the Non-necessity of the Laity's partaking of the Cup in the Lords Supper and their being Rob'd accordingly of their share therein expresly contrary to our Saviours institution and the Practice of the first Ages of the Church and of all other Churches in the world What say you to their well known Doctrine Of the Non-necessity of Repentance before the imminent point of death And to this other that goes beyond that viz. that meer Attrition or sorrow for sin for fear of hell if accompanied with the Sacrament of Penance is sufficient to a sinners justification and acceptance with God This the Council of Trent doth plainly take for granted in the fourth Chapter of their fourteenth Session What say you to the Doctrine of Opus operatum which makes the meer work done in all acts of Devotion sufficient to the Divine Acceptance particularly the bare saying of Prayers without either minding what they say or understanding it And agreeably hereunto the Romish Church enjoyns the saying of them in a Language unknown to the generality of her children notwithstanding the perfectly contrary Doctrine delivered by S. Paul in the 14 th Chap. of the first to the Corinthians What say you to the Doctrine of the Insufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for mens Salvation and her denying them to be a complete Rule of Faith and Practice in things necessary without her Traditions Wherein she gives the Lye to the same great Apostle who tells his son Timothy that the Scriptures are able to make wise to Salvation and that by them the man of God may be perfected and throughly furnished to every good work What say you to her Doctrine of the Gospels obscurity even in things of absolute necessity to be believed and practised devised on purpose to perswade the people to an implicit belief in her self and to receive without examining whatsoever doctrines she shall please to call Articles of Faith This is a wicked Doctrine in it self also as well as upon the account of the Design of it It being most unworthy of God to require all under pain of damnation rightly to understand those Points which are obscurely revealed What say you to her Doctrine of the dangerousness of the vulgars reading the Holy Scriptures and her Practice answerable thereunto of denying them the Bible in their own language What say you to her Doctrine that Faith is not to be kept with Hereticks What say you to this Doctrine that the most horrid villanies are then lawful when necessary to the promoting of the interest of the Catholick cause I do not say that this is decreed in any Council or that it is in express terms taught by any of them But however if it be lawful to judge of mens opinions by their constant practices we may without a Calumny call this also a Doctrine of the Church of Rome Particularly the world hath for a long time been well acquainted with her most horrible Cruelties upon the account of Religion To mind you of a few famous instances in the persecution of the Albigenses and Waldenses were miserably murthered no fewer than a thousand thousand In the Massacre of France in the space of three months an hundred thousand In the Low-Countries in a few years were cut off by the hand of the common hangman thirty and six thousand Protestants And by the holy Inquisition as Vergerius witnesseth who was well acquainted therewith were destroyed in less than thirty years space one hundred and fifty thousand with all manner of the most exquisite cruelties I need not mind you what a vast number were Burnt at the stake in our own Country in the Reign of Queen Mary Nor what additions have been made since to Romes Butcheries in Piedmont and Ireland And what a horrible slaughter had there been in England by the Gun powder Treason if it had not been prevented by a Wonderful Providence And also what work the Romanists would have been at here again before this time if God in his infinite mercy had not defeated the Councels of those bloudy Achitophels all who do not wilfully shut their eyes and are not Papists at least in Masquerade should one would think acknowledge themselves satisfyed after so great evidence So that we need no further proof that the Woman hath Rome Christian for her principal Seat upon whose head S. Iohn tells us was a name written Mystery Babylon the great the mother of Harlots and Abominations of the earth and whom he saw drunk with the bloud of the Saints and with the bloud of the Martyrs of Iesus But we have farther proof that the now mentioned wicked doctrine may truly be charged upon the Church of Rome For her abominable Practices do not only justifie this charge but several of the Doctrines of her darling sons those pretious youths the Iesuits and which as they tell you are much elder than their order viz. That of the lawfulness of Equivocations and Mental Reservations even before Courts of Iudicature at least if they consist of Hereticks of the putting which vile principle into practice we have had of late diverse marvelous and most astonishing instances That of the Popes power of Dispensing with the most Solemn Oaths and of Absolving Subjects from their Allegiance to Heretical Princes That of the Lawfulness nay Meritoriousness of taking Arms against them of Stabbing and Poisoning them And we of this Kingdom too well know that the Romish Church make no bones of practising upon these Principles I might still farther proceed in instancing in her most corrupt and wicked Principles but you have had enough in all Conscience And but that now especially we are obliged to take all opportunities for the exposing of the vileness of the Romish Religion I would e'en be as soon engag'd in stirring Jakes's and raking dunghills as in such work as this God be thanked for that mighty Spirit that hath been stirred up throughout the Nation against Popery Oh that it more generally proceeded from our sense of the hatefulness thereof and the extreme dishonour it brings to Christianity and its infinite injuriousness to the Souls of men as well as from the concern we have for our Temporal interest which is but a mean and pitiful consideration in comparison of those other And the better the Principles of Popery and the Practices of the Papists are understood the greater and more lasting must their zeal against them needs be who have any hearty kindness either for Christianity or for Natural Religion either for Christianity or for good Morality and common honesty or even mere good nature I will not so far imitate the horrible uncharitableness of the Romish Church as to say that 't is impossible to find any sincere Christians in her Communion and much less that no honest or good natur'd people are among them But this we are very certain may safely be said that whosoever is throughly instructed in the Popish Principles and acts accordingly is so much a
care of holding both Faith and a good Conscience and the Motive he useth to quicken his care is that those who are not careful to hold both will be in danger of losing both So much is implyed in his saying that some having put away a good Conscience have made shipwrack concerning Faith Holding Faith or the Faith and a good Conscience which some having put away concerning Faith or the Faith have made shipwrack First We will explain the terms or endeavour to shew what it is to hold the Faith and what to make shipwrack of it as also what it is to hold a good Conscience and what to put it away Secondly That holding the Faith will nothing avail us except we also hold a good Conscience Thirdly That mens making shipwrack concerning the Faith is occasioned by their having first put away a good Conscience First For Explication of the terms we will enquire 1. What it is to hold the Faith and what to make shipwrack of it To hold the Faith is to adhere to the belief and profession of the Doctrine of the Gospel Holding or keeping the Faith sometimes implyeth also a life answerable to the Christian doctrine as where S. Paul saith I have kept the Faith And where the Author to the Hebrews exhorts the Christians to hold fast the profession of their Faith without wavering But here it can signifie no more than the belief and profession of that Doctrine because it is distinguished from holding a good Conscience Again to make shipwrack of the Faith is to do either of these two things Either First expresly to Renounce the Articles of the Christian Belief the main fundamental Articles all or any of those on which the whole Frame of Christianity is erected and which are the Essential materials of it As that Iesus is the Son of God that he dyed for our sins and rose again for our justification that he ascended into Heaven and will come again at the end of the world to judge the quick and the dead that men shall be rewarded or punished according to their works that Faith Repentance and New Obedience are of absolute necessity to our obtaining the Divine Favour and everlasting life These and the like Articles which either are declared necessary to Salvation by our Saviour or his Apostles or which from their own nature appear so to be as containing necessary motives encouragements or helps to a holy life these are such as the renouncing any of which is making shipwrack concerning the Faith But the misunderstanding such Doctrines as have no such weight and stress laid upon them or which considered in themselves appear to be of such a nature as that the misunderstanding of them is consistent with true Goodness cannot be called a making Shipwrack of the Faith For if so it will be impossible to know who holds the Faith and who makes shipwrack of it There being many points so disputably expressed in the Scriptures and which there is such a diversity of Opinions about even among Good as well as Learned men that it may be an argument of too great confidence and presumption in any to conclude peremptorily that theirs is the true notion of them Or Secondly The introducing such Principles and Practices into the Christian Religion as do manifestly strike at any of its Fundamentals and particularly such as directly or in their evident consequences enervate the Promises Threatnings or Precepts of the Gospel and contradict the great design of Christianity viz. that of making men Sober Righteous and Godly this may also very properly be called making shipwrack of the Faith It is truly so notwithstanding it may be joyned with a profession of all the Articles of our Religion For who seeth not that those who corrupt it with such Doctrines or Practices are as injurious to the Faith as the down-right opposers of its main Principles or rather the more injurious of the two there being much more danger of a false Friend than of a professed and open enemy 2. Would we know what it is to hold a good Conscience this is in short sincerely to endeavour to walk in all the Commandments of the Lord blameless To endeavour impartially to acquaint our selves with the Divine Will and when we understand it to comply therewith although it be never so cross to our own wills and natural inclinations And therefore on the contrary to put away a good Conscience is to be bent upon the pleasing our own wills and gratifying our sensual Appetites to give up our selves to be acted and governed by fleshly and impure Lusts To be devoted to the Service of corrupt carnal and worldly affections and interests Where the lust of the flesh the lust of the eye or the pride of life the love of Pleasures Riches or Honours are predominant in the Soul there a good Conscience is put away Secondly We next come to shew that holding the Faith will nothing avail us if withal it be not our care to hold a good Conscience This is apparent in that the Renewing of mens natures and Bettering their Lives is the only end both of Natural and Revealed Religion and were not this the end thereof Religion would be the vainest and most insignificant thing in the world The Heathens themselves were well aware of this and therefore the professed intendment of their Philosophy was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The purgation and perfection of the humane life They well knew that no body is the better for the best Principles where they are only believed and not lived And as for the Principles of the Christian Religion which the Ancients used to call the Christian Philosophy I shall not need to prove that our belief of these is required wholly upon the account of the great efficacy they have for the transforming of us into the Divine likeness the subjecting our Wills to the Will of God and the making us holy in all manner of Conversation And therefore we find our Blessed Saviour and his Apostles making the whole of a Christian to consist in keeping his sayings in doing the things he commands them in Faith that worketh by love and in the new Creature And therefore we see the greatest contempt cast upon Knowledge and Profession and Faith unaccompanied with an answerable life and practice Therefore we read that Faith without works is dead that Faith is dead being alone as being utterly unable to stand us in the least stead and as being so unable to save us as greatly to aggravate our Condemnation The Papists lay mighty weight upon their Orthodoxy their believing as the Church believes and flatter themselves with a fond conceit that the goodness of their Faith will make great amends for the badness of their lives But suppose it true that they are the Orthodox believers and all the Christian World Hereticks besides themselves as they would have us believe yet the Devils are as Orthodox as they can be for their hearts but their Orthodoxy makes
them but the more miserable if they did not believe so truly they would not tremble as they do The Devils also believe and tremble Iames 2.19 In short we are not more assured from the Holy Scriptures that God made the Heavens and the Earth than we are of the truth of this Proposition that the most sound belief will not do us the least service while it is accompanied with a naughty life That the most Orthodox Sentiments will nothing avail us while joyned with an Heretical Conversation Thirdly We proceed to shew that mens making shipwrack concerning the Faith is occasioned by their having first put away a good Conscience Which good Conscience some having put away concerning Faith have made shipwrack The Apostle speaking of some that resisted the truth calls them men of corrupt minds reprobate concerning the Faith 2 Tim. 3.8 Thereby intimating that their being reprobate concerning the Faith proceeded from the corruption of their minds or naughtiness of their hearts and the prevalence of evil and corrupt Affections And the same Apostle speaking of certain Hereticks attributes their erring from the Faith to their gratifying particularly that last of Covetousness 1 Tim. 6.10 The love of money is the root of all evil which while some coveted after they have erred from the Faith And S. Peter speaking of wicked Seducers saith that they had eyes full of Adultery and hearts exercised with covetous practices And intimateth that this is the cause of their forsaking the right way and their beguiling unstable Souls 2 Ep. 2.14 15. Now would we be satisfied how this putting away a good Conscience occasioneth mens making shipwrack of the Faith It is evident that it doth thus these three ways First As mens addicting themselves to the satisfying of some lust or other puts them upon devising shifts and tricks to still the disquieting clamours of their Consciences The wrath of God being revealed from Heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men 't is no easie thing for any one willingly to transgress the Rules of Righteousness without being frequently tormented with fearful expectations and the Horrors of an Accusing and condemning Conscience Now the most effectual way to be rid of these next to sincere Repentance and Reformation is either for a wicked man to perswade himself if he be able that there is no God or nothing after this Life and consequently that the Bible is a cheat and all its threatnings mere scare-crows Or if this he cannot do in regard of the abundant evidence of the Being of a God and the Authority of the Holy Scriptures the course must be so to wrest and pervert the Scriptures as to make them give liberty to certain evil practices or to promise forgiveness of sin to certain performances that are short of forsaking it Thus those Hereticks in the Primitive times wrestâ—d the places wherein the Gospel is called the Law of Liberty and wherein we are said to be delivered from the Law so as to take off the Obligation of the Moral as well as the Ceremonial Law and to give liberty to sin and to oppose Faith to Obedience in the business of Justification and acceptance with God Many other instances may be given both of Ancient and Modern Hereticks perverting of passages of Scripture so as to make them great encouragements to sin and discouragements to a Holy life perfectly contrary to the whole strain and tenor of the Gospel But I must not enlarge farther upon this Argument because the main thing I intended in the choice of this Subject is yet behind Secondly The putting away of a good Conscience occasions making shipwrack of the Faith through the just judgment of God The former particular gave us an account of wicked mens being strongly enclined to make shiwrack of the Faith and of their endeavouring it this of their putting their inclinations into practice and succeeding in their endeavours Men that are wedded to any lust are very forward for their own ease to endeavour either the embraceing of Atheistical Principles or so to abuse the Scriptures as to take encouragement from them to live in sin but they could hardly so extinguish the light of their own minds as to succeed in their endeavours were it not for the judgment of God upon them in giving them up into the Deceivers hands To this purpose observe what the Apostle saith 2 Thess. 2.10 11. Because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved or they did not so receive it as to suffer it to have any good effect upon their hearts and lives for this cause God shall send them strong delusions or give them up to be deluded by the tricks of the Devil the signs and lying wonders before mentioned that they should believe a lye that they all might be damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness Thirdly The putting away of a good Conscience occasions making shipwrack of the Faith as wicked Professors of Christianity do find it a most successful course to promote their corrupt and naughty designs by foisting into the Christian Religion such Doctrines and Practices as favour and encourage such designs I have shewed that those who corrupt the Christian Religion with such Doctrines or Practices as contradict the Design of it do truly make shipwrack of the Faith and whereas there may be given too many instances of such Hypocrites as have so done I shall make it the whole business of what remains of the Doctrinal part of this Discourse to shew that the Church of Rome as she is now Constituted is most shamefully guilty in this particular It is to be acknowledged that she retains the Profession of all the Fundamental and Essential Articles of the Christian Faith a summary of which is that Creed which we call the Apostles and she professeth a Reverence for the whole New Testament If she in express terms rejected any Doctrine that is of the Essence and a vital part of Christianity her members may not be called Christians in any sense and we then do very ill to say the Church of Rome We do not stick at calling them a Church though a most corrupt and degenerate Church as to use the similitude of Bishop Hall a thief is truly a man though not a true man A woman may retain the name of a wife till she 's formally divorced though she be an adulteress The Church of Rome may as truly be called a Church as the Iewish Nation the People of God after their foul Revolt from him and Lapse into Idolatry and other wicked and impious practices But this hath been abundantly made good against this Church that though she holds the Foundation yet she builds Wood Hay and Stubble upon the Foundation that is she mixeth many impure Doctrines of her own with the most holy and undefiled Doctrines of the Gospel Of which I will present you with some instances but must be very brief upon most of them What say
Ear-rings too was that very God which brought them out of the Land of Egypt But the Gentlemen of Rome would have us think that they were so forsaken of their Intellectuals as so to believe and we cannot blame them for that neither For if they did not impudently bear us down that the Children of Israel believed that this Moulten Calf was that God that divided the Sea wrought so many Miracles for them and the maker of Heaven and Earth they would they are sensible be necessitated to excuse them from Idolatry expresly contrary to the words of Scripture And if this their Notion of Idolatry be the only true one we are certain that it will be extremely difficult if not impossible to find out Idolaters among the very Pagans What think you of their Doctrine of Transubstantiation of which take this account from the Council of Trent By the Consecration the whole substance of the Bread is changed into the substance of the Body of Christ our Lord and the whole substance of the Wine into the substance of the bloud of Christ. So that as like as it still looks to Bread and Wine Though it hath the perfect Tast the perfect Feeling and Smell of Bread and Wine yet it is nothing less 't is that very Body that hung upon the Cross at Ierusalem and that very bloud that was there shed This is the most prodigiously contradictious Doctrine that I will not say the Wit but the Madness of men can possibly invent 't is a most wonderful complication of most horrid contradictions and absolute impossibilities But this is not the worst of it it is also the foundation of so gross and foul Idolatry as is scarcely to be named among the Gentiles or to be found parallel'd in Peruvia it self or the most barbarous parts of India The forementioned Holy Council declares nullus itaque dubitandi locus relinquitur c. There is therefore no place left for doubt but that all good Christians do give the Worship of Latria quae Vero Deo debetur which is due to the true God to this most Holy Sacrament according to the always received custom of the Catholick Church They should have said according to the late and upstart custom of the Romish Faction Here you see that the Bread and Wine are Worshipped by them not as Representations of God but as God himself But what if those words of our Saviour This is my Body should prove to be a Figure like those other of his I am a Vine I am a Door c. or what if This is my body should be as much a Figure as they will confess the words presently following are viz. This Cup is the New Testament in my Bloud Where we have a double Figure both the Cup put for the Wine in it and the Wine said to be the New Testament or Covenant when supposing it were the very Bloud of Christ it could not be the New Covenant it self but the Seal of that Covenant I say what if these words be to be understood figuratively as why they should not the Papists can shew nothing like a reason but we have shewn them the greatest absurdities imaginable in otherwise understanding them why then they themselves will and do acknowledge that they should be guilty of the most gross Idolatry in their Worship of the Host. What say you to the Popish Doctrine of the Sacrifice of the Mass which is of near kin to the foregoing The Doctrine of the Roman Church is as you shall find it in the Council of Trent That in this Sacrifice which is performed in the Mass that very Christ is contained and in a bloudless manner offered which upon the Altar of the Cross did once offer up himself in a bloudy manner So that according to this Doctrine our Blessed Saviour must still to the end of the world be laid hold of by Sinners be ground with their teeth and sent down into their impure paunches as often as the Priest shall pronounce the charm hoc est enim corpus meum And it seems that he was a false Prophet when he said upon the Cross it is finished seeing there was such an infinite deal of loathsome Drudgery still to be undergone by him And it seems the Author to the Hebrews is found to be a false Apostle in asserting so expresly as more than once he doth that such is the Dignity of Christ's Priesthood and its excellency above the Levitical that by one offering he hath made perfect satisfaction and expiation for sin So that this their Doctrine of the Sacrifice of the Mass is not only False but very Corrupt and impious Doctrine What say you to their Doctrine of Purgatory which in short is this That no souls except such as are perfectly purified in this life which they 'l surely acknowledge are extremely few shall go at their departure hence into a place of happiness or ease but all the forementioned excepted into a place of torment where they may abide for an exceeding long time even many hundreds of years except some effectual care be taken for their deliverance By this Doctrine the poor people are brought into a most slavish state by the means hereof their merciless Tyrants the Priests hale them into worse than Egyptian Bondage who instead of enjoyning them the most reasonable duties to which the Precepts of their Saviour oblige them and which are most admirably adapted to the cleansing of their natures and mortifying their corrupt affections impose upon them a great number of ridiculous Services of their own invention But though they cannot pretend the least warrant from Scripture for such doings as those yet they have a most express Text they tell you for their Doctrine of Purgatory viz. those words of S. Paul 1 Cor. 3.15 But he shall be saved yet so as by fire But he who considers these two things will see nothing like Purgatory in this Text namely First that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not he shall be saved by fire but as it were by fire or rather through fire Secondly that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be saved as through fire is a Proverbial Speech as those great Criticks Grotius and Scaliger with others have shewed signifying to be saved from most eminent danger And as this Doctrine of theirs is groundless so is it as wicked it being a most vile affront to the Merits and and Satisfaction of our Blessed Saviour For in order to the establishing of this Doctrine they teach that The Passion of Christ takes away only the guilt of Mortal sins not their eternal Punishment which is as non-sensical as false and impious 'T is an impious Doctrine also both as it is devised to inslave the Consciences of the Poor People and to bring them into absolute subjection to their Priests and likewise to gratifie their greedy Appetites and to bring their Purses no less under their power than their Consciences What say you to their Doctrine of