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A44522 Four tracts by A. Horneck ...; with a preface by Mr. Edwards.; Selections. 1697 Horneck, Anthony, 1641-1697. 1697 (1697) Wing H2831; ESTC R4616 55,346 154

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under and their desire to make Proselites makes them outwardly Religious There may be and no doubt are zealous and outwardly pious Men in all Religions in the World but that doth not make every Religion true and divine An outward shew of Piety is the only way of propagating any Religion The Devil himself could not propagate Heathenism and Idolatry but by the pretended Zeal and Piety and Abstinence and Mortification of Apollonius Tyaneus who yet by the confession of the whole Christian World was no better than a Wizard and Conjurer I make no application to any particular Priest in the Church of Rome I do not deny but Men may be in great Errors and be very zealous for their Errors and seemingly very pious in their Zeal and when their Errors are not very willful and destroy not the true Worship of God for ought I know they may find Mercy in the day of our Lord. I grant there is a great shew of outward Piety in the Church of Rome very dazling and very moving but the great danger lies here that the Worship they give to God with one hand they strike and pull down with the other I know too well the practice of their Churches and a Heathen that should come into their Temples beyond Sea would verily believe that they worship a Multiplicity of Gods as well as he whatever their Pretensions may be to the contrary It is not what People say so much as what they do that God takes notice of and though you should Ten thousand times protest that you worship and adore God alone yet while God sees you adore the Virgin Mary with as great Zeal and Reverence as you do him pray to her oftner than you do to him make as many bows to her and other Saints as you do to him and other things of that nature how can he believe you Religion is a thing that will not bear Jests and Hypocrisie God will not be put off with Contradictions between Speeches and Practices Madam I do from my Heart pitty you and as it might be the weakness of your Judgment that might lead you into this Erroneous Church so I beseech you for Christ's sake to return to the Church you have rashly left where you cannot run a hazard if you will but follow the plain Doctrines of the Gospel besides which we preach nothing and enjoin nothing as necessary to Salvation Should these Intreaties and Beseechings be alledged against you in the last day as things which you have contrary to Reason refused and slighted how dreadful would your Condition be I have discharged my Duty and given you warning I would not have your Guilt lie at my Door and therefore have let you know my real Thoughts and Sentiments concerning your Condition and the Church you are in The Great God of Heaven open your Eyes that you may see and fear Time was when you would have believed us as much as you do now the Priests of the Church of Rome It 's strange that now they should speak nothing but Truths and we nothing but Falshood Do you think we do not understand the Scriptures and Fathers and Antiquity as well as they And can we all be so besotted with Interest and Pason that none of us should yield to the dictates of their Church if we could prevail with our Sense and Reason to believe that the things wherein they differ from us were agreeable to the Gospel Sure we have a great many Men among us that are great Lovers of Peace and would be glad that the whole Christian World were agreed and would these Men stand out against that Union if it could be done with a safe Conscience Certainly we have Men as learned among us as ever the Sun did shine upon nay the Church of Rome hath at this day few Men to equal ours for Learning and Knowledge And would all our Learned Men be so stubborn and obstinate as not to agree with the Church of Rome if they did not see plainly that there is Death in that Pot and that the Errors in that Church cannot be subscribed to without hazarding the Welfare of their Souls I will but use your own Argument when you went over to the Church of Rome and were perswaded by the Earnestness of her Priests to yield to their Reasonings what pleasure can we take in promoting your Damnation What can be our Interest in deceiving you You used that Argument on their side why will you not use it on our side Judge you whither we that have the Gospel on our side for what we teach are not in a safer way than that Church which for all the new Doctrines they have added to the Old Creeds are forced to run to the broken Cisterns of Tradition and I know not what Fathers whose Writings they know not whether they be genuine or no As you are now you live in wilful opposition to the Doctrine and Precepts of the Gospel and O remember what St. Paul doth say 2 Thess. 1. 7 8. That the Lord Jesus wiere long come down from Heaven with a●● his Holy Angels to take Vengeance on thos● who have disobeyed the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Once more therefore charge you before Almighty God and our Lord Jesus Christ to repent of your Errors and to return to the bosom of that Church in which you received your Life and Being and the Principles of Religion and Christianity But if all this seem to you no more but Bugbears I have delivered my own Soul and should be forry that this Discourse should stand as a Witness against you in the Last day which God knows was only intended as a Motive to draw you back to that Fold from which you have wandred and gone astray I am Madam Your Faithful Friend to serve you A. H. Feb. 17. 1677. POSTSCRIPT Madam AS in the publishing of this Letter I had no other design but to prevent the fall of others into the like dangers so I have particularly insisted on those motives which have of late tempted some persons to go over to the Roman Church and though I have represented these motives as yours yet in this I have been so far from doing any thing against the Laws of private Discourse or Friendship or Acquaintance that I have only touch'd upon the common stumbling-blocks which make unwary people joyn themselves to that Church Blocks which might easily be removed if Men or Women would but give themselves leave to think and would prefer the solid Dictates of their reason before the Suggestions of their soft and sickly Passions One thing I had almost forgot and which indeed is the great Bug-bear whereby your Church-men fright their people from running over to us and that is that our Church began but about an hundred and fifty years ago that Luther and Zwinglius were the Authors of it and that we had no Church before pittiful shifts indeed to keep people from seeing the Sun at Noon
Doctrines and Worship they have too long asserted and complied with and of such we cannot but entertain a very favourable opinion and indeed I could name you some very famous Men both in France and Italy who though they have continued in the Communion of that Church i. e. have not joyn'd themselves to any particular publick Protestant Church yet have not approv'd of such things in the Roman Church as manifestly obstructs Mens Salvation and though like Nicodemus they have not dared openly to avow their dislike of such Errors for fear of danger yet in their hearts they have abhorr'd them and declared so much to their Friends and intimate Acquaintance And though their seeming Communion with a Church so Erroneous cannot be totally excused because it looks like a tacite approbation of her Errors yet since we read of Joseph that he was a Disciple of Christ secretly and notwithstanding his not confessing Christ publickly accepted of God we hope such Mens continuing in the external Communion of the Roman Church is not a willful Error but rather a pardonable Infirmity a timorousness which hath nothing of malice in it and therefore will not hinder them from Salvation We know not what mercy God may shew to many poor people in that Church who are invincibly Ignorant and never saw a Bible from whence they might rectifie their mistakes and do live honestly in this present World but we must withal confess that the Servant who hath known his Masters will and hath not done it shall be beaten with many stripes and whether those that have been enlightened in our Church and have tasted the good Word of God and cannot but see our Agreement with the Gospel and after all this embrace the Errors of the Roman Church whether these will be excusable at the last day we justly doubt of to live in great Errors is to live in Sin but where that living in Errors is joyn'd with resistance of great light and knowledge there the Sin becomes all Crimson which was but of a faint red before and if this be the Character of Christ's Friends to do whatsoever he commands us then the inference is very easie that those cannot be Christ's Friends nor reign with in Heaven that willfully leave undone what they know he hath commanded and set up a new Worship which he hath no where commanded Madam had you never seen such a thing as the Scripture your going over to that Church might have deserved some Apology but when you were surrounded with the beams of that light which shines in darkness as St. Peter calls the Word with all those rayes about you to shut your eyes and desperately to venture upon the Church which enjoyns Men to live against some of Gods Laws as against Exod. 20. 5 6. and Matth. 26. 27. c. and consequently obliges them to prepare for God's displeasure this I confess is an Action which as it savours of great willfulness so I question if you die in 't without serious repentance whether the Joys you hope for will ever fall to your share If your Church-men do mean honestly and do truly aim at the Peace of Christendom and in good earnest design the Union of Men that profess the Name of Christ why will not they part with those Doctrines that are so great an offence not only to all Protestants but to Jews and Mahometans too If that worshipping of Saints and Images be not necessary but only useful why will not they quit that Worship which by their own pretences is needless especially when they might do so much good by it If the Cup was formerly given to the Laity why will not they to effect the aforesaid Union restore it to the Laity If the substance of the Sacrament and the comfort arising from it may remain entire without obliging Men to believe a Transubstantiation or Adoration of the consecrated Wafer why will not they for peace sake lay aside such Doctrines which neither themselves nor any Creature understands If Heaven and Hell are sufficient motives to a Holy Life why will not they for quietness sake renounce their Doctrine of Purgatory which by their own confession hath no ground in Scripture Madam I have that charitable opinion of you that if you had but taken a view of the Worship of the Church of Rome as it is practic'd beyond Sea in places where there is no fear of contradiction from any Hereticks where they may freely and securely act according to their principles had you seen the mode of worshipping the Virgin Mary at Rome or in Spain or Italy the sight of it would have certainly discourag'd you from embracing that Religion which now you seem to be mainly delighted with for indeed the Religion of the Church of Rome at this time if a Man were to guess from that which hath the greatest outward Veneration is little else than a Worship of the Virgin Mary The very Beggers beyond-Sea in begging of Alms beg more for the Virgin Mary's sake than for Christ's sake This Madam I know to be true who am no stranger to Foreign parts and I will assure you that in those Cities or Towns where both Papists and Protestants have the free exercise of their Religion you shall live Twenty years in a Town before you hear that any Protestant is turned Papist so few charms are there in the Exercise of their Religion beyond Sea but you shall not be above a year or two in such a Town before you hear that several Papists are turned Protestants such a force hath truth The Religion of the Church of Rome as it is practis'd in England looks harmless Now and then upon some great Festival they shew you a Picture of the Virgin Mary or of some other Saint and the honest Priest qualifies every Doctrine makes the Errors soft and plausible and they dare not living in a Protestant Country serve the Host of Heaven I mean Saints and Angels with all their Appertenances as they do in places where there are no Protestants to watch them Here their Religion seems to be without a sting and is clad in the fleece of Sheep but if you could but make a Voyage into Spain or Italy I doubt not but you would see the Venome of it and avoid it and the only way not to be of the Church of Rome would be to go to Rome provided you do not go without your Bible In good truth that Church hath turn'd Christianity into a meer outward Pomp and Splendor which ravishes the eye but can never content a Man's reason The glistering Gold in their Temples the curious Images of Saints and Angels the numerous and stately Altars the mighty Silver Statues the rich and glorious Vestments you see up and down in their Churches strike the Senses into a kind of extasie and it must be Sense only for a considerate mind that searches the inside of things as well as the outside cannot be so easily gull'd and deceiv'd and