I sent him away very well satisfied for he came to Chelsey on purpose to enquire of me whether what the Priest had newly and confidently told him were true or no. And so did many other of Quality both Men and Women to whom I gave the same Answer and as I believe with the same Success And this is All that either before or since I have done to Increase or Countenance that Report But as I presently after informed your Highness your self it was not nor ever would be in my power nor in the power of any or of all His or Your Highnesses Friends or Servants to silence this Report or to hinder the People from giving credit to it unless You your self would appear in it and would openly upon all occasions declare your Detestation of it as of a most false and a most malicious Slander devised and designed by your Enemies to do you all the Mischief they could without any ground or colour of ground for it and that you would not nor could not take them for your Friends that either did believe it Themselves or that did not do what they could that it might not be believed by Others For without some such Protestation as this as I then told your Highness seriously and seasonably Made and publickly and frequently Repeated by You to such Persons of Quality and Interest of both Sexes as came daily to wait upon you I did then and do still think it almost if not altogether Impossible to undeceive the People or to make them think otherwise than your Enemies by their malicious Reports have made them to think and to speak of You though nothing but your own Declaration of your self to be as they report you which I hope I shall never live to see or hear of shall ever make me believe that you are not still in point of Religion the same that you were when I had the Honour to wait upon you and as I am sure You was when I left you And this I am the rather obliged to believe because the last time I had any discourse with your Highness of things of this nature you did seriously affirm to me that never any Priest of the Church of Rome had ever been so bold as to enter into any discourse of Religion with you Whereupon when I humbly besought your Highness that if any of them should be so bold at any time afterwards and you should think fit to hear what they could say either for their own Church or against ours your Highness would be pleased to command them to give it you in Writing and that you would be pleased to shew me or my Lord of Oxford any such Papers or Paper they should give you to consider of and to reply to the which because You were pleased to promise me you would do and have never as yet done not to Me I am sure nor to Him neither for ought I know I cannot believe that any thing of that Kind hath been as yet said to you at least not so as to make any Impression in you and much less to gain an absolute Belief from you that there is no Salvation to be had but in the Church of Rome only and consequently that if ever you mean to be saved you must of necessity quit our Communion and embrace theirs I cannot believe I say that any such Discourse hath as yet been made to You because whatsoever is talked of by Others you have said nothing Your self to me of it which certainly you would have done if there had been any such thing having obliged your self by promise to do so and having had several opportunities of so doing especially when you were pleased to honour my House at Farnham with your Presence for so many days together where and when I did indeed expect You would have said something to me according to your promise if there had been cause for it which because You did not I concluded there had been no such Attempt made and consequently that there was no need of my saying any thing to You of it as if I had doubted whether you had or would keep your Word with me or no. And truly Madam though you had made no such Promise I cannot but believe that if there had any such Scruple been suggested to you from within or offer'd to you from without you would have acquainted Me or the Bishop of Oxford or some other of our Order or Profession with it especially if the Doubts or Scruples had been such as you your self could not answer For though God hath given you an extraordinary good Understanding yet I am sure you have not so high an Opinion of it as to conclude that what You cannot answer is therefore Unanswerable in it self or that it cannot be answered by Others and particularly by some of Those whose Profession and Office it is to defend the truth of our Church and the truth of the Doctrine that is profess'd in it and taught by it against all Objections that either by Schismaticks or Hereticks are or can be made against it so that whatsoever they may whisper in Corners to the contrary neither the One nor the Other shall ever be able to prove either that there is any thing necessary to be Believed or Practised for the saving of Souls which we do not teach or that we do teach any thing that is destructive of Salvation or which is inconsistent with the Rule of Faith or Holiness of life which was at first delivered by Christ and his Apostles and which was afterwards held by the Primitive Fathers in the most antient and purest Ages of the Church and consequently whatsoever may be pretended it never was nor ever can be proved but that those that live and die in the Profession and Practise of what they are taught to believe and to do by the Doctrine of our Church must needs be in the right way which will undoubtedly bring them into Heaven if they continue in it Whereas if they depart from it they will be in a worse and in a much more dangerous condition than if they had never known it For although we have so much Charity for some that live and die in the Belief and Practise of some erroneous Doctrines and of some superstitious Usances of the Church of Rome supposing they do both the one and the other out of invincible Ignorance and supposing too that they would have continued in neither if they had known or suspected them to be either erroneous or superstitious and consequently that they had a preparation of mind to believe and practise the contrary Truths if they had been made known unto them or rather if they had not by their false Teachers been concealed from them and lastly supposing likewise that as they do actually and particularly repent of all their known sins so they do habitually or in the general truly and heartily repent before they die of all their unknown sins also or of all
such sins of theirs which God knows to be sins though they do not and consequently of all such Errors and Superstitions as they have ignorantly and unwittingly and unwillingly lived in Although I say we have so much Charity for some that have been born and lived and died in the Communion of the Church of Rome as not to deny upon the aforesaid Suppositions they may be Saved not Because but Notwithstanding they lived and died in that Church which is no more than the Charity which upon the same supposition they have for us or for those that live and die in our Church yet we have not nor cannot have the same Hope for Those that having been born and bred in our Church and sufficiently instructed in the Doctrine of it do afterwards become Apostates from it and Proselytes to the Church of Rome by renouncing those Truths they were taught in the one and professing those Falsities they are made to believe in the other for whom as I said we have no such hope nor indeed any hope at all unless they do actually and particularly repent of this as well as of all other their known sins and withall do testifie the truth of that Repentance by returning again unto Us and by asking God and the Church forgiveness for the Sin against the one and for their Scandal against the other by their going away from us if at least they have time and opportunity to do it Now this according to our Opinion being the difference betwixt those that after the Knowledg and Profession of the Truth go out from us and those that would if they had known the Truth have come over to us it is manifest that the Charity we have for the One though they live and die in the Church of Rome can be no Motive or Incouragement for those of the Other sort to go and live and die there no more than it can be any Warrant for a Sound man to go out of an healthy Air and to put himself in a Pest-House because there is a possibility that some one or a few may not die of the Plague there And this I do the rather Observe because from this Charitable opinion of ours towards some that live and die in their Communion they usually infer as a Preface to their making of Proselytes that it must needs be much better and safer to be of Their Religion than of Ours because we confess that some may be saved among Then but they do all deny there is any Salvation to be had amongst Us. Which if it were true as indeed it is not they might from thence infer as well that it was better and safer to be of the Donatists Religion who were condemned Hereticks than of St. Austins because that St. Austin did not deny that some among the Donatists could be saved but all the Donatists did affirm that none that were not or would not be Donatists could be saved Which is the very same which the Papists affirm now and for which they may as well now as the Donatists were then be called Hereticks for excluding as the Donatists did all Christians but themselves from a capacity or possibility of Salvation And why so because forsooth say they there is no Salvation to be had but in the Catholick Church and no man is of the Catholick Church that is not of their Church because the Catholick Church is their Church and their Church is the Catholick Church and consequently he that is not of the one cannot be of the other And did not the Donatists say so too and was it not for their so saying that they were pronounced Hereticks And the Papists may as well and truly say that because a man is not in Rome therefore he is not in Italy or because he is not in London therefore he is not in England or because this Part is not a part of that part therefore it is not a part of the whole which they must prove before they can make any reasonable man to believe that we cannot be Catholicks unless we will be Papists or which is all one that we cannot be Catholicks at all unless we be Roman Catholicks Whereas we may be Catholicks by submitting to the Laws of Christ contained in the Gospel but we cannot be Roman Catholicks but by submitting to the dictates of the Pope and Popish Councils particularly to that of Trent and the Canons thereof which are many of them nothing akin to the Canon of the Scriptures For drink ye all of this saith the Canon of Scripture but you shall not drink all of this saith the Pope and the Canons of his Councils and many other the like Instances might be given in other particulars But I forget what I was a doing which was not to dispute with Them 'till they have been so bold as to dispute with You which I do all this while suppose they have not done yet because you have not yet given me any Intimation of it as I am confident you would have done not only because you promis'd you would do so but because without any such Promise I presume you would have thought your self concerned in point of Prudence and Equity and of Conscience too having heard what could be said by any of them to draw you from us to hear likewise what could be said by some of Us to keep you with us For to conclude in favour of one side without hearing of the other is that which cannot be done either in Equity or Conscience though you your self were to gain never so much by it whereas in this Case if you should be surpris'd and prevail'd with for want of Advice or Counsel to assist you you might have lost Your self and your soul by it which is too pretious a Gage and cost too dear to be hazarded upon Confidence of Ones strength against such subtil Gamesters as they are For what would this have been but to do as Eve did who entring alone into the Lists with the Serpent though she had much more wit than any of her Sex had since she was easily foyl'd by him as perhaps she would not have been if it had not been in the absence of her Husband or if after she had heard what the Tempter could say she had afterwards suspended at least her Consent to the Temptation until she had acquainted the Man with it and heard what he was able to reply to it which because relying too much upon her own Judgment she neglected to do we see she did as much as in her lay to undo and undo for ever Herself and her Husband and all their Posterity by the loss of all their Enjoyments for the present and of all their Hopes for the future also so rash and so dangerous a thing it is for any though of never so great a Sufficiency to rely too much upon Themselves when all their Concerns both here and hereafter are at stake And therefore Madam being so prudent a Person
as you are and knowing so well as you do how great a Hazard you may run of losing all that is or ought to be Dear to you I am confident you will not suffer your self to be disputed out of your Religion for want of Seconds to assist you which seeing you have not hitherto called for or made use of I do and must concluded that hitherto the Adversaries of our Church have either made no Attempt upon you or have been rejected with Indignation by you And in this Belief I am more and more confirm'd because you still joyn with us in the Prayers of the Church as having them daily by your own Appointment read in your Hearing which though Some perhaps of those that are departed from Us with their hearts may be content to do in Compliance with some present worldly Interest yet I am sure you cannot dispense with Your self nor suffer Your self to be dispensed with in any thing of that nature because You your self have told me more than once even since this false Report hath been rais'd of you that you would not do any thing whereby you might seem to be of a Church or of a Religion which you are not of indeed no not for any worldly Consideration whatsoever Which is indeed such an Ingenuity as well becomes a Christian especially of your Quality and such as gives me an Assurance that You are still ours and that you will continue to be so until You your self by your Words or Actions shall declare the contrary which I hope you never will and I am sure you never can with a good Conscience until you have heard and considered all that can be said on both sides For if your should do otherwise it will never be believed that your leaving of Our Church wherein you were born and bred to go to Theirs is only out of love to the Truth or because They and not We are in the right way to Heaven of which without hearing what we can say for our way and against theirs it is Impossible for you to judg but from some Byas or by-end from without which because I know it is that which you abhor should be thought or suspected of you therefore as I have said often already I will not I cannot believe that you have or ever will make any such Change without hearing what we have to say against it because that will be not only an Argument but almost an Evidence that it is from some other Motive rather than Conscience because you did not all you might and ought in Conscience to have done to warrant such a Change before you made it nay it will be thought and said You were afraid to hear what could be said against it lest thereby you might be diverted from it Which Consideration I beseech you to remember whensoever there shall be though I hope there never will be an Occasion to make use of it yet in the mean time there being no such Change made yet I humbly conceive your Highness is obliged in Conscience as well as in Prudence to make some such Declaration as I before spake of namely that the Report of your being changed in your Religion or that you intend any such Change or are at all inclined to it is false and scandalous devised and published by the Malice of your Enemies to make you lose the Affections of your Friends and to alienate the hearts of the People from You and from your Children and that You never did nor ever will give any just Cause for the Belief of it Some such Declaration I say as I humbly conceive your Highness is bound in conscience as well as in prudence to make to prevent such Mischiefs as the Continuance and Increase and Belief of this odious Report may bring upon You and upon all your Relations For although that be true which you are wont to say that no worldly either Advantage or Prejudice is to be considered when the gaining of the One or the avoiding of the Other comes into Competition with the hazarding or securing of our spiritual and everlasting Interest of our Souls and consequently that if you were Convinced there were no Salvation to be had but in the Church of Rome no Consideration either of Loss or of Danger here in this World you might incur by it should keep you from it yet when you are not so perswaded as I do all this while suppose You are not then I hope you may and ought to do what you can that you may not be believed or suspected to be so especially if it being but suspected to be so will in all probability do You and all that relate to you every whit as much Mischief in the opinion of the People as if really and indeed you were so wherewithall I will conclude Humbly begging your Highnesses pardon for having given you so great a Trouble the rather because considering my great Age and consequently my near approaching End it may be besides my Prayers the last Service that may or can be done by Your Highnesses most humble and faithful Servant GEOR. WINTON Jan. 24. 1670. FINIS