have a mind to keep up a Faction I know what Language we should meet withal But will you boast say you of having derived your Orders from the Church of Rome when you believe the Church of Rome to be an idolatrous Church Madam it is not the Office of a Bishop in your Church we find fault withal but the Abuses of it A Church that 's guilty of very great corruption both in Doctrine and Manners may have something that 's good and allowable and he that retains that is not therefore guilty of her corruption nor espouses her Errors Your Idolatry is one thing and your Orders are another The Jews did take many good things from the Heathens and the Christians many commendable things from the Jews but that neither made the Jews approve of the Heathenish Worship nor the Christians allow of the Jewish Errors We are not so disingenious as to make the breach between you and us wider than needs So far as you go with Scripture and true Antiquity we hold with you where you contradict both we cannot with a safe Conscience bear you company He that sees a Pearl lye among a great deal of Trash if he take the Pearl is not therefore obliged to take the Rubbish too and if we have derived our Orders from you that infers no necessity that we must therefore consent to your Notorious Deprivations of the antient Simplicity of the Gospel The Christians heretofore that approved of the Baptism of the Donatists did not therefore presently acknowledge the Truth of their Opinions and he that should take a good custom from the Turks cannot be therefore said to approve of all things that are in the Alcoran Madam There is nothing more easie than to cavil at the most prudent Action in the World especially where People take a slight survey of things and do not with Seriousness and Deliberation weigh the Circumstances of the Fact and do not examine the inside as well as the outside and I must confess upon the best Examination of your Actions and Proceedings in this Revolt to the Church of Rome you never took the right way to be satisfied for instead of pondering the Arguments and Motives of our Departure from the Church of Rome and of the Reasons we alledge for our Church and Doctrine you made it your chief Imployment to read their Books and believed what they said to be Oracles for no other Reason but because they talked with greater Arrogance and Confidence If you say that you could not judge of Arguments having never been bred a Scholar I would but ask you how you durst change your Religion then Did you change it without reason and without ground and if you are not able to weigh the strength of Arguments how can you be sure that you are in the true Church at this time It is not talk but Arguments that must demonstrate the Truth of a Religion and if you have not sufficiently weighed the Arguments of both sides it is a thousand to one you may still be in the wrong way and you know not but you may be as much out now as you were formerly Madam so great a thing as the change of your Religion upon which no less than Eternity depends might justly have challenged some years study before you had resolved upon it To do a thing of this nature upon so slight a Survey consider whether it doth not argue Rashness and Weakness rather than Piety and Devotion To leave a Religion you have been bred and born in a Religion founded upon the Word of God and which you had liberty to examine by the Scripture upon reading a Popish Book or two without diving to the bottom of the several Controversies without reflecting on the Importance of the Points in question without studying a considerable time which Religion comes nearest to Scripture and which goes farthest off is such an Argument of Impatience that you only seem to have yielded to a dangerous Temptation of the Devil If the Controversies between the Church of Rome and us are so intricate as you say and above your capacity to dive into them you have then run over to that Church in the dark and have as little reason to be satisfied with your Proceedings as you believe you have with our way of Worship You plead that you have been sitting up whole Nights and weeping and praying that God would discover to you which is the true way to Salvation and from that time forward you found Inclinations to go over to that Church and is this a sufficient Argument to justifie your Forwardness When you had already begun to doubt whether our Church were a true Church or no because you found not that Satisfaction in it your sickly Desires wanted it was then an easie matter to give ear to confident People that magisterially and peremptorily assured you that you would find Satisfaction in their Church and being fed with this hope your Inclinations to that Church grew stronger every day as our Mother Eve the hopes of being like God suggested to her by the Serpent did egg and spur her on to eat of the fatal Tree We do not forbid People to pray to God to lead or direct them into the right way though sometimes it may be a perfect tempting of God when People are in the right way to desire God to discover to them by a sign of their own choice whether they are in it or no. But them if we pray to God to direct us we must not neglect the means God hath appointed in order to our Satisfaction but must compare Scripture with Scripture and Books with Books and Arguments with Arguments and search which Religion agrees most with the Doctrines and Practices of Christ and his Apostles and as the Noble Berrheans did examine all the Doctrines obtruded to our Belief by the Scripture and doing thus and continuing this search and these Prayers together no doubt but God in his own good time will answer us and direct us But to pray to God to direct us and not to use the means in the use of which he hath promised to direct us we do in a manner mock him or desire him to work a Miracle for us or to vouchsafe us some extraordinary Revelation when we have Moses and the Prophets and may hear them And I am confident had you joyned this way with your Prayer examined the Doctrines of the Church of Rome and compared them with the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ seen whether there be any thing like it in the Bible and searched whether Christ and his Apostles ever taught such Doctrines and done all this not slightly but seriously and solidly it 's impossible you could ever have turned Papist for if our Gospel be true that Religion can never be true for there is nothing in the World can run more counter to the Gospel than the Doctrines of that Church wherein we differ from them and they had need put the
Merits because I find your Priests have two strings to their bow and tell the People one thing and their Adversaries when they dispute with them another affirm and deny it as they see occasion and necessity requires Only one thing I must needs take notice of before I take my leave and that is the Gigantick Argument that some of your Gentlemen boast of and which strikes all Protestants dead at the first hearing of it If there be any thing true this must be true that there is a God if there be a God there must be a true Religion if there be a true Religion there must be a true revealed Religion if there be a true revealed Religion the Christian Religion must be that true revealed Religion and if the Christian Religion be true then the Religion of the Church of Rome must be true for the Argument that proves the Christian Religion to be true proves the Religion of the Church of Rome to be true which is this Either the Christian Religion was propagated without Miracles or by Miracles if by Miracles then it must be Divine if without Miracles then it is the greatest Miracle that a Religion so contrary to Flesh and Blood should prevail with sensual Men. The same say they is true of the Religion of the Church of Rome For if it be propagated by Miracles it must be Divine if without Miracles it must be so much more because it prescribes things contrary to Flesh and Blood as Penances Austerities c. and thousands of People do embrace it It will not make my self merry here in a thing so serious else I could have told you that I have heard of an Argument when I was at School somewhat like this He that drinks well sleeps well he that sleeps well commits no Sin he that commits no Sin will be saved therefore he that drinks well will be saved But I forbear And as to the aforesaid Argument whereby one of your Priests that hath printed it thinks to end all Controversies I will say no more but this First that as there is no Christian but must readily confess that the Miracles Christ and his Apostles wrought were a Confirmation of the Divinity of their Doctrine so there is no Man of any brains can admit of the other part of the dilemma as universally true that a Religion that goes against Flesh and Blood if propagated without Miracles must therefore be necessarily Divine Secondly that so far as the Religion of the Church of Rome agrees with the truly Christian Religion so far it is undoubtedly true and it will naturally follow that if the Christian Religion be true the Religion of the Church of Rome so far as it agrees with the Christian Religion must needs be true And the same may be said of the Protestant Religion but that the Roman Religion must therefore be true where it goes away and differs from the truly Christian Religion revealed to us in the Gospel is a consequence which none but Children can approve of Thirdly with this Argument a Man might prove the Divinity of almost any Religion in the World He that is no stranger to History must needs know what Severities what Austerities of Life the Brachmans or the Heathen Friers in the Indies do both prescribe and practice and what Proselites they make and how full the Kingdom of the great Mogul is of them how some wallow in Ashes day and night how others go charged with heavy Iron Chaines all their days how others stand upright upon their Leggs for whole Weeks together c. How in Japan and other places of the Indies the Priests perswade the People to fast themselves to death to go long Pilgrimages to give all they have to the Priests to throw themselves down from steep Rocks and break their Necks and all to arrive the sooner to the Happiness of another World c. I think there cannot be things more contrary to Flesh and Blood than these and yet we see these Doctrines are propagated daily without any force of Arms only by Example and Perswasion to be sure without any Miracle but I hope that doth not prove their Religion to be Divine It 's a dictate of the light of Nature that the way to Heaven is straight and therefore People that are religiously inclined are easily won over to those Men whom they see exercise such Severities upon themselves To conclude Madam when all is done what the true Church is must be tried by the Writings of the Evangelists and Apostles We see that even in the Apostles days Corruptions crept into the Church witness the Churches of Corinth Galatia and Colosse c. and the Simplicity of the Gospel began even then to be perverted and mingled with idle and foolish Opinions and Practices and therefore we must needs think that after the Apostles decease the Church of Christ was subject to the same fare so that if there be any Standard or Touchstone left whereby the Truth and Sincerity of a Church can be tried and we must needs think so well of God's Providence that he would not leave his Church without some Rule to rectifie their Errors by in case she should be infected with any it must be the Primitive Institution of the Christian Religion and that Church as I said before which teaches things that approach nearest to that Primitive Institution must be the true Church And Madam do but once more for your Souls fake and for your Salvations sake compare the Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome with the Doctrines and Practices of the Gospel the Fountain of Christianity and try whether you can find there the Doctrines of Communion under one kind of publick Prayers in a Tongue unknown to the People of Purgatory of the Mass of Transubstantiation of the Church of Rome 's Supremacy and Infallibility of Worshipping and Adoring the Virgin Mary and Praying to Saints of Veneration of Relicks and Images of Adoration of the Hoste c. Do not force any places of Scripture and try whether you can make sense of any of these Doctrines by Scripture View the stream of the Gospel and search whether there be any thing like these Doctrines in it Why will you make your Reason a Slave to your Priests magisterial Sentences How can you answer it to God that you did not improve your Reason more What have you your Reason for but to judge what is agreeable to the Word of God and what is not Is not this acting like a Creature void of Reason to be guided altogether by what a few blind Guides say to you without enquiring at the Law and Testimony whether things are so as they say or no Wonderful Stupidity I stand amazed at it It is not all the seeming Holiness of those Priests you converse withal that make the Church you are in a true Church There is no Sect in the World but when they are under a Cloud Necessity and the Discouragement they are 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 aâ—â— his Holy Angels to take Vengeance on thosâ— 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
the Worship of God or proves an impediment to the faithful discharge of our Duty to God and Man Poison is not so prejudicial to the outward as such Opinions are to the inward Man and the better part And such were the erroneous Doctrines of the Scribes and Pharisees Blending the Traditions of their Fathers with the Law of God and entertaining both with an equal Faith and Veneration they made an odd kind of Divinity and quite perverted the design of Religion which was to make Men universally good This was particularly visible in the notion they had of the sixth Commandment which they interpreted to the carnal advantage and worldly Interest of their People teaching them that if they did but use that Care and Circumspection as not to kill a Man they did not only answer the design of the Lawgiver but would prevent the Penalty annex'd and their being taken notice of by the Magistrate and punished accordingly but as for Wrath and Malice and reproachful Language whereby Murder and such bloody Practices are too often occasion'd and promoted these they told them were things not forbid in the primary Intention of the Law of God and consequently they need fear no Punishment To which preposterous Exposition our Saviour opposes his Divine Authority proves the gloss of their Elders upon the sixth Commandment to be false and shews That what they thought did not deserve so much as a temporal Judgment God would punish with eternal Vengeance if not forsaken or repented of betimes Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time Thou shalt not kill and whosoever shall kill shall be c. This is a Text upon which Criticks and Learned Men have bestow'd many excellent Observations because the words relate to some antient Customes of the Jews in their Judicial Proceedings against Malefactors and others But as I do not think it proper to entertain you with Curiosities so if there be need of making use of any of those Observations I shall do it no farther than they serve to elucidate some of the obscurer Passages of the Text and make way for the practical Points I shall insist upon for your Edification As to the Sense of the Words it 's briefly this 1. Whether we render the Expression in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It hath been said by them of old time or to them of old time as some Translations read it the difference is not very material for as by those of old time are meant either the antient Masters of Tradition who lived some hundred years before that time or the Ancestors of the Jews to whom those Masters of Tradition pretended to deliver an oral Exposition of the Law of Moses so if we read by them of old time the meaning is You have heard that it hath been deliver'd and said by the antient Masters of Tradition And if we render it to them of old time the sense is You have heard it delivered to your Ancestors and Forefathers by those antient Masters of Tradition I restrain you see this Passage to Tradition for though the Sense of it is to be sound in the Law of Moses yet the Maxim as it is related by our Saviour here is not expressed there neither with that Connection And therefore I conceive the antient Expositors of the Law contracted what Moses had said into this Motto Whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment 2. What is said here of Killing is meant of killing a Man and hath respect to the sixth Commandment Thou shalt do no Murder By which Law as the killing of Beasts for Man's use could not be intended nor destroying venemous and noxious Animals nor executing of Malefactors by order of the Magistrate nor depriving Men of their Lives in a just and lawful War but an unjust depriving a Man of his Life so there was a Punishment suitable annex'd to the breach of that Law which Punishment was to be ordered and inflicted by the Magistrate and so far as the Law of God given by Moses went all was right and just and reasonable but here the Masters of Tradition had made a Distinction that if a Man had hired another to kill his Neighbour or had let loose a wild Beast upon him whereby he died the Magistrate was not to inflict the Punishment of Death upon him but he was to be left to the extraordinary Judgment of God but if he killed him in person either by a Sword or by a Stone or by some other Weapon then the Magistrate was to execute the Penalty appointed by the Law of Moses upon him but this was not all for they taught moreover that though a Person who killed another was liable to capital Punishments yet the Wrath the Anger and the Malice that prompted him to it was a thing that deserved no Punishment and therefore this was not a thing to be feared and here came in Tradition which misinterpreted the Law of Moses though it stands to reason that he who forbids a Sin at the same time doth forbid the occasion of it and all such things as do naturally lead to the Commission of it 3. Our Saviour to shew that Wrath and Anger and Malice and reproachful Language were liable to Punishment as well as Murder and that God would certainly lash them as well as the greater Enormities takes notice of several degrees of unjust Wrath and Anger The first is a sudden Effervescence or Boyling up of the Blood or some violent Agitation and Commotion of the Passions upon a frivolous occasion and therefore adds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without sufficient cause which though it be not in some Copies yet must necessarily be understood here not denying but that Anger in some cases may be lawful but shewing withal that if the occasion of the Anger be slight and trivial and the Anger even in a lawful cause be excessive and going beyond its just bounds it provokes God's heavy Displeasure But then if this secret Anger within or the first boyling over of the Blood proceeds farther to contemptuous words and that a Man in Wrath and Malice gives his Neighbour reproachful Language despising and undervaluing him by using Expressions and Names which wound his Reputation intimated by the word Rakah i. e. vile and worthless Wretch though I am apt to believe that an angry and threatning noise and posture is chiefly meant by that word in this case the Sin rises higher and becomes greater and consequently deserves a severer Judgment but then if this Anger mounts higher yet and from an angry threatning Posture and Noise which betrays Wrath and Indignation it proceeds to the calling our Neighbour Fool i. e. wicked and reprobate Wretch deserving the eternal Anger both of God and all good Men which is the meaning of the word Fool in the Proverbs of Solomon as the Sin becomes more heinous by this Aggravation so the Punishment of it in the other World will be greater yet 4. What
Fury and reviling Language And being kept within these bounds I find no fault with this Anger But this is not the Anger my Text speaks of and against which Christ levells his Commination here for that 's anger without sufficient cause even Anger because our worldly Interest is not promoted as we expected or because our Honour and Reputation is touch'd or because something which gratifies our Lusts is with-held from us or because our vain Desires are not cocker'd and flatter'd or because such a Person hath not given us the Title and Respect we look'd for or because we cannot digest a Reproof or because we are cross'd in our Designs or because such a Man is not of our Opinion or because he will not conform to our Humour These are the things which commonly provoke to Passion and this Anger the farther it goes the worse it grows if from thoughts and secret grudges it proceeds to contumelious reproachful and reviling Language to calling the party ill Names Fool and Rogue and Villain and Rascal and Knave and Cheat and Hypocrite and such other Titles as modesty will not suffer us to name it becomes greater and if from Words and Expressions it goes farther yet even to Actions of Revenge and settles in Hatred in Rancour and inveterate Malice it then shuts out the righteousness of God and lets in the Devil and invites evil Spirits to come and Lodge in that house and the last Estate of that Man grows worse than the first And is not this the Case of abundance of you Do not you see something in this Glass that 's very like you and resembles your Temper And do but consider what weakness what impotency of Reason and Spirit you betray and discover by such doings Is not this an inlet to confusion and every evil work Jam. III 16. Is this the Christian Spirit is this to know what manner of Spirit you are of Is this treading in your Masters steps Is this following his Example Who when he was reviled reviled not again Dare you appear before the Son of Man in the last day with such a Disposition of Soul never yet seriously repented of Is this to resist the Devil Is this to purifie your Hearts Have you so learned Christ Is this to be Children in Malice as you are bound to be by your Profession Is this to crucifie the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts upon the least Provocation presently to be in a huff presently to let your Tongues loose and to break forth against your Brethren in Language fitter for Turks and Indians than for Christians Is this to be meek as Doves Is this to Love one another with a pure Heart fervently Is Hell-fire nothing but painted Flames Hath our great Master threatned it and do we make light of it Can you seriously reflect upon this Commination and be unconcerned And is not this threatning a Call to Repentance What a mercy is it that God will accept of a sincere Repentance after such Provocations But how can you repent of your Passion if you do not mortifie it How can you mortifie it if you do not conquer it How can you conquer it if you do not strive How can you strive if ye do not use the proper means and weapons God hath appointed in the Gospel How can you profess sorrow for this Sin when you fall willfully into the same Sin again Do you call a mock Repentance godly Sorrow Or do you take that to be Repentance which is separated from actual Reformation Ecclesiastical History tells us of two Bishops that fell out and proceeded even to reviling Language and so parted toward night one of them sent the other word Brother the Sun is going down with that the angry Man remembred St. Pauls saying Let not the sun go down upon your wrath and made haste and found out his offended Brother and fell on his Neck and kissed him The Pythagoreans though Heathens did the like for if they had quarrell'd one with another in the day time they would not go angry to Bed but shak'd hands before Sun-set Did Heathens do so and shall Christians be strangers to this Practice Flatter not your selves with this that you kill no body in your Anger so did the Pharisees but must ye therefore act against the Law of Reason and Religion because you do not run stark Mad Do you own your selves Disciples of the Lord Jesus and will not you believe what he saith in the Text Hath he peremptorily forbid you all Bitterness and Wrath and speaking evil one of another and will not you obey him Doth he assure you that it renders you obnoxious to Hell-fire and do not you think what if I should fall into that Fire in my anger Are you sure you shall not Hath God told you that he will not strike you dead in a Fit Do not you express all that 's terrible by Hell-fire and is not the possibility of falling into it a sufficient Defence against this inordinate Passion Do you hope for Christ's Rewards and will you deprive your selves of them by your willful disobedience Did you go about mortifying that bitterness of Spirit like Men in good earnest how could ye fail of Success Did ye pray fervently against it watch against it chide your selves frequently for it shun the occasions of it check it when ye find it rising set before you the danger and believe it Call to mind the meekness of your great Master and the wonderful Patience of the Holy Apostles in their private Injuries how could your undertakings miscarry Doth anger according to Solomon's Verdict rest in the bosom of Fools and do you take your selves to be wise Men for it O be better advised and if the Mercy the Patience the Clemency the Compassion of God toward you cannot melt down your angry your wrathful Constitution stand in awe however of your Ruin of your everlasting Ruin and remember who it is that said and protested and will Act according to his Protestation Whosoever shall be angry with his Brother without a Cause c. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CONCERNING The Two Religions VIZ. That of the CHURCH of ENGLAND And the other of the CHURCH of ROME Intended for the Use and Benefit of the Younger Sort of People LONDON Printed in the Year 1697. Questions and Answers concerning the Two Religions c. Quest. 1. HOW doth the Church of England differ from the Church of Rome Answ. The Church of England keeps close to the Antient Creeds commonly call'd the Apostles the Nicene and that of Athanasius The Church of Rome hath added new Articles of Faith to these Antient Creeds which we reject Quest. 2. When did the Church of Rome add these new Articles Answ. In the Council of Trent not much above a hundred years ago for it began in the year 1545 and ended in the year 1563. Quest. 3. What 's the reason the Church of England doth not receive those new Articles of Faith Answ. 1.
4th For all the pretences of Infallibility in the Church of Rome they cannot decide the Controversies that are among their own Members 5th Both Popes and General Councils have contradicted one another and therefore neither of them can be infallible 6th The pretence of Infallibility in the Church of Rome is nothing but a device to uphold their Temporal Grandeur and Dominion Quest. 21. Why do you think the Church of Rome is in an Error in forbidding the reading of the Bible to the Common People Answ. 1. Because Christ commands all sorts of Men to read the Scriptures Joh. 5. 39. 2. The Berrhaeans are commended for searching the Scriptures Acts 17. 11. 3. The Fathers in the Primitive Church exhorted the People to the frequent reading of the Scriptures 4. St. Paul charges the Thessalonians to take care that his Epistle be read to all the holy Brethren 1 Thess. 5. 27. 5. In the Jewish Church every Family was to have the Law in their Houses and to teach it their Children diligently Deut. 6. 7. 6. The pretence of the Obscurity of the Scripture in many places is insignificant since the Scripture is plain enough in things necessary to Salvation 7. The Church of Rome in forbidding the Bible to the Laity discovers her fear and the weakness of her Cause least the People should see her Errors and forsake her Quest. 22. UUhy do not you believe that the Books call'd Apocrypha are Canonical Scripture Answ. 1. Because the Oracles of the Old Testament were delivered to the Jewish Church Rom. 3. 2. and these were not 2. The Christian Church receiv'd from the Jews no other Books of Canonical Scripture but what are own'd as such by the Church of England 3. The Apocrypha were not written by Men inspired by the Holy Ghost and what is Scripture must be by Inspiration 2 Tim. 3. 16. 4. Some of the Authors beg the Readers pardon for their Mistakes which is not the Language of the Holy Ghost 5. The Antient Councils have rejected these Apocrypha as not Canonical particularly the Council of Laodicea 6. In the Primitive Churches they read these Apocrypha only for the Instruction of Mens Manners but did not resolve their Faith into them no more do we Quest. 23. UUhy do you find fault with the Church of Rome for asserting that the Church of England once a Member of her Communion had no power to reform her self Answ. 1. Because every Church hath a natural right to shake off the Abuses and Corruptions which are contrary to the Word of God 2. It is God's Command to private Men not to suffer themselves to be deluded by the slight of Men and cunning Craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive and therefore much more is a National Church concern'd to do so 3. In vain was any Reformation hoped for from the Bishop and Clergy of the Roman Church 4. It 's the proper Office of the Bishops of a National Church to take notice what Errors creep into their Churches and oppose them 5. And that they have right to do so appears from the Examples the Church of Judah had in the times of Jehoshaphat or Hezekiah or Josiah 6. In throwing off the power of the Pope of Rome we did not throw off Obedience to a lawful Soveraign but Subjection to an Usurper 7. We did no more than what the Orthodox Churches did after the Arian Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia in setting up the Nicene Faith again which those powerful Councils had banish'd 8. We made no new Religion but restor'd the old and built no new House but only swept out of the old the Rubbish which made it unwholesom and uninhabitable The End An Account of the Conference betwixt a Jesuit of the Savoy and my Self the 2d of January Present Mr. Stephens on my side Mrs. Chamberlain and Mr. Chamberlain and the Book-binder about whom the Conference was held he having been six years of the Church of Rome but somewhat unsatisfied and Mr. Lamb. About Seven of the Clock at Night THE first thing Discoursed was about the Doctrine of Calvinists which the Jesuit said made God the Author of Sin I told him that there are several Expressions which if a favourable Construction be put upon them will appear to be otherwise Next he fell upon Luther who should say that no Man could be damned if he would but for his Infidelity I said it was true that God condemned no Man that professed himself a Christian but for his Infidelity The Jesuit asked whether if a Man committed Theft he may be call'd an Infidel I said he acted like an Infidel and in that Act was so because he acted contrary to his Belief Mr. Chamberlain putting in something about that place 1 Tim. 2. about one Mediator The Jesuit argued he wonderd we should talk of one Mediator when every Man that pray'd for the other was a Mediator I told him in a large Sense he might be called so but in the Controversie before us were meant Mediators which are religiously worshipped Here happened a great rambling Discourse about Faith As distinguished from all good Works but I told them that by Faith I did not mean the bare Assent to the Doctrine but a practical Belief as it takes in the whole Word of God and living according to it The Book-binder was gone to call Mrs. Chamberlain and coming again by this time The Jesuit said they were come to satisfie Persons under some Doubts and therefore must fall upon some more material Points and since we Protestants sent people to the Scripture it was necessary we should begin to talk of the Rule of Faith and therefore he desired to know how we knew the Scripture to be the Word of God and from whom we had received our Bible I told him we had received it from the Catholick Church whose Testimony was very considerable in this Case He ask'd hereupon when we went off from the Church From what Church we did immediately receive it I answered him both from the Western or Roman and from the Churches of the East However I told him I would fairly grant him that we had received it immediately from the Church of Rome and I desired him to make the best of it Here he asked how we could receive the true Bible from a corrupt Church I asked him whether I might not receive a Pearl from a Chimney Sweeper He said we looked upon them for Rogues and Rascals Whereupon I told him we give them no such Language However sinc he used these Names whether a Man might not receive a 100 l. in very good Money from Rogues and Rascals He then argued That we look'd upon the Church of Rome as a corrupt Church and how can we be sure that we have the true Bible since we cannot be sure that a corrupt Church had not corrupted it I told him that they confessed themselves they had not corrupted it and besides they could not corrupt it for the Cheat
People These must certainly be the Reasons why we cannot now pass with the Church of Rome for Members of the Catholick Church That these things were not in the Antient Catholick Creeds I hope you are convinced for you have read them over and found none of all these Additions in them And now I beg of you in the name and by the mercy of that Jesus in whom you believe to judge which is most likely to be the truly Catholick Church ours or theirs Ours that keeps to the truly antient Catholick Faith or theirs that hath added things contrary to Scripture and Reason and Antiquity And dare you continue in a Church where your very Communion with it is an Approbation of their Actions which are directly contrary to the command of Christ Can there be any thing more contrary to it than their denying the Cup to the Laity And when you receive the Sacrament but in one kind contrary to Christ's Command do not you sin and allow of the Sin of that Church you are in Is not your Disobedience to Christ's Command a Sin or can you imagine that you are more obliged to obey Men than Christ himself You confess you dare not live in any one Sin But how dare you live in this Sin You talk of the benefit of Confession and Absolution when that very Priest to whom you confess and who absolves you lives in that Sin you are guilty of and neither absolves himself nor you from it and you both continue in it as if the Blind had a mind to lead the Blind How dare you act thus against your Reason and Conscience Are you not afraid when you are going to confess that God will laugh at your Mock Confession since you neither confess that Sin of living contrary to Christ's Command about the Cup nor are willing to part with it Tell me not here that you drink the Blood of Christ in eating his Flesh if so to what purpose doth the Priest consecrate Wine for himself if he drinks the Blood of Christ in eating his Flesh But suppose the Bread were transubstantiated into the Flesh and Blood of Christ you know that the not giving the Cup of Blessing to those that come to the Lord's Supper is contrary to Christ's Institution who distinctly consecrated the Cup and gave that to his Disciples who were Representatives of all Believers as well as the Bread and peremptorily commanded Drink ye all of this and I hope you do not call eating the consecrated Wafer drinking the Wafer But let Us grant you your strange Doctrine that you do participate of the Blood of Christ in eating the consecrated Wafer who gave your Church Authority to alter Christ's Institution How can Men dispence with an express Law of God Can they annull what God would have Established and continue to the Worlds end And can you consent to so great a Sacriledge Doth not some horror seize on you when you seriously think that you approve of the Priests sinning against so notorious a Precept and which he that runs may read And pray Madam wherein have you bettered your self in going over to the Roman Church Is this your proficiency in Religion to forsake a Church where you felt the lively Oracles of Heaven coming warm upon your Soul and to joyn your self to a Church where you hear nothing but Latine Prayers and where the Priest if he be not a good man may as well Curse you as Bless you for any thing you understand of his Language or Devotion Is this Your proficiency in Religion to leave a Church where you were taught to Worship God in Spirit and in Truth and now to cleave to one where they teach your Prayers to go upon Crutches of Crucifixes Beads and Images Doth this look like that Noble Religion which Christ taught the World and whose design was to advance our Rational Souls by Contemplation and Meditation O Madam you are too Young to know the Tricks of that Church you live in they are more politick Heads than yours is that had the contriving of it Bold Men that had Learnt not to Blush at a Lye and then thought it their interest to Hector the World into a belief of it We that can Read Books as well as they and know the History of the Church as well as they can see through all these devices which they perceiving are angry with Us for discovering the Cheat. What was it Madam that you wanted in our Church to carry you to Heaven did you want that which the Apostles and the Primitive Christians never wanted I mean did you want more Articles of Faith than they subscribed and believed If you wanted that we Confess we could not supply you for we dare say nothing and believe nothing with Divine Faith but what Moses and the Prophets and Christ and his Apostles have taught us If the Scripture contains all things necessary to Salvation then we teach all that If the Church of ROME knows more Articles than Christ or his Apostles knew of we will admire her insolence but cannot satisfie her unreasonable desire Did you want strictness of Life in our Church If all the Commands of the Gospel can make you Holy We teach them all and press them upon the People and I presume you do not aim to be Holier than Christ and his Apostles would have you to be Hath the Church of ROME another Gospel to teach you than that we did instruct you in if they have much good it may do them We are not fond of the Apostle's Curse Should an Angel from Heaven bring another Gospel to you let him be accursed I know your common Plea that We Protestants cannot rightly interpret the Scripture because We pretend to no infallibility And do you blame Us for not being so impudent as the Church of ROME There is no Protestant but would be glad there were an infallible Interpreter of Scripture instituted by God and recommended to Mankind But where shall we find him Who is it that God hath imparted this Honour to If you say the Fathers you know not what you say for the Fathers differ many times as much in interpretation of the Scipture and are as contrary to one another as any Men. If you say the Church that 's a hard Word if you mean Christ's Universal Church dispersed all the World over you must tell us where it is that this Church hath left an infallible Comment upon the Bible and how is it possible for a man that will be resolved in a point to go to all Christian People in the World if you say the Church of ROME you must first shew Us her Commission for this infallible interpretation Secondly you must prove She hath infallibly interpreted the Scriptures and that those interpretations are infallible in all places Thirdly you must agree among your selves what part of your Church is infallible whether the Pope or an Universal Council or all Christian People or whether all these
Bible among prohibited Books for should the People have liberty freely to peruse it the Church of Rome would grow very thin and despicable I am sensible your Priests find fault with our Translation of the Bible and cry out that there are great defects in it but when they talk so they had need talk to Women not to Men of Learning and that undestand Greek and Hebrew the Languages in which the Word was originally written The Honesty of our Translators appears sufficiently from hence because if any Sentence in the Bible be capable of a double Sense they express the one in the Text and the other in the Margin and where they do but in the least vary from the Original they either discover it by the Italick Character or give you notice of it in the Margin than which there can be nothing more honest And let any Papist of you all shew us wherein any thing in our Bibles is ill translated out of Malice or Design or expressed in words which the Original will not bear If we examine Translations by the Original then sure I am there is few Translations go further from it than the Vulgar Latin or the Rhemist Testament as were an easie matter to prove if I intended more than a Letter You are much taken with their Mortifications and Penances which you say we have not in our Church But it 's a sign Madam you did not rightly understand our Religion We are so far from condemning Mortification and Severity of Life that we do commend it provided it be in order to subdue the body of Sin and to raise our selves to a greater pitch of Vertue provided these Severities be separated from all opinion of Merit and from an opinion of their being satisfactory and expiatory and used only as helps to work in us a perfect Detestation of Sin And I will assure you there are more in the Church of England that use Severities in this humble holy way than you are aware of We indeed do not ordinarily inflict them on all persons because we know not there Constitution nor what their nature will bear nor have we any command for it in the Word of God but these things we leave to every Man's Discretion urging that where Sins require stronger Remedies there Men ought to make use of them and if their Corruptions will not be gone by Reasonings and Arguments that there they must inflict Mulcts and Penalties on themselves to drive the Unclean Spirit out Though I must say still that Religious Severities and Austerities are not certain signs of a true Religion for Heathens do use them as much as Christians nay more than Christians witness the Brahmanes in the Indies and the Religious Pagans dispersed through all the Eastern parts and if you conclude that therefore the Church of Rome must be in the right because they inflict great Pennances and Severities and make daily use of them I am afraid you only forbear turning Turk or Heathen because you never saw their far greater Severities in Religion than the Church of Rome can boast of But still the Protestant Church hath not the real Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Sacrament which the Church of Rome hath And are you sure the Church of Rome hath it I am perswaded you did never taste it nor see it nor feel it nor smell it and how do you know it What because the Priests of that Church do tell you so No say you it is because Christ saith in express terms this is my Body And here I confess I stand amazed that Men with Learning and Reason about them can sink into an opinion so contradictory that if all the consequences of it be considered there is nothing in nature can be more absurd or irrational and the Church of Rome had need oblige Men to deny both their Reason and Senses to believe a Transubstantiation Here indeed a Faith is necessary strong enough to remove Mountains and though never any Miracles were wrought but were wrought on purpose to convince our Senses yet here we must believe one which neither Sense nor Reason can discover When Christ gave the Sacrament to his Disciples saith the Apostle 1 Corinth 11. 24. He brake the Bread and said Take eat this is my Body which is broken for you It is a wonderful thing that the word is in the first Sentence this is my Body should have a literal Sense and in the very next Sentence pronounced with the same breath cannot admit of a literal Sense for the word is in the second Sentence must necessarily stand for shall be because Christ's Body when he gave the Bread was not yet broken If it will not admit of a literal Sense in the very next Sentence because of the Absurdity that would follow that Christ was crucified before he was crucified why should we understand it in the first Sentence literally when the Absurdity is far greater Nay that the word is should not be capable of being understood literally in the second essential part of the Sacrament This Cup is the New Testament that here I say it should import and can import nothing else but signifies or is a sign of the New Testament and yet must not be understood so in the first part of the Sacrament is a thing we cannot comprehend And when the Apostle speaking of Lord's Supper or Eucharist 1 Cor. 10. 16. The Cup of Blessing which we bless is it not the Communion of the Blood of Christ and the Bread which we break is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ Let the rigidest Papist that hath not quite banished his Reason tell me how he will make Sense of the word is here except he understand it figuratively most certainly it cannot be understood literally for the Cup is not that Communion but is a sign of it One would admire how Men can be so obstinate in a thing as clear as the Sun and you might as well conclude that Christ is a Door made of Boards and Nails because the Scripture saith he is a Door and that he is a real Vine with green Leaves and Grapes about him because the Scripture saith he is a Vine But suppose the word is in these words This is my Body must be understood literally how doth this make for Transubstantiation Are the words is and is transubstantiated all one A thing may be said to be a thousand ways and yet without Transubstantiation so that if by the word is you understand Transubstantiation you your selves must go from the literal sense and assume a sense which is not expressed in that saying All the Jews are so well versed in the sense of Sacramental Expressions that by the word is they understand nothing but signifies or represents and therefore it 's a horrid shame that Christians meerly for fear of being laughed at for departing from an absurd opinion and losing the credit of a pretended Infallibility should make themselves ignorant in that
Suppose our Religion did but begin then why must people be always in an Error Must they never reform when they have done amiss if there were monstrous Errors in the Church of Rome which the aforesaid Persons saw would be the Death of Christianity and which they could not subscribe to without debauching their Reason or wronging both their own and other Mens Consciences was it not rational they should protest against such things to give their fellow Christians warning When the House is on fire would you have no body awake to alarm the Neighbours to look to themselves did they see so many thousand Men ready to be drown'd and would you have had them hold their Tongues and barbarously suffered them all to be drown'd Did they see the Christian Religion like to be swallow'd up by Darkness and Ignorance and was it not time to rouze the slumbering World But however that these Men were the first broachers of our Religion is notoriously false First because long before them there were Men that lived in the external Communion of the Church of Rome but dislik'd the Errors as they crept in and grew dangerous and though they were over-aw'd and silenc'd many times by the higher Powers of the Roman Court yet they both detested those Corruptions and as they had opportunity protested against them as were an easie matter to prove from age to age if it had not been done already over and over by Divines of our Church so that though these Men that lived long before Luther and whom God still rais'd to vindicate his Truth as it grew more and more polluted were not call'd Protestants by the People yet in effect they were so and consequently there were Protestants many years before Luther and Zwinglius And though they were not suffered by the Ignorant and imperious Ecclesiastical Powers to meet and assemble themselves in publick yet they made a Church as much as the followers of Holy Athanasius did when the whole World was turned Arian as much as Elijah and those seven thousand the Oracle mentioned made a Church when the whole Country was over-run with Idolaters These seven thousand we read lay hid and durst not appear in publick being oppress'd by the Idolatrous powers that sat at the Stern and thought there was no good fishing but in troubled waters And indeed in this manner our Church was dispers'd long before Luther among the greater multitude of the followers of the corrupted Roman Church as a handful of wheat lies scatter'd in a bushel of Chaff and though it it did not appear in Pomp and Grandeur yet that external Splendour is not essential to the truth of a Church your own men may be convinced by the aforementioned examples Secondly if your Champions speak strictly of the Religion which we profess in the Church of England they are under a mistake when they make Luther or Zwinglius the Authors of it for our Reformation began some time after and was both begun and carried on with great deliberation and consideration under Edward the 6th by publick Authority whose proper province it is to take notice of what is amiss in a Kingdom or Commonwealth whether it be in Church or State and to reform and mend it It 's no great matter when a Reformation begins so the Reformation be but just and if such a Reformation had begun but yesterday that would not have made it unlawful and that our Reformation was just and necessary hath been prov'd by our Divines beyond all reasonable contradiction and how could it but be just when the Decrees of the Church of Rome controll'd the Word of the Living God and vyed with the Oracles of the Gospel How and when the several Errors crept into that Church is not material to determine it 's enough we found them there and it was God's mercy not to give all the learned Men of that age over to believe a lye But it 's pretty to hear your Church-men talk of the novelty of our Religion when it is evident to all the understanding World that our first Reformers began no new Religion but desired only to keep to the Old All their endeavour was to keep to the Religion of the Bible and to cut off all superfluities and things prejudicial to Salvation and was there any hurt in that They saw that many things then in use in the Church of Rome were diametically opposite to the Doctrines and practises of the Primitive Church and they justly thought it their Duty to reduce the Church to the antient Pattern the prouder Clergy of the Roman Church would not yield to it but would have all their new fangles and all their additions to the antient Symbols received as Articles of Faith though all perish'd and the coat of Christ were rent into a thousand pieces the more humble and more moderate of the Clergy saw the pride and insolence of the other and trembled and thus we and they parted we kept to the old Religion and your Men chose the new and much good it may do you with it and pray Judge by this which is the Schismatick Church we or they we that would have healed Israel or they that would not be healed so that it is not our Religion that began so lately as 150 years ago about Luthers time but it 's yours that commenced then for you then embraced the new additions to the antient Catholick Creeds with greater greediness and were resolv'd to maintain that by Bravado's which you were not able to defend with Arguments It 's a very ordinary thing for people who once incline to the Communion of the Roman Church to demand of us before they go over whither a person may be saved in that Church The Charity and moderation our Divines usually express in their answer to this Query I am sensible hath done our Church some harm whereas the Roman Priests being bold in their uncharitableness and damning all that are out of their Communion make some weak people believe that they must be in the right because they are more daring in their Asseverations We have far greater reason to be peremptory in excluding the Members of the Church of Rome from Salvation than they have to exclude us for if that Church be guilty of Idolatry as I see your Divines find it a very hard task to answer the Arguments of our learned Men that prove it Those that are guilty of this Crime may soon be resolved by the Apostle what their lot is like to be in another World for No Idolater saith St. Paul meaning one that lives and dies so shall inherit the Kingdom of God 1 Cor. 6. 9. yet we are modest and whatever the principles of that Church may lead Men to we hope there may be many in that Church that either while they live in the Communion of that Church have an aversion from the dangerous and Idolatrous practices of it or sometimes before they die do heartily repent of the absurd and unreasonable