nothing at all to the dishonour of the Church of England to change or take away those few Ceremonies which her self in the 34th Article confesseth may be altered or removed according to the exigency of times Neither if this were done could the Romish Church have the least apparent reason to reproach us for such a slight alteration seeing her own Missals and Breviaries have been so diverse and different in several times and places and have undergone so many Emendations or rather Corruptions before they were established in the present form by the Authority of Pius V. and the Decree of the Council of Trent But in the mean time I would have all good Christians wait in Peace and Patience till it shall lawfully be done and by that means our Breach would be perfectly made up So that a poor English Traveller would not be tauntingly asked by every Impertinent Priest here Whether he were a true Son of the Church or Presbyterian or Independent or Anabaptist or Quaker And I assure you when they meet with a man that owns himself a true Son of the Church of England they will seem to pity him more than any other but yet they will hardly attempt to convert him But when they meet with one that will own himself of any other sort they will be pleased smile in their sleeves and set upon him as a person not far from their Kingdom of God And I am perswaded had you seen or heard as much of their Idolatries Blasphemies and Superstitons as I have done in one Christmass one Lent and one Easter you would be so far from doing the Church of England any ill office that you would rather like St. Paul after his conversion preach against your own Partizans and thank God that you lived in a Church reformed from Romish Idolatry and Superstition And I cannot but freely confess that I am since my Travels become ten times a greater lover of our own Church and as many times a greater hater and detester of the Romish Church than I was before And therefore I cannot here dissemble the hearty grief I have conceived for the great hopes you have that the Licenses as you express it will be once more authorized by his Majesty or the Declaration revived For as it is that which at first was hammered out by that late Patron and Idol of the Presbyterians the Popish Lord Clifford so 't is that which the Roman Catholicks here especially the Priests do hope and wish for as well as you They desire nothing more than such a Toleration as that was knowing that it must needs tend to the Ruine of the Church of England which is the principal Butt of all their Envy and Malice as being the main support and credit of the Reformed Religion every where and the only Hedg against Popery it self in our unfortunate British Isles We meet with not a few Priests of several Orders that have the confidence in our most familiar conferences to tell us that by the just Judgment of God upon our Church the time of her ruine is at hand the Nation it self being over-spread with Schism and Atheism and the hearts of the faithful being disposed by the Spirit and Providence of God to re-embrace the holy Catholick Truth And therefore they freely confess that this time of Distraction is their Harvest and withal express their intentions and zeal to transport themselves into England at the critical time of Toleration that they may be Fellow-laborers with your selves in that Harvest They seem to lament as much and complain as fast of the prodigious increase of Schism and Atheism among us as you are wont to do of the daily growth of Atheism and Popery And whilst you both complain alike and in the formality of your complaints both alike reflect upon the Church of England it is she only that is the sufferer and she only that truly laments the growth and at the same time sets up banks to hinder the perfect Inundation of all the three among us As for Schism among Protestants you were the first Fathers and continue the chief Fautors thereof all the inferior Sects having sprung from you and dividing both from you and one another under pretence of the same Reasons for which you profess to divide from the Church And 't is from you that even the Quakering Sect it self the dregs of Schism have learned to talk of Illumination and the Spirit and the rest of the Sectaries in what number soever they be differ from you no more than the second third or fourth c. from the first Book of Euclid Not that by this comparison I intend that you have any such Principles or Data among your selves as there are among Mathematicians for I am very well assured that take but any four of the Presbyterian Demagogues and they can scarce agree amongst themselves in any four particulars wherein they differ from the Church of England And therefore if you be not Schismaticks then the Church of England from which you separate and out of which you have gathered Congregations and Preach and Administer the Sacraments unto them I say if you be not Schismaticks then our Church must be the Schismatick in the Controversie between us and be justly chargeable with the same Indictment which she hath drawn up against the Church of Rome An Assertion Cousin which I never knew any other Person except one or two besides your self have the confidence to aver and an Assertion which no Protestant here in France could hear us yet relate without Horror Impatience and Disdain And therefore if the Reformed Church of England from which you wilfully divide and to which by your Divisions you cause so much Scandal abroad and Evil at home be not a Schismatical Church that is a Church which requires some sinful conditions of Communion in what a woful condition will your unpeaceable seditious spirits appear before the God of Peace And how will you answer that at the Tribunal of his Wisdom and Justice which neither your Fathers nor you could ever yet answer to those Instruments of His Glory Judicious Hooker and the Venerable Sanderson But whether you are Schismaticks or whether you are not the Separations which you and your Brood have made from the Church are the apparent Causes of the growth of Popery and both your Separations and your Superstitious Enthusiastical way of Worshipping that God whose People you Emphatically pretend to be are the true Causes of that abundant Atheism which at present makes England an Astonishment and a Scandal to Foreign Nations And if you or any other of the Brother-hood think it strange that I charge yours which is the Capital Sect with Enthusiasm or make Superstition which seemeth diametrically opposite to Atheism the Mother thereof I offer upon the Challenge to make good the Charge in both particulars But in the mean time to shew you how unsafe it will be to provoke me to that trouble I advise you to read
and Government of the Church of England And if you would do so too how happy a thing would this be both for your selves and the Nation Or seeing as you pretend you cannot yet at least live peaceably and forbear to trouble the World with compassing Sea and Land that is by doing all that you can like your Fathers of old the Pharisees to make Proselytes when yet you cannot shew any sinful condition of communion with the Church of England nor prove your way of worship as Apostolical as that of hers from which out of Pride Interest or Ignorance or partly all together you dissent I am sure this would rather become the dissenting Brethren than to foment Divisions raise Parties betake themselves to the wickedness of men as of late to and cry up the Kings Prerogative which they formerly cried down which with many other self-contradictions confirms me in an opinion you know I was of before That in those matters wherein you differ from us you are men of no Principles and know not where to fix I have enlarged upon this Theam more than I thought to do at first because the Papists here in France complain as loudly as you of the cruelty of the same and other of our Laws and cry out wherever they come how their Brethren have been and still are persecuted among us though with this difference that in disputing ad hominem their case is far more reasonable and pleadable than yours As for you I protest I wish that the Laws you complain of had never been made and though perhaps I am willing to grant they are very hard Laws considering you as free-born Subjects of England yet I will maintain that the Execution of them is not Persecution although you be considered as the only true Christians in the World For as I hinted before you have the Liberty in your Houses to profess what Religion you please and to worship God in what manner you will and for fear your Family should not be a just Congregation you may have five more but for fear you should do as you have formerly done you are not to have five Hundred or five Thousand which Liberty not only the Primitive Christians but our own Ancestors an hundred years ago would have called a Blessing and a Priviledg and have heartily thanked God and the King for the same And God grant we may never see that time in England when truly tender Consciences will esteem so much Liberty as the greatest Blessing in the World The good Protestants here in France though their Religion is made an obstacle to all State-preferments though it disable them to sit in the Courts of Parliaments except just so many as serve in the Chamber of Edicts to decide Controversies between Protestants and Papists or to have any other Charges of Judicature or any high Offices in the Army though their Numbers are much diminished and their Interest weakned by a Prohibition to marry with Roman Catholicks and by a Capital Law which makes it Death to return Protestants after they have once turn'd Papists and though a great number of their Temples have been demolished some under a pretence that they were built since the Edict of Nantes others that they were built without License and others that they were built upon Holy Ground so that hereby they are forced in very many places to the grievous inconvenience of going two three four or five Leagues to Church if not more and though all the Places of Strength where they do abound are demolished and Cittadels are erected to awe them in other Towns where they are numerous though their own particular Hospitals and all other perpetual Provisions for their Poor are taken away and they disabled either living or dying to give any settled Maintenance either to their own Ministers or People as to endowe Churches build Schools Colledges or Hospitals c. nay though they are deprived of the benefit of other Hospitals provided for the rest of the Subjects and although their Ministers are forbid to speak against the Pope or to Preach against the Romish Religion with half that freedom and plainness that you dare speak against the Church of England or to Preach in any places but those few appointed by the King though they are forbidden to call the Papists in their Sermons by any other name but that of Catholicks or to make mention of their Religion and Ceremonies without Reverence and Respect though they are forbid to call themselves Priests or Pastors and have no other Title allowed them but only Ministres de la Religion pretenduë Reformée and though it be Enacted that their Religion shall be called by no other name in any Publick Acts Registers c. Though they are forbidden to bury their dead in Catholick Churches or Church-yards even where the deceased Person was Patron of the Church or where his Ancestors had purchased Burying-places for their Families Though they are forbid to make any Publick Exhortations or Prayer or to sing Psalms at their Burial Though they are forbid to Instruct or Condole those of their own Religion in Prisons or Hospitals or to Pray with them in a voice so loud as to be heard by the standers by though they are forbid to make any Collections of Money among themselves but such as are permitted and regulated by the Edicts of the King Though they are forbid to Work or open their Shops on Romish Holy-daies or to sell Flesh on their Fasting-daies c. I say the good Protestants here in France notwithstanding all this hard dealing are yet so far from complaining of Persecution that they shew themselves thankful both to God and the King for the Liberty and Indulgence they enjoy Indeed they will complain for the aforesaid Reasons that their Religion is very much discouraged and they themselves hardly used But Persecution is a Notion that they never think or speak of when they discourse of their own condition being very far though not so far as you from a state of Martyrdom which consists in a forcible obligation to suffer or renounce the Truth And therefore Cousin I beseech you and conjure you not to misuse the name of Persecution again It is a very sinful way thus to abuse and amuse the Vulgar by calling things by their wrong names and as to this particular honest and knowing men will be apt to suspect that through the name of Persecution you have a design to make your Governors pass for Tyrants and your selves for Martyrs To conclude If this which you call Persecution be not such indeed then I doubt not but they who mis-call it so that is all presumptuous or affectedly gnâ—orant Schismaticks without bitter pangs of Repentance will be persecuted by the God of Peace himself to a sad and endless eternity As for the Bill of Comprehension if such a thing can be I heartily wish it had passed into an Act for I think it would have been much to the advantage and
Arts you have so wrought your selves into the esteem of your Disciples that few of them are either so Covetous or so Poor but they will Pinch at home to supply you There are several Orders of Franciscans here who have renounced not only Parsonages but all Temporal Estates and Possessions whatsoever and by their vain glorious Sanctity and Austerities they have got like you such fast hold on the Souls of the People which is the fastest hold of all that they can easily make most of them dispose of their Children cashier their Servants and settle their Estates as they please and by these Tricks do more effectually promote the Interest of Rome than all the Parish-Priests within the Pale of that Church And really when I consider what Influence these Sanctimonions and self-denying Zealots have o're all families in all places where they live how hey steal away the Hearts of the People from their Parish-Priests and drain their Congregations and how the deluded People had rather give them the worth of a shilling than the dues of two pence to their own Cures it makes me often run the Parallel between you and them and think what a Politick and Gainful Pretence you have got to renounce your Livings for to secure your Consciences and to Preach the Word like the Primitive Apostles when God knows 't is not out of love to the People but to your selves And I protest to you were I a man to be maintained by the Pulpit and consulted my Profit more than the Goodness of my Cause I should take the same courses that you do I should rather be Mr. M. than Dr. A. of Plymouth and should chuse the plentiful Income of that dull Zealot Dr. Manton before that of his most Learned and Religious Successor of Covent-Garden But though you live very well and better indeed than most of the Ministers of the Church yet the mischief of it is you are uncapable of Dignities which makes you such Aërians and upon all occasions openeth your Throats as wide as Sepulchres against the Bishops and the Church You know what an History of Bishops Mr. Pryn hath wrote and what a fair Collection the Learned Smec hath taken out of him as if when a Bishop is defective either in Piety Learning or the skill of Government it were not the deplorable unhappiness but the fault of the Church of England Should an Heathen or Mahumetan make such an Historical Collection of Scandalous Christians either in this or former Ages you would not be perswaded for all that to prefer the Alcoran before the Gospel or the most exalted Paganism whatsoever before the Christian Religion Therefore wise and sober men will make no Inference but this from such a malicious enumeration of Particulars that corruptions will creep into Government notwithstanding all the care that can be used to the contrary and that by the favour of Princes who hear with other mens ears and often receive undeserved Characters of men sometimes Ambitious sometimes Ignorant and sometimes Slothful Imprudent or Debauched Persons will be Preferred to the most Honourable Dignities in the Church But this as often as it happens is the misery of the Church of England which all true Church men lament though the men of the short Cloke take all such occasions to expose her to the scorn of the common People who judg by Sense and not by Reason and who are taught by you to make no distinction between the Bishops and the Church But were all her Bishops the best Christians the best Scholars and the best Governors in the World and should the Royal Hand place her Mytres on the Heads of none but Jewel's Whitgift's Andrews's Hall's Usher's Morton's Taylor 's and Sanderson's yet that Unchristian Spirit of Envy and Discontent which informs the Non-conformists would still flie upon her with open mouth like Beasts upon the Saints of old condemned to the Amphitheater and make her as she hath already been for almost forty years a Spectacle to God to Angels and to Men. The wicked Lives of Scandalous Bishops and Priests if there be any such are her sad misfortune but cannot justifie the Schism you are guilty of who are bound to hear even them as much as the Jews were bound to hear the Scribes and Pharisees those Hypocrites that sate in Moses's Chair And in that deplorable state of the Jewish Church when the Priests and Prophets were both alike corrupted and called by the Holy Spirit Dumb and greedy Dogs yet it had been unlawful to make a separation and set up other Altars against that which God who was their King had set up I cannot but mind you of the Schism of Jeroboam who by dividing the Church as God was pleased to divide the Kingdom into two parts made Israel to Sin But to insist on the Samaritan Secession and write all that is necessary to discover and aggravate the damnable Nature of Schism would require as much more Paper as I have bestowed and so make me as tedious again as I fear I have already been Besides it would oblige me to answer Mr. Hales's Treatise of Schism with whose leaves you vainly endeavor to cover your shame And I had indeed a year agoe undertaken that easie task but that a Western Gentleman to whom I discovered my Intentions told me That a Friend of his had already begun that good Work so that I hope it is Printed by this time And if either that or this or any thing else a thousand times better than I am able to write may prove effectual to reclaim you from Schism I shall be as glad as to see some other of our Friends reformed from Drunkenness Swearing and Uncleanness which are very grievous and dreadful Sins but yet not more damnable in their Nature nor more destructive to the Christian Religion nor more deeply rooted in the Soul of man than that of Schism From which I pray God by the Power of his Grace to Preserve me and Reform you through Jesus Christ our Lord to whose Protection I commit you and rest Your most Affectionate Cousin And humble Servant Saumur May 7. 1674.