Because they are not to be found in the Word of God 2. They are many of them contrary to the Word of God 3. No Church in the World hath Power to make New Articles of Faith Quest. 4. What are the New Articles of Faith the Church of Rome hath added to the Antient Creeds Answ. They are these following I. That the Traditions of the Church are to be received with the same Faith and Veneration we owe to the Holy Scriptures II. That there are seven Sacraments Baptism Confirmation the Eucharist Pennance Extreme Unction Orders and Marriage and that these confer Grace III. That among the Ceremonies used in the Roman Church the Publick Service in Latin or an unknown Tongue is a commendable Service IV. That in the Mass there is offered to God a true Propitiatory Sacrifice for the Living and the Dead V. That in the Sacrament of the Eucharist the Bread and Wine are changed into the very Substance of Christ's Body and Blood VI. That Laymen need not receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist in both kinds and that it 's sufficient for them to communicate in one VII That there is a Purgatory or a Place after Death where good Mens Souls are tormented for smaller Sins and relieved by the Alms and Prayers of the Living VIII That the Saints departed this Life may and must be pray'd to and invoked and that their Reliques must be worshipp'd IX That the Images of Jesus Christ and of the Virgin Mary and of other Saints may and ought to be worshipp'd X. That Indulgences or Dispensations of the redundant Merits of Saints are very useful things XI That Auricular Confession or Confession of all our mortal Sins with the Circumstances of them to a Priest is necessary to Salvation XII That the Church of Rome is the Catholick Church and Mistress of all other Churches Quest. 5. Why must not Traditions be received with the same Faith that is due to the written Word of God Answ. 1. Because the written Word of God is perfect containing all things necessary to Salvation And that does not direct us to Traditions but rather warns us against them 2. Because the Traditions of the Church of Rome many of them are false and many uncertain 3. Their Traditions are not Traditions which have been receiv'd in all Ages by all Churches and in all Places for such only are the true Apostolical Traditions 4. That they are not absolutely necessary their own Practice shews in that they reject Authentick Traditions and particularly that of Communicating Infants And here you may note The Reason why they fly to Tradition is because they cannot prove their New Doctrines by the Word of God Quest. 6. Why do not you believe seven Sacraments Answ. 1. The Holy Ghost in Scripture hath no where declared such a number 2. This precise number of Seven Sacraments was not heard of in the Christian Church till twelve hundred years after Christ. 3. There are but Two Sacraments mention'd in the New Testament I mean such as are true and proper Sacraments viz. Baptism and the Supper of the Lord. 4. The Council of Trent was the first that made this Number an Article of Faith Quest 7. Why do not you allow of Publick Service in Latin or in a Tongue not understood by the People Answ. 1. Because St. Paul writes a whole Chapter against it 1 Cor. 14. 2. Because the Publick Service ought to be for the Edification of the People and Service in an unknown Tongue cannot edifie 3. The Practice of the Primitive Church is against it 4. Some of the wiser Men in the Church of Rome themselves find fault with this Publick Service in an unknown Tongue 5. This Practice in the Church of Rome is only to serve some Worldly Ends. Quest. 8. Why do not you admit of the Sacrifice of the Mass Answ. 1. Because the Church of Rome tells us that they do sacrifice Christ every day in the Mass which is directly contrary to the 9th Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews Heb. 9. 25 26 27 28. 2. Because there can be no true and proper Sacrifice without Death and it founds dreadful to a Christian Ear that the Priest kills Christ every day or which is all one puts his God to Death 3. It destroys the end of a Sacrifice which is to testifie our Subjection to God but in this Sacrifice of the Mass the Offerer who is the Priest must be greater than the Offering 4. The Lord's Supper is only a Commemoration or Representation of Christ's Sacrifice and a Sacrifice of Thanksgiving but no proper or true Propitiatory Sacrifice Quest. 9. Why do not you believe a Transubstantiation in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper Answ. 1. It is against all Sense for we may see and feel and hear and taste and smell that the Bread and Wine after Consecration are Bread and Wine still 2. It is against Reason that Christ's Body and Blood should be in a thousand places at once 3. It is against Scripture for Christ protests that his flesh profits nothing Joh. 6. 63. 4. It is against the Nature of a Sacrament which is an outward visible Sign of something Spiritual and Transubstantiation destroys the Sign 5. Christ himself explains what he means by saying This is my Body when he adds Do this in remembrance of me which remembrance supposes the absence of his Natural Body 6. It is against that Article of our Faith which saith That Christ is to continue in Heaven till the Restitution of all things And there is no necessity we should take the words literally any more than the words in Jo. 10. 7. I am the door c. 7. This is my Body is a Phrase or Form of Speech exactly like that of the Lamb in the Passover This Lamb is the Passeover i. e. the Memorial of it 8. These words This is my Body do not naturally infer a substantial change by the Confession of some Papists themselves 9. They themselves cannot be sure of this Change because they say it depends upon the Intention of the Priest 10. The Absurdities that flow from the Doctrine of Transubstantiation are innumerable for then Christ must have eaten himself the Disciples must have eaten up their Master Christ's Body may be lockt up in a Box for half a year together and longer c. Whereas the Doctrine of the Church of England that the Bread represents Christ's Body and upon that account is his Body hath no Inconveniency in it 11. Transubstantiation is against the Doctrine of the Primitive Church which calls the Bread the Figure of Christ's Body Quest. 10. Why do not you think it lawful for Laymen to receive the Communion in one kind only Answ. 1. Because Christ saith expresly to the Disciples Drink ye all of this 2. The Practice of the universal Church of Christ for a thousand years together is against it 3. The Council of Constance in the year 1416. was the first that durst venture
have a mind to keep up a Faction I know what Language we should meet withal But will you boast say you of having derived your Orders from the Church of Rome when you believe the Church of Rome to be an idolatrous Church Madam it is not the Office of a Bishop in your Church we find fault withal but the Abuses of it A Church that 's guilty of very great corruption both in Doctrine and Manners may have something that 's good and allowable and he that retains that is not therefore guilty of her corruption nor espouses her Errors Your Idolatry is one thing and your Orders are another The Jews did take many good things from the Heathens and the Christians many commendable things from the Jews but that neither made the Jews approve of the Heathenish Worship nor the Christians allow of the Jewish Errors We are not so disingenious as to make the breach between you and us wider than needs So far as you go with Scripture and true Antiquity we hold with you where you contradict both we cannot with a safe Conscience bear you company He that sees a Pearl lye among a great deal of Trash if he take the Pearl is not therefore obliged to take the Rubbish too and if we have derived our Orders from you that infers no necessity that we must therefore consent to your Notorious Deprivations of the antient Simplicity of the Gospel The Christians heretofore that approved of the Baptism of the Donatists did not therefore presently acknowledge the Truth of their Opinions and he that should take a good custom from the Turks cannot be therefore said to approve of all things that are in the Alcoran Madam There is nothing more easie than to cavil at the most prudent Action in the World especially where People take a slight survey of things and do not with Seriousness and Deliberation weigh the Circumstances of the Fact and do not examine the inside as well as the outside and I must confess upon the best Examination of your Actions and Proceedings in this Revolt to the Church of Rome you never took the right way to be satisfied for instead of pondering the Arguments and Motives of our Departure from the Church of Rome and of the Reasons we alledge for our Church and Doctrine you made it your chief Imployment to read their Books and believed what they said to be Oracles for no other Reason but because they talked with greater Arrogance and Confidence If you say that you could not judge of Arguments having never been bred a Scholar I would but ask you how you durst change your Religion then Did you change it without reason and without ground and if you are not able to weigh the strength of Arguments how can you be sure that you are in the true Church at this time It is not talk but Arguments that must demonstrate the Truth of a Religion and if you have not sufficiently weighed the Arguments of both sides it is a thousand to one you may still be in the wrong way and you know not but you may be as much out now as you were formerly Madam so great a thing as the change of your Religion upon which no less than Eternity depends might justly have challenged some years study before you had resolved upon it To do a thing of this nature upon so slight a Survey consider whether it doth not argue Rashness and Weakness rather than Piety and Devotion To leave a Religion you have been bred and born in a Religion founded upon the Word of God and which you had liberty to examine by the Scripture upon reading a Popish Book or two without diving to the bottom of the several Controversies without reflecting on the Importance of the Points in question without studying a considerable time which Religion comes nearest to Scripture and which goes farthest off is such an Argument of Impatience that you only seem to have yielded to a dangerous Temptation of the Devil If the Controversies between the Church of Rome and us are so intricate as you say and above your capacity to dive into them you have then run over to that Church in the dark and have as little reason to be satisfied with your Proceedings as you believe you have with our way of Worship You plead that you have been sitting up whole Nights and weeping and praying that God would discover to you which is the true way to Salvation and from that time forward you found Inclinations to go over to that Church and is this a sufficient Argument to justifie your Forwardness When you had already begun to doubt whether our Church were a true Church or no because you found not that Satisfaction in it your sickly Desires wanted it was then an easie matter to give ear to confident People that magisterially and peremptorily assured you that you would find Satisfaction in their Church and being fed with this hope your Inclinations to that Church grew stronger every day as our Mother Eve the hopes of being like God suggested to her by the Serpent did egg and spur her on to eat of the fatal Tree We do not forbid People to pray to God to lead or direct them into the right way though sometimes it may be a perfect tempting of God when People are in the right way to desire God to discover to them by a sign of their own choice whether they are in it or no. But them if we pray to God to direct us we must not neglect the means God hath appointed in order to our Satisfaction but must compare Scripture with Scripture and Books with Books and Arguments with Arguments and search which Religion agrees most with the Doctrines and Practices of Christ and his Apostles and as the Noble Berrheans did examine all the Doctrines obtruded to our Belief by the Scripture and doing thus and continuing this search and these Prayers together no doubt but God in his own good time will answer us and direct us But to pray to God to direct us and not to use the means in the use of which he hath promised to direct us we do in a manner mock him or desire him to work a Miracle for us or to vouchsafe us some extraordinary Revelation when we have Moses and the Prophets and may hear them And I am confident had you joyned this way with your Prayer examined the Doctrines of the Church of Rome and compared them with the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ seen whether there be any thing like it in the Bible and searched whether Christ and his Apostles ever taught such Doctrines and done all this not slightly but seriously and solidly it 's impossible you could ever have turned Papist for if our Gospel be true that Religion can never be true for there is nothing in the World can run more counter to the Gospel than the Doctrines of that Church wherein we differ from them and they had need put the
〈◊〉 O my Lady Holy Mary I commendmy self my Soul and Body to thy blessed Care and singular Custody and to the bosome of thy mercy this day and every day and in the hour of my going out of the World All my hope and all my comfort all my afflictions and miseries my life my end I commit unto thee speak seriously what can you say more to God that by thy most Holy Intercession and by thy merits all my Words and Actions may be directed and disposed according to thine and thy Sons Will Amen Where it 's worth noting that first you do put as much trust in the Virgin as you do in God and then afterwards to make these harsh Expressions softer you desire her to interceed for you that your Works may be directed according to Christ's Will nay and her own as if she were a Lawgiver too Then follows Maria Mater Gratiae c. O Mary Mother of Grace Mother of Mercy protect us from the Enemy and receive us in the hour of Death which St. Stephen thought was fitter to be said to Christ when he cried Lord Jesu receive my Spirit Then follows the Evening Prayer to the Virgin Mary O Mary Mother of God and gracious Virgin the true Comforter of all distressed Creatures that call upon thee this Epithete by the way the Scripture gives to the Holy Ghost by that great Joy whereby thou wast comforted when thou didst know that Jesus Christ was risen the third day from the Dead impassible be thou the Comforter of my Soul and by the same who is thine and God's only Son in the last day when with Body and Soul I shall rise again and give an account of all my Actions do thou vouchsafe to help me that I may escape the Sentence of perpetual Damnation by thee Pious Mother and Virgin and may come happily with all the Elect of God to Eternal Joys Amen Then follows Under thy Protection we flee Holy Mother of God despise not our Prayer in our Necessities but deliver us from all dangers always O glorious and blessed Virgin Not to mention any more Prayers of this nature whereof there is a vast number If God be a God jealous of his Glory how can he like and approve of such doings It 's true the Honour done to his Servants is done to him but then it must be such Honour as they are capable to receive so to honour them as to give them the Epithetes and Titles which the Scripture gives to none but God so to honour them as to use in your Prayers to them the same outward Prostrations that you use to God when you pray to him so to honour them as to spend more time in your Addresses to them than you do in Supplications to God as is evident from your Rosary so to honour them as to say more Prayers to them than to Christ so to honour them as to joyn their Merits with Christ's Merits This is an Honour which I believe will oblige God to say one day Who hath required these things at your hands And how unlike the Worship of the true God is that Veneration you express to the Images and Pictures of Saints and to the Relicts How unlike that plain and simple Worship which the Gospel enjoyns One would think it should a little startle you to see that your Church is afraid to let the Second Commandment be known to the People you know they leave it out in their Primers and Catechisms or if they mention it they do so mince it that one sees plainly they are afraid the People should see the contrariety of their Worship to the express Word of God In the beginning of the Reformation the very sight of this Commandment made People run away from the Church of Rome as much as any thing Indeed to consider the general terms God uses there Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven Image c. Thou shalt not only not Worship them but not so much as fall down before them would make a Person that is not taken more with the Golden Legends than with Scripture afraid of Prostrations before Images upon the account of Devotion It is not all your plea that you do not terminate your Worship on the Image but on the Person represented by the Image that will excuse you at the great tribunal for not to mention that in the same manner the Heathen used to defend their grossest Idolatry and that you are forced to borrow their very Arguments your own Authors do confess that the common People are apt to pay Adoration and do pay Adoration to the Images themselves and why will you lay such a Stumbling-block before the People Much might be said of the Adoration you pay to the consecrated Host You confess that the Worship you give to it is the same Worship you give to God What if that Wafer should not be turned into the Body and Blood of Christ What if it should remain as very a Wafer as it was before Consecration What if it should not be God as you have all the Demonstration that Sense or Reason can give you that it is not changed into another Substance What monstrous Idolatry would this be Ay but we believe it to be God Why Madam doth your Belief that such a thing is God or Christ excuse you from Idolatry Should you believe a Stone to be God and adore it might not you justly be charged with Idolatry You look upon the Heathens as Idolaters because they adore the Sun Ay but they believe that Sun to be God and how then according to your plea can they be Idolaters If there be such a Transubstantiation in the Sacrament as you fancy and an Adoration of the Hoste so very necessary what 's the reason the Apostles of our Lord that saw Christ before their eyes only could not believe that there were two Christs one sitting at the Table the other reached out to them What 's the reason I say that they sate still and paid no Adoration to the Bread which according to you was transubstantiated into Christ If they did not adore it what a Presumption is it in you to give the highest Worship to the consecrated Bread upon a pretence that that Bread is God under the accidents of Bread But of this I have said enough before and could you but find time to read what our Authors have written upon this Subject it could be nothing but hardness of Heart and Resolution to be blind could keep you in a Church that fills your Head with Doctrines contrary to the nature of a Sacrament contrary to all that Moses and the Prophets nay and all sound Philosophers have said I will not say any thing here of your strange unbloody Sacrifice of the Mass a thing unheard of in the purer Ages of Christianity and which the Scripture is so great a stranger to that one would wonder how Mankind came to light upon the notion Nor of your Doctrine of
Merits because I find your Priests have two strings to their bow and tell the People one thing and their Adversaries when they dispute with them another affirm and deny it as they see occasion and necessity requires Only one thing I must needs take notice of before I take my leave and that is the Gigantick Argument that some of your Gentlemen boast of and which strikes all Protestants dead at the first hearing of it If there be any thing true this must be true that there is a God if there be a God there must be a true Religion if there be a true Religion there must be a true revealed Religion if there be a true revealed Religion the Christian Religion must be that true revealed Religion and if the Christian Religion be true then the Religion of the Church of Rome must be true for the Argument that proves the Christian Religion to be true proves the Religion of the Church of Rome to be true which is this Either the Christian Religion was propagated without Miracles or by Miracles if by Miracles then it must be Divine if without Miracles then it is the greatest Miracle that a Religion so contrary to Flesh and Blood should prevail with sensual Men. The same say they is true of the Religion of the Church of Rome For if it be propagated by Miracles it must be Divine if without Miracles it must be so much more because it prescribes things contrary to Flesh and Blood as Penances Austerities c. and thousands of People do embrace it It will not make my self merry here in a thing so serious else I could have told you that I have heard of an Argument when I was at School somewhat like this He that drinks well sleeps well he that sleeps well commits no Sin he that commits no Sin will be saved therefore he that drinks well will be saved But I forbear And as to the aforesaid Argument whereby one of your Priests that hath printed it thinks to end all Controversies I will say no more but this First that as there is no Christian but must readily confess that the Miracles Christ and his Apostles wrought were a Confirmation of the Divinity of their Doctrine so there is no Man of any brains can admit of the other part of the dilemma as universally true that a Religion that goes against Flesh and Blood if propagated without Miracles must therefore be necessarily Divine Secondly that so far as the Religion of the Church of Rome agrees with the truly Christian Religion so far it is undoubtedly true and it will naturally follow that if the Christian Religion be true the Religion of the Church of Rome so far as it agrees with the Christian Religion must needs be true And the same may be said of the Protestant Religion but that the Roman Religion must therefore be true where it goes away and differs from the truly Christian Religion revealed to us in the Gospel is a consequence which none but Children can approve of Thirdly with this Argument a Man might prove the Divinity of almost any Religion in the World He that is no stranger to History must needs know what Severities what Austerities of Life the Brachmans or the Heathen Friers in the Indies do both prescribe and practice and what Proselites they make and how full the Kingdom of the great Mogul is of them how some wallow in Ashes day and night how others go charged with heavy Iron Chaines all their days how others stand upright upon their Leggs for whole Weeks together c. How in Japan and other places of the Indies the Priests perswade the People to fast themselves to death to go long Pilgrimages to give all they have to the Priests to throw themselves down from steep Rocks and break their Necks and all to arrive the sooner to the Happiness of another World c. I think there cannot be things more contrary to Flesh and Blood than these and yet we see these Doctrines are propagated daily without any force of Arms only by Example and Perswasion to be sure without any Miracle but I hope that doth not prove their Religion to be Divine It 's a dictate of the light of Nature that the way to Heaven is straight and therefore People that are religiously inclined are easily won over to those Men whom they see exercise such Severities upon themselves To conclude Madam when all is done what the true Church is must be tried by the Writings of the Evangelists and Apostles We see that even in the Apostles days Corruptions crept into the Church witness the Churches of Corinth Galatia and Colosse c. and the Simplicity of the Gospel began even then to be perverted and mingled with idle and foolish Opinions and Practices and therefore we must needs think that after the Apostles decease the Church of Christ was subject to the same fare so that if there be any Standard or Touchstone left whereby the Truth and Sincerity of a Church can be tried and we must needs think so well of God's Providence that he would not leave his Church without some Rule to rectifie their Errors by in case she should be infected with any it must be the Primitive Institution of the Christian Religion and that Church as I said before which teaches things that approach nearest to that Primitive Institution must be the true Church And Madam do but once more for your Souls fake and for your Salvations sake compare the Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome with the Doctrines and Practices of the Gospel the Fountain of Christianity and try whether you can find there the Doctrines of Communion under one kind of publick Prayers in a Tongue unknown to the People of Purgatory of the Mass of Transubstantiation of the Church of Rome 's Supremacy and Infallibility of Worshipping and Adoring the Virgin Mary and Praying to Saints of Veneration of Relicks and Images of Adoration of the Hoste c. Do not force any places of Scripture and try whether you can make sense of any of these Doctrines by Scripture View the stream of the Gospel and search whether there be any thing like these Doctrines in it Why will you make your Reason a Slave to your Priests magisterial Sentences How can you answer it to God that you did not improve your Reason more What have you your Reason for but to judge what is agreeable to the Word of God and what is not Is not this acting like a Creature void of Reason to be guided altogether by what a few blind Guides say to you without enquiring at the Law and Testimony whether things are so as they say or no Wonderful Stupidity I stand amazed at it It is not all the seeming Holiness of those Priests you converse withal that make the Church you are in a true Church There is no Sect in the World but when they are under a Cloud Necessity and the Discouragement they are
Doctrines and Worship they have too long asserted and complied with and of such we cannot but entertain a very favourable opinion and indeed I could name you some very famous Men both in France and Italy who though they have continued in the Communion of that Church i. e. have not joyn'd themselves to any particular publick Protestant Church yet have not approv'd of such things in the Roman Church as manifestly obstructs Mens Salvation and though like Nicodemus they have not dared openly to avow their dislike of such Errors for fear of danger yet in their hearts they have abhorr'd them and declared so much to their Friends and intimate Acquaintance And though their seeming Communion with a Church so Erroneous cannot be totally excused because it looks like a tacite approbation of her Errors yet since we read of Joseph that he was a Disciple of Christ secretly and notwithstanding his not confessing Christ publickly accepted of God we hope such Mens continuing in the external Communion of the Roman Church is not a willful Error but rather a pardonable Infirmity a timorousness which hath nothing of malice in it and therefore will not hinder them from Salvation We know not what mercy God may shew to many poor people in that Church who are invincibly Ignorant and never saw a Bible from whence they might rectifie their mistakes and do live honestly in this present World but we must withal confess that the Servant who hath known his Masters will and hath not done it shall be beaten with many stripes and whether those that have been enlightened in our Church and have tasted the good Word of God and cannot but see our Agreement with the Gospel and after all this embrace the Errors of the Roman Church whether these will be excusable at the last day we justly doubt of to live in great Errors is to live in Sin but where that living in Errors is joyn'd with resistance of great light and knowledge there the Sin becomes all Crimson which was but of a faint red before and if this be the Character of Christ's Friends to do whatsoever he commands us then the inference is very easie that those cannot be Christ's Friends nor reign with in Heaven that willfully leave undone what they know he hath commanded and set up a new Worship which he hath no where commanded Madam had you never seen such a thing as the Scripture your going over to that Church might have deserved some Apology but when you were surrounded with the beams of that light which shines in darkness as St. Peter calls the Word with all those rayes about you to shut your eyes and desperately to venture upon the Church which enjoyns Men to live against some of Gods Laws as against Exod. 20. 5 6. and Matth. 26. 27. c. and consequently obliges them to prepare for God's displeasure this I confess is an Action which as it savours of great willfulness so I question if you die in 't without serious repentance whether the Joys you hope for will ever fall to your share If your Church-men do mean honestly and do truly aim at the Peace of Christendom and in good earnest design the Union of Men that profess the Name of Christ why will not they part with those Doctrines that are so great an offence not only to all Protestants but to Jews and Mahometans too If that worshipping of Saints and Images be not necessary but only useful why will not they quit that Worship which by their own pretences is needless especially when they might do so much good by it If the Cup was formerly given to the Laity why will not they to effect the aforesaid Union restore it to the Laity If the substance of the Sacrament and the comfort arising from it may remain entire without obliging Men to believe a Transubstantiation or Adoration of the consecrated Wafer why will not they for peace sake lay aside such Doctrines which neither themselves nor any Creature understands If Heaven and Hell are sufficient motives to a Holy Life why will not they for quietness sake renounce their Doctrine of Purgatory which by their own confession hath no ground in Scripture Madam I have that charitable opinion of you that if you had but taken a view of the Worship of the Church of Rome as it is practic'd beyond Sea in places where there is no fear of contradiction from any Hereticks where they may freely and securely act according to their principles had you seen the mode of worshipping the Virgin Mary at Rome or in Spain or Italy the sight of it would have certainly discourag'd you from embracing that Religion which now you seem to be mainly delighted with for indeed the Religion of the Church of Rome at this time if a Man were to guess from that which hath the greatest outward Veneration is little else than a Worship of the Virgin Mary The very Beggers beyond-Sea in begging of Alms beg more for the Virgin Mary's sake than for Christ's sake This Madam I know to be true who am no stranger to Foreign parts and I will assure you that in those Cities or Towns where both Papists and Protestants have the free exercise of their Religion you shall live Twenty years in a Town before you hear that any Protestant is turned Papist so few charms are there in the Exercise of their Religion beyond Sea but you shall not be above a year or two in such a Town before you hear that several Papists are turned Protestants such a force hath truth The Religion of the Church of Rome as it is practis'd in England looks harmless Now and then upon some great Festival they shew you a Picture of the Virgin Mary or of some other Saint and the honest Priest qualifies every Doctrine makes the Errors soft and plausible and they dare not living in a Protestant Country serve the Host of Heaven I mean Saints and Angels with all their Appertenances as they do in places where there are no Protestants to watch them Here their Religion seems to be without a sting and is clad in the fleece of Sheep but if you could but make a Voyage into Spain or Italy I doubt not but you would see the Venome of it and avoid it and the only way not to be of the Church of Rome would be to go to Rome provided you do not go without your Bible In good truth that Church hath turn'd Christianity into a meer outward Pomp and Splendor which ravishes the eye but can never content a Man's reason The glistering Gold in their Temples the curious Images of Saints and Angels the numerous and stately Altars the mighty Silver Statues the rich and glorious Vestments you see up and down in their Churches strike the Senses into a kind of extasie and it must be Sense only for a considerate mind that searches the inside of things as well as the outside cannot be so easily gull'd and deceiv'd and