by joyning with the publick Worship whilst they attend and understand what the Church saith to God and what he saith to us are much improved in those great Principles of Religion which they learn'd in their Catechism and are made to grow in Grace and in the knowledg of the Lord. They have in these two what perpetually informs their Judgment and excites their Will to cleave to God and Goodness and after their best Endeavours to rely upon those infinite Mercies of God in Christ our Redeemer on which the greatest of Roman Champions confessed that it is most safe to repose our whole Trust and Confidence Answerable to those are the publick Exhortations of our Church by the Mouth of her Ministers and the Books of Religious Instruction wherewith she entertains her Children Their Time and Zeal and Attention are not taken up in Sprinklings Kissings of Reliques going in Pilgrimage visiting of Shrines paying devout Veneration to Saints and Images and reciting Beads and Rosaries and the Offices of St. Bridget or the like Neither these things nor any of this Nature which can neither instruct nor reform the World nor give Comfort to Christian Souls are recommended to our People They are clearly taught wherein true Religion and substantial Goodness consist and exhorted to lay on them the great Stress of their Hopes and of their Endeavours and devoutly to make use of those means of Grace which are of Divine Appointment and thereby to establish their Hearts in the Love of God and a chearful dependence upon the infinite Merits and Mercies of our dear Saviour Nothing of the whole Counsel of God is by our Church kept back from us our Belief is unquestionable being truly Primitive and Universal our Worship of God is according to his Will and his most blessed Nature and our Rule of Life and Conversation comprehends all Duties To fear God and honour the King and love one another and continue patient in well-doing Ours is indeed a Doctrine according to Godliness and of it it may be testified in the Words of St. Peter that it is the true Grace of God wherein we stand If we are not wanting to our selves we want nothing that can either shew us the Way to Happiness or help and forward us in it we ought to express our Charity to them that err and want many of those Blessings and Advantages which we have for the obtaining eternal Salvation we should earnestly pray for them and what we can promote their Instruction but by no means fear their Threatnings and Sentences of Damnation He that in earnest would go to Heaven and professeth Christianity not to obtain Favour with Men but to please God and to save his immortal Soul can be no where safer than in our Church Therein he professeth that Faith which all Christian Communions hold to be truly Divine and therein he may make his Calling and Election sure if he will but practise answerably to his Belief add to his Faith Vertue and not be unfruitful in the knowledg of our Lord Jesus Christ The more he understands his Religion the more he will love it and be convinc'd that he is in the right And the more carefully he lives according to his Profession with a Conscience void of Offence towards God and towards Men the more assurance will he have that he shall be happy All other Grounds of Hope besides Truth and Righteousness will prove vain But he that stands upon the Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himself being the chief Corner-Stone He that studies and minds his Duty and earnestly begs for the Divine Assistance that he may live to God and remain faithful unto Death he shall receive the Crown of Life though some presumptuous Men dare condemn him to Death Whatever Confidence or high Pretences some may have whatever Ways and Devices they invent for to gain Heaven Christ is the Way the Truth and the Life no Man cometh unto the Father but by him there is no other Name under Heaven given unto Men whereby they can be saved but only the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ He that calleth and believeth on him shall not be confounded Here let us fix and not regard what Men say nor what they can do But look unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our Faith firmly relying on his Almighty Goodness who is able to save them to the uttermost that come to God by him being ever living to make Intercession for them FINIS BOOKS lately Printed for Richard Chiswell THE Pillar and Ground of Truth A Treatise shewing that the Roman Church falsly claims to be That Church and the Pillar of That Truth mentioned by S. Paul in his first Epistle to Timothy Chap. 3. Vers 15. 4o. The Peoples Right to read the Holy Scripture Asserted 4o. A Short Summary of the principal Controversies between the Church of England and the Church of Rome being a Vindication of several Protestant Doctrines in Answer to a Late Pamphlet Intituled Protestancy destitute of Scripture Proofs 4o. Two Discourses Of Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead An Answer to a Late Pamphlet Intituled The Judgment and Doctrine of the Clergy of the Church of England concerning one Special Branch of the King's Prerogative viz. In dispensing with the Penal Laws 4o. The Notes of the Church as laid down by Cardinal Bellarmin examined and confuted 4o. Preparation for Death Being a Letter sent to a young Gentlewoman in France in a dangerous Distemper of which she died The Difference between the Church of England and the Church of Rome in opposition to a late Book Intituled An Agreement between the Church of England and Church of Rome A PRIVATE PRAYER to be used in Difficult Times A True Account of a Conference held about Religion at London Sept. 29 1687 between A. Pulton Jesuit and Tho. Tennison D. D. as also of that which led to it and followed after it 4o. The Vindication of A. Cressener Schoolmaster in Long-Acre from the Aspersions of A. Pulton Jesuit Schoolmaster in the Savoy together with some Account of his Discourse with Mr. Meredith A Discourse shewing that Protestants are on the safer Side notwithstanding the uncharitable Judgment of their Adversaries and that Their Religion is the surest Way to Heaven 4o. Six Conferences concerning the Eucharist wherein is shewed that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation overthrows the Proofs of Christian Religion
IMPRIMATUR Septemb. 19. 1687. JO. BATTELY Rmo in Pri. ac Domino Wilhelmo Archiepiscop Cantuar. Ã Sacris domesticis A DISCOURSE SHEWING That Protestants are on the Safer Side notwithstanding the uncharitable Judgment of their Adversaries AND That THEIR RELIGION is the Surest Way to Heaven LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-yard MDCLXXXVII The PREFACE COming accidentally into a Family always frequented and of late much disturbed by some Roman Catholicks who by fulminating Damnation against all Protestants had terrified some Friends I applied my self to clear their Doubts and to remove those Fears wherewith the Noise and Threats of Hell-fire had affected their Minds This engaged me into a long Debate with one of the Parties who was very positive and earnest in maintaining the utter Impossibility of being saved out of the Church of Rome And upon that it came to be enquired Whether it be their Relation to Rome or their Relation to Christ that Men are to be saved by Whether our State of Eternity depends upon the Talk or Confidence or hard Censures of Men or or upon the Truth of our Religion and our Sincerity in professing of it Whether it be the ever-living God or any mortal Men that make true Religion Whether that be not the Best which best agrees with the Divine Revelation And whether our Saviour had referr'd us to Rome and the Papal Authority for the knowledg of Saving Truth or plainly taught by Himself and by his Apostles all that is requisit and sufficient to Salvation About these we differ'd but yet agreed upon the whole that the great odds in point of safety which they apprehend to be betwixt them and us must be grounded upon the Excellency of their Religion above ours and must therefore appear in their Faith Worship and Morals which are the essential parts of Religion and make it right or wrong according as they are themselves The Talk I then had about this Subject and the occasion of it put me upon writing the ensuing Discourse Wherein my chiefest Aim hath been to fix my Reader upon that which is positive with us and is maintained on all sides that being altogether requisit and of it self sufficient to make a Man a good Christian And then to consider those Points in belief and practice about which we differ and to shew on which side lies the Advantage for means of Grace and certainty of Salvation The INTRODUCTION THE Church of Rome would not only have all her Dictates received as Divine and true but would likewise have nothing received as such but what she delivers insomuch that her Writers would persuade us that we can have no Assurance of the Truth of our common Christianity because we receive it not from the Infallible Chair and rely not on its Authority for the proving of it As if a Man could not know and firmly believe that Jesus Christ came into the World to save Sinners without so much as having heard any thing of a Roman Church and her Infallibility And as if those great Truths which God hath revealed were not to be embrac'd and assented to because they are his but depended upon the good Pleasure of a Party of Men who can no more add greater Authority to what God hath declared than they can make their own Sayings of an equal Authority with God's We can admit that Church for a joint Witness with other Christian Churches that the Bible is the Word of God and that the Christian Creed is the Catholick Faith But there is no reason to think that any thing is the more true or the more necessary meerly because she saith it That which is equally attested by all Christian Churches who were all Depositories of the Divine Oracles and of the Christian Religion hath a cogent and a clear Evidence But that wherein she stands divided from all the rest and bears witness only to her own Prerogatives is either true because she asserts it which none will dare to say or ought to be proved by the Testimony of the whole Christian Church and of Divine Revelation which she can never do So we have this great Advantage in those things which we assert as Points of Saving Faith that we have the plain and express Words of Holy Scripture and the Concurrence of the whole Church whereas those things which we reject are made a Creed only by one particular Church not above one hundred Years agone and have no Ground in Holy Writ Some may dispute with us about our Rites or Discipline or some abstruse and disputable Points But for that Faith whereon we ground our Hopes of Salvation nothing can be objected against it It is the same wherein every Christian is baptised the same which was before the Reformation and before the Want of it in Times of greatest Purity the same Faith was profest and in the worst of Times under the greatest Corruptions it was still preserved and that not in one Kingdom or only here in the West but in all Patriarchates and in all Christian Churches in the World We have neither added nor diminish'd nor made any Alteration in that Rule of Faith which is the Badge and the Ground of Christianity So that as to this Point our Religion is now as it was long before Luther We have no other Creed than that which was universally profest all along Our Dispute with the Church of Rome is about their new one made since Luther and profest no where else but in her Communion that we cannot embrace It hath neither the same Authority from God nor from Men as hath the Catholick Belief To make this plain here I set the two Creeds at large to be consulted as the Reader finds occasion The Catholick and Apostolick Creed explained by the Nicene and the Athanasian in what concerns our Saviour's Divinity but never enlarged until the Council of Trent I Believe in God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord. Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary Suffered undâ—r Pontius Pilate was crucified dead and buried He descended into Hell the third Day he arose again from the Dead He ascended into Heaven and sitteth on the Right Hand of God the Father Almighty From thence he shall come to judg the Duick and the Dead I believe in the Holy Ghost The Holy Catholick Church The Communion of Saints The Forgiveness of Sins The Resurrection of the Body And the Life everlasting The Roman Creed I Most stedfastly admit and embrace the Apostolical and Ecclesiastical Traditions with the rest of the Constitutions and Observations of the Roman Church I also receive the Holy Scripture according to that sense which the Holy Mother Church whose it is to interpret it hath held and doth hold nor will ever understand or interpret it otherwise than acccording to the unanimous Consent of the Fathers I profess also that there are seven true
are most eagerly promoted by such as deride those great Truths which they all own to be fundamental They that jointly believe the Truth and the Divine Authority of the Holy Scripture are set to wrangling among themselves about some of its most obscure and unnecessary Places by them that believe none of it and for not mutually embracing and practising upon those most important Points whereon we are agreed we expose those Doctrines of our common Salvation which we all profess to the Contempt of the prophane and incredulous World Secondly The other Pillar which together with the Holy Scripture strongly Supports of our Faith is the Christian Creed We find also for this the same Consent of all Christian Churches they are unanimous in the Belief and Profession of it and hold all its Articles to be those great and necessary Truths without which none can be saved Whereas the several Contents of the Bible although equally true yet are not of an equal Concern and are too numerous to be carried in mind There was a Collection of those principal Points which are necessary to all drawn and appointed from the Beginning as a Form of sound Words or a Summary of the Christian Saving Faith This we call the Apostles Creed and this I say in all Ages of the Church and in the full Extent of it hath been received as a Confession of that Faith without which none can be saved Go to Rome or to Geneva or among the Lutherans or the Moscovites or the Greeks or Ethiopians as many as call on the Saving Name of Jesus do thus make Confession of their Faith in him Besides that each Article is very expresly and in many Places revealed in the Holy Bible here is the unanimous Agreement of the whole Church from first to last in every Nation and every Period of Time from the Days of Christ that this is the Badge and Cognizance of a Christian Believer and that the Profession of this Belief is the Faith once delivered to the Saints which shall endure to the End of the World Into this Faith and none other all Christians are baptized in all Communions thereby to be made Members of Christ's Catholick Church and Heirs of everlasting Life if they keep it unto the End whole and undefiled Thus for the believing any of those Points contained in the Apostles Creed or any of the Histories Promises or Commands deliver'd in Holy Scripture a Christian hath the best Warrant he can have for the Belief of any thing upon Earth even the joint Attestation of the whole Church of every Age who testified publickly and sometimes sealed their Testimony with their Blood that the Bible is the Word of God and the Creed is the Faith of Christ However Christians have fal'n out about other things as to these they are at one The Belief of this engageth you into no Dispute with any Here is a very great Number of most marvellous Transactions and gracious Promises and righteous Laws and important Predictions which are own'd by all to be Divine and infallibly true Your Belief and Profession of these depend not upon your Fancy or the Opinions of private Guides or the Tradition of your Countrey or of your Party but upon the unanimous Witness of millions of wise and good Men Apostles Martyrs Confessors and all those numerous Christian Societies dispers'd over the World which make up the universal Church Here is enough owned of all sides to make up an happy Agreement betwixt all Churches The having the same Bible and the same Creed is a very firm and large and lasting Foundation for Peace Here are all things that are of the greatest Moment for Faith and a good Life for the Service of God and the Salvation of our Souls every where receiv'd and profest He that should weigh the Importance of each of those Truths which are acknowledged by all would wonder what it is that can divide Christians and make them so fierce and uncharitable one against another We see Bigots of different Communions damn and destroy one another as if they were not Partakers of the same Nature and joyned together by owning the same God and the same Saviour and all the chiefest Articles of the same Religion Besides Mens Ignorance and Malice and intemperate Zeal no account can be given of the unbeseeming Contentions of Christians among themselves but that the things wherein they differ are of a present Concernment for Wealth or Dominion Secular Interest and humane Passions no doubt have made the Breach and they that secretly laugh at all Religion and neither regard the Creed nor the Word of God set on the Zealots to dispute and for their own Ends make use of the Contention when all this while there is a vast Collection of Truths for Comfort and Contempt of the World for Meekness and mutual Love profest to be firmly believ'd by all Parties engag'd But as Men are always craving and pursuing new things rather than they will make an Estimat of what they have receiv'd because they love to extend their Desires rather than to be satified and to be thankful so they rather chuse to wrangle and dispute about the meanest Punctilios wherein they are at odds than to rest in the greater things wherein they are agreed because they love to talk and to contend better than to practise and embrace each other This unsettles some Men that they know not what to believe and gives great occasion to the prophane to despise Religion as if all the Talk about it were arbitrary and uncertain they magnifie the Variety of Opinions and make as if the whole were matter of Contest when they see the Contenders act as if they were agreed about nothing Whereas I say all the great Articles have always been unquestioned notwithstanding the Peevishness of some and the ill Designs of others still the same Rules of Holiness and the same Points of Belief have remained constant and embraced by all The same Divine Revelation and the same Christian Faith have every where prevail'd and in the midst of all Disputes been preserved and acknowledged So that the whole Substance and all the necessary Parts of Religion have always been sacred confest and reverenc'd by all Christian Churches The twelve Articles of our Creed and all the uncontroverted Truths revealed in Holy Scripture make up a Body of Divinity so full so excellent and so comprehensive that if we compare it with the Uncertainties and Dissentions that were every where in the Heathen World at the first preaching of Christianity we shall look on its Professors as very harmonious and very well agreed There were never so many things so Great so Wonderful of so infinite a Concern to Mankind so strongly attested or so firmly believed by such infinite Multitudes of civiliz'd and knowing Men in all Parts of the World for so many Ages together Here is a Foundation whereon every good Christian may build Peace and Charity towards all his Brethren of