peradventure there can be no Real Presence of Christs Body The same remaining the same without any change must needs be the same But if there be any change made in Accidents its evident there 's none our Senses and all Popish Doctors confessing as much If therefore there be any change it must be in the substances of Bread and Wine and if so what can such a Change be more properly called than Transubstantiation or the change of the substances of Bread and Wine into the substance of our Blessed Saviours Body and Blood the accidents of figure tast and colour remaining unaltered The Prelatick Protestant wonders that the Puritan when he is going out of this World should find difficulty to make a particular Confession of his sins if any grievous matter lye upon his Conscience and humbly desire the Prelatick Priests Absolution saying over him after his special Confession By the Authority of Jesus Christ committed to me I Absolve thee from thy sins in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost The Puritan replies if Jesus Christ has Instituted any such Ordinance he sees not why every one should not frequent it every year or as often as he finds himself conscious of any heynous crime with the Papist But Jesus Christ having Instituted no such Right or Sacrament he wonders any dare be so bold to press it upon any Christian living or dying and indeed least of all dying when sure if ever we ought to have a care not to seek to please Almighty God by unprescribed Will-worship or Inventions of our own Moreover the Prelatick Protestant wonders at the Puritans Niceness that he can by no means be perswaded to Bow at the Sacred Name of Jesus when Nature teaches us a Relative Reverence to any thing that has a Relative Respect to a Person whom we Honour Every one without scruple standing bare in the Presence-Chamber nor does any one pass the Kings Chair of State without a Reverend Bow whether His Majesty be there or no. And the simple Puritan deems it as gross Idolatry to worship Sounds as Colours Names as Pictures and stranges that any one who does so superstitiously cringe and bow at the Name of Jesus should smile at a Papist for respectfully putting off his Hat when he passes by the Picture of the same Jesus The sound of the Name of Jesus being vanish'd and gone before the superstitious Worshipper can make his Mimical Congy whereas the Picture a far more lively Representation of the same Great Lord is permanent and remains to receive its Devout Reverers Relative Respect The Conformist wonders what there is in a decent White Surplice that should boggle the skewish Puritan And the Puritan admires how any one can think a Surplice should become a publick Minister of the Divine Worship and yet throw away as Babilonish Rags the Popish Girdle Stole and Casuble which add Splendor and Decency to the same unwritten superstitious Garb unless it be because they are more chargable The Conformist wonders at the Puritans scrupulosity that he cannot say Amen to that Prayer in the Burial of the Dead That we with this our Brother and all other departed in the true Faith of thy Holy Name may have our perfect Consummation and Bliss both in Body and Soul c. We must pray for the Dead says the Rector of St. Martins in Oxford in his Sermon called the Schismatical Puritan Thy Kingdom come O Lord raise the dead Prisoners in the Grave And herein we pray for their Souls and Bodies God be with them to comfort their Souls deprived of their Bodies And to the Puritan this seems plain Popery In fine the Prelatick Protestant wonders at the Puritans pride that he will not submit his Judgment in matters of Faith to the determination of a Council of all the Reverend Bishops of the Land His Majesty as supreme Head and Governor presiding And the Puritan is amazed that if we may pin our Faith upon another mans sleeve safely believe as a particular Church in England believes how it can be unsafe to submit ones judgment to the determination of a General Council of all the Learned Bishops of the Christian world his Holiness the Pope as supreme Pastor presiding believe as the Universal Church of Christ believes 'T is fitting says the Conformist that for order sake in Christs Church there should be in every Nation some supreme Governors to whose Directions in matters of Divine Worship all should submit else we shall have as many Christian Religions and ways of Worship as there are Parishes nay as there are private Families or particular Persons The Puritan replies if we must conclude our Lord Jesus governs his Church as our reason tells us it's fitting he should for Union Decency and Order govern it and not according to the infallible written Rule of the New Testament If the Case be this It seems to him as rational that he should for the same Reasons of conserving Union Decency and Order in his Church appoint one supreme Pastor over all Christians dispersed in all the Nations of the World whom all should obey in the vacancy of General Councils for fear forsooth otherwise there should be as many ways of Christian Worship as there are several Christian Kingdoms of Common-wealths I speak not this to revile the established Religion of the Nation but to excite the Professors of it to observe devoutly what they Christianly profess as to Holy-days Lent Fridays and other Fasting-days Confession of sins to a Priest and other Holy and Profitable Rites when Piously and Reverently performed and by which they are distinguished from Non-conformists And by this time I hope My Dearest Relations you understand what I mean by a Prelatick Protestant But what do I understand by Popery and a Papist Why what should I understand by a Papist but what the generality of people understand by a Papist Those things we call Stones which every body commonly speaking calls Stones and so I understand by Popery and a Papist what every body commonly speaking calls a Papist and Popery By a Papist then I understand one that worships Stocks and Stones Medals and Pictures of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary and other Saints as Gods and consequently prays to them and puts his whole confidence in them as the ancient Heathens did in their dumb Idols of Jupiter Mars and Venus c. I say one that worships Pictures of Jesus Christ as Gods Not barely one that has such Pictures and for pious purposes also for that Prelatick Protestants have as well as they Protestants have Pictures of Jesus Christ and his Holy Mother not only in their private Houses and publick Churches but even their very Common-Prayer Books are full of them in the last Impression to excite in the Beholders mind a lively apprehension of our Blessed Saviours life and death Nor can I think they that are so ceremonious in devoutly Bowing when they hear the Holy Name
Christ I Absolve thee from thy sins does as perfectly free you from all obligation to Eternal Torments as if you had never sinn'd And as for the temporal pains in Purgatory which may be due to you for want of a true sorrow and a hearty purpose to amend 't is but saying Seven Pater Nosters and as many Ave Maries upon such a Saints day in such a Church and you go strait to Heaven clear from all spot and stain There are many more ridiculous absurdities which this sadly deluded Papist believes and practises but these I think are sufficient to make any Man in his wits to abhor Popery as the greatest piece of Non-sense imaginable And understanding by Popery what has been said and yet that is not half of that Ridiculosity which the Generality of people in England understand by it he that should turn Papist be he for Religion Protestant Jew or Turk he must certainly for understanding be a Mad Man Child or Fool either one that has lost his wits or one that is not yet come to his wit or one that never had nor ever shall have any wit But were not our Ancestors here in England for many ages together all Papists Are not whole Nations France Spain Italy and others generally Papists Have we not some thousands of Papists still remaining in our own Countrey Are all these Children Fools or Mad Men Let them look to that You and I are sure that no Man that has half the understanding of a Man can think that such a bundle of ridiculous Tenets and Absurdities can look like any such thing as a Religion revealed from Heaven And if they confess themselves to be Papists and to hold those witless absurdities the Conclusion unavoidably falls upon them They must be Children Mad Men or Fools Unless you will say they know well enough all those ridiculous absurdities how irrational and senseless they are as well as you and I but for temporal ends in their Hearts being of no Religion at all they make a profession of believing and revering all the above-mentioned Fopperies And this I must confess is another strange folly in these Papists and a contradiction not to be paralel'd in the most blockish uncultivated Indians For the Happiness Riches Honours and Pleasures of this life they make a show of believing most seriously a thousand absurdities which they laugh at in their Hearts and yet they are so senseless as they 'l loose their Lives Estates Dignities and all rather than abjure those very absurdities Further They are so ashamed of their doltish Religion that charge them with any of their stupid opinions and they 'l profess by all that 's Sacred they neither believe nor practice any such things as you lay to their charge And yet you and I know most assuredly that they do in the very bottom of their Hearts so strongly adhere to them that they would part with Life and all that 's dearest to them rather than forego them But how come you and I to know they hold such and such absurd fancies they so constantly professing they hold no such thing Can any body know their minds and practices better than they themselves That 's a considerable Question and shall be answered afterwards Sure if this be their Case That indeed they do not Worship and Pray to Pictures and Stocks and Stones as Gods nor believe any such extravagant power in their Holy Father at Rome to pardon or give leave to commit sin for Money and a thousand other absurdities which commonly they are charged with And yet they will rather endure all losses of Estate Liberty or Life then relinquish the said detestable abominations methinks they do not deserve so much to be persecuted sequestred imprison'd hang'd drawn and quarter'd for Traytors as to be pitied and cast into Bedlam for Mad Men or to have their Estates begg'd for Natural Fools There is some Mystery lies hid here which we have not yet discovered Either they are grosly and stupidly mistaken in matters of Religion or else we are strangely mistaken in them and what is indeed their Religion But for Gods sake as you desire our Eternal Wellfare which you seemed in the beginning of your discourse so heartily to pretend unto of what Religion are you your self who write thus for the satisfaction of your deluded Puritanical Kindred and Acquaintance whom you so pity and compassionate If you be neither Puritan Prelatick Protestant nor Papist what are you A Jew Turk or Pagan No I thank the All Good God I am a Christian An Apostolical Christian That is one that believes whatever Doctrine can be proved to him to have been taught the World by the Apostles of Jesus Christ One that admits of any practice introduced into the World by the same Apostles One that reverences all Books or Writings as of an in allible Divine Authority left by them Nay if the Holy Apostles left any in Commission as their Successors to make Ordinations observable by all Christians I receive all Decrees of such Delegates of the Apostles also But these are general terms what do you believe in particular as to the Worship of God in this World and the state of departed Souls in the other and such line controverted points betwixt Papists and Protestants Do you believe all those Papistical Doctrines you mentioned above or no I thank my God there 's not one of them which I do not detest as Hell it self But what do you positively believe I do believe whatsoever Jesus Christ taught his Twelve Apostles and what his Twelve Apostles taught the VVorld And I do believe Almighty God has left us who live in this Seventeenth Age from our Dear Saviour certain and infallible means to know what they taught the VVorld in that first Age in which they lived at least so much of what they taught and established as is needful for us to know and practice to dispose us for Beatitude in the other life For that otherwise the universal Redeemer should not have been a sufficient Saviour of all the VVorld but only of that part of it which had the happiness to live in that first Age of Christianism or at most only of such Ages as were so near that Primitive Happy Time that they could certainly and infallibly know what Truths were taught and what practices in order to the bettering to the preparing of Mankind for Heaven were set on foot by Jesus Christ or his infallible Delegates Substitutes or VVitnesses But what means has Jesus Christ left us at this distance from the time wherein he illuminated the VVorld by his Divine resence to know how he lived and how he taught his followers to live to come to Eternal Life Has he in some strange Island preserved some Hundreds of Venerable Old Men who have been kept alive ever since that first Age to testifie to all Generation what kind of Doctrin they had heard with their Ears or what kind of Worship they had
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
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