the world in the unrighteousnesse and uncleannesse thereof in fornication and covetousnesse in drunkennesse pride malice and murder lying and swearing vain jesting and foolish talking As a people through the abominable lusts of uncleanness in your lives void of the knowledge or at least wise not considering and laying it to heart how Ephes 5.5 That no unclean person nor Idolater hath any inheritance in the Kingdome of Christ and of God being as it were stupified and benummed in your senses so far degenerated from the power of Truth and mystery of Godliness that ye have lost the generall forme and do retain but the least part thereof wherefore among you and upon you the words and prophesie of the Apostle is fulfilled 2 Tim. 3.13 Evill men and Seducers shall wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceived And yet a little while and it shall also be shewn unto you that desire to understand wherein you are fallen below the form of the profession of Godliness as in divers particulars I shall query for the opening of your understandings that by your diligent search in the Scripture with the Light you may see which will effectually make for the manifestation of the ground of your customes and practices in your idolatrous and superstitious worships And this unto you all is held forth for the tryal of your wayes seeing the Lords mighty day is at hand which will rip open and make manifest all hearts and declare and preach that which hath been hid in secret upon the house tops Many of your Fathers were the worshippers of the works of the Philosophers untill the sound of the fame of Christ came among them whose Miracles and Resurrection confounded the depth of the working of their wisdom by which the wise men came to confesse a greater than themselves which suddenly rang through the Nation and so from Nation to Nation from the report and credit of the confession of the Philosophers and learned Doctors the ignorant also in all your Nations joyned with the humane learned and so with one consent they cryed up the name to wit of Christ whereof they had received the report who sometime before that had slaughtered the Apostles who finished their testimonies in the Life and Spirit of Jesus holding forth his name in power whose name in words as the Apostacy came and grew as the deceivers and false Prophets and false Brethren and false Apostles went forth your Fathers the Philosophers and wise men came to confesse mark the time of the coming in of this which at this time ye stand in which had not an entrance by the Doctrine or Example of Peter or life and preaching of Paul but by such as was spoken of should destroy the little flock of Christ and make havock of the Heritage of God concerning whom I have shewn you Johns witness and Pauls testimony and yet furthermore do write Judes and Peters prophesies Jude 4. For there are certain men crept in unawares who were before ordained to this condemnation ungodly men turning the grace of our God into lasciviousnesse filthy dreamers that defile the flesh murmerers complainers walking after their own lusts and their mouth speaking great and swelling words having mens persons in admiration because of advantage Such as the Apostles of our Lord spake of should come Mockers who should walk after their own ungodly lusts who are sensual having not the Spirit of Truth To the Church saith Peter 2 Pet. 2.1 There shall be false Teachers among you who privily shall bring in damnable heresies and many shall follow their pernicious ways of whom the way of Truth shall be evill spoken of having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin beguiling unstable souls and hearts they have exercised with covetous practices cursed children which have forsaken the right way who are the Angels which kept not their first estate but left their own habitations God hath reserved in the everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgement of the great day Seeing therefore that the Scriptures are true as is manifest by the coming of these things to passe according to the words of the Apostles prophesies and finding you in the cursed ground and nature of uncleanness bringing forth fruits of iniquity Hereby I know even by your fruits Matth. 12.33 into what stock you are grafted mine instrument hath reached your root And again I say all men upon the face of the earth who have the least discerning may truly understand that ye are in the Apostacy working the unrighteous works of your Fathers who were the first Apostates from the true Faith in whom iniquity wrought in a mystery who when Satan had his end in destroying to the uttermost in the slaughter of all the holy Apostles in like manner as the Jews after they had slaughtered the true Prophets garnished their Tombs in honour of their persons even so also did the Deceiver set your Fathers a work to build Idols Temples and to draw out the Saints Pictures and to do hommage to the Pictures of Christ Mary and the Apostles in honour of their Persons and those things which your Fathers built ye garnished wherein ye witnesse that ye are their children and are filling up the measure of their iniquity and thus the Devil gained his dominion in you and among you by transforming himself in a nearer shape like an Angel of Light in divers other things and Ceremonies and wrought in and among your Fathers as he did in the dayes of old among the sons of men who sought out many Inventions insomuch that the righteous soul of God was grieved with them so that God repented that he had made man for straightway after the spirit of Antichrist had so greatly wrought through the earth as that Nations came under and in subjection to the wills of the Philosophers even to the confessing of the name of Christ outward Your Fathers they entered into divers consultations and what they sought out by their Inventions were set up as Laws and Ordinances and Statutes in the forms of your worships and thus came in as I have said the buildings of Idols Temples the carving of Images the painting of pictures the making of Beads and Crosses of Wood Bone Stone Gold Silver and other dead created things and the Invention of Candles and Lamps and Altars for your sacrifices and all manner of Surplesses and deceitful coverings and hood-winking garments the observations of times and seasons and weeks and dayes and divers other heresies and damnable doctrines of Devils 1 Tim. 4.1 2.3 Forbidding to marry and to abstain from meats which God had created to be received with thanks-giving All these and many more of your customes and Idolatrous worships are neither according to the command of God or of Christ or the president or example of the Holy Apostles through the Witnesse of the Scripture In few words the root of these things was the invention and working of iniquity in
the hearts of your Fathers through the deceitful motions of Satan and so whereas you say That you have the doctrine of the ancient Fathers I answer It is true you stand in the error of their wayes I see and savour you in the foot-steps of their ungodly lusts as the Scriptures declares and not only those in the days of old but also unto this time you have many Fathers upon earth whereby your own confession bears witnesse against you that you have not learned of Christ who is the way to the Father which all that beleeve in him have but one Father which is in Heaven Math. 23.9 Furthermore in your prayers to Mary and supplication to the Saints to mediate and make intercession for you O miserable blindness and lamentable darknesse how strongly hath Satan chained your hearts that you lye under so great a cloud of ignorance Oh what is your losse through the vented conceptions of the inventions of your Fathers how in vain have they professed the Scriptures and in their words and smooth language owned Christ and the doctrine of the Apostles and how desperately wicked and unspeakably deceitful did the Devil work in his day to bind you under the belief and credit of their unrighteousness and falshood to hide knowledge from your eyes by training you up only under the vail of their Traditions not giving you liberty to read the Scriptures under the pretence that heresies thereby might not creep into their Church as if the knowledge of the Scriptures were the ground or cause of heresies but judge ye whether their doctrine is according to the Apostles instruction 1 Tim. 2.5 There is one God and one Mediator between God and men Paul doth not say that it was the woman Mary which was espoused to Joseph or that it was an Apostle which before him was offered up in the witnesse of the holy Faith neither doth he say that he should be the Interceder when after he should have finished his testimony and be offered up also but he truly testifieth of one Interceder and Mediator the man Christ Jesus And likewise also the Spirit helpeth our infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we ought Rom. 8.26 27. but the Spirit it selfe maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit because he maketh intercession for the Saints according to the will of God Greater Testimony cannot be declared unto you then the putting you in remembrance of your fruits which gives the certain savour and sight of your estate notwithstanding I know Romes learning will not fall so quickly but her Fathers by Sophistry will hold out and strive to stretch forth a leafe to cover your misery in iniquity have not I already heard the Disputer put forth his treacherous deceitful critical enquiry if peradventure his arm might help to make a Fence about the Wall which the hand of the Lord is digging down hath it not been already said by some of your Fathers Viz. Quest If the Apostasie in that time came in and since the time of the sâ—aughter of the Apostles hath stood unto this day where then in all the time since them dayes was the Church which is the Body of which Christ is the Head If since there hath not been a Church how then is Christ the Head of the Church but if since there hath been a Church we then affirm that we are that Church who have kept this our Faith of the Church of which Christ is the Head Answ I answer The woman hath been preserved in the wilderness mark in her place in the wilderness which God prepared for her Rev. 12.14 15. and there she hath been nourished for A time and times and halfe a time from the face of the Serpent and from the floods which the Dragon cast out of his mouth after her Your Fortresses and fenced Cityes and strong inhabited places the buildings of your Idolatrous Temples is not that wildernesse wherein God prepared the womans place of preservation In your City Rome are the streets which spiritually are called Sodom where our Lord was and is daily crucified Idleness and fulness of bread hath encreased your sin in lust and wantonness Your Land is Aegypt where the Onions and the Garlick and the Leeks and the Milleons grow and the flesh-pots are unto which your hearts are bound with unreasonable cords of Appetite It is a mighty hand that must draw you ere you be delivered out of the Land of bondage of captivity and slavery to come to the knowledge and to be joyned in your understandings and life to the sore travels of the seed and Remnant of the Lord in the wildernesse and by how much you are short of this you are short of the knowledge of Moses and of his faithfulnesse in all Gods house Numb 12.7 and by how much you are short of the life of Moses you are short of the knowledge of Christ the Head and of the Church the body for Moses he was a follower of Christ who was raised up for the Redemption of the seed with which your Fathers made war in their days even with the Remnant which was spared in the dayes of the coming in and spreading of the Apostacy which now the Lord hath returned and is returning the captivity of and hath delivered and is delivering the woman out of the solitarinesse of her flight in a secret place in the wildernesse whose tryals and travels and refuge and restauration and redemption ye are ignorant of And your darkness through your corruption and unrighteousnesse is the cause of your vain contentions against and stumbling at the high-way of truth and peace Quest And yet if you further enquire in what estate and condition your Fathers and Predecessors stood in their day which ye their successors are entred into and do stand in these dayes Answ I answer It was and is the estate and condition of the world in the nature of the world in the abominable wickednesse of the world who cannot cease from sin 2 Pet. 2.14 in the filthy unclean lusts of the world and in the deceit of Satan and ignorance of the world under the pronunciation of the word of Johns prophesie Rev. 12.12 Woe to the Inhabiters of the earth for the Devill is come down unto you having great wrath because he knoweth that he hath but a short time and this in brief is your estate and time in which you stand Wherefore I am assured in the truth that as ye remain in the ground and nature of your cursed life ye have not in the least measure or appearance any good confidence to affirm that you are the true Church of Christ but rather your arguments assertions and all manner of disputations do arise from the foundation of impudence which hath a face to bear out your deceit and falacies I know the figure of your
doctrines of your fore-fathers traditions in opposition to the power of God and Crosse of Christ Jesus Read Coloss 1 17 18 19 20 21 22 23. Query 16 Where doth the Scripture say that to take up Crosses of Gold Silver Brasse Iron Bone Wood or carved Stone made by the invention of man is to take up the Crosse of Christ who came not by man nor according to the will of man whose Crosse came with him contrary to the will of man What is the Image to the substance And whether is that any part of the nature of the substance in you or doth it not rather stand in enmity to the substance which taketh up an Image of the Crosse among you yea or nay Query 17 Whose doctrine or Commandement was the foundation of your Idol Temples declare plainly whether God commanded or Satan deceived And what rule have you in the Scriptures or example from the life of the Apostles to worship in Idols Temples altogether by the light of wax Candles or burning Lamps of Oyl and to keep your wax Candles burning night and day in your Idols Temples Query 18 Whether is it not great ignorance for a people to seek the Lord out of the habitation and sanctuary of his holinesse Wherefore seek ye to find God in Temples made with hands Seeing God dwelleth not in Temples made with hands And whether do you not understand that those Temples which are not Gods habitation are the reall Synagogues of Satan yea or nay Acts 17.24 Query 19 What rule have you in the Scripture to make a mock of Christ and the holy Apostles by carrying about Images which ye call their Pictures by day time with the light of Candles or Torches through your streets with many persons passing therewith hood-winked and disguised as Thieves and Robbers singing and rejoycing and making merry over the spoll of the innocent Query 20 What rule have you in the Scriptures or example from the life of the Apostles to light the dead Corps of men and women to the Graves or Sepulchres with Torches or Wax Candles Query 21 What precept have you in the Scriptures to call Elements and shaddows or any of those things which once were figures Sacraments and to carry Bread and Wine through your streets with a Canopie over it with Torches or Wax Candles lighted and one ringing a Bell before it like the hypocrires sounding Trumpets of their services and for all people that meets it to fall down upon their knees before it Query 22 What rule have you in the Scriptures or plain example from the life of the Apostles without adding unto or diminishing from the Scriptures or the acts of Christ or his Apostles for your sprinkling Infants with water and calling that an Ordinance of Christ or Sacrament of your Churches Query 23 What precept have you in the Scriptures or president from the life of the Apostles to pray upon Beads or to pray to Saints or to Mary and to crosse your selves with your hands in your prayers or thanksgivings or to make bowings before walls crossing your selves with your hands babling a few words before you go into your Beds Query 24 What precept or example have you in the Scriptures to make Inquisitions and Inquisitors to slay the life of Gods witnesses against your Idolatries and to make Fryaryes and Nunneryes Doctors Fryars Nuns Jesuits lay-brothers beggars Queristers Singers Ringers were ever such prophesied by Christ or his Apostles should come in the Truth or were ever such in their dayes yea or nay Query 25 Where did Christ ever teach or the Apostles practice the wearing of the garments and long robes of the several Officers of your Catholique Churches your long Gowns and Surplices and whipping Cords about your Loyns and other Girdles and Caps and other disfiguring garments Query 26 What rule have you in the Scriptures or example from the life of the Apostles for your grey Fryars crown-head shavings and for your other Officers with their great Bottles Wallets and begging Bags and others with many Boxes in disguised and hood-winked garments going through the streets and from house to house a begging Query 27 What rule have you in the Scriptures or example from the life of the Apostles for your observing set times and dayes of the week and year to eat Fish or Herbs or other fruit and no Flesh as in your Lents c. And to call such dayes Fast-dayes seeing you eat no flesh but do eat and drink your fill of other creatures and some with strong drink or Wine do make themselves drunk upon such dayes Query 28 What precept or president have you from the doctrine or life of Christ or his Apostles for some of your members to whip and scourge themselves upon some set dayes of the year and to draw blood from their bodyes and to make bruises and cuttings in their flesh and for others of your Officers to lay heavy burdens upon the backs of some your Members which they themselves will not touch with one of their fingers to make poor people go upon their knees through the streets as far as they please for the obtaining from them the Remission of their sins and are not you abominably deceitful as well in the manner as in the matter of this iniquity in laying only such shame and punishment upon the poor in the world and do not lay the same upon a transgressor in the same lust and nature who is very powerfull in the Authority and rich and wealthy in the world Query 29 What precept or president have you from the doctrine or life of Christ or his Apostles to keep and observe dayes and times and seasons which ye call Saints dayes saying that ye keep them in honour of the persons of Christ and his Apostles Are ye not rather a dishonour and stain of their life who spend such dayes in Idolatries in surfeiting and drunkenness in chambering and wantonnesse Coloss 2.17 Query 30 Whether is there any one among you that do witnesse Christ come in you which he that witnesseth not Christ so come in the flesh is Antichrist and if Christ be come in the flesh and dwelleth in you why then do ye with your flesh make Images of the flesh for your corruptible flesh to bowe unto and whilest the spirit which rules your flesh doth thus dictate and lead you doth not your minds in the flesh make a mock of Christ who is a Spirit and of God who will only be worshipped in spirit yea or nay 1 John 4.23 Rom. 8.10 John 4.23 24. In these Traditions deceitful shaddows and Idolatries professing the name of Christ enemies to the power of the Crosse and order of the doctrine and mystery of the life of Christ ye are a just occasion of stumbling to the Turk and an offence to the seed in the Jew and this the Lord God will require at the hands of your two Catholique Churches Concerning the Mystery of the Holy Faith Query 31 What
Kingdome you who are called Jesuits also mark this your figure the Chamelian which lives by the Aire which according to the Law is an unclean Beast which can change himself into all colours perfect white onely excepted Read your similitude and see how you who live in your lusts can without a mock of the Truth be titled with the name of the Church of Christ Jesus in which is neither spot nor wrinkle nor blemish nor any such thing as uncleannesse or unrighteousnesse 1 Cor. 6.11 Although such were some of them but they came to be washed and were cleansed and sanctified and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God Which Spirit of truth the light is this day the Leader of the Saints and servants of God into all truth Now therefore doe ye Read What is the Chaffe to the Wheate And what relation hath the Spirit of truth unto your life which is squared and fashioned in the frame of Error Deceite hath been the Master-builder of the fabrick of your habitation the spirit of Iniquitie working in a mystery the foundation of your walls and the strength of lyes and lying wonders the pillars of your house which by the gilded appearance of the beauty of the wisdome of the ancient and learned in Philosophy Rhetorick and Sophistry is covered with many painted tiles of vanitie under the shaddow whereof you bow to the Images and pictures which the unrighteous hearts of your fathers Invented whose Gods are before your eyes unto which the affections of your naturall sences are joyned whereby with the carnall and naturall according to the motion of the Spirit of Error and Deceit in you you are led to worship the workes of their hands as is manifest by your bowings and bendings to the Image and likenesse of the naturall which the naturall invented and the carnall made And this also came in in the Apostasie when that was forsaken which the Eternall Spirit did command And now through the custome of your forefathers and you in the dayly practice of their invented Ceremonies being setled on the leese of their abominable Idolatries are come in your generation Matth. 15.9 to teach for doctrine the traditions of men And therefore in vaine is your worship as saith the Lord But yet ye have also to speake in the commendation of your fathers seniority and wisdome who gave commandement for such resemblances by Images and pictures not as if they were the gods of your worship but the resemblances of the Lord Christ c. whom by these resemblances you teach the ignorant for to worship Answer The greatest blindnesse is in the hearts of your learned Fathers I speak out of the spheare of their Colledges in mine Answer to their plea for their sinfull Idolatries and over all your Nations doe cry out and lift up my voyce as one in mourning lamenting for the lost seed among you which they that should rather in righteousnesse handle the plow to break up the clods to uncover the seed have used the spade and shovel and have heaped up dirt and stones thereon to the miserable burden thereof Oh horrible Ignorance a people bound with the chaines of darknesse can any thing be the resemblance of the Lord or the likenesse of his Image who is the Infinite Eterternall a pure holy glorious endlesse living Spirit but that which he maketh in his likeness and formeth in his own Image by the power of his own Almighty hand And doth he who is a pure Everlasting Spirit of life make or fashion any whom he fashioneth but in the likenesse of that which all the world by wisdome by Philosophy or by arguments can never attaine to reach unto the sight or understanding thereof Can any make the resemblance of God who is Immortall which the mortall never saw Can the corruptible and mortall which never did nor never shall see incorruption and immortalitie make with their corruptible hands and changeable unrighteous Idolatrous hearts the resemblance or likenesse of the Incorruptible Spirit From the Lord God I say and declare unto you all your bowings to your Crosses and Images and Pictures praying upon Beads to Mary and Saints is abomination to the Lord God of Heaven and Earth and in these things you are but a stinke to the rest of the Heathen who with you doe stand Enemies to the Doctrine Gospel and Crosse of our Lord Jesus for as they in words doe hold the name of our Lord in contempt you with your deceitfull shaddowes doe make a mock of truth and his sufferings in loathsomenesse you are seated as an abomination in the sight of God who created you and in the eye and sight of the servants of the Lord who by the price of blood are redeemed and with pure water are washed from the polutions of the iniquitie and the blood and envie which is among you and the rest of the Nations kinreds tongues and peoples of the Earth and now are the followers of the Lambe whethersoever he goeth Abundantly do the Scripture beare testimony against your practices mark from the precepts and commandements of God Exod 20.4 unto Moses through the house of the Prophets and the life of the Saints search and then see Isa 44.3 might not you with as much confidence make a calfe and say to the ignorant this is the resemblance of God worship ye it and draw the picture of a Monster and say this is the resemblance of the wonderfull Spirit which was in Paul or Peter bowe ye before it Read Jer the 23.11 12 13 14 15 verses Oh miserable blindnesse and the greatest darknesse is the Priests ignorance who teach the people lyes and cause them to erre in their wayes With the light search and see how far you are from being under the power of the word of the Lord who contrary to the letter of the Scriptures Do worship in the forme of the traditions of your fore-fathers Christ said to his Disciples in those dayes Joh 4.23 The houre cometh and now is that the true worshippers shall worship the father in spirit and in truth for the father seeketh such to worship him mark such as are in the Spirit Math 23.29 having one father which is in Heaven but ye being yet in your sins and in the flesh are the false worshippers who have many instructions and traditions and observations given to you according to the wills as the product of the inventions and conceptions of your many fathers and now as ye shall turne your minds to the light of the Lord Jesus which will rip open your hearts you will finde that rule to be the equall measure of your wayes which will give you a true fight that you are not in the truth as it is in Jesus who is the truth in whom and by whom and through whom the Prophets writ their prophesies and the Apostles had their utterance whose words do stand to the bearing
to the Greekes Patriarke and Pope of Rome and to their Doctors Priests Pastors Universities Schooles and Colledges throughout the compasse of the Regions of the rule of their two Catholique Churches in all the earth by them or any of them to be answered for the sake of truth and of soules in how much they are willing to appeare lovers of truth or of soules and are ready to render a reason of the hope that is in them according to the Scriptures Concerning the Word of Faith Query 1 WHat is the faith of Jesus And what is that which begets any into the true faith of Jesus Whether is it mens Imaginary conceptions of Jesus and the training up of a people in the blinde traditions of men or only the word of faith which cometh from Jesus yea or nay Query 2 What is the sure word of faith which gives the true and sound witnesse of the life of Jesus only unto worme Jacob and which word is nigh unto all men upon the face of the earth and yet is that which the sinner cannot receive unto life but resists unto death Query 3 Can any person minister the Word to beget others into the faith of the word of faith who have not themselves received the word and have any received the life of the word who knowes not the word yea or nay And who amongst you is cleansed with the word that is not in the state of sinne under deaths bonds of transgression in enmity to the word Query 4 Whether can any truly know Christ to believe in Christ who never have heard the word of Christ And when and where did any of you ever heare the voyce of the Son of God And is not that the Pharisees and hypocrites state to boast and say that you believe in Christ and have the word of God and yet never heard immediately the voyce of Christ yea or nay Query 5 What is that eare in man which being open cannot heare the voyce of Christ who came to make deafe those that heare and to give hearing to the deafe And what is that eare also which ought to heare and is stopt And that eye which seeth and is to be blinded and that eye which is blinded which Christ cometh to open Shew plainly the five senses of man which are senslesse of the word of God and see if you can answer how that man in sense beyond sense hath the true sense of seeing hearing feeling savouring by smelling and tasting of the good word of God Query 6 By what was it that the word of life was ministred and preached unto the Spirits in prison and what is the Spirit which is the prisoner and what and where is the prison and when did ye ever visit the prisoner in the time of his bondage in prison Concerning the Patriarke and Popes Power Query 7 WHat is the key which openeth the prison doore and who hath that key hath either your Patriarke or Pope that key to open the prison doore and to loose on earth And what is the matter and subject to be loosed on earth And in what manner will that also be loosed in heaven which is loosed on earth Query 8 What is the key of David and who hath the keeping thereof and is there any other key which openeth Heaven or shutteth the door of death or gates of Hell besides the key of David Whether either your Patriarch or Pope whom ye call Peters Successor hath the keeping of that key seeing that the Scriptures say That the first and the last he that openeth and no man shutteth and shutteth and no man openeth hath the key of David Rev. 3.7 Rev. 1.17 18. Query 9 What is the key of knowledge which the Lawyers took away whereby they entered not themselves and hindered others from entering even such as was entering Did the Lawyers know what that key was then And do your Patriarch or Pope Doctors Priests or Lawyers know what it is now Are you in any other knowledge or wisdome then those Lawyers were who entred not and hindred others yea or nay And wherein you may say that you differ do you shew it forth how you differ in the ground and nature Luke 11.52 Query 10 What is that Book and the Seales and Sealing of that Book which no man in Heaven nor in Earth was found worthy to open And where was Peter then whether was he in Heaven or in Earth or was he neither in Heaven nor on Earth and the Scriptures not saying that Peter was found worthy at that time how then can any of your Catholique Churches with confidence now say that those whom you call Peters Successors the Foundations and Pillars of your Churches are at this time worthy to do that or whether can your Pope or Patriarch do that in these dayes which John saw in his day no man in Heaven nor in Earth could do Rev. 5.1 2 3. Query 11 Your Members have said that Peter is the Rock and Foundation of your Catholique Churches I Query whether that was not the Peter who is the foundation of your Churches unto whom Christ the Rock and Foundation of our Church which is in God said Get thee behind me Satan and whether is the Patriarch at Constantinople or Pope at Rome his successor in his place yea or nay Math. 16.23 Query 12 Doth not the virtue of the key of knowledge open all mysteries and if ye have the key of knowledge of the things of God cannot ye thereby answer all these Queryes or any others concerning the things of God in the clear understanding of the mystery of Truth in the wisdom of God yea or my Query 13 Whosoever committeth sin is of the Devil 1 John 3.8 What then is the ground of the election of your Patriarch and Pope by sinners and impowred to forgive sins And in what standeth their power to forgive sins who are themselves wicked sinners Whether is the manner of this practice any other in the substance then Satan seating Lucifer in the Kingdom of sin falsly to salve up the wound of sin yea or nay Concerning Ordinances and divers corrupt Traditions and Idolatries Query 14 WHat is the one everlasting Ordinance of God which is the seal of the Covenant and assurance of salvation unto every living soul which hath partaked thereof which no Element could give the testimony of which is the sum and substance really come unto every true born Member of Christs Church of all Types Signes and Shadows which figured out the substance before it came Query 15 Whether are your two Catholique Churches or any of the Members thereof partakers of the one everlasting Ordinance of God which is the end of all washing carnall Bread Wine and Water-Baptismes and of all shaddows Types and Figures spoken of in the Scriptures seeing you in contrary manner to all the prophesies doctrines and examples written in the Scriptures do stand in divers invented shaddows vanities and Idolatries in the practice of the