joyn in you will go over to the Church of England where you may Pray with the Spirit and with understanding also In the next place your Private Prayers are not so good a way of worshipping God as other Christians have The Images and Pictures which the Heathens first taught your Doctors to call The books of the unlearned and which are placed before you in time of Prayer are no help but an hindrance to all true Devotion for while your lips are repeating your Oraisons your mind is taken up with the beauty colour lineaments and workmanship of the Image so that your own Conscience will tell you by these diversions you often draw near to God with your lips when your hearts are far from him which is a vain worship Matth. xv 8. And the Casuists of your Church foreseeing that Images would take off the attention have determined most impiously That it is not necessary to Prayer that the person praying should think of what he speaks A Doctrine suitable enough to that slight and formal worship which your Church appoints and the Ordinary people among you think they have prayed sufficiently when they have pattered over so many little Oraisons as agree to the number of their Beads A new Invention which came not into the Church till all serious Devotion was ceased it being a sign he minds his Prayers but little that needs a string of Beads to reckon them by yet these Beads saith one of your own Authors are now the chief Instruments of the hypocrites counterfeit Devotion I shall not ravel into the body of your Prayers since the Author of the Reflections on the Romish Devotions hath sufficiently done this but I cannot but remark that the repeating Ave Maria and the name of Jesus so many times over as in those fifteen little Prayers in the Psalter of Jesus where the name of Jesus is thrice mentioned in each Prayer and each Prayer is ordered to be said Ten times over and those numerous names of Saints repeated in your Litanies with no petition annexed but Ora pro nobis This way of Praying is so far from agreeing with the Primitive worship of God among the Christians that it is evidently derived from that Heathenish superstition of praying by repeating a hundred names of their Deities together interposing nothing but O hear us and in this manner Baals Priests are supposed to pray 1 Kings xviii 26. But to Christians Jesus saith When ye pray use not vain repetitions as the Heathens do for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking Matth. vi 7. Wherefore though you have admired this trifling way of worship when you knew no better yet if you would acquaint your selves with the solid and rational way of praying prescribed in the Church of England wherein Great things in an exact method in plain and proper phrases and in a known Language are asked of God alone in the name of Jesus Christ you would easily leave off those formal vain and superficial Devotions which can neither be acceptable to God nor profitable unto your selves Thirdly Let us pass to the last of these particulars and enquire If the Doctrines of Rome differing from those of England do tend to promote our imitating God by a holy life and conversation without which all our worship is in vain For it is a folly and miserable errour saith S. Augustine to humble your self before him in adoration to whom you chuse to be unlike in conversation and to give him religious worship whose Example you will not follow since the sum of all Religion is to imitate him you worship Now there are several Principles of the Roman Church which seem to hinder an holy life as first The custome of Confessing to a Priest weekly or monthly together with the Absolution following of course upon this Confession this is I fear a great hindrance to amendment of life at which it pretends to aim for while men relie on this remedy they go on without fear in those sins for which they have so easie a cure at hand like those who venture without scruple on dangerous Meats because they have their Physicians beside them 'T is true there is a Penance enjoyned sometimes but it is such a one as the rich may buy off and the poor may undergo and yet both retain the sin because the Penance is not its proper cure the going in Pilgrimages giving mony saying or reading over such proportions of Legends or little chiming prayers with others far more impertinent tend not to rectifie a vicious habit and a plaister on the Toe may as soon cure the Head-ach as these Penances effect a Reformation or obtain a pardon at Gods hands And yet all men see when the day of Confession is over and the Penance past that you are generally confident of a Pardon and fancy you begin upon a new score It is not easie to enumerate all the devices which your Church hath invented to convey pardon of Sins Holy water Relicks of Saints visiting some certain Churches saying some certain Prayers making Oblations of mony to such and such uses Indulgences and other such things so that he that hath mony need never want Pardon from Rome but alas these things can never really take away the guilt of one sin and yet they embolden men to commit many For the multitude of Sinners increaseth when hope is given that sin may be bought off and men easily fall into those sins for which Mony will purchase their pardon as Arnobius said to the Heathens who relied on such like fantastical means of Remission and we may say of the Guides of your Church as Seneca in a like case They sin more in such Absolutions than the Offender doth in the Crime For by perswading men they can have Remission on so easie Terms they make them secure before they are safe because Almighty God who only finally can Remit never promised Pardon on these Terms and it is only those who forsake as well as confess their sins to whom he will shew Mercy Prov. xxviii 13. And if either the Pope or any of his Substitutes pretend to have power to forgive sins on any other Terms they abuse those who are so weak to believe them and make them forfeit their Souls I doubt for the sad price of this Credulity S. Basil saith truly The power of Absolving was not absolutely given but upon condition of the Penitents Reformation And we tell our People more sincerely that if a Priest Absolve them a thousand times over and if they give ever so much mony without amendment of life they can have no pardon according as Scripture it self teaches and the Holy Fathers also If thou givest all that thou hast and dost not forsake thy sins thou art twice deceived both in losing thy Mony and thy Pardon also Again as if the Roman Church designed to make men think their own actual Holiness
That it was expedient the people should be deceived in their Religion as Scaevola the Pagan Pontifex M. in S. Augustine saith and no doubt your Church agrees with the Heathen Varro in the same Author where he saith There are many Truths in Religion which it is not expedient for the people to know and though divers things therein be false yet the people ought to think them true The instances of some particulars will make this more evident 1. Miracles were the foundation and most authentick proofs for Invocation of Saints Veneration of Images and Relicks Pilgrimages Purgatory Monastical Vows and most of the gainful Articles of the Roman Church and yet S. Chrysostome saith that there were no footsteps of the power of Miracles left in the Church in his time And your S. Gregory thinks them unnecessary among Believers and so do many others Yet in the dark Ages nothing was more frequently pretended than Miracles wrought by Saints living and dead as appears by the stories of their Lives and the Legends of your Church which Relations are so senseless and so ridiculous so impossible and unlikely so little agreeing with Chronology History or Geography that the Modern Writers of the Roman Party are ashamed of them Hence your own Canus complains that these Authors of Saints Lives with false and counterfeit Fables have blemished the Lives of Saints And the same Writer saith there that the Author of your so famed Golden Legend was a man of an Iron forehead and a Leaden soul Harding also affirmeth That there be many vain Fables in it Simeon Metaphrastes is another of these Miracle-Writers and is so eminent that he is read in the Modern Roman Breviaries and yet Cardinal Bellarmine blames him for incredible stories and relations not agreeing to Ancient Writers He adds saith he many things out of his own wit not as they were really done but as they might have been done And is not this notorious forgery Yea the Popes themselves in the latest sort of Breviaries have left many of these fabulous Miracles out since they have done the work now for which they were invented the Doctrines supported by these lies are now generally embraced and when the Arch is compleated the Props on which it was raised may be laid aside yet still you ought to ask If these stories were false how came the Infallible Church to put them into her Offices if they were true why doth she now reject them And it is observable that the Roman Church at present pretends but to very few Miracles and the Doctors thereof in this knowing Age are very shy of believing any at all as one of your own Priests proves at large The Reason of which must needs be because they fear this Inquisitive and learned Generation should discover the fraud of them For since Miracles are especially necessary to convince unbelievers there is far more need of them since the Reformation when so many disbelieve the Religion of your Church than was before when all the Nations of the West were at the Devotion thereof Yet then many Miracles are recorded and now few or none an Argument sufficient to make a wary man believe there were few real Miracles at any time since the settlement of Christianity only the superstitious and ignorant credulity of the former Ages was fit to be abused with such Pretences And now why are you so stiff in maintaining those Opinions which were believed at first upon so slight and false inducements as these Legends and Miracles are confessed to be But this Argument is of late so fully handled by two excellent Pens that I may dismiss it with my hearty wish you would read those Tracts without Prejudice being not written to abuse real Religion as some tell you but to undeceive you and unmask that hypocrisie which hath long walked in the venerable Mantle of Truth Nor ought you to be angry at the Relators but at the Inventors of such falshoods who have got many fair Houses and Lands vast sums of Mony and innumerable costly Oblations by these Fictions to the scandal of Christianity it self My second instance shall be of the Artifice of Forging Records for to attest their Novel Doctrines especially that of the Pope's Supremacy they put out divers spurious Tracts under illustrious names which served to wheadle an illiterate Age into a Reverence for the Roman Church and her Opinions whereas now the cheat is so palpable that your modern Doctors though they keep the Conclusions disown those feigned books that were the Premises from whence they were inferred Of this nature are the Decretal Epistles of all the Popes from Clemens down to Pope Syricius An. 385. formerly cited as good Authorities and transcribed some parts of them into your Canon Law but now the most learned Romanists confess a great part of them to be meer forgeries Baronius styles divers of them Apocryphal And Cardinal Cusanus saith That being applied to the times of those Holy men they do betray themselves And indeed these Epistles were never cited by any good old Author and were first brought into France by one Riculfus Arch. B. of Ments five hundred years after those Popes were dead as Hincmarus Arch. B. of Rhemes a Writer of that Age affirms and Baronius also confesseth Nor did the Roman See blush some Centuries ago to alledge for its Supremacy the most fabulous Donation of Constantine the Great wherein he is pretended to make the Pope head over the whole Church and superiour to all the four Patriarchs of the East naming Constantinople for one which City was not yet built giving him in fee the City of Rome and all Italy with all the Provinces of the Western Empire though he gave all these to one of his Sons afterwards This senseless Edict was pleaded by several of the Popes in former times to countenance their ambitious pretences and of Old was received without suspicion by the gravest and learnedst Doctors saith Binius who yet confesseth there it was a meer forgery devised he thinks by the Greeks and now adaies all Romanists generally disown it and indeed it is as ridiculous a forgery as ever the world saw My Brevity will not allow me to enlarge upon this Subject otherwise I could add innumerable Examples of like dealing The absurd Council of Sinuessa The monstrous Recognitions of Clement The threescore new Canons father'd by Turrian and others upon the famous General Council of Nice The Pontifical ascribed to Pope Damasus with innumerable other Tracts of the same Metal being all apparent Forgeries and yet were long countenanced by Rome to support her unjust Supremacy and other Innovations My third Instance shall be of Suppressing or corrupting true Records of which take a few Examples The Legates of Rome within less than a hundred years after the general Council of Nice did produce two Canons to prove the Popes Right
to receive Appeals in a famous Council of Carthage An. 419. which Canons they pretended were made in the aforesaid Nicene Council but these Canons wholly differed from all the best Manuscripts of that Council then extant particularly from two eminent ones which the African Fathers sent for from Constantinople and Alexandria nor do they agree with those genuine Editions of the Nicene Council now extant and indeed the Council of Carthage received not these pretended Canons of Nice but esteemed them to have been corrupted as we do at this day Not long after to abet the Roman Supremacy Pope Leo writing to Theodosius the Emperor cites a Canon of a particular and dubious Council at Sardiâ—a of later Date and less Authority affirming it to be a Canon of the general Council at Nice The Edition of the Councils put out by Dionysius Exiguus about An. 520. being for a long time the sole approved Copy extant in these parts of the World doth in favour of the Popes Supremacy leave out divers Canons even of General Councils which seem to make against it though the said Canons are recorded in Zonaras and Balsamon and in this Age confessed to have been made in those Councils by the Romanists themselves but in the Time when the Supremacy was in hatching it was not thought expedient those Canons should be known It were endless to reckon up all the Additions Diminutions and Alterations which all the Roman Editions of the Councils since are guilty of and because an ingenious Essay hath been made that way by a late Author I shall refer my Reader thither and out of infinite Examples conclude with one Evident piece of Falsification The xxxv Canon of the Council of Laodicea Forbids the faithful to call on the name of Angels which being a condemnation of the Doctrine and Practice of Rome in Praying to Angels The Later Editions of this Council have impudently put in Angulos Angles or Corners instead of Angelos Angels though all the Greek Copies and Fathers read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and all the old Latin Exemplars have Angelos Yea Pope Adrian himself before this worship of Angels came up read it Angelos in that Epitome of Canons which he sent to Charles the Great An. 773. Thus they corrupt the Councils to suit them to their own Opinions Nor have single Fathers and Ancient Authors fared better S. Cyprian put out by Pamelius is altered in many places contrary to the Ancient Copies for Example where the Father saith the Church is founded Super Petram Pamelius changes it into Super Petrum upon Peter instead of upon a Rock And Ludovicus Vives a Romanist assures us that there are Ten or Twelve lines positively asserting Purgatory put into the Printed Copies of S. Aug. de Civitate Dei lib. 21. cap. 24. contrary to the Ancient Manuscripts Fulbertus Carnotensis quotes S. August saying of the Sacramental bread This then is a figure the Roman Editions put in As a Heretick will say when indeed S. Augustine says so and speaks his own sense Aimonius speaking of the Eighth Council saith They determined about Images otherwise than the Orthodox Fathers had Decreed and so Baronius reads But the Modern Printed Copies quite contrary put in according as the Orthodox Fathers had Decreed But why do I stand upon particular Instances This wickedness which all other men account the same Villany with suborning false Witnesses stopping the mouths of the True and counterfeiting Hands and Seals is owned by the present Church of Rome And Sixtus Senensis doth highly extol Pope Pius 5 th for his most holy Decree to burn all Books which were accounted Heretical To purge and cleanse all Catholick Authors and especially the Writings of the Fathers Now in what manner they effect this most holy work the Belâ—ick Inquisitors appointed by the Roman See shall tell you We strike out say they many Errors in other of the Ancients we extenuate and excuse them or by feigning a Commentitious gloss either deny or fix a commodious sense to their words Thus they served S. Ambrose his works cancelling and altering whole pages together contrary to all the Old Manuscripts as appeared by the Original Papers which Savarius the Stationer shewed to Francis Junius according to which the Inquisitors had ordered him to Print that Edition Lugdun An. 1559. Thus they left the story of Pope Joan out of the Copies of Anastasius Biblioth though the Manuscripts had the said story in them as Marquar Freherus testified who lent them the said Manuscripts And I might fill a Volume with Instances of like unjust dealings but I will only add the memorable account which Boxhornius one of your Divinity Professors at Lovain gives of himself viz. That he having been employed by the Inquisitors to strike out at least six hundred places of the Ancients which seemed to make against the Roman Doctrines was so troubled in mind upon it that it was an occasion of his turning Protestant and made him resolve to quit that Religion which could not defend it self without such manifest Impostures And I wish the consideration thereof might have the same effect upon you for the matter of Fact is so evident that the Index Expurgatorius the Book which directs these Falsifications is now come into Protestant hands to the eternal Infamy of the Roman Church whose people cannot rationally trust to any Author which comes through their Priests dishonest hands And since false Books are invented true and genuine Writers altered and corrupted or else wholly prohibited if they seem to make against them for which cause Clement 8 th puts the Bible into his Index of prohibited Books and all Editions but their own condemned and burnt by the Roman Church the people must needs be deluded into a perswasion that all these New Doctrines are Primitive Truths when indeed this abominable Forging evidently shews that the Pope and his Conclave think that both Scripture and Antiquity do make against these Innovations and would discover the Imposture if they were suffered to speak out to whom I may justly apply the words of Arnobius To intercept what is written and to design to smother published Records is not to defend the Gods but to fear the Testimony of the Truth And because Good men as S. Augustine saith will not deceive but neither good nor evil men would willingly be deceived I may suppose that the most Devoted Romanists cannot but discern how unsafe he is in believing as those men teach him who make no Conscience to invent impose and pretend things never so false provided they may thereby advance their Churches Interest or their own private ends They who dare write Lies will not be afraid to speak them and they who corrupt the Remains of the Holy Saints deceased are not to be trusted with the Souls of the living And whoever gives himself up to such Guides unnaturally
own Liberty and men of an un-inslaved Understanding SECTION VII Advice to the English Catholicks to forsake the Opinions of Rome and embrace the Religion of the Church of England TO Conclude as my pity to see you so miserably imposed on hath moved me to endeavour by these plain and Cogent Arguments to rescue you from that yoke which neither we nor our Fathers were able to bear So my desire of your perfect Freedom and my unfeigned wishes for your Temporal Spiritual and Eternal welfare do prompt me to advise you to comply with the Religion of the Church of England and this Advice is not only grounded upon the foregoing considerations but may be further pressed upon these motives 1. If you consider the excellent method of our Reformation which was so necessary at that time that for some Ages before the wisest and best men of the Roman Church had not only confessed there was great need of it but had complained for want thereof and pressed the Pope earnestly thereunto witness the Judicious Epistle of Rob. Grosthead that pious Bish of Lincoln to Pope Innocent the Fourth yet to be seen in our Historians the publick complaint of the English Church in the Council of Lyons the private Writings of John Gerson Nich. Clemangis Aeneas Sylvius afterwards Pope and many others And at least One Hundred Years before Luthers time a Reformation was urged for in the Pisane Council and that so strongly that before the Election of a Pope the Cardinals solemnly promised Who ever of them should be chosen Pope that he would before the dissolution of that Council Reform the Catholick Church as well in the Head as the Members And when Alexander the Fifth was chosen He promised to take Care of a General Reformation and that pious and Learned Men should be chosen in every Nation to treat with the Cardinals about it But after all neither he nor his Successors would ever Reform either their Doctrines or Practices being more intent upon their private advantage than the general good and more moved with Cardinal Scombergs Counsel than by all the former complaints who told the Pope That by the Reformation it would be confessed that the things provided against were deservedly reproved by the Lutherans which would be a great abetting to their whole Doctrine Hist Counc Trent l. 1. p. 83. which is to resolve to Err always rather than to be thought to have once erred and herein the Roman Church is of the same humour with those Gentiles to whom Arnobius speaks What you have once done without reason ye defend lest you should seem formerly to have been ignorant and you account it better not to be overcome than to yield to plain and confessed Truth Wherefore since Rome resolved not to Reform England having first restored her King to his Ancient and just Supremacy resolved to reform it self without the Popes leave or consent knowing full well they had Authority sufficient among themselves to order the Affairs of Religion which had been Regulated many Hundred years in this Land by the King and his own Bishops without any dependence on the Pope at all Thus the Kings of Judah reformed their Kingdoms of Old Thus the King of Spain with Leander Bishop of Sevil reformed that Kingdom from Arianism without the Pope and thus King Edgar intended to proceed in the Reformation of the English Church of Old when he told his own Clergy I have Constantines Sword in my hands and you have Peters in yours That is we need no further Authority or power to reform Than what we have within our selves The Kings of this Nation with the advice and consent of their Bishops Barons and Commons had been always wont to order Ecclesiastical affairs as they thought meet not heeding whether the Pope were pleased or displeased thereat And accordingly this happy Reformation was made by the Supreme Power of this Kingdom upon mature deliberation in a Regular Orderly and Legal way and it was managed with so much moderation and prudence that the Romanists of England said little against it but Communicated with this Church after the Reformation till the Pope for his own ends forbid them so to do but I hope his Prohibition without any just reason shall not outweigh the Supreme Authority of your own Nation with you who profess your selves to be Loyal Subjects and for the interest of England and since there was such need of Reformation such obstinacy in Rome such Authority here and so orderly proceedings in this Reformation I think all Good Christians and sober men being Natives of this Land ought to submit unto it II. You will be further perswaded hereunto by considering the Doctrine of this Church which agrees with Primitive Christianity in that it obliges you to believe nothing as of necessity to Salvation but what may be plainly proved our of Holy Scripture and for this reason you must still hold the three Creeds of the Apostles of Nice and of Saint Athanasius all which the Church of England intirely believes And he only is a Heretick which follows not this Holy Rule say the Constitutions of Theodosius and Gratian but they are Catholicks that embrace it In this Church we give as much honour to and obey more Canons of the first Four General Councils than they of Rome do we approve of that Exposition of Scripture which hath the consent of the Fathers of the first three or four Centuries yea we hold all that the Church of Rome it self held as necessary to Salvation for Five or Six hundred Years together and it is very remarkable that a Romanist may turn Protestant without adding any one Article to his Faith but a Protestant cannot turn to Rome unless he embrace many new Articles for our Doctrines are generally confessed by both sides to be true but those of the Roman Church are rejected by our Reformers as Novel Additions and such as have no good foundation in Scripture nor Genuine Antiquity And therefore the Protestant Doctrines are the surer and safer as in which both sides agree For Example we and they both hold there are two States after this life Heaven and Hell but they add a third which is Purgatory and this we deny We and they both say that sins are to be remitted by the merits of Christs death but they add the merits of the Saints and their own satisfactions with the merit of their own good works which we deny to be Expiatory or such as can merit Remission for us We hold there be two Sacraments Baptism and the Eucharist these they confess are the Chief but add Five more to which we affirm the name of Sacraments doth not properly belong We say that God alone is to be worshipped they confess he is chiefly to be worshipped but then they say the Blessed Virgin Mary Angels and Saints are to be worshipped also which Additions we deny We say Christ is our only Mediator and Advocate
better assurances of your Salvation hereafter than the Roman Church can give you For there you have only the words of their Priests for it whose interest and whose practice it hath been to deceive you But here you shall have all the assurances which the word of God can give you provided you become reformed in your lives as well as in your Religion and will leave off your old Vices as well as your old Opinions For unless we can perswade you to become Proselytes of Righteousness we shall not much value the gaining you over to our Profession because we know it is neither the being Papist nor Protestant will save those that live in their sins But this Religion is the better chiefly in this that it is most likely to bring you to unfeigned Repentance and the practice of real Holiness And if you desire further information in these particulars let me advise you to consult the late Eminent Protestant Writers together with some of the most able and ingenuous of the English Clergy whom you will find very willing and ready to give you more full satisfaction and to be men that have no designs upon you but to direct you in the best way to Heaven And doubtless if you would but try the difference a while a little experience would teach you how happy and advantagious a change he makes who forsakes the Religion of Rome and embraces the Communion of the Church of England FINIS A Catalogue of some Books Printed for and sold by H. Brome since the dreadful Fire of London 1666. to 1677. Divinity DR Hammond on the New Testament fol. his Practical Tracts fol. Mr. Farindons 130 Sermons fol. Newman's Concordance fol. Bishop Sanderson's Sermons fol. Dr. Heylin on the Creed fol. Bishop Taylor 's Cases of Conscience fol. His Polemical Discourses fol. Mr. Cumber's Companion to the Temple being a Paraphrase on the Common Prayer Bishop Wilkins Principles and Duties of Natural Religion Bishop Cosen's Devotions Bishop Taylor 's Holy Living and Dying Mr. Fowler 's Design of Christianity Dr. Patrick's Witnesses to Christianity His Advice to a Friend in Two Vol. His Christian Sacrifice His Devout Christian Holy Anthems of the Church The Saints Legacies The Reformed Monastery or the Love of Jesus Bona's Guide to Eternity Sermons Dean Lloyd's Two Sermons at Court Dr. Sprat's Sermon at Court Bishop Lany's Sermon at Court Mr. Sayer's Assize Sermon Mr. Naylor's Con. Sermon for Col. Cavendish Mr. Standish's Sermon at Court Dr. Duporâ—'s Three Sermons on May 29th Novemb 5th Jan. 30th Dr. Du Monlin's Two Sermons on Novemb. 5 th His Sermon at the Funeral of Dr. Turner Histories The Life of the great Duke of Espernon being the History of the Civil Wars of France beginning 1598. where D'Avila leaves off and ending in 1642. by Charles Cotton Esq The Commentary of M. Elaiz de Monâ—â—uc the great Favourite of France in which are contained all the Sieges Battails Skirmishes in Three King's Reigns by Charles Cotton Esq Mr. Rycants History of Turky The History of the Three last Grand Seigniors their Sultana's and Chief Favourites Englisht by John Evelin Esq The History of Don Quixot fol. Bishop Wilkin's Real Character fol. Bishop Cosens against Transubstantiation Dr. Guidots History of Bathe and of the Hot Waters there The Fair one of Tunis or a New piece of Gallantry by Charles Cotton Esq Domus Carthusiana â—or the History of the most Noble Foundation of the Coarter House in London with the Life and Death of Thomas Su ton Esq The History of the Sevarites a Nation inhabiting part of the third Continent Physick Dr. Glissonde Ventriculo Intestinis De Vita Naturae Dr. Barber's Practice with Dr. Decker's Notes Sir Ken. Digby's Excellent Receipts in Physick Chirurgery and Cockery The Anatomy of the Elder Tree with its approved Vertue Miscellanies Dr. Skinner's Lexicon History of the Irish Remonstrance Lord Bacon's Advancement of Learning The Planters Manual Treatise of Human Reason The Compleat Gamester Toleration discuss'd by R. L' Estrange Esq England ' s Improvement by R. Coke Esq Leyburn's Arith. Recreations Geographical Cards describing all parts of the World School Books Sâ—revelius Lexicon in Quarto Centum Fabulae in Octavo Nolens Volens or you shall make Latine Radyns Rudimenta Artis Oratoriae Pools Parnassus The Schollars Guide from the Accedence to the University Erasmus Coll. English Lipsius of Constancy English Controversies Considerations touching the true way to suppress Popery to which is added an Historical account of the Reformation here in England Lex Talionis being an Answer to Naked Truth The Papists Apology answered A Seasonable Discourse against Popery The Defence of it The difference between the Church and Court of Rome Take heed of both extreams Popery and Presbytery by Mr. Bolein Dr. Du Moulin against the Lord Castlemain Against Papal Tyranny Fourteen Controversial Letters against Popery Papists no Catholicks Popery no Christianity Mr. Gataker against the Papists A Calm Answer to a Violent Discourse of M. N. for the Invocation of Saints Origo Protestantiâ—m Or an Answer to a Popish Manuscript of N. N's by John Shaw Rector of Whalton Law Books Lord Cokes Reports in Four Vol. Sir James Dyer's Reports The Clerks Guide The Exact Constable with large Additions FINIS a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apud Athenaeum a Tertul. Apol. cap. 32. b Arrian in Epict. l. 2. c. 14. c Diog. Laert in Vit. Solon a Cicer. de natur Deor. lib. 2. b Theodoret. de Curand Graec. affect Serm. 1. c Tertul. in Marcioâ— lib. 4. d Cyprian ad Caecilian Ep. 63. e Salmeron in 1 Tim. cap. 2. Lindan Panop l. 3. c. 5. Bannes 2. 2 ae qu. 1. Art 10. conclus 2. f Hugo Etherian de regressu animae g Durand 4. Sent. dist 20. qu. 3. Major 4. d. 2. qu. 2. Cajetan Opusc 15. cap. 1. Antonin part 1. sum tit 10. cap. 3. h Fisher de Captiv Babyl c. 10. De Alliaco in 4. Sent. qu. 6. art 1. Cajetan ap Suarez Tom. 3. disp 46. * Ranul Higden Polychron l. 6. c. 15. Petrus Damian Vit. Odilon i Clemangis de nov Celebr II. Polydor. Virgil de Invent. rer l. 6. Aiala de Tradit p. 2. c. de Imag. k Concil secundum Nicaen An. 787. l Hoveden Annal Par. 1 p. 405. Matth. Westmon Anno. 793. m Fish in 18. Artic. Luther n Scioppius de Indulg cap. 12. o Platin. in Vit. Polyd. Virgil. de Invent. l. 8. cap. 1. p Temp. Bonifac 8. An. 1300. Polyd. Virg. ut supra l. 8. c. 1. q An. 1074. Matth. Westmon eod An. Vincent Spec. hist l. 24. c. 45. Antonin lib. 16. cap. 1. §. 21. r Sigebert Chron. ad A. 1074. s Histor. Petroburg Anno 1127. ap Spelm. T. 2. p. 36. t Concil Later Can. 21. An. 1215. u Peter Lomb. l. 4. sentent dist 77. Gratian. de Poenit. dist 1. c. 89. circ An. 1150 w Tho. Aqu. in 4. Sent. dist 17. x Gregor de Valent. de Transub lib.
Old Religion which God revealed at first and which Christ and his Apostles taught That is truest which was the first saith Tertullian and that was first which was from the beginning So S. Cyprian We ought not to regard so much what some others before us have thought fit as what Christ himself who was before all hath done Now if that be the Old Religion which is taught in the Holy Scripture and the Creed herein the Religion of Rome cannot pretend to be Older than the Religion of this Church because we hold all these Articles as well as they yea if the case be rightly stated the Church of Englands Faith is the Old Religion and not that of Rome for she professeth To believe nothing as an Article of Faith but what is read in Holy Scripture or may be proved thereby Artic vi But the Roman Church declares They receive Traditions with the same veneration that they do the Scriptures Concil Trident. Sess 4. So that we hold all the Principles of the Old Religion and no other but they under the pretence of Traditions have invented and added many points to the Old Religion which are not mentioned in the Bible and Decreed other Articles contrary to the Old Religion recorded in Scripture and all these are a New Religion and yet these are the Doctrines in which we differ In all the Principles which are truly the Old Religion we and they generally do agree but if you take the Religion of the Roman Church for the Doctrines in which they differ from us it may be justly said they are of the New Religion and we of the Old since our Religion was recorded in Scripture sixteen hundred years ago as our Adversaries seem to confess when they call us Scriptuarii Scripture-men Prateol whereas all that which is properly their Religion is of much later Date And that I may not be thought to invent this Charge or to accuse the Roman Church wrongfully I will instance in the most principal of the Doctrines wherein we differ and bring in your own Doctors as Witnesses of this Truth 1. That Prayers to the Saints are not mentioned by Christ nor his Apostles is confessed by Salmeron Lindan and Bannes Etherianus saith as much of Prayers for the Dead Indulgences are not to be found in Scripture nor in the Ancient Doctors say Durandus Major Cajetan and Antoninus Transubstantiation it self cannot be proved by Scripture if you will take three Cardinals words for it And if our designed brevity would allow it the like might be proved of all the rest But we must proceed to shew there are some New things in the Romish Religion directly contrary to the Scripture The taking the Cup from the Laity is contrary to our Saviours Institution as that very Council of Constance confesseth which first enjoyned it for they say the Sacrament shall be given in one kind only to the people Non obstante c. notwithstanding our Lord did appoint it in both Concil Constant Sess 13. And your own Authentick Vulgar Translation as if this Innovation had been foreseen where the Greek only hath We are all partakers of one bread adds de uno Calice and of one Cup 1 Cor. 10. 17. The Veneration which you give to Images seems to all impartial eyes directly contrary to the Second Commandement and though your Priests will not directly confess it yet their general leaving out the Second Commandement in your Catechisms and cutting the Tenth in Two to keep up the number and conceal the omission from the Vulgar is a fair Evidence they themselves suspected that this Commandement made against them and feared others would apprehend it so To these you may add Praying in an unknown Tongue which S. Paul condemns in one whole Chapter 1 Corinth xiv as some of your own Commentators on the place confess As also the making Saints and Angels your Mediators to God when the same Apostle positively saith There is but one Mediator viz. Christ Jesus 1 Tim. ii 5. All these therefore cannot rightly be accounted any part of the Old Religion properly so called But if we shall descend lower these and many other Points of your Religion are so far from being the Old Religion that the Writers of the Roman Church do acknowledge they were not known to the Primitive Fathers yea they record the very time when most of them were imposed The Doctrine of Purgatory was first built upon the Credit of those fabulous Dialogues attributed to Gregory the First or if they were his which many doubt this was six hundred years after Christ and it was not generally believed in the Church five hundred years after as we learn from an Old Historian Otto Frising Chronic. An. 1146. And as for the Prayers made to deliver Souls from thence that gainful Article of your Church we are told by your own Authors that the first who caused them to be appointed by your Church was Odilo Abbot of Clugny An. 1000. The worshipping of God by Images was not allowed by the Ancient Fathers say your own Authors Clemangis Polyd. Virgil and Peresius Aiala And all men know this kind of use of Images can be derived no higher as to its being Decreed than that despicable Council in the Eighth Century but both the Doctrine and the Council also was rejected for many years after by the French English and German Churches Indulgences are not Ancient as Bishop Fisher confesses Nor is there any good proof in your own Authors for them before the time of Pope Alexander 3. A. 1160 or the Council of Clermont however An. 1096 And the first who made Mony of them was Boniface 9 th An. 1390. as Platina and Polydore Virgil tell us And the first Jubilee the great Market for them was not an hundred years before The forcing all Priests to vow Single Life and renounce their Wives was first obtruded upon the Church by Pope Hildebrand Without any Precedent saith an Old Historian and as many thought of an indiscreet Zeal contrary to the Holy Fathers Opinion And yet he was not obeyed here in England in this for above a hundred years after for our Ancient Records say All these Decrees availed nothing for the Priests by the Kings consent still had their Wives as formerly Auricular Confession to a Priest was never imposed as necessary until the Lateran Council It being little above fifty years before that we are informed by the famous Master of the Sentences and by Gratian your great compiler of the Decrees that it was in our choice whether we would confess to God only or to the Priest also and T. Aquinas confesseth this was the Opinion then Transubstantiation the discriminating Doctrine of your present Church was not held by the Fathers as your own Doctors acknowledge and one of the Infallible Heads of your Church affirms That the Elements cease not to be of
the substance and nature of Bread and Wine The Schoolmen confess Transubstantiation is not Ancient And two of the most famous of them plainly deny it The Administring the Sacrament in One kind is no older than the Council of Constance as was noted before the practice of the whole Church and of Rome it self being otherwise till then Finally many things were never decreed and imposed as necessary to be believed till the late Council of Trent such as the equalling Apocryphal books and Traditions to the undoubted Canon of Scripture Justification by the merit of Good works c. Which Council of Trent was never fully owned by the Catholicks of France Nor was it ever received as a lawful Council by this English Nation It would be too tedious to run over all the rest of those Points wherein the Roman differs from the English Church or else it might be shewed that the Appeals to Rome and the Pope's Vniversal claim Veneration of Relicks Invocation of the Blessed Virgin Pilgrimages c. were wholly unknown to the three first Centuries as the ingenuous Romanists will confess and our Writers have largely proved By all which it appears that the Old Religion of Rome for the first three hundred years had no formal Invocation of Saints nor Angels no Purgatory nor Prayers to be delivered thence no Images no Transubstantiation no half Communion no Jubilees no Indulgences ' no constrained Coelibate no Prayers in an unknown Tongue no customary Auricular Confession no Apocrypha in her Canon of Scripture nor the rest Now if you strip your Church of these Doctrines she retains scarce any thing but the Protestant Articles of the Church of England But if you take Rome with these Additions her Religion is not so Old by far as the Religion of this Church Perhaps it will be pretended Though these Decrees were made in later Ages yet the Determinations were made by vertue of Apostolical Traditions preserved in the Roman Church from the very beginning and upon this Pretence your Late Writers of Controversie have generally laid aside all Arguments from Scripture and Ancient Fathers and resolve all into Oral Tradition and the Infallibility of the Roman Church But what is this but to confess that the Scriptures the Ancient Fathers and all written Records which are Impartial witnesses do make against them only these unknown Traditions which are only in their own keeping and may be of their own devising these they say bear witness for them which is to make themselves Judges in their own Cause and may justly occasion your enquiry whether the former Popes knew of these Traditions or no if not how then came the later Popes to the knowledge of them If they knew of them of old why did they let them sleep so long and suffer the Church to erre for so many years for want of them Did they discharge their Vniversal Headship well in this Concealment But in very truth it is Evident the first Popes knew of no such Traditions and the later Popes have invented them to support their New designs which appears by the Ancient Popes declaring directly contrary to these pretended Apostolical Traditions of which take a few Examples Pope Gaius writes That the Righteousness of the Saints avails nothing to our Pardon or Justification Pope Gelasius denies Transubstantiation as was noted just now The famous Gregory the Great saith He himself was the Emperors Servant and owed him obedience and declares That God had given the Emperor power over Priests as well as others The same Pope disowns the Title of Vniversal Bishop as unfit for him or any other He also determines that it is lawful for Priests who cannot contain to marry And he allows Images for History and Memory only A later than he also in the Canon Law Decrees that in such Diocess where there be people of Divers Languages The Bishop shall provide fit men to celebrate Divine offices and Minister the Sacraments of the Church according to the diversity of Rites and variety of their Languages Decretal Greg. l. 1. Tit. 31. cap. 14. The aforesaid Pope Gregory the First affirms that the Book of Maccabees is not Canonical And as well the Ordinary Gloss as the Old Editions of the Bibles which were allowed by the Roman Bishops and used in that Church before the Council of Trent do all distinguish between the Canonical Books and those which the Protestant Church now call Apocrypha Yet the contrary to all these hath been afterwards decreed upon pretence of being Apostolical Traditions By which account you may see if your Prejudices hinder not that the present Roman Church as it differs from the Church of England retains neither the Old Religion of the Scriptures nor that of the Primitive Church in general nay nor that of the Ancient Church of Rome for they have omitted some Points added others and altered so many that though Rome keep the Old Name it doth not keep the Old Faith We may now seek Rome in the midst of Rome as Juvencus Vitalis said Nor can it be denied saith Another but the Roman Church is not a little different from its Ancient beauty and splendor There is not the Faith the Manners nor the Worship of the Primitive Roman Church and therefore according to S. Ambrose They that have not Peter ' s Faith cannot succeed to Peter ' s Inheritance and as S. Hierome observes They are not the Sons of the Saints who possess their places but they which follow their Works And That only saith Lactantius is the Catholick Church which retains the true Worship of God You might have seen and heard in Rome of Old a Bishop without a Triple Crown or the Title of Vniversal Churches without Images Priests under no Vows of Single life Litanies without any names of Saints or Ora pro nobis the Mass celebrated in a known Tongue Bibles calling divers books Apocrypha which are now reckoned Canonical Scripture People not enslaved by Auricular Confession not debarred of the Cup not frighted with Purgatory nor impoverished with purchasing Prayers and Indulgences to save them from thence c. To conclude therefore Why may you not justly desert them who have in so many things departed from the Old Religion taught by Christ and his Apostles believed by the Ancient Fathers and received by the first and best Bishops of that same Church If you desire to be really of the Old Religion nay if you would hold the Faith of the Primitive Roman Church you may come much nearer to it by embracing the Religion of your own Country than by retaining the Opinions of the Modern Church of Rome which are most of them meer Innovations And though you have reverenced them while you supposed them Ancient and Apostolical yet we hope you will now renounce them when they are evidently discovered to be Gibeonites disguised on purpose to deceive and
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