follies to the Church of England 7. Trouble your self with no controversies willingly but how you may best please God by a strict and severe conversation 8. If any Protestant live loosely remember that he dishonours an excellent Religion and that it may be no more laid upon the charge of our Church than the ill lives of most Christians may upon the whole Religion 9. Let no Man or Woman affright you with declamations and scaring words of Heretick and Damnation and Changeable for these words may be spoken against them that return to light as well as to those that go to darkness and that which Men of all sides can say it can be of effect to no side upon its own strength or pretension THE END POST-SCRIPT Madam IF You shall think it fit that these Papers pass further than Your own eye and Closet I desire they may be consign'd into the hands of my worthy friend Dr. Wedderburne For I do not only expose all my sickness to his cure but I submit my weaknesses to his censure being as confident to find of him charity for what is pardonable as remedy for what is curable but indeed Madam I look upon that worthy Man as an Idea of friendship and if I had no other notices of Friendship or conversation to instruct me than his it were sufficient For whatsoever I can say of Friendship I can say of his and as all that know him reckon him amongst the best Physicians so I know him worthy to be reckoned amongst the best friends The III. Letter Written to a Gentleman that was tempted to the Communion of the Romish Church SIR YOU needed not to make the Preface of an excuse for writing so friendly and so necessary a Letter of Inquiry It was your kindness to my person which directed your addresses hither and your duty which ingag'd you to inquire somewhere I do not doubt but you and very many other ingenious and conscientious persons do every day meet with the Tempters of the Roman Church who like the Pharisees compass Sea and Land to get a Proselyte at this I wonder not for as Demetrius said by this craft they get their living but I wonder that any ingenious person and such as I perceive you to be can be shaken by their weak assaults for their batteries are made up with impossible propositions and weak and violent prejudices respectively and when they talk of their own infallibility they prove it with false Mediums say we with fallible Mediums as themselves confess and when they argue us of an Uncertain faith because we pretend to no infallibility they are themselves much more Uncertain because they build their pretence of infallibility upon that which not only can but will deceive them and since they can pretend no higher for their infallibility than prudential motives they break in pieces the staff upon which they lean and with which they strike us But Sir you are pleased to ask two Questions 1. Whether the Apostles of our Blessed Lord did not Orally deliver many things necessary to Salvation which were not committed to writing To which you add this assumentum in which because you desire to be answered I suppose you meant it for another Question viz. whether in those things which the Church of Rome retains and we take no notice of She be an Innovator or a conserver of Tradition and whether any thing which she so retains was or was not esteemed necessary The answer to the first part will conclude the second I therefore answer that whatsoever the Apostles did deliver as necessary to Salvation all that was written in the Scriptures and that to them who believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God there needs no other Magazine of Divine truths but the Scripture And this the Fathers of the first and divers succeeding Ages do Unanimously affirm I will set down two or three so plain that either you must conclude them to be deceivers or that you will need no more but their testimony The words of S. Basil are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Every word and every thing ought to be made credible or believ'd by the testimony of the Divinely-inspired Scripture both for the confirmation of good things and also for the reproof of the evil S. Cyril of Jerusalem catech 12. illuminat saith Attend not to my inventions for you may possibly be deceiv'd but trust no word unless thou dost learn it from the Divine Scriptures and in Catech. 4. illum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For it behoves us not to deliver so much as the least thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Divine and holy mysteries of Faith without the Divine Scriptures nor to be moved with probable discourses Neither give credit to me speaking unless what is spoken be demonstrated by the Holy Scriptures For that is the security of our Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is derived not from witty inventions but from the demonstration of Divine Scriptures Omne quod loquimur debemus affirmare de Scripturis Sanctis so S. Hierom in Psal. 89. And again Hoc quia de Scripturis authoritatem non habet eadem facilitate contemnitur quâ probatur in Matth. 23. Si quid dicitur absque Scripturâ auditorum cogitatio claudicat So S. Chrysostom in Psal. 95. homil Theodoret dial 1. cap. 6. brings in the Orthodox Christian saying to Eranistes bring not to me your Logismes and Syllogismes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I rely only upon Scriptures I could reckon very very many more both elder and later and if there be any Universal Tradition consigned to us by the Universal Testimony of Antiquity it is this that the Scriptures are a perfect repository of all the Will of God of all the Faith of Christ and this I will engage my self to make very apparent to you and certain against any opposer Upon the supposition of which it follows that whatever the Church of Rome obtrudes as necessary to Salvation and an Article of Faith that is not in Scripture is an Innovation in matter of Faith and a Tyranny over Consciences which whosoever submits to prevaricates the rule of the Apostle commanding us that we stand fast in the liberty with which Christ hath set us free To the other Questions Whether an Ecclesiastical Tradition be of equal authority with Divine I answer Negatively And I believe I shall have no adversary in it except peradventure some of the Jesuited Bigots An Ecclesiastical Tradition viz. a positive constitution of the Church delivered from hand to hand is in the power of the Church to alter but a Divine is not Ecclesiastical Traditions in matters of Faith there are none but what are also Divine as for Rituals Ecclesiastical descending by Tradition they are confessedly alterable but till they be altered by abrogation or desuetude or contrary custome or a contrary reason or the like they do oblige by vertue of that Authority whatsoever it is that hath power
called upon them to speak something against your religion from Scripture or right reason or Universal Tradition you had been secure as a Tortoise in her shell a Cart pressed with sheaves could not have oppressed your cause or person though you had confessed you understood nothing of the mysteries of succession doctrinal or personal For if we can make it appear that our religion was that which Christ and his Apostles taught let the truth suffer what eclipses or prejudices can be supposed let it be hid like the holy fire in the captivity yet what Christ and his Apostles taught us is eternally true and shall by some means or other be conveyed to us even the enemies of truth have been conservators of that truth by which we can confute their errors But if you still ask where it was before Luther I answer it was there where it was after even in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament and I know no warrant for any other religion and if you will expect I should shew any society of Men who professed all the doctrines which are now expressed in the confession of the Church of England I shall tell you it is unreasonable because some of our truths are now brought into our publick confessions that they might be oppos'd against your errors before the occasion of which there was no need of any such confessions till you made many things necessary to be professed which are not lawful to be believed For if we believe your superinduc'd follies we shall do unreasonably unconscionably and wickedly but the questions themselves are so useless abstracting from the accidental necessity which your follies have brought upon us that it had been happy if we had never heard of them more than the Saints and Martyrs did in the first ages of the Church but because your Clergy have invaded the liberty of the Church and multiplied the dangers of damnation and pretend new necessities and have introduc'd new articles and affright the simple upon new pretensions and slight the very institution and the Commands of Christ and of the Apostles and invent new Sacramentals constituting Ceremonies of their own head and promise grace along with the use of them as if they were not Ministers but Lords of the Spirit and teach for doctrines the commandments of men and make void the Commandment of God by their tradition and have made a strange body of Divinity therefore it is necessary that we should immure our Faith by the refusal of such vain and superstitious dreams but our faith was completed at first it is no other than that which was delivered to the Saints and can be no more for ever So that it is a foolish demand to require that we should shew before Luther a systeme of Articles declaring our sense in these questions It was long before they were questions at all and when they were made questions they remained so a long time and when by their several pieces they were determined this part of the Church was oppressed with a violent power and when God gave opportunity then the yoke was broken and this is the whole progress of this affair But if you will still insist upon it then let the matter be put into equal ballances and let them shew any Church whose confession of Faith was such as was obtruded upon you at Trent and if your Religion be Pius Quartus his Creed at Trent then we also have a question to ask and that is Where was your Religion before Trent The Council of Trent determined that the souls departed before the Day of Judgment enjoy the Beatifical Vison It is certain this Article could not be shewn in the Confession of any of the ancient Churches for most of the Fathers were of another opinion But that which is the greatest offence of Christendom is not only that these doctrines which we say are false were yet affirmed but that those things which the Church of God did always reject or held as uncertain should be made Articles of Faith and so become parts of your religion and of these it is that I again ask the question which none of your side shall ever be able to answer for you Where was your Religion before Trent I could instance in many particulars but I shall name one to you which because the thing of it self is of no great consequence it will appear the more unreasonable and intolerable that your Church should adopt it into the things of necessary belief especially since it was only a matter of fact and they took the false part too For in the 21. Sess. Chap. 4. it is affirmed That although the holy Fathers did give the Sacrament of the Eucharist to Infants yet they did it without any necessity of salvation that is they did not believe it necessary to their salvation which is notoriously false and the contrary is marked out with the black-lead of every man almost that reads their Works and yet your Council says this is fine controversiâ credendum to be believed without all controversie and all Christians forbidden to believe or teach otherwise So that here it is made an Article of Faith amongst you that a man shall neither believe his reason nor his eyes and who can shew any confession of Faith in which all the Trent doctrine was professed and enjoyned under pain of damnation and before the Council of Constance the Doctrine touching the Popes power was so new so decried that as Gerson says he hardly should have escaped the note of Heresie that would have said so much as was there defined so that in that Article which now makes a great part of your belief where was your Religion before the Council of Constance and it is notorious that your Council of Constance determined the doctrine of the half-communion with a Non obstante to Christ's institution that is with a defiance to it or a noted observed neglect of it and with a profession it was otherwise in the Primitive Church Where then was your Religion before John Hus and Hierom of Prague's time against whom that Council was convened But by this instance it appears most certainly that your Church cannot shew her confessions immediately after Christ and therefore if we could not shew ours immediately before Luther it were not half so much for since you receded from Christ's Doctrine we might well recede from yours and it matters not who or how many or how long they professed your doctrine if neither Christ nor his Apostles did teach it so that if these Articles constitute your Church your Church was invisible at the first and if ours was invisible afterwards it matters not For yours was invisible in the days of light and ours was invisible in the days of darkness For our Church was always visible in the reflections of Scripture and he that had his eyes of faith and reason might easily have seen these truths all the way which constitute our Church But
that is when she suffered for a holy cause and a holy conscience when the Church of England was more glorious than at any time before Even when she could shew more Martyrs and Confessors than any Church this day in Christendom even then when a King died in the profession of her Religion and thousands of Priests learned and pious Men suffered the spoiling of their goods rather than they would forsake one Article of so excellent a Religion So that seriously it is not easily to be imagined that any thing should move you unless it be that which troubled the perverse Jews and the Heathen Greek Scandalum crucis the scandal of the Cross You stumbled at that Rock of offence You left us because we were afflicted lessened in outward circumstances and wrapped in a cloud but give me leave only to remind you of that sad saying of the Scripture that you may avoid the consequent of it They that fall on this stone shall be broken in pieces but they on whom it shall fall shall be grinded to powder And if we should consider things but prudently it is a great argument that the sons of our Church are very conscientious and just in their perswasions when it is evident that we have no temporal end to serve nothing but the great end of our souls all our hopes of preferment are gone all secular regards only we still have truth on our sides and we are not willing with the loss of truth to change from a persecuted to a prosperous Church from a Reformed to a Church that will not be reformed lest we give scandal to good people that suffer for a holy conscience and weaken the hands of the afflicted of which if you had been more careful you would have remained much more innocent But I pray give me leave to consider for you because you in your change considered so little for your self what fault what false doctrine what wicked and dangerous proposition what defect what amiss did you find in the Doctrine and Liturgy and Discipline of the Church of England For its doctrine It is certain it professes the belief of all that is written in the Old and New Testament all that which is in the three Creeds the Apostolical the Nicene and that of Athanasius and whatsoever was decreed in the four General Councils or in any other truly such and whatsoever was condemned in these our Church hath legally declared it to be Heresie And upon these accounts above four whole ages of the Church went to Heaven they baptized all their Catechumens into this faith their hopes of Heaven was upon this and a good life their Saints and Martyrs lived and died in this alone they denied Communion to none that professed this faith This is the Catholick faith so saith the Creed of Athanasius and unless a company of Men have power to alter the faith of God whosoever live and die in this faith are intirely Catholick and Christian. So that the Church of England hath the same faith without dispute that the Church had for 400. or 500. Years and therefore there could be nothing wanting here to saving faith if we live according to our belief 2. For the Liturgy of the Church of England I shall not need to say much because the case will be very evident First Because the disputers of the Church of Rome have not been very forward to object any thing against it they cannot charge it with any evil 2. Because for all the time of King Edw. 6. and till the eleventh year of Queen Elizabeth your people came to our Churches and prayed with us till the Bull of Pius Quintus came out upon temporal regards and made a Schism by forbidding the Queens Subjects to pray as by Law was here appointed though the prayers were good and holy as themselves did believe That Bull enjoyned Recusancy and made that which was an act of Rebellion and Disobedience and Schism to be the character of your Roman Catholicks And after this what can be supposed wanting in order to salvation We have the Word of God the Faith of the Apostles the Creeds of the Primitive Church the Articles of the four first general Councils a holy Liturgy excellent Prayers perfect Sacraments Faith and Repentance the Ten Commandments and the Sermons of Christ and all the precepts and counsels of the Gospel We teach the necessity of good works and require and strictly exact the severity of a holy life We live in obedience to God and are ready to die for him and do so when he requires us so to do We speak honourably of his most holy Name we worship him at the mention of his Name we confess his Attributes we love his Servants we pray for all Men we love all Christians even our most erring Brethren we confess our sins to God and to our Brethren whom we have offended and to God's Ministers in cases of Scandal or of a troubled Conscience We communicate often we are enjoyned to receive the holy Sacrament thrice every Year at least Our Priests absolve the penitent our Bishops ordain Priests and confirm baptized persons and bless their people and intercede for them and what could here be wanting to Salvation what necessity forced you from us I dare not suspect it was a temporal regard that drew you away but I am sure it could be no spiritual But now that I have told you and made you to consider from whence yon went give me leave to represent to you and tell you whither you are gone that you may understand the nature and conditions of your change For do not think your self safe because they tell you that you are come to the Church You are indeed gone from one Church to another from a better to a worse as will appear in the induction the particulars of which before I reckon give me leave to give you this advice if you mean in this affair to understand what you do it were better you enquired what your Religion is than what your Church is for that which is a true Religion to day will be so to morrow and for ever but that which is a holy Church to day may be heretical at the next change or may betray her trust or obtrude new Articles in contradiction to the old or by new interpretations may elude ancient truths or may change your Creed or may pretend to be the Spouse of Christ when she is idolatrous that is adulterous to God Your Religion is that which you must and therefore may competently understand You must live in it and grow in it and govern all the actions of your life by it and in all questions concerning the Church you are to choose your Church by the Religion and therefore this ought first and last to be enquired after Whether the Roman Church be the Catholick Church must depend upon so many uncertain enquiries is offered to be proved by so long so tedious a method hath in it so
I add yet farther that our Church before Luther was there where your Church was in the same place and in the same persons for divers of the errors which have been amongst us reformed were not the constituent Articles of your Church before Luther's time for before the last Councils of your Church a man might have been of your Communion upon easier terms and Indulgences were indeed a practice but no Article of Faith before your men made it so and that very lately and so were many other things besides So that although your men cozen the credulous and the simple by calling yours The old Religion yet the difference is vast between Truth and their affirmative even as much as between old Errors and new Articles For although Ignorance and Superstition had prepared the ore yet the Councils of Constance and Basil and Trent especially were the sorges and the mint Lastly if your men had not by all the vile and violent arts of the World stopped the mouths of dissenters the question would quickly have been answered or our Articles would have been so confessed so owned and so publick that the question could never have been asked but in despite of all opposition there were great numbers of professors who did protest and profess and practise our doctrines contrary to your Articles as it is demonstrated by the Divines of Germany in Illyricus his Catalogus testium veritatis and in Bishop Mortons appeal But with your next objection you are better pleased and your Men make most noise with it For you pretend that by our confession salvation may be had in your Church but your men deny it to us and therefore by the confession of both sides you may be safe and there is no question concerning you but of us there is great question for none but our selves say that we can be saved I answer 1. That salvation may be had in your Church is it ever the truer because we say it If it be not it can add no confidence to you for the proposition gets no strength by your affirmative But if it be then our authority is good or else our reason and if either be then we have more reason to be believed speaking of our selves because we are concerned to see that our selves may be in a state of hope and therefore we would not venture on this side if we had not greater reason to believe well of our selves than of you And therefore believe us when it is more likely that we have greater reason because we have greater concernments and therefore greater considerations 2. As much charity as your Men pretend us to speak of you yet it is a clear case our hope of your salvation is so little that we dare not venture our selves on your side The Burger of Oldwater being to pass a River in his Journey to Daventry had his Man try the Ford telling him he hoped he should not be drowned for though he was afraid the River was too deep yet he thought his Horse would carry him out or at least the Boats would fetch him off Such a confidence we may have of you but you will find that but little warranty if you remember how great an interest it is that you venture 3. It would be remembred that though the best ground of your hope is not the goodness of your own faith but the greatness of our charity yet we that charitably hope well of you have a fulness of assurance of the truth and certainty of our own way and however you can please your selves with Images of things as having no firm footing for your trifling confidence yet you can never with your tricks out face us of just and firm adherencies and if you were not empty of supports and greedy of bulrushes snatching at any thing to support your sinking cause you would with fear and trembling consider the direct dangers which we demonstrate to you to be in your religion rather than flatter your selves with collateral weak and deceitful hopes of accidental possibilities that some of you may escape 4. If we be more charitable to you than you are to us acknowledge in us the beauty and essential form of Christian Religion be sure you love as well as make use of our charity but if you make our charity an argument against us remember that you render us evil in exchange for good and let it be no brag to you that you have not that charity to us for therefore the Donatists were condemned for Hereticks and Schismaticks because they damn'd all the World and afforded no charity to any that was not of their Communion 5. But that our charity may be such indeed that is that it may do you a real benefit and not turn into Wormwood and Colloquintida I pray take notice in what sense it is that we allow salvation may possibly be had in your Church We warrant it not to any we only hope it for some we allow it to them as to the Sadducees in the Law and to the Corinthians in the Gospel who denied the resurrection that is till they were sufficiently instructed and competently convinced and had time and powers to out-wear their prejudices and the impresses of their education and long perswasion But to them amongst you who can and do consider and yet determine for error and interest we have a greater charity even so much as to labour and pray for their conversion but not so much fondness as to flatter them into boldness and pertinacious adherencies to matters of so great danger 6. But in all this afrair though your men are very bold with God and leap into his Judgment-seat before him and give wild sentences concerning the salvation of your own party and the damnation of all that disagree yet that which is our charity to you is indeed the fear of God and the reverence of his judgments we do not say that all Papists are certainly damn'd we wish and desire vehemently that none of you may perish but then this charity of judgment relates not to you nor is derived from any probability which we see in your doctrines that differ from ours but because we know not what rate and value God puts upon the article It concerns neither you nor us to say this or that man shall be damn'd for his opinion for besides that this is a bold intrusion into that secret of God which shall not be opened till the Day of Judgment and besides that we know not what allays and abatements are to be made by the good meaning and the ignorance of the man all that can concern us is to tell you that you are in error that you depart from Scripture that you exercise tyranny over souls that you leave the Divine institution and prevaricate Gods Commandment that you divide the Church without truth and without necessity that you tie Men to believe things under pain of damnation which cannot be made very probable much less certain and
common People and as it is not to be supposed that all these would joyn their divided interests for and against themselves for the verification of a lye so if they would have done it they could not have done it without reproof of their own parties who would have been glad by the discovery only to disgrace the whole story but if the report of honest and just men so reputed may be questioned for matter of fact or may not be accounted sufficient to make faith when there is no pretence of Men to the contrary besides that we can have no story transmitted to us nor Records kept no acts of Courts no narratives of the days of old no traditions of our Fathers so there could not be left in nature any usual Instrument whereby God could after the manner of Men declare his own will to us but either we should never know the will of Heaven upon earth or it must be that God must not only tell it once but always and not only always to some men but always to all men and then as there would be no use of History or the honesty of Men and their faithfulness in telling any act of God in declaration of his will so there would be perpetual necessity of miracles and we could not serve God directly with our understanding for there would be no such thing as faith that is of assent without conviction of understanding and we could not please God with believing because there would be in it nothing of the will nothing of love and choice and that faith which is would be like that of Thomas to believe what we see or hear and God should not at all govern upon Earth unless he did continually come himself for thus all Government all Teachers all Apostles all Messengers would be needless because they could not shew to the eye what they told to the ears of Men And it might as well be disbelieved in all Courts and by all Princes that this was not the letter of a Prince or the act of a Man or the writing of his hand and so all humane entercourse must cease and all senses but the eye be useless as to this affair or else to the ear all voices must be strangers but the principal if I say no reports shall make faith But it is certain that when these voices were sent from Heaven and heard upon Earth they prevailed amongst many that heard them not and Disciples were multiplied upon such accounts or else it must be that none that did hear them could be believed by any of their friends and neighbours for if they were the voice was as effective at the reflex and rebound as in the direct emission could prevail with them that believed their brother or their friend as certainly as with them that believed their own ears and eyes I need not speak of the vast numbers of miracles which he wrought miracles which were not more demonstrations of his power than of his mercy for they had nothing of pompousness and ostentation but infinitely of charity and mercy and that permanent and lasting and often he opened the eyes of the blind he made the crooked straight he made the weak strong he cured fevers with the touch of his hand and an issue of blood with the hem of his garment and sore eyes with the spittle of his mouth and the clay of the earth he multiplied the loaves and fishes he raised the dead to life a young maiden the widows son of Naim and Lazarus and cast out Devils by the word of his mouth which he could never do but by the power of God For Satan does not cast out Satan nor a house fight against it self if it means to stand long and the Devil could not help Jesus because the holy Jesus taught Men virtue called them from the worshipping Devils taught them to resist the Devil to lay aside all those abominable idolatries by which the Devil doth rule in the hearts of men he taught men to love God to fly from temptations to sin to hate and avoid all those things of which the Devil is guilty for Christianity forbids pride envy malice lying and yet affirms that the Devil is proud envious malicious and the Father of lies and therefore where ever Christianity prevails the Devil is not worshipped and therefore he that can think that a man without the power of God could over-turn the Devils principles cross his designs weaken his strengths baffle him in his policies befool him and turn him out of possession and make him open his own mouth against himself as he did often and confess himself conquered by Jesus and tormented as the Oracle did to Augustus Caesar and the Devil to Jesus himself he I say that thinks a meer man can do this knows not the weaknesses of a man nor the power of an Angel but he that thinks this could be done by compact and by consent of the Devil must think him to be an Intelligence without understanding a power without force a fool and a sot to assist a power against himself and to persecute the power he did assist to stir up the World to destroy the Christians whose Master and Lord he did assist to destroy himself and when we read that Porphyrius an Heathen a professed enemy to Christianity did say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that since Jesus was worshipped the gods could help no man that is the gods which they worshipped the poor baffled enervated Daemons He must either think that the Devils are as foolish as they are weak or else that they did nothing towards this declination of their power and therefore that they suffer it by a power higher than themselves that is by the power of God in the hand of Jesus But besides that God gave testimony from heaven concerning him he also gave this testimony of himself to have come from God because that he did Gods will for he that is a good man and lives by the Laws of God and of his Nation a life innocent and simple prudent and wise holy and spotless unreproved and unsuspected he is certainly by all wise men said in a good sense to be the son of God but he who does well and speaks well and calls all men to glorifie and serve God and serves no ends but of holiness and charity of wisdom of hearts and reformation of manners this man carries great authority in his sayings and ought to prevail with good men in good things for good ends which is all that is here required But his nature was so sweet his manners so humble his words so wise and composed his comportment so grave and winning his answers so seasonable his questions so deep his reproof so severe and charitable his pity so great and merciful his preachings so full of reason and holiness of weight and authority his conversation so useful and beneficent his poverty great but his alms frequent his family so holy and religious