said by Grotius to have been butchered on the account of Religion And in his Son Philip's time the D. of Alva did in a short time cut down Thirty six thousand Nor need I tell the cruelties were practised in France for about fourty years together nor of that treacherous Massacre wherein there was an equal mixture of perfidy and cruelty which for all that was entertained at Rome with great joy and applauses It will be also needless to tell of their cruelty in England in Queen Mary's days which was chiefly managed by the Churchmen And many are yet alive who remember what enraged cruelty appeared in our Neighbour-Island against all of our Religion which did not only flow from the fury of an oppressed People but they were trained encouraged and warranted to it by their Priests and the Nuntio who came afterwards among them discovered who was the spring of all their motions Shall I to this add all the private assassinations committed on that account which were not only practised but justified I might here congest many instances Brother murdering Brother on the account of Religion Neither is Clement a Dominican his murdering Henry the third nor Chastlets attempt nor Ravillac 's fact on Henry the fourth forgotten Q. Elizabeths life is full of these attempts and the blackest of them all was the Gunpowder Treason All which are to be charged on that Church because the Doctrine of murdering Heretick Princes was taught licensed printed and yet not condemned in it From these hints we may guess how much of the lowly meek and charitable Spirit is to be found with them But should I to this add the horrid cruelties exercised in these Massacres I should be almost past belief had I not undeniable Historians for verifying it but the mildest of them being to be burned alive we may guess what the more savage have done by their tortures and lingering Deaths Next shall I mention their Courts of Inquisition which have been among them in the hands of Churchmen from the days of their pretended Saint Dominick whose Order have been the great Instruments of the cruelties of that Church and whose procedure being tied to no forms of equity or justice is as unjust as unmerciful persons being haled to their black Courts upon bare suspitions or secret Informations without leading of proofs against them are by Torture examined not only of their own opinions but of all that are known to them whose Testimony tho drawn from them by cruel Torture will bring the same Tortures on all they delate neither is there any mercy for any whom this Court declares Heretick but the Civil Magistrate must condemn them to the fire Now what man that considers the meekness of Christ and the Evangelical Spirit can think that Church the Spouse of Christ that hath rioted it with such savage rage against thousands of persons for no other crime but because they adhered firmly to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and would not consent or concur with these signal and palpable corruptions with which they have adulterated it But as from the constitution of their Church we see their deformity from the Gospel-rule so we will next consider their Church-men and we shall find how far they have strayed from the first Original Church-men ought to be the Guides and Pastors of Souls Now how little of this there is among them we will soon be resolved in What do the Popes about the feeding of Souls When do they preach the Gospel or dispense the Sacraments Alas it were below the height of his Holiness to stoop to such mean Offices Does any vestige of a Church-man remain in that Court and do they not directly rule in the Spirit of the Lords of the Gentiles And in this the Cardinals Bishops and Abbots do to their proportion imitate their most Holy Father abandoning wholly the work of the Gospel as if they bore an empty title or at most were only bound to say Mass on some greater Holy-days but in all other things do avowedly cast off the care of their Flocks Shall I here tell of the relaxation of all the ancient rules about the offices and duty of Church-men which these latter ages have invented and mention how children are made Bishops how they allow of Pluralities Non-residencies Unions Commendams Gratia expectativa's with a great many more corruptions which are every day authorised and granted at Rome and so zealous were they for these that they strugled hard against the honest attempts of some at Trent who would have had residence declared of Divine right and got it tho with much ado to be laid aside And thus it is that the Bishops and Abbots among them do for most part relinquish their Charges to live at the Courts of Princes and insinuate themselves upon all affairs and offices And swarms of them go to Rome gaping for preferment there I deny not but even these late ages have produced great men among them who seem to have designed the reviving of the Ancient Discipline both among the Clergy and the People but as these instances are rare so they were hated and persecuted at Rome for their Zeal Witness the condemning of Arnolds Book of frequent Communion and the severity Jansenius and the Abbot of St. Cyran with their followers have met with And thus whatever individuals that Church may have produced yet the corruptions I have hinted are notoriously publickly and generally practised in it and no where so avowedly as at the Court of Rome But to compence this defect of the Superior Clergy they have swarms of the inferior ranks every where both secular and regular who seem to mind the care of souls very seriously But not to reflect again upon any thing hath been hitherto said of their bad conduct of souls I shall now only take notice of the Authority they pretend to as if the People were bound blindly to follow their Confessors direction as the voice of God which clearly makes them the servants of men and subjects them to the heaviest yoke which is most directly contrary to the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free And what a rack to souls have they made Confession and what an Engine to get into the secrets of all the World and to bring mankind under their subjection is obvious enough to any that considers it And to enforce it the more as they teach it simply necessary to Salvation so the authority they made the World believe the Priests were vested with for pardoning sin together with their easie Pardons and slight Penances did root it deep in the hearts of all of that Communion But I go next to examine the Sacraments of which so much being said already little remains to be added By their dividing the Cup from the Bread they destroy Christs Institution and so make it no Sacrament and the hearing of Mass without communicating tho it make up the greatest part of their worship yet is purely a service of their own devising
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
tell us is Bread and Wine must be so still and cannot be imagined to have changed its substance upon the recital of the five words Shall I add to this that throng of absurdities which croud about this opinion For if it be true then a body may be in more places at once triumphing in glory in one and sacrificed in a thousand other places And a large body may be crouded into the narrow space of a thin Wafer they holding it to be not only wholly in the whole Wafer but also intirely in every crumb of it A body can be without dimensions and accidents without a subject these must be confessed to be among the highest of unconceivables and yet these Miracles must be believed to be produced every day in above a hundred thousand places Certainly he hath a sturdy belief who can swallow over all these absurdities without choaking on them It is little less unconceivable to imagine that a man of no eximious sanctity nay perhaps of noted impiety nor extraordinarily knowing nay perhaps grosly ignorant in Theological Matters shall have the Holy Ghost so absolutely at his command that whatever he decrees must be the Dictates of the Spirit And what an unconceivable mystery is the Treasure of the Church and the Popes Authority to dispence it as he will No less conceivable is the efficacy of the Sacraments by the work wrought nor is any thing more affronting to reason than the barbarous worship And of a piece with this is the blind subjection pleaded for the Confessarius his Injunctions and their opinions of expiating their sins by a company of little trifling penances which tend not to the cleansing the Soul nor killing of the life of Sin much less can be able to appease God either of their own inbred worth or by reason of any value God is pleased to set on them either by Command or Promise But should I reckon up every thing is among them that choaks reason I should dwell too long on this and reckon over most of the things have been through the whole Discourse hinted which seem to stand in the most diametrical opposition to the clearest impressions of all mens reasons But to bring my Enquiry to an issue Easiness and gentleness are by Christ applied to his yoke laws and burden and whatever opposition or trouble they may give to the carnal man by mortifying his lusts and contradicting all his inordinate and unlimited desires yet by the rational faculties and powers they are both easily understood and practised Indeed Religion lies in few things and its chief work is the reforming and purifying the inward man where it mainly dwells and exerts its force and virtue but these who have added so much both to be believed and done beyond what our Lord prescribed as they accuse his unfaithfulness so bring unsupportable burdens on the Consciences of Christians These therefore who lead out the mind by presenting a great many foreign objects to it do introduce superannuated Judaism instead of that liberty Christ brought with him unto the World. But shall I number up here all the Impositions of that Church whose numbers are great as well as their nature grievous for it is a study to know them all But what a pain must it be to perform them It is a work which will take up a great deal of time to understand the Rubricks of their Missals Breviaries Rituals and Pontificals In a word they have left the purity and simplicity of Religion and set up instead of it a lifeless heap of Ordinances which must oppress but cannot relieve the Consciences of their Disciples Shall I add to this the severity of some of their Orders into which by unalterable Vows they are engaged their whole lives Now whatever fitness might be in such Discipline upon occasions for beating down the body or humbling of the mind yet it must be very tyrannical to bind the perpetual observance of these on any by an Oath for thereby all the rest of their lives may become insupportably bitter to them wherein they stand obliged under perjury to the perpetual observance of some severe Discipline which tho at first in a novitious fervour might have had its good effects on them yet that drying up it will afterwards have no other effect but the constant dejecting of the soul and so their life will be a rack to them by their perpetual toil in these austerities This I speak of those who seem the chief Ornaments of that Church whose Devotion doth for most part turn to outwards and rests in the strict observance of their rules not without voluntary assumed mortifications which they add to them but wherein they for most part glory and so the life of pride and self-love the subtillest of all our enemies is fed and nourished by them Neither can we think that these whose exercises are so much external can be so recollected for the inward and serene breathings of the Mind after God and Christ without which all externals tho they seem to make a fair shew in the flesh yet are but a skelet of lifeless and insipid things But indeed they have studied to remove this objection of the uneasiness of their Religion by accommodating it so that the worst of men may be secure of Heaven and enjoy their lusts both according to the corrupt conduct of some of their spiritual Fathers But what I have hinted of the uneasiness of their Religion is taken from the Nature of their Devotions in their highest altitude and elevation And thus far I have pursued my Design in the tract whereof I have not been void of a great deal of pain and sorrow For what pleasure can any find by discovering so much wickedness and so many errors in the Christened Regions of the World and see the holy and beautiful Places wherein the former Ages worshipped God in the Spirit turned to be habitations of Idols and graven Images by which God is provoked to jealousie God is my witness how these thoughts have entertained me with horror and regret all the while I have considered them And that I am so far from being glad that I have sound so much corruption in the Roman Church that it is not without the greatest antipathy to my nature imaginable that I have payed this duty to truth by asserting it with the discovery of so many Impostures which have so long abused the Christian world and if any heat or warmth hath slipped from my Pen I must protest sincerely it is not the effect of anger or passion but of a tender and zealous compassion for those souls who are either already blinded with these delusions or do incline towards those paths which lead to the chambers of death I am none of those who justify rage or bitterness against those in errors for if we had the the Spirit of Christ in us we should mourn over and lament their misery who lie under so much darkness And this is a sure
she is so poor as not to be able to maintain such Seminaries But on the way it is no great character of the Piety of their Church that she abounds so with great and rich donations when we consider the Arts they used for acquiring them by making People believe themselves secure of Heaven by such donations Indeed had we got our People befooled into such persuasions the cheat might have prospered as well in our hands but we are not of those who handle the Word of God deceitfully nor will we draw the People even to do good with a crafty guile or lye for God. But now as a conclusion to this Discourse I must consider if all things among us be so sound and well grounded that with a quiet Mind and good Conscience every one may hold Communion with our Church and hope for Salvation in it I shall therefore briefly run over the Nature and Characters of the Christian Faith to see if any contradiction to them or any part of them be found among us And first of all we worship God in Spirit as a Spiritual Being with suitable Adorations which we direct to no Image nor Symbol of the Divine Presence but teach that we ought not to figure God to any corporeal being no not in our thoughts neither do we worship any beside God the Father Son and Spirit We also worship Christ but as he is God and hath the fulness of the God-head dwelling in him bodily Angels indeed we honour but knowing them to be our fellow-servants we cannot pray to them or fall down before them We count the holy Virgin blessed among women but dare give her no share of the glory due to her Son All the Saints we reverence and love but knowing God to be a jealous God we cannot divide that honour among them which is only due to him and therefore do neither worship them their Images nor their Reliques We desire also to offer up to God such Sacrifices as we know are well-pleasing to him Prayers Praises broken and contrite Hearts and our Souls and Bodies but reject all Charms and Enchantments from our Worship as contrary to the reasonable service which is acceptable to God and do retain the genuine simplicity of the Gospel-worship in a plain and intelligible stile and form without any mixtures drawn from Judaism or Gentilism And thus there is nothing among us contrary to the first design of Religion And as little will be found against the second which is the honour due to Christ in all his Offices We teach our People to study the Scriptures and to examine all we say by them and exhort them to depend on God who by his Spirit will teach them as well as us neither do we pretend to an authority over their Consciences but acknowledg our selves men of like infirmities with the People who are all called to be a Royal Priesthood and thus we honour Christ's Prophetical Office by founding our Faith only on the Divine Authority of the Scriptures We also believe there is no Name given under Heaven by which we can be saved but the Name of Christ who laid down his Life a ransom for our Souls that by his Cross we might be reconciled to God and it is to that one Sacrifice that we teach all to fly for obtaining remission of sins and the favour of God trusting only to it and to nothing we have done or can do knowing that when we have done all we can do we are but unprofitable servants much less do we hope for any thing from any of our Fellow-creatures We apply our Souls to no Intercessor but Christ and trust to no Satisfaction but his and we acknowledg him the only King of his Church whose Laws must bind it to the end of the World. Neither do we acknowledg any other Authority but his over our Consciences It is true in things indifferent he hath left a power with his Church to determine in those Matters which may tend to advance order edification peace and decency but as the Church cannot add to our Faith so neither can it institute new pieces of Worship which shall commend us to God or bind any load upon our Souls We own a Ministerial Authority in all the Pastors of the Church which they derive from Jesus Christ and not from any visible Head on Earth and therefore they are only subject to Christ We also hold that the Civil Powers are of Christ whose Gospel binds the duty of obedience to them more closely on us and therefore if they do wrong we leave them to Christ's Tribunal who set them up but pretend to no power from his Gospel to coerce or resist them and thus we honour Christ in all his Offices and so are conform to the second branch of the design of our Faith. We also receive the third with the same fidelity and whatever the practices of too too many among us be yet there is no ground to quarrel our Doctrine we preach repentance to all and study to convince them of their misery and lost estate that they may mourn for their sins and turn to God by a new course of life we preach Faith through Christ in God as that which unites our souls to him by which we are in Christ and Christ is in us We stir up our people to love the Lord their God with all their heart strength soul and mind and to wait for his Son Christ Jesus who is the hope of glory and shall change our vile bodies into the likeness of his glorious Body And from this great motive do we press our people to the study of holiness withâ—ut which they shall never see God. We send them to the ten Commandments for the rule of their lives whose exposition we chiefly take from Christ's Sermon on the Mount neither can we be charged for having taught the People to break one of the least of these Commandments We exhort all our hearers to make the life of Christ the pattern of theirs and to learn of him who was meek and lowly in heart neither can our Church be accused of having taught any Carnal Doctrines for gratifying the base Interests of the flesh or for ingrossing the power or treasure of the World the subsistence of our Church-men being but a livelyhood and not a treasure In a word we preach Christ and him Chrucified and all the rules of his Gospel for ordering the conversation aright without adding or taking from it and thus our conformity to the third branch of Christianity appears We teach also according to the fourth branch of Christianity the Doctrines of Charity neither do we condemn any who hold the foundation though in some lesser matters they differ from us but hope they may be saved as well as we We abhor the Doctrine of cruel persecuting of any for their Consciences The outmost we allow of or desire of that nature being the preservation of our own Societies pure from the contagion of