while they promise to men the pardon thereof upon so easy termes as the only being at some small time before they dye grieved that they have sinned though without any real contrition of heart for it or love to God and so hearty sorrow that they have offended him as springing therefrom provided that they receive but the Sacrament as they will have it of their extream Unction and the absolution of one of their Priests and have devised a Purgatory in which after death they may be Purifyed though they continue till death in their Sins from the pains of which also they perswade men they may be soon delivered by the propitiatory sacrifices which they say they can and do dayly make in their Masses both for the quick and for the dead and by the indulgences which are in the Popes dispose and which for such sums of Mony given to their Church-men or for such uses as they prescribe as for the procuring Masses Dirgies and such like fopperies they propose to sale what are all these devises of this covetous Church and its Church-men but ways of making merchandise of mens Souls and an incouraging them in and unto an impenitent breach of all Gods commandments all their days for who that loves his lusts and lives in any pleasurable or profitable way of Sin will much
reguard the ceasing therefrom or any commands of God requiring it so long as his guides and leaders that pretend to have the keys of Heaven in their hands assure them that if but an hour or two before their deaths they confess their Sins and are sorry that they have endangered their Souls thereby and be a little attrite or troubled for them receiving absolution from the Priest and their extreme Unction they may by the vertue of the Sacraments to convey grace ex opere operato be secured against damnation and be eased too in and freed from their Purgatory pains if they be but bountiful to their Church and its Priests by the benefit of their devotions and the Saints Supererrogations so that by this first part of the Touch-stone they appear clearly convicted of being far from being an Infallible Church yea or a true and right Church of Christ especially if we also take in what some of them assert and their doctrine of probability therefore makes safe for all to believe viz. that no man is bound of necessity to love God but that is a work or frame of more perfection without which observing their Church Orders and receiving their Sacraments they may be saved Surely by our Saviours doctrine to love God is the first and great Commandment and that they that teach that men may be saved though destitute thereof cannot be under the commendation of keeping Gods commandments 2. And as much faulty are they with reference to the other branch of the character of the true Church opposed to the false Church or the Beast and his Image worshippers namely the keeping the faith or testimony of Jesus which they keep not that corrupt it and add their mixtures to and with it as the false Apostles kept not the faith of Jesus though they might hold as truths all the Articles of the Creed and teach them to others while they added thereto the necessity of being Circumcised and of keeping the Law of Moses unto Salvation no more than they would be commended for keeping for any ones use good and wholsome Wine commited to their custody and charge who would indeed deminish nothing of it but yet would mix with it some of those Stygian Waters which had a poysonous nature in them or other poysons whereby they might be made deadly to them that drink thereof such a Person might indeed plead that he had kept by him all the Wine deposited with him and took nothing of it away yea and that he gave out again all that other keepers of it who keep it Pure and give it out such as it is given do and something more but I suppose with no likement or commendation of him that commits it to him for the benefit of those that will drink of it just such keepers that is to say corrupters of the faith of Jesus are the Papists and their Church They retain with them indeed the whole Bible and all the Gospel and Gospel truths therein but so as to keep them in their Bibles from the generallity of the People that they may not read or hear them read to them yea and they retain with them and possibly Preach to the People and Teach them all the Articles of the Creed at least in an unknown Latin Tongue or if they also interpret them yet to be sure they teach them many other things as matters of faith necessary to be believed by them as much as any of the said Articles though they be quite different from all that Christ and his Apostles delivered to the Church to be believed by us as for instance they teach that God the Father and Christ and the Holy Ghost are one God in three Persons to be believed on and called upon by Men but they corrupt that with this addition of their own that the Saints also are to be called on and that they ought to believe on them to receive help by their intercessions being worshiped by them they teach that Christ is the Son of God and the Saviour of the World that he dyed for our Sins and offered up a Propitiatory Sacrifice to God for the whole World but then they add and mix of their own therewith that their Priests can do dayly make him of a Wafer and offer him up as an effectual unbloody sacrifice for the quick and dead to and that they ought to believe and expect to receive the forgiveness of their Sins through their Sacraficing him a most horrible impiety and indignity to his Cross and Passion and the alone virtue and efficacy thereof and a monstrous addition to and corruption of the faith once delivered of God to the Saints in his Apostles doctrine They hold and teach that Christ is risen from the dead and ascended into Heaven and sits at the Right Hand of God but they mix therewith and teach their Children and Followers to believe that the same very real Body that suffered and is in Heaven is also dayly in the Host at their Mass and is hung up in the Pix or Box that they put him into and that they carry up and down when they please in Procession and that they really tear him with their Teeth and eat him Lib. de Natura Deorum and therein they do what the Heathen Cicero abhorred to think of in their Pagan worship for he said quem tam amentem esse putas qui illud quo vescatur Deum credat esse that is who thinkest thou is so mad as to think that to be a God that he eats or is fed with those Papists are so mad as to think and teach so they hold and teach that there is a Heaven to reward the righteous and a Hell to Punish the wicked and so our Saviour delivered in his faith or testimony but withal they add that there is a third place between both called Purgatory wherein Souls that are not fit for Heaven when they dye may be purged by enduring pains and torments there and that the Pope hath the keys of this place to and can let Souls out of it c. And this Christ never taught nor his Apostles they believe and teach that there is a Holy Ghost and that he is to be believed in but they teach also corruptly that he is confined as it were to them of the Church of Rome and that their determinations or the determinations of their Popes out of St. Peters Chair are his infallible Oracles to be as much believed and held as fast as or more than the sayings of the holy Prophets Apostles in the Scriptures They teach that there is a holy Catholick Church but they add and mix with that also this Poysonful Doctrine that the Church of Rome only are that Church and that men are to resolve their faith into its sayings and conclusions and that the Pope is the visible Head of the whole Catholick Church and Christs Vicar on earth they teach a Communion of Saints but they teach also