the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament and I know no warrant for any other religion and if you will expect I should shew any society of men who professed all the doctrines which are now expressed in the confession of the Church of England I shall tell you it is unreasonable because some of our truths are now brought into our publick confessions that they might be oppos'd against your errors before the occasion of which there was no need of any such confessions till you made many things necessary to be professed which are not lawfull to be believed For if we believe your superinduc'd follies we shall do unreasonably unconscionably and wickedly but the questions themselves are so uselesse abstracting from the accidental necessity which your follies have brought upon us that it had been happy if we had never heard of them more then the Saints and Martyrs did in the first ages of the Church but because your Clergy have invaded the liberty of the Church and multiplyed the dangers of damnation and pretend new necessities and have introduc'd new articles and affright the simple upon new pretensions and slight the very institution and the Commands of Christ and of the Apostles and invent new Sacramentals constituting Ceremonies of their own head and promise grace along with the use of them as if they were not Ministers but Lords of the Spirit and teach for doctrines the commandments of men and make void the Commandment of God by their tradition and have made a strange body of Divinity therefore it is necessary that we should immure our Faith by the refusal of such vain and superstitious dreams but our faith was completed at first it is no other then that which was delivered to the Saints and can be no more for ever So that it is a foolish demand to require that we should shew before Luther a systeme of Articles declaring our sense in these questions It was long before they were questions at all and when they were made questions they remained so a long time and when by their severall pieces they were determined this part of the Church was oppressed with a violent power and when God gave opportunity then the yoke was broken and this is the whole progresse of this affair But if you will still insist upon it then let the matter be put into equall ballances and let them shew any Church whose confession of Faith was such as was obtruded upon you at Trent and if your Religion be Pius Quartus his Creed at Trent then we also have a question to ask and that is Where was your Religion before Trent The Councel of Trent determined that the souls departed before the day of Judgment enjoy the Beatificall Vision It is certain this Article could not be shewn in the Confession of any of the ancient Churches for most of the Fathers were of another opinion But that which is the greatest offence of Christendome is not only that these doctrines which we say are false were yet affirmed but that those things which the Church of God did alwayes reject or held as Uncertain should be made Articles of Faith and so become parts of your religion and of these it is that I again ask the question which none of your side shall ever be able to answer for you Where was your Religion before Trent I could instance in many particulars but I shall name one to you which because the thing of it self is of no great consequence it will appear the more unreasonable and intolerable that your Church should adopt it into the things of necessary belief especially since it was onely a matter of fact and they took the false part too For in the 21. Sess Chap. 4. it is affirmed That although the holy Fathers did give the Sacrament of the Eucharist to Infants yet they did it without any necessity of salvation that is they did not believe it necessary to their salvation which is notoriously false and the contrary is marked out with the black-lead of every man almost that reads their Works and yet your Councel sayes this is sine controversiâ credendum to be believed without all controversie and all Christians forbidden to believe or teach otherwise So that here it is made an Article of Faith amongst you that a man shall neither believe his reason nor his eyes and who can shew any confession of Faith in which all the Trent doctrine was professed and enjoyned under pain of damnation De potest Eccles cons 12. and before the Councel of Constance the doctrine touching the Popes power was so new so decried that as Gerson sayes he hardly should have escaped the note of Heresie that would have said so much as was there defined so that in that Article which now makes a great part of your belief where was your Religion before the Councel of Constance and it is notorious that your Councel of Constance determined the doctrine of the half communion with a Non obstante to Christs institution that is with a defiance to it or a noted observed neglect of it and with a profession it was otherwise in the Primitive Church Where then was your Religion before John Hus and Hierom of Pragues time against whom that Councel was convened But by this instance it appears most certainly that your Church cannot shew her confessions immediately after Christ and therefore if we could not shew ours immediately before Luther it were not halfe so much for since you receded from Christs Doctrine we might well recede from yours and it matters not who or how many or how long they professed your doctrine if neither Christ nor his Apostles did teach it so that if these Articles constitute your Church your Church was invisible at the first and if ours was invisible afterwards it matters not For yours was invisible in the dayes of light and ours was invisible in the dayes of darknesse For our Church was alwayes visible in the reflections of Scripture and he that had his eyes of faith and reason might easily have seen these truths all the way which constitute our Church But I adde yet farther that our Church before Luther was there where your Church was in the same place and in the same persons for divers of the errors which have been amongst us reformed were not the constituent Articles of your Church before Luthers time for before the last Councels of your Church a man might have been of your Communion upon easier terms and Indulgences were indeed a practice but no Article of Faith before your men made it so and that very lately and so were many other things besides So that although your men cozen the credulous and the simple by calling yours The old Religion yet the difference is vast between Truth and their affirmative even as much as between old Errors and new Articles For although Ignorance and Superstition had prepared the oare yet the Councels of Constance and Basil and Trent especially
Subjects and the Article of the Catholike Church was made up to dispark the inclosures of Jerusalem but to turn them into the pale of Rome and the Church is as limited as ever it was save onely that the Synagogue is translated to Rome which I think you will easily beleeve was a Proposition the Apostles understood not But though it be hard to trust to it it is also so hard to prove it that you shall never be able to understand the measures of that question and therefore your salvation can never depend upon it For no good or wise person can beleeve that God hath tyed our Salvation to impossible measures or bound us to an Article that is not by us cognoscible or intends to have us conducted by that which we cannot understand and when you shall know that Learned men even of the Romane party are not agreed concerning the Catholique Church that is infallibly to guide you some saying that it is the virtual Church that is the Pope some that it is the representative Church that is a Councel Some that it is the Pope and the Councel the virtual Church and the representative Church together Some that neither of these nor both together are infallible but onely the essentiall Church or the diffusive Church is the Catholique from whom we must at no hand dissent you will quickly find your self in a wood and uncertain whether you have more then a word in exchange for your soul when you are told you are in the Catholique Church But I will tell you what you may understand and see and feel something that your self can tell whether I say true or no concerning it You are now gone to a Church that protects it self by arts of subtilty and arms by violence and persecuting all that are not of their minds to a Church in which you are to be a Subject of the King so long as it pleases the Pope In which you may be absolved from your Vows made to God your Oathes to the King your Promises to Men your duty to your Parents in some cases A Church in which men pray to God and to Saints in the same Form of words in which they pray to God as you may see in the Offices of Saints and particularly of our Lady a Church in which men are taught by most of the principal Leaders to worship Images with the same worship with which they worship God and Christ or him or her whose Image it is and in which they usually picture God the Father and the holy Trinity to the great dishonour of that sacred mysterie against the doctrine and practice of the Primitive Church against the expresse doctrine of Scripture against the honour of a Divine Attribute I mean the immensity and spirituality of the Divine Nature You are gone to a Church that pretends to be Infallible and yet is infinitely deceived in many particulars and yet endures no contradiction and is impatient her children should enquire into any thing her Priests obtrude You are gone from receiving the whole Sacrament to receive it but half from Christs Institution to a humane invention from Scripture to uncertain Traditions and from ancient Traditions to new pretences from prayers which ye undestood to prayers which ye understand not from confidence in God to rely upon creatures from intire dependence upon inward acts to a dangerous temptation of resting too much in outward ministeries in the externall work of Sacraments and of Sacramentals You are gone from a Church whose worshipping is simple Christian and Apostolical to a Church where mens consciences are loaden with a burden of Ceremonies greater then that in the dayes of the Jewish Religion for the Ceremonial of the Church of Rome is a great Book in Folio greater I say then all the Ceremonies of the Jews contained in Leviticus c. You are gone from a Church where you were exhorted to read the Word of God the holy Scriptures from whence you found instruction institution comfort reproof a treasure of all excellencies to a Church that seals up that fountain from you and gives you drink by drops out of such Cisterns as they first make and then stain and then reach out and if it be told you that some men abuse Scripture it is true for if your Priests had not abused Scripture they could not thus have abused you but there is no necessity they should and you need not unlesse you list any more then you need to abuse the Sacraments or decrees of the Church or the messages of your friend or the Letters you receive or the Laws of the Land all which are liable to be abused by evil persons but not by good people and modest understandings It is now become a part of your Religion to be ignorant to walk in blindnesse to believe the man that hears your Confessions to hear none but him not to hear God speaking but by him and so you are liable to be abused by him as he please without remedy You are gone from us where you were onely taught to worship God through Jesus Christ and now you are taught to worship Saints and Angels with a worship at least dangerous and in some things proper to God for your Church worships the Virgin Mary with burning incense and candles to her and you give her presents which by the consent of all Nations used to be esteemed a worship peculiar to God and it is the same thing which was condemned for Heresie in the Collyridians who offered a Cake to the Virgin Mary A Candle and a Cake make no difference in the worship and your joyning God and the Saints in your worship and devotions is like the device of them that fought for King and Parliament the latter destroys the former I will trouble you with no more particulars because if these move you not to consider better nothing can But yet I have two things more to adde of another nature one of which at least may prevail upon you whom I suppose to have a tender and a religious Conscience The first is That all the points of difference between us and your Church are such as do evidently serve the ends of covetousnesse and ambition of power and riches and so stand vehemently suspected of design and art rather then truth of the Article and designs upon Heaven I instance in the Popes power over Princes and all the world his power of dispensation The exemption of the Clergy from jurisdiction of Princes The doctrine of Purgatory and Indulgences which was once made means to raise a portion for a Lady the Neece of Pope Leo the tenth The Priests power advanced beyond authority of any warrant from Scripture a doctrine apt to bring absolute obedience to the Papacy but because this is possibly too nice for you to suspect or consider that which I am sure ought to move you is this That you are gone to a Religion in which though through Gods grace prevailing over the follies
of men there are I hope and charitably suppose many pious men that love God and live good lives yet there are very many doctrines taught by your men which are very ill Friends to a good life I instance in your Indulgences and pardons In which vitious men put a great confidence and rely greatly upon them The doctrine of Purgatory which gives countenance to a sort of Christians who live half to God and half to the world and for them this doctrine hath found out a way that they may go to Hell and to Heaven too The Doctrine that the Priests absolution can turn a trifling repentance into a perfect and a good and that suddenly too and at any time even on our death-bed or the minute before your death is a dangerous heap of falshoods and gives licence to wicked people and teaches men to reconcile a wicked debauched life with the hopes of Heaven And then for penances and temporal satisfaction which might seem to be as a plank after the shipwrack of the duty of Repentance to keep men in awe and to preserve them from sinking in an Ocean of Impiety it comes to just nothing by your doctrine for there are so many easie wayes of Indulgences and getting Pardons so many con-fraternities stations priviledg'd Altars little Offices Agnus Dei's amulets hallowed devices swords roses hats Churchyards and the fountain of these annexed indulgences the Pope himself and his power of granting what and when and to whom he list that he is a very unfortunate man that needs to smart with penances and after all he may choose to suffer any at all for he may pay them in Purgatory if he please and he may come out of Purgatory upon reasonable terms in case he should think it fit to go thither So that all the whole duty of Repentance seems to be destroyed with devices of men that seek power and gain and find errour and folly insomuch that if I had a mind to live an evil Life and yet hope for Heaven at last I would be of your religion above any in the world But I forget I am writing a Letter I shall therefore desire you to consider upon the premises which is the safer way For surely it is lawfull for a man to serve God without Images but that to worship Images is lawfull is not so sure It is lawfull to pray to God alone to confesse him to be true and every man a liar to call no man Master upon Earth but to relie upon God teaching us But it is at least hugely disputable and not at all certain that any man or society of men can be infallible that we may put our trust in Saints in certain extraordinary Images or burne Incense and offer consumptive oblations to the Virgin Mary or make vows to persons of whose state or place or capacities or condition we have no certain revelation we are sure we doe well when in the holy Communion we worship God and Jesus Christ our Saviour but they who also worship what seems to be bread are put to strange shifts to make themselves believe it to be lawfull It is certainly lawfull to believe what we see and feel but it is an unnaturall thing upon pretence of faith to disbelieve our eyes when our sense and our faith can better be reconciled as it is in the question of the Reall presence as it is taught by the Church of England So that unlesse you mean to prefer a danger before safety temptation to unholinesse before a severe and a holy religion unlesse you mean to lose the benefit of your prayers by praying what you perceive not and the benefit of the Sacrament in great degrees by falling from Christs institution and taking half instead of all unlesse you desire to provoke God to jealousie by Images and Man to jealousie in professing a Religion in which you may in many cases have leave to forfeit your faith and lawfull trust unlesse you will still continue to give scandall to those good people with whom you have lived in a common Religion and weaken the hearts of Gods afflicted ones unlesse you will choose a Catechism without the second Commandment and a Faith that grows bigger or lesse as men please and a Hope that in many degrees relyes on men and vain confidences and a Charity that damns all the world but your selves unlesse you will doe all this that is suffer an abuse in your Prayers in the Sacrament in the Commandments in Faith in Hope in Charity in the Communion of Saints and your duty to your Supreme you must return to the bosome of your Mother the Church of ENGLAND from whence you have fallen rather weakly then maliciously and I doubt not but you will find the Comfort of it all your Life and in the Day of your Death and in the Day of Judgment If you will not yet I have freed mine own soule and done an act of Duty and Charity which at least you are bound to take kindly if you will not entertain it obediently Now let me adde this that although most of these objections are such things which are the open and avowed doctrines or practices of your Church and need not to be proved as being either notorious or confessed yet if any of your Guides shall seem to question any thing of it I will bind my selfe to verifie it to a tittle and in that sense too which I intend them that is so as to be an objection obliging you to return under the pain of folly or heresie or disobedience according to the subject matter And though I have propounded these things now to your consideration yet if it be desired I shall represent them to your eye so that even your self shall be able to give sentence in the behalf of truth In the mean time give me leave to tell you of how much folly you are guilty in being moved by such mock-arguments as your men use when they meet with women and tender consciences and weaker understandings The first is where was your Church before Luther Now if you had called upon them to speak something against your religion from Scripture or right reason or Universal Tradition you had been secure as a Tortoise in her shell a cart pressed with sheavs could not have oppressed your cause or person though you had confessed you understood nothing of the mysteries of succession doctrinal or personall For if we can make it appeare that our religion was that which Christ and his Apostles taught let the truth suffer what eclipses or prejudices can be supposed let it be hid like the holy fire in the captivity yet what Christ and his Apostles taught us is eternally true and shall by some means or other be conveyed to us even the enemies of truth have been conservators of that truth by which we can confute their errors But if you still aske where it was before Luther I answer it was there where it was after even in