now shall worship the Beast and his Image and receive his Mark in his forehead or in his hand shall either more openly or secretly either in profession or practice receive the mark and badge of communion and fellowship with the false worship of Rome for that 's clearly as was before noted the Woman supported by and riding the Beast whose worshippers are here threatned the same shall drink of the Wine of the wrath of God which is without mixture poured into the Cup of his indignation and shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy Angels and in the presence of the Lamb and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever and they have no rest day or night who worship the Beast and his image and whosoever receiveth the Mark of his name A dreadful sentence worthy to be thought of and trembled at by all that still retain the false Idoatrous worship practised in the Romish Church especially by such of them as live among the Protestant reformed Churches and more especially still that having had better light and education do return or relapse thereto A sentence in which is no respect of persons but what or whoever they be high or low rich or poor Princes or peasants God will not be partial in his judgment upon them but if they will venture upon these sins they must also expect to indure these terrible torments here expressed and the Mighty man shall cry there bitterly Zeph. 1.14 O heavy portion of all our English Roman Catholicks The Lord open their eyes to see the evil of the way they are in and perswade them to renounce it to depart therefrom for it will be most sad in the latter end Though its probable that they of Rome may devise to make sad the portion of such as warn protest against them desire their conversion and that they may also prosper a while in their designs and bring sad things upon the righter Worshippers before their misery come upon them therefore it follows in Rev. 14.12 Here is the patience of the Saints here are they that keep the Commandments of God and the faith of Jesus Here namely about this time when this is proclaimed and this warning given that is mentioned in the foregoing verses here is the patience of the Saints then the Saints and right Worshippers shall have a time to exercise their patience in waiting for the accomplishment of that predicted judgment or also they may have a sad time of tryal and therein for exercise of their parience because of some eminent sufferings then befalling them to encourage them under which and to keep the Commandments of God and the faith of Jesus it is therefore added That he heard a voice from Heaven saying Writeb lessed are the dead that dy in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the Spirit that they may rest from their labours and their works shall follow them as implying that thenceforth would follow such labours and sufferings of the Saints as well would it be with those that should endure them to death so as to dy in the Lord and happy should be the dead of them rather than the living before the sad doom of the Beast-worshippers come upon them But yet as they that thenceforth especially dy in the Lord shall be blessed so the Beast-Worshippers however long they may live and their doom be deferred are and shall be in the issue most accursed Which things being so let us I pray Sir beware of that false worship keeping close to the Scriptures of truth and to the sacred truths revealed in the Scriptures and not for any respect honour friendship or worldly and carnal advantages respect them and turn aside to so corrupt and dangerous away and worship as that of the Roman Communion God will certainly better bare with such as have as it were been held captive by their deceits being always educated and brought up under them then with such as having been better instructed do turn aside to them Oh that these Nations and the Inhabitants thereof would therefore look about them and beware how they lissen to any that would thereto seduce them and mind those many convincing arguments and clear and unanswerable demonstrations of the desperate badness of that Church and its ways and Doctrines and doings which by many hands have been offered to them which yet if they please they may consult with and consider among which beside these many worthy men who have formerly wrote excellently against her corruptions as Jewel Reinolds Morton and many others the Labours of the Learned Doctor Stillingfleet Dr. Tillitson Dr. Brevint Dr. Whitby Sr. Christopher Wyvel who it seems in his Minority was educated among or insnared with them and Mr. Gilbert Burnet in my judgment are very worthy consideration And oh that men would not dally and trifle in so great a matter as their own Salvation but be serious and considerative in what they do therein allways remembring that of our Blessed Saviour What will it profit a man to gain the whole World and loose his own Soul Or what shall a man give in Exchange for his Soul For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his Angels and then he will give to every man according to his Works Math. 16.26.27 And that if thy hand offend thee cut it off and cast it from thee and so if thy foot offend thee for better it is to enter into the Kingdom of God having but one hand or foot and so halting or maimed than having two hands or two feet to be cast into Hell Fire where the Worm dyeth not and the fire is not quenched And if thine Eye thy right Eye offend thee pluck it out and cast it from thee for better it is to enter into the Kingdom of God having but one Eye then having both thine Eyes to be cast into Hell Fire where the Worms dyeth not and the Fire is not quenched Mark 9.44.48 Consider what is herein though but briefly and weakly propounded and the Lord bless it to every one that may and shall read it for the establishing them in the truth where they are weak and wavering thereabout if not yet waved therefrom and for the recovering such as have declined or departed from it and the Lord deliver us all from every evil work and preserve us to his everlasting Kingdom in whom I take my leave and remain Yours and every Mans to serve you and them in the faith and truth of Christ FINIS
very Antichrists Oh that none of your Souls may come into their secret or have fellowship with them but yet this is not all in which they declare plainly that they erre grosly from the Faith and Truth of Christ and the true way of his Worship Behold it still in other particulars For 4. Whereas the Lord Jesus in the Night in which he was betrayed instituted his Holy Supper to be Celebrated in commemoration and remembrance of him In which He gave to his Disciples and ordered his Apostles to do the like to the Churches afterwards a Commemoration of his death and passion in two distinct Elements of bread and wine the one before and the other after and bad them all expresly drink of the cup and the Apostles plainly tell us that they delivered to the Churches that which they also received of Christ Jesus and so that they both gave the bread to be eaten and the cup to be drunk by them Witness the writings of the Apostle Paul in 1 Cor. 10.15 16. Where not directing them to some eternal infallible Judge Determiner of their understanddings he bids them as wise men to judge of his sayings and mentions both the cup of blessing which they blessed calling it the communion or fellowship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the blood of Christ and the bread that they brake calling it the communion of the body of Christ and in chap. 11.23 24 25 26. Where repeating the words and order of Christs instituting his Supper in both branches or parts of it he saith for as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye shew forth the Lords death till he come and let a man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 any man of the Church indefinitely Lay or Clergy as they are now a days distinguished examine himself and so let him eat of this bread and drink of this Cup. He saith not only let him eat of this bread but also let him drink of this cup. And whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this Cup of the Lord unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself And the Apostle saith also in chap. 14.37 as we noted before that the things He wrote were the Commandments of the Lord yet this Church of Rome most audaciously and with a non obsunt or notwithstanding all this presume to deny the cup to the Laity yea and to the Clergy too say some if any of them be present beside the Priest that celebrates or saieth Mass making nothing of Gods or Christs authority to the contrary Surely therefore to them may most truly and fully be applyed those words of our Saviour spoken by him against the Scribes and Pharisees in whose steps they walk viz. well hath Isaiah prophesied of you Hypocrites as it is written this People honoureth me with their lips but their hearts are far from me Howbeit in vain do they worship me teaching for doctrines the Commandments of men For laying aside the Commandments of God ye hold the Tradition of men c. And full well ye reject the Commandments of God that you may keep your own Tradition making the word of God of none effect through your Tradition which ye have delivered Mar. 7.6 7 8 9 13. For what is their doctrine of Concomitancy but their own Tradition wherein they teach their Followers to believe that the Cup is in the bread as it were the blood of Christ is in his body and they as well taken together For were they not so when Christ being yet alive instituted the Supper And after his Resurrection when the Apostle and the Primitive Christians observed it in both kinds And can the supposal of both together in one be so lively a resemblance representation and commemoration of his death as when they are given seperately The end of our Saviours instituting and of the Churches observing this Ordinance is to shew forth the Lords death till he come 1 Cor. 11.26 And is not his death more lively set forth and represented when the Elements are given apart and so the body represented as without it's blood and the blood as separated from the body than when both are supposed to be given together in one In Christs state of death his blood was shed forth from his body and in the supper as instituted of Christ the cup was given by it self as a representation of his blood shed for the remission of our sins So that here is in this bold contradiction to our Saviours precept and practice both a rejecting of his commandment and a making null the end of his institution the shewing forth of his death Though yet neither is this all nor the half of that in which this bad Church dares to confront the authority of God For 5. They also leave out in their Catechismes the second Commandment Thou shalt not make to thy self any Graven Image c. And to make up the number of ten they divide the last into two both contrary to the express voice and command of God who gave the second as audibly as any of the rest and with more express sanction by way both of threatning added as a jealous God punishing the Offenders and promise of blessing to them that love him and keep his Commandments and to the practise and manner of the Christian Church in all it 's Primitive times Because they confront Gods Commandment in their practise setting up and injoyning Images and the Likenesses and the Representations of things and Persons to be erected and worshipped though God hath expresly commanded the contrary Oh audacious Church and Congregation of evil doers And can any be so blind as not to see palpably in this and the other particulars that they both can and do err And how then can it be possibly imagined that they are Infallible Nay rather verily it is far righter to say that they are incorrigible impenitent and impudent in their notoriously evil Principles and Practises God saith thou shalt not make to thy self any Graven thing nor the likeness or similitude of any thing either in Heaven above or in the Earth beneath thou shalt not bow down to them nor worship them And these men do make the similitude of many things in Heaven and Earth as of the Virgin Mary the Saints deceased the Cross of Christ yea as they pretend of God himself c. bow down to them worship them yet they say they are innocent so did the adulterous Church of Judah when they upon every high Hill under every green tree wandred play'd the Harlot yet they said they were not polluted they had not gone after Baalim they were innocent and therefore surely Gods anger would turn away from them Jer. 2.23,35 Even so doth this corrupt and erroneous Church plead not only that she is innocent but also that she cannot err But we shall have occasion to say more to this anon Besides all this 6. What is their Doctrine of Transubstantiation but a
vers 9 10. Even so the Church of Rome and it's Teachers reject the word of the Lord as is evident in the instances we have given and yet they say the Law the Scriptures and it's Exposition are with that is belong unto them They are they from whom men must receive it and upon whom they must depend for it Yea they do as the false Church in Isa 48.1 2. is said to have done who make mention of the name of the Lord but not in truth nor in righteousness though they called themselves of the holy City that is in effect the holy Catholick Church The like is timated of them in Jer. 18.18 where the persecutors of the Lord's Prophets that were such in truth yet said of themselves come let us devise devices against Jeremiah and add as if they had thence authority to do so for the Law shall not perish from the Priest nor counsel from the wise nor the word from the Prophet Now when we see or may see by the Scriptures of truth and the testimony of the Holy Spirit in them that there should be false Teachers among the Christians answerable to the false Prophets among the Jews that would bring in Doctrines swarving from the Scriptures and find that the Papists and their Teachers evidently do so their challenge of authority to be the sole Expounders of the Scriptures should nothing move us while we see that they therein walk in the steps of the false Prophets especially seeing also that they challenge an authority which the Holy Ghost hath not given them nor directed his followers any where unto For the Holy Ghost himself who led the Apostles into all truth Joh. 16.13 doth not in any Scripture testifie to us of Rome or the Roman Church that we should derive our Faith from her or resolve it into her or her Doctors more than into any other Church The Apostle Peter whose authority they pretend to have committed to them but without any evidence of the holy Scriptures and whose Successors they tell us their Popes or Bishops are could not leave more authority to them than he had exercised himself Now we find him expresly preferring the authority of the Scriptures before his own saying or testimony as to the resolution of other mens Faith Yea he as well as other Apostles proved his sayings by the holy Scriptures as is evident in his Epistles 1 Pet. 2.6 7. and 3.10 11 12. and obtruded nothing upon men on his own authority barely as the Popes presume to do He calls the word of Prophesy a more sure word than what he related of his own knowledge 2 Pet. 1.16 17 18 19. and instead of directing the Believers after his death to the Church of Rome and her Bishops which surely he would and ought to have done had he known of any power given of Christ to her or to them for resolving mens doubts and determining their Faith and exercising a dominion over mens consciences more than to other Churches or their Bishops yea or directing them to himself more than to the rest of the Apostles when he forewarned them of false Teachers Scoffers that would come in the last days He stirs up the Believers minds to remember the words of the Prophets and the Commandments of the Apostles of our Lord and Saviour He saith not his own Commands or his rather than of the other Apostles but indefinitely of the Apostles puting in himself with them as one of the same rank and of no superior rank or authority among or over them much less doth he say that we should after his death be take our selves to the Church or Bishop of Rome for our direction guidance and preservation from the Error of the wicked but directs us to the Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles the things spoken and commanded in and by them He thought not of the Lord Peter or the Lord Pope nor signified that the rest of the Apostles stood in relation more than himself to any man as their Lord but only to him who is the Saviour Yea and the Lord Jesus himself when afterward he appeared to John in the Isle of Patmos and gave him visions and revelations of the things that should come to pass in the world and unto the Churches directed him not to bid us go to Rome for resolution of our hearts in the matters of God and in what concerns our preservation in his truth but he in his several Epistles to the Churches bids Let him that hath an ear hear what the Spirit saith to the Churches He bids not That he that hath an ear should hear the Churches simply no nor yet what the Spirit saith in the Churches much less saith he Let him that hath an ear hear what the Church of Rome saith or what her Bishop as an heavenly Oracle or the Spirit as either in it or him as Infallibly tied to his Chair should dictate to us And yet which is very considerable this Book of the Revelations according to the most authentick testimonies of Antiquity was written after the Deaths of all the other Apostles and its probable at least that he lived not long after it himself who was the Penman thereof and therefore if there were any judge or orderer of mens faith infallible to be looked to by all Churches besides the holy Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles or any Infallible Interpreter of them above the rest to be taken heed to it had been the proper place and time surely for Christ the faithful and true witness of God the Amen the firm and sure friend and Pastour of his Church to have signified who it is and directed the Church and every one that hath an ear to hear and hearken to him but neither when he was asked or there was a strife among the Apostles who of them should be the greatest did he tell them Peter should be their Prince and chief among them nor did he direct them here to any Successor of his at Rome or elsewhere as an infallible Guide and Head to them no there is no other Director as to matters of Faith and Worship directed to of God by his Holy Spirit in any Scripture as our absolute and infallible Guide but only the Spirit himself as speaking in and by the Scriptures to the Churches what the Scripture saith being called the saying of the Holy Ghost or Spirit as is to be seen Heb. 3.7 and 10.15 Act. 28.25 And surely they are guilty of horrible Idolatry that prefer the Testimony Word or Determination of any person or persons Church or Bishop before or above yea or but as equal with the testimony of the Holy Ghost to cast by his sayings or commands to listen to and be ruled by men is indeed to have the fear of God taught us by mens precepts and in vain to honour God or worship him which was the fault of the Jewish Church reproved by the Holy Ghost in the Prophet Isaiah for which also he
burthen the Chaff the Dirt the Bricks Free us that are buried under the Egyptian sand perhaps he may mean of Popish Superstition the corruption of the flesh being extinguished St. Andrew they court thus Tam nos foveto languidos Curámque nostrî suscipe Quò per Crucis victoriam Caeli petamus gratiam Cherish us now who do languish Take care of us in our anguish That by the Cross's victory We may get Heavens favour high St. Nicholas to this purpose Ergo piè nos exaudi Assistentes tuae laudi Ne subdamur hostis fraudi Nobis fer auxilia Nos ab omni malo ducas Vitâ rectâ nos conducas Post hanc vitam nos inducas Ad aeterna gaudia Hear us therefore piously Who assist thy praise duly Against Sathans subtlety Help us left He us destroy Let no evil us infect In the right way us protect After this life us direct And bring to eternal joy St. Agnes they address themselves to after this sort Ave Agnes Gloriosa Me in fide serves rectâ Dulcis Virgo dilecta Te exore precibus Charitate da perfectâ Deum per quem es electa Colere pic omnibus Hail Agnes who glorious art Fro' th' right faith let me not start O sweet Virgin and dear Heart With my prayers I thee intreat Grant to all men piously That with perfect charity They may worship God most high Whose choice hath made thee so great St. Bridget they Idolize thus O Bregetta mater bona Dulcis Ductrix Matrona Nobis fer suffragia Naufragantes in hoc mari Tuo ductu salutari Duc ad vitae bravia O our good Mother Bridget Our she Guide and Matron sweet Help us by thy suffrages Who are shipwrackt in this Sea By thy conduct us safely Bring to life eternal wages But St. Catherine is more largely Deified of them after this manner Ave Virgo Dei digna Christo prece me consigna Audi preces praesta votum Cor in bono fac immotum Confer mihi cor contritum Rege visum auditum Rege gustum olfactum Virgo sancta rege tactum Vt in cunctis te regente Vivam Deo purâ mente Christum pro me interpella Salva mortis de procellâ Superare fac me mundum Ne demergar in profundum Ne me finas naufragari Per peccata in hoc Mari. Visita tu me infirmum Et in bonis fac me firmum Agonista Dei fortis Praestò sis in horâ mortis Decumbentem fove leva Et de morte solve saevâ Vt resurgam novus homo Civis in Caelesti domo Worthy Maid of God I greet thee By thy prayer for Christ bemeet me Hear my prayers perform my wish In what 's good my heart stablish Grant to me a heart contrite Rule my hearing and my sight Holy Maid yea tast and smell And my touch too order well That in all guided by thee I may serve God with mind free With Christ for me intercede Save me from Deaths stormy dread Make me overcome the World Let me not to Hell be Hurl'd Oh let me not shipwrackt be By my Sins in this great Sea Visit thou me when Infirm And in goodness make me firm Thou strong wrestler with the Lord In deaths hour thy help afford When I say Sick Nurse and Chear me And from cruel death loos'd bear me That a new man I may rise And may dwell above the Skies What they can desire more of Christ himself than they express in some of these I know not but yet besides all this and much more of the like nature they have also enacted in their Councils both in the second of Nice and in that of Trent that the very Images of Christ and of the Virgin and of the Saints are to be worshiped and that to with the same kind of worship as Christ and his Saints are worshiped with point blank contrary to the second commandment which they therefore as is before said leave out of their Catechisms them they kiss and before them they uncover their Heads and prostrate themselves to them they build Temples and Altars set up Candles burn Incense and the like pretending that that way they worship Christ and the Saints themselves just as the Pagan Idolaters use to do of whom Origen in his Answer to Celsus saith thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is we see sometime men that are in high esteem for Wisdom and Divinity bowing down themselves to the Image of a corruptible Man which they say they do for the honour of God yea and Celsus himself pleading for the worship of their Daemons and for their Altars and Statues hath this Plea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is may not he that worships God lawfully enough worship him that receives authority from him as pretending to worship the great most high God in worshiping those that were honoured by him And again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that honours and worships all them what offence doth he to God or how grieves he him whose all are how like to the Popish Doctors pleading for worshipping their Saints and Images spake that Heathen yea and that by erecting Statues or making Images to them with which they commit their Idolatry as the Heathens did with theirs they act like them also may easily be seen with those that will compare them the Images of the Heathen used to be consecrated as we hinted before and what Dr. Moor quotes out of Minutius Faelix jearing their Images may well be applyed to them when he saith Ecce funditur fabricatur scalpitur nondum Deus est Ecce plumbatur construitur erigitur nec adhuc Deus est Ecce ornatur consecratur oratur tunc postremo Deus est That is Io the Image or Idol is Molten Wrought or Graven hitherto it is no God it is sauldred made up and erected neither yet is it a God but when it is Adorned Consecrated and Prayed to then at length it becomes a God such kind of actions are done to the Popish Images to make them objects of Worship and Trust as thus as the same Doctor tells us out of Chemnitius they consecrate the Image of the Virgin Mary Sanctifie O God this Image of the blessed Virgin that it may aid and keep safe thy faithful people that Thundrings and Lightnings if they grow too terrible and dangerous may be quickly expelled thereby and that the Inundations of Rain the commotions of Civil War and devastations may be suppressed by its Presence The Image of St. John Baptist thus Grant O God that all they that behold this Image with reverence and pray before it may be heard in whatsoever straits they are in Let this Image be the holy expulsion of Devils the conciliating or procurement of the presence and assistance of the Angels the protection of the faithful and that the Intercession of this Saint may be very powerful in this place who would not be drawn to adore such an Image as they
reasons both 1. Of the continuance of so many still to cleave to her after she hath been so detected 2. Of the falling of any to her after so great and long a discovery of her and declining from her 1. To the first of these with respect to her self and those that are more properly the constitutive and essential parts of her the Church as distinguished by her self from the Laity or people adhering to her and especially the Court of Rome she being as she is called and as we have shewed a Whore a Harlot it fares with her as it doth with other Whores that is as such a one that is a Whore getting gain and profit to her self by her Whoredom and finding pleasure and sweetness therein is hardned against the discoveries of her false practises and usually goeth on impenitently in her Trade because of the profit and gain accruing to her thereby and especially if She be Courted by great and rich Persons or Princes they give her considerable gifts of Riches Honours and Dignities and makes but a Tush at the Laws Threatning Punishment or Death for such practises she finding no effect or Execution of them for a long time to appear against her by occasion whereof She flatters her Self that it will be never otherwise with her than it is but that She shall always escape punishment So fares it with this Adulterous Church she hath found and finds so much gain and profit of worldly Interest Riches Honour Dignity accruing to her since her trucking with Kings and Princes and Emperors and obtaining of them to be owned and honoured in all her pretensions as the Catholick Church the Church that all persons ought to comply with and submit to and that her Head and Bishop should be taken to be the Vicar of Christ the highest power on earth that it s no marvail if She repent not of her so sweet and gainful a Trade but by all means endeavours to keep up her credit that she may be still so courted and caressed and if she hath gotten a wound that hath threatned her life that she endeavours to get cured and to recover her Pristine strength which if she do recover we expect she will follow her old trade of Strumpetry and Blood-shedding as hard or harder than ever that so she may secure her self if possible from the threatned punishment and judgment ordered of God and denounced in his Name against her by us which maugre all her power and pollicy she shall not be able to escape for strong is the Lord God that judgeth her the brightness of whose appearing that Man of Sin shall not be able to endure To this purpose that she may recover her Pristine strength and vigour and follow her accursed Trade with the greater fervour or fury her Politicians as so many Physitians are at work very hard beating their brains and using all their skill and Industry to make her whole again and wo to us for a while if her disease be cured and the Beasts deadly wound be healed for then will be indeed accomplished more fully that which is written in Rev. 13.15 16 17. but in the mean time there are many cleave to her and have all along cleaved to her Because 1. Many of them are kept from or have not the opportunity of seeing and hearing what is evidenced against her though perhaps they have heard some rumour of the Gospel Preached to them that dwell on the Earth and of the Fall of Babylon in part from her Pristine power and splendour many are kept in ignorance both of the Scriptures and of the Sermons and Discourses in Writing of the Protestant parties and many neglect to inquire into them and so come not to know what is evidenced against her her Pandors or Merchants setting themselves to keep them in Ignorance and Error to keep up their own grandeur and worldly Interests 2. The cunning Sophistry and deceits of her Priests and Jesuits men of a seared Conscience and stiff Impudence who like Jannes and Jambres who withstood Moses from or in his discovering the truth of God to Pharaoh and the Egyptians do stand against the truth and the Preachers of it and the discoverers of the Romish Frauds and Impostures prevail much with many who are apt to resolve their faith into their learning subtlety authority and appearing Piety and wisdom even as the slights of James and Jambres prevailed with Pharoah and many of the Egyptians so as that though they hear and may hear or read the discourses of the learned Protestants wherein they have detected their abuses yet they do not seriously Ponder or weigh them or are blinded from discerning the truth by the mists they cast before them 3. Worldly interest holds in many both of the Kings and Greater Persons their interest being interwoven with those of Rome and where the Kings and Princes of the earth commit fornication with her they do by their Laws in many places made against them that reject her Communion and their rigour and cruelty deter many from listening to and considering what is said against her yea and they keep out such discoverers or discoveries of her lewdness that otherwise would be afforded to them as was predicted in Rev. 13.15 16 17. and where their Laws are not so cruel yet by their bad examples and their indulging their favours to her followers they keep in many from listening to what would tend to withdraw them from her the most of men not searching so much with sincere endeavors after what is true and right as minding and resting in what is uppermost in the world and worshipping in truth its Power and Grandeur which I take to be that which the Holy Ghost in the Apocalyps calls the Beast more than any other God besides 4. The dependance that the younger persons have upon the Elder or others related to them the Children upon their Parents and Kinsfolks and Friends one upon another and the respect they have one for another is some cause also of many being detained therein being carryed away with such as they have such dependance upon or respect unto especially the being Educated under such Principles as have been maintained by and transmitted to them from their Ancestors and Progenitors for many generations proves a powerful motive to retain and not reject those principles what ever may be offered to detect and discover the evil of them few being so redeemed from the vain conversations received by tradition from their Fathers and Forefathers or from the Earth and Men even from earthly affections and from their respects to and dependances on men by the Blood of Christ minded and regarded by them as it hath been shed for them as to renounce all such respect to Fathers and Forefathers earthly affections and dependance on and respects to men and to follow after Christ singly and sincerely where-ever he by his Word and Doctrine would lead them or so as to make such due and diligent