5. And St. Paul tells us other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid which he saith not is St. Peter not Petrus but Petra is Jesus Christ the true Rock who is the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets both that upon which they themselves were built and stood and that upon which they as God's Builders built his Church 1 Cor. 3.11 Ephes 2.20 And surely no man can stand more strongly by being built upon St. Peter than by being built upon Christ Nor find we either Christ himself or any of his Apostles to say or signify any such thing as that the place or Church where Peter should reside or praeside should be more Infallible than any other Church or Churches founded resided in or praesided over by any other of his Apostles Nor that such as should succeed him as Bishops in any place much less in Rome praesided in by him should be more Infallible than other Bishops If the praesidency of St. Peter in Rome can secure that Church or it's Bishop from failing or falling into Errour how comes it to pass that his sitting at Antioch did not also secure that place Church Yea those Churches of Judaea of the Circumcision whereof he was the Prime and immediate Apostle Gal. 2.9 Surely they ought rather to have had this Privilege and Praerogative from him than Rome a Gentile Church which was rather under S. Paul's Barnabas's Jurisdiction as being the Apostles of the Gentiles It 's strange that none of the Churches more certainly planted by him should have this Privilege but only Rome which it is not certain that he planted or ever came into for some of no small learning have made a question of that that I say not have positively denied it Surely none but simple persons and such as are easy and willing to be deceived and therefore look not well to their goings will believe such groundless praetexts imposed upon them True it is that some of the Ancient Councels gave a Patriarchal power to the Bishop of Rome subjecting these Western Churches thereunto but that was but an humane constitution for order and unities sake and gave him no more Infallibility than the like constitutions gave to the Bishops of Jerusalem or Antioch or Alexandria or Constantinople whom they made Patriarchs also in their respective Jurisdictions Nor yet did that make Rome or it's Church the whole Catholique Church or the Bishop thereof the Head of it as is evident by the 6th Councel of Carthage where Faustinus the Popes Legate challenging for his Master a power to order all great matters in all places pretending for it a Decree of the Nicene Councel was upon diligent search into the Records of the said Councel found a falsifyer thereof and thereupon was decreed an equality in power with the other Patriarchs But beside all this against the plea of that Church's Infallibility it is evident 2. That she hath in Fact erred and can there be a clearer and better demonstration of the possibility of her Erring deceiving and being deceiv'd than that she hath actually Erred For though à posse ad esse non valet consequentia yet ab esse ad posse est validissima Now that she hath actually Erred is evident not only in her members and different parties but also in her conjunct consideration and in her Head As for her having erred and yet erring in her parties and members it 's demonstrable in this that contradictoria non possunt esse simul vera of two contradictory positions maintained by different parties the one must needs be false Now in the Church of Rome there are contradictory positions maintained by several parties witness the Dominicans and Franciscans the one contradicting the other in the matter of the immaculateness of the conception of the Virgin Mary the one denying and the other asserting it if the Virgin Mary was conceaved in her Mothers womb without sin then the Dominican Party of the Roman Church errs and if otherwise then the Francâ—scan Party errs The like may be said of the Jansenists and Jesuites in the five Articles wherein they differ But I say not only their members but their Head and Bishop may erre also even in Cathedrâ or in his solemn Determinations and doings yea in matters of Faith as is made manifest in Liberius subscribing to Arrianisme and Vigilius who both condemned and commanded the same things to be believed as in the three Chapters condemned by a Councel as favouring Nestorianisme and in Honorius who was condemned by a Councel for a Monothelite And surely if a Pope may contradict himself and say and unsay a thing as Pope and Head of their Church and both condemn and command the belief of the same thing as in that case of Pope Vigilius he must needs be Fallible and erre in the one of them And there is no way to avoid it but that either some of their Popes have erred or some of their General Councels which is the Church representative and were some time also declared and held to be about the Pope and were usually consented to and confirmed by their Popes have been deceived in condemning them as having erred either of which supposals mightily infringes the Infallibility of their Church Nay and it is believed that the Jansenists would they speak out do not look upon the late Pope Innocent as Infallible in his condemnation of the five Articles maintained by them Nay did not St. Peter himself greatly erre in a main matter of Faith and that too after our Saviour had said to him Thou art Peter and upon this Rock will I build my Church when he preaches such doctrine to his Master as that he should not suffer death for which our Saviour rebuking him cal'd him Sathan Mat. 16.22 23. But not only have and do great Parties in her and branches of her erre and even their Popes themselves but She herself in her whole Authoratative Constitution and Catholique complex consideration and that very grosly too if we look upon her Doctrines and determinations in the light of the infallible testimony of God and of his holy Spirit speaking in the holy Scriptures which is the Touch-stone to which the Prophet Isaiah or the Lord himself by him in Isai 8.20 and Christ himself in Joh. 5.39 directs us and to which the noble Boereans brought the Apostle Paul's preaching with commendation for their so doing Act. 17.12 yea and the Apostle St. Peter himself directs the Churches and the believers therein to that in 2 Pet. 1.19 and 3.1 2. and the Apostle Paul commends Timothy for that from a child he knew the holy Scriptures they being able to make men wise unto Salvation 2 Tim. 3.15 implying therein that even Children if they will mind the holy Scriptures and set themselves to seek the knowledge of them may as they grow up in some good measure obtain it to their great benefit and salvation Now contrary to these holy Scriptures
vers 9 10. Even so the Church of Rome and it's Teachers reject the word of the Lord as is evident in the instances we have given and yet they say the Law the Scriptures and it's Exposition are with that is belong unto them They are they from whom men must receive it and upon whom they must depend for it Yea they do as the false Church in Isa 48.1 2. is said to have done who make mention of the name of the Lord but not in truth nor in righteousness though they called themselves of the holy City that is in effect the holy Catholick Church The like is timated of them in Jer. 18.18 where the persecutors of the Lord's Prophets that were such in truth yet said of themselves come let us devise devices against Jeremiah and add as if they had thence authority to do so for the Law shall not perish from the Priest nor counsel from the wise nor the word from the Prophet Now when we see or may see by the Scriptures of truth and the testimony of the Holy Spirit in them that there should be false Teachers among the Christians answerable to the false Prophets among the Jews that would bring in Doctrines swarving from the Scriptures and find that the Papists and their Teachers evidently do so their challenge of authority to be the sole Expounders of the Scriptures should nothing move us while we see that they therein walk in the steps of the false Prophets especially seeing also that they challenge an authority which the Holy Ghost hath not given them nor directed his followers any where unto For the Holy Ghost himself who led the Apostles into all truth Joh. 16.13 doth not in any Scripture testifie to us of Rome or the Roman Church that we should derive our Faith from her or resolve it into her or her Doctors more than into any other Church The Apostle Peter whose authority they pretend to have committed to them but without any evidence of the holy Scriptures and whose Successors they tell us their Popes or Bishops are could not leave more authority to them than he had exercised himself Now we find him expresly preferring the authority of the Scriptures before his own saying or testimony as to the resolution of other mens Faith Yea he as well as other Apostles proved his sayings by the holy Scriptures as is evident in his Epistles 1 Pet. 2.6 7. and 3.10 11 12. and obtruded nothing upon men on his own authority barely as the Popes presume to do He calls the word of Prophesy a more sure word than what he related of his own knowledge 2 Pet. 1.16 17 18 19. and instead of directing the Believers after his death to the Church of Rome and her Bishops which surely he would and ought to have done had he known of any power given of Christ to her or to them for resolving mens doubts and determining their Faith and exercising a dominion over mens consciences more than to other Churches or their Bishops yea or directing them to himself more than to the rest of the Apostles when he forewarned them of false Teachers Scoffers that would come in the last days He stirs up the Believers minds to remember the words of the Prophets and the Commandments of the Apostles of our Lord and Saviour He saith not his own Commands or his rather than of the other Apostles but indefinitely of the Apostles puting in himself with them as one of the same rank and of no superior rank or authority among or over them much less doth he say that we should after his death be take our selves to the Church or Bishop of Rome for our direction guidance and preservation from the Error of the wicked but directs us to the Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles the things spoken and commanded in and by them He thought not of the Lord Peter or the Lord Pope nor signified that the rest of the Apostles stood in relation more than himself to any man as their Lord but only to him who is the Saviour Yea and the Lord Jesus himself when afterward he appeared to John in the Isle of Patmos and gave him visions and revelations of the things that should come to pass in the world and unto the Churches directed him not to bid us go to Rome for resolution of our hearts in the matters of God and in what concerns our preservation in his truth but he in his several Epistles to the Churches bids Let him that hath an ear hear what the Spirit saith to the Churches He bids not That he that hath an ear should hear the Churches simply no nor yet what the Spirit saith in the Churches much less saith he Let him that hath an ear hear what the Church of Rome saith or what her Bishop as an heavenly Oracle or the Spirit as either in it or him as Infallibly tied to his Chair should dictate to us And yet which is very considerable this Book of the Revelations according to the most authentick testimonies of Antiquity was written after the Deaths of all the other Apostles and its probable at least that he lived not long after it himself who was the Penman thereof and therefore if there were any judge or orderer of mens faith infallible to be looked to by all Churches besides the holy Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles or any Infallible Interpreter of them above the rest to be taken heed to it had been the proper place and time surely for Christ the faithful and true witness of God the Amen the firm and sure friend and Pastour of his Church to have signified who it is and directed the Church and every one that hath an ear to hear and hearken to him but neither when he was asked or there was a strife among the Apostles who of them should be the greatest did he tell them Peter should be their Prince and chief among them nor did he direct them here to any Successor of his at Rome or elsewhere as an infallible Guide and Head to them no there is no other Director as to matters of Faith and Worship directed to of God by his Holy Spirit in any Scripture as our absolute and infallible Guide but only the Spirit himself as speaking in and by the Scriptures to the Churches what the Scripture saith being called the saying of the Holy Ghost or Spirit as is to be seen Heb. 3.7 and 10.15 Act. 28.25 And surely they are guilty of horrible Idolatry that prefer the Testimony Word or Determination of any person or persons Church or Bishop before or above yea or but as equal with the testimony of the Holy Ghost to cast by his sayings or commands to listen to and be ruled by men is indeed to have the fear of God taught us by mens precepts and in vain to honour God or worship him which was the fault of the Jewish Church reproved by the Holy Ghost in the Prophet Isaiah for which also he
seeing Pope Julius the second in his expedition against the French some ages since threw them into the River Tyber saying because St. Peters Keys would not do his work he would betake him to St. Pauls Sword how doth it appear that he and his Successors did not thereby loose them forever When did Christ make any new ones and give to him or those that suceeded him But herein also her excessive pride appears in that her Bishops challenge both St. Peters Keys and St. Pauls Sword nay both Swords both the Civil and Sacred or Ecclesiastical for I think the truly Spiritual they care not much for at least as to any true right use thereof that is they challenge Dominion in Temporal matters usurp upon the rights of Kings Princes and to exercise a power in disposing of Thrones and Scepters and making Civil Wars as well as to rule over all Nations in Church matters Never was there any Chuch or company of People in the World ranting it so highly and carrying it so aloft as this Church and her Bishops have done ever since they obtained of Phocas the high Honour he conferred upon them to make them an amends for approving him in the Murther of his Master in setling the dignity of Emperor upon him and this suits well with the description of my story of Babilon too in the Revelations where she is represented as mounted upon a Stately Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns as being both exalted and supported therein by and yet ruling and ordering the Imperial Power Sitting upon many Waters that is ruling over many Nations People and Languages gallantly deckt and making all Nations drunk of the Cup of her Fornications glorifying her self in stead of God and Christ and saying I sit as a Queen as the Lambs wife the Catholique Church to whom all in all estates owe honour and subjection and am no Widdow Infallible not forsaken of Christ and so shall see no sorrow the City that ruleth over the Kings of the Earth Revel 17.1 2 3 4 18. and 18.7 Surely if pride go before destruction and a haughty mind before a fall then it cannot be but so proud and Luciferian a Church must needs fall too If the Angel of the Church of Laodicea because of his high boastings that he was rich and increased with goods growing thereby lukewarm was threatned to be spewed out of Christs mouth and what was said to him was said to the Churches by the spirit as implying that any of them falling into the like temper must be so dealt with except they repented how can it be but that this Church hath long since met with that doome seeing shee for a long time hath been far more Proud and Highminded than that Angel was and no less lukewarm or indifferent for the honour of Christ so she may be but the Queen and Empress especially also seeing she obstructs the way against her repentance by pleading she is Infallible and so needs no repentance justifying by her Priests and Jesuits her self and her practices in all these vile and filthy miscarriages doing therein as was noted before like Jerusalem of old that would not acknowledge that she had transgressed and scattered her ways to strangers and had not obeyed Gods voice but would against the most notorious and palpable evidences of her guilt yet say she was not polluted she had not gone after Baalim or other Lords and Masters besides her own proper God Even so it is with this proud imperious Chuch she will lift up her self against all charges and will not own her self guilty of Idolatry or corrupt in her faith worship but will boast of her being the Church the Catholique Church the Infallible Church talk of her Antiquity Universality Unity challenge all the Apostles Prophets Martyrs Confessors Ancient Doctors Councels to be hers when indeed in truth in their true and genuine Doctrines the Apostles Prophets Primitive Doctors and Councels all condemn her It is true she may in many things boast of her Antiquity and so may the Devil and his Followers who also can shew as great an Universality and Unity for should he be divided against himself as our Saviour saith his kingdom could not stand Luk. 11.18 but non omne quod antiquum est verum est sed quod primum not all that is ancient though of great latitude and extent and at unity with itself but that that is the first that is true and right So God was the first and before the Devil and his truth was before error and falshood and the Articles of the Christian faith were long before any noyse was heard of the Popes Supremacy or being Christs Vicar or of his having derived the Keys or the Power over the whole Church from St. Peter or of the Doctrine of Purgatory or Transubstantiation or their Merit of our works or of Works of Super-errogation or of the Cup being denyed to the People or of the Latine Service or Prayers injoyned in an unknown Tongue or of the Worship of Images or Invocation of the Saints or of whatever else is properly Roman as distinguished from all other Professors of the Christian Religion Which are so many gross and horrid Errors into which she is fallen and from the charge of guilt wherein she cannot clear her self But though she wash her with Nitre and take much Sopâ— yet they are and will be marked before the Lord as He said sometime to Jerusalem Jer. 2.22 and therefore also being so fowly fallen into Error and Iniquity and not confessing and repenting but justifying her self and saying in despite of all the most evident convictions that she is innocent it cannot be but that what God threatned to Israel will also be her portion and that in a far more dreadful and severe manner that is that he will plead with her and execute upon her all the terrible Judgment written in Revel 18. So as she shall be thrown down into the Pit of destruction with great violence even by the mighty hand of God so as she shall be found no more at all because she instead of owning her guilt and repenting of her Idolatries Blood-shed Pride and all her other Enormities saith she is innocent and her lying false Prophets dawb her up with their untempered Mortar and see for her vain and foolish things instead of discovering her iniquity to turn away her misery Yea they see for her as Jerusalems false Prophets did for her false buthens and causes of banishment of her and all that cleave to her for ever from Gods presence Jer. 2.32 Lam. 2.14 Rev. 18.2 and she loves to have it so For if any be convinced of her Errors and protest against them being converted from them they seek if possible to murther and destroy them As many have proved and as Mr. Anthony Aegan tells us they have endeavoured diverse ways to do to him since his conversion from them and protests against them and endeavours
most gross and palpable error against the Verdict of Sence and Reason and the Word of God therefore must needs be without any substantial reason therefrom And me thinks it 's strange that men will believe Lies that are so evident and notorious that their very sences may convince them thereof If Christ should have told his Disciples that a Spirit hath not flesh and bones as they see him have and yet might impose upon their sences and make them to believe that to be flesh and bones upon the Verdict of their sences which yet in truth for all that might be other-wise had he not been really what his Adversaries falsly accused him to be And what weight would there be in that argument so often made use of by the Apostles to assure us of the truth of their Doctrine viz. that they were Eye-witnesses of the things they delivered for truths to the Church and see and heard and felt what they testified if things might be quite otherwise than the most plain and constant evidence of them to our sences represent them Now we may see the substance of bread in the Sacrament as plainly as our eyes can discern any substance we may feel it with our hands tast it with our mouths smell it with our nostrils And when we have so many evidences that it is bread yea and the word of God and Scriptures of the Apostles call it bread too as they do after the words of Consecration when it is broken yea and eaten too for they say the bread which we break is it not the Communion of the body of Christ and so often as ye eat this bread c. 1 Cor. 10.16 and 11.26 to be perswaded upon this Church's or it's Priests authority that there is no bread there but the very natural body and the substance of the flesh and bones of Jesus Christ is the most palpable imposture upon our faith and the most unreasonable credulity that ever was heard of not to be parallel'd in any Histories Oh but say they our Saviour said this is my body and therefore it must be his very natural body As if our Saviour never spake in Parables or used not similitudes and figures in his speaking and so must be understood to speak Literally when the understanding his words so contradicts our sences yea and our reason too For if the substance of bread be gone and the very substance of his body flesh blood and bones be there really present under the forms of bread and wine upon the Consecration or pronunciation of those words this is my body how many absurdities must follow thereupon As then Christ must have many bodies distinct from one another or the same to be multiplied beyond all possibility to say into how many yea then while Christs body sate by his Disciples whole and untouched it must be at the same instant in their hands and mouths yea his whole body in every one of their hands and mouths in it's mortal state and yet his whole body visibly before them all and distinct from them all and from all their hands and mouths and what was therein yea then his body must be broken by himself before it was broken and he was as it were his own Crucifyer before he was crucifyed slain and while as yet nothing of that nature was done to his body For if that bread which he took and blessed was transubstantiated into his body then he saying of it that it was broken for them in that he brake the bread it must then be broken by himself and yet for all it was broken and eaten too yet it was as whole after that yea and in the very time of it's being broken and eaten as ever and was taken and broken and crucified on the Cross by his enemies after every one of his Disciples had eaten it in it's natural substance Then also he must have a thousand and a thousand bodies at once in the several places where the Mass is Celebrated and the Host eaten and the whole body eaten by every Communicant in it's substance corporally yet his body whole entire in Heaven and the Heavens must receive or contain it till the time of the restitution of all things spoken of by the Prophets Yea and when the Hosts is reserved in the Pix or Box the same body must be in the same time in Heaven Glory and shut up in a narrow box in diverse places where possibly it may mould or if the Mice can come to it be eaten too by them except the Mice can eat accidents without the substance they can be accidents without substance to inherein that are in such case mouldy or the like and all the absurdities that the Prophets cast upon the Heathen Idolaters when they tax them with making a God that cannot help or save it self but may be carried to and fro as men please may be all justified as rational or warranted as possible enough by this one Doctrine For do not the Priests they say make of a piece of bread the person of Christ God and man even their Maker And when a Baker hath of the same dough made diverse cakes or wafers and divers of them being caught and taken and eaten by men the Priest takes one or more of them and Consecrates and makes a God of it and falls down and worships it and perswades the people to worship it telling them it is very God and their Saviour Though yet when it is in their hands it is in their power if they will to cast it away or to burn it in the fire if they secretly reserve it and it cannot rescue it self from them and their power no more than the God made of a piece of a Tree could May it not as well be said to these as to those Heathen Idolaters remember this and shew your selves men bring it again to mind O ye Transgressors Isai 46.8 For are not these men every whit as much infatuated as those persons or worse For there they took a piece of a Tree the workmanship of God more immediately and having burnt part of it in the fire and roasted meat and warmed themselves with it they made another part of it into an Image or similitude of something and set it up and Consecrated it with some words or charms and then they called it their God they prayed to it and said deliver me for thou art my God Isa 44.14 15 16 17. Giving it Divine worship Perhaps they might think as the Papists do that after they had Consecrated it it was transubstantiated too and ceased to be wood the matter and substance of that was gone and it was thenceforth not a Block or wood but really a God and had power to help and save it's Worshippers As the Poet deridingly sings of their Priapus Olim truncus eram ficulnus inutile lignum Cùm Faber incertus scamnum faceret né Priapum Maluit esse Deum Whence it might say
Omnipotency will make the one as possible as the other Or that the same thing that is shut and hung up in the Pix being a Consecrated Host is the same numerical body that is glorified and gloriously appears in Heaven also what was eaten by the people in their receiving eating what of it was given them But we may see how these men straining the words of Christ where they please as they do also some expressions of the Ancient Fathers make the word of God subject to their wills and pleasures and where they please they will grant a Figure and where they please they shall be properly and literally understood yea and strained beyond their litteral expression for Christ said no such thing as this is transubstantiated into or is the substance of my very body as they say though the like absurdities following upon the litteral sence of or collection from it as would from taking the other expressions litterally makes it necessary to understand them figuratively and sacramentally in the one place as well as in the other It 's true that in this Supper Christ would have us and it 's necessary for us to abstract or withdraw our minds from the consideration of the bread and wine in their own proper substances and to fix them only upon the body and blood of Christ whereof they are a communion or communication 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so to have no more to do with those Elements in our thoughts in a manner than as if there were no such matters only as they may occasion us to meditate and consider that his flesh is meat indeed the true bread and everlasting nourishment of our Souls and his blood or the New Testament confirmed by it Drink indeed a most comfortable matter of refreshing for the Soul to take into it's believing consideration and so spiritually and sacramentally to feed upon his flesh and blood But to impose upon peoples Faith that the things which they see with their eyes to be very bread and wine are very Christ his very flesh and blood yea God-man their Saviour and to cause them to worship them is a very gross departure from and abuse of Christ's institution and of his command for our observation of it And why may they not as well impose upon mens faith that St. Peter after he Confessed Christ was transubstantiated into a hard stone and his flesh blood and bones yea his Soul and body and all was metamorphiz'd into a Rock For our Saviour said unto him Tues Petrus in the Syriac Cephas which in our English Language signifies a stone Mat. 16.18 with Jo. 1.42 here is Christs assertion as plainly of Peter as there of the bread And if the word Est is imply the substantial change of the bread in the one why may not the word Es thou art imply the substantial change of Simon Bar-Jonah in the other And why may it not be as rationally believed that his flesh and bones yea Soul and body were immediately and substantially turned into stone living stone as that the bread was changed into the body of Christ substantially seeing the Omnipotency of God was as well able to do the one as the other And that is pleaded as sufficient for our Faith to believe this And so St. Peter was a living walking Stone that had not the substance of either flesh or blood or bones in him though the appearance of them all to the sences Yea and why may it not be as well imposed upon mens Faith that Christ himself is so changed in his substance into stone too For he is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the living stone 1 Pet. 2.4 and that the Altar that Jacob built at Shechem was transubstantiated into the Essence of God because Jacob Consecrating it called it El Elohe Israel God the God of Israel Gen. 33.20 Surely they are strangely infatuated or obstinately wilful that cannot or will not see the absurdity of this Doctrine of theirs so contrary both to sence and reason and so void of any solid ground for it in the Holy Scriptures Object Oh but they will say they are the Church and their judgment is to be taken as the infallible truth and therefore if they did assert the like changes and transubstantiations in other things then they were to be believed too For our Faith is to be resolved into their sayings as our Saviour tells us that they that hear not the Church are to be accounted as Heathens and Publicans Ans But to that it 's said and shewed before that they are not the Church Catholique but only a part of the Church and a very corrupt part too To which I add that I find it injoyned to us that we should hear Christ the great Prophet of God in all things which he shall say unto us but I find it no where injoyned us that we should hear the Church in all that she shall say unto us And that the Scripture here quoted by them to serve their design is perverted by them from it's true and genuine intent rnd scope For our Saviour did not there intend nor speak any thing as signifying an intent to teach us to build our Faith or belief of the Scripture-sayings or the Exposition of the Scripture upon the Authority of the Church or it's sayings much less of any uppermost party that unduely challenge to themselves the title and appellation of the whole Church much less the Church of Rome But his discourse is evidently about offences given by any sinning Brother which being evident in themselves might by any particular person against whom they were committed be reprehended and faulted and in case the party offending would not hear a private admonition then it should be reproved by the same person again taking one or two persons as witnesses with him who might also join in reproving or admonishing him And if still he harden his heart and retain his offensive or evil way or practice then they should declare it to the Church who might all testifie their dislike or give him a joint admonition of the same fault And if he hear not them in such joint admonition given them by the Church then the offended Brother might disclaim communion with him and leave him as no more to be owned by him than an Heathen man or a Publican Here is nothing of the Church's giving the object of faith to be believed or of her being to be heard in whatsoever she shall say though never so contrary to sence or reason or to the Scripture sayings or to the commands of God and Christ but of the Chuch's admonishing an offending Brother who being admonished by her ought to hear the Church therein But that 's in no other thing than in what he ought to have heard first the offended Brother in upon his own private admonition or the offended Brother with one or two joining with him upon his slighting the admonition given by the offended Brother alone But
threatned to give up their wise and prudent men on whom the people leaned to an infatuation of their understandings Isa 29.9 10 11 12 13 14. and the fault charged by our Saviour on the Scribes and Pharisees and the Jewish Church as depending on them Math. 15.1 3 7 8 9. Mark 7.6 7. to vers 13. and it will be as great or a greater evil in us than in them if we make our selves guilty of it in as much as God having now spoken to us by his only begotten Son hath declared his Name more plainly and expresly than he had done in former ages and therefore greater heed and acquiescence in his words and sayings is expected from us for us then to forsake the fountain of Living waters which is Christ speaking in his Servants the Apostles and Prophets in the Scriptures to dig up Cisterns broken Cisterns as all men with their inventions and decrees and all their authority and power that are not his are would be a more astonishable madness than what of that nature was practised under Moses and the Prophets by the Church of Israel Jer. 2.12 13. Our Saviour in the Relation of the Rich man and Lazarus introduces Abraham directing the Rich mans five brethren to Moses and the Prophets and not to the Jewish Sanhedrim or High-Priest or any other persons claiming an infallible authority distinct from them though they might have had more colour by far for claiming such a thing either from that in Deut. 17.8.11.13 appointing men in case of doubt or controversy to stick to and observe the determinations of the High-Priest or chief Ruler of the People or from that promise in Isa 59.21 where God promiseth to put his Spirit upon Zion or some persons in it and his words into their mouth so as to continue it from generation to generation than any the Pope or the Church of Rome can shew for their claim yet I say Abraham directs them to no such person or persons but onely to Moses and the Prophets and if he so directed them then surely now that we have Christ and his Apostles also added as a compleatment of the revelation of Gods mind and will and as infallible Interpreters of Moses and the Prophets it behoves us to take heed to them as speaking in their words and writings and not to neglect or refuse them under pretence of insufficiency in them to direct us now aright without some other infallible Guide that he no where directs us to to determine us And that Rome or her Head the Pope is not Infallible in her doctrine of Transubstantiation the thing last insisted on is evident from hence that Gelasius one of their Popes or Bishops hath taught the Church that the bread in the Sacrament is not naturû or substantiâ mutatus changed in its nature or substance and others of them have taught and determined that it is substantially changed so as the flesh of Christ it is that is eaten and torn with the Teeth of the Communicants as in the Luteran Council was defined and in contradictories one part must needs be false which things duly considered may imbolden us to reject the Pleas and pretence of that Church as more groundless Usurpations Inchroachments by which they pervert men from the right ways of God which our Lord Jesus hath delivered to us Nay our Lord Jesus in the Book of the Revelations instead of directing us to Rome doth clearly call us off from it and hath revealed that to us concerning her which being taken heed to by us will admonish us to flee from her for by the concurrent consent of Interpreters as led to it by the Scripture it self compared with the state and condition of Rome it is Rome deciphered in that Book not by the Name of Jerusalem the beloved City of God in the light whereof the Nations of the saved should walk but by the name of Babylon the Enemy of Jerusalem and her Inhabitants and the subject of the deepest died sins and heaviest judgments mentioned in that Book Yea the Papist writers themselves are also forced to confess the truth hereof it is so palpable and evident yea rather than they will not prove St. Peter to have been at Rome Babylon shall signifie Rome too in his 1. Epistle 5.13 surely she was the City that then ruled over the Kings of the Earth and was built upon seven Hills or Mountains and that 's the City called Babylon Rev. 17.9 18. and its evident that she ruled over the Kings of the Earth not only in her Pagan but also as much or more in her Papal State wherein their Popes or Bishops have exacted Homage of them made them kiss their Toes hold their Stirrups wait at their Doors and do things far below their Majesty and Grandeur in subjection to them Now in all that Book no good is spoken of Babylon nor any direction is given to Gods people the followers of the Lamb to resort to her for any thing but much is spoken of its Wickedness Whoredom Idolatry Bloodiness while it remains and of its woe and misery irreparable in its fall as that that shall for ever Perish with express and vehement command to Gods people that are in her to come out of her lest pertaking with her in her sins they should also pertake with her in her Plagues Rev. 18.4 which one consideration also quite overthrows that corrupt interpretation that would confine what is said of her to her Heathen state only as the Papists to excuse themselves do or rather to blind themselves from seeing their own guilt for if it were so then she should have found her not as a City or Harlot destroyed for ever but by a glorious Metamorphosis or dispossession of the Spirit of Whoredom and Resurrection from her falls in Heathenism changed into the holy City or the Lambs Wife whereas there is not the least intimation of any such thing but a vehement assertion of her sinking like a mighty stone in the waters never to rise again Rev. 18.21 whence it is evident which I shall mention as a farther distinct charge and a farther instance not only of her fallibility but also that she is fallen foully already in that it is thereby evident That 7. She is guilty of Idolatry for that 's it that in Scripture is represented by Whoredom and she is called the great WHORE and the Mother of Harlots and abominations of the earth And she is certainly as great a WHORE from Christ as ever the old Babilon or the old Pagan Rome was and more truly so also being not so espoused to Christ in her Pagan state as since she turned Christian Indeed she is a Mystical WHORE corrupted from the purity of the Faith and Worship of God in Christ yet giving out herself to be a Queen and Lady the Queen or Darling of Heaven the only Catholique and Infallible Church In her Pagan state she was more openly and grosly a Harlot a gross Idolatress
Peter and Paul to Thomas and Sergius c. And what the Papists alledge of their doing all the same things that we Protestants do but they do more also is but all one in this matter as if a Woman should say that she doth all things to her Husband that another honest Woman doth to hers but she doth this more that whereas the other honest Woman yields her Body to her Husband only and admits no other man into her Bed besides she out of respect to her Husband admits him and his Servants and familiar Friends also And as a wise Husband would scarce think that a good honour given or done to him by his Wife no more will God take such adulterous embraces of the Saints and their Images and the like as a good honouring of him its like also as if the false Apostles and their followers should have pleaded against the true Apostles and theirs that they did the same things with them but they exceeded them and did more for they not only Baptized into the Name of Christ but Circumcised too and were Circumcised after the manner of Moses nor did they only celebrate the Lords Supper but also observed the dayes and times appointed in the Law and surely there was more colour for their so pleading than for these mens for they had something formerly of Gods appointment to shew for themselves but these have nothing at all but many prohibitions there against to produce Nothing said I Yes I remember the Plea of a Jesuite for the Picture of Christ though nothing for worship to be given it nor for worshiping the Saints and their Images from the Apostles saying to the Galathians that they were Fools to turn to Moses law when Christ Jesus had been set forth and evidently crucifyed among them the word saith he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is was Pictured and therefore they had the Picture of Christ drawn before their Eyes even of Christ Crucifyed surely the Jesuits was hard put to it for a proof that he was fain to fetch one from that word by the same way he might prove that the Prophets of old were Painters and Image makers because it s said in Rom. 15.4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so it should be translated whatsoever things were Pictured aforetime were Pictured for our Instruction he might have found the Pictures of other men besides Christ though not of the Saints unless such saints as some of them of the Roman Church may be for Jude tells us of some that were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall we read Pictured out unto this Condemnation Jude 4. ungodly Men. Surely the Jesuit was either a man of little judgment or which is rather to be judged of a profligate conscience that mattered not with what colours to paint over his matters or else he would have waved such a proof for so bad a purpose and have remembred that the Apostles and their fellow Labourers whither they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ingrave or pourtray yet it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not in Tables of Stone as the Romish Picturers work but in the fleshly Tables of the heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not with Ink or such like Paint but with the Spirit of God as the Apostle writes in 2 Cor. 3.3 and with such a manner of drawing I suppose their Picture makers have little or no acquaintance nor indeed would it have deserved the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Foolish Galathians had the false Apostles only drawn them from a Christ Crucifyed as represented in an externally visible Picture or Image of him wherein nothing but his body and flesh or rather the external lineaments proportion and complexion of it could be represented and so the shape of a man Crucifyed nothing of his Deity and inward Virtue as they deserved for being drawn from him as Painted forth by the Spirit in the Gospel to the eyes of their understandings as the Son of God and so as God manifested in the flesh and baring our Sins in his Body on the Tree and there through geting the victory over Sin and death and the Divel which no Painters in matters of Stone or other Metals could draw to the Life the other might rather offend them and give the false Apostles advantage against believing on him than perswade to constancy therein there being nothing but a Crucifyed man represented to them therein But I have been tedious in making good this charge but therein I suppose I have abundantly discovered the truth thereof that Rome Papal is as arrant a Whore as Rome Pagan was nay in one respect far greater and worse for in those times she was not espoused to Christ as such therefore was not charged then as commiting adultery from him or breaking Wedlock as now that having been the Catholick Church and her Faith that that was preached in the whole World and she a famous Mother without it yet she hath played the Harlot from him like Jerusalem in Ezek. 16.15 as being corrupted from the simplicity in him to swarve so much from her loyalty to him and admit a multitude into the Bed of love besides him yea the Kings of the Earth also with whom she hath truckt for their honours and riches crowns and scepters accommodating her self to their wills that she might lift up her self by them and get her will on them as in the famous Story of her Bishop Boniface chaffering with Phocas who having Murthered his own Master Mauritius and his Children was owned as Emperour in his stead by the said Boniface that he might as he was be made and declared by him to be the Universal Bishop over all the Churches in Christendom upon a fond pretence never before thought on its likely that because Christ said to Peter that he would give him the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven therefore the Bishops of Rome however unlike to St. Peter and without any delegation of them by him in any of his Epistles or other ways of conveyance of them to them must rule over all the Church in all after ages A notable reward of Romes Whoredom with that Murtherer but that may lead me to another particular charge agreeable also with the character given her which also declares her to be the Babilon spoken of by the holy ghost in the book of the Revelations viz. That 8. The Church of Rome is not only a Whore and the great Whore but a Bloody Whore too else she should not be that Babilon for St. John was shewed that so she would be for he saw her drunk with the Blood of the Saints and with the Blood of the Martyrs of Jesus to his great admiration and amazement and that in her was found the blood of the Prophets and of Saints and of all that were Slain upon the Earth Rev. 17.6 and 18.24 and indeed it may be doubted whither she slew more in her Pagan state to raise and maintain
her imperial dignity among and over the nations of the World as to bodily slaughters in all her Wars and Battels or more Souls spritually in raising her self to and maintain her self in her Papal Empire And again whither she made more Martyrs of Jesus or slew more in their bodys for confessing him to be the Son of God in her Pagan state or for confessing and cleaving to the simplicity and sincerity of the Gospel against her spiritual fornications from and corruptions of it in her Papal state but in both states and in both ways its certain that she hath been and is notoriously guilty of Blood and Murther for if no Idolater hath any part in the Kingdom of God and Christ and they that depart from the simplicity of the faith to adulterate it with other mixtures are thereby abolished from Christ as the Apostle saith of those that were Circumcised Gal. 5. 2 3 4 19 20.21 how shall not those Millions of Souls which she leads into those Sins as is above shewed be ruined by her and as for Murthering and Martyring the bodys of those that cleave to the Sincerity of the truth and witness against her corruptions what multitudes hath she Massacred and murthered witness the Albingenses the Waldenses the Hugonots as they call them in France the Protestants in Ireland the Vallies of Piedmont c. besides the Multitudes burnt at stakes and otherwise Martyred in England Holland Spain Italy Germany and in almost all Countries so that what the Prophets testify of Jerusalem playing the Whore from the Lord is too truely applicable to this Papal Babilon for as Jerusalem was a bloody City the City that shed blood in the midst of it Ezek. 22.2 3. an Imperious Whorish Woman that slew Gods Children and therefore was to be judged as Women that break Wedlock and shed Blood are judged Ezek. 16.20 21 30 38. in her skirts was found the blood of the Souls of the poor innocents and yet so impudently hardned as to deny her guiltyness and plead I am Innocent I have not sinned Jer. 2.34.35 I am rich I have found me out substance in all my labours they shall find no Iniquity in me that were sin Hos 12.8 an Infallible Church Just so is it with Rome and as her Blood was so this Churches is in the midst of her She set and this sets it upon the top of a Rock in the view of all Men she poured it not upon the ground to cover it with dust Ezek. 24.7 no surely she was not ashamed of all her Blood and cruelty though her sword devoured her Prophets and slew the just doubtless she said and justifyed it by her false prophets that they were all mad men and false prophets whom she slew Hereticks and Factious persons that would charge her with Idolatry and Whoredom from God for worshiping him upon Hills and Mountains and under green Trees and some Baalim or matters with him and therefore she endeavoured not to hide her murtherous doings Just so this Church of Rome a Bloody Harlot both in respect of Soul Murther and Body Murther in all her territories yet she will justify her self by her Panders her Priests and Jesuits that she is Innosent an infallible Church under the conduct of an infallible Guide her Bishop that will not fail to lead her Members and Children to Hell and destruction She will not yield that she commits Adultery from Christ or that Saint worship or Image Worship or Host worship or any Idolatrous or false worships nor is she ashamed of those Bloody facts she hath done she sets her Blood on a Rock powers it not in the Dust to cover it but justifies all yea glories in and gives publick thanks for her rare atchievments and honours those that are actors in them though they Murther Kings endeavour to blow up Parliaments fire Citys The more mischief they do in her service the more meritorious she is Innocent and not grieved except it be because she can have her will no more Massacre Hereticks no faster but God will give her blood in his due time to drink according to all her Idolatries against himself and Son and Murthers done upon the Souls of Men and upon the Bodys of his saints and holy ones as is predicted in the Revelations He also will set her blood upon the Top of a Rock that it should not be covered therefore thus saith the Lord God woe to the Bloody City I will even make the Pile for Fire great see Ezek. 24.8.9 Oh who that looks upon her in the light of Gods testimony can be deluded with her fair pretences or reguard her devices but will rather acknowledge the truth of what the Apostle Paul long since in his Epistle to that Church predicted would befal her upon the course she hath since taken For to interpose by the way a third consideration 9. The Apostle in Rom. 11.21 22 23. implyed or supposed her Fallible contrary to her own boast of her self and shews the way how she might come to fall warning her of it And indeed that way she is fallen foully as therein was foreshewed together with what will befal her further Let us view his words they are thus Thou standest by faith be not high minded but fear For if God spared not the natural Branches take heed lest he also spare not thee or neither in any wise will he spare thee Behold therefore the severity and goodness of God on them that fell severity but towards thee goodness if thou continue in his goodness otherwise thou also shalt be cut off Now who did the Apostle there speak and write to Was it not to the Church of Rome who were then Saints but now all her Saints are dead and glorified Persons no Saints living now in Rome none that will own that name or be acknowledged to be such A sign they are fallen for then the living members of it were Saints but now there are no Saints in her but they that are long since gone but it was the Church of Rome that he speaks to and so it is as if he had said Thou Church of Rome standest by faith that is by an obedient dependance on God and Christ in an hearty belief of his Gospel cleaving to him and his instructions and commands and holding fast the faith as delivered to thee Implying that otherwise she is Fallible and might and would fall and therefore it concerned them to take heed of high-mindedness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mind not high things have no high conceits of thy self thou Church of Rome if thou wouldst not fall but keep thy standing be not high minded but fear As implying that if she grew high minded and were puffed up she would fall For indeed Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty mind before a fall Prov. 16.18 where Pride and High-mindedness then are found and fear is laid aside there a fall certainly and inevitably follows even as falling from God and Christ as to a
rather argues them guilty of being a lying Church 4. There is a brief character of the true Church and her Children in the book of the Revelations by which we may better judg of the truth and rightness of any Church than by any or all those fair Pleas that Rome makes for her self namely that the true Church and its Children are that society and company of men that keep the commandments of God and the faith or Testemony of Jesus Rev. 12.17 and 14.12 But now if we bring the Church of Rome to this test I am sure she will be cast only let us mind that by keeping the Commandments of God is meant both the careful observation of them to walk after them and also the holding them forth sincerely and purely without corrupting them that others may know and walk after them also and by keeping the faith and testimony of Jesus is meant the keeping it without spot or mixture of corruption with it either by adding to or taking from it And surely if we take a little view of their carriage in either of them we shall find them not a little faulty in both 1. First as to the keeping of Gods commandments which of them do they keep in the sences above mentioned not the first for they have other Gods in the Scripture Language beside the only true God the maker of all things in Scripture Language they are called other Gods to whom men give that adoration that belongs to God and unto whom they perform religious worship or service asking of and expecting from them what is proper to God to give so the Calves made by Jeroboam to be sacrificed to though intended as mediums to worship the true God by yet they are called Gods that he made to himself 2. King 14.9 and so the golden Calf in the wilderness though it was to Jehovah they pretended to Sacrifice keep a feast by it yet they were charged with changing their glory that is their God therein into the similitude of an Ox that eateth grass and so intimately of making a new God to themselves Exod. 32,4.5 Psal 106.19.20 now how many there are in the Roman Church that according to those Notions they make Gods to themselves it is not easy to determin The host in the Sacrament they stick not to own as God God-man to give divine adoration unto insomuch as one of their own Doctors acknowledges that the errors of those that worship some Golden or Silver Statues or some Images of any other materialls for their God as the Heathen worshiped their Gods or a Red Cloth hung upon the Top of Spear as is reported of the Laplanders or some live Animal as of old the Egyptians did Fran. Coster Enchir. contro vers Cap 12. were more tollerable than of those who worshiped a piece of Bread as hitherto the Christians have done all over the World for so many hundred years if the Doctrine of Transubstantiation be not true And that that Doctrine is not true we have as good evidence as Christ gave to his Disciples that he was not a Spirit that is we may handle and see it yea and tast and smell it too as was said above yea we have the same that we have that the Cup is not transubstantiated into the New Testament and we have no more authority from the Scripture that the Bread is Transubstantiated than that the Cup is so Transubstantiated nay rather we have more ground to believe that the Cup is changed into a divine writing than that the Bread is changed into the Body the very real and substantial Body of Christ For it is expresly said this Cup is the New Testament but it is not said this Bread is my Body nor this that was Bread is become my Body and for ought that appears to the contrary in the Text his Body being visibly present he might point to or speak of it in saying this is my Body as he speak of the Temple of his body when walk-in the Temple he said to the Jews Destroy ye this Temple and in three days I will raise it up again as our sences tell us the Cup is not the New Testament but a Silver or Golden Cup or Challice so the very same sences tell us as plainly that the Bread still remains in the nature of Bread non substantiâ aut naturâ mutatus not changed in substance or nature into God or into the person of God-man the Lord Jesus besides it is their own Doctrine that the change of the Elements depend upon the Intention of the Priest so that if the Priest intend not in saying the words to make the body of Christ it is not the Body of Christ but Bread still and then they are Idolaters that worship it as God and who can be certain of the Priests Intentions not to mention again the many Saints both Hees and Shee s that they give such adorations to as belongs only to God and ask such things of as God only can give so that they are notorious transgressors of the first commandment of God and keep it not and as to the second they are so far from keeping it and act so grosly contrary to it that they expung it out of their Catechisms The third also they grosly violate in their Doctrine and practice about sacred oaths dispenceing with them and loosing men from the obligation of them enacting them by mental reservations and breaking solemn Oaths and promises as in their breaking their promises with John Hus and in the Popes dispensing with the Oath given by Ladislaus King of Poland to Amurath the Turkish Emperour or grand Sultan and causing him to break his Truce with him to the great scandal of Christian Religion and slaughter of the Christians The Turk himself appealing to Christ if he were indeed God to revenge the perfidious Perjury of the Christians towards him which he also did in the ensuing slaughter and destruction of them but such abuse of Gods name in dissolving and dispensing with religious and solemn Oaths yea and with mens rash swearing they give allowance of in their Doctrines and treatises as well as in their practices yea it was a thing that the above cited Fryer Aegan tells us gave him one of his first disgusts at their Religion that when at his first being made a Fryer he took one and twenty Oaths and among them that he would never come on Horseback that he would never ware shoes that he would obey his superiours in what ever he commanded never examining the lawfulness of his commands not to be ashamed to beg never to be out of his Fryers habit c. yet after all these oaths taken his superiour told him that he must take his former garments and return in the same Posture that he came in which was on Horseback with Sword and Pistols and gay Apparrel and go see his friends though quite contrary to his oaths from which he would absolve him If
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
Monasteries and Nunneries places of separation from the World in a sort to be devout in if they be so disposed and for those that have desires for Heaven she can shew them as she pretends a certain way whereby they may not only obtain but merit it too and to that purpose excites them to much devotion to God and to the Saints and provokes them to bounty and works of charity though she poysons them with her Doctrine of Merit tending to puff them up and corrupts all their good things with the sowre and evil leaven of Idolatry and other false Opinions before reproved For as the Apostle saith of the false Apostles that they could transform themselves into the Ministers of righteousness while corrupting men in and from the faith they were for all their goodly appearance in reality the Messengers of Sathan and that they made a fair shew in the flesh and gloried in appearance not in heart 2 Corinth 11.13 15. and 5.12 Gall. 6.12 So is it with these men They are as Dr. Stillingfleet hath very well and worthily observed and in his Sermon upon that Text manifested them to be Wolves in sheeps clothing and the Religionists that walk after their directions are corrupted and spoiled by them For if the speaking with the tongue of men and Angels gift of Prophecy and understanding all Mysteries and all Knowledge yea and Faith so as to remove Mountains and the giving all a mans goods to feed the poor and his body to be burnt will not profit him if he have not love or charity 1 Cor 13.1 2 3. what profit think we can accrue to this Church or to any of its Devotionists from all their Devotions Gifts Liberality Penances or whatever else is done by them while they are guilty of gross Idolatry and corruptions of the Faith as is before evidenced Surely no Idolater hath true love to God nor any that is partaker with the Blood-thirsty the guilt whereof lies upon this Church and all in its Communion When the Apostle commends Charity it is a Charity out of a pure heart and a good conscience and Faith unfeigned 1 Tim. 1.5 which cannot be where Idolatry and Superstition and corruption of the Faith take place however liberal they may be in Almsdeeds to the poor which the Apostle also supposeth may be where that love and charity which is so necessary and excellent is yet wanting Suppose the Gallathians seduced by the false Apostles to believe the necessity of Circumcision and the observation of the Laws of Moses should have been also perswaded by them to have retired themselves into Monasteries and spent their time in Devotions and been free to give all they had to feed the poor would any or all those things have profited them under that perswasion I suppose not seeing the Apostle saith If they were circumcised Christ would profit them nothing Gall. 6.2 If Christ would profit them nothing surely much less would those things or whatever else could have been done by them And doubtless if the corrupting their Faith by Circumcision would have so marred all their Religion much more will Idolatry Superstition and the other Iniquities before detected in the Roman Communion marr all their finest and otherwise most laudable actions But then on the other side this wiley Church like a wiley Strumpet hath other entertainments for persons of other tempers or dispositions and if they have a mind to live loosly and in the practice of any Wickedness they have plaisters to skin over such Ulcers they can fit them with loose Doctrines and Principles they can hold them in the Roman Communion by telling them that if they confess to the Priest once a year or oftner and receive Absolution from their sins upon some petty Penances and seeming Austerities to the flesh which yet they may upon pretty light Devotions or for mony have Indulgencies in they may receive pardon for all their forepast faults yea perhaps for a great many years too or for a great time to come and if they continue in sin till death returning to what they have confessed yet if but an hour or two before their death they can but send for a Priest and make confession of their sins with some attrition or grief that their condition is no better though they be not contrite or broken in heart for their sins nor have any love of God yet having the Priests absolution and being anointed with their Extream Unction they are secured from Hell and damnation Indeed they may be unfit for Heaven as the foolish Virgins were that slumbred and slept till it was proclaimed that the Bridegroom came and then not having Oyl in their Vessels their Lamps were gone out ay but they shall go but to Purgatory at the worst and be purged by those pains for sometime and from thence also they may be soon released by vertue of the over-much Oyl in the wise Virgins Vessels that is by vertue of the meritorious works of Supererrogation done by their more religious Votaries and Canonized Saints and by the Masses and Sacrifices offered for the quick and the dead and other Devotions performed by their living Priests especially if they give a considerable sum of mony to them to purchase their Devotions for them when they dy and then they may in a short time too be at rest therefrom And these are fine pleasing baits to hook and hold in the Souls of vitious persons Now who that 's religiously inclined but by a conceit of meriting will be observant of the rules of such a Religion And who that loves his sins but will like such a Doctrine and Religion as gives them so good encouragement to hold them fast and propounds such easy remedies to secure them from the dreadful punishments of them And that 's a main reason of so many great and small being held fast in the arms of this loving Church that she being in her self gay and gawdy and deckt and painted with fine colours hath the wit or craft and subtlety to bait her Hooks according to the humors of the several persons for whom she fishes and accommodates her self to the several dispositions of her Paramours to be either more solitary and sullen or more pleasant and gamesome as may suit best with their constitution What we have said upon this first Head to the reasons of so many being held still in her Communion may suffice to that 2. And truly in answer to the inquiry in its second branch some things of what is said to the former might be repeated again or rather referred unto by us as causes thereof namely of the falling off of so many to her that have been delivered from her and brought up under that light by which they might so discover her false colours as to keep from her As the subtlety of her Emissaries and Factors having now more liberty amongst us to negotiate for her than formerly and the occasions of offence ministred by our own divisions