Omnipotency will make the one as possible as the other Or that the same thing that is shut and hung up in the Pix being a Consecrated Host is the same numerical body that is glorified and gloriously appears in Heaven also what was eaten by the people in their receiving eating what of it was given them But we may see how these men straining the words of Christ where they please as they do also some expressions of the Ancient Fathers make the word of God subject to their wills and pleasures and where they please they will grant a Figure and where they please they shall be properly and literally understood yea and strained beyond their litteral expression for Christ said no such thing as this is transubstantiated into or is the substance of my very body as they say though the like absurdities following upon the litteral sence of or collection from it as would from taking the other expressions litterally makes it necessary to understand them figuratively and sacramentally in the one place as well as in the other It 's true that in this Supper Christ would have us and it 's necessary for us to abstract or withdraw our minds from the consideration of the bread and wine in their own proper substances and to fix them only upon the body and blood of Christ whereof they are a communion or communication 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so to have no more to do with those Elements in our thoughts in a manner than as if there were no such matters only as they may occasion us to meditate and consider that his flesh is meat indeed the true bread and everlasting nourishment of our Souls and his blood or the New Testament confirmed by it Drink indeed a most comfortable matter of refreshing for the Soul to take into it's believing consideration and so spiritually and sacramentally to feed upon his flesh and blood But to impose upon peoples Faith that the things which they see with their eyes to be very bread and wine are very Christ his very flesh and blood yea God-man their Saviour and to cause them to worship them is a very gross departure from and abuse of Christ's institution and of his command for our observation of it And why may they not as well impose upon mens faith that St. Peter after he Confessed Christ was transubstantiated into a hard stone and his flesh blood and bones yea his Soul and body and all was metamorphiz'd into a Rock For our Saviour said unto him Tues Petrus in the Syriac Cephas which in our English Language signifies a stone Mat. 16.18 with Jo. 1.42 here is Christs assertion as plainly of Peter as there of the bread And if the word Est is imply the substantial change of the bread in the one why may not the word Es thou art imply the substantial change of Simon Bar-Jonah in the other And why may it not be as rationally believed that his flesh and bones yea Soul and body were immediately and substantially turned into stone living stone as that the bread was changed into the body of Christ substantially seeing the Omnipotency of God was as well able to do the one as the other And that is pleaded as sufficient for our Faith to believe this And so St. Peter was a living walking Stone that had not the substance of either flesh or blood or bones in him though the appearance of them all to the sences Yea and why may it not be as well imposed upon mens Faith that Christ himself is so changed in his substance into stone too For he is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the living stone 1 Pet. 2.4 and that the Altar that Jacob built at Shechem was transubstantiated into the Essence of God because Jacob Consecrating it called it El Elohe Israel God the God of Israel Gen. 33.20 Surely they are strangely infatuated or obstinately wilful that cannot or will not see the absurdity of this Doctrine of theirs so contrary both to sence and reason and so void of any solid ground for it in the Holy Scriptures Object Oh but they will say they are the Church and their judgment is to be taken as the infallible truth and therefore if they did assert the like changes and transubstantiations in other things then they were to be believed too For our Faith is to be resolved into their sayings as our Saviour tells us that they that hear not the Church are to be accounted as Heathens and Publicans Ans But to that it 's said and shewed before that they are not the Church Catholique but only a part of the Church and a very corrupt part too To which I add that I find it injoyned to us that we should hear Christ the great Prophet of God in all things which he shall say unto us but I find it no where injoyned us that we should hear the Church in all that she shall say unto us And that the Scripture here quoted by them to serve their design is perverted by them from it's true and genuine intent rnd scope For our Saviour did not there intend nor speak any thing as signifying an intent to teach us to build our Faith or belief of the Scripture-sayings or the Exposition of the Scripture upon the Authority of the Church or it's sayings much less of any uppermost party that unduely challenge to themselves the title and appellation of the whole Church much less the Church of Rome But his discourse is evidently about offences given by any sinning Brother which being evident in themselves might by any particular person against whom they were committed be reprehended and faulted and in case the party offending would not hear a private admonition then it should be reproved by the same person again taking one or two persons as witnesses with him who might also join in reproving or admonishing him And if still he harden his heart and retain his offensive or evil way or practice then they should declare it to the Church who might all testifie their dislike or give him a joint admonition of the same fault And if he hear not them in such joint admonition given them by the Church then the offended Brother might disclaim communion with him and leave him as no more to be owned by him than an Heathen man or a Publican Here is nothing of the Church's giving the object of faith to be believed or of her being to be heard in whatsoever she shall say though never so contrary to sence or reason or to the Scripture sayings or to the commands of God and Christ but of the Chuch's admonishing an offending Brother who being admonished by her ought to hear the Church therein But that 's in no other thing than in what he ought to have heard first the offended Brother in upon his own private admonition or the offended Brother with one or two joining with him upon his slighting the admonition given by the offended Brother alone But
this Church of Rome errs 1. In forbidding and witholding from men the reading of the Scriptures both while in childhood and afterwards which is a manifest opposition to Christ and the holy Spirit and his faithful Servants for therein she forbids what they bad and exhorted to as is shewed in what is already said They said the Believers did well to take heed to them and willed them to be mindful of the words of the Prophets and the commandments of the Apostles 2 Tim. 1.19 and 3.1 2. And this Church refuses to let men have them in their own languages that they may read them especially except they will purchase a License with mony which is the great Goddess worshipped at Rome An evident and plain demonstration that the deeds of this Church are evil because she withholds from men the light whereby they should judge of them and that she leads her Followers into by-paths and ways of error when she witholds from them what holds forth and would guide them into the truth Chrysostom in his time exhorted his hearers to take the Bible into their hands and call together their Neighbours and by those holy Oracles to water the minds both of themselves and them that they might the better withstand the wiles of Sathan c. Hom. 6 in Gen. But this Church is for taking away these weapons of the holy Spirit and divine waterings of their minds from them 2. In making herself the whole Catholique Church while she ties up mens Salvation to their communion with her and subjection to her Bishop which is a gross and grievous error and all one as to make a part and that a very unsound too to be the whole to the denying in effect this fundamental truth that whosoever believeth on Christ shall be saved For while she maintains that out of the Church there is no salvation and then assumes that all that are not in her communion and of her Church are out of the Church she makes all those Believers in Christ however cordial and constant they be therein that are not of her society to be in the state of damnation and so contradicts Christ and his Apostles that say whoever believes on him shall be saved and that there is no respect of persons as to their belonging to this or that place or Church as to that matter It was not so in the Apostles time for neither the Churches of Judaea nor the seven Churches in Asia nor the Churches uf Galatia or any other Churches mentioned in the Scriptures distinctly from that of Rome were ever said or signified to be the members of the Church of Rome or to owe any subjection to the Bishop of Rome Nor doth the Apostle when he saith if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus the Lord and with thine heart believest that God raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved put in as a third requisite to the definition of a right Christian and an Heir of Salvation if thou acknowledgest the Church of Rome as the Mother Church and be subject to the Pope or Bishop thereof as if without that they were not true Members of the Catholick Church of Christ nor might be saved Rom. 10.9 yet this is now an Article of the Roman Creed wherein they imitate the Donatists of old who would confine the Church of Christ and by consequence Salvation to Affrica and therein to the Men of their Communion as St. Augustine testifies Surely this is none of the least Errors of the Roman Church but a gross and grievious one making Christ and his Apostles upon the matter to be Lyars and the Scripture sayings that own all Believers in Christ for Members of her Church to be falsehoods 3. In doing contrary to the Apostles express direction that all things in the Church should be done to edification to which he adds that if any man judge himself a Prophet or spiritual he ought to acknowledge the things he wrote thereabout to be the commandments of the Lord 1 Cor. 14.26 31. yet these men and this Church contrary hereto impose upon their Members in most places yet and have upon all formerly for divers ages to perform their Service or Prayers and Thanksgivings to God in an unknown tongue notwithstanding that the same Apostle hath expresly testified that the so doing is contrary to edification 1 Cor. 14.10 11. to 28. and will we follow men or joyn our selves with them that so palpably and openly contradict the Word and Commandment of God and so loudly proclaim that they fear him not and believe them when they tell us they are infallible and though perhaps it may be said that in this and another Nation they do or are willing to permit their Service in an unknown Tongue yet that excuseth them not for so much as they have all along so notoriously practised otherwise till of late some have extorted this as it were unwillingly from them nor do they yet acknowledge their error and iniquity in what they have done formerly but justify themselves in it by not altering that evil practise and imposition every where for in Spain Italy and in many other parts I suppose they retain it Nay Mr. Egan a lately converted Fryar informs us that the Pope forbids the use of their Prayers which some have turned into the Vulgar Language so as that they that use them are not right Roman Catholicks in his Recantation Sermon pag. 10. but if they had reformed this every where yet even their Reformation would be a Conviction that they have erred therein and destroyed their Plea for Infallibility whether in their Church formally considered or in their Head the Pope seeing both the one and the other of them have a long time practised allowed and imposed so gross a miscarriage and taught the people to believe it to be a service acceptable unto God Can this Church be Infallible that hath fallen and done so fowly or can they be innocent that joyn themselves in Communion with her when she so much slighting and acting impudently in opposition to the commandment and directions of Christ and as it were openly disclaiming therein what his authority injoyns and practises things so contrary thereunto especially how can they but be horribly guilty of casting away their own Souls who being brought up under clearer and better light do willingly depart therefrom or suffer themselves to be seduced into a compliance with her Surely since it was the design of Christ to bring light into the world and to be the Light of the world to direct and guide their Feet into the ways of Peace and he hath set his Church and Servants for lights therein also they who take away that light or withhold it from them and lead them into darkness denying them the Scriptures and teaching them to pray or rather to say Prayers in an unknown tongue wherein they cannot edifie or be edified they therein declare themselves to be opposite to Christ and so to be
vers 9 10. Even so the Church of Rome and it's Teachers reject the word of the Lord as is evident in the instances we have given and yet they say the Law the Scriptures and it's Exposition are with that is belong unto them They are they from whom men must receive it and upon whom they must depend for it Yea they do as the false Church in Isa 48.1 2. is said to have done who make mention of the name of the Lord but not in truth nor in righteousness though they called themselves of the holy City that is in effect the holy Catholick Church The like is timated of them in Jer. 18.18 where the persecutors of the Lord's Prophets that were such in truth yet said of themselves come let us devise devices against Jeremiah and add as if they had thence authority to do so for the Law shall not perish from the Priest nor counsel from the wise nor the word from the Prophet Now when we see or may see by the Scriptures of truth and the testimony of the Holy Spirit in them that there should be false Teachers among the Christians answerable to the false Prophets among the Jews that would bring in Doctrines swarving from the Scriptures and find that the Papists and their Teachers evidently do so their challenge of authority to be the sole Expounders of the Scriptures should nothing move us while we see that they therein walk in the steps of the false Prophets especially seeing also that they challenge an authority which the Holy Ghost hath not given them nor directed his followers any where unto For the Holy Ghost himself who led the Apostles into all truth Joh. 16.13 doth not in any Scripture testifie to us of Rome or the Roman Church that we should derive our Faith from her or resolve it into her or her Doctors more than into any other Church The Apostle Peter whose authority they pretend to have committed to them but without any evidence of the holy Scriptures and whose Successors they tell us their Popes or Bishops are could not leave more authority to them than he had exercised himself Now we find him expresly preferring the authority of the Scriptures before his own saying or testimony as to the resolution of other mens Faith Yea he as well as other Apostles proved his sayings by the holy Scriptures as is evident in his Epistles 1 Pet. 2.6 7. and 3.10 11 12. and obtruded nothing upon men on his own authority barely as the Popes presume to do He calls the word of Prophesy a more sure word than what he related of his own knowledge 2 Pet. 1.16 17 18 19. and instead of directing the Believers after his death to the Church of Rome and her Bishops which surely he would and ought to have done had he known of any power given of Christ to her or to them for resolving mens doubts and determining their Faith and exercising a dominion over mens consciences more than to other Churches or their Bishops yea or directing them to himself more than to the rest of the Apostles when he forewarned them of false Teachers Scoffers that would come in the last days He stirs up the Believers minds to remember the words of the Prophets and the Commandments of the Apostles of our Lord and Saviour He saith not his own Commands or his rather than of the other Apostles but indefinitely of the Apostles puting in himself with them as one of the same rank and of no superior rank or authority among or over them much less doth he say that we should after his death be take our selves to the Church or Bishop of Rome for our direction guidance and preservation from the Error of the wicked but directs us to the Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles the things spoken and commanded in and by them He thought not of the Lord Peter or the Lord Pope nor signified that the rest of the Apostles stood in relation more than himself to any man as their Lord but only to him who is the Saviour Yea and the Lord Jesus himself when afterward he appeared to John in the Isle of Patmos and gave him visions and revelations of the things that should come to pass in the world and unto the Churches directed him not to bid us go to Rome for resolution of our hearts in the matters of God and in what concerns our preservation in his truth but he in his several Epistles to the Churches bids Let him that hath an ear hear what the Spirit saith to the Churches He bids not That he that hath an ear should hear the Churches simply no nor yet what the Spirit saith in the Churches much less saith he Let him that hath an ear hear what the Church of Rome saith or what her Bishop as an heavenly Oracle or the Spirit as either in it or him as Infallibly tied to his Chair should dictate to us And yet which is very considerable this Book of the Revelations according to the most authentick testimonies of Antiquity was written after the Deaths of all the other Apostles and its probable at least that he lived not long after it himself who was the Penman thereof and therefore if there were any judge or orderer of mens faith infallible to be looked to by all Churches besides the holy Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles or any Infallible Interpreter of them above the rest to be taken heed to it had been the proper place and time surely for Christ the faithful and true witness of God the Amen the firm and sure friend and Pastour of his Church to have signified who it is and directed the Church and every one that hath an ear to hear and hearken to him but neither when he was asked or there was a strife among the Apostles who of them should be the greatest did he tell them Peter should be their Prince and chief among them nor did he direct them here to any Successor of his at Rome or elsewhere as an infallible Guide and Head to them no there is no other Director as to matters of Faith and Worship directed to of God by his Holy Spirit in any Scripture as our absolute and infallible Guide but only the Spirit himself as speaking in and by the Scriptures to the Churches what the Scripture saith being called the saying of the Holy Ghost or Spirit as is to be seen Heb. 3.7 and 10.15 Act. 28.25 And surely they are guilty of horrible Idolatry that prefer the Testimony Word or Determination of any person or persons Church or Bishop before or above yea or but as equal with the testimony of the Holy Ghost to cast by his sayings or commands to listen to and be ruled by men is indeed to have the fear of God taught us by mens precepts and in vain to honour God or worship him which was the fault of the Jewish Church reproved by the Holy Ghost in the Prophet Isaiah for which also he
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
rather argues them guilty of being a lying Church 4. There is a brief character of the true Church and her Children in the book of the Revelations by which we may better judg of the truth and rightness of any Church than by any or all those fair Pleas that Rome makes for her self namely that the true Church and its Children are that society and company of men that keep the commandments of God and the faith or Testemony of Jesus Rev. 12.17 and 14.12 But now if we bring the Church of Rome to this test I am sure she will be cast only let us mind that by keeping the Commandments of God is meant both the careful observation of them to walk after them and also the holding them forth sincerely and purely without corrupting them that others may know and walk after them also and by keeping the faith and testimony of Jesus is meant the keeping it without spot or mixture of corruption with it either by adding to or taking from it And surely if we take a little view of their carriage in either of them we shall find them not a little faulty in both 1. First as to the keeping of Gods commandments which of them do they keep in the sences above mentioned not the first for they have other Gods in the Scripture Language beside the only true God the maker of all things in Scripture Language they are called other Gods to whom men give that adoration that belongs to God and unto whom they perform religious worship or service asking of and expecting from them what is proper to God to give so the Calves made by Jeroboam to be sacrificed to though intended as mediums to worship the true God by yet they are called Gods that he made to himself 2. King 14.9 and so the golden Calf in the wilderness though it was to Jehovah they pretended to Sacrifice keep a feast by it yet they were charged with changing their glory that is their God therein into the similitude of an Ox that eateth grass and so intimately of making a new God to themselves Exod. 32,4.5 Psal 106.19.20 now how many there are in the Roman Church that according to those Notions they make Gods to themselves it is not easy to determin The host in the Sacrament they stick not to own as God God-man to give divine adoration unto insomuch as one of their own Doctors acknowledges that the errors of those that worship some Golden or Silver Statues or some Images of any other materialls for their God as the Heathen worshiped their Gods or a Red Cloth hung upon the Top of Spear as is reported of the Laplanders or some live Animal as of old the Egyptians did Fran. Coster Enchir. contro vers Cap 12. were more tollerable than of those who worshiped a piece of Bread as hitherto the Christians have done all over the World for so many hundred years if the Doctrine of Transubstantiation be not true And that that Doctrine is not true we have as good evidence as Christ gave to his Disciples that he was not a Spirit that is we may handle and see it yea and tast and smell it too as was said above yea we have the same that we have that the Cup is not transubstantiated into the New Testament and we have no more authority from the Scripture that the Bread is Transubstantiated than that the Cup is so Transubstantiated nay rather we have more ground to believe that the Cup is changed into a divine writing than that the Bread is changed into the Body the very real and substantial Body of Christ For it is expresly said this Cup is the New Testament but it is not said this Bread is my Body nor this that was Bread is become my Body and for ought that appears to the contrary in the Text his Body being visibly present he might point to or speak of it in saying this is my Body as he speak of the Temple of his body when walk-in the Temple he said to the Jews Destroy ye this Temple and in three days I will raise it up again as our sences tell us the Cup is not the New Testament but a Silver or Golden Cup or Challice so the very same sences tell us as plainly that the Bread still remains in the nature of Bread non substantiâ aut naturâ mutatus not changed in substance or nature into God or into the person of God-man the Lord Jesus besides it is their own Doctrine that the change of the Elements depend upon the Intention of the Priest so that if the Priest intend not in saying the words to make the body of Christ it is not the Body of Christ but Bread still and then they are Idolaters that worship it as God and who can be certain of the Priests Intentions not to mention again the many Saints both Hees and Shee s that they give such adorations to as belongs only to God and ask such things of as God only can give so that they are notorious transgressors of the first commandment of God and keep it not and as to the second they are so far from keeping it and act so grosly contrary to it that they expung it out of their Catechisms The third also they grosly violate in their Doctrine and practice about sacred oaths dispenceing with them and loosing men from the obligation of them enacting them by mental reservations and breaking solemn Oaths and promises as in their breaking their promises with John Hus and in the Popes dispensing with the Oath given by Ladislaus King of Poland to Amurath the Turkish Emperour or grand Sultan and causing him to break his Truce with him to the great scandal of Christian Religion and slaughter of the Christians The Turk himself appealing to Christ if he were indeed God to revenge the perfidious Perjury of the Christians towards him which he also did in the ensuing slaughter and destruction of them but such abuse of Gods name in dissolving and dispensing with religious and solemn Oaths yea and with mens rash swearing they give allowance of in their Doctrines and treatises as well as in their practices yea it was a thing that the above cited Fryer Aegan tells us gave him one of his first disgusts at their Religion that when at his first being made a Fryer he took one and twenty Oaths and among them that he would never come on Horseback that he would never ware shoes that he would obey his superiours in what ever he commanded never examining the lawfulness of his commands not to be ashamed to beg never to be out of his Fryers habit c. yet after all these oaths taken his superiour told him that he must take his former garments and return in the same Posture that he came in which was on Horseback with Sword and Pistols and gay Apparrel and go see his friends though quite contrary to his oaths from which he would absolve him If
reguard the ceasing therefrom or any commands of God requiring it so long as his guides and leaders that pretend to have the keys of Heaven in their hands assure them that if but an hour or two before their deaths they confess their Sins and are sorry that they have endangered their Souls thereby and be a little attrite or troubled for them receiving absolution from the Priest and their extreme Unction they may by the vertue of the Sacraments to convey grace ex opere operato be secured against damnation and be eased too in and freed from their Purgatory pains if they be but bountiful to their Church and its Priests by the benefit of their devotions and the Saints Supererrogations so that by this first part of the Touch-stone they appear clearly convicted of being far from being an Infallible Church yea or a true and right Church of Christ especially if we also take in what some of them assert and their doctrine of probability therefore makes safe for all to believe viz. that no man is bound of necessity to love God but that is a work or frame of more perfection without which observing their Church Orders and receiving their Sacraments they may be saved Surely by our Saviours doctrine to love God is the first and great Commandment and that they that teach that men may be saved though destitute thereof cannot be under the commendation of keeping Gods commandments 2. And as much faulty are they with reference to the other branch of the character of the true Church opposed to the false Church or the Beast and his Image worshippers namely the keeping the faith or testimony of Jesus which they keep not that corrupt it and add their mixtures to and with it as the false Apostles kept not the faith of Jesus though they might hold as truths all the Articles of the Creed and teach them to others while they added thereto the necessity of being Circumcised and of keeping the Law of Moses unto Salvation no more than they would be commended for keeping for any ones use good and wholsome Wine commited to their custody and charge who would indeed deminish nothing of it but yet would mix with it some of those Stygian Waters which had a poysonous nature in them or other poysons whereby they might be made deadly to them that drink thereof such a Person might indeed plead that he had kept by him all the Wine deposited with him and took nothing of it away yea and that he gave out again all that other keepers of it who keep it Pure and give it out such as it is given do and something more but I suppose with no likement or commendation of him that commits it to him for the benefit of those that will drink of it just such keepers that is to say corrupters of the faith of Jesus are the Papists and their Church They retain with them indeed the whole Bible and all the Gospel and Gospel truths therein but so as to keep them in their Bibles from the generallity of the People that they may not read or hear them read to them yea and they retain with them and possibly Preach to the People and Teach them all the Articles of the Creed at least in an unknown Latin Tongue or if they also interpret them yet to be sure they teach them many other things as matters of faith necessary to be believed by them as much as any of the said Articles though they be quite different from all that Christ and his Apostles delivered to the Church to be believed by us as for instance they teach that God the Father and Christ and the Holy Ghost are one God in three Persons to be believed on and called upon by Men but they corrupt that with this addition of their own that the Saints also are to be called on and that they ought to believe on them to receive help by their intercessions being worshiped by them they teach that Christ is the Son of God and the Saviour of the World that he dyed for our Sins and offered up a Propitiatory Sacrifice to God for the whole World but then they add and mix of their own therewith that their Priests can do dayly make him of a Wafer and offer him up as an effectual unbloody sacrifice for the quick and dead to and that they ought to believe and expect to receive the forgiveness of their Sins through their Sacraficing him a most horrible impiety and indignity to his Cross and Passion and the alone virtue and efficacy thereof and a monstrous addition to and corruption of the faith once delivered of God to the Saints in his Apostles doctrine They hold and teach that Christ is risen from the dead and ascended into Heaven and sits at the Right Hand of God but they mix therewith and teach their Children and Followers to believe that the same very real Body that suffered and is in Heaven is also dayly in the Host at their Mass and is hung up in the Pix or Box that they put him into and that they carry up and down when they please in Procession and that they really tear him with their Teeth and eat him Lib. de Natura Deorum and therein they do what the Heathen Cicero abhorred to think of in their Pagan worship for he said quem tam amentem esse putas qui illud quo vescatur Deum credat esse that is who thinkest thou is so mad as to think that to be a God that he eats or is fed with those Papists are so mad as to think and teach so they hold and teach that there is a Heaven to reward the righteous and a Hell to Punish the wicked and so our Saviour delivered in his faith or testimony but withal they add that there is a third place between both called Purgatory wherein Souls that are not fit for Heaven when they dye may be purged by enduring pains and torments there and that the Pope hath the keys of this place to and can let Souls out of it c. And this Christ never taught nor his Apostles they believe and teach that there is a Holy Ghost and that he is to be believed in but they teach also corruptly that he is confined as it were to them of the Church of Rome and that their determinations or the determinations of their Popes out of St. Peters Chair are his infallible Oracles to be as much believed and held as fast as or more than the sayings of the holy Prophets Apostles in the Scriptures They teach that there is a holy Catholick Church but they add and mix with that also this Poysonful Doctrine that the Church of Rome only are that Church and that men are to resolve their faith into its sayings and conclusions and that the Pope is the visible Head of the whole Catholick Church and Christs Vicar on earth they teach a Communion of Saints but they teach also
inquiry and search into the truth as it is in him that they might understand it and be led and guided by it And then 5. The just and righteous Judgment of God it is to harden both this Harlot and her Adherents for their unfaithfulness in seeking after or not admitting the truth of God but either slightly neglecting the inquiry after it or against evident shinings of it closing their eyes lest they should see with their eyes or hear with their ears or understand with their hearts what they see would tend to convert them from their gainful and delicious interests and enjoyments Even as Gods Judgments were upon Pharaoh and the Aegyptians to harden them for as Pharaoh and the Aegyptians hardning themselves and doing wickedly against Israel were left of God to their hardness or hardened by him that he might glorify himself on them in their destruction so it is with this falsly Infallible but truly inflexible impenitent Church he gives her and her Adherents up to their own hearts lusts and to walk in their Idolatrous and bloody ways to fill up the measure of their iniquities that he might glorify himself in executing upon them the Doom and Judgment that is written concerning them 6. Though also some occasion of hardning this Church and some advantage her subtle Factors take to harden people in their obstinate cleaving to her from the too great divisions found and by them also fomented among us Protestants with the too much iniquity also practised among us and some harsh Principles about Gods Decrees of Reprobation in some among us Whence they possess the minds of her Followers that they are in a better state more at unity and perhaps many of them less outwardly vitious though not their generality and more devout than they should be should they forsake their Communion to embrace ours Yea and they can aggravate our divisions represent them as if they were the just judgment of God upon us for deserting her Communion though that be as false as and no truer than that the Divisions Feuds and Wars among us Christians both Papists and Protestants are the just judgment of God upon us for casting off Heathenism or for not turning Jews or Mahumetans 7. To which add the fair paints and cunning carriage of this Harlot for as it is with other Whores they may and often have as handsom bodies as comely faces as smooth carriages as good parts and witty winning behaviour as honest Women and chast Matrons Yea sometimes they may in some of those things if not in all exceed them and being rich or richly maintained may and often have as costly apparel as rich ornaments and Jewels as other honester persons nay and where they find defect of beauty can supply it by art painting their faces with such fresh lively colours as shall make them seem young and youthful when in truth and underneath they are black and deformed Even so this Romish Church being a rich and subtle Harlot is not void of many taking and winning matters wherewith she sets forth her self to draw or keep in Lovers and trims her way to seek love as the Prophet said of the Adulterous Church that did precede her Jer. 2.33 Yea to her may well be applyed that of the Prophet Nahum to the bloody City That she is a well-favoured Harlot 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Mistriss of witchcrafts that selleth Nations through her whoredoms and Families through her Witchcrafts Nah. 3.4 For it is true that she hath in her Persons indued with great natural parts and endowments Men of learning and policy and that she hath many good gifts from God by Jesus Christ wherewith she might and ought to serve and please him Yea she hath Jewels of his gold and of his silver as it were which he in her better state was pleased mercifully and gratiously freely to impart unto her But as it is the fault of Harlots to abuse the gifts of God men to dishonest arts and ends so it fares with this Church also for she doth as Jerusalem did before her of whom the Lord saith That she took of her garments namely that he had given her for he found her naked and in her blood and decked her high places with divers colours and played the Harlot thereupon And she took her fair jewels of his gold and of his silver and made to her self Images of a male and committed Whoredom with them and she took her broidred garments and covered them and set his Oyl and his Incense before them and his meat which he gave her even fine flower and oyl and honey wherewith he fed her she set it even before them for a sweet savour c. Ezek. 16.16 17 18 19. Even so we may say of this Church that she serves her Idols with the gifts of God and makes use even of the truths that she hath received from Christ and his ordinances to make up an Image of them as mixed with her inventions a frame of Religion which she worships and causeth all to worship Yea and she decks her self with her natural parts and gifts Moral Virtues and acquired Sciences and with many things which she hath received from God But not that she might singly serve Christ therewith but to seek love from the Kings and Princes and people of the World to commit fornication with them and many are taken and led captive with these her ornaments that is with her Learning seeming Devotion Charity and Piety which are all made use of subserviently to the grand design of making her self a Goddess or an Object of worship by the poor simple Souls that she that way deludes and as artifices of drawing them to commit adultery with her With such things she paints and guilds over her self to inamour men of her and make them her Vassals that she might inrich her self though with the spoil of their Souls As in a vision was forerepresented by the Holy Ghost concerning her in Rev. 17.4 while the holy man saw her as a Woman arrayed in purple and scarlet colour and deckt or gilded with Gold and pretious Stones and Pearls having a golden Cup in her hand in which she gives forth her abominations Signifying hereby what a gawdy Church she would be in her appearance and worship and how she would be adorned with many fine glittering and rich colours the better to inamour the Kings and people of the Earth on her Yea and as crafty and witty Whores can conform themselves to the different tempers of their Paramours the better to work upon and captivate and keep their affections so it is with this wiley Church and her Panders For those that are melancholly or of a more grave sober temper or religiously inclined she can entertain them with Books of Devotion formes of Penance rules of Mortification and many learned Discourses that may suit their humors but yet so as they must take in therewith her Superstitions and she hath her
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
how many Cities have Perished regardless or forgetful of their warnings how many Colonies have been led out by their directions and have been increased with great felicities while they have not neglected their commandments how many both Princes and private Persons have fared well or ill upon these accounts how many being troubled for want of Children by taking heed to them have obtained their desires how many have escaped the Anger of the Demons or devils how many that have been Lame in their Members have recovered their former soundness again how many doing violence to their holy things have forthwith been variously punished some have gone out of their Wits some have of their own accord confessed their evil facts others have made away themselves others have fallen into incurable diseases nor wants there examples of some who have been killed by a dreadful voice that hath proceeded forth from the cells or secret places of their Temples Such strange wonderful things could that Heathen boast of concerning his false Gods and their wicked Worship as I might also mention some instances that St. Augustine speakes of in his tenth Book de civitate Dei Cap 16. as of Aeneas his Images going of themselves from one place to another of â—arquinius cutting a Whetstone through with a Raisour of a Woman with her girdle only fastned thereto drawing a Ship that stuck so fast in the River Tybâ—r as it could not be moved as a Testimony of her Chastity and of another carrying Water in a sieve from the said River upon the like account not to mention the strange things done by Apollonius which Philostratus would make the world believe might be equallized with the Miracles wrought by Christ Surely these nor any nor all of these were no good evidences that they were Gods Church and that they or their doctrine or worship were approved of him though the Signs and Wonders seem not much Inferior to what either Theodoret in his 8. Book before mentioned relates of miraculous Cures done or helps obtained at the Monuments of the Martyrs or what some others have elsewhere related as St. Gregory or perhaps some of those things mentioned by St. Augustine lib. 21. de Civitate Dei cap. 8.9 c. But 2. Besides this there is another thing to be said to the Plea of the Roman Churches Miracles that a great many of them are fained forged matters and therein she is a lying false Harlot to go about to gull Souls with her lying and false delusions not but that those mentioned by St. Augustine or others of the Fathers might many of them be true and God might work many miracles at such places as were dedicated to the memory of the Martyrs and of his holy servants to draw people thereby to the beliefe and obedience of his truth which they had confessed and suffered Martyrdom for but doubtless Sathan and his instruments have also taken occasion thence either to work by Gods permission diverse strange things to punish those that therefore departed from the purity of the worship of God and Christ or also to counterfeit and pretend what was not indeed wrought to draw the minds of People into deceit I shall not search books for confirmation hereof seeing if any man will vouchsafe seriously to peruse what the Learned D. Stillingfleet hath largly discoursed on this subject of their pretended miracles he may be satisfyed sufficiently hereof only I shall set down hear what the forementioned Fryer Mr. Anthony Aegan in his recantation Sermon relates which is to this purpose That about seven years before his said Recantation Sermon made at London April 6. 1673. a Priest near the City of Limrick by name William Sarchwel had for fifty shillings hired a Woman to pretend her self a Cripple from her birth and that she had a revelation that if she dipt her self in such a Well while a Priest said Mass by the place she should be recovered of her Infirmity whereupon she came halting at a time appointed to the Well and returned out of it as one perfectly cured which became a miracle to the people and both got to the contriver a vast some of Mony and confirmed the People in their superstition which he tells us the said counterfeit Woman after some time upon some remorse of conscience confessed to him the said Anthony Aegan which he made her declare to the whole Congregation before he absolved her as also he tells of a Fryer of great note and zeal that told him that he was at a Franciscan Convent beyond the Seas where was the Image of the B. Virgin made with a scrue in the head thereof where they put in some water and having a string that came undeserned to a place where the Fryers stood when they thought the People had brought a good offering then by the help of that string they could unloose the scrue and then the Image of the B. Virgin would seem to weep and that was one of their Miracles which the relator said was a great scandal to him and that therefore he complained of it to the General of their Order who answered him that should he make a reformation in that particuler that Convent should starve to which he adds that the Monks of a certain Convent put a like cheat upon St. Barnard by an instrument carrying the Voice to the Image of the said Virgin Mary causing her to salute him with a salve Barnarde when he came into the Church but he apprehending the Cheat gave no other return to the complement but this that it is ashame for a Woman to speak in the Church but adds the said Fryer Aegan of all the fine stories commend me to this new Miracle they talk of for the confirmation of transubstantiation viz. that in a certain place in the King of Spains dominion as the Mass was celebrated all the perfect effigies proportion of a man rose out of the host but when the People came too near that they might see the Miracle plainly he Vanished away on which he only relates a remark made by a Facetious Person to the relatot of it you suppose said he that it was Christ himself that appeared and it seems upon the approach of the People he vanished away which is the only circumstance to make the Story credible for he might suppose the People were come to eat him and so he vanished I shall add to it this remark of my own that many of their Miracles are such as will not abide the search and tryal but upon a near approach to that end vanish into nothing but pretence and delusion Now if we put both these together both that false Prophets and Persons of false Religion may do signs and wonders especially lying signs and that many that are boasted of in the Church of Rome are the lying cheats and delusions of their Priests then will their Plea of Miracles be too far from evidencing them to be the true Church of Christ that it