is probable that some men finding themselves by the peculiarities of friendship excluded from the participation of those beauties of society which enamel and adorn the wise and the vertuous might suppose themselves to have reason to speak the evil words of envy and detraction I wonder not that all those unhappy souls which shall find heaven gates shut against them will think they have reason to murmur and blaspheme The similitude is apt enough for that is the region of friendship and love is the light of that glorious Countrey but so bright that it needs no Sun Here we have fine and bright rayes of that Celestial flame and though to all Mankind the light of it is in some measure to be extended like the treasures of light dwelling in the South yet a little do illustrate and beautifie the North yet some live under the line and the beams of friendship in that position are imminent and perpendicular I know but one thing more in which the Communications of friendship can be restrained and that is in Friends and Enemies Amicus amici amicus meus non est My friends friend is not always my friend nor his enemy mine for if my friend quarrel with a third person with whom he hath had no friendships upon the account of interest if that third person be my friend the nobleness of our friendships despises such a quarrel and what may be reasonable in him would be ignoble in me sometimes it may be otherwise and friends may marry one anothers loves and hatreds but it is by chance if it can be just and therefore because it is not always right it cannot be ever necessary In all things else let friendships be as high and expressive till they become an Union or that friends like the Molionidae be so the same that the flames of their dead bodies make but one Pyramis no charity can be reproved and such friendships which are more than shadows are nothing else but the rayes of that glorious grace drawn into one centre and made more active by the Union and the proper significations are well represented in the old Hieroglyphick by which the ancients depicted friendship In the beauties and strength of a young man bare-headed rudely clothed to signifie its activity and lastingness readiness of action and aptnesses to do service Upon the fringes of his garment was written Mors vita as signifying that in life and death the friendship was the same on the forehead was written Summer and Winter that is prosperous and adverse accidents and states of life the left arm and shoulder was bare and naked down to the heart to which the finger pointed and there was written longè propè by all which we know that friendship does good far and near in Summer and Winter in life and death and knows no difference of state or accident but by the variety of her services and therefore ask no more to what we can be obliged by friendship for it is every thing that can be honest and prudent useful and necessary For this is all the allay of this Universality we may do any thing or suffer any thing that is wise or necessary or greatly beneficial to my friend and that in any thing in which I am perfect master of my person and fortunes But I would not in bravery visit my friend when he is sick of the plague unless I can do him good equal at least to my danger but I will procure him Physicians and prayers all the assistances that he can receive and that he can desire if they be in my power and when he is dead I will not run into his grave and be stifled with his earth but I will mourn for him and perform his will and take care of his relatives and do for him as if he were alive and I think that is the meaning of that hard saying of a Greek Poet. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To me though distant let thy friendship fly Though men be mortal friendships must not die Of all things else there 's great satiety Of such immortal abstracted pure friendships indeed there is no great plenty and to see brothers hate each other is not so rare as to see them love at this rate The dead and the absent have but few friends say the Spaniards but they who are the same to their friend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when he is in another Countrey or in another World these are they who are fit to preserve the sacred fire for eternal sacrifices and to perpetuate the memory of those exemplar friendships of the best men which have filled the World with history and wonder for in no other sense but this can it be true that friendships are pure loves regarding to do good more than to receive it He that is a friend after death hopes not for a recompense from his friend and makes no bargain either for fame or love but is rewarded with the conscience and satisfaction of doing bravely but then this is demonstration that they choose Friends best who take persons so worthy that can and will do so This is the profit and usefulness of friendship and he that contracts such a noble Union must take care that his friend be such who can and will but hopes that himself shall be first used and put to act it I will not have such a friendship that is good for nothing but I hope that I shall be on the giving and assisting part and yet if both the friends be so noble and hope and strive to do the benefit I cannot well say which ought to yield and whether that friendship were braver that could be content to be unprosperous so his friend might have the glory of assisting him or that which desires to give assistances in the greatest measures of friendship but he that chooses a worthy friend that himself in the days of sorrow and need might receive the advantage hath no excuse no pardon unless himself be as certain to do assistances when evil fortune shall require them The sum of this answer to this enquiry I give you in a pair of Greek verses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Friends are to friends as letter Gods while they Honour and service to each other pay But when a dark cloud comes grudge not to lend Thy head thy heart thy fortune to thy friend 3. The last inquiry is how friendships are to be conducted That is what are the duties in presence and in absence whether the friend may not desire to enjoy his friend as well as his friendship The answer to which in a great measure depends upon what I have said already and if friendship be a charity in society and is not for contemplation and noise but for material comforts and noble treatments and usages this is no peradventure but that if I buy land I may eat the fruits and if I take a house I may dwell in it
case is thus The first beginnings of friendship serve the necessities but choice and worthiness are the excellencies of its endearment and its bravery and between a Brother that is no friend and a friend that is no Brother there is the same difference as between the disposition and the act or habit a Brother if he be worthy is the readiest and the nearest to be a friend but till he be so he is but the twi-light of the day and but the blossome to the fairest fruit of Paradise A Brother does not always make a friend but a friend ever makes a Brother and more And although nature sometimes finds the tree yet friendship engraves the Image the first relation places him in the Garden but friendship sets it in the Temple and then only it is venerable and sacred and so is Brotherhood when it hath the soul of friendship So that if it be asked which are most to be valued Brothers or friends the answer is very easie Brotherhood is or may be one of the kinds of friendship and from thence only hath its value and therefore if it be compared with a greater friendship must give place But then it is not to be asked which is to be preferred a Brother or a Friend but which is the better friend Memnon or my Brother For if my Brother says I ought to love him best then he ought to love me best valiant if he does then there is a great friendship and he possibly is to be preferred if he can be that friend which he pretends to be that is if he be equally worthy but if he says I must love him only because he is my Brother whether he loves me or no he is ridiculous and it will be a strange relation which hath no correspondent but suppose it and add this also that I am equally his Brother as he is mine and then he also must love me whether I love him or no and if he does not he says I must love him though he be my Enemy and so I must but I must not love my Enemy though he be my Brother more then I love my Friend and at last if he does love me for being his Brother I confess that this love deserves love again but then I consider that he loves me upon an incompetent reason for he that loves me only because I am his Brother loves me for that which is no worthiness and I must love him as much as that comes to and for as little reason unless this be added that he loves me first but whether choice and union of souls and worthiness of manners and greatness of understanding and usefulness of conversation and the benefits of Counsel and all those endearments which make our lives pleasant and our persons Dear are not better and greater reasons of love and Dearness than to be born of the same flesh I think amongst wise persons needs no great inquiry For fraternity is but a Cognation of bodies but friendship is an Union of souls which are confederated by more noble ligatures My Brother if he be no more shall have my hand to help him but unless he be my friend too he cannot challenge my heart and if his being my friend be the greater nearness then friend is more than Brother and I suppose no man doubts but that David lov'd Jonathan far more than he lov'd his Brother Eliah One inquiry more there may be in this affair and that is whether a friend may be more than a Husband or Wife To which I answer that it can never be reasonable or just prudent or lawful but the reason is because Marriage is the Queen of friendships in which there is a communication of all that can be communicated by friendship and it being made sacred by vows and love by bodies and souls by interest and custome by religion and by laws by common Counsels and common fortunes it is the principal in the kind of friendship and the measure of all the rest And there is no abatement to this consideration but that there may be some allay in this as in other letter friendships by the incapacity of the persons if I have not chosen my friend wisely or fortunately he cannot be the correlative in the best Union but then the friend lives as the soul does after death it is in the state of separation in which the soul strangely loves the body and longs to be reunited but the body is an useless trunk and can do no ministeries to the soul which therefore prays to have the body reformed and restored and made a brave and a fit companion so must these best friends when one is useless or unapt to the braveries of the princely friendship they must love ever and pray ever and long till the other be perfected and made fit in this case there wants only the body but the soul is still a relative and must be so for ever A Husband and a Wife are the best friends but they cannot always signifie all that to each other which their friendships would as the Sun shines not upon a Valley which sends up a thick vapour to cover his face and though his beams are eternal yet the emission is intercepted by the intervening cloud But however all friendships are but parts of this a man must leave Father and Mother and cleave to his Wife that is the dearest thing in Nature is not comparable to the dearest thing of friendship and I think this is argument sufficient to prove friendship to be the greatest band in the world Add to this that other friendships are parts of this they are marriages too less indeed than the other because they cannot must not be all that endearment which the other is yet that being the principal is the measure of the rest and are all to be honoured by like dignities and measured by the same rules and conducted by their portion of the same Laws But as friendships are Marriages of the soul and of fortunes and interests and counsels so they are brotherhoods too and I often think of the excellencies of friendships in the words of David who certainly was the best friend in the World Ecce quam bonum quam jucundum fratres habitare in unum It is good and it is pleasant that Brethren should live like friends that is they who are any ways relative and who are any ways social and confederate should also dwell in Unity and loving society for that is the meaning of the word Brother in Scripture It was my Brother Jonathan said David such Brothers contracting such friendships are the beauties of society and the pleasure of life and the festivity of minds and whatsoever can be spoken of love which is God's eldest daughter can be said of vertuous friendships and though Carneades made an eloquent Oration at Rome against justice and yet never saw a Panegyrick of malice or ever read that any man was witty against friendship Indeed it
over you I know not what D. P. G. did say but I am confident they who reported it of him were mistaken He could not say or mean what is charged upon him I have but two things more to speak to One is you desire me to recite what else might impede your compliance with the Roman Church I answer Truth and Piety hinder you For you must profess the belief of many false propositions and certainly believe many Uncertain things and be uncharitable to all the World but your own party and make Christianity a faction and you must yield your reason a servant to man and you must plainly prevaricate an institution of Christ and you must make an apparent departure from the Church in which you received your Baptism and the Spirit of God if you go over to Rome But Sir I refer you to the two Letters I have lately published at the end of my discourse of Friendship and I desire you to read my Treatise of the Real presence and if you can believe the doctrine of Transubstantiation you can put off your reason and your sense and your religion and all the instruments of Credibility when you please and these are not little things In these you may perish an error in these things is practical but our way is safe as being upon the defence and intirely resting upon Scripture and the Apostolical Churches The other thing I am to speak to is the report you have heard of my inclinations to go over to Rome Sir that party which needs such lying stories for the support of their Cause proclaim their Cause to be very weak or themselves to be very evil Advocates Sir be confident they dare not tempt me to do so and it is not the first time they have endeavoured to serve their ends by saying such things of me But I bless God for it it is perfectly a Slander and it shall I hope for ever prove so Sir if I may speak with you I shall say very many things more for your confirmation Pray to God to guide you and make no change suddenly For if their way be true to day it will be so to morrow and you need not make hast to undo your self Sir I wish you a setled mind and a holy Conscience and that I could serve you in the capacity of Your very Loving Friend and Servant in our Blessed Lord JER TAYLOR The IV. LETTER To the same Person SIR I Perceive that You are very much troubled and I see also that you are in great danger but that also troubles me because I see they are little things and very weak and fallacious that move you You propound many things in your Letter in the same disorder as they are in your Conscience to all which I can best give answers when I speak with you to which because you desire I invite you and promise you a hearty endeavour to give you satisfaction in all your material inquiries Sir I desire you to make no hast to change in case you be so miserable as to have it in your thoughts for to go over to the Church of Rome is like death there is no recovery from thence without a Miracle because Unwary souls such are they who change from us to them are with all the arts of wit and violence strangely entangled and ensur'd when they once get the prey Sir I thank you for the Paper you inclosed The men are at a loss they would fain say something against that Book but know not what Sir I will endeavour if you come to me to restore you to peace and quiet and if I cannot effect it yet I will pray for it and I am sure God can To his Mercy I commend you and rest Your very affectionate Friend in our Blessed Lord JER TAYLOR The V. LETTER To the same Person SIR THE first Letter which you mention in this latter of the 10 th of March I received not I had not else failed to give you an answer I was so wholly unknowing of it that I did not understand your Servant's meaning when he came to require an answer But to your Question which you now propound I answer Quest. Whether without all danger of Superstition or Idolatry we may not render Divine worship to our Blessed Saviour as present in the Blessed Sacrament or Host according to his Humane Nature in that Host Answ. We may not render Divine worship to him as present in the Blessed Sacrament according to his Humane Nature without danger of Idolatry Because he is not there according to his Humane Nature and therefore you give Divine worship to a Non Ens which must needs be Idolatry For Idolum nihil est in mundo saith S. Paul and Christ as presenâ— by his Humane Nature in the Sacrament is a Non Ens for it is not true there is no such thing He is present there by his Divine power and his Divine Blessing and the fruits of his Body the real effective consequents of his Passion but for any other Presence it is Idolum it is nothing in the world Adore Christ in Heaven for the Heavens must contain him till the time of restitution of all things And if you in the reception of the Holy Sacrament worship him whom you know to be in Heaven you cannot be concerned in duty to worship him in the Host as you call it any more than to worship him in the Host at Nostre Dame when you are at S. Peters in Rome for you see him no more in one place than another and if to believe him to be there in the Host at Nostre Dame be sufficient to cause you to worship him there then you are to do so to him at Rome though you be not present for you believe him there you know as much of Him by Faith in both places and as little by sense in either But however this is a thing of infinite danger God is a jealous God He spake it in the matter of external worship and of idolatry and therefore do nothing that is like worshipping a meer creature nothing that is like worshipping that which you are not sure it is God and if you can believe the Bread when it is blessed by the Priest is God Almighty you can if you please believe any thing else To the other parts of your Question viz. Whether the same body be present really and Substantially because we believe it to be there or whether we do believe it to be there because God hath manifestly revealed it to be so and therefore we revere and adore it accordingly I answer 1. I do not know whether or no you do believe Him to be there really and Substantially 2. If you do believe it so I do not know what you mean by really and Substantially 3. Whatsoever you do mean by it if you do believe it to be there really and Substantially in any sense I cannot tell why you believe it to be so you best know
Non magna sequimur sed bivimus Nihil opinionis Gratia omnia Conscenâ—iae faciam B. TAYLOR' 's OPVSCVLA THE Measures of Friendship WITH ADDITIONAL TRACTS To which is now Added His Moral Demonstration proving that the Religion of Jesus Christ is from GOD. Never before Printed in this Volume ECCLUS 14.15 Do good unto thy Friend before thou dye GREG NYSSEN 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LONDON Printed for Rich. Royston Bookseller to His most Sacred Majesty 1678. The WORKS of JER TAYLOR late B. of Down and Connor in Five Volumes Extant VIZ. VOL. I. A Collection of Polemical Discourses New and Old Against PAPIST and FANATICK Folio VOL. II. Several Tracts addressed to the promotion of Practical Religion Folio VOL. III. Ductor Dubitantium or the Rule of Conscience wherein all particular Cases may be resolved in Five Books Folio VOL. IV. The History of the Life and Death of the Holy Jesus with the Lives and Martyrdoms of the Apostles Fol. VOL. V. A Course of Sermons for all the Sundays in the Year with a Supplement of divers more Preached upon several Occasions Fol. ALSO The Rule of Holy Living and Holy Dying in Octavo The Golden Grove or a Guide to Devotion in 12 o. THE CONTENTS A Discourse of the Nature and Offices of Friendship Pag. 1. FIVE Letters more to Persons Changed and Tempted to a Change in their Religion The I. LETTER A Copy of the first Letter written to a Gentlewoman newly seduced to the Church of Rome Pag. 77. The II. LETTER Written to a Person newly converted to the Church of England Pag. 119. The III. LETTER Written to a Gentleman that was tempted to the Communion of the Romish Church Pag. 131. The IV. LETTER To the same Person Pag. 141. The V. LETTER To the same Person Pag. 143. A Discourse proving that the Christian Religion is from GOD. Pag. 153. A DISCOURSE OF THE Nature and Offices OF FRIENDSHIP In a Letter to the most Ingenious and Excellent M rs Katherine Phillips MADAM THE wise Bensirach advised that we should not consult with a woman concerning her of whom she is jealous neither with a Coward in matters of War nor with a Merchant concerning exchange and some other instances he gives of interested persons to whom he would not have us hearken in any matter of Counsel For where ever the interest is secular or vicious there the biass is not on the side of truth or reason because these are seldom serv'd by profit and low regards But to consult with a friend in the matters of friendship is like consulting with a spiritual person in Religion they who understand the secrets of Religion or the interior beauties of friendship are the fittest to give answers in all inquiries concerning the respective subjects because reason and experience are on the side of interest and that which in friendship is most pleasing and most useful is also most reasonable and most true and a friends fairest interest is the best measure of the conducting friendships and therefore you who are so eminent in friendships could also have given the best answer to your own inquiries and you could have trusted your own reason because it is not only greatly instructed by the direct notices of things but also by great experience in the matter of which you now inquire But because I will not use any thing that shall look like an excuse I will rather give you such an account which you can easily reprove then by declining your commands seem more safe in my prudence then open and communicative in my friendship to you You first inquire how far a Dear and a perfect friendship is authoriz'd by the principles of Christianity To this I answer That the word Friendship in the sense we commonly mean by it is not so much as named in the New-Testament and our Religion takes no notice of it You think it strange but read on before you spend so much as the beginning of a passion or a wonder upon it There is mention of Friendship with the world and it is said to be enmity with God but the word is no where else named or to any other purpose in all the New-Testament It speaks of Friends often but by Friends are meant our acquaintance or our Kindred the relatives of our family or our fortune or our sect something of society or something of kindness there is in it a tenderness of appellation and civility a relation made by gifts or by duty by services and subjection and I think I have reason to be confident that the word friend speaking of humane entercourse is no other-ways used in the Gospels or Epistles or Acts of the Apostles and the reason of it is the word friend is of a large signification and means all relations and societies and whatsoever is not enemy but by friendships I suppose you mean the greatest love and the greatest usefulness and the most open communication and the noblest sufferings and the most exemplar faithfulness and the severest truth and the heartiest counsel and the greatest union of minds of which brave men and women are capable But then I must tell you that Christianity hath new christened it and calls this Charity The Christian knows no enemy he hath that is though persons may be injurious to him and unworthy in themselves yet he knows none whom he is not first bound to forgive which is indeed to make them on his part to be no enemies that is to make that the word enemy shall not be perfectly contrary to friend it shall not be a relative term and signifie something on each hand a relative and a correlative and then he knows none whom he is not bound to love and pray for to treat kindly and justly liberally and obligingly Christian Charity is Friendship to all the world and when Friendships were the noblest things in the world Charity was little like the Sun drawn in at a chink or his beams drawn into the centre of a Burning-Glass but Christian charity is Friendship expanded like the face of the Sun when it mounts above the Eastern hills and I was strangely pleas'd when I saw something of this in CICERO for I have been so push'd at by herds and flocks of People that follow any body that whistles to them or drives them to pasture that I am grown afraid of any Truth that seems chargeable with singularity but therefore I say glad I was when I saw Laelius in Cicero discourse thus Amicitia ex infinitate generis humani quam conciliavit ipsa natura contracta res est adducta in angustum ut omnis charitas aut inter duos aut inter paucos jungeretur Nature hath made friendships and societies relations and endearments and by something or other we relate to all the World there is enough in every man that is willing to make him become our friend but when men contract friendship they inclose the Commons and what Nature intended should be every mans we
many intrigues and Labyrinths of Question and is like a long line so impossible to be perfectly straight and to have no declination in it when it is held by such a hand as yours that unless it be by material enquiries into the Articles of the Religion you can never hope to have just grounds of confidence In the mean time you can consider this if the Roman Church were the Catholick that is so as to exclude all that are not of her communion then the Greek Churches had as good turn Turks as remain damned Christians and all that are in the communion of all the other Patriarchal Churches in Christendom must also perish like Heathens which thing before any Man can believe he must have put off all reason and all modesty and all charity And who can with any probability think that the Communion of Saints in the Creed is nothing but the Communion of Roman Subjets and the Article of the Catholick Church was made up to dispark the inclosures of Jerusalem but to turn them into the pale of Rome and the Church is as limited as ever it was save only that the Synagogue is translated to Rome which I think you will easily believe was a Proposition the Apostles understood not But though it be hard to trust to it it is also so hard to prove it that you shall be able to understand the measures of that question and therefore your salvation can never depend upon it For no good or wise person can believe that God hath tied our Salvation to impossible measures or bound us to an Article that is not by us cognoscible or intends to have us conducted by that which we cannot understand and when you shall know that Learned men even of the Roman party are not agreed concerning the Catholick Church that is infallibly to guide you some saying that it is the virtual Church that is the Pope some that it is the representative Church that is a Council Some that it is the Pope and the Council the virtual Church and the representative Church together Some that neither of these nor both together are infallible but only the essential Church or the diffusive Church is the Catholick from whom we must at no hand dissent you will quickly find your self in a wood and uncertain whether you have more than a word in exchange for your soul when you are told you are in the Catholick Church But I will tell you what you may understand and see and feel something that your self can tell whether I say true or no concerning it You are now gone to a Church that protects it self by arts of subtilty and arms by violence and persecuting all that are not of their minds to a Church in which you are to be a Subject of the King so long as it pleases the Pope In which you may be absolved from your Vows made to God your Oaths to the King your Promises to Men your duty to your Parents in some cases A Church in which Men pray to God and to Saints in the same Form of words in which they pray to God as you may see in the Offices of Saints and particularly of our Lady a Church in which Men are taught by most of the principal Leaders to worship Images with the same worship with which they worship God and Christ or him or her whose Image it is and in which they usually picture God the Father and the holy Trinity to the great dishonour of that sacred mystery against the doctrine and practice of the Primitive Church against the express doctrine of Scripture against the honour of a Divine Attribute I mean the immensity and spirituality of the Divine Nature You are gone to a Church that pretends to be Infallible and yet is infinitely deceived in many particulars and yet endures no contradiction and is impatient her children should enquire into any thing her Priests obtrude You are gone from receiving the whole Sacrament to receive it but half from Christ's Institution to a humane invention from Scripture to uncertain Traditions and from ancient Traditions to new pretences from prayers which ye understood to prayers which ye understand not from confidence in God to rely upon creatures from intire dependence upon inward acts to a dangerous temptation of resting too much in outward ministeries in the external work of Sacraments and of Sacramentals You are gone from a Church whose worshipping is simple Christian and Apostolical to a Church where Mens consciences are loaden with a burden of Ceremonies greater than that in the days of the Jewish Religion for the Ceremonial of the Church of Rome is a great Book in Folio greater I say than all the Ceremonies of the Jews contained in Leviticus c. You are gone from a Church where you were exhorted to read the Word of God the holy Scriptures from whence you found instruction institution comfort reproof a treasure of all excellencies to a Church that seals up that fountain from you and gives you drink by drops out of such Cisterns as they first make and then stain and then reach out and if it be told you that some Men abuse Scripture it is true for if your Priests had not abused Scripture they could not thus have abused you but there is no necessity they should and you need not unless you list any more than you need to abuse the Sacraments or decrees of the Church or the messages of your friend or the Letters you receive or the Laws of the Land all which are liable to be abused by evil persons but not by good people and modest understandings It is now become a part of your Religion to be ignorant to walk in blindness to believe the Man that hears your Confessions to hear none but him not to hear God speaking but by him and so you are liable to be abused by him as he please without remedy You are gone from us where you were only taught to worship God through Jesus Christ and now you are taught to worship Saints and Angels with a worship at least dangerous and in some things proper to God for your Church worships the Virgin Mary with burning incense and candles to her and you give her presents which by the consent of all Nations used to be esteemed a worship peculiar to God and it is the same thing which was condemned for Heresie in the Collyridians who offered a Cake to the Virgin Mary A Candle and a Cake make no difference in the worship and your joyning God and the Saints in your worship and devotions is like the device of them that fought for King and Parliament the latter destroys the former I will trouble you with no more particulars because if these move you not to consider better nothing can But yet I have two things more to add of another nature one of which at least may prevail upon you whom I suppose to have a tender and a religious Conscience The first is That
you to be and therefore you must needs be in a greater danger than we can be supposed by how much sins of omission are less than sins of commission 11. Your very way of arguing from our charity is a very fallacy and a trick that must needs deceive you if you rely upon it For whereas your men argue thus The Protestants say we Papists may be saved and so say we too but we Papists say that you Protestants cannot therefore it is safest to be a Papist consider that of this argument if it shall be accepted any bold heretick can make use against any modest Christian of a true perswasion For if he can but out-face the modesty of the good man and tell him he shall be damn'd unless that modest man say as much of him you see impudence shall get the better of the day But it is thus in every error Fifteen Bishops of Jerusalem in immediate succession were circumcised believing it to be necessary so to be with these other Christian Churches who were of the uncircumcision did communicate Suppose now that these Bishops had not only thought it necessary for themselves but for others too this argument you see was ready you of the uncircumcision who do communicate with us think that we may be saved though we are circumcised but we do not think that you who are not circumcised can be saved therefore it is the safest way to be circumcised I suppose you would not have thought their argument good neither would you have had your children circumcised But this argument may serve the Presbyterians as well as the Papists We are indeed very kind to them in our sentences concerning their salvation and they are many of them as unkind to us If they should argue so as you do and say you Episcopal men think we Presbyterians though in errors can be saved and we say so too but we think you Episcopal men are Enemies of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and therefore we think you in a damnable condition therefore it is safer to be a Presbyterian I know not what your men would think of the argument in their hands I am sure we had reason to complain that we are used very ill on both hands for no other cause but because we are charitable But it is not our case alone but the old Catholicks were used just so by the Donatists in this very argument as we are used by your men The Donatists were so fierce against the Catholicks that they would re-baptize all them who came to their Churches from the other But the Catholicks as knowing the Donatists did give right Baptism admitted their Converts to Repentance but did not re-baptize them Upon this score the Donatists triumphed saying You Catholicks confess our Baptism to be good and so say we But we Donatists deny your Baptism to be good therefore it is safer to be of our side than yours Now what should the Catholicks say or do Should they lie for God and for Religion and to serve the ends of Truth say the Donatists Baptism was not good That they ought not Should they damn all the Donatists and make the rent wider It was too great already What then They were quiet and knew that the Donatists sought advantages by their own fierceness and trampled upon the others charity but so they hardned themselves in error and became evil because the others were good I shall trouble you no further now but desire you to consider of these things with as much caution as they were written with charity Till I hear from you I shall pray to God to open your heart and your understanding that you may return from whence you are fallen and repent and do your first work Which that you may do is the hearty desire of Your very affectionate Friend and Servant JER TAYLOR The II. Letter Written to a Person newly converted to the Church of England Madam I Bless God I am safely arrived where I desired to be after my unwilling departure from the place of your abode and danger And now because I can have no other expression of my tenderness I account that I have a treble Obligation to signifie it by my care of your biggest and eternal interest And because it hath pleased God to make me an Instrument of making you to understand in some fair measure the excellencies of a true and holy Religion and that I have pointed out such follies and errors in the Roman Church at which your understanding being forward and pregnant did of it self start as at imperfect ill-looking Propositions give me leave to do that now which is the purpose of my Charity that is teach you to turn this to the advantage of a holy life that you may not only be changed but converted For the Church of England whither you are now come is not in condition to boast her self in the reputation of changing the opinion of a single person though never so excellent She hath no temporal ends to serve which must stand upon fame and noises all that she can design is to serve God to advance the honour of the Lord and the good of souls and to rejoyce in the Cross of Christ. First therefore I desire you to remember that as now you are taught to pray both publickly and privately in a Language understood so it is intended your affections should be forward in proportion to the advantages which your prayer hath in the understanding part For though you have been often told and have heard that ignorance is the mother of devotion you will find that the proposition is unnatural and against common sense and experience because it is impossible to desire that of which we know nothing unless the desire it self be fantastical and illusive it is necessary that in the same proportion in which we understand any good thing in the same we shall also desire it and the more particular and minute your notices are the more passionate and material also your affections will be towards it and if they be good things for which we are taught to pray the more you know them the more reason you have to love them It is monstrous to think that devotion that is passionate desires of religious things and the earnest prosecutions of them should be produced by any thing of ignorance or less perfect notices in any sense Since therefore you are taught to pray so that your understanding is the praecentor or the Master of the Quire and you know what you say your desires are made humane religious express material for these are the advantages of Prayers and Liturgies well understood be pleased also to remember that now if you be not also passionate and devout for the things you mention you will want the Spirit of prayer and be more inexcusable than before In many of your prayers before especially the publique you heard a voice but saw and perceived nothing of the sense and what you understood of it was like
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