many intrigues and Labyrinths of Question and is like a long line so impossible to be perfectly straight and to have no declination in it when it is held by such a hand as yours that unless it be by material enquiries into the Articles of the Religion you can never hope to have just grounds of confidence In the mean time you can consider this if the Roman Church were the Catholick that is so as to exclude all that are not of her communion then the Greek Churches had as good turn Turks as remain damned Christians and all that are in the communion of all the other Patriarchal Churches in Christendom must also perish like Heathens which thing before any Man can believe he must have put off all reason and all modesty and all charity And who can with any probability think that the Communion of Saints in the Creed is nothing but the Communion of Roman Subjets and the Article of the Catholick 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 only that the Synagogue is translated to Rome which I think you will easily believe 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 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 believe that God hath tied 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 Roman party are not agreed concerning the Catholick 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 Council Some that it is the Pope and the Council the virtual Church and the representative Church together Some that neither of these nor both together are infallible but only the essential Church or the diffusive Church is the Catholick from whom we must at no hand dissent you will quickly find your self in a wood and uncertain whether you have more than a word in exchange for your soul when you are told you are in the Catholick 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 Oaths 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 mystery against the doctrine and practice of the Primitive Church against the express 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 Christ's Institution to a humane invention from Scripture to uncertain Traditions and from ancient Traditions to new pretences from prayers which ye understood 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 external 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 than that in the days of the Jewish Religion for the Ceremonial of the Church of Rome is a great Book in Folio greater I say than 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 unless you list any more than 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 blindness 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 only 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 add 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
follies to the Church of England 7. Trouble your self with no controversies willingly but how you may best please God by a strict and severe conversation 8. If any Protestant live loosely remember that he dishonours an excellent Religion and that it may be no more laid upon the charge of our Church than the ill lives of most Christians may upon the whole Religion 9. Let no Man or Woman affright you with declamations and scaring words of Heretick and Damnation and Changeable for these words may be spoken against them that return to light as well as to those that go to darkness and that which Men of all sides can say it can be of effect to no side upon its own strength or pretension THE END POST-SCRIPT Madam IF You shall think it fit that these Papers pass further than Your own eye and Closet I desire they may be consign'd into the hands of my worthy friend Dr. Wedderburne For I do not only expose all my sickness to his cure but I submit my weaknesses to his censure being as confident to find of him charity for what is pardonable as remedy for what is curable but indeed Madam I look upon that worthy Man as an Idea of friendship and if I had no other notices of Friendship or conversation to instruct me than his it were sufficient For whatsoever I can say of Friendship I can say of his and as all that know him reckon him amongst the best Physicians so I know him worthy to be reckoned amongst the best friends The III. Letter Written to a Gentleman that was tempted to the Communion of the Romish Church SIR YOU needed not to make the Preface of an excuse for writing so friendly and so necessary a Letter of Inquiry It was your kindness to my person which directed your addresses hither and your duty which ingag'd you to inquire somewhere I do not doubt but you and very many other ingenious and conscientious persons do every day meet with the Tempters of the Roman Church who like the Pharisees compass Sea and Land to get a Proselyte at this I wonder not for as Demetrius said by this craft they get their living but I wonder that any ingenious person and such as I perceive you to be can be shaken by their weak assaults for their batteries are made up with impossible propositions and weak and violent prejudices respectively and when they talk of their own infallibility they prove it with false Mediums say we with fallible Mediums as themselves confess and when they argue us of an Uncertain faith because we pretend to no infallibility they are themselves much more Uncertain because they build their pretence of infallibility upon that which not only can but will deceive them and since they can pretend no higher for their infallibility than prudential motives they break in pieces the staff upon which they lean and with which they strike us But Sir you are pleased to ask two Questions 1. Whether the Apostles of our Blessed Lord did not Orally deliver many things necessary to Salvation which were not committed to writing To which you add this assumentum in which because you desire to be answered I suppose you meant it for another Question viz. whether in those things which the Church of Rome retains and we take no notice of She be an Innovator or a conserver of Tradition and whether any thing which she so retains was or was not esteemed necessary The answer to the first part will conclude the second I therefore answer that whatsoever the Apostles did deliver as necessary to Salvation all that was written in the Scriptures and that to them who believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God there needs no other Magazine of Divine truths but the Scripture And this the Fathers of the first and divers succeeding Ages do Unanimously affirm I will set down two or three so plain that either you must conclude them to be deceivers or that you will need no more but their testimony The words of S. Basil are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Every word and every thing ought to be made credible or believ'd by the testimony of the Divinely-inspired Scripture both for the confirmation of good things and also for the reproof of the evil S. Cyril of Jerusalem catech 12. illuminat saith Attend not to my inventions for you may possibly be deceiv'd but trust no word unless thou dost learn it from the Divine Scriptures and in Catech. 4. illum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For it behoves us not to deliver so much as the least thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Divine and holy mysteries of Faith without the Divine Scriptures nor to be moved with probable discourses Neither give credit to me speaking unless what is spoken be demonstrated by the Holy Scriptures For that is the security of our Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is derived not from witty inventions but from the demonstration of Divine Scriptures Omne quod loquimur debemus affirmare de Scripturis Sanctis so S. Hierom in Psal. 89. And again Hoc quia de Scripturis authoritatem non habet eadem facilitate contemnitur quâ probatur in Matth. 23. Si quid dicitur absque Scripturâ auditorum cogitatio claudicat So S. Chrysostom in Psal. 95. homil Theodoret dial 1. cap. 6. brings in the Orthodox Christian saying to Eranistes bring not to me your Logismes and Syllogismes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I rely only upon Scriptures I could reckon very very many more both elder and later and if there be any Universal Tradition consigned to us by the Universal Testimony of Antiquity it is this that the Scriptures are a perfect repository of all the Will of God of all the Faith of Christ and this I will engage my self to make very apparent to you and certain against any opposer Upon the supposition of which it follows that whatever the Church of Rome obtrudes as necessary to Salvation and an Article of Faith that is not in Scripture is an Innovation in matter of Faith and a Tyranny over Consciences which whosoever submits to prevaricates the rule of the Apostle commanding us that we stand fast in the liberty with which Christ hath set us free To the other Questions Whether an Ecclesiastical Tradition be of equal authority with Divine I answer Negatively And I believe I shall have no adversary in it except peradventure some of the Jesuited Bigots An Ecclesiastical Tradition viz. a positive constitution of the Church delivered from hand to hand is in the power of the Church to alter but a Divine is not Ecclesiastical Traditions in matters of Faith there are none but what are also Divine as for Rituals Ecclesiastical descending by Tradition they are confessedly alterable but till they be altered by abrogation or desuetude or contrary custome or a contrary reason or the like they do oblige by vertue of that Authority whatsoever it is that hath power
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 sheaves could not have oppressed your cause or person though you had confessed you understood nothing of the mysteries of succession doctrinal or personal For if we can make it appear 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 ask where it was before Luther I answer it was there where it was after even in 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 lawful to be believed For if we believe your superinduc'd follies we shall do unreasonably unconscionably and wickedly but the questions themselves are so useless 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 than the Saints and Martyrs did in the first ages of the Church but because your Clergy have invaded the liberty of the Church and multiplied 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 than 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 several 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 progress of this affair But if you will still insist upon it then let the matter be put into equal 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 Council of Trent determined that the souls departed before the Day of Judgment enjoy the Beatifical Vison 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 Christendom is not only that these doctrines which we say are false were yet affirmed but that those things which the Church of God did always 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 only 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 Council says this is fine 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 and before the Council of Constance the Doctrine touching the Popes power was so new so decried that as Gerson says 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 Council of Constance and it is notorious that your Council of Constance determined the doctrine of the half-communion with a Non obstante to Christ's 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 Prague's time against whom that Council 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 half so much for since you receded from Christ's 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 days of light and ours was invisible in the days of darkness For our Church was always 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
all the points of difference between us and your Church are such as do evidently serve the ends of Covetousness and ambition of power and riches and so stand vehemently suspected of design and art rather than truth of the Article and designs upon Heaven I instance in the Pope's 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 God's 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 ways of Indulgences and getting Pardons so many con-fraternities stations priviledg'd Altars little Offices Agnus Dei's amulets hallowed devices swords roses hats Church-yards 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 lawful for a Man to serve God without Images but that to worship Images is lawful is not so sure It is lawful to pray to God alone to confess him to be true and every Man a liar to call no man Master upon Earth but to rely 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 burn 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 do 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 lawful It is certainly lawful to believe what we see and feel but it is an unnatural 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 Real presence as it is taught by the Church of England So that unless you mean to prefer a danger before safety temptation to unholiness before a severe and a holy religion unless 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 Christ's institution and taking half instead of all unless 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 lawful trust unless you will still continue to give scandal to those good people with whom you have lived in a common Religion and weaken the hearts of Gods afflicted ones unless you will choose a Catechism without the second Commandment and a Faith that grows bigger or less 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 unless you will do 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 bosom of your Mother the Church of England from whence you have fallen rather weakly than 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 soul 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 add 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 self to verifie it to a tittle and in that 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 understanding The first is where was your Church before Luther Now if you had