her imperial dignity among and over the nations of the World as to bodily slaughters in all her Wars and Battels or more Souls spritually in raising her self to and maintain her self in her Papal Empire And again whither she made more Martyrs of Jesus or slew more in their bodys for confessing him to be the Son of God in her Pagan state or for confessing and cleaving to the simplicity and sincerity of the Gospel against her spiritual fornications from and corruptions of it in her Papal state but in both states and in both ways its certain that she hath been and is notoriously guilty of Blood and Murther for if no Idolater hath any part in the Kingdom of God and Christ and they that depart from the simplicity of the faith to adulterate it with other mixtures are thereby abolished from Christ as the Apostle saith of those that were Circumcised Gal. 5. 2 3 4 19 20.21 how shall not those Millions of Souls which she leads into those Sins as is above shewed be ruined by her and as for Murthering and Martyring the bodys of those that cleave to the Sincerity of the truth and witness against her corruptions what multitudes hath she Massacred and murthered witness the Albingenses the Waldenses the Hugonots as they call them in France the Protestants in Ireland the Vallies of Piedmont c. besides the Multitudes burnt at stakes and otherwise Martyred in England Holland Spain Italy Germany and in almost all Countries so that what the Prophets testify of Jerusalem playing the Whore from the Lord is too truely applicable to this Papal Babilon for as Jerusalem was a bloody City the City that shed blood in the midst of it Ezek. 22.2 3. an Imperious Whorish Woman that slew Gods Children and therefore was to be judged as Women that break Wedlock and shed Blood are judged Ezek. 16.20 21 30 38. in her skirts was found the blood of the Souls of the poor innocents and yet so impudently hardned as to deny her guiltyness and plead I am Innocent I have not sinned Jer. 2.34.35 I am rich I have found me out substance in all my labours they shall find no Iniquity in me that were sin Hos 12.8 an Infallible Church Just so is it with Rome and as her Blood was so this Churches is in the midst of her She set and this sets it upon the top of a Rock in the view of all Men she poured it not upon the ground to cover it with dust Ezek. 24.7 no surely she was not ashamed of all her Blood and cruelty though her sword devoured her Prophets and slew the just doubtless she said and justifyed it by her false prophets that they were all mad men and false prophets whom she slew Hereticks and Factious persons that would charge her with Idolatry and Whoredom from God for worshiping him upon Hills and Mountains and under green Trees and some Baalim or matters with him and therefore she endeavoured not to hide her murtherous doings Just so this Church of Rome a Bloody Harlot both in respect of Soul Murther and Body Murther in all her territories yet she will justify her self by her Panders her Priests and Jesuits that she is Innosent an infallible Church under the conduct of an infallible Guide her Bishop that will not fail to lead her Members and Children to Hell and destruction She will not yield that she commits Adultery from Christ or that Saint worship or Image Worship or Host worship or any Idolatrous or false worships nor is she ashamed of those Bloody facts she hath done she sets her Blood on a Rock powers it not in the Dust to cover it but justifies all yea glories in and gives publick thanks for her rare atchievments and honours those that are actors in them though they Murther Kings endeavour to blow up Parliaments fire Citys The more mischief they do in her service the more meritorious she is Innocent and not grieved except it be because she can have her will no more Massacre Hereticks no faster but God will give her blood in his due time to drink according to all her Idolatries against himself and Son and Murthers done upon the Souls of Men and upon the Bodys of his saints and holy ones as is predicted in the Revelations He also will set her blood upon the Top of a Rock that it should not be covered therefore thus saith the Lord God woe to the Bloody City I will even make the Pile for Fire great see Ezek. 24.8.9 Oh who that looks upon her in the light of Gods testimony can be deluded with her fair pretences or reguard her devices but will rather acknowledge the truth of what the Apostle Paul long since in his Epistle to that Church predicted would befal her upon the course she hath since taken For to interpose by the way a third consideration 9. The Apostle in Rom. 11.21 22 23. implyed or supposed her Fallible contrary to her own boast of her self and shews the way how she might come to fall warning her of it And indeed that way she is fallen foully as therein was foreshewed together with what will befal her further Let us view his words they are thus Thou standest by faith be not high minded but fear For if God spared not the natural Branches take heed lest he also spare not thee or neither in any wise will he spare thee Behold therefore the severity and goodness of God on them that fell severity but towards thee goodness if thou continue in his goodness otherwise thou also shalt be cut off Now who did the Apostle there speak and write to Was it not to the Church of Rome who were then Saints but now all her Saints are dead and glorified Persons no Saints living now in Rome none that will own that name or be acknowledged to be such A sign they are fallen for then the living members of it were Saints but now there are no Saints in her but they that are long since gone but it was the Church of Rome that he speaks to and so it is as if he had said Thou Church of Rome standest by faith that is by an obedient dependance on God and Christ in an hearty belief of his Gospel cleaving to him and his instructions and commands and holding fast the faith as delivered to thee Implying that otherwise she is Fallible and might and would fall and therefore it concerned them to take heed of high-mindedness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mind not high things have no high conceits of thy self thou Church of Rome if thou wouldst not fall but keep thy standing be not high minded but fear As implying that if she grew high minded and were puffed up she would fall For indeed Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty mind before a fall Prov. 16.18 where Pride and High-mindedness then are found and fear is laid aside there a fall certainly and inevitably follows even as falling from God and Christ as to a
Peter and Paul to Thomas and Sergius c. And what the Papists alledge of their doing all the same things that we Protestants do but they do more also is but all one in this matter as if a Woman should say that she doth all things to her Husband that another honest Woman doth to hers but she doth this more that whereas the other honest Woman yields her Body to her Husband only and admits no other man into her Bed besides she out of respect to her Husband admits him and his Servants and familiar Friends also And as a wise Husband would scarce think that a good honour given or done to him by his Wife no more will God take such adulterous embraces of the Saints and their Images and the like as a good honouring of him its like also as if the false Apostles and their followers should have pleaded against the true Apostles and theirs that they did the same things with them but they exceeded them and did more for they not only Baptized into the Name of Christ but Circumcised too and were Circumcised after the manner of Moses nor did they only celebrate the Lords Supper but also observed the dayes and times appointed in the Law and surely there was more colour for their so pleading than for these mens for they had something formerly of Gods appointment to shew for themselves but these have nothing at all but many prohibitions there against to produce Nothing said I Yes I remember the Plea of a Jesuite for the Picture of Christ though nothing for worship to be given it nor for worshiping the Saints and their Images from the Apostles saying to the Galathians that they were Fools to turn to Moses law when Christ Jesus had been set forth and evidently crucifyed among them the word saith he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is was Pictured and therefore they had the Picture of Christ drawn before their Eyes even of Christ Crucifyed surely the Jesuits was hard put to it for a proof that he was fain to fetch one from that word by the same way he might prove that the Prophets of old were Painters and Image makers because it s said in Rom. 15.4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so it should be translated whatsoever things were Pictured aforetime were Pictured for our Instruction he might have found the Pictures of other men besides Christ though not of the Saints unless such saints as some of them of the Roman Church may be for Jude tells us of some that were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall we read Pictured out unto this Condemnation Jude 4. ungodly Men. Surely the Jesuit was either a man of little judgment or which is rather to be judged of a profligate conscience that mattered not with what colours to paint over his matters or else he would have waved such a proof for so bad a purpose and have remembred that the Apostles and their fellow Labourers whither they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ingrave or pourtray yet it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not in Tables of Stone as the Romish Picturers work but in the fleshly Tables of the heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not with Ink or such like Paint but with the Spirit of God as the Apostle writes in 2 Cor. 3.3 and with such a manner of drawing I suppose their Picture makers have little or no acquaintance nor indeed would it have deserved the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Foolish Galathians had the false Apostles only drawn them from a Christ Crucifyed as represented in an externally visible Picture or Image of him wherein nothing but his body and flesh or rather the external lineaments proportion and complexion of it could be represented and so the shape of a man Crucifyed nothing of his Deity and inward Virtue as they deserved for being drawn from him as Painted forth by the Spirit in the Gospel to the eyes of their understandings as the Son of God and so as God manifested in the flesh and baring our Sins in his Body on the Tree and there through geting the victory over Sin and death and the Divel which no Painters in matters of Stone or other Metals could draw to the Life the other might rather offend them and give the false Apostles advantage against believing on him than perswade to constancy therein there being nothing but a Crucifyed man represented to them therein But I have been tedious in making good this charge but therein I suppose I have abundantly discovered the truth thereof that Rome Papal is as arrant a Whore as Rome Pagan was nay in one respect far greater and worse for in those times she was not espoused to Christ as such therefore was not charged then as commiting adultery from him or breaking Wedlock as now that having been the Catholick Church and her Faith that that was preached in the whole World and she a famous Mother without it yet she hath played the Harlot from him like Jerusalem in Ezek. 16.15 as being corrupted from the simplicity in him to swarve so much from her loyalty to him and admit a multitude into the Bed of love besides him yea the Kings of the Earth also with whom she hath truckt for their honours and riches crowns and scepters accommodating her self to their wills that she might lift up her self by them and get her will on them as in the famous Story of her Bishop Boniface chaffering with Phocas who having Murthered his own Master Mauritius and his Children was owned as Emperour in his stead by the said Boniface that he might as he was be made and declared by him to be the Universal Bishop over all the Churches in Christendom upon a fond pretence never before thought on its likely that because Christ said to Peter that he would give him the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven therefore the Bishops of Rome however unlike to St. Peter and without any delegation of them by him in any of his Epistles or other ways of conveyance of them to them must rule over all the Church in all after ages A notable reward of Romes Whoredom with that Murtherer but that may lead me to another particular charge agreeable also with the character given her which also declares her to be the Babilon spoken of by the holy ghost in the book of the Revelations viz. That 8. The Church of Rome is not only a Whore and the great Whore but a Bloody Whore too else she should not be that Babilon for St. John was shewed that so she would be for he saw her drunk with the Blood of the Saints and with the Blood of the Martyrs of Jesus to his great admiration and amazement and that in her was found the blood of the Prophets and of Saints and of all that were Slain upon the Earth Rev. 17.6 and 18.24 and indeed it may be doubted whither she slew more in her Pagan state to raise and maintain
seeing Pope Julius the second in his expedition against the French some ages since threw them into the River Tyber saying because St. Peters Keys would not do his work he would betake him to St. Pauls Sword how doth it appear that he and his Successors did not thereby loose them forever When did Christ make any new ones and give to him or those that suceeded him But herein also her excessive pride appears in that her Bishops challenge both St. Peters Keys and St. Pauls Sword nay both Swords both the Civil and Sacred or Ecclesiastical for I think the truly Spiritual they care not much for at least as to any true right use thereof that is they challenge Dominion in Temporal matters usurp upon the rights of Kings Princes and to exercise a power in disposing of Thrones and Scepters and making Civil Wars as well as to rule over all Nations in Church matters Never was there any Chuch or company of People in the World ranting it so highly and carrying it so aloft as this Church and her Bishops have done ever since they obtained of Phocas the high Honour he conferred upon them to make them an amends for approving him in the Murther of his Master in setling the dignity of Emperor upon him and this suits well with the description of my story of Babilon too in the Revelations where she is represented as mounted upon a Stately Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns as being both exalted and supported therein by and yet ruling and ordering the Imperial Power Sitting upon many Waters that is ruling over many Nations People and Languages gallantly deckt and making all Nations drunk of the Cup of her Fornications glorifying her self in stead of God and Christ and saying I sit as a Queen as the Lambs wife the Catholique Church to whom all in all estates owe honour and subjection and am no Widdow Infallible not forsaken of Christ and so shall see no sorrow the City that ruleth over the Kings of the Earth Revel 17.1 2 3 4 18. and 18.7 Surely if pride go before destruction and a haughty mind before a fall then it cannot be but so proud and Luciferian a Church must needs fall too If the Angel of the Church of Laodicea because of his high boastings that he was rich and increased with goods growing thereby lukewarm was threatned to be spewed out of Christs mouth and what was said to him was said to the Churches by the spirit as implying that any of them falling into the like temper must be so dealt with except they repented how can it be but that this Church hath long since met with that doome seeing shee for a long time hath been far more Proud and Highminded than that Angel was and no less lukewarm or indifferent for the honour of Christ so she may be but the Queen and Empress especially also seeing she obstructs the way against her repentance by pleading she is Infallible and so needs no repentance justifying by her Priests and Jesuits her self and her practices in all these vile and filthy miscarriages doing therein as was noted before like Jerusalem of old that would not acknowledge that she had transgressed and scattered her ways to strangers and had not obeyed Gods voice but would against the most notorious and palpable evidences of her guilt yet say she was not polluted she had not gone after Baalim or other Lords and Masters besides her own proper God Even so it is with this proud imperious Chuch she will lift up her self against all charges and will not own her self guilty of Idolatry or corrupt in her faith worship but will boast of her being the Church the Catholique Church the Infallible Church talk of her Antiquity Universality Unity challenge all the Apostles Prophets Martyrs Confessors Ancient Doctors Councels to be hers when indeed in truth in their true and genuine Doctrines the Apostles Prophets Primitive Doctors and Councels all condemn her It is true she may in many things boast of her Antiquity and so may the Devil and his Followers who also can shew as great an Universality and Unity for should he be divided against himself as our Saviour saith his kingdom could not stand Luk. 11.18 but non omne quod antiquum est verum est sed quod primum not all that is ancient though of great latitude and extent and at unity with itself but that that is the first that is true and right So God was the first and before the Devil and his truth was before error and falshood and the Articles of the Christian faith were long before any noyse was heard of the Popes Supremacy or being Christs Vicar or of his having derived the Keys or the Power over the whole Church from St. Peter or of the Doctrine of Purgatory or Transubstantiation or their Merit of our works or of Works of Super-errogation or of the Cup being denyed to the People or of the Latine Service or Prayers injoyned in an unknown Tongue or of the Worship of Images or Invocation of the Saints or of whatever else is properly Roman as distinguished from all other Professors of the Christian Religion Which are so many gross and horrid Errors into which she is fallen and from the charge of guilt wherein she cannot clear her self But though she wash her with Nitre and take much Sopâ— yet they are and will be marked before the Lord as He said sometime to Jerusalem Jer. 2.22 and therefore also being so fowly fallen into Error and Iniquity and not confessing and repenting but justifying her self and saying in despite of all the most evident convictions that she is innocent it cannot be but that what God threatned to Israel will also be her portion and that in a far more dreadful and severe manner that is that he will plead with her and execute upon her all the terrible Judgment written in Revel 18. So as she shall be thrown down into the Pit of destruction with great violence even by the mighty hand of God so as she shall be found no more at all because she instead of owning her guilt and repenting of her Idolatries Blood-shed Pride and all her other Enormities saith she is innocent and her lying false Prophets dawb her up with their untempered Mortar and see for her vain and foolish things instead of discovering her iniquity to turn away her misery Yea they see for her as Jerusalems false Prophets did for her false buthens and causes of banishment of her and all that cleave to her for ever from Gods presence Jer. 2.32 Lam. 2.14 Rev. 18.2 and she loves to have it so For if any be convinced of her Errors and protest against them being converted from them they seek if possible to murther and destroy them As many have proved and as Mr. Anthony Aegan tells us they have endeavoured diverse ways to do to him since his conversion from them and protests against them and endeavours
reasons both 1. Of the continuance of so many still to cleave to her after she hath been so detected 2. Of the falling of any to her after so great and long a discovery of her and declining from her 1. To the first of these with respect to her self and those that are more properly the constitutive and essential parts of her the Church as distinguished by her self from the Laity or people adhering to her and especially the Court of Rome she being as she is called and as we have shewed a Whore a Harlot it fares with her as it doth with other Whores that is as such a one that is a Whore getting gain and profit to her self by her Whoredom and finding pleasure and sweetness therein is hardned against the discoveries of her false practises and usually goeth on impenitently in her Trade because of the profit and gain accruing to her thereby and especially if She be Courted by great and rich Persons or Princes they give her considerable gifts of Riches Honours and Dignities and makes but a Tush at the Laws Threatning Punishment or Death for such practises she finding no effect or Execution of them for a long time to appear against her by occasion whereof She flatters her Self that it will be never otherwise with her than it is but that She shall always escape punishment So fares it with this Adulterous Church she hath found and finds so much gain and profit of worldly Interest Riches Honour Dignity accruing to her since her trucking with Kings and Princes and Emperors and obtaining of them to be owned and honoured in all her pretensions as the Catholick Church the Church that all persons ought to comply with and submit to and that her Head and Bishop should be taken to be the Vicar of Christ the highest power on earth that it s no marvail if She repent not of her so sweet and gainful a Trade but by all means endeavours to keep up her credit that she may be still so courted and caressed and if she hath gotten a wound that hath threatned her life that she endeavours to get cured and to recover her Pristine strength which if she do recover we expect she will follow her old trade of Strumpetry and Blood-shedding as hard or harder than ever that so she may secure her self if possible from the threatned punishment and judgment ordered of God and denounced in his Name against her by us which maugre all her power and pollicy she shall not be able to escape for strong is the Lord God that judgeth her the brightness of whose appearing that Man of Sin shall not be able to endure To this purpose that she may recover her Pristine strength and vigour and follow her accursed Trade with the greater fervour or fury her Politicians as so many Physitians are at work very hard beating their brains and using all their skill and Industry to make her whole again and wo to us for a while if her disease be cured and the Beasts deadly wound be healed for then will be indeed accomplished more fully that which is written in Rev. 13.15 16 17. but in the mean time there are many cleave to her and have all along cleaved to her Because 1. Many of them are kept from or have not the opportunity of seeing and hearing what is evidenced against her though perhaps they have heard some rumour of the Gospel Preached to them that dwell on the Earth and of the Fall of Babylon in part from her Pristine power and splendour many are kept in ignorance both of the Scriptures and of the Sermons and Discourses in Writing of the Protestant parties and many neglect to inquire into them and so come not to know what is evidenced against her her Pandors or Merchants setting themselves to keep them in Ignorance and Error to keep up their own grandeur and worldly Interests 2. The cunning Sophistry and deceits of her Priests and Jesuits men of a seared Conscience and stiff Impudence who like Jannes and Jambres who withstood Moses from or in his discovering the truth of God to Pharaoh and the Egyptians do stand against the truth and the Preachers of it and the discoverers of the Romish Frauds and Impostures prevail much with many who are apt to resolve their faith into their learning subtlety authority and appearing Piety and wisdom even as the slights of James and Jambres prevailed with Pharoah and many of the Egyptians so as that though they hear and may hear or read the discourses of the learned Protestants wherein they have detected their abuses yet they do not seriously Ponder or weigh them or are blinded from discerning the truth by the mists they cast before them 3. Worldly interest holds in many both of the Kings and Greater Persons their interest being interwoven with those of Rome and where the Kings and Princes of the earth commit fornication with her they do by their Laws in many places made against them that reject her Communion and their rigour and cruelty deter many from listening to and considering what is said against her yea and they keep out such discoverers or discoveries of her lewdness that otherwise would be afforded to them as was predicted in Rev. 13.15 16 17. and where their Laws are not so cruel yet by their bad examples and their indulging their favours to her followers they keep in many from listening to what would tend to withdraw them from her the most of men not searching so much with sincere endeavors after what is true and right as minding and resting in what is uppermost in the world and worshipping in truth its Power and Grandeur which I take to be that which the Holy Ghost in the Apocalyps calls the Beast more than any other God besides 4. The dependance that the younger persons have upon the Elder or others related to them the Children upon their Parents and Kinsfolks and Friends one upon another and the respect they have one for another is some cause also of many being detained therein being carryed away with such as they have such dependance upon or respect unto especially the being Educated under such Principles as have been maintained by and transmitted to them from their Ancestors and Progenitors for many generations proves a powerful motive to retain and not reject those principles what ever may be offered to detect and discover the evil of them few being so redeemed from the vain conversations received by tradition from their Fathers and Forefathers or from the Earth and Men even from earthly affections and from their respects to and dependances on men by the Blood of Christ minded and regarded by them as it hath been shed for them as to renounce all such respect to Fathers and Forefathers earthly affections and dependance on and respects to men and to follow after Christ singly and sincerely where-ever he by his Word and Doctrine would lead them or so as to make such due and diligent
and the too many miscarriages found among us especially in some transactions of the late times which those Emissaries want neither skill nor will to improve to the furtherance of their designs and also the fair flourishes that she by them makes especially in these Countries where being in the midst of oppositions they put on greater appearances of Piety Patience Charity as they call their Almsdeeds and pretensions of greater Unity and Prosperity and what was lastly said also of her wiliness in accommodating her Doctrines and carriages toward them to mens different humors But besides these things there may be other causes that are more principal assigned which in conjunction with these are of great power and influence so as there is great danger of the fall of many into her embraces As for instance 1. Mens own former and hitherto Carelesness to acquaint themselves with and seek to be established in the truth and to walk in it according to its Instructions and that hath been and is the case of too many both of our Gentry and of others of both Sexes that though they have for many years had the Scriptures and Gospel Doctrines among them and many Learned and Solid disocurses published to discover the deceits of the Romanists yet they have not set their hearts toward God and Christ seriously to know and walk in and be obedient to his truth but have rested in a bare form of Godliness denying the power of it more minding the World and the things of it their Estates Riches Honours Pleasures Ornaments Gallantry or Intemperancy and what their corruptions lead them to than how to serve and please God and make such right improvements of his truths made known to and among them as wherein they might be fitted for and accounted worthy of its utmost Benefits especially in these late and present days in which loose and licentious principles and practises of Atheism infidelity and debauchery take great place and have wonderfully in a few years thriven so as to overcome the Nations Now God is marvailously jealous of his glory and the glory of his Name and truth and will not hold them guiltless that take or receive them in vain that is so as not to be made good by them and therefore will punish them that so do for this cause it was that he gave over the Gentiles to vile affections and to gross Idolatry because when he had in and by his works of creation and providence made known himself to and among them they did not glorify him as God nor were thankful to him but became vain in their Imaginations and their Foolish Hearts were darkened so as professing themselves to be wise they became fools c. Rom. 1.21 22 23 24 25. For this cause God also threatned us Christians that he would give way to the man of Sin to come in upon the World with power and signs and lying wonders after the manner of Sathan and send strong delusions that men might believe lyes and be Damned even because God had first sent the truth of the Gospel among us and men received not the love thereof that they might be saved namely from their Sins nor believed it heartily so as to obey it but had pleasure in unrighteousness 2 Thes 2 8 9 10 11 12. Which horrible threatned judgment he hath sadly executed in the World after the Christian faith being spread abroad in it hath not been duly entertained partly by leting loose Mahomet and seting up a Kingdom in the World as to its Eastern parts that received and propagates his delusions what they can and partly by suffering Rome in these Western parts so to exalt her self with all her corruptions and abominations and surely this is one and the main cause of the falling off of so many to her bad communion after such detection of her so fully made to which way hath also been the rather made by 2. The sad debauchings of the Nations and filling them with Profaneness uncleanness irreligion from the one end to the other thereof which hath doubtless been the project and work of some that hold the Doctrine of Balaam and follow his pernicious ways who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the Children of Israel to eat things sacrificed to Idols and to commit Fornication Rev. 2.14 Or rather as Jezabel that painted Strumpet who seduced Gods People to commit fornication first and then to eat things sacrificed to Idols first to commit Fornication and then as a fruit thereof to which they might that way be the easier drawn to eat things sacrificed to Idols Rev. 2.20 According to some Machivillian principles to make men first of no Religion and then they may easily be drawn to embrace any false Religion how much bodily Whoredom and Fornication overspreads the Land is too sad as well as easy to observe and surely its just with God when men give up themselves to that to give them over to Spiritual Fornication also that they might fill up the measure of their Iniquities and his greater and severer wrath might come upon them and especially it s the direct way to promote the Popish Religion and its spiritual Whoredoms because it gives such indulgences to and dispensations for the beloved Sins of bodily Fornication promising to those that practice such Sins Pardon and impunity at least after some penances and Purgatory Pains for their Sins and Heaven and Happiness to at last if they will but joyn themselves in fellowship with that Church and uphold its claims and Pretentions though for others of a devouter complexion as we have noted she can take some precious truths of God compared in Scripture to Gold yea fine Gold or to Silver seven times Purifyed in the fire and his precious promises which are as precious Pearls more precious than Rubies and mixing them with her own superstitions make up pretty taking medals and formes or Images of devotion and composures of Croizons and religious exercises to allure and bewitch them 3. Yea the familiarity and Friendship with Persons of that Religion or being yoked up with them especially in Marriage proves a great inducement to diverse to turn to them for even such correspondencies and conjunctions with any false worshipers have been allways pernicious as may appear even in Solomon who though a wise man and of an exceeding large understanding so as that as Nehemiah observes among many Nations there was no King like him who was beloved of God yet even him did outlandish or strange women of a corrupt Religion cause to Sin Neh. 13.26 1 King 11.3 4 5 6 7. For his Women inclined or turned away his Heart so that it was not right with God but he followed other Gods and built high places for them and who may presume to stand under a temptation when he voluntarily casts himself into it that Solomon could not stand upright under though so wise a man therefore God forbad Israel to joyn themselves in affinity with