and Jesuits and is a Doctrine dearly entertained in the Court of Rome to this day as appeared from the late Attempt of Pope Paul the Fifth upon Venice But the World is now a little wiser than to be carried away by these Arts and therefore that Pretence is laid to sleep till haply the Beast be healed of the Wound was given it at the Reformation But I cannot leave this Particular without my sad Regrates that too deep a tincture of this Spirit of Antichristianism is among many who pretend much aversion to it since the Doctrine of resisting Magistrates upon colours of Religion is so stiffly maintained and adhered to by many who pretend to be highly reformed tho this be one of the Characters of the scarlet-coloured Whore. But thus far have we gone through the second part of Antichrist's Character and have discovered too clear indications of a difformity to the Spirit and Truth of the Christian Religion in all the Branches of the Honour and Worship due to Jesus the only Mediator of the New Covenant From this I proceed to the third part of my Enquiry which is the Opposition made to the great Design of Christian Religion for elevating the Souls of Men into a participation of the Divine Nature whereby the Soul being inwardly purified and the outward Conversation regulated the World may be restored to its Primitive Innocence And Men admitted to an inward and intimate fellowship with their Maker The first step of this Renovation is Repentance for God commands Men every where to repent and Repentance and Remission of Sins are always united And this being an horrour at Sin upon the sense of its native deformity and contrariety to the Law of God which makes the Soul apprehend the hazard it hath incurred by it so as to study by all means possible to avoid it in all time coming nothing doth prepare the mind more for Faith in Christ and the study of a new Life than Repentance which must needs be previous to these But what Devices are found to enervate this Sins must be divided into Venial and Mortal the former deserving only some temporal Punishment and being easily expiated by some trifling piece of seeming Devotion and hereby many Sins are struck out of the Penitents consideration For who can have a great apprehension of that which is so slightly expiated And this may be extended to the easy Pardons given for acknowledged mortal Sins For he who thinks that God can be appeased for them with the saying by rote so many Prayers cannot possibly have deep apprehensions of their being either so displeasing to God or so odious in themselves But shall I to this add their asserting that a simple attrition which is a sorrow flowing from the consideration of any temporal Evil God hath brought upon the Sinner without any regard had either to the vileness of the Sin or the Offence done to God by it that is I say can suffice for justifying Sinners and qualifying them for the Sacrament whereby the necessity of Contrition and Sorrow flowing from the Principle of the Love of God is made only a high degree of Perfection but not indispensibly necessary In the next place all these Severities they enjoin for Penances do but tend to nourish the Life of Sin when Sinners see a Trade set up by which they can buy themselves off from the Wrath of God. To this is to be added the Doctrine of Indulgences which is so direct an opposition to Evangelical Repentance as if it had been contrived for dispossessing the World of the sense of it That which is next pressed in the Gospel for uniting the souls of Mankind to God is that noble ternary of Graces Faith Hope and Love by which the Soul rests in God by a holy affiance in him believing the Truth of his Gospel expecting the accomplishment of his Promises waiting for the full fruition of him and delighting in his glorious Perfections and Excellencies Now how much all this is shaken by these carnal and gross Conceptions the Roman Doctrine offers of God in their Image and Mass-worship and by their Idolatry to Saints is apparent Are they not taught to confind more in the Virgin or their Tutelar Saints than in the Holiest of all Doth not the fear of Purgatory damp the hopes of future blessedness And finally what impious Doctrine hath been publickly licensed and printed in that Church of the degrees of the love we owe to God Some blasphemously teaching that we are not at all bound to love him others mincing it so as if they were afraid of his being too much beloved In a word there is an impiety in the Morals of some of that Church particularly among the Disciples of Loyola beyond what was ever taught amongst the worst of the Heathen Philosophers which hath been fully discovered by some of the honester and more zealous of that Communion And though these Corruptions have not been avowed by the Head of that Church yet by their being publickly vented by the Deaf Ear he gives to all the Complaints against them and by the constant Caresses and Priviledges he heaps upon that Order which teacheth them he discovers either his great Satisfaction in that corrupt Doctrine or that upon the account of other interests he is content to betray the Souls of Christians into the corruption of such impious and ungodly Leaders since the Order that hath owned all these Corruptions is yet possessed of the Consciences of the greater part of them that own that Communion they being the universal Confessors And since they license the publick vending of so much corrupt Doctrine in printed Writings what reason have we to suspect their base compliance with Sins in their more secret and unknown Practisings with such poor deluded Souls as trust to their Conduct of which many proofs are brought by other of that same Church But I pursue my enquiry into the other traces of the Antichristian Corruption of the Purity and Power of our most Holy Faith Solemn Worship and secret Devotion are the great means of uniting Souls to God and of deriving the assistance of his Spirit and Grace to us but when these are performed in an unknown Tongue how uncapable are they of reaching that End And the Doctrine of the efficacy of the Sacraments for conveying of Grace by the Work wrought looks like a design against all serious preparation for the worthy receiving of them since by that Doctrine a Man be he never so ill prepared yet is sure of their efficacy for if his Priest absolve him and he have a simple Attrition for Sin without any thing of the Love of God he is by their Doctrine and Conduct qualified for receiving worthily were his Heart never so much united to Sin or averse from all Devotion or Application to Divine Matters And what Complaints shall be here made of these who teach that the sure way of gaining the Favour of God which they phrase by the Keys of
that produced a Monster that attempted Heaven it self by writing in defence of that Impiety which it avenged by Fire and Brimstone and yet had no Censure passed on him for it Whereas for the least tincture of Calvinism or Lutheranism he had been condemned to the Fagot Some of them do also teach that Fornication is not forbidden by the Laws of Nature and only by positive Precepts so that it may be dispensed with For the eighth Command those profane Casuists have made such shifts for it that none needs to be guilty of Theft for they teach it to be no sin to take that from another which he made no use of but may well want and that in such a case he who steals is not obliged to restitution Others of them teach That he who stole a great Sum is not obliged to the restitution of the whole but only of so much as may make the theft not notable But they teach that small thefts even though often repeated are but Venial sins which is an excellent Doctrine for warranting Servants insensibly to purloin their Masters goods They also teach Arts of escaping just Debts beyond all the subtilties of false Lawyers which the Jesuits themselves have often put in practice and have found out Arts for justifying oppressive Usury defrauding of Creditors ruining of Commerce and making Havock of our Neighbours Goods without Injustice For the ninth Command though it be so contrary to Nature that the worst of men count it a reproach to be charged with Falshood and Lying yet they have favoured it avowedly For by their Doctrines of Equivocating and using Mental Reservations the greatest Falsities in the World may be averred and sworn without sin And the value they set on a strict observance of Promises and candor in them appeared at Constance where a whole Council required Sigismund the Emperor to burn John Hass and Jerom of Prague though he had given them his safe Conduct for they taught him that Faith was not to be kept to Hereticks Another such like trip of one of the Popes proved fatal both to Ladislaus and the Kingdom of Hungary at Varna where they breaking the Truce they had sworn to the Turk upon the Popes Warrant were signally punished for their treachery The Doctors of the forementioned School do also teach that he who hath born false Witness in a matter that may cost another his Life is not bound to retract it if that retractation may bring great evils upon him They also propose methods for suborning Witnesses and falsifying of Writs and Records without any sin and that all this may be done to defame a person with some horrid imputation who is led as a Witness to prove any thing against one that thereby he may be cast from witnessing And as for the tenth Command they have struck out all the first motions of the mind to Evil from being accounted Sins and by their division of sins into Venial and Mortal they make sure enough work of this Command that it shall not be broken mortally It were an endless work to go and make out all these particulars of their dissolving the Moral Law by clear proofs but he who desires satisfaction in that will find it in the Provincial Letters or the Morals of the Jesuits But if we pass from the Law to the Gospel we shall find they have made no less bones of it We are all over the Gospel called to be heavenly-minded to despise the World and to set our affections on things above and particularly Church-men are taught not to seek the riches splendor and vanities of a present World which was most vigorously enforced by the Example of Christ and his holy Apostles But how contrary to this is that Religion whose great design is the enriching and aggrandizing of the Teachers and Pastors of it chiefly of him who pretends to be the supreme and sole Pastor I need not here re-mind the Reader of the Trade of Indulgences by which that Church rose to its riches and pomp nor need I tell what a value they set on outward actions of piety the chief of these being the enriching of Churches and Abbies and how these were commended to the World as the sure means of attaining eternal life Shall I add to this the visible and gross secularity and grandeur in which the Head and other Prelates of that Church do live The Head of it being in all things a temporal Prince perpetually busied in intrigues of State and ballancing the Princes of Europe and chiefly of Italy and what base and Simoniacal practices abound in that Court all who have written of it with any degrees of Ingenuity do acknowledg all things are venal there Money being able to raise the basest and unworthiest to the highest promotions the Cardinals are also named either upon the Interests of Princes and chiefly of the two great Crowns or to make the Popes Nephews have a greater stroke in the next Conclave or upon some such carnal account And perhaps for good manners sake a Scholar or a person famous for devotion may get a red Hat but such are always the least esteemed in the College all affairs being governed by the Popes Nephews or the Protectors of the Crowns And who shall expect that such a company of secular ignorant I mean in matters of Religion and oftentimes licentious men should be the great Sanhedrim by whose advice all that belongs to Religion must be managed These must be likewise the Electors of the Pope when the See is vacant whom they chuse out of their own number who is always elected by the prevailing Interests of one of the Crowns or by the Faction of the former Popes Nephews And what Caballings what bespeaking of Suffrages and what impudent ambitus is commonly practised in the Elections of Popes is well enough known nor can it be denied Now what man of common sense can imagine that a Pope thus elected by Simoniacal Arts and carnal Interests can be Christs Vicar on Earth or have the Holy Ghost always affixed to his Chair that he shall never err in any of his Decrees Truly he that can believe this may believe any thing that is gross and absurd Is not the whole frame and contrivance of that Court turned so entirely Secular that not a vestige of the Character of a Church or of Church-men remains And to this shall I add all the splendor of their Apparel the state of their Processions and the Ceremonies of their Coronation and how they wear a Triple Crown which being so well known to all whoever were at Rome need not be descanted on by me But the mention of the Crown calls me to mind of the literal accomplishment of that of Mystery being on the forehead of the Whore since the word Mystery was for a great while the Inscription on the front of their Triple Crown though it be now altered which being proved by others I may not stay to make it good From this
the Nature of Religion it being a thing sutable to the Powers of the Soul shews that a Man must have a conviction of the truth of it on his Mind and that he cannot be bound in contradiction to his own apprehensions to receive any Opinions meerly upon the testimony of others If to confirm all this I should add all can be brought from History for proving General Councils to have erred in Matters of Faith or that Popes have been Hereticks or that they have been anathematized as such by other Popes and General Councils I should be too tedious But in end how shall the Vulgar know the Definitions of Councils or the Decrees of Popes Or must they be blindly determined by the Priest's Assertion Certainly this were to expose them to the greatest Hazards since they are not suffered to found their Faith upon the Scriptures Nor doth the Church reveal her Doctrines to them so that their Faith must be resolved upon the bare Testimony of a Priest who is perhaps both ignorant and licentious And by this we may judg to what a pass the Souls of the People are brought by this Doctrine In a word We are not the Servants of Men nor bound to their Authority for none can be a Judg but where he hath Power both to try and to coerce Now none but God can either search our Hearts or change them for as no Humane Power can know our Thoughts so neither can it turn them which are not in our own Power much less in the Power of others therefore our Consciences can and must only fall within God's Jurisdiction And since the renovation of the Image of God consists in Knowledg and Religion designs an union of our Souls to Divine Truth that we may freely converse with it it will follow that all these Pretences of absolute Authority and Infallibility in Teaching are contrary to Christ's Prophetick Office who came to reveal the Father to us The second of Jesus Christ's Offices was the Priestly without which the former had never been effectual for had we known never so perfectly the Will of God without a method had been laid down for reconciling Sinners to him it was in vain to think of Religion since nothing Sinners could do was able to appease God or expiate Sin but this was fully done by the Sacrifice of that Lamb of God Who became Sin for us and bare our Sins in his own Body in whom we have Redemption even forgiveness of Sin through his Blood 2 Cor. 5.21 1 Pet. 2.24 Ephes 1.7 If then any have derogated from the value of this Satisfaction they have offered the utmost indignity to the highest Love and committed the Crime of the greatest Ingratitude imaginable who would requite the most inconceivable Love with such a Sacrilegious attempt But how guilty are they of this who would set the Merits and Works of Men in an equality with the Blood of God as if by these we were justified or owed our Title to Glory to our own performances whereas we are taught by the Oracles of God that by Grace we are saved that God only hath made the difference betwixt us and others and that he hath freely chosen us in his Son Christ Jesus Ephes 2.5 1 Cor. 4.7 And alas what are we or what is all we do that it can pretend to the lowest degree of God's Acceptance without he freely both help us in it and accept of us for it so that when he rewards us for our Services with Eternal Life he freely crowns his own free Gifts to us For when we consider how great a disproportion there is betwixt our best Services and Eternal Glory when we also remember how all our good Actions flow from the Principles of Divine Grace freely given but withal reflect on the great Defects and Imperfections that hang about our best Performances we will not be able to entertain any thoughts of our meriting ought at the Hands of God. And certainly the deeper Impressions we have either of the Evil of Sin or the Goodness of God we will be further from a capacity of swelling big in our own Thoughts or of claiming any thing on the pretensions of Justice or Debt It is true this Doctrine of Merit is so explained by some of that Church that there remains no ground of quarrelling it except for the Terms sake which is indeed odious and improper though early used by the Ancients in an innocent sense But many of that Church acknowledg there there can be no Obligation on God by our Works but that which his own Promise binds upon him which none who believe the Truth of the Promises of the Gospel can question yet still we must remember that we owe all to the Love of Jesus and nothing to our selves which as it is the Matter of the Hallelujahs of glorified Saints so should be the Subject of our daily Acknowledgments wherefore we must abominate every thing that may seem to detract from this But alas were all this Zeal many of that Communion own for Merits and good Works meant for the advancing a Holy and Spiritual Life it would carry a good Apology with it and its noble Design would very much qualify the severity of its Censure but when these good Works which for so many Ages were highly magnified were the building of Churches the enriching of Abbeys Pilgrimages and other trifling and voluntary pieces of Will-worship advanced for the Secular Interests of the Church what shall be said of all that pains was used by the Monks for advancing them but that they were willing to sell the value of the Blood and Merits of Christ for advancing their own secular Interests and devised Practices Alas how far are these from that Holiness and Sanctity which must qualify us for the Kingdom of God and the Inheritance of the Saints And to end this Matter let me add one thing which is most evident to all who have observed the Methods of the Directors of Consciences in that Church that with whatever Distinctions this Matter be varnished over among them yet the Vulgar do really imagine they buy and sell with Almighty God by their undergoing these Laws of the Church and Penances imposed by their Confessor Which as it nourisheth the Life of Pride and Self-love so it detracts from the value they ought to set on the Blood of Christ as their only Title to Heaven and Glory And to this I must add that distinction of the temporary and eternal Punishments Sin deserves The latter whereof they acknowledg are removed by the Blood of Christ but the former must be expiated by our selves either by Sufferings in this Life or those we must endure in Purgatory unless by the Pope's Charity we be delivered from them Now how contrary this is to the Value we are taught to set on the Blood of Christ all may judg Ephes 2.15 5.27 By Christ Peace is made we are reconciled to God he represents us to the Father without
character to judge if our zeal for God and his truth be Divine and Evangelical if it make us pour out Rivers of tears for those that have gone out of the way rather than streams of fire against them That Zeal which raiseth melting sorrow tender compassion and servent prayers for those we see erring is Christ-like and worthy of that meek and charitable spirit which the Gospel so much recommends Whereas that which boils out in rage and foam against such as err and designs their ruin and mischief and studies how to persecute rather than convert them and kindles in men a bitter aversion to their persons together with rude harshness in their behaviour to them is all Antichristian and carnal My design therefore in this discourse is to provoke pity rather than wrath and tears more than flames towards those deceived multitudes that we may pray for them rather than rail at them But my chief aim is to persuade all who love their souls to consider the danger of continuing in the Communion of a Church that hath not only fallen from her first love and purity but hath in so many great and essential points corrupted our most holy Faith and adulterated the pure sincerity of our worship I shall not here search into the depths of the Mercies of God how far they may reach any of that Communion nor examine how far they hold the Foundation Christ notwithstanding of all the base superstructures they have reared upon it nor shall I consider how far invincible ignorance may excuse the guilt of an Error nor how applicable this may be to them nor shall I discuss how far the private differing from these Errors may in many things secure some of the individuals of that Communion from the general guilt that lies over them upon all these particulars many things may be said and none alive is more willing to stretch his Invention for finding out grounds to fix his Charity on than my self But all I can devise falls short of a full and satisfying excuse for those who being educated in the knowledge of the truth and sincerity of the Gospel do fall away into the Errors and Superstitions of that Church nor can I imagine what their temptations should be to it except one of two The first is that they desire a sensible Religion and therefore loath the simplicity and spirituality of the Gospel and love to have some glorious objects in Worship to strike on and affect their senses But however this may make impressions on the grosser Rabble yet certainly any that considers that the perfection of man lies in his Reason and not in his outward senses and that the exaltation of Reason is Religion he must confess that the less it dwell in the senses and the more inward it become on the reason it is the more suitable both to the Nature of God of Religion and of the rational Faculties But the other consideration that may draw many to that Religion is yet worse which is because in it a great allowance is given to all manner of sin by the treacherous conduct of some Confessors who persuade men of Heaven on terms very easie and pleasing to Flesh and Blood. And hence it is that we see very few who have expressed any affection to a devout life abandoning us to go over to the Roman Communion most of those who do so except it be one of a thousand being as void of vertue as ignorant of the nature of true Religion that we may say Joh. 2.19 They went cut from us but they were not of us for if they had been of us they had not gone out from us These being the only visible tentations to entice any from our Communion to theirs it is hard to preserve any great degrees of Charity for them For a third tentation being that only which can work on a devout mind takes with so few among us that I need scarce name it which is the solitary and retired houses among them for leading a devout and strict life and the excellent Books of Devotion have been published by many of that Communion This I know wrought mightily on one and made him many times wish that he could with a good Conscience throw himself into one of these Religious Houses but the consideration of these great Corruptions lay so in his way that without the doing the greatest force on his Conscience imaginable and thereby securing damnation to himself by complying with things he judged so damnable he durst not do it Yet for his further satisfaction he went among them to see if their Worship appeared more amiable in practise than it did in Writings but I have heard him often declare that though his mind was as free of prepossessions as perhaps ever man's was yet all he conceived of them even from the Writings of their Adversaries was nothing compared to the impressions which the sight of their Worship left upon him it appearing so Histrionical in all its circumstances and so idolatrous in its substance especially as he saw the vulgar practise it And for their Religious Houses he was among a great many of all Orders but was far from meeting with that spirit of devotion he had hoped to find among them for the always magnified their Order and the little external Austerities and Devotions of it but for genuine humility a delight in God and Christ abstraction from the World for all their frocks and retirements sincere heavenly-mindedness and fervent Charity to the Brethren he regrated he had met with little of it among them And that he found the several Orders full of emulation and envy at other Orders and of hears among themselves which made him see that he who meant to lead a devout life must chuse another Sanctuary than any of these he saw in that Communion I deny not that it is the greatest defect of the Reformation that there are not in it such encouragements to a devout life though the intanglements of Vows to things without our power is a manifest invasion of the Christian liberty and to languish out ones life in a tract of lazy Devotion without studying to serve God in our Generation seems contrary to the intendment of Religion a great many of its Precepts being about those Duties we owe our Neighbours Yet for all this it is not to be denied to be a great defect that we want recluse Houses for a stricter training up of those who design to lead a spiritual life and to serve in the Gospel that their minds being rightly formed before their first setting out they may be well qualified and furnished for their work Such Houses might also be retreating places for old Persons after they had served their Generation and were no more able to undergo toil and fatigue they might be also Sanctuaries for devout Persons in times of their greater afflictions or devotions But for all this want it fixeth no imputation on our Church her Doctrine or worship that