of St. Augustin to cast your Eyes not only upon the Cockle but also upon the good Wheat and if you will needs be comparing the Professors of our several Religions together do not compare the best of your own Religion with the worst of ours but the best of ours with the best of your own and the worst of ours with the worst of your own and do not consider how little our Fasting-days or Holy-days or Confession of sins c. conduce to Piety as they are observed by the Libertines of our Church but what helps they would be to make all the world better were they observed in a due and Christian manner Another great cause of your mistakes is that great Lye devised by the first Reformers viz. That the New Testament is a Compleat Rule of Faith and Manners for all Christians Hence whatsoever Practice or Ceremony you cannot find there you reject it as a Superstition and Will-worship And this makes you quarrel with all Abstinence from certain kinds of Meats on Fasting-days and with all Holy-days except Sundays with the Sign of the Cross c. Whereas Christian Doctrines and the Evangelical way of Worship were first taught the world by the Apostles before they writ any thing at all Nor did ever any of the Apostles or all of them together go about to write a Book of the whole Body of the Christian Law like to those of Exodus and Leviticus written by Moses as is manifest to any one that considers the Nature of the Books of the New Testament The four Gospels are a History of our Blessed Saviours Life and Death who lived as to the External Rites of Religion according to the â—ewish Law and so we cannot reasonably in any of them expect what Holy-days or Fasting days or Ceremonial Rites we Christians are to observe in the time of the Gospel Indeed had the Acts of the Apostles been intended as an exact Narration how the Apostles lived as to the whole course of their life what days they kept Holy and what they fasted and how and what Sacraments they administred and now and with what Rites c. we might reasonably have expected there some mention of Ascension and Christmas-day of Lent and Abstinence from Flesh on Fridays of Renouncing the Devil and the Sign of the Cross in Baptism c. But that Holy Book making mention only of some few particular passages of two or three of the Apostles lives the Apostles might well keep divers Holy-days besides Sunday and abstain from Flesh in Lent and upon other Fasting-days and use the Sign of the Cross c. and teach the same also to their first Converts and yet there be a profound silence of them in the Book of their Acts. As for St. Johns Prophetical Book it looks nothing like a Ritual or an Account of what days and Rites in the Divine Worship are pecular to us Christians The rest of the New Testament are Epistles or Letters of Spiritual Counsel written by St. Paul or some other Apostle to Persons already instructed in the Christian way of Worship And why they should make mention therein of all Christian Exterior Rites and Days I understand not unless perchance the Persons they wrote unto had been deficient in such Observances The Adequate Rule of our Faith and Manners are the Doctrines and Practices taught the World by the Apostles of our Blessed Saviour And the Holy Scriptures are an Excellent but not the only means whereby we may assuredly come to know what Truths were taught and what Practices were set on foot over the whole Earth by by the same Apostles We must consult the immemoral Faith and Practices and unanimous attestations of several Christian Countries and what they joynly witness immemorally to have received from Father to Son from the Apostles whether it be a Book written as they tell us by the Apostles or a Doctrine taught by them or a Ritual Observance ordained by them we safely submit unto it as Apostolical For that the several Christian Inhabitants all over the World could never possibly meet together to forge a lye And it is no small cause My Dear Friends of all your mistakes that you conceit you know the Holy Scriptures to be the infallible Word of God by their own light There 's no doubt but any one that reverently reads those Holy Books cannot but acknowledge that there are very many Excellent Truths declared in them but that every thing in them is infallibly true and that they were written by Men un-erringly inspired by the Holy Ghost it 's not possible we should ever have come to know so much but by the teaching of our Parents who from our Infancy imprinted upon us a Reverence to those Sacred Writings above all others And did we but reflect that the assurance we have that the Books of the New Testament were written by Apostolical Persons is only this that so all Christian Countries since the Apostles have immemorially believed our Discourse would strait tell us there 's all reason we should ask of those several Countries from whom we have received those Divine Books in what sense they have been always taught to understand them and interpret them accordingly and what Rites and Observances they received together with them and admit them with the like Reverence And it will be hard to give an Account to our Blessed Saviour why with such awful dread you submitted to the four Gospels or Epistles of St. Paul as most Sacred and Divine and yet dared to reject as superstition and Will-worship certain Practices and Observances delivered to you by the same Hands immemorially from the Apostles Mistrust not the Providence of our Dear Redeemer he has in all Ages had a Watchful Eye over his Holy Church not permitting her to Apostarize by Idolatry or be defiled with Superstition or to deliver to posterity her own Inventions for Apostolical Traditions But more of this hereafter Till you hear further from me my Dearest Friends let me only obtain this favour of you to do your selves this right to converse familiarly with Roman Catholicks and to hear impartially what they have to say for themselves wherein they differ from you and not to fancy they believe a thousand Absurdities which they no less detest than your selves Yours ever W. H. FINIS
THE PURITAN CONVERT Not to Prelatick Protestantism and yet to Prelatick Protestantism nor to Popery and yet to Popery but absolutely and without Reserve to Apostolical Christianity That is to whatsoever Doctrine or practice Prelatick Protestant or Papist can prove to have been taught the World by the Apostles of Jesus Christ OR A DISCOURSE By way of a LETTER Shewing That Prelatick Protestants if they will be true to their Practises and Principles have all reason to turn Papists in all things as to what Papists indeed hold but in nothing as to what Papists are vulgarly believed to hold And that de facto Non-conformists would turn Papists were they not imposed upon by false Principles and notorious Slanders devised by the first Separatists from the Church of Rome By W. H. Come and I will teach you how great things God has done for my Soul Printed Anno Domini MDCLXXVI Permissu Superiorum THE CATHOLICK NAKED TRUTH OR THE PURITAN CONVERT TO Apostolical Christianity BVT why the Naked Truth Because I design a Candid Naked Description of a Puritan Prelatick Protestant Papist c. I expect the fate of Poor Robins Adamite Some body or other will have a lash at me But if I scape so well as the Author of the Prelatick Naked Truth has done I hope no blood will follow To wit to be first lashed by a severe Animadverter and then to be stript Naked afterwards Had the Candid Author been stript first and then whipt his Case had been more pitious The Animadverter was a little too hasty A Third I hear has taken him to task but they say he is a more Gentle Whipster With my Soul I compassionate him as one meerly imposed upon by Forgeries and false Principles devised by the Reformers and amongst others especially by this that the New Scripiure is the adequate Rule of Christian Faith and Worship Go on Worthy Sir to Fast and Pray whilst others Feast and Play at Lantrelue The First Letter What the Author means by a Prelatick Protestant Puritan c. My Dearest Friends and Nearest Relations IT is my hearts desire to speak with every one of you and to tell you with all Sincerity what the All Good God has done for my Poor Soul but the troublesomness of the times and your great distance from one another not permitting me so great a comfort I have thought fit to communicate to you my good Wishes of your Eternal Happiness by Ink and Paper Our dear Redeemer Jesus Christ Bless my Poor Labours to you all and stir up others who are better able more fully to instruct you in the way to Everlasting Bliss which I know to be the great desire of your Souls After the search of many years spent in Prayer Reading and conference with Persons of different perswasions I doubt not but I have found out the Truth Almighty God be forever Blessed for it I doubt not but I have found out the True Church of Jesus Christ the indeed People of God who walk in the direct Path to endless Beatitude and whosoever walks as they walk and teach shall infallibly see God for ever I confess I am Converted from Puritanism But to what to Prelatick Protestantism No nor to Popery neither But to Antient Apostolick Christianity Though indeed I have not so much left Puritanism as Prelaticks call it as added that to it wherein I found it and I hope many of you will find it come short of the Holy Apostles Doctrine and Institutions That you may the better understand me in my ensuing Discourse I will briefly Explain to you what I understand by a Puritan what by a Prelatick Protestant and what by a Papist and what by an Apostolical Christian which I profess my self by the Grace of Jesus Christ to be I understand by a Puritan one that being Visited from Heaven by rousing checks of Conscience could find no Rest for their troubled Soul by living under the liveless Ministry and Spiritless form of the established Religion of England One who by reading some portion of Holy Scripture or other Spiritual Book or by hearing some awakening Sermon was so struck from above that he had nothing in his Heart nor Mouth but that great Question of the man concern Sirs What must I do to be Saved One who from the Visitation from on high had so much life in him as to be sensible of the heavy burden of a hard Heart and whose great Prayer to the Almighty was To take from him his Heart of Stone and to give him a Heart of Flesh No Books no Company no Sermons no Thoughts were gustful to him but such as were conducing to the melting and changing of his Heart and Soul All Lip-labour he deem'd but lost Labour so long as his Soul within was not chang'd so long as his Heart was hard he could find no satisfaction in words and expressions though never so Pathetical whether uttered by himself or others or set down in Printed Books Nay he was so far from being satisfied with such wordy Devotions that he was even afraid to use them for fear of being guilty of damnable Hypocrisy For Example to say or read by way of Prayer O my God my All How I love you How my Soul is grieved that ever I have offended you his Conscience telling him he had no such Affections but that his Heart was hard as a very Stone No relenting of hearty sorrow for past iniquities no tender resentments of the innumerable Divine Benefits no strong hopes of future Eternal Goods nor yet affrighting fears of the dreadful day of wrath Conscious to himself of a great deal of ill past and clear conviction of no present good disposition in his Soul and yet assuredly perswaded there must some good be in the Soul or no hopes of enjoying the Almighty for ever without holiness true Internal Holiness Heart-Holiness Spirit-Holiness in this life no hopes of seeing the All Good God in the next And thus much of a Puritan I think none that has any sense of a God can mislike of whatsoever perswasion he is whether he be Papist Protestant or Phanatick I do not use these terms to revile or exasperate any one but meerly for distinction sake And I beseech my Reader not to be offended at them if he meet with them now and then in my following Discourse God forbid I should willingly anger those wounds which with my Soul I desire to cure But what do I understand further by a Puritan I understand one who wearied out with wrastling against the corruptions of his own Heart still finds much evil in the interior of his Soul boylings of anger flames of concupiscence greedy desires of Money and the things of this life and however exteriorly reformed and changed he may seem to be to the World he 's dis-satisfied within himself that he is not changed enough nor changed enough I say although his profane Kindred and acquaintance think him changed but too too much
Christ I Absolve thee from thy sins does as perfectly free you from all obligation to Eternal Torments as if you had never sinn'd And as for the temporal pains in Purgatory which may be due to you for want of a true sorrow and a hearty purpose to amend 't is but saying Seven Pater Nosters and as many Ave Maries upon such a Saints day in such a Church and you go strait to Heaven clear from all spot and stain There are many more ridiculous absurdities which this sadly deluded Papist believes and practises but these I think are sufficient to make any Man in his wits to abhor Popery as the greatest piece of Non-sense imaginable And understanding by Popery what has been said and yet that is not half of that Ridiculosity which the Generality of people in England understand by it he that should turn Papist be he for Religion Protestant Jew or Turk he must certainly for understanding be a Mad Man Child or Fool either one that has lost his wits or one that is not yet come to his wit or one that never had nor ever shall have any wit But were not our Ancestors here in England for many ages together all Papists Are not whole Nations France Spain Italy and others generally Papists Have we not some thousands of Papists still remaining in our own Countrey Are all these Children Fools or Mad Men Let them look to that You and I are sure that no Man that has half the understanding of a Man can think that such a bundle of ridiculous Tenets and Absurdities can look like any such thing as a Religion revealed from Heaven And if they confess themselves to be Papists and to hold those witless absurdities the Conclusion unavoidably falls upon them They must be Children Mad Men or Fools Unless you will say they know well enough all those ridiculous absurdities how irrational and senseless they are as well as you and I but for temporal ends in their Hearts being of no Religion at all they make a profession of believing and revering all the above-mentioned Fopperies And this I must confess is another strange folly in these Papists and a contradiction not to be paralel'd in the most blockish uncultivated Indians For the Happiness Riches Honours and Pleasures of this life they make a show of believing most seriously a thousand absurdities which they laugh at in their Hearts and yet they are so senseless as they 'l loose their Lives Estates Dignities and all rather than abjure those very absurdities Further They are so ashamed of their doltish Religion that charge them with any of their stupid opinions and they 'l profess by all that 's Sacred they neither believe nor practice any such things as you lay to their charge And yet you and I know most assuredly that they do in the very bottom of their Hearts so strongly adhere to them that they would part with Life and all that 's dearest to them rather than forego them But how come you and I to know they hold such and such absurd fancies they so constantly professing they hold no such thing Can any body know their minds and practices better than they themselves That 's a considerable Question and shall be answered afterwards Sure if this be their Case That indeed they do not Worship and Pray to Pictures and Stocks and Stones as Gods nor believe any such extravagant power in their Holy Father at Rome to pardon or give leave to commit sin for Money and a thousand other absurdities which commonly they are charged with And yet they will rather endure all losses of Estate Liberty or Life then relinquish the said detestable abominations methinks they do not deserve so much to be persecuted sequestred imprison'd hang'd drawn and quarter'd for Traytors as to be pitied and cast into Bedlam for Mad Men or to have their Estates begg'd for Natural Fools There is some Mystery lies hid here which we have not yet discovered Either they are grosly and stupidly mistaken in matters of Religion or else we are strangely mistaken in them and what is indeed their Religion But for Gods sake as you desire our Eternal Wellfare which you seemed in the beginning of your discourse so heartily to pretend unto of what Religion are you your self who write thus for the satisfaction of your deluded Puritanical Kindred and Acquaintance whom you so pity and compassionate If you be neither Puritan Prelatick Protestant nor Papist what are you A Jew Turk or Pagan No I thank the All Good God I am a Christian An Apostolical Christian That is one that believes whatever Doctrine can be proved to him to have been taught the World by the Apostles of Jesus Christ One that admits of any practice introduced into the World by the same Apostles One that reverences all Books or Writings as of an in allible Divine Authority left by them Nay if the Holy Apostles left any in Commission as their Successors to make Ordinations observable by all Christians I receive all Decrees of such Delegates of the Apostles also But these are general terms what do you believe in particular as to the Worship of God in this World and the state of departed Souls in the other and such line controverted points betwixt Papists and Protestants Do you believe all those Papistical Doctrines you mentioned above or no I thank my God there 's not one of them which I do not detest as Hell it self But what do you positively believe I do believe whatsoever Jesus Christ taught his Twelve Apostles and what his Twelve Apostles taught the VVorld And I do believe Almighty God has left us who live in this Seventeenth Age from our Dear Saviour certain and infallible means to know what they taught the VVorld in that first Age in which they lived at least so much of what they taught and established as is needful for us to know and practice to dispose us for Beatitude in the other life For that otherwise the universal Redeemer should not have been a sufficient Saviour of all the VVorld but only of that part of it which had the happiness to live in that first Age of Christianism or at most only of such Ages as were so near that Primitive Happy Time that they could certainly and infallibly know what Truths were taught and what practices in order to the bettering to the preparing of Mankind for Heaven were set on foot by Jesus Christ or his infallible Delegates Substitutes or VVitnesses But what means has Jesus Christ left us at this distance from the time wherein he illuminated the VVorld by his Divine resence to know how he lived and how he taught his followers to live to come to Eternal Life Has he in some strange Island preserved some Hundreds of Venerable Old Men who have been kept alive ever since that first Age to testifie to all Generation what kind of Doctrin they had heard with their Ears or what kind of Worship they had
against his Neighbour meerly because he will be so when he is not only no gainer by his malice but also prejudiced by it which notwithstanding if I understand you aright is the state of your Countrey What must we say in this case to satisfie a stranger to our Affairs Why I would tell him the plain truth That is About a hundred and fifty years ago we were all of the present discountenanced parties Religon but the Supreme Power thinking fit in many things to change or as they phrased it to reform the way of worship taught them by their Ancestors partly aggravated real abuses which stood in need of correction and partly calumniated with a thousand lies those who would not joyn with them in their pretended Reformation and those lyes have been propagated from Fathers to Sons ever since Moreover there is a Real and very Considerable difference as to divers points betwixt the Religion established by Law and the Religion of dissenting Papists as we call them Especially about Transubstantiation Invocation of Saints and Purgatory And now you know people of different perswasions are very apt to slander and mis-understand one another hoping thereby to make their own cause more plausible Besides those of the established Religion having the free use not only of the press to write whatsoever they please concerning the discountenanced party but also having the command of all the publick Pulpits in which every week they represent their Adversaries how they please to the whole people no body being permitted to gainsay or contradict them nor even to write any thing but by stealth and after all their Apologies for themselves come into the hands but of a very few And it being very unreasonable to persecute with loss of Estate or Life good and peacable Subjects purely for their Consciences in matters of Religion and this about some nice Points only the Ruling Party or rather the first Reformers to justifie their own severe Laws against dissenters are forced to slander them with a thousand lies before the vulgar Multitude who easily believe what is told them by their Ministers especially if they be such as they Reverence for their seeming learning and good life Nor do I by what I am a saying accuse the whole present Clergy of lying against their Consciences when they tell the people that Papists pray to Stocks and Stones as Gods can have pardon of sin past or leave to commit sin to come for Money No I believe many of them do really think so in their Hearts having been often told so from their Infancy and knowing little of Papists but from printed Books and these made by their Adversaries too But the first Reformers who had been educated in Popery could not but lye against their Consciences when they told the people such lies concerning Papists as I have made mention of above In like manner new Apostate Priests must needs have very bad Consciences when they accuse as they do Papists of such things as their own Consciences tell them themselves were not guilty of when they were Papists For Example the Author of that Scurrilous Pamphlet The Rates of sins in the Custom-house of the Church of Rome What Conscience could he have when he could not but fore see that the common people would thence be confirmed in their mis-belief concerning their Catholick Neighbours that they can have pardon and leave to commit any sin for Money which in his Conscience he knew to be most false And yet after all one that had a mind to vilifie the Church of England might with the like semblace of Truth Intitle a Book The Rates of sins in the Custom house of the Church of England and make good the Title by setting down the Pecuniary Mulcts which are exacted in Bishops Spiritual Courts for Adulteries Fornications Dispensations in Marriages c. as if in the Church of England you might have leave to commit Adultery for so much and Fornication for so much c. when all this while these are only Pecuniary Punishments by which the Ecclesiastical Power discountenances and endeavours to prevent sin and wickedness And yet what hurt do such Paltry Pamphlets the simple half-witted Multitude Jesus have Mercy on the Authors of them But I am giving an account of our mis-understanding one another in matters of Religion Add moreover that Papists do practice certain things which those that are either very ignorant or very malicious may easily make a bad construction of For Example they most commonly say their Prayers kneeling before some Picture of our Blessed Saviour or his Holy Mother or some other Saint hence half-witted people that have often heard that Papists worship Images as Gods do really think they pray to the Picture they kneel to God Almighty before When if you saw their Hearts or would believe their Tongues they are as far from adoring such a Picture as God as Socrates was from worshipping the Clouds as the common people imagin'd when they saw him bow his Body to the Creator of all in the open fields And do no more pray to Pictures than you do to the bare walls or Communion-Table set Altar-wise you kneel before when you are at your Prayers What you do to your Communion-Table or to the Name of Jesus that they do to the Picture of the same Jesus and no more And would you without passion and partiality converse with them you would find what I say to be most true To illustrate what I am a saying give me leave to insert a pleasant Story told me by a Protestant Lady It seems in a Church in Town certain Gentlewomen and these oftentimes but a quarter-pac'd Conformists as the Animadverter upon Naked Truth phrases it sit very near the Communion Table or half-pac'd Popish Altar now Thorough-pac'd Conforming Ladies entring the Church show their respect towards the Holy Table by making a low Reverential Court'sy the Gentlewomen that sit near the Superstitious Altar taking all that respect as done to themselves wonder much at it and whisper to one another Madam Is that Lady of your Acquaintance No. Nor of yours Madam No. Surely she either knows or thinks she knows some of us she so civily salutes us c. Madam you mistake 'T is not to you but to the Holy Eucharist which is wont to be dispensed from the Sacred Table you sit so near the Devout Lady gives all that respect Just so fares it with the Religious Papist who passing by the Image of his Dear Crucified Lord Reverently pulls off his Hat or Respectfully Bows his Head The half-witted Protestant having been told from his Cradle that Papists worship Stocks and Stones as Gods now believes the Papists to be Idolaters not because his Minister told him so but because he has as he thinks been an Eye-witness of their Idolatry when all this while the Devout Romanist shows all this respect not to the Carved Wood or Stone or painted Cloth or Paper he bows before but to his