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 thingsmore contrary to flesh and blood than these and yet we see these Doctrines are propogated daily without any force of Armes 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 strait 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 tryed by the Writings of the Evangelists and Apostles We see that even in the Apostles dayes 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 practises and therefore we must needs think that after the Apostles decease the Church of Christ was subject to the same fate so that if there be any standard or touch stone left whereby the truth and sincerity of a Church can be tried and we must needs think so well of GODS 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 sake and for your Salvations sake compare the Doctrines and practises of the Church of ROME with the Doctrines and practises 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 Transubstantation 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 stnpidity 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 discouragment they are under and their desire to make Proselytes makes them outwardly Religious There may be and no doubt are Zealous and outwardly pious men in all Religions in the World but that doth not make every Religion true and divine An outward shew of Piety is the only way of propagating any Religion The Devil himself could not propagate Heathenisme and Idolatry but by the pretened Zeal and Piety and Abstinence and Mortification of Apollonius Tyaneus who yet by the confession of the whole Christian world was no better then a Wizard and Conjurer I make no application to any particular Priest in the Church of ROME I do not deny but men may be in great Errors and be very Zealous for their errours and seemingly very pious in their Zeal and when their Errors are not very wilful and destroy not the true Worship of GOD for ought I know they may find mercy in the day of our Lord. I grant there is a great shew of outward Piety in the Church of ROME very dazeling and very moving but the great danger lyes here that the Worship they give to GOD with one hand they strike and pull down with the other I know too well the practise of their Churches and a Heathen that should come into their Temples beyond Sea would verily believe that they Worship a Multiplicity of Gods as well as he whatever their pretentions may be to the contrary It is not what people say so much as what they do that GOD takes notice of and though you should Ten Thousand times protest that you Worship and adore GOD alone yet while GOD sees you adore the Virgin Mary with as great Zeal and reverence as you do him pray to her oftener then you do to him make as many bowes to her and other Saints as you do to him and other things of that nature how can he believe you Religion is a thing that will not bear jests and Hypocrisy GOD will not be put off with contradictions between speeches and Practises Madam I do from my heart Pitty you and as it might be the weakness of your Judgment that might lead you into this Erroneous Church so I beseech you for Christs sake to return to the Church you have rashly left where you cannot run a hazard if you will but follow the plain Doctrines of the Gospel besides which we preach nothing and enjoyn nothing as necessary to Salvation Should these entreaties and beseechings be alledged against you in the last day as things which you have contrary to reason refused and slighted how dreadful would your condition be I have discharged my Duty and given you warning I would not have your Guilt lye at my Door and therefore have let you know my real thoughts and Sentiments concerning your condition and the Church you are in The Great GOD of Heaven open your eyes that you may see and fear Time was when you would have believed us as much as you do now the Priests of the Church of ROME It 's strange that now they should speak nothing but truths and we nothing but falshood Do you think we do not understand the Scriptures and Fathers and Antiquity as well as they And can we all be so besotted with interest and passion that none of us should yied to the dictates of their Church if we could prevail with our sense and reason to believe that the things wherein they differ from us were agreeable to the Gospel sure we have a great many men among us that are great Lovers of Peace and would be glad that the whole Christian world were agreed and would these men stand out against that union if it could be done with a safe Conscience Certainly we have men as learned among us as ever
the Laity If the substance of the Sacrament and the comfort arising from it may remaine entire without obliging men to beleive 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 then a Worship of the Virgin Mary The very beggers beyond-Sea in begging of alms beg more for the Virgin Marie's sake then for Christ's sake This Madam I know to be true who am no stranger to forreign 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 turn'd Protestants such a force hath truth The Religion of the Church of ROME as it is practis'd in England lookes 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 Errours 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 mans reason The glistering Gold in their Temples the curious Images of Saints and Angels the numerons 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 ectasie 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 this outward pomp they make not the least sign of the truth of their Church not remembring that if this be a good signe the Idolatrous people in Japan and China whose Temples are infinitely more shining and glorious will have a better Title to the true Church than they I must confess that in policy and worldly craft and cunning the Church of ROME exceeds ours for they have not only turn'd the Spiritual Worship of the Gospel into a sensual service into outward Religious formalities a thing strangely pleasing to flesh and blood but they have shooes that will fit all sorts of feet great and small and have remedies for all distempers and you may go to Heaven in that Church either through the straight way or through the broad which you please they can fit the Melancholly person and the Jovial they have Monasteries and Nunneries and severities to content the one and know how to allow greater liberty to the other they can either send a man to happiness through a tedious task of mortification if he likes that method best or help him thither by a quicker dispatch by confession attrition and absolution upon a death bed when the man can hold Sin and the world no longer Live or die you cannot do amiss in that Church for living you may be forgiven and after Death you may be pray'd out of Purgatory sooner or later according as you will spend mony upon Masses for gold doth strangely quicken these supplications Such a Church Madam you have espoused and divorced your self from one that prefers the Wisdom of GOD and of the Gospel before the Wisdom of the flesh and glories in dealing plainly and honestly with all men that keeps close to the Scriptures and yet is not against those Pious customes of antiquity which are not contradictory to the Scriptures that generously maintains the prerogative of GOD and gives no other Honour to Saints and Angels but what may consist with the glory of her Creator that hath made no new Articles of Faith but keeps to the old and thinks it Rebellion against GOD to enjoyn things as necessary to Salvation which GOD never made so that urges the strictest life and encourages nothing but what may promote true piety and devotion that hath no more Ceremonies but what are decent and labours to free Religion at once from slovenliness and superstition that secures the Right of Soveraign Princes and Teaches her Children to live like good subjects and good Christians and though it be her misfortune that too many of her pretended members live like Enemies of Christianity yet that 's not long of her Doctrines and Constitutions but long of the stubborness of men who will not be reform'd by her Precepts As no man blames Christ or his Apostles because Judas was a Hypocrite or because Simon Magus profess'd their Religion so they betray great Ignorance and simplicity that for the Monstrous impieties of many that profess themselves members of our Assemblies despise and slight our Church which in her principles is most averse from all such practices a Church which as for mine own particular I have deliberately and premeditately embraced and chosen so I hope I shall never be so much forsaken of GOD or of my reason as to quit it to become a Papist I have not been altogether a careless observer of the several Christian Churches dispers'd through the world Desire of mine own Salvation hath made me take particular notice what corruption there is in them and what affinity they have with the Primitive Professors of Christianity And I must freely confess upon a serious Examination of the Scripture and the Fathers of the three first Centuries after Christ that from my heart I think there is no Church this day in all the Christian world be it Eastern or Western that in her principles and constitutions bears so much of the Image of the truly Primitive Church or comes so near it as the Church of England a Church which as your fore-Fathers had courage to burn for so I verily beleive that he understands not her Innocent designes and excellent rules that dares not dy a Martyr in her cause Once more your Faithful Friend to serve You. N. N. FINIS Some Books Printed for and Sold by James Collins at his Shop in the Temple passage in Essex street without Temple-bar THe Art of War by the most Honorable George Late Duke of Albemarle Fol. Seven Sermons Preached at White-Hall by Seth Lord Bishop of Sarum His Sermon at the Funeral of George Duke of Albemarle His Sermon Entituled Jorams case before the Peers the 30 of January Quarto An Exact table to Sir John Davis Reports fol. The Voice of the light unto the people called Quakers in relation to Tithes 8. A Discourse of Truth by the Late Reverend Dr. Rust Bishop of Dromore in Ireland together with a discourse of the way to Happiness by Jos. Glanvil Chaplain in ordinary to the King Twelves A Sermon Preached at the Funeral of Mrs. Dorothy St. John by Anthony Horneck Preacher at the Savoy A private Conference twixt a poor country Vicar and a rich Alderman by Dr. Pettis Pia Philosophia or the Religious Tendency of Experimental Philosophy by Joseph Glanvil Dr. Parkers answer to Mr. Andrew Marvels book called the Rehearsel Transpros'd Bishop Bramhals confutation of Mr. Baxters Grotian Religion with Dr. Parkers preface annexed 80. Bishop Sandersons seven Cases of Conscience in Oct. Dr. Fords Blessedness of being bountifull 8 The Capucin Fryer exactly described in all his wayes and practices 80. ADVERTISEMENT There is A Library in the hands of the said James Collins to be Sold consisting cheifly of History Philosophy and Politicks c. in divers Languages and a Set of Magick formerly the books of the famous Riolanus in divers Languages FINIS ERRATA Pag 35. lin 18. read eighth's p. 38. l. 4. r. Bishops p. 65. l. 7 r. or to conclude that p. 66. l. 9. r. Sacrament p. 69. l. 19. r. and that they are p. 158. l. 18. r. that are p. 163. l. 17. r. Scripture p. 170. l. 9. r. numerous Other litteral faults and mistoppings the Reader is desired to correct at his leisure
Arch-Bishops of Canterbury where fear of being counted Knaves and Fools for putting in things contrary to what was publickly known may justly be supposed to have kept the publick Notaries from asserting things notoriously false In these Registers I say it will be found what succession our first Protestant Bishops had how Arch-Bishop Parker the first Arch-Bishop of Canterbury under Queen Elizbeth to go no higher was consecrated December 17. 1559 by four persons then actually Bishops and who had formerly been Ordained by Bishops of the Church of ROME Viz. William Barlow in Henry the 8th dayes Bishop of St. Davids under Edward the 6th Bishop of Bath and Wells under Queen Mary driven into Exile and returned under Queen Elizabeth John Scory formerly Bishop of Chichester Miles Coverdale formerly Bishop of Exeter and John Hodgkins Bishop Suffragan of Bedford not to mention that the Queens Letters Patents in case any of the other should be sick or forced to be absent were directed to three Bishops more that had formerly been Popish Bishops and were turned Protestants Viz. Anthony Bishop of Landaff John Bishop Suffragan of Thedford and John Bale Bishop of Ossery But all this hath been so clearly demonstrated out of the Publick Records first by Mr. Mason and since by Arch-Bishop Bramhal that he that writes of it can onely transcribe out of them and those that deny these Records must be men of strange Foreheads and of thegreatest disingenuity From these men that had their Priesthood from the Church of Rome our Priesthood is lineally derived so that if our Priesthood be not valid theirs cannot be and if Heresie doth not make the Episcopal office void nor disable a man from conferring Episcopal order on other men as is evident from the second Councel of Nice with your Church an Oecumenical Counsel which received Bishop Anatolius tho consecrated by Dioscorus a Heretical Bishop if I say Heresie doth not make the Episcopal order void then suppose We were Hereticks our Priesthood which is derived from Popish Bishop that turned Protestants must be a true Priesthood still and to this purpose I remember one of your Church said lately once a Priest for ever a Priest Madam if your desire to know the truth be honest and sincere you should Act like a person that hath a mind to be satisfied and search the Publick Records and till then believe not every Tale that 's told you the Common Plea of your Priests that our Records are sophisticated and that we have put in what we please argues only boldness and ignorance when they can shew neither where nor when nor by whom they they were corrupted Those that talk so seem neither to understand what a publick solemne thing the Consecration of a Bishop is in England nor to reflect how difficult it is to fill a publick Register with falsities as to matters of fact when there are so many hundered men that know what is done at such a time and View the Records and would most certainly speak of it if they found a flaw in the Relation But if we should deal thus with the Church of ROME question all their Registers in the Vatican and say which we might do with far greater reason that they are things packed and invented by men that 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 Errours 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 Jewes but that neither made the Jewes approve of the Heathenish Worship nor the Christians allow of the Jewish Errours We are not so disingenious as to make the breach between you and Us wider then 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 inferrs no necessity that we must therefore consent to your Notorious depravations of the ancient 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 custome 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 Schollar 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 then 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