but must be confessed to aim at the present and future happiness of all that we shall address our selves to in this Matter And I shall rejoyce if my pains herein may attain these blessed ends and let you particularly understand how gladly I would encourage your Love to the Church of England and comply with all your Pious desires since I am Sir Your affectionate and faithful Friend Friendly and Seasonable ADVICE TO THE Roman Catholicks OF ENGLAND The Introduction My Friends and Country-men IT is observed by others and complained of by your selves That you lie under many inconveniences by reason of your stiff adherence to those Opinions which Rome calls Religion the charges you are at to maintain a forreign Jurisdiction and your want of the Communion of those Christians among whom you live the uneasie Rites imposed on you here and the great hazard of your Salvation hereafter are reckoned by others to be evils appendant to your professing the Faith of that Church But if you your selves do not feel or not fear these things and so account them no grievance yet you are sensible of other pressures and frequently complain that your Estates are obnoxious to the penalties of the Law and your Persons exposed to the general hatred of the People You tell us you want many Priviledges of other Subjects and lie under many burthens from which others are free You perceive that your actions are observed your designs suspected and your Party accused to be the cause of all Publick evils How far some of your own Perswasion have contributed hereunto I shall not take upon me to judge esteeming it a more charitable employment to offer some expedient to free you from those sad effects which you complain of than either to enquire after the cause of the Nations general Antipathy to your Religion or dispute about the Occasion thereof Wherefore whilst some accuse your practices and others deride your worship I have so much affection for your Persons as my Countrymen and so much charity for your Souls since you bear the name of Christian as to present you with some useful Advice 'T is true the common apprehension concerning you might almost discourage such an Attempt it being generally believed that a Roman Catholicks prejudice is like theirs in St. Augustine who being descended of misbelieving Ancestors preferred their Extraction before the Truth and like the resolution of Cotta in Cicero who says That no discourse of either learned or unlearned men should ever remove him from the Opinion received from his Fore-fathers concerning the worship of the Immortal gods But I know many of you are masters of more reason than to ground your Faith upon so uncertain a Foundation It is not the part of wise men saith a learned Father to be enslaved to a received Opinion nor rashly to give up themselves to their Fathers customes but to endeavour to find out the Truth And it is the advice of the great Apostle to prove all things and hold fast that which is good 1 Thess 5. 21. because it is a zeal without knowledge and a foolish obstinacy to be confident of that which we never did examine I can easily believe your Spiritual Guides will esteem no sin more mortal than to enquire into those Principles which you receive from them and they will scarce allow you the liberty to peruse a few lines presented by so charitable a hand But their Prohibitions methinks should make you more suspicious and inquisitive and cause you to resolve to try that Coyn which shuns the Touchstone knowing that Truth seeks no Corners and that which is Real fears no Test The Church of England puts no such Restraints upon her adherents nor is she unwilling to have her Doctrines tried by Scripture and the best Antiquity because she finds those are her best Sons that have enquired most narrowly Evil needs a mask and a disguise said the brave Agesilaus but Light makes true goodness to be more illustrious and more lovely And a greater than he saith Every one that doth evil hateth the light neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved but he that doth turth cometh to the light S. John iii. 20. 21. If therefore you have but so much consideration as to suspect and so much courage as to examine I should not be without hope that my Advice might take place since as Plato notes Every soul is unwillingly deprived of Truth which men cannot resist when once it appears unto them I shall ask no more of you than to search impartially whether the Doctrines wherein you differ from the Church of England deserve so firm an assent as you give them and he that dares not do this is not a Disciple but a Slave It may be those Counsellours may please the heady Bigots of your Perswasion better who advise them to ease their mind by reproaching the Laws and the Government or to attempt the shaking off their Grievances by more desperate courses But I do not believe the wiser and more sober Romanists can approve such cursed motions there are many of them too noble to admit such thoughts It is the Stoicks character in Galen That they would rather betray their Country than renounce their Maxims But I take those of your Party to be generally of a better temper and therefore I hope you will account it to be far more Friendly and Seasonable Advice to try these your Principles strictly before you expose your Country or your Selves to suffer all the ill-consequences of your rigid maintaining of them and if you once rightly understand them I hope you will discern they do not deserve to be retained at so dear a rate so that it is possible you may resolve to quit your mistaken Opinions and your real Sufferings together However though your Enquiry shall not have this effect yet this Trial of your Principles ought not to be wholly declined for I would advise you to examine the Roman Doctrines if it were but only to declare that your Religion is not a blind and accidental choice and to vindicate your selves from the charge of the Old Samaritans who worshipped they knew not what SECTION 1. Whether the Roman Opinions which differ from the Church of England be the Old Religion I doubt not but these who have been educated in the Romish Religion as well as those who have inconsiderately turned to it do please themselves in fancying they are of the Old Religion and hence they assume and appropriate to themselves the Name of Catholicks upon this presumption that they do intirely and in all things agree with the Ancient and Universal Church But my Friends if you have the patience to enquire you will find there is no good ground for this perswasion it being evident the Roman is not the Old Religion in any other Articles but only in those which are found in the Apostles Creed or founded upon the plain words of Holy Scripture for that is the
were never necessary they have other devices to perswade you into a belief of coming off well at the end of your life howsoever ill you have spent it The Hereticks in Tertullians time said It was a meritorious thing to be of their Party And you are told it is a ready way of Salvation to die in the Communion of the Roman Church and if you can but receive the Sacraments of that Church and be Absolved by one of their Priests you scarce doubt of obtaining Heaven at last and if you have no good works of your own they perswade you the Church can sell you the Merits of the Saints or if you should drop into Purgatory by the way the pains of that they say are not endless and if you give liberally on your Death-beds or if any others afterwards give for you to purchase so many Masses and other Prayers for your Soul you will ere long be delivered from thence All which notorious delusions do miserably deceive poor men and most mischievously encourage them to put off their Repentance and to resolve not to be troubled with holiness in the way since they fancy they shall come off so easily in the end and alas they are as false as they are mischievous for the Ancient Fathers unanimously affirm no mans estate can be altered after this life But as the last day of a mans life finds him so the last day of the World finds him Nor will any thing help thee saith S. Augustine but what is done while thou art here Out of innumerable such Testimonies that of S. Salvian may serve Although a man should have so pious a Son who for alleviating his Fathers punishment would desire to give all the goods he left behind him it would do him no good for the Piety of the Son can do nothing to procure that Rest to a man after Death which his own Impiety and Infidelity hath denied him Finally these and the like Principles make so many infamous men and women so many Thieves and Murtherers debauched and prophane persons to take Sanctuary in the Roman Church because the Tenets thereof seem not to oblige them to forsake their evil ways but reconcile wickedness and Salvation together so that this Religion tends not to perswade men to Holiness of life and therefore is no good Religion I grant there are some Persons in that Church who live better than these Opinions engage them to do and do not draw those Conclusions into their practice which naturally follow from these Principles but that is only an evidence of the excellent vertue of such Persons but no proof of the goodness of these Doctrines and if these men be Holy in a Religion which gives such encouragement to evil doubtless they would be more holy by far if they were taught better things I shall only add that as the Roman Church is too loose in matters pertaining to Gods Laws so she is too strict in matters pertaining to her own Constitutions like the Old Pharisees who Tithed Mint and Annise and neglected the weightier matters of the Law Matth. xxiii which is a great obstruction to real Holiness when men place Religion in Ceremonies and slight things for while they are curious in these matters they neglect greater and think by observing the Rules of the Church they compensate for passing by the Laws of God your own Ordinary Gloss saith That is Superstition when Religion is placed in observing the Ordinances of men And if so then your wonderful strictness in Crossing Bowing using Holy Water Abstinence on certain days wearing Crosses c. in which you have placed so much Religion are no better than Superstition It cannot be denied that most Roman Catholicks are more afraid to eat flesh on a Fasting-day than to curse or swear they will be drunk on a Holy-day which God forbids but not work on it because the Church forbids it many of them dare fornicate and debauch who dare not neglect Confession nor read a book written by a supposed Heretick And generally they are punctual in crossing sprinkling bowing and observing all Orders of the Church even such as live in the open breach of Gods Commandements and yet fancy themselves more sure of Heaven than the most pious and holy Protestant Thus this Religion is too strict where God gives us more liberty and too remiss where his Holy Law hath bound us with Eternal and Indispensable bonds and it is designed to promote Obedience to the Roman Church rather than Inward holiness towards God The effect of all which Considerations is this That whosoever sincerely desires to glorifie God and worship him with a rational Devotion and whoever would imitate him by a Holy Life ought not to chuse or retain such a Religion whose Principles tend so evidently to the dishonour of Gods Name the hindrance of true Devotion and to the rendring a Holy life unnecessary And as it was proved before that the appropriated Articles of the Roman Faith were not Ancient nor induced for pious ends nor propagated by honest means so now it is evidenced the Articles are not good in their own nature and therefore there is no reason why you should not renounce them unless you retain them in meer Reverence to the Authority of the Pope who doth impose them which Matter is the Subject of our last Enquiries SECTION V. Whether the Roman Bishop have sufficient Authority to impose the said Opinions upon all Christian Churches THe Last and almost the only shelter that your Doctors flie to at this day for the defence of your Principles is That the Bishop of Rome is the sole Vicar of Christ the Infallible and only Judge of Controversies and the Supream Head of the Vniversal Church and hereby their Adherents are awed into the retaining all his Decrees of what nature soever they be But let me beg leave to advise you not to lay so much stress upon these Titles and Authority till you have seriously examined by what Right the Pope laies claim to them for his Power had need be very great and his Proofs very good upon the Credit whereof you receive so many new and suspicious Articles of Religion some of which we ought not to receive though preached by an Angel Gal. 1. 8 9. And first though we stand not much upon Titles you may note that the name of Vicar of Christ is never given to the Pope in the first Ages and when this Title came into use it was not appropriated to the Bishop of Rome but other Bishops and Priests are styled Vicars of Christ also even by a Pope of Rome as also by the Old French Emperours and by our own Saxon Law So that there is no reason for the Roman Bishop to challenge any propriety in this Title or any special Priviledge by virtue thereof Secondly As to his being an Infallible Judge and the Supream Head of the Catholick Church throughout the World you may remember we have proved there are more Christians in the World who deny this Supremacy of Rome than there are who do acknowledge it And if the belief of this Infallible Headship be the reason why
only serve to fill up so great a space of Time in the Catalogue of Roman Bishops And a Writer who lived in those Times tells us The World was amazed at the Manners of the Romans It is strange saith another Historian how far in that Age they were degenerated from the Piety of the Old Popes This Age as Another speaks was especially unhappy in this that for about an hundred and fifty years there were fifty Popes wholly fallen from the Vertue of their Predecessors being disorderly and Apostatical rather than Apostolical And if our brevity would permit it we could shew out of Platina Onuphrius and Others of your own Writers that there was no Reformation in all the Ages while these New Doctrines were in coyning Now it is the Great Philosopher's observation That Wickedness is destructive of good Principles So that it is no wonder if in such Decays of Piety and such a flood of Iniquity the Roman Church did bring in many New Articles suitable to her Manners and I think when Pride Luxury and Covetousness possess the Chair we can hardly expect any other Laws but such as shall gratifie these affections And the Practices as well as the Decrees of Rome for divers of the latter Centuries have so apparently tended this way that it hath been taken notice of by all those of her own Communion whose affection hath not rob'd them of their discerning Powers yea even in Catholick Countries it hath abated much of the Reverence formerly paid to that See by reason the designs thereof are so apparently Secular tending not to the Salvation of Souls but the support of their own Grandeur Which makes me admire our English Romanists should hug their Chains and adore those who abuse their well-meaning Devotion with Articles of Faith serving rather to carry on the Designs of the Imposers than the Salvation of their over credulous Believers Methinks an easie apprehension might discover that the Roman Guides govern you by Principles that have more of Machiavel in them than of Conscience or Gospel-simplicity and a little consideration will inform you that those things which they teach you to call Religion are Arts to enslave and impoverish you and Engines to advance themselves to the highest pitch of honour and abundance S. Bernard though a great friend to the Roman Church saw this when he said At Rome all regard is given to Honour but to Holiness none at all Were this the fault of particular mens Evil management from which no Society is free it were more excusable but there are Doctrines added to the Old Catholick Faith even most of the Tenets wherein they differ from the Church of England which are plain Artifices to increase the power and wealth of Rome Doctrines for which they dispute with us upon Demetrius's Principle because thereby they have their gain Act. xix 25. And many think the Guides of your Church contend for some of these Principles not because they believe them but because it is their Interest the people should be perswaded of them which makes them secretly laugh at their Credulity who will be imposed on by them as that great Cardinal did when he gave the People who flocked about him his Benediction in these words Qui vult decipi decipiatur And it is a vile suspicion of this which we may gather from that observation of Hospinian That in Italy the name Christian is used for an Ideot or Fool But to be more particular let us look over some Instances of such New Doctrines as are taught in the Roman Church for Secular ends We begin with the Doctrine of Implicit Faith or believing as the Church believes a Doctrine unknown in S. Cyrils time who speaking to his young Christians Bids them not meerly believe the things he spoke because he affirmed them unless he did demonstrate them to be so out of the Divine Scripture And truly this Novel Doctrine may agree with Pythagoras's Ipse dixit and is a good shelter for Paganism the best Argument for which Balbus saith is this That he had received it from his Fore-fathers The Jewish Rabbins told their Disciples They must believe whatever they taught them though they should say that their right hand was their left and it was becoming enough in Apelâ—es the Heretick to charge his seduced Scholars not to examine his Principles by Reason But it is below the Honour of true Religion to desire to be taken upon Trust so that this Doctrine is a policy of your Priests to secure their evil Principles from being enquired into and a device to make you depend on them as Infallible Oracles who can by this means lead you blind-fold whither they will and impose any thing on you which serves their Interest under the pretence of true Religion 2. Auricular Confession to a Priest was voluntary of Old and only used in case of a troubled Conscience or a strong Temptation But it is now made necessary at stated times in all probability to make the Priest master of every mans Secrets to discover the least inclination of their Proselytes to leave them to keep the Laity in awe and make them venerate and depend upon their Spiritual Guide who hereby hath them at his Mercy And their Doctors do affirm that in some cases it is lawful to discover what is revealed to them in Confession especially if it concern the Roman Church And thus they have an Intelligencer in the breast of every Great man of their Communion The Exempting the Regular Clergy from their Lawful Bishops Jurisdiction which S. Bernard complains of as an unjust thing And the freeing Ecclesiasticks from their Natural Princes Authority is that the Pope may have Subjects numerous and potent to give Intelligence and abet his Interest in the bowels of all Kingdoms The Popes Supremacy Appeals to Rome the Collation of Benefices and other Preferments the Creating their Maker in the Mass with many others do all aim at the Honour of the Church of Rome and the making its most inferior Priests revered But because the Honour of the Church of Rome cannot be maintained without vast riches it is obvious to all that many of their New Doctrines and Practices have been introduced with design to fill the Churches Treasuries or if Ignorance and Superstition were the Mother of these gainful Devices it is certain Covetousness hath been an officious Nurse unto them As in the case of Purgatory and Prayers to deliver Souls from thence a Novel fancy feared and suspected at first by some but countenanced and Decreed by that Church thereby to oblige the people to give liberally for themselves or their deceased Friends to those who sell their Prayers so commonly that they occasioned that Proverb No penny no Pater Noster It is impossible to reckon the vast sums that this Opinion brings in for so many Masses Dirige's Requiems for those Trentals Obits and Anniversaries which the deluded Romanists purchase
Master and the Servants the same in all outward expressions only differing in a nice School-distinction must needs be an affront to the King of Saints If you have any tenderness or zeal for the honour of Jesus it cannot but be offensive to you to observe how your Legends tell of greater miracles wrought by some of their fabulous Saints than ever Jesus wrought To hear one of your Church say That Christ did nothing which S. Francis did not do yea that he did more than Christ himself What is more injurious to the honour of the Divine Majesty than your S. Bonaventure's putting in the name of the Virgin Mary into Davids Psalms instead of the name of God To have her adored by the Heathenish Title of the Queen of Heaven and invocated by the impious name of Mother of the whole Trinity These things are rather Blasphemy than Devotion and as dishonourable to God as they are Dissonant from Antiquity Let none saith Epiphanius adore Mary but why do I mention a Woman nay not any Man this Reverence is due only to God nor are the Angels capable of such glorification Fifthly The supposing a necessity of superadding the Saints Merits and the daily Sacrifice of the Mass to the Merit of that one Offering for sin which Jesus made on the Cross Heb. ix 28. is an evident lessening the value and sufficiency of the Death of Christ Sixthly The calling of the Holy Scripture a Nose of Wax a Leaden Rule and an Inky Gospel The putting in the Apocryphal books wherein are some things wicked and others notoriously false into an equal rank with the Word of God indited by the Spirit own Traditions to be equal in value to it are palpable dishonours to God who writ the Holy Scripture These things my Friends can hardly be reckoned matters tending to the honour of God unless you can suppose the cancelling his Laws disparaging his Nature undervaluing the Merits the Mercies and the Miracles of Jesus by cheap and odious Comparisons the diminution of his worship and making him sharer with his Servants therein and the vilifying of his Divine word be no dishonour to him you pretend to serve Secondly Let us examine whether these Doctrines do assist you in the Devout worshipping of God It is very suspicious that Church doth not teach a right way of serving God which deceives you in the first Principle of Religion viz. That God alone is to be worshipped a Sentence so odious to the Roman Doctors that the Index Expurgatorius blots it out of the indices of S. Athanasius and S. Augustines Works and if they could do it undiscovered they would blot it out of the Bible also Matth. iv 10. But there it shall stand for ever to reprove those who divide Religious worship between God and his Creatures thereby diminishing that Devotion which intirely belongs to the Divine Majesty since affections are most vigorous when placed upon one Object and if they be dispersed among many grow weak and trifling whence we may conclude the Protestant who worships none but God is the greater lover of him and worships with a more united and servent Devotion As for your Publick worship it is attended with so many Ceremonies as must needs disturb the Devotion as well of the Priests as the People there is such frequent bowing crossing prostration sprinkling with Holy water beating the breast smoaking with Incense c. that the mind is taken off from a steady intention upon the inward and main part of the Duty while it is entertained with such variety of outward Rites For our mind saith Quintilian cannot sincerely intend its whole self upon many things at once whatever new object it looks upon it gives over the thoughts of that which it first propounded to it self And this is most evident where the Objects are so different as sensible and intellectual things are For where the Senses and their perceptions are vigorously employed there the Intellectual Powers cease to act as a great Philosopher observes So that it is your Passions and your Fancies that are wrought upon not your Mind nor the higher faculties of your Soul by these numerous Ceremonies and therefore that which you think Devotion I doubt is but a fantastical and false fire not kindled by the love of God nor warming your nobler Powers at all and those steady rational and spiritual desires which flow from an undisturbed contemplation of the Divine Goodness and are the very life of Prayer I fear you are strangers to being so often taken off and diverted by variety of sensible Representations Again the making all your Publick prayers in an Vnknown Tongue destroys all true Devotion in the People S. Clemens of Alex. tells us of some Heathens who thought those Prayers most effectual which were uttered in a barbarous Language But Christians know that Prayer is the desiring something of God and if the Mind be not exercised in this desire it avails nothing but where the words are not understood the mind cannot desire the things mentioned so that none can properly pray in an Vnknown Tongue nor so much as rationally say Amen 1 Cor. xiv 16. By this absurd Practice therefore you who are unlearned spend the time of the Publick offices in admiring and gazing not in joyning with the Priest or Praying And because the people have no employment while the Mass lasteth they spend the whole time usually in talking and laughing privately as those who Travel in Catholick Countries do inform us And it may occasion your wonder why the Roman Church should so obstinately refuse to reform so irrational a Custom which S. Paul hath written a whole Chapter to condemn 1 Cor. xiv The force of whose Arguments and Authority hath made your wisest Doctors declare against it By S. Paul ' s Doctrine saith Card. Cajetan it is better for the edifying of the Church that Publick prayers were made in the Vulgar Tongue than in Latin To the same purpose Lyra And your Rhemish Annotators say When a man prayeth in a strange Tongue which himself understandeth not it is not so fruitful for Instruction to him as if he knew particularly what he prayed Gabriel Biel also gives several Reasons why Prayers should be in a known Tongue saying It is better 1. For stirring up Devotion 2. for enlightning the Mind 3. for retaining the things in memory 4. for keeping the thoughts from wandring Yet your admired Church will oppose Reason and Scripture and deprive all the Common people that are of her Communion of the exercise of their Devotion in her Offices rather than so far seem to confess a fault as to amend it chusing rather to let you lose the benefit of worshipping God than to reform the most unjust Customes which she hath once espoused but if you be wise if that Church will not pray in such a Language as you can