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
because he will not nor dare not Revel it with them as formerly Instead of Plays and Comedies his entertainments now are the Holy Scriptures or other good Books written by such who experimented in their own Souls what they taught others the works rather of Pious Mens Hearts than of Learned Mens Brains Whilst his Companions are roaring and rallying in Tipling Houses and Taverns he 's sighing and groaning in his Bed-chamber or Closet wrastling with his offended God by hearty Prayers according to what most presses his wounded and afflicted Spirit He dares not lye he abhors an Oath as Hell he is afraid to cheat or cozen any he deals with though he finds to his grief but too great desires of worldly wealth in the bottom of his Heart Upon days set apart for the Divine Worship he wishes he could keep his Soul wholly fixed upon God He can by no means satisfie his Conscience by bearing a part with his Lips only in any forms of Prayer though in themselves never so holy and good for an hour or two and then to spend or rather wast the rest of the day in idle talk disports and pastimes or somewhat worse Dalliances Revels c. But his employment is to lay up a stock of provision for his poor Soul to live upon all the week after Then he labours to renew his first repentant sorrow for his life past and to confirm his weak resolutions of another kind of life for the time to come c. But what hurt in all this if this be to be a Puritan would to God all the world were Puritans What need of such a Mans Conversion Whither must he turn What must he change to unless it be from better to worse But may he not change from good to better why what 's wanting in him That you shall hear by and by Only take notice for the present That I am so far from being Converted from thus much of a Puritan that I most heartily wish I could Convert all the World unto it The poor afflicted Puritan sadly and deservedly affrighted with the fear and apprehension of Eternal damnation labours and works how he may avoid it And Beading in the Holy Scripture those words of our Blessed Saviour Come unto me all ye that labour and are burdened and I will refresh you And seeing a necessity of some righteousness or other to entitle him to Heaven and finding nothing in himself but sin and wickedness and having heard much talk of the righteousness of Christ and of being saved by his Righteousness and finding some places in the Epistles of St. Paul which seem to sound that way all his care is to apprehend that Righteousness and to rely upon what Jesus Christ has done and suffer'd for him And by this means he begins to deem himself in a secure condition By the Blood of Christ thus apprehended and applied by a lively Faith he grows very confident and assured all the fire of Hell is quenched as to him and he fears damnation no longer And though unworthy of his Heavenly Fathers Benediction for any thing in himself yet appearing before him in the Garments of his Elder Brother he doubts not of a Blessing and that an Eternal one too And this conceit if it do not make hm very bold to sin at least it makes him very negligent in adorning his Soul with Piety Charity Meekness Patience Humility and other Christian Vertues partly thinking them impossible to be attained partly deeming there is no absolute necessity of them to his Salvation He having nothing to do but to believe that Jesus Christ has done all for him and what Love or Piety or other Vertue necessarily follows from such a Faith he willingly admits but for the rest solicitously to endeavour after the acquisition of Vertues he looks upon as the working of an Old Testament Spirit and a derogation from the perfect Salvation by Jesus Christ and his Righteousness The Old Covenant was Do this and Live but now he is under a better Covenant Believe and Live or Live and do this The impression his first awakening has left upon him keeps him from returning to open lewdness and profaness but his Faith of this imputative Righteousness of Christ makes him take little pains in the cultivating of his own Soul either in purging it of the Relicks of ill habits or in planting in it the Divine Vertues our Lord Jesus taught us to exercise by his Word and Example And this is our Puritans first mistake and a dangerous one too as I shall show afterwards His next mistake is he begins to quarrel with all Exterior Worship and Ceremonies And he falls into this mistake by reflecting upon his own Experience as having reaped no benefit by forms of Prayer by Bowing at the Name of Jesus by looking upon certain days as Holy-days and Fasting-days c. Hence he begins to think all such Observances are wholly useless and unprofitable if not abominable and superstitious besides And he is much confirmed in this his Imagination by considering the open profaness and little sense of God he observes generally in zealous Conformists Moreover on the other side he takes notice of his Brethren Non-Conformists that they are generally free from open and scandalous sins and at least sigh and breath after Interior Spirit and Devotion which certainly must be that must give us a Title to Heaven rather than a few cringes or Exterior Verbal Devotions which any one though never so Profane may easily exercise and indeed he sees with his Eyes many do Exercise who give no Testimony at all of any work of Regeneration in their Hearts but by their profane light and vain Conversation give too clear evidences of their being still in their natural unregenerate condition And accordingly their Preachers in their Sermons have little life or zeal and seldom discourse of such Truths as are apt to awaken Mens Consciences and make them lay to Heart the great concern of the Salvation of their Souls Or if they do at any time Preach of Judgment or Hell Repentance or a New Life they do it very coldly and imperfectly and seem to talk like Parrots what they have learnt by rote and out of others Books and not what they have had any Experience of in their own Hearts Such Reflections joyn'd with some places of the New Testament not rightly understood make him think that whatsoever was pleasing to Almighty God or profitable to the Jewish People under Moses Now we that are under the Gospel must be Spiritual Worshippers if we will be Worshippers in Truth and must cast away all Exterior forms of words and outward observances of days and places as hindrances to True Spiritual Gospel-worship And all agreeing that the Body of the Mosaical Law is abolished with its Priesthood Sacrifices special Garments in time of Divine Worship particular days to be kept Holy c. This being confessed by all as well Protestants as Papists and finding no clear
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
great Lord Jesus in Heaven represented by those Figures Put all that has been said together and you will see there is no great wonder in it that the commonalty of our sadly divided Countrey should believe a thousand lies in matters of Religion concerning their Catholick Neighbours especially if you add that those who have been about 150 years slandering of them have withall told the vulgar that Catholicks are such a cunning and deceitful people that you may not believe them in one word what they say to you concerning their Religion but being asham'd of their Fopperies they will deny them if you lay them to their charge Or if at any time you meet with any whose candor and sincerity you are so convinced of that you cannot think he would tell you a lye Then you must imagine him to be of a particular belief and temper from all other Catholicks and though he hold no such absurdities by reason of his better understanding learning c. yet the generality of the people most certainly hold them all O the craft and cunning of the Devil and deceitful Men thus to blind and miserably impose upon the simple and well-meaning vulgar Jesus of his Mercy open their Eyes and make them see who they are that thus sadly delude and cheat them Besides the Laws being very severe against Catholicks many are afraid to have a better opinion of them than they are taught to have though they even see they are much slandered lest they should be convinced of the truth of their Religion and then be obliged either to damn their Souls if they would not embrace it or loose their Estates and Preferments if they did embrace it Finally Catholick Religion is a Holy and Strict Religion and therefore no wonder if the Professors of it be hated and ill spoke of by the wicked and loose world Libertines willingly speak ill of those that are strict and very conscientious in their ways but being ashamed to revile them for their Vertues though that be the real quarrel which they have with them they mis-interpret their innocent and good Actions and calumniate their persons with a thousand slanders For Example Catholick Religion teaches that if any one have wronged his Neighbour by cheating cozening or stealing any thing from him he 's bound if he be able under pain of damnation to make restitution and without this no Tears no Prayers no Faith in the Blood of Christ can save him The same Religion teaches also that you are bound under pain of damnation to confess your most secret sins to a Priest and that if you be truly penitent and resolved to lead a new life upon the Priests absolution on Earth you are most certainly pardoned in Heaven It teaches also that you have a like obligation to abstain from Flesh in Lent and upon other days of Abstinence Fridays Vigils c. Now Flesh and Blood does not like these Restraints And hence those that have no mind either to make Restitution of ill gotten Goods or to discover their shameful sins to a Priest or to abstain from Flesh on certain days and understanding that Priests when people confess to them enjoyn them to make Restitution and if they be not able to fast enjoyn them oftentimes to give Alms in lieu of it and in such cases dispense with the Ecclesiastical Law of Abstinence this is ground enough to calumniate poor Papists and to tell the simple Multitude that they can buy pardon of their sins for Money and have leave from their Priests to break any Law of God for Money and let them commit what villanies they please 't is but confessing them to a Priest and this without any repentance or purpose of Amendment Misereor super turbam What Christian Heart would it not make to bleed to see how the well-meaning Multitude are abused and imposed upon by their deceived Guides My Dear Relations For the love you have to your Immortal Souls do your selves that right as but familiarly to converse with your Catholick Neighbours and with as little passion as you can do but ask them an account of their Religion and do not against all common sense and reason believe the Testimony of their Adversaries concerning them and their Religion rather than them themselves and if you do not find that you have been taught a thousand lies concerning them and that they hold nothing nor practice nothing but what they are able to give a very satisfactory Account of to any impartial Enquirer then say I am a Knave a Lyer and a Cheat one that deserves no Mercy from God or Man in this World or the next but if you find what I have said to be most true pray for those that have deceived you and think seriously what it behoves you to do and whetehr you have not reason to suspect those Church-men who stand in need of such notorious lies and slanders thereby to defend themselves against their Adversaries If Popery be such a doltish and senseless Religion then what need of belying it and slandering it to make it odious to the People and what fear of Its overspreading the Nation by a free and unlimited Toleration But the truth is it 's a Holy and most rational Religion and such as Men must cease to be Men or they cannot but acknowledge the Finger of God in it when it is duly and truly represented as it is in it self devoid of all those fopperies and lies with which it is calumniated by its Adversaries For the love of God what Papist in the world believes that the Gospel is but a Fable of Christ that the Bishop of Rome is a God Not any sin but is or may be indulged amongst them and scarce a known sin but there is a known price for it and at their Market-rate you may commit them when you will that they allow Whoredom all the year long and the practices of other uncleannesses not to be named among Men in some Months of the year that mortal sins are put away by Agnus Dei's by little parcels of the Gospel by Popes and Bishops Pardons c. That Christ is the Saviour of Men only but of no Women for Women are saved by St. Clare and Mother Jane That the Pope may check when he pleases the Epistles of St. Paul and controul any thing avouched by all the Apostles That we must simply believe the Church of Rome whether it teach true or false and if the Pope believe there is no life to come we must believe it as an Article of our Faith What Papist in the world believes one of all these Madnesses and Blasphemies and yet the whole Roman Church is charged with them all by no less a Man than the present Arch-Bishop of York if that Book be his Grace's which is commonly sold in London with his Name to it and the Printers also under the Title of a Manul of Active Positive and Oppositive Divinity written by him to preserve a Noble