with any of those horrid Works of Darkness whereof many of its Professors and the Religion it self are accused And this may serve for my old Friends Now as for your self and all other candid disinterested Persons I know it will be satisfactory to put you in mind that to impute my Proceedings to the frowning of the Times on that Party is Fallacia non Causae pro Causa a Mistake of the Adjunct or Circumstance of Time for the Principal Motive The Conversion of a Sinner is the Work of Omnipotence who as he is most free in all his Actions ad Extra so especially in the reclaiming of a strayed Sheep He is no wayes tied up to the Circumstances of Whom How Where or When. Nescit tarda Molimina Spiritûs Sancti Gratia sayes S. Bernard And if he were graciously pleased more effectually to touch my Heart now than at any other time and times of Affliction are his especial Seasons Afflictio dat Intellectum Cum Occideret eos c. I know no other Account can be given of it than that of our B. Saviour Even so Father for so it seemed Good in thy Sight Nay I have before demonstrated that these Thoughts have been long hovering in my Mind though perhaps they had not been altogether so suddenly declared but out of a deep Resentment of the Dangers of any further neglecting the Divine Call and a seasonable Desire to Testifie to the World my perfect Abhorrence of such desperate Practices and Principles which I am convinced are pernicious both to Publick Polity and Civil Society And I hope none can reasonably be angry that I have gained more Experience now I am thirty six years old than I had when I was but twenty These are the Principal Matters I thought worth your Knowledge at present wherein I protest before God and Man that I have no other Design but the Quiet of my Conscience and the Salvation of my Soul And when I have given a publick Tolerable Account of this Affair I will take my leave of this Noble Science of Controversie as Mr. Serjeant calls it having alwayes been more addicted to Ascetick Theology and sit down with Divine Anselm's Resolution Quid restat per Totam Vitam meam nisi ut Defleam Totam Vitam meam Crosses and Afflictions are no more than I expect and deserve having hitherto been so little acquainted with them The Wise man hath read my Doom to me Fili accedens ad servitutem Dei praepara Animum tuum ad Tentationem As for the sincerity of my Resolutions I can but Appeal to that Great Searcher of Hearts and Tryer of Reins And though some Folk talk of Dispensations from Rome for the taking All Oaths and Complying with All Externals and no meaner a Person than the Author of the Difference between the Church and Court of Rome out of Arch-Bishop Spotswood's History mentions some such like thing practised in Scotland yet with submission to the Learned Author I conceive there is no such matter since the Pope himself could never be induced to Approve even the single Oath of Allegiance but expresly condemned it and severely prohibited the taking of it as containing saith he divers Points contrary to Salvation And moreover put case any thing of that nature were in Being I here solemnly Avow that I disown all such Pretended Authority One Circumstance not very Material I confess but I would not too much swerve from the Accurate Exactness of Writers of Epistles Apologetical though Mr. Cressey observe it in the Beginning and I in the Conclusion must not be forgotten and thus it is To you above all Persons living I have an Obligation to recurr in Spiritual Concerns for I am your Parishioner Holborn having been the place of my Nativity I have nothing more but with all Respect and Gratitude to assure you I am Reverend and Honoured Sir Your most obliged and Humble Servant T. S. December 15. 1678. Several Weighty CONSIDERATIONS Humbly Recommended To the Serious Perusal of ALL especially the Roman Catholicks of England IT is a very good Rule prescribed by some Spiritual Writers That in Converse we should rather discourse of Things than Persons And I intend as much as the Matter will permit to observe it in this subsequent Treatise carefully avoiding all personal Reflections especially upon such as are living and shall only bring some Doctrines and Practices to the Test which though they pass for currant with many will yet be found adulterate and contrary to Holy Scripture the best Genuine Antiquity and Right Reason highly scandalous to the Christian Religion in General destructive of Civil Government fatal to Humane Society and very pernicious both to the Spiritual and Temporal Concerns of the Practisers even in their private Capacity In short I shall very plainly and briefly endeavour to make good two Assertions 1. That there is no sufficient Ground for any one to forsake the Communion of the Church of England and incorporate with that of Rome 2. That there is all Reason imaginable both for such as have been educated in the Roman Communion to Reform and for such as have unwarily ingaged with her to Return This was the happy Result of these following Considerations upon my own Heart And it shall be my Prayer that they may have the same Blessed Effect in the impartial Perusers of them The sacred Oracles of the Holy Scriptures deservedly Command our first Inquiry We have Cardinal Bellarmine's own Concession that in the grand Question of the Church the Scripture is better known than the Church Consequently then not only her Authority but her very Being must be subordinate to it And therefore in the first place let us see what Sentiments the Church of England hath of these Heavenly Records and whether Hers or those of the Roman Church be more Consonant to Pure Antiquity Reason and Holy Writ it self All Protestants and particularly the Church of England Artic. 6. look upon the Holy Scriptures to contain all things necessary to Salvation so that whatever is not read in them or cannot be proved from them is not to be Imposed on any to be received as an Article of Faith or a Necessary Requisite to Salvation Whence it appears that they take Them to be the Onely Complete and Adequate Rule both of Faith and Life sufficiently intelligible and easie in matters that concern what is simply necessary to make us Good and Happy They consequently hold that since Holy Scripture is the Rule of our Faith it must have an exact Proportion to that whereof it is a Rule So that Matters of Faith are not to be extended beyond this Rule nor can any unwritten Traditions any way be pretended to appertain to the Substance of Faith Moreover the Rule being the Idea Model and great Exemplar of what is regulated by it it is in order of Nature before the thing so regulated And if the word of God be antecedent of Faith it self it must likewise precede the
Nay I have met with one so frantick that he thinks it was the Devils invention to permit the people to read the Bible Martin Peres de Tradit And I remember Thyrraeus de Daemoniac c. 21. says that thence he knew certain Persons to be possess'd by the Devil because being but Husbandmen they were able to discourse concerning Scripture We will now see what Holy Writ it self untainted Antiquity and unprejudiced Reason alleage in this Case and which side they patronize the Reformation or the Church of Rome S. Paul gives this Encomium of his Disciple Timothy 2 Ep. c. 3. v. 15. That from a Child he had been Conversant in the Holy Scriptures and tells him they were able to make him Wise to Salvation which I hope is Knowledge enough and I am sure is a more plain compendious Path than the crooked Labyrinths of uncertain Traditions forged Decrees Canons and Fathers He further assures him that the same Divine Scriptures were profitable for Doctrine for Reproof for Correction for Instruction to Righteousness that the Man of God might be perfect throughly furnished to every good Work For my part I know not what remains then for Tradition and suck like Trash to perform since the Word of God alone can so compleat us Solomon Prov. 2.9 assures us that Gods Law alone will make a man understand Righteousness and Judgment and Equity and Every good Work The Prophet Esa c. 8.20 refers us to try all things by the Law and Testimony and that we must conclude those to have no light who speak not according to that Word Our B. Saviour Luke 10.26 When a Lawyer inquired of him what he should do to inherit Eternal Life bids him have recourse to what was written in the Law and asked him how he read there S. Luke writ his Gospel to Theophilus a Lay Person Luke 1.4 to the end he might certainly know those things wherein he had been instructed S. John writ his as he himself testifies c. 20. v. 31. that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that believing we might have Life through him Abraham sends Dives his Brethren to Moses and the Prophets rather than to Visions Apparitions and private Revelations which yet are so much pretended to and boasted of in the Roman Church Christ himself submitted the Tryal both of his Doctrine and Miracles to the Censure of the Scriptures John 5.39 Search the Scriptures for they are they which testifie of me Thoughts are free and I am apt to think that some will take the Liberty to judge it a little unreasonable that our B. Saviour should so readily stand to the Verdict of Moses and the Prophets and yet his pretended Vicar should scorn to submit to the Censure of Christ and his Apostles but defie both their Doctrines and Practices with so many Non Obstante's as appears by their new model'd Creed at this day wherein Pius the fourth hath coined twelve new Articles of Faith to shew his single Power equivalent to that of all the Apostles in General who did but every one contribute his single Article to that ancient Symbole bearing their Name S. Paul's Auditors the Bereans are highly commended for searching the Scriptures daily to examine whether the Doctrine they heard were true or no. Act. 17.11 In Sum the old Law was severely injoyned to the Reading and Meditation both of Prince Priest and People men Women and Children as is obvious to observe all along the Style thereof And the Jews were so versed in it as to be able to reckon up the Number of the Words nay Letters contained therein And the new Law excludes none either from that Common Salvation it holds forth or the means to attain it which is the Doctrine of the Gospel The Epistles are directed to Persons of all sorts and both Sexes In fine the whole Oeconomy both of the Old and New Testament is so diametrically opposite to the Practice of the Roman Church in this Point that it is but too too palpable that the three Main Pillars of Popery are to keep the Prince in awe the Priest in Honour and the People in Ignorance Antiquity is so luxuriant in this point that it will be a greater Difficulty to select than to accumulate Famous is that Speech of Constantine the great to the Fathers in the Nicene Council recorded by Theodor. Histor l. 1. c. 7. and this Saying among the rest is very remarkable We have the teaching of the Holy Ghost written for the Evangelical and Apostolical Books and the old Prophets do evidently teach us the things that are needful to be known concerning God Wherefore laying aside all Contention let us out of the Divinely Inspired Scripture take the Resolution of those things we seek for Tertullian contr Hermog in plain terms calls the Scripture The Rule of Faith St. Chrysostom Hom. 13. in 2 ad Cor. styles it A most Excellent Rule and Exact Ballance to try All things by St. August in l. 2. de Nupt. Concup c. 33. speaks thus This Controversie depending between us requires a Judge let Christ therefore judge and let the Apostle Paul judge with him because Christ speaks in his Apostle But most Memorable is that Passage of Optatus contr Parmen l. 5. where he thus presses the Donatist We are saith he to enquire out some to be Judges between us in these Controversies The Christians cannot because both sides cannot yield them and by part-taking the Truth will be hindred the Judge must be had from without our selves If a Pagan he knows not the Mysteries of Christianity if a Jew he is an Enemy to Baptisme therefore on Earth no judgment concerning this matter can be found The Judge must be had from Heaven But to what end should we knock at Heaven when here we have one in the Gospel Quotations might be Infinite but I Supersede Nor did the Antient Fathers onely think this themselves but by their frequent Translations of the Scripture and vehement Exhortations to the People to read them so translated they endeavoured to beget the same awful Respect to Gods Holy Word in the Minds of all Vlphilas a Bishop of the Goths turned the Scripture into that Barbarous Language as Socrates witnesses Methodius into the Sclavonian S. Chrysostom hom 1. in Johan makes mention of Syrian Aegyptian Indian Persian and Ethiopian Translations Theodoret de Curand Graec. Affect assures us the Bible was turned into all Languages used in the World Greek Latin Armenian Scythian Sarmatian c. And we have at this day divers Fragments of them remaining Venerable Bede shews the same of our own Country To speak plain I know no Topick the Fathers are more Copious upon than in calling upon the People to get Bibles to read them to examin what they hear by them and severely inveighing against the Negligence of such as did not According to the Apostles Advice even to the Laity Colos 3.16 Let the Word of Christ dwell in you
he shrewdly suspected the Gentleman to be a Jesuit And I remember he instanced in some particular slie wayes those Persons used to Intice and Spirit away Youths whom they judged fit for their Employment So this Correspondence broke off and I never had more to do with him However I must confess that much of his Discourse did recoil upon my Childish Fancy a long time after And though within a short while I went to Cambridge viz. in the year 1658. yet my mind was not quiet and those stupendous Distractions both of Church and State that immediately followed did infinitely add to my Perplexity Then happen'd his Majesty's happy Restauration which being as it were a year of Jubilee no wonder if the younger sort of the Vniversity did take the Benefit of the Indulgence I mean Indulgere Genio and use some Liberties which at other times the strictness of an Academical Life would not have permitted Here likewise I acknowledge I swam with the Stream and did not so seriously mind those Affairs I was designed for by my Friends and so fell into those Inconveniencies which not long after my having proceeded Batchelor of Art induced me to leave the Vniversity Coming up to London I light into the Company of an ancient Acquaintance and among other Discourses we at last fell upon Religion The Gentlewoman adjured mee by no small Considerations to advise well what I fix'd upon and likewise to recurr to some able Person of her Perswasion which was that of the Roman-Catholicks Hereupon I was introduced to one of the most Grave Subtle and Acute Fathers then in the Nation one whose Works I perceive you are not wholly a Stranger to I mean F. Fran. à S. Clara with whose winning discourse I was extreamly taken and to whose extraordinary Civilities I must always account my self extraordinarily obliged You cannot be long in Suspense concerning the Issue of this Interview He who had triumphed over so many Persons of Honour and Quality Clergy and Laity witness among the rest Dr. G. Bishop of Gloucester might easily baffle such a young Stripling as my self and soon dazle my Eyes with the glittering Pretenses of Infallibility Antiquity Unity Universality Succession Councils Fathers Saints Miracles Religious Orders c. These with the Example of several learned men Converts of our own Nation as Dr. Baily Vane Carrier Cressey Walsingham Montague Crashaw with many others yet living and therefore nameless were I then thought too great a Cloud of Witnesses for my single Wit either to oppose or so much as question And now Sir you may easily guess what became of me For about nine or ten years I was wholly immured up forced to comply with and swallow every thing durst not propose any Scruples for fear of being suspected Heretically inclined And thus I continued till the latter end of the year 1671. At which time by Gods great Mercy I got some respite to reflect upon what I had done in revolting from the Church of England and engaging with one the ignorance of whose Proselytes is often made Vse of for something more than bare Devotion Since that Time I take God to witness I have most impartially survey'd all the several Writers I could procure on both sides but especially your own Books Dr. Tillotson's and Dr. Lloyd's To both whom I beseech you in my name to tender my most humble Thanks for that Great Satisfaction I have reaped by their Writings especially The Rule of Faith And I assure you I found the Infallible Principles so shaken by those Solid and Learned Treatises and my self so intrigued by my own Experience of the Juggling Practices of some Persons most cryed up for Perfection that neither Father Bellarmine for as you well observe amidst that great boast that is made of Fathers He is the Great Father with most of our Neoterick Controvertists nor Dr. T. G. nor Mr. Cressey nor Mr. Serjeant himself who speaks nothing but Scientifical Oracles could Unblunder my thoughts that I may not wholly forsake the Rhetorick of my old Friends And this hath been the true state of my Soul for several years just like S. James's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unconstant in his wayes For what with the Terrour of that Theological Scare-crow Schism on the one hand with the Flattery of an acknowledged possibility of Salvation in the Roman Church on the other though the Dean of Canterbury's Sermon on that Subject hath now perfectly cleared me I was still detained in a Communion with that Church which I conceived to hold all the Fundamentals of Christianity To which to acknowledge something of Humane frailty I may add the Advantages I enjoyed and the Damages I should unavoidably incurr by quitting a Party whose Inveterate and Implacable Malice towards a Deserter though upon the strongest Convictions of Conscience is sufficiently known and particularly taken notice of by the afore-mentioned Reverend and Learned Author in his Discourse on that of the Gospel There is joy in Heaven over one Sinner c. and I my self have already begun to experiense from some from whom I neither expected nor deserved it To omit that Innate Reluctancy well nigh in All of Recanting a Committed Errour Though these were but Diffieulties of the Second Rate Yet at last those Desperate Practices whereof many of that Party stand suspected and some indicted made me resolve to break through all Obstacles and publickly declare my Detestation of their Actions by Renouncing their Communion and Protesting against those Principles and Doctrines as is evident in the most General Council of Lateran and others seconded by the undeniable Practice of many Popes in Actual Deposing of Princes and Disposing of Kingdoms which it is to be feared had but too much Influence on such Traiterous Designs This Tenent of a Foreign Power either Direct in Spirituals or Indirect in Temporals is most manifestly inconsistent with the Peace and Safety of our English Nation and till it be Renounced or Disabled we shall never be free from Jealousies and Fears There is another Point of as Fatal Consequence to Common Conversation as the former to the Publick Government and that is the Trick of Equivocation or Refined Art of Lying I will not say it is a Doctrine of the Roman Church but I know it to be both the Doctrine and Practice of a Leading Party in that Church and never as I ever yet heard of was it yet Censured by the Church it self no more than the Deposing Doctrine and other such like Hellish Maxims have been disowned Of this Latter I had a famous Instance not long since A known Jesuit being apprehended in a Neighbouring Town upon the Interrogatories put to him by the Magistrate he denied himself to be a Priest protested he was a Married man had Wife and Children And all this was salved by that pittiful Evasion you know the shift of the Crucifix in the Sleeve used at China That his Breviary was his Wife and his Penitents his Spiritual Children
Faithful themselves and if the Faithful then must it have Preheminence before the Church it self which is nothing else but the Congregation of the Faithful Thus the Church of Rome will evidently fall short of that Prerogative she so presumptuously arrogates of being both Before and Above the Scripture Again a Rule consisting in Indivisibili as we say i. e. being of that Nature that it is not to be inlarged or diminished how guilty are they who either make Additions to or Substractions from it Both which the Roman Church practiseth as de facto will be manifest in the Sequele of this small Tract In Fine they hold the Word of God written to be that one infallible entire Rule whereby all men Learned and Unlearned may in all necessary and fundamental Points of Faith and Manners be sufficiently instructed what is to be embraced for True and Good That it is a Rule most Certain Plain Universal Impartial not addicted to one Side more than another which neither Pope Conclave nor Councel can so much as pretend to of Power and Authority able to convince the Consciences of such as use it and from which there can be no Appeal And the only Cause why any miss of the True Faith is because they do not sincerely seek and find out this infallible Rule or having found it will not with an obedient Mind captivate their Understanding but have Access to it with Pride Curiosity Prejudice or some other unmortifyed Lust or Impediment More especially the Church of England besides that high Veneration that she her self hath for these sacred Books labours to confirm and root the same in the Hearts of her obedient Children by her Devout Practice For to omit the Frequent Laborious and Judicious Preaching and Expounding of them in this Church she hath so prudently disposed of her publick Liturgy that every day some Part and Portion of both Testaments is appointed to be read The whole Book of Psalms is gone through once a Moneth the Old Testament once and the New thrice every year with other most excellent Exercises of Piety at which even the Romanists themselves can take no just Exception and a very great Author affirms that a modern Pope would have approved the whole Service-Book had his Authority but been acknowledged which discreet Course cannot but afford much heavenly Instruction and Consolation to the constant Attenders on such Blessed Opportunities But what saith the Church of Rome all this while in this Business In her Tridentine Council Sess 4. Can. 1. She expresly Decrees that unwritten Traditions are of equal Authority with the written Word that they are to be received with the same Reverence and Affection And Cardinal Hosius who was one who in the Popes Name presided at that Council defends that most Blasphemous Speech of Wolfangus Hermannus that the Scripture is of no more Authority than Esop's Fables but for the Churches and Popes Approbation lib. 3. de Authorit Script The Council of Basil would fain perswade us that the Churches Acts and Customs must be to us instead of the Scriptures Instar habeant Sacrarum Scripturarum for that the Scripture and Churches Customs both require the same Affection and Respect Indeed I find the Romish Doctors in nothing more fluent than in degrading and vilifying the Scriptures Our Country man Dr. Stapleton positively affirms that the Church hath Authority to put into the Number of Books of Scripture and to make Canonical the Writings of Hermes and Constitutions of Clemens two famous Counterfeits and that then they would have the same Authority which other Books have canonized by the Apostles themselves Some call them a Nose of Wax to be wrested any way Cardinal Cusanus blushes not to write that the Scriptures are fitted to the time and variously understood the sense thereof being one while this and another while that according as it pleases the Church to change her Judgment Some teach that the Scripture is not simply necessary that God gave it not to the People but to the Doctors and Pastors and that we must live more according to the Dictates of the Church than the Scripture Eckius the great Antagonist of Luther would make us believe that Christ never gave any Command to his Apostles to write any thing Which yet seems very odd when such an express Injunction was lay'd on S. John to write that mystical Book of the Apocalypse which certainly is not more conducing to the Churches Edification than our B. Saviour's Sermon on the Mount and the many other practical Discourses both of himself and his Disciples In a word the most ingenuous and civil among their Writers think they have pay'd all due Respect to Holy writ when they term it a Dumb Judge Dead Ink or Ink shaped into various Forms and Characters Notwithstanding which I humbly conceive that let an Indifferent Person open the Bible and the Canons of the Council of Trent together and he will receive at least as clear and full Satisfaction from the Bible as from the other unless we will impiously deny Almighty God the Faculty of expressing his holy Will and Pleasure as intelligibly as frail Men can theirs or without any shew of Reason affirm with a late Divine that Religion it self was never fully setled till that upstart Conventicle Conformable to the Sentiments are the Practices of that Church in keeping the Bible lock'd up in an Unknown Tongue from the Use of the Vulgar Clement the Eighth very strictly orders all Vulgar Translations to be put into the Index of Prohibited Books And in Italy and Spain and wherever the Inquisition hath the least Jurisdiction the very keeping of them is a Crime no less than Capital It is true where the Reformation hath got any footing Faculties are sometimes granted to read a Translation but clog'd with so many Proviso's and various Cautions and their Spiritual Guides give so small Encouragement to it that it seems rather a Trick to stop the Mouthes of their Adversaries when they Object the Prohibition of Reading Scripture than any real Intention of Promoting so Pious an Exercise among their Devotes Besides their other Forms of Devotion Rosaries or saying over the Beads after divers Methods our Ladies Office Prayers for the Dead Manuals the long Litanies of Saints hearing of Masses reading of Legends c. are in so great Vogue and take up so considerable a Time that I scarce see how any can be allotted for that contemned Employment of studying Gods Word which ought to be the Meditation of every good Christian Day and Night Indeed this neglect to say no worse of Holy Scripture is so notorious among and so peculiar to those of that Way and the Ignorance not only of the Laity but of divers of the Clergy in that kind of Learning especially is so gross that it would be a Work of Supererogation to attempt the proof of it Their Doctors generally pretending Translations of Scripture to be the cause of all Heresies and Phanaticism
richly in all Wisdom teaching and admonishing one another Theodoret before cited gives this Account of his Times You shall every where see these Points of our Faith to be known and understood not only by such as are Teachers in the Church but by Smiths Weavers and all kinds of Artificers yea all our Women not only such as are Book-learned but also by them who get their Living by the Needle Maid servants and Waiting-women and not Citizens only but Husbandmen are very skilful in these things You may hear among us Ditchers and Neat-herds discoursing of the Trinity and the Creation And that the Laity were thus familiar with the Bible may evidently be made out in that Nectarius of a Judge was made Bishop of Constantinople St. Ambrose of a Secular Deputy Bishop of Milan Gregory the Father of Nazianzen of a Lay-man was made a Bishop Origen from a Child was Learned in the Scriptures and to the great Joy of his Father Leonides a Holy Martyr often questioned with him concerning the meaning of difficult places Macrina St. Basil's Nurse taught him the Scriptures when he was very young and Gorgonia the Sister of St. Gregory Nazianzen was rarely well experienced in them I will wind up this Argument with declaring what was St. Jerom's mind in so Weighty a Business He besides his Writing to divers Women as Eustochium Salvina Celantia c. commending their Labours in the Scriptures and encouraging that study speaking of the Noble Roman Lady Paula in the Epitaph he made upon her he extolls her for imposing a daily task of reading the Scriptures on her Companions and Maids But more signally in an Epistle to Leta he gives her these Directions for the Education of her little Daughter Let the Child be deaf in hearing of light Musical Aires but cause her every day to render a task of the Flowers of Holy Scripture Let her not be sought for in the press of secular People but in the Closet of the Scriptures asking Counsel of the Prophets and Apostles concerning Spiritual Nuptials Let her first learn the Psalter and with those Heavenly Songs wean her self from light Sonnets Then let her be taught to Govern her Life out of Solomons Proverbs and repair to Job for Examples of Vertue and Patience Let her then come to the Evangelists and never lay those Books out of her hands With these she must joyn the Acts of the Apostles c But let her be cautious in Apocryphal Books and if she read them let her understand that they are not those Author's whose Names they carry and that many things faulty are mix'd with them and it is no small Wisdom to sind Gold among Dross To which excellent Advice let me onely subjoyn what I find scattered up and down in S. Augustin viz. To read plain Passages first and heartily to practise what we understand and as for obscure Places Prophecies Genealogies and Mysteries whereof we shall never be demanded an Account at the Day of Judgment let us leave it to the Divine Pleasure either to reveal them to us or reserve them still Concealed since our Saviour told his own Disciples that it was not for them to know the Times and Seasons but plainly informed them that he who did his Will should know of his Doctrine whether he spoke from God or from himself The same Father acquaints us with the admirable Commixture of Plainness and Obscurity in the Holy Scripture that hereby Wanton Wits are wholsomely curbed Weak Wits cherished and Great Wits delighted and that nothing of highest Importance is so perplexedly delivered in one Place but it is as plainly set down in another I have inlarged a little more than I intended on this Theme because I am verily perswaded that if the Sober Judicious Roman Catholicks of this Nation would be induced but for Tryal sake a while to intermit some of those Dry Insipid Devotions which take up so much of their Time and exchange them for a Pious Humble conversing with God's Word they would soon be out of Conceit with what they are now so fond of and discover the sandy Foundation of many of their Principles and perhaps at last become of that good Abbots mind who was Unkle to Arch-Bishop Whitgift and was often heard to complain that their Religion must needs at last fail because he found no ground for it in Gods Word Having considered hitherto the great Rule of our Faith and Life we will now descend to that Article of our Creed which makes such a noise in the World I mean the Holy Catholick Church which omitting the various Acceptations of the Word Church as to our present Purpose is nothing else but a Company of People united in the Profession of the True Faith of Christ and due Use of the Sacraments I am not ignorant that the Papists would fain foist in another Requisite to wit Vnder the Obedience of the Bishop of Rame the only Vicar of Christ upon Earth But to omit many other Absurdities I shall only instance at present in two that hereby they exclude Universality which they put down as an Essential Note of the True Church and Charity which I am sure is a certain Badg of Christ's true Disciples For by this very Clause they very ridiculously obtrude less than a fourth part for the Whole and by excommunicating all the rest from the Pale of the Church as much as in them lies very mercifully Doome greater more antient and better Churches than themselves to everlasting flames To make this good we will take our Measures by the Judicious Observation of Sir Edwyn Sands who in his Survey of Europe assures us that the Greek Church in Number exceeds any other and the Protestants in Multitude and extent of Territory fall very little short of those that are under the Papal Yoke So that here we have two four Parts To which add all the Oriental Christians and those in the Vast Empire of Prester John or the Abyssines who are all out of the Roman Communion and questionless we shall find another fourth Part. And thus we have three to one even in the point of Universality I will put this out of all dispute by a particular Induction In Asia we have Multitudes of Christians who have nothing to do with the Pope Those of Palestine are subject to the Patriarch of Jerusalem the Syrians under him of Antioch the Armenians and Georgians have their own Patriarchs The Circassians and those of the lesser Asia are under him of Constantinople The Jacobites and the Christians of St. Thomas have also their peculiar Patriarchs In Africa where we find any steps of Christianity the Egyptians and Cophtes are under the Patriarch of Alexandria the Ethiopians or Abyssines which are innumerable are under their own Governours Ecclesiastical In Europe the Greeks submit to the Patriarch of Constantinople The spatious Empire of the Russians hath a Patriarch at Mosco The Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland Denmark Swedeland and the