SInce Providence cast me so luckily into your company and acquain­tance, your affable carriage and obliging civility, hath stirred up in me, both towards your self and your relations, no small affections and affectionate desires of your best welfare and happiness, and therefore having heard, not without grief, that the Roman party have endeavoured to seduce you or them into their communion. I have not been a little exercised in my heart with desires to prevent or rescue you therefrom, being well assured that the Factors for that communion are Deceitful workers, evill doers; such, as the fruit and product of their Principles in them, who are snared with them, is no less than imminent danger of, if not inevitable destruction. And indeed I cannot but be­wail that any ingenuous persons brought up under the light of the Scriptures and of Protestant doctrine, should have attained to no great­er understanding and better judgment thereby, than to be imposed upon by persons guilty of so much corruption in their Religion, as that a man with half an eye, (as they use to say) if not careless to use and improve it for his own welfare, may easily discern it, but yet I know their sub­tilties are great and their insinuations strong where they can get admis­sion: to obviate which, I shall indeavour a little to help you against them, and to let you see wherein the Roman Church, and the men of her com­munion, are so dangerously erroneous and corrupt, that it behoves all men as they love their souls to avoid them.

And first, her claim of Infallibility is a most palpable errour and mis­carriage, for which she hath neither any good ground nor colour; for what though Christ hath said that he will build his Church upon the Rock and that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it, yet that affords no more ground for the Roman Church, or any officer in her, to assert her or his infallibillity than for any other Church, for granting that by the word, [It,] is meant the Church built upon the Rock, and not the Rock it selfe upon which he builds it (though the word [...], cam, it, being a relative agrees in gender with, and may therefore be referred in­differently [Page 2] to either of them) yet its Christs Church indefinitely and generally that our Saviour asserts that of, and the Church of Corinth, the Church of Ephesus, the Churches of Galatia, and the rest mentioned in the Scriptures, yea, and beyond what are their mentioned, were every whit as much the Church or of the Church of Christ, as the Church of Rome, that is, they were all equally and indifferently members of the same Catholick or Universal Church when they were first planted, and when the Apostles wrote to them; and they were all one as well as ano­ther by the Apostles ministry, and by Christ as going forth with them, built upon the same Rock, and so they were under the same promises and in the same state of safety, for all of them conjunctly made up that Church which was and is the Church of Christ in its Catholick and Uni­versal capacity: and yet we see the other Churches might possibly and did actually erre very grosly, as is evident in what is said of the Church of Corinth, 1 Cor. 15, 12 2 Cor. 11.2.3. and the Churches of Gallatia. Gall. 1.6. and 3.1, 2, 3, 4, 10. and 5.2.3.4. and where now I pray are the Churches of Asia, Ephesus, and the rest? have none of them failed or erred grieviously? & what promise made our Saviour to the Church of Rome more than to any of them? nay, he made such to some of them (as to that of Philodelphia, of Keeping her in and from the hour of temptation that should come upon all the earth) as we no where find the like made unto Rome, Rev. 3.8.9.10. oh how would Rome have boasted her self had such a thing been directed to her or to her Angel! if there be any such to her, where is it written or recorded? And yet the gates of hell shall not prevail against Christs Church, namely, so as to ruin it. Christ hath & will have a Church in the World, Maugre all the power and malice of hell, yea, and he may have part of it among those Church­es in Asia and Graecia that are yet lest in being, though under great op­pressions, and not free from corruptions, for they whoever they be that heartily believe Jesus to be the Christ, so as sincerely to imbrace his do­ctrine, and be followers thereof, to the best of their skill and power, and keep singly thereto, they, even the whole company of them, whoever they be, or how much soever outwardly disperst, are Christs church: the Church built upon the Rock, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. And such there are, not only (if there be any such) at Rome, and under her jurisdiction, but more purely and less corruptly in di­vers parts of the world that are no members of her.

If it be said (as I know it is by them) that Christ gave a more peculi­ar priviledge to the Church or Bishop of Rome, than to any other Church or Bishop belonging thereto, as to infallibility, in that it is built upon St Peter as its Bishop, the Bishops thereof being his successors, To that I say, that the Scriptures know or use no such language as the [Page 3] Churches, or any Churches being built or founded upon St. Peter. Yea St. Peter himself tells us, that the true Believers (and so consequently the Church ( comes to Christ the living Stone, disallowed indeed of men, but cho­sen of God and precious, and are built upon him, so us to grow up into a spi­ritual house, an holy Priesthood, &c. not making any mention of their com­ing to himself, that is to Peter, and being built upon him 1 Pet. 2.4, 5. And St. Paul tells us, other foundation can no man lay, than that which is laid, which (he saith not is St. Peter, not Petrus, but Petra) is Jesus Christ, the true Rock; who is the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, both that upon which they themselves were built and stood, and that upon which they as God's Builders built his Church, 1 Cor. 3.11. Ephes. 2.20. And surely no man can stand more strongly by being built upon St. Peter, than by being built upon Christ. Nor find we either Christ himself or a­ny of his Apostles to say or signify any such thing, as that the place or Church where Peter should reside or praeside, should be more Infallible than any other Church or Churches founded, resided in, or praesided over by any other of his Apostles. Nor that such as should succeed him as Bishops in any place, much less in Rome praesided in by him, should be more Infallible than other Bishops. If the praesidency of St. Peter in Rome can secure that Church or it's Bishop from failing or falling into Errour, how comes it to pass that his sitting at Antioch, did not also secure that place & Church? Yea & those Churches of Judaea & of the Circumcision whereof he was the Prime and immediate Apostle, Gal. 2.9. Surely they ought rather to have had this Privilege and Praerogative from him than Rome a Gentile Church, which was rather under S. Paul's & Barnabas's Jurisdiction, as being the Apostles of the Gentiles. It's strange that none of the Churches more certainly planted by him, should have this Pri­vilege, but only Rome, which it is not certain that he planted or ever came into: for some of no small learning have made a question of that that I say not have positively denied it. Surely none but simple persons and such as are easy and willing to be deceived, and therefore look not well to their goings, will believe such groundless praetexts imposed upon them. True it is that some of the Ancient Councels gave a Patriarchal power to the Bishop of Rome subjecting these Western Churches thereunto; but that was but an humane constitution for order and unities sake, and gave him no more Infallibility than the like constitutions gave to the Bishops of Jerusalem, or Antioch, or Alexandria, or Constantinople, whom they made Patriarchs also in their respective Jurisdictions. Nor yet did that make Rome or it's Church the whole Catholique Church, or the Bishop thereof the Head of it, as is evident by the 6th Councel of Carthage, where Faustinus the Popes Legate, challenging for his Master a power to order all great matters in all places, & pretending for it a Decree of the Nicene [Page 4] Councel, was upon diligent search into the Records of the said Councel found a falsifyer thereof, and thereupon was decreed an equality in pow­er with the other Patriarchs. But beside all this, against the plea of that Church's Infallibility, it is evident.

2. That she hath in Fact erred, and can there be a clearer and better demonstration of the possibility of her Erring, deceiving and being de­ceiv'd, than that she hath actually Erred: For though à posse ad esse non valet consequentia, yet ab esse ad posse est validissima. Now that she hath actually Erred is evident not only in her members and different parties, but also in her conjunct consideration, and in her Head. As for her ha­ving erred and yet erring in her parties and members, it's demonstrable in this, that contradictoria non possunt esse simul vera; of two contradictory po­sitions maintained by different parties; the one must needs be false. Now in the Church of Rome there are contradictory positions maintained by se­veral parties; witness the Dominicans and Franciscans, the one contra­dicting the other in the matter of the immaculateness of the conception of the Virgin Mary, the one denying, and the other asserting it; if the Virgin Mary was conceaved in her Mothers womb without sin, then the Dominican Party of the Roman Church errs, and if otherwise, then the Franc [...]scan Party errs. The like may be said of the Jansenists and Jesu­ites in the five Articles wherein they differ. But I say not only their mem­bers, but their Head and Bishop may erre also even in Cathedrâ, or in his solemn Determinations and doings, yea in matters of Faith; as is made manifest in Liberius, subscribing to Arrianisme, and Vigilius who both condemned and commanded the same things to be believed; as in the three Chapters condemned by a Councel as favouring Nestorianisme, and in Honorius who was condemned by a Councel for a Monothelite. And surely if a Pope may contradict himself, and say and unsay a thing as Pope and Head of their Church; and both condemn and command the belief of the same thing (as in that case of Pope Vigilius) he must needs be Fal­lible and erre in the one of them. And there is no way to avoid it, but that either some of their Popes have erred, or some of their General Coun­cels (which is the Church representative, and were some time also decla­red and held to be about the Pope, and were usually consented to and con­firmed by their Popes) have been deceived in condemning them as having erred: either of which supposals mightily infringes the Infallibility of their Church. Nay, and it is believed that the Jansenists, would they speak out, do not look upon the late Pope Innocent as Infallible in his con­demnation of the five Articles maintained by them. Nay, did not St. Pe­ter himself greatly erre in a main matter of Faith, and that too after our Saviour had said to him, Thou art Peter, and upon this Rock will I build my Church, when he preaches such doctrine to his Master, as that he should [Page 5] not suffer death, for which our Saviour rebuking him, cal'd him Sathan, Mat. 16.22, 23. But not only have and do great Parties in her and bran­ches of her erre, and even their Popes themselves, but She herself in her whole Authoratative Constitution and Catholique complex considerati­on, and that very grosly too: if we look upon her Doctrines and deter­minations in the light of the infallible testimony of God, and of his holy Spirit speaking in the holy Scriptures, which is the Touch-stone to which the Prophet Isaiah or the Lord himself by him in Isai. 8.20. and Christ himself in Joh. 5.39. directs us; and to which the noble Boereans brought the Apostle Paul's preaching with commendation for their so doing, Act. 17.12. yea and the Apostle St. Peter himself directs the Churches and the believers therein to that in 2 Pet. 1.19. and 3.1, 2. and the Apostle Paul commends Timothy for that from a child he knew the holy Scriptures, they being able to make men wise unto Salvation, 2 Tim. 3.15. implying there­in that even Children if they will mind the holy Scriptures, and set them­selves to seek the knowledge of them, may as they grow up in some good measure obtain it to their great benefit, and salvation. Now contrary to these holy Scriptures 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. [Page 6] 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, [Page 7] 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 very Antichrists. Oh that none of your Souls may come into their secret, or have fellowship with them; but yet this is not all in which they declare plainly that they erre grosly from the Faith and Truth of Christ, and the true way of his Worship. Behold it still in other particulars. For,

4. Whereas the Lord Jesus in the Night in which he was betrayed, instituted his Holy Supper, to be Celebrated in commemoration and re­membrance of him. In which He gave to his Disciples (and ordered his Apostles to do the like to the Churches afterwards) a Commemoration of his death and passion in two distinct Elements of bread and wine, the one before and the other after, and bad them all expresly drink of the cup, and the Apostles plainly tell us, that they delivered to the Churches that [Page 8] which they also received of Christ Jesus, and so that they both gave the bread to be eaten, and the cup to be drunk by them. Witness the wri­tings of the Apostle Paul, in 1 Cor. 10.15, 16. Where not directing them to some eternal infallible Judge & Determiner of their understand­dings; he bids them as wise men, to judge of his sayings, and mentions both the cup of blessing which they blessed, calling it the communion or fellowship ( [...]) of the blood of Christ, and the bread that they brake, calling it the communion of the body of Christ; and in chap. 11.23, 24, 25, 26. Where repeating the words and order of Christs institu­ting his Supper in both branches or parts of it, he saith, for as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye shew forth the Lords death till he come; and let a man ( [...] any man of the Church indefinitely, Lay or Clergy, as they are now a days distinguished) examine himself and so let him eat of this bread, and drink of this Cup. He saith not only let him eat of this bread, but also let him drink of this cup. And whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this Cup of the Lord unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself. And the Apostle saith also in chap. 14.37, as we noted before, that the things He wrote were the Commandments of the Lord, yet this Church of Rome most audaciously, and with a non obsunt or notwithstanding all this, presume to deny the cup to the Laity, yea and to the Clergy too say some, if any of them be present beside the Priest that celebrates or saieth Mass; making nothing of Gods or Christs autho­rity to the contrary. Surely therefore to them may most truly and fully be applyed those words of our Saviour, spoken by him against the Scribes and Pharisees in whose steps they walk, viz. well hath Isaiah prophesied of you Hypocrites, as it is written, this People honoureth me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the Commandments of men. For laying aside the Commandments of God, ye hold the Tradition of men, &c. And full well ye reject the Com­mandments of God, that you may keep your own Tradition, making the word of God of none effect, through your Tradition which ye have delivered, Mar. 7.6, 7, 8, 9, 13. For what is their doctrine of Concomitancy but their own Tradition? wherein they teach their Followers to believe that the Cup is in the bread as it were; the blood of Christ is in his body, and they as well taken together, For were they not so when Christ being yet alive instituted the Supper? And after his Resurrection, when the Apostle and the Primitive Christians observed it in both kinds. And can the supposal of both together in one be so lively a resemblance, re­presentation, and commemoration of his death, as when they are given seperately? The end of our Saviours instituting, and of the Churches ob­serving this Ordinance, is to shew forth the Lords death till he come. 1 Cor. 11.26. And is not his death more lively set forth and represented [Page 9] when the Elements are given apart, and so the body represented as with­out it's blood, and the blood as separated from the body, than when both are supposed to be given together in one. In Christs state of death his blood was shed forth from his body, and in the supper as instituted of Christ, the cup was given by it self, as a representation of his blood shed for the remission of our sins. So that here is in this bold contradiction to our Saviours precept and practice, both a rejecting of his command­ment, and a making null the end of his institution, the shewing forth of his death. Though yet neither is this all (nor the half of that) in which this bad Church dares to confront the authority of God. For

5. They also leave out in their Catechismes the second Command­ment. Thou shalt not make to thy self any Graven Image, &c. And to make up the number of ten, they divide the last into two; both contrary to the express voice and command of God, who gave the second as audibly as any of the rest, and with more express sanction by way both of threat­ning added, as a jealous God, punishing the Offenders, and promise of blessing to them that love him and keep his Commandments, and to the practise and manner of the Christian Church in all it's Primitive times. Because they confront Gods Commandment in their practise, setting up, and injoyning Images, and the Likenesses, and the Representa­tions of things and Persons to be erected and worshipped, though God hath expresly commanded the contrary. Oh audacious Church, and Congregation of evil doers! And can any be so blind, as not to see pal­pably in this and the other particulars, that they both can, and do err? And how then can it be possibly imagined, that they are Infallible? Nay rather verily it is far righter to say, that they are incorrigible, im­penitent and impudent in their notoriously evil Principles and Practi­ses. God saith, thou shalt not make to thy self any Graven thing, nor the like­ness or similitude of any thing either in Heaven above, or in the Earth be­neath—thou shalt not bow down to them nor worship them: And these men do make the similitude of many things in Heaven and Earth, as of the Vir­gin Mary, the Saints deceased, the Cross of Christ, yea, & as they pre­tend of God himself, &c. & bow down to them, & worship them, & yet they say they are innocent, & so did the adulterous Church of Judah, when they upon every high Hill, & under every green tree wandred & play'd the Harlot, yet they said, they were not polluted, they had not gone after Baalim, they were innocent, and therefore surely Gods anger would turn away from them, Jer. 2.23,35. Even so doth this corrupt and erroneous Church plead not only that she is innocent, but also that she cannot err. But we shall have occasion to say more to this anon. Besides all this,

6. What is their Doctrine of Transubstantiation, but a most gross and palpable error against the Verdict of Sence, and Reason, and the [Page 10] Word of God; & therefore must needs be without any substantial reason therefrom. And me thinks it's strange, that men will believe Lies, that are so evident and notorious, that their very sences may convince them thereof. If Christ should have told his Disciples, that a Spirit hath not flesh and bones, as they see him have, and yet might impose upon their sen­ces, and make them to believe that to be flesh and bones upon the Ver­dict of their sences, which yet in truth for all that might be other-wise, had he not been really, what his Adversaries falsly accused him to be? And what weight would there be in that argument, so often made use of by the Apostles to assure us of the truth of their Doctrine, viz. that they were Eye-witnesses of the things they delivered for truths to the Church, and see, and heard, and felt what they testified; if things might be quite otherwise than the most plain and constant evidence of them to our sences represent them? Now we may see the substance of bread in the Sacrament, as plainly as our eyes can discern any substance, we may feel it with our hands, tast it with our mouths, smell it with our nostrils. And when we have so many evidences that it is bread, yea, and the word of God, and Scriptures of the Apostles call it bread too, as they do af­ter the words of Consecration, when it is broken, yea and eaten too (for they say, the bread which we break, is it not the Communion of the body of Christ, and so often as ye eat this bread, &c. 1 Cor. 10.16. and 11.26.) to be perswaded upon this Church's or it's Priests authority, that there is no bread there, but the very natural body, and the substance of the flesh and bones of Jesus Christ; is the most palpable imposture upon our faith, and the most unreasonable credulity, that ever was heard of, not to be parallel'd in any Histories. Oh but say they our Saviour said, this is my body, and therefore it must be his very natural body. As if our Saviour never spake in Parables, or used not similitudes and figures in his speak­ing, and so must be understood to speak Literally, when the understan­ding his words so contradicts our sences, yea, and our reason too. For if the substance of bread be gone, and the very substance of his body, flesh, blood, and bones be there really present under the forms of bread and wine, upon the Consecration or pronunciation of those words, this is my body, how many absurdities must follow thereupon? As then Christ must have many bodies distinct from one another, or the same to be mul­tiplied beyond all possibility to say into how many; yea then while Christs body sate by his Disciples whole and untouched, it must be at the same instant in their hands and mouths, yea his whole body in every one of their hands and mouths in it's mortal state, and yet his whole body visibly before them all, and distinct from them all, and from all their hands and mouths, and what was therein: yea, then his body must be bro­ken by himself before it was broken, and he was as it were his own Cru­cifyer [Page 11] before he was crucifyed & slain, and while as yet nothing of that nature was done to his body. For if that bread which he took and bles­sed was transubstantiated into his body, then he saying of it, that it was broken for them, in that he brake the bread, it must then be broken by himself, and yet for all it was broken and eaten too, yet it was as whole after that, yea, and in the very time of it's being broken and eaten as e­ver; and was taken, and broken, and crucified on the Cross by his ene­mies, after every one of his Disciples had eaten it in it's natural substance. Then also he must have a thousand and a thousand bodies at once in the several places where the Mass is Celebrated, and the Host eaten, and the whole body eaten by every Communicant in it's substance corporally, & yet his body whole & entire in Heaven; and the Heavens must receive or contain it till the time of the restitution of all things, spoken of by the Pro­phets. Yea and when the Hosts is reserved in the Pix or Box, the same body must be in the same time in Heaven & Glory, and shut up in a narrow box in diverse places, where possibly it may mould; or if the Mice can come to it, be eaten too by them: except the Mice can eat accidents without the substance, & they can be accidents without substance to inherein, that are in such case mouldy or the like, and all the absurdities that the Pro­phets cast upon the Heathen Idolaters, when they tax them with making a God that cannot help or save it self, but may be carried to and fro as men please; may be all justified as rational, or warranted as possible e­nough by this one Doctrine. For do not the Priests, they say, make of a piece of bread the person of Christ, God and man, even their Maker? And when a Baker hath of the same dough made diverse cakes or wa­fers, and divers of them being caught and taken and eaten by men, the Priest takes one or more of them, and Consecrates and makes a God of it, and falls down and worships it, and perswades the people to worship it, telling them it is very God and their Saviour. Though yet when it is in their hands, it is in their power if they will to cast it away, or to burn it in the fire, if they secretly reserve it, and it cannot rescue it self from them and their power, no more than the God made of a piece of a Tree could. May it not as well be said to these, as to those Heathen Idolaters, remember this, and shew your selves men; bring it again to mind O ye Trans­gressors, Isai. 46.8. For are not these men every whit as much infatua­ted, as those persons or worse. For there they took a piece of a Tree, the workmanship of God more immediately, and having burnt part of it in the fire, and roasted meat and warmed themselves with it, they made a­nother part of it into an Image or similitude of something, and set it up, and Consecrated it with some words or charms, and then they called it their God, they prayed to it, and said deliver me, for thou art my God, Isa. 44.14, 15, 16, 17. Giving it Divine worship. Perhaps they might [Page 12] think as the Papists do, that after they had Consecrated it, it was tran­substantiated too, and ceased to be wood; the matter and substance of that was gone, and it was thenceforth not a Block or wood, but really a God, and had power to help and save it's Worshippers. As the Poet deridingly sings of their Priapus.

Whence it might say in English.

And do not the Papists after the same sort, while that which was as to it's matter, Corn growing in the field, and after that was reaped, threshed, ground in the Mill, kneaded in the Trough, and baked in the Oven, some parts of the same dough or mass being taken and eaten, another part of it is taken and consecrated by the Priest with some words said over it, and then thenceforth it is called, taken for, and worshipped as God. The ve­ry Person of Immanuel, God with us; though it be equally in the hand and power of men to dispose of it as they please, to cast it away, or burn it in the fire, as to the power of possibility, as the Trunk or stock of the Consecrated Tree was; for it's some time shut up in a Box, while it may mould. Nay, Fryar Aegan in his Recantation Sermon preached in London April the sixth 1673. having been Confessor General in the Kingdom of Ireland, and Guardian of the Friory of Monasterioris in the Province of Lemster, tells us, pa. 6th. That ‘coming to a publick house to refresh himself, he found that a Lewd Priest had pawned the Conse­crated Host to the woman of the house for five & thirty shillings (possi­bly enough as the price of his drunkenness, or of some worse prankwith the Hostess) & that he the said Fryar Aegan redeemed it with this re­mark (as he saith) that Christ was made by him not an Offering for sin, but a Sacrifice for his Lust.’ See here if those latter persons are not worse than the former, the Heathen Idolaters. For they did not either teare their Block in pieces, when they had made him a God, these teare him with their teeth, as the Lateran Councel exprest it, nor did they use to pawn them, as this Priest pawned what he called his Saviour; so as had not the Fryar redeemed him, which they worship as their Redeem­er, might have laine in captivity and bondage, till he had been utterly lost or spoiled. Oh sottish error and ignorance! Oh but our Saviours words, together with the Omnipotency of God must be made to bear the burthen of all these absurdities. But why must these words (this is my body) be prest to so undue and absurd a service, when many others of like import are lest at liberty therefrom? Did our Saviour call the bread, or that thing he gave his Disciples, God-man, or did he require [Page 13] them to kneel down and worship it, as these men do? That would have been to the purpose indeed: but in that he said, take, eat, not take, wor­ship, this is your God; it may be well apprehended, that they go herein besides his Warrant, in what they do, and that his words afford no ground for it. Oh but he said, this is my body, and he is true, and his words are to be believed. Do these men think then, that where ever our Saviour or the Holy Ghost calls one thing by the name of another to which it hath some reference or relation (as is usual in Sacramental matters) the thing is transubstantiated into the being and substance of that thing which it is named? I suppose not. For then the cup must be transubstantiated into the New Testament. For our Saviours words are as express in the other part of the Sacrament for that, as they are for this they so grosly under­stand, and impose upon the understanding of all others; for so St. Luke and the Apostle Paul expresly render and relate his words, likewise af­ter supper the Cup, saying, this Cup is the New Testament in my blood, [...], hic Calix. Not this wine, or this that is in this Cup, but this CUP is the New Testament. Would the word [Is] and the Omnipo­tency of God do such a Miracle in the bread, as to transubstantiate it in­to the very body of Christ; and will not the same do a Miracle here, to transubstantiate the Cup into the New Testament. No, but here they are forced to grant a Figure. Though the Omnipotency of God is able to make as great a change upon the golden or silver Chalice, as upon the bread. And I suppose the change is somewhat less. For the New Testa­ment is somewhat less than God himself, a Covenant or Will made by him with us. And may not a Divine Writing be as easily hid under the form of a silver Chalice, as the Christ, God man under the form of bread? And yet here they, notwithstanding Gods Omnipotency and Christs ex­press saying, allow a figure in the expressions, and leave us the substance of the Cup entire, and command not men to worship that: thinking that by the Cup is meant that in the Cup, though they think (or would have others so simple as to think) that what is in the Cup, is transub­stantiated into the blood of Christ that was shed for us, and not into the New Testament; and so that the Disciples drunk the blood of Christ re­ally and verily out of that Cup, though it was all, as then, in his veins. But there is no more ground for their imposing the one than the other, the wine more than the Cup except that it's their pleasure so to do; for both St. Luke and St. Paul render it so, this Cup is the New Testament in my blood; and they spake certainly the words and mind of Christ, as tru­ly as St. Mathew and St. Mark, who render them, thi [...] is the Blood of [...]he New Testament, and God is as able to effect the one as the other; and the one is no less absurd than the other. For if the wine in the cup or what was so, be now really and substantially blood, even that blood, that was shed out of Christs [...]de for us. Must not then the blood of [...]rist [Page 14] while his body is in Heaven be really and substantially separated from his body: and so his body in Heaven is a bloodless body, as oft as the Priest Consecrates the Cup, and drinks what is in it: or do they say that the body is in and with the blood, as they say the blood is in the bread or body, and therefore that alone is enough to be given to the peo­ple. If so, then flesh, and blood, and bones, and all are in the Chalice too. And no marvel then that they give not the Cup to the people, if they be­lieve verily that the flesh and bones of Christ are in it, even the same that was born of the Virgin Mary, and hung upon the Cross. Nay, it's rather to be marvelled, how the Priest dare venture upon them all to swallow them down. They might as easily believe, that the matter of the Cup be it silver or gold, is turned into the New Testament, and become a re­al Hand-writing of God, though it appear still to our sences to be a cup, as that the Priest swallows down his throat, or the people eat very flesh & bones: and the same Miracle and 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, [Page 15] 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 [Page 16] 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 surely no private Brother, nor any one or two with him is to be heard in whatever he or they may give out for truth or matter of faith whe­ther it agree with the Scriptures, and the commands of God and Christ or not; or put absurd expositions upon the Scriptures, that may be con­futed by common sence. And therefore neither speaks it there of any such authority given to the Church to give such interpretation, or im­position laid upon any to receive such an interpretation given by any un­der that name. Nor indeed by the Church can be meant there the Ca­tholique Church all over the World, much less is it tyed up to the Church of Rome, except in it's proper Jurisdiction: but it's meant evi­dently of the particular society or congregation or Church, to which such an offending Brother belongs. For it is such a Church as any offen­ded Brother, his private admonition being rejected, may inform of the offence, and that upon the information given, may also admonish the offender, which can neither be done to or by the Catholique Church in it's Catholique and extensive capacity, no nor yet to or by the Church of Rome; as to the case of every or any offender to whom this rule ap­pertains (as to what is observable in case of scandal and offence) that live in places remote from Rome and her Jurisdiction. Surely our Savi­our [Page 17] no where signifies that persons living in Judaea or Galilee should go or send up information against an offending Brother as far as Rome. Nor find we that in any dissentions in the Churches, any of the Apostles left any such orders in any of their Epistles; however Rome may have challenged or desired such homage and honour to be done to her, and hath put men upon such unreasonable and chargeable burthens, since the times of her usurpations upon the World. Her challenging that authority and homage to be done to her, is but what the false Prophets of the Church of Israel, calling themselves the Church or holy City, were wont to do. And therefore being forewarned by the Apostles (even by St. Peter from whom the Pope pretends to derive his power) that there should be false Teachers in the Christian Church or Churches now, that would imitate and do like those false Prophets, we are concerned to stand upon our watch, and when we discern any party taking that course, and walking in their steps, not to give heed to them. The Apostle Peter tells us, that as there were false Prophets formerly among the people, so there would be false Teachers among the Christian People, that would bring in damnable Here­sies going beside the Scriptures, for that properly the word translated privily, with reference to what was said before, imports: He had commended them before for taking heed to the sure word of Prophesie, as to a Light shining in a dark place; even the Prophets that came in old time by the will of God: wherein the holy Men of God spake as they were moved or carried by the Holy Ghost, the Scriptures of the Prophets. Now these false Tea­chers going besides or contrary to them, would bring in Heresies of damnation, denying the Lord that bought them. For [...] is introdu­cent, they shall bring in; and [...] is often either contrà or praeter, against or besides; as [...], i [...] contrary to the Law, Act. 18.13. and [...] is either contray to or besides what we have preached, and [...], is contray to or besides what ye received, or rather to what ye have otherwise received namely than as the false Apostles taught them, Gal. 1.8, 9. And so the sense is, that these false Teachers should or would bring in damnable Doctrines or Heresies contrary to or besides (that is differing from) the forementioned Scriptures, swarving from or opposing their sayings. And such we find) and have mentioned some of them, and we may instance in more) brought in and maintained by the Papists. Now the false Prophets of old a­mong the people, to whom these false Teachers are compared, and made to answer (as the words [...], even as there shall al­so be among you false Teachers, imply) were oftentimes the greatest and Prevailing party of the Prophets among the people; such as the generality, even the Kings, Princes, and multitude of the people usually followed, as appears in Isa. 9.15, 16. and 29.9, 10, 11. Jer. [Page 18] 5.31. and 14.13. and 23.9, 30, 31, 32. and 26.8, 11. Lam. 2.14. and 4.13. Ezek. 13. and 22.25, 28. Zeph. 3.4. And thence it was that the true Prophets were evil spoken of and traduced, yea, Persecuted and slain by them; as if they had been false Prophets and seducers, as is to be seen in Jer. 2.30. and 20.2. and 29.26, 27. and 37.13, 14, 15, 19, 38.4, 6. Mat. 23.29, 30, 31, 37. Act. 7.52. Even as here the false Teachers are such, and so received as that the [...], the multitude, or many it's said shall follow their pernicious ways, so as the way of truth which is agreeable to the Scriptures of the Prophets, and the commandments of the Apostles, shall be evil spo­ken of, reproached and cast out as Heresie; as the Church of Rome and it's Teachers cast out the commands and sayings of Christ and the Scriptures in many things, and the way that is agreeable thereto, ac­counting it Heresie, and them that stick thereto Hereticks. Now it was the way of the false Prophets whom these false Teachers, which in these last days men have heaped up or multiplied by heaps to them­selves (that is in abundance, as the Apostle Paul prophesied they would do, 2 Tim. 4.3.) do imitate; that they used to say that they were the persons that had the Law with them; and that therefore were to be listened to and followed, as those to whom the Interpre­tation of it were committed, and from whom it was to be received, and that the true Prophets (who clave to God and his word indeed) were not to be hearkned to, but persecuted and punished for contra­dicting them. That this was the way of those false Prophets, is evi­dent in that they said, we are wise, and the Law of the Lord is with us, Jer. 8.8. Just thus say the Church of Rome and it's Teachers, we are the wise men, we have the Law and Scriptures with us, we are the true Interpreters of it, and ye must take it from our mouths. But the Prophets of God reproved those false Prophets and the people as joined with and led by them, saying how say ye we are wise and the Law of the Lord is with us—the wise men are ashamed—for lo they have rejected the word of the Lord, and what wisdom is there in them? Even they that said they were wise, and that the Law of the Lord was with them had in truth rejected the word of the Lord, and therefore were destitute of true wisdom, and dealt falsly from the Prophet to the Priest, 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 [Page 19] 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 [Page 20] 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, [Page 21] 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 threatned to give up their wise and prudent men, on whom the people leaned, to an infatuation of their understandings, Isa. 29.9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. and the fault charged by our Saviour on the Scribes and Pharisees, and the Jewish Church, as depending on them, Math. 15.1, 3, 7, 8, 9. Mark 7.6, 7. to vers. 13. and it will be as great or a greater evil in us, than in them if we make our selves guilty of it, in as much as God having now spoken to us by his only begotten Son, hath declared his Name more plainly and expresly than he had done in former ages; and therefore greater heed and acquiescence in his words and sayings, is expected from us; for us then to forsake the fountain of Living wa­ters, (which is Christ speaking in his Servants, the Apostles and Pro­phets in the Scriptures) to dig up Cisterns, broken Cisterns, (as all men with their inventions and decrees, and all their authority and power that are not his, are) would be a more astonishable madness, than what of that nature was practised under Moses and the Prophets by the Church of Israel, Jer. 2.12, 13. Our Saviour in the Relation of the Rich man, and Lazarus introduces Abraham, directing the Rich mans five brethren to Moses and the Prophets, and not to the Jewish Sanhedrim or High-Priest; or any other persons claiming an infallible authority distinct from them (though they might have had more colour by far for claiming such a thing, either from that in Deut. 17.8.11.13. appointing men in case of doubt or controversy to stick to, and observe the determinations of the High-Priest, or chief Ruler of the People; or from that promise in Isa. 59.21. where God promiseth to put his Spirit upon Zion, or some persons in it, and his words into their mouth, so as to continue it from generati­on to generation, than any the Pope or the Church of Rome can shew for their claim, yet I say Abraham directs them to no such person or persons, but onely to Moses and the Prophets) and if he so directed them then, surely now that we have Christ and his Apostles also ad­ded as a compleatment of the revelation of Gods mind and will, and as infallible Interpreters of Moses and the Prophets, it behoves us to take heed to them, as speaking in their words and writings, and not to neglect or refuse them under pretence of insufficiency in them to direct us now aright, without some other infallible Guide that he no where directs us to, to determine us. And that Rome, or her Head the Pope, is not Infallible in her doctrine of Transubstantiation (the thing last insisted on) is evident from hence, that Gelasius one of their Popes or Bishops, hath taught the Church that the bread in the [Page 22] Sacrament is not naturû or substantiâ mutatus, changed in its nature or substance: and others of them have taught and determined that it is substantially changed, so as the flesh of Christ it is that is eaten and torn with the Teeth of the Communicants, as in the Luteran Council was defined, and in contradictories one part must needs be false, which things duly considered, may imbolden us to reject the Pleas and pre­tence of that Church as more groundless Usurpations & Inchroach­ments, by which they pervert men from the right ways of God, which our Lord Jesus hath delivered to us.

Nay, our Lord Jesus in the Book of the Revelations, instead of directing us to Rome, doth clearly call us off from it, and hath re­vealed that to us concerning her, which being taken heed to by us, will admonish us to flee from her, for by the concurrent consent of Interpreters, as led to it by the Scripture it self, compared with the state and condition of Rome: it is Rome deciphered in that Book, not by the Name of Jerusalem, the beloved City of God, in the light whereof the Nations of the saved should walk, but by the name of Babylon, the Enemy of Jerusalem, and her Inhabitants, and the subject of the deepest died sins, and heaviest judgments mentioned in that Book. Yea, the Papist writers themselves are also forced to confess the truth hereof it is so palpable and evident, (yea, rather than they will not prove St. Peter to have been at Rome, Babylon shall signifie Rome too in his 1. Epistle 5.13.) surely she was the City that then ruled over the Kings of the Earth, and was built upon seven Hills or Mountains, and that's the City called Babylon, Rev. 17.9, 18. and its evident that she ruled over the Kings of the Earth, not only in her Pagan, but also as much or more in her Papal State, wherein their Popes or Bishops have exacted Homage of them, made them kiss their Toes, hold their Stirrups, wait at their Doors, and do things far below their Majesty and Grandeur in subjection to them. Now in all that Book no good is spoken of Babylon, nor any direction is given to Gods people, the followers of the Lamb to resort to her for any thing, but much is spoken of its Wickedness, Whoredom, Idolatry, Bloodiness, while it remains, and of its woe and misery irreparable in its fall, as that that shall for ever Perish, with express and vehement command to Gods people that are in her, to come out of her, lest pertaking with her in her sins, they should also pertake with her in her Plagues, Rev. 18.4. which one consideration also quite over­throws that corrupt interpretation that would confine what is said of her to her Heathen state only, as the Papists to excuse themselves do, or rather to blind themselves from seeing their own guilt; for if it were so then, she should have found her not as a City or Harlot destroyed for ever; but by a glorious Metamorphosis or disposses­sion [Page 23] of the Spirit of Whoredom, and Resurrection from her falls in Heathenism, changed into the holy City, or the Lambs Wife, where­as there is not the least intimation of any such thing, but a vehement assertion of her sinking like a mighty stone in the waters, never to rise again, Rev. 18.21. whence it is evident, (which I shall mention as a farther distinct charge, and a farther instance not only of her fal­libility, but also that she is fallen foully already in that it is thereby evident) That

7. She is guilty of Idolatry, for that's it that in Scripture is repre­sented by Whoredom; and she is called the great WHORE, and the Mother of Harlots, and abominations of the earth. And she is certainly as great a WHORE from Christ, as ever the old Babilon, or the old Pagan Rome was, and more truly so also, being not so es­poused to Christ in her Pagan state as since she turned Christian. In­deed she is a Mystical WHORE, corrupted from the purity of the Faith and Worship of God in Christ, yet giving out herself to be a Queen and Lady, the Queen or Darling of Heaven, the only Catho­lique and Infallible Church. In her Pagan state she was more openly and grosly a Harlot, a gross Idolatress, and there was not Mystery writ on her forehead; but now as very and as arrant an Harlot or I­dolatress as then, but more spiritually such, and under finer preten­ces. That we may make good this charge against her, let us first in­quire and take notice what Idolatry is in the Scripture language. For as it is no asking a mans partner whether he be a Thief, so neither will the Adultress confess her self to be such a one, but she eateth and wipeth her mouth, and saith I have done no wickedness, Prov. 30.20. Now Idolatry in the Scripture language is with reference to the worship of God what Fornication or Adultery is among men; therefore it's often compared to and illustrated by the practices of Whores and Har­lots, as in Jer. 2. and 3. Ezek. 16. and 23. and so as she is a Whore that takes into the bed of love with her, and prostitutes herself to any man that is not her husband espoused and married to her, whether it be her servant, friend, or a stranger; so he is an Idolater that falls down, and gives religious worship to any beside the true God, whe­ther it be with the heart-worship only, or whether also or only with the body. In the former way Covetousness is Idolatry, because it's a putting riches in the place of God, as to inward estimation of, affecti­on to, confidence in them, Ephe. 5.5. Coll. 3.5. Some also make their Belly their God, and commit Idolatry therewith, while they prefer their Belly before God and his favour, and love in Christ, or his word and Spirit directing us to worship him, and walk with him rightly in and by Christ, Phil. 3.19. whether by the Belly be meant the grosser appetites and brutish sensual lusts in gluttony, drunkenness, intem­perance, [Page 24] unchastity and the like; or else their own wisdom, under­standing and will, the Belly being often used to signifie and put for the inward man or heart, and what is therein, as in Job 32.18, 19. Joh. 7.38. Job 15.2, 35. and 20.15, 20. Pro. 18.8. and 26.22. Now that the Church of Rome is guilty of Idolatry in those or some of those ways of it, what can be more evident. For her covetousness is insati­able grasping or gaping after Crowns, & Scepters, Kingdoms, and Do­minions, so (as was said of the Caldaean Babilon) that she enlargeth her de­sire as Hell, and is as Death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathers to her all Na­tions, and heaps up to her (as far as she can) all people, Habak. 2.5. and this that she might be enriched with their worldly riches and treasures. So as it may be said of her, that she is abundant in treasures, and in the mea­sure of her covetousness, Jer. 50.13. Yea, and (was said sometime of Je­boiakim in Jer. 22.17.) that her eyes and her heart is not but for her cove­tousness, and to shed innocent blood. Thence the Proverb, omnia Romae venalia, that all things may be sold at Rome for mony; and the very Let­ters of her name are the Initials of Radix Omnium Malorum Avaritia. And as for her Voluptuousness, Uncleanness, Sodomy, and Filthiness, their Church and City is too notoriously full of such things, witness the lives and doings of diverse of their Popes and Bishops, and their taking mony for the open maintainance of Stews and Brothelhouses, and for her preferring her wisdom, will, and inventions before the word and appointments of God and Christ. What is said before may in part give evidence. So that in these things she is a notorious Idola­tress, though as if we aske any of the covetous, Epicures, or Self-conceited Persons, whether they be Idolaters, they will deny it stifly, and if we charge them therewith they will be angry; so it is with Rome and her Church also. But again, the giving external religious undue adoration to any thing or person that is not God, is Idolatry, as is evident from the Scriptures. For so the falling down to the Molten Calf and worshipping or adoring it, is called Idolatry in 1 Cor. 10.7. though it was professedly in honour of Jehovah, Exod. 32.5. so also was the falling down to the Stock and worshipping it in Isa. 44.15. And God in the second Commandment forbids both the making to our selves any graven or carved thing [ [...]] or the likeness of any thing [ [...]] in Heaven above or in the Earth beneath, &c. so as to fall down to and worship it. Yea, in the Greek it is [...], thou shalt not bow down to it, neither shalt thou worship it, either of them, viz. either to bow down to it, or worship it, is Idolatry, and for­bidden to any similitude made any way, either by carving, graving, painting, or the like by men. And when the holy man John fell down to the Angel that shewed him the things revealed to him in the Re­velations, he was twice forbid to do it, and bid to worship God, as [Page 25] implying that the worshipping or bowing down to the Angel was a dero­gating from and a sin against the Commandment that bids us to worship God He might not it seems join the worship of an Angel to or with the worship of God. Nor is it said that he fell down [ [...]] but only [...], to kneel down to or adore him. Yet it was a thing forbidden him as injurious to God and his worship, as intrenching upon his prerogative therein, and so certainly reducible to the sin of Idolatry; even as for a married woman to admit to bed to her some of her servants, though the chief about her husband, yea, though they be his familiar Friends, it would be Adultery as really as if she should admit meer strangers or enemies to him. Nor would it be an acceptable plea to him that she shewed therein the greater honour and humble respect to him that she loved his friends and servants so well for his sake as to admit them to bed with her also, and judged her self too low for his fellowship, and therefore thought it meet­er to honour him after that manner, by contenting her self, at least some­times, with them; hoping that way to make them her greater friends to him from whom alone she expects all her maintainance, though by their mediation she hoped to have more of it and much better. Nor would a King take it well that some Homage proper to himself, in which the king­ly power is ascribed to him, should be given out of pretended respect to him, to some of his Nobles or Courtiers also. Now that the Church of Rome is grosly guilty of the giving this solemn religious prostration and a­doration to those that are not God, is so openly and evidently true, that nothing can be more true. For what do they in worshipping God do un­to him that they do not to the Virgin Mary, or to some other Creatures? Certain it is that neither the Virgin Mary, nor any of the deceased Apostles or Martyrs, or holy Men, are God; much less the Images, Pictures, or Statues of any of them; nor the Cross, or the Picture, or Image of it, no, nor the Picture or Image of Christ himself. Nor is the Bread in the Sacra­ment God, for that may be shut up in a Pix or Box, so as God cannot be. Yet to all these things and diverse more they fall down and worship them with that kind of worship forbidden in the words [ [...], thou shalt not fall down to them; [...], worship God] Yea, what worship the Idolaters used to perform to their Idols, graven Images, or Stock of a tree made a God to them, that they perform to others that are not God; that is, they fall down and pray to them to do such things for them, as only God can do, only they say not to or of them perhaps that they are their Gods. Nor will their distinction of [...] and [...] excuse them; for both are forbidden to any but God in a religious way of worship or adoration. Therefore the Heathens are faulted for serving those things that by nature are not God, Gal. 4.8. Where the Apostle saith, not [...] but [...]; ye served or performed [...] to those things that by nature are not God. They were no doubt guilty therein of Idolatry; though it's ex­pressed [Page 26] by that kind of worship which the Papists by their distinction al­low themselves to give to what by nature is not God. As none of those things before mentioned are by nature God. None of them can say that either Angels or glorified Saints, much less their Statues or Images are by nature God, by the Apostles description of Idolatry, then in which he re­presents it as a giving [...] to or serving religiously any thing that by nature is not God, they are concluded to be Idolaters. Yea, the words in the second Commandment [...] are proper­ly, thou shalt not bow down to them. nor shalt thou serve them. For [ [...]] is properly [...], to serve. Yea, it may be observed that what the Papists do to the things that by nature are not God, is the same that our Saviour calls [...]. For they do [...] fall down to and adore, or kiss those things before mentioned or some of them. Now when the Devil tempted Christ to do that to him, [...], or as it is in Luk. 4 7. [...] falling down if thou wilt worship or prostrate thy self to or before me (which is what the Papists cannot deny but they give to the things above mentioned, they fall down to and kneel to or before them in their acts of religious worship) our Saviour repelling him with this, [...], plainly implies that, that that they call [...], a Divine worship to be given to God alone, is contained therein. That the Roman Church then are Idolaters is evident, for they worship and serve those that are not God, nor allowed of God to be worshipped, or re­ligiously adored and served by us. Nay, I may say too truly that God hath given them (as was said of his dealing with Israel formerly for their neglects of God, and lifting up themselves in pride against him) to worship the Host of Heaven, Act. 7.42. only this difference there is, that the Isra­elites worshipped the Visible Host, the Sun, Moon, and Stars, but these the Invisible Host, that is, the Saints, Angels, and Glorified Persons; who as truly are the Host of Heaven and not the God of Heaven, as the other was, though not so Visible: and the worship of them as truly and really Idola­try, as the worship of the Visible. Yea, they worship those of whom there is less certainty that they are in Heaven, and so of whom there is less cer­tainty that they are any way beneficial to men in the least, than there is of the Visible Stars, as Thomas Becket, St. Francis, Ignatius Loyola, and others, that probably might be no better Saints than Annas or Caiphas or some of our QƲAKERS.

That they give religious adoration to them that are not by nature God and to their Images too, is too gross to be denyed; and what kind of wor­ship they give may be discerned in these insuing instances that I shall here set down. First in their Devotions to the Virgin Mary, who I am sure is not by nature God. To her they pray, and of her they aske such grants, as only proper to God and Christ to give; and to her they ascribe most blas­phemously the same things that are ascribed to God. As is to be seen in the [Page 27] insuing instances among many others. Even St. Barnards devotions joining the Virgin Mary with Jesus Christ are too full of this Idolatry, witness these following expressions.

And again

I english it thus.

And yet he is modest in comparison of some others who invoke Her by such titles, as

Another accosts her thus, peccatorum Consolatrix, infirmorum Curatrix, er­rantium Revocatrix, Justorum Confirmatrix, desolatorum spes & auxiliatrix at (que) mea promptissima Adjutrix; that is, the female Comforter of sinners, Hea­ler of the weak, caller back of those that wander, Confirmer of the Just, the hope and helper of the desolate, and saith the Devotionist, my most ready Hel­per. She is addressed to and prayed to also by the names of Excelsa Domi­na, Salvatrix saeculi, Regina Gentium, &c. the high Lady, the Saviouress of the World, the Queen of the Nations. Which what are they but highly Ido­latrous expressions contrary to him that said, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. But besides these, the very expressi­ons of the Scripture directed and attributed therein to God himself, are ap­plyed to her, as may be seen in the Mary's Psalter. So from the thirtieth (or according to our division of them; the one and thirtieth) Psalm they thus say to her. In te Domina speravi non confundar inaeternum, in gratiam tuam suscipe me, inclina ad me aurem tuam, & in maerore meo laetifica me. Tu es fortitudo mea, & refugium meum, consolatio mea, & protectio mea; ad te clamavi cùm tribularetur c [...]r meum. In manus tuas Dom na commendo spi­ritum meum, meam totam vitam, diem ultimum, that is, in thee O Lady have I put my trust, let me not be confounded for ever, receive me into thy favour, in­cline thine ear to me, and in my mourning comfort me. Thou art my strenght, my refuge, my consolation and my protection; unto thee have I cryed when my heart [Page 28] was troubled. Into thy hands, O Lady, do I commend my spirit, my whole life, my last day. See here, is there not herein beside the outward worship of the body, and the bodily act of invocation; a profession of the most inward worship proper unto God, and most incommunicably to be reserved unto him? Is there not here then gross Idolatry and Blasphemy, ascribing to a creature that that is peculiar unto God. Of the like sort is that in Psal. 71. Resperge Domina cor meum dulcedine tuâ, &c. Besprinkle my heart, O Lady, with thy sweetness, make me to forget the miseries of this life, stir up ever­lasting desires in my soul, and inebriate, or make drunk, my mind with the joys of Paradise; and in Psa. 46 aliàs the 47 thus, Omnes Gentes plaudite ma­nibus, psallite Jubilo Virginis gloriosae, quoniam ipsa est porta vitae, Janua sa­lutis, & Via nostrae reconciliationis, spes paenitentium, solamen lugentium, pax beata cordium at (que) salus, &c. that is, ô clap your hands all ye Nations, sing with a joyful voice to the glorious Virgin, because She is the Gate of Life, the Door of salvation, and the Way of our Reconciliation, the Hope of those that re­pent, the Comfort of those that mourn, the blessed peace and safety of hearts, &c. with reference to Psal. 18. it is also said, Religiosi omnes honorate illam, quia ipsa est Adjutrix vestra, & specialis Advocata. Esto refrigerium nostrum gloriosa Mater, quia Tues totius Religionis mirabile firmamentum, &c. that is, All ye Religious men (or Cloysterers) honour ye Her, because She is your helper and special Advocate. Be thou our refreshing, O glorious Mother of Christ, for thou art the marvelous foundation, or establishment, of all Religion; upon Psal. 20. Exaudi Domina, succurre Animae cùm deseruerit corpus suum, mitte Angelum in occursum ejus per quem ab hostibus defendatur, sentiat in paenis re­frigerium tuum, & concede locum inter Electos Dei, that is, Hear O Lady, suc­cour my soul when it shall leave it's body, send an Angel to meet it, by whom it may be defended from it's enemies, let it feel thy refreshing in the pains of Pur­gatory, and give it a place among the Elect of God. And if this do not suffi­ciently shew their guilt of Idolatry, I shall add a passage or two that will shew it with greater Blasphemy, as when they say in Psal. 34. Quia Do­mina humillima fuisti, Verbum Increatum ex te carnem suscipere coegisti, that is, Because thou, O Lady, wast most humble, thou didst constrain or compel the In­created Word to take flesh of Thee, and in Psal. 36. Mater Dei, inclina vul­tum Dei super nos, coge illum peccatoribus misereri. Mother of God, incline the countenance of God towards us, compel him to be merciful to sinners. But e­nough of this blasphemous Idolatry with her. Yet all this and much more is to be found in that Psalter of the blessed Virgin, said to be made by their Seraphical Doctor St. Bonaventure, Bishop of St. Albans, and one of the Cardinals of the holy (they might better have said unholy) Church of Rome. And their Primer made for their children after the use of Salisbury printed with a privilege according to the Kings and Queens Majesties Let­ters in the reign of Queen Mary is of like complexion with that Psalter, as is to be seen in Fox Martyro. volum. 3. pa. 273. witness these among other passages.

[Page 29]Holy Mary,

And again,

Again,

Nor only with Her do they commit this Idolatry, but with others also both Apostles and others of less worth, if not evil persons, as may appear from the same Primer. Whence they teach their Children to be such in I­dolatry betimes; teaching them not only to say, O Lord defend us always through the continual succours of St. John Baptist; or with reference to the Apostles Peter and Paul, Hear us mercifully, and grant that through the me­rits of them both, we may obtain the glory everlasting; but also with respect to Thomas Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, murthered by occasion of contempt against the then King, this is said.

O Blasphemy! And with respect to St. Nicholas, O God which hast glori­fied blessed Nicholas, thy holy Bishop, with innumerable miracles, grant we be­seech thee that by his merits and prayers, we may be delivered from the fire of Hell. To these I shall add some passages that Dr. Moor hath mentioned in his Antidote against Idolatry giving that in English, that He hath therein set down in Latine only. Being pieces of Devotion publiquely read or sung with Stentorian voices, as he phrases it, in their very Churches; as to St. Cosmas and St. Damian two Quondam Physitians, they thus sing.

[Page 30]St. Francis they bespeak to this purpose.

St. Andrew they court thus.

St. Nicholas to this purpose.

St. Agnes they address themselves to after this sort.

St. Bridget they Idolize thus.

[Page 31]But St. Catherine is more largely Deified of them after this manner.

What they can desire more of Christ himself than they express in some of these, I know not, but yet besides all this and much more of the like nature, they have also enacted in their Councils, both in the second of Nice, and in that of Trent, that the very Images of Christ and of the Virgin, and of the Saints, are to be worshiped, and that to with the same kind of worship, as Christ and his Saints are worshiped with, point blank contrary to the second commandment which they therefore, as is before said, leave out of their Catechisms, them they kiss, and before them they uncover their Heads and prostrate them­selves, to them they build Temples, and Altars, set up Candles, burn Incense and the like, pretending that that way they worship Christ and the Saints themselves, just as the Pagan Idolaters use to do, of whom Origen in his Answer to Celsus, saith thus. [...] that is, we see sometime men that are in high esteem for Wisdom and Divinity, bowing down themselves to the [Page 32] Image of a corruptible Man, which they say they do for the honour of God; yea, and Celsus himself pleading for the worship of their Daemons, and for their Altars and Statues, hath this Plea, [...] that is, may not he that worships God lawfully enough, worship him that receives authority from him, as pretending to worship the great & most high God, in worshiping those that were honoured by him. And again, [...]; He that honours and worships all them, what offence doth he to God (or how grieves he him) whose all are? how like to the Popish Doctors pleading for worshipping their Saints and Images spake that Heathen; yea, and that by erecting Statues, or making Images to them, with which they commit their Idolatry as the Heathens did with theirs, they act like them also, may easily be seen with those that will compare them: the Images of the Heathen used to be consecrated as we hinted before; and what Dr. Moor quotes out of Minutius Faelix, jearing their Images, may well be applyed to them, when he saith, Ecce funditur, fa­bricatur, scalpitur nondum Deus est. Ecce plumbatur, construitur, erigitur, nec adhuc Deus est. Ecce ornatur, consecratur, oratur; tunc postremo Deus est. That is, Io, the Image or Idol is Molten, Wrought, or Graven, hi­therto it is no God, it is sauldred, made up, and erected, neither yet is it a God, but when it is Adorned, Consecrated, and Prayed to, then at length it becomes a God, such kind of actions are done to the Popish Images to make them objects of Worship and Trust; as thus (as the same Doctor tells us out of Chemnitius) they consecrate the Image of the Virgin Mary. ‘Sanctifie, O God, this Image of the blessed Virgin, that it may aid and keep safe thy faithful people, that Thundrings and Lightnings, if they grow too terrible and dangerous, may be quickly expelled thereby; and that the Inundations of Rain, the commotions of Civil War, and devastations may be suppressed by its Presence.’ The Image of St. John Baptist thus, ‘Grant, O God, that all they that be­hold this Image with reverence, and pray before it, may be heard in whatsoever straits they are in. Let this Image be the holy expulsion of Devils, the conciliating (or procurement) of the presence and assi­stance of the Angels, the protection of the faithful, and that the Inter­cession of this Saint may be very powerful in this place, who would not be drawn to adore such an Image as they are perswaded to be of so great advantage?’ yea, but the Consecration of Images, as in the Roman Ri­tual, published by two of their Popes since the Councel of Trent runs higher, being thus, ‘Grant, O God, that whosoever before this Image shall diligently and humbly upon his knees Worship and Honour thy only begotten Son, (or the B. Virgin, or what Saint the Image relates to) may obtain by his or her Merits or Intercession, grace in the pre­sent [Page 33] life, and eternal glory hereafter.’ So that the Saints here are made fellow Sharers with Christ or God in the dispensing grace and glory to, or procuring it for us; and their very Images are great advancers of their beneficence. Is not this too like the Heathens, who ascribed to their Demons or middle Deities the handing to us the benefits we receive in all outward enjoyments, as is to be seen in what the abovenamed Celsus pleads for the worship of them; nay, do they not exceed their Pleas, in as much as they attribute also to their Intercessions, the giving of spiri­tual grace and eternal glory: I shall not insist upon all the Rites and ob­servances practised and allowed in the said Church to their Saints and their Images, which are such as one of themselves: Ludovicus Vives plainly confesses such likeness to the Pagan Idolatries therein, that he saith, Non potest aliquod discrimen ostendi, nisi quod nomina tantum & ti­tulos mutaverint; that is, that there can no difference be shewed be­tween these practises and the Pagans to their Idols, but only that they have changed their Names and Titles; for whereas the Learned Papists will say, that they are not so silly as to think these Images to be Gods, or to be able to help us, what say they therein, but what the Heathens also said of their Altars and Images. Celsus saith, ‘If the Christians condemn the Images or Statues of the Gods, because that Stone, or Wood, or Brass, or Gold, being wrought up by this or that Man into an Image, is not, nor cannot be God, [...] this is a ridiculous wisdom, for who except he be a very fool or child, believes them to be Gods, but only things dedicated to, and the Images of the Gods:’ but as they thought that their Demons or lower God, were to be wor­shipped by such Statues and Images as representations of them, or Medi­ums to which their presence and divine vertue were affixed, in honour of the most high God, as his Ministers of good things to us, who were there­fore to be made propitious to men that they might convey good things from the great God to them, as is to be seen in the Pleas of the said Celsus, so these think of the Saints and good Angels, and of their Images, and the answers that Origen gives to Celsus, shewing the reason why the Christi­ans made or worshipped no such Images, or worshipped not God by them, will most of them be of the same force as to this practise of the Roman Church, as they were against that of the Heathen, and do clearly evidence that such practises were disallowed and rejected in his days by the then Christian Church, though both the Virgin Mary and the Apostles were deceased long before, and were as much in glory, and in as good a capa­city to help them then, as to help any now, and they needed as much then as ever, because of their dreadful persecutions that they then groaned under, for among other things, Origen tells Celsus, that the reason why the Jews and Christians forbare such worship of Idols and Images, was because of [Page 32] that in the Law. 'Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou Worship, and that thou shalt have no other Gods but me, thou shalt not make to thy self an Idol, [...], nor the likeness of any thing in Heaven above, or in the Earth beneath, thou shalt not wor­ship them, nor serve them, and because of that, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. With many other sayings which saith he do so deter us from Temples, and Altars, and Images, that we should rather chuse to die, than to defile our Religion with unlawful matters. And afterward granting that God may be known, and his only begotten Son, and that those whoever they be that are honoured of God with the title of Gods, or are made partakers of the Deitie, are different from the Gods of the Nations which are Devils. Yet he adds, [...], that it is impossible for one to know God, and to pray to Images; and that it is not only a foolish thing to worship and pray to Images, but also to pretend or appear to do so, complying with the multitude, as certain of the Philosophers did use to do. Yea, & that they took heed with all care not to honour Images, lest by any means they should give occasion of believing that they were others Gods, and often asserts that ‘the Christians refused [...], to worship any thing else than the God over all, and his Word, the first begotten of every creature, and that they did, [...], worship the God over all by his Son, who only brings us to him, without Schism, Separation or division.’ There was then no extending the acts of worship beyond God, and his blessed Word or Son; nor any belief entertained in the Church of the Virgin Mary, or any of the deceased Apostles, Angels, or other Saints, having any share committed to them in the office of Mediator, for bringing the worship of the worshippers unto God; or for imparting his grace unto them. No, these were then accounted strange and corrupt notions, if any such were as yet crept into any hearts, and they are evident Adulteries from the fi­delity and loyalty or the simplicity of faith that we owe to God in and by Christ Jesus. The proper Apostacy of the last times foretold by the A­postle, 1 Tim. 4.1, 2. as Reverend Mr. MEDE hath learnedly demon­strated in his Treatise upon that Scripture. Wherein he that will may see this argument excellently handled, and amongst other things, a large re­lation out of the eight Book of Theodoret, de curandis Graecorum affec­tionibus, of the Christians having then taken in the Saints and Martyrs into the place of the Heathen Daemons, as among other passages, these words testifie, ‘Eorum qui passim Dii ferebantur memoriam è mente hominum Martyres aboleverint. Suos mortuos dominus Deus noster in Templo pro diis vestris, i. e. daemonibus iri duxit— Pro-Jovis liberi (que) Patris solemnitatibus Petro, Paulo, Thomae, Sergio, aliis (que) Sanctis Mar­tyribus [Page 29] solennitates epulo populari peraguntur, &c.’ ‘that is, the Martyrs have abolished the memory of those that were commonly accounted Gods. Our Lord God would have his dead brought in­to the Temples instead of your Gods, that is, the Devils, instead of the Feasts of Jupiter and Bacchus, the people now keep Feasts to Peter and Paul, to Thomas and Sergius, &c.’ And what the Papists al­ledge of their doing all the same things that we Protestants do, but they do more also, is but all one in this matter, as if a Woman should say that she doth all things to her Husband that another honest Wo­man doth to hers, but she doth this more, that whereas the other ho­nest Woman yields her Body to her Husband only, and admits no other man into her Bed besides, she out of respect to her Husband, admits him and his Servants, and familiar Friends also. And as a wise Husband would scarce think that a good honour given or done to him by his Wife, no more will God take such adulterous embraces of the Saints, and their Images, and the like, as a good honouring of him, its like also as if the false Apostles and their fol­lowers should have pleaded against the true Apostles, and theirs that they did the same things with them, but they exceeded them, and did more; for they not only Baptized into the Name of Christ, but Circumcised too, and were Circumcised after the manner of Moses; nor did they only celebrate the Lords Supper, but also ob­served the dayes and times appointed in the Law; and surely there was more colour for their so pleading, than for these mens, for they had something formerly of Gods appointment to shew for them­selves, but these have nothing at all but many prohibitions there a­gainst to produce. Nothing said I? Yes, I remember the Plea of a Jesuite for the Picture of Christ (though nothing for worship to be given it, nor for worshiping the Saints and their Images) from the Apostles saying to the Galathians that they were Fools to turn to Moses law when Christ Jesus had been set forth and evidently cruci­fyed among them, the word saith he is [...], that is, was Pictu­red, and therefore they had the Picture of Christ drawn before their Eyes, even of Christ Crucifyed; surely the Jesuits was hard put to it for a proof that he was fain to fetch one from that word, by the same way he might prove that the Prophets of old were Painters and Image makers, because its said in Rom. 15.4. [...], and so it should be translated whatsoever things were Pictured aforetime, were Pictured for our Instruction, & he might have found the Pictures of other men besides Christ, though not of the Saints, unless such saints as some of them of the Roman Church may be, for Jude tells us of some that were [...], shall we read, Pictured out unto this Condemnation? Jude 4. ungodly [Page 36] Men. Surely the Jesuit was either a man of little judgment, or which is rather to be judged of a profligate conscience that mattered not with what colours to paint over his matters, or else he would have waved such a proof for so bad a purpose, and have remembred that the A­postles and their fellow Labourers whither they did [...] or [...], ingrave or pourtray, yet it was [...], not in Tables of Stone, as the Romish Pi­cturers work but in the fleshly Tables of the heart, [...] not with Ink or such like Paint, but with the Spirit of God, as the Apostle writes in 2 Cor. 3.3. and with such a manner of drawing, I suppose their Picture makers have little or no acquain­tance, nor indeed would it have deserved the title of [...], Foolish Galathians; had the false Apostles only drawn them from a Christ Crucifyed as represented in an externally visible Picture or I­mage of him, wherein nothing but his body and flesh, or rather the external lineaments, proportion and complexion of it, could be re­presented, and so the shape of a man Crucifyed; nothing of his Deity and inward Virtue, as they deserved for being drawn from him, as Painted forth by the Spirit in the Gospel, to the eyes of their under­standings, as the Son of God; and so as God manifested in the flesh, and baring our Sins in his Body on the Tree, and there through geting the victory over Sin, and death, and the Divel, which no Pain­ters in matters of Stone or other Metals could draw to the Life, the other might rather offend them and give the false Apostles ad­vantage against believing on him, than perswade to constancy there­in, there being nothing but a Crucifyed man represented to them therein.

But I have been tedious in making good this charge; but therein I suppose I have abundantly discovered the truth thereof, that Rome Papal is as arrant a Whore as Rome Pagan was; nay, in one respect far greater and worse, for in those times she was not espous­ed to Christ as such, & therefore was not charged then as commiting adultery from him, or breaking Wedlock as now, that having been the Catholick Church, and her Faith that that was preached in the whole World, and she a famous Mother without it, yet she hath played the Harlot from him (like Jerusalem in Ezek. 16.15.) as being corrupted from the simplicity in him to swarve so much from her loyalty to him and admit a multitude into the Bed of love besides him, yea, the Kings of the Earth also, with whom she hath truckt for their ho­nours and riches, crowns and scepters, accommodating her self to their wills, that she might lift up her self by them, and get her will on them, as in the famous Story of her Bishop Boniface, chaffering with Phocas, who having Murthered his own Master Mauritius, and [Page 37] his Children, was owned as Emperour in his stead by the said Bo­niface, that he might (as he was) be made and declared by him to be the Universal Bishop over all the Churches in Christendom, upon a fond pretence never before thought on (its likely) that because Christ said to Peter that he would give him the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, therefore the Bishops of Rome (however unlike to St. Peter) and without any delegation of them by him in any of his E­pistles or other ways of conveyance of them to them) must rule over all the Church in all after ages. A notable reward of Romes Whore­dom with that Murtherer, but that may lead me to another particu­lar charge agreeable also with the character given her (which also de­clares her to be the Babilon spoken of) by the holy ghost in the book of the Revelations, viz. That

8. The Church of Rome is not only a Whore and the great Whore, but a Bloody Whore too, else she should not be that Babilon, for St. John was shewed that so she would be, for he saw her drunk with the Blood of the Saints, and with the Blood of the Martyrs of Jesus, to his great admiration and amazement, and that in her was found the blood of the Prophets and of Saints, and of all that were Slain up­on the Earth, Rev. 17.6. and 18.24. and indeed it may be doubted whither she slew more in her Pagan state, to raise and maintain her imperial dignity among and over the nations of the World, as to bodily slaughters in all her Wars and Battels, or more Souls spritu­ally in raising her self to, and maintain her self in her Papal Empire. And again, whither she made more Martyrs of Jesus, or slew more in their bodys for confessing him to be the Son of God in her Pa­gan state; or for confessing and cleaving to the simplicity and sin­cerity of the Gospel against her spiritual fornications from, and cor­ruptions of it in her Papal state, but in both states and in both ways its certain that she hath been and is notoriously guilty of Blood and Murther, for if no Idolater hath any part in the Kingdom of God and Christ, and they that depart from the simplicity of the faith to adulterate it with other mixtures, are thereby abolished from Christ, as the Apostle saith of those that were Circumcised, Gal. 5. 2, 3, 4, 19, 20.21. how shall not those Millions of Souls which she leads in­to those Sins, as is above shewed, be ruined by her! and as for Mur­thering and Martyring the bodys of those that cleave to the Since­rity of the truth, and witness against her corruptions, what multi­tudes hath she Massacred and murthered! witness the Albingenses, the Waldenses, the Hugonots, (as they call them) in France, the Pro­testants in Ireland, the Vallies of Piedmont, &c. besides the Multi­tudes burnt at stakes and otherwise Martyred, in England, Holland, Spain, Italy, Germany, and in almost all Countries, so that what the [Page 28] Prophets testify of Jerusalem, playing the Whore from the Lord, is too truely applicable to this Papal Babilon, for as Jerusalem was a bloody City, the City that shed blood in the midst of it, Ezek. 22.2, 3. an Imperious Whorish Woman that slew Gods Children, and there­fore was to be judged as Women that break Wedlock and shed Blood are judged, Ezek. 16.20, 21, 30, 38. in her skirts was found the blood of the Souls of the poor innocents, and yet so impudently hardned as to deny her guiltyness, and plead I am Innocent, I have not sinned, Jer. 2.34.35. I am rich, I have found me out substance, in all my labours they shall find no Iniquity in me, that were sin, Hos. 12.8. an Infallible Church. Just so is it with Rome, and as her Blood was, so this Churches is in the midst of her; She set, and this sets it upon the top of a Rock, in the view of all Men, she poured it not upon the ground to cover it with dust, Ezek. 24.7. no surely, she was not ashamed of all her Blood and cruelty, though her sword devoured her Prophets, and slew the just, doubtless she said and justifyed it by her false prophets, that they were all mad men and false prophets whom she slew, Hereticks and Factious persons that would charge her with Idolatry and Whoredom from God, for worshiping him upon Hills and Moun­tains, and under green Trees, and some Baalim or matters with him, and therefore she endeavoured not to hide her murtherous doings. Just so this Church of Rome, a Bloody Harlot, both in respect of Soul Murther, and Body Murther in all her territories, yet she will ju­stify her self by her Panders, her Priests and Jesuits, that she is Inno­sent, an infallible Church, under the conduct of an infallible Guide, her Bishop, that will not fail to lead her Members and Children to Hell and destruction. She will not yield that she commits Adultery from Christ, or that Saint worship, or Image Worship, or Host wor­ship, or any Idolatrous or false worships, nor is she ashamed of those Bloody facts she hath done, she sets her Blood on a Rock, powers it not in the Dust to cover it, but justifies all, yea, glories in and gives publick thanks for her rare atchievments, and honours those that are actors in them, though they Murther Kings, endeavour to blow up Parliaments, fire Citys. The more mischief they do in her ser­vice, the more meritorious; she is Innocent, and not grieved, except it be because she can have her will no more, Massacre Hereticks no fa­ster: but God will give her blood in his due time to drink according to all her Idolatries against himself, and Son, and Murthers done up­on the Souls of Men, and upon the Bodys of his saints and holy ones, as is predicted in the Revelations, He also will set her blood upon the Top of a Rock, that it should not be covered, therefore, thus saith the Lord God, woe to the Bloody City, I will even make the Pile for Fire great, see Ezek. 24.8.9. Oh, who that looks upon her in the light of Gods testimony, [Page 25] can be deluded with her fair pretences, or reguard her devices, but will rather acknowledge the truth of what the Apostle Paul long since in his Epistle to that Church predicted would befal her, upon the course she hath since taken. For (to interpose by the way a third consideration.)

9. The Apostle in Rom. 11.21, 22, 23. implyed or supposed her Fallible, contrary to her own boast of her self, and shews the way how she might come to fall, warning her of it. And indeed that way she is fallen foully, as therein was foreshewed together with what will be­fal her further. Let us view his words, they are thus, Thou standest by faith, be not high minded, but fear. For if God spared not the natural Bran­ches, take heed lest he also spare not thee (or neither in any wise will he spare thee) Behold therefore the severity and goodness of God, on them that fell, severity, but towards thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness, otherwise thou al­so shalt be cut off. Now, who did the Apostle there speak and write to? Was it not to the Church of Rome (who were then Saints, but now all her Saints are dead and glorified Persons, no Saints living now in Rome, none that will own that name, or be acknowledged to be such. A sign they are fallen, for then the living members of it were Saints, but now there are no Saints in her, but they that are long since gone, but it was the Church of Rome that he speaks to) and so it is as if he had said, Thou Church of Rome standest by faith, that is, by an obedient de­pendance on God and Christ, in an hearty belief of his Gospel, cleaving to him, and his instructions, and commands, and holding fast the faith as delivered to thee. Implying, that otherwise she is Fallible, and might and would fall, and therefore it concerned them to take heed of high-mindedness, [...], mind not high things, have no high conceits of thy self; thou Church of Rome, if thou wouldst not fall, but keep thy standing, be not high minded, but fear. As implying, that if she grew high minded, and were puffed up, she would fall. For indeed Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty mind before a fall, Prov. 16.18. where Pride and High-mindedness then are found, and fear is laid aside, there a fall certainly and inevitably follows, even as fal­ling from God and Christ as to a hearty dependance on him, and close cleaving to him, and to his will and directions in which they should be preserved, as that was the way the Branches came to be broken off, and Israel to fall by her iniquity. Jesurun waxed fat and kicked, she wax­ed fat, grew thick, and was covered with fatness. Then he forsook God that made him, and lightly esteemed the God of his salvation; of the Rock that re­deemed him he was unmindful, and forgot God that formed him, and moved him to jealousy with strange Gods, and sacrificed to Daemons, &c. Deut. 32.15, 16, 17, 18. According to their pasture so were they filled, and their heart was ex­alted; therefore they have forgotten me, and sacrificed to them that were not [Page 40] Gods, to new Gods, &c. Hos. 13.6. with Deut. 32.17. They boasted that they were Abrahams Seed, and so in covenant with God, that it was impossible for them to be cut off, and to be rejected; they must alwayes be owned of him, as is implyed of them in Mat. 3.8, 9. Joh. 8.32, 33. An Infallible Church, not minding that as God said to Mo­ses, He could have cut them all off generally with his judgments, and out of some one person of them, as Moses, he could have performed his promise to Abraham, Exod. 32.10. raised up a seed to him, that should be as the Stars for multitude, yea, out of stones, as the Baptist saith, Mat. 3.9. This High-mindedness and Pride leading them to boast, as so in covenant with God, and so to boast of God, as so ingaged to them, that they could not miscarry; and so of their Law and skill in it, and of their Temple and the like, led them into carelesness and fearles­ness, and imboldened them to turn aside from Gods testimonies, and hardened them against the Calls given them by the Prophets, and by the Baptist, and by Christ and his Apostles, to repentance. And so they became blind with a conceit of their Infallibility or impossibility of falling, and so through unbelief they were broken off, Rom. 2.17, 18, 19. Jer. 7.4. and 23.14, 16, 17. And of this therefore the Church of Rome was warned that she might have continued in Gods goodness, and it was positively threatned to her that otherwise she also should be cut off. But hath she taken warning, verily no? If there be a com­pany of people in the World that are proud and high-minded, it hath been and are they. And that's another charge, That

9. The Church of Rome is a proud Imperious Harlot, for hath she not lifted up her self (in her Heads at least) above all that is cal'd God or worshipped, not only above Kings and Emperors, as is most noto­rious (as much above them as the Sun is greater than the Moon, as one of them expressed himself) but even above God and Christ, also in daring to dispense with his Laws and Precepts, and to set up their Decrees against them with a non obstante, or notwithstanding that God or Christ otherwise ordered or commanded. As in leaving out the second Commandment, and worshipping, and bowing down to Ima­ges, contrary thereto; denying the Cup to the people in the Sacra­ment. Nay, doth she not boast that her Priests can make God him­self of a piece of bread or wafer? And is not that a wondrous unpa­rallel'd height of Arrogancy to presume to do so, and a setting her above all that's called God or worshiped? For let reason or wise men judge. If as one said, majus est Regem facere quàm regem esse, it's a great­er thing to make a King than to be one; must it not needs be a great­er power to make a God than to be a God? If therefore they can make Almighty God, as they believe they do, Christ very God and ve­ry man. Do they not set themselves above him, and have it in their [Page 41] power to make him or not; the effect therein, as they say, depend­ing on the Priest's intentions, so as if he intend not to transubstanti­ate the Bread, it is not made into a God by him, though he say the words that make him. And if the ordinary Priests have such power, how great is his height that is the Head and King of them? But be­sides this, have they not arrogated to themselves the Title of the Ca­tholick Church, and the promises made to the Church, as solely be­longing to them? Though they have far less to shew for any promi­ses to them more than to any other Church, than the Jews had to shew that the promises made to Abraham and his Seed pertained to them. Nor have they minded, that as God could have destroyed the Jews as to the generality of them, and yet have raised up Seed to Abraham to perform his promises unto. So God can leave and cut off the Church of Rome, and yet perform his promise of a Church to be given and pre­served continually unto Christ; and to secure the Church built upon Christ, and humbly and sincerely cleaving to him, against the gates of Hell. Christs saying to Peter, Tu es Petrus, & super hanc petram aedifica­bo Ecclesiam meam, & tibi dabo claves regni Coelorum, that is, Thou art Pe­ter, and upon this Rock will I build my Church, and to thee will I give the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, &c. are not half so colourable a plea for the Popes and the Church of Romes pretences, as Gods saying to Abraham that he would be his God, and the God of his Seed after him through­out their generations, was for the Jews conceit, that they could ne­ver be broken off by him. For they cannot shew that Peter only had the Keys of the Kingdom, seeing all the other Apostles had the same power of binding and loosing mens sins as he; as the Primitive Do­ctors also acknowledged, and as is evident in Mat. 18.18. Joh. 20.22, 23. nor that the Church of Rome was either the only or the whole Church built upon the Rock, which was not Peter, but Christ; unless St. Paul was a false Preacher in 1 Cor. 3.11. and 10.4. Nor can they find in Christ's grant to St. Peter any such clause, as to thee will I give them, and to thy Successors at Rome in all ages and generations, as we find to Abraham and his Seed after him the promises made. But this also is another evidence of their pride and arrogancy, exalting them­selves above Christ and God, that they dare presume to inlarge his promises, and put in clauses of their own head into his Will and Te­stament, as well as alter and lay by his Commandments. A bold Im­perious Harlot. It would be accounted a very presumptuous deed in a Wife to add such a clause into a mans Testament; for as the Apostle saith; If it be but a mans Covenant or Testament, yet if it be confirmed, no man addeth thereto, as they make bold to do to his who is God, Gall. 3.15. But should we grant beyond any evidence or proof, that St. Pe­ter [Page 42] left his Keys to the Bishops of Rome successively; yet 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, [Page 43] 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 Sop [...], 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 [Page 44] 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 to reclaim any of them. But the time is hastening, when as she is fallen into the Dregs of Impiety, Error, and Apostacy, from her Primitive Faith and Worship in its purity; multiplying as many false Objects of worship, as ever Pagan Rome did with her Pantheon; so she must because of her ob­stinacy and impenitency fall under Gods most severe and terrible Judg­ments forethreatned: that as she is become a very Sink of sin and wic­kedness, spiritual and corporal, so she may sink into an Abyss of woe and misery eternal.

10. In all that I have said and shewed, it appears that she is also a false Church, or a lying Harlot, so far is she from being Infallible, though I shall evince it still further in speaking something to what she pretends very much as an undeniable proof of her being the true Church at least. Namely the multitude of her Miracles wherewith She endeavours to establish all other her False doctrines and practises, as her doctrine of Images and Saint Worship, her doctrine of Purgatory, and of Transubstantiation, and what not almost She pleads Miracles for confirmation of, and this being added to her other Notes of her Antiquity, Universality, and Unity, make her to glitter mainly in the eye of many simple people, concerning which, I may shew her to be a false lying Church too in a two fold respect.

1. In her pretending such things as She calls Miracles, the signes and strange wonders that she boasts of to be a good and undoubted note of a true Church owned of God, and that the doctrines which they tend to confirm are true; that this is false, we have manifold evidences. For,

1. The Lord himself by Moses supposeth the contrary, when he saith, If there be a Prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he give thee a sign or a wonder, and that sign, or that wonder come to pass that he foretold of, saying, let us go after other Gods,— thou shalt not hearken to the words that Prophet, Deut. 13.1, 2, 3. Such signs and wonders then are no true Note, or sufficient evidence of the rightness of a person, or of a people, that doth or listens to them that do them, or of the doctrines confirmed by them.

2. The Apostle Paul also tells us, that the man of sin, that wicked one, whose coming is after the manner of Sathan, shall come with power and signs, and lying wonders, [...], wonders of falshood, partly so called, because done to confirm falshoods, and he shall also have a great [Page 45] number of followers after him, even the generality of those that have not received the love of the Truth, that they might be saved, 2 Thes. 2.8, 9, 10, 11, 12.

3. And our Saviour himself warning his Disciples of the false Christs, and the false Prophets, (which have been creeping into the world, and a­mong the Churches ever since the Apostles time, such their Antiquity) that should shew great signs and wonders, so as to deceive, if possible, the very Elect; who being the fewest, its most rational to suppose, that the gene­rality of those that have not Elect, or chosen out of the world, are decei­ved by them; and so that there is a great over-spreading universality of them also, and they at unity as to their following these Impostors and deceivers of them, by their great signs and wonders, Math. 24.24, 25.

4. And in Revelations 13. we read of a Beast after whom the whole world wonders (so great the universality of his power, and of them that approve him unanimously) before whom a second Beast shall do, or doth so great signs, and wonders, and miracles as to cause fire to come down from Heaven in the sight of the Beast, and in the sight of Men; that is, he shall do such things in the sight or judgment of men, as do as clearly in their judgments testifie Gods approvement of him in what he propounds to them, as he did Elijah, when he caused Fire to descend from Heaven, and consume his Sacrifice offered to Jehovah, and yet he is a false Pro­phet for all that, and his Image that he sets up to be worshipped, and all the Marks and Characters that he causeth people to take, by which they may be known to be the Beast worshippers, and the worshippers of his Image, it is certain are naught, and most displeasing to God; who therefore threatens the worshippers and receivers thereof with most dread­ful punishments, Rev. 14.9, 10, 11. and yet he by these Miracles, and other exercises of his power, causes them that dwell on the Earth to sub­mit thereto; yea all, both small and great, rich and poor, to give some way or other an acknowledgment of it, such their universality and unity therein. And its of great Antiquity, if the judgment of the most learn­ed and judicious Expositors may be taken, who judge that the 42. months, or 1260 days of the continance of that Worship, signifies one thousand two hundred and sixty years, a day for a year, as is sometimes the reck­ning of the Prophets, as in Num. 14.34. Ezek. 4.4, 5, 6. Rev. 13.12, 13, 14, 15, 16. so that this worship hath been in the world, as Mr. Mede hath learnedly hinted in his Apostacy of the last times since between the Fifth and Sixt Century.

5. How early in the world began the Pagan Idolatry! how far and near did it spread it self, and that for many ages and generations, the Nations of the world unanimously agreeing therein; for though its true that they worshipped diverse Gods, and had in several places different rites and ways of worshipping, yet they might for all that be said to have [Page 46] as great an unity and unanimity in their worship, as the Papists have, seeing they also worship divers Saints, and some of them are more pecu­larly addicted to one Saint, and some to another, and observe divers aind different Orders in their different Devotions: some being of the Order of St. Dominick, some of St. Benedict, some of St. Francis, some of Ignatius Loyola, some Votaries to one Saint, and some to another. Now the Pagans also had their Signs and Wonders to confirm them in their Religion, by the operation and working of Sathan, witness what Celsus aforementioned writes of them, as it is recited by Origen to this purpose, ‘ [...], &c. what should I reckon up how many things partly the Prophets and Prophetisses (namely of the Pagans) partly other persons, Lib. 8. contra Celsum both Men and Women, inspired with a Spirit, have divinely foretold, what strange and wondrous things they have drawn out of their secret Cells or Temples? how many things they have also foretold from the Entrals of their Sacrifices to those that have consulted them. How many things have been foreshewed by other Prodigies; to some there have also been granted manifest apparitions of the Gods, the life of men is full of these matters, how many Cities have been built by the direction of these Oracles! how many have e­scaped Pestilence and Famines! 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 [...]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 Tyb [...]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 [Page 47] 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 [Page 48] 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 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 [Page 49] 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 [Page 50] 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 Shees 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 [Page 51] 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 here was not a taking Gods name in vain, and a notorious leading men to debauch their consciences, I know not what is: as for the fourth com­mandment, they keep not that, while they keep Markets on the Sab­bath day, and less observe it than many of their own instituted holy days: the fifth commandment, how little they reguard their often ab­solving Children from ingagements, to honour their Parents and o­bey them, yea, their stirring up Children somtimes against them, (as Gregory the ninth stirred up Henry, the Son, against his Father Fre­derick the second, Emperour of Germany) and how often they have discharged subjects from their due allegiance and obedience to their lawful Sovereigns, & stirred them up to rebel and rise in War against them; both our own Cronicles and the Histories of other Nations do abundantly evidence. And then as for the sixth commandment, their Murthering of Princes, and the many great Slaughters and Massacres, yea, destructions both of Souls and Bodies, occasioned and caused by the Roman Church and her Bishops, before hinted at, sufficiently declare how little care they have thereof. That they little reguard the seventh, both their forbiding Marriage to their Priests, without any order or command of God and Christ to that purpose, nay, contrary to the express permission and allowance thereof of God in the Scriptures (for both our Lord Jesus Christ him­self chose Married Persons to be Apostles, at least Peter was such when he chose him, for we read before, that of his Wives Mother, Mark. 1.30. with 3.16. Which he would not have done surely, had he judged a Wedded State incompatible or inconsistent with the Ministry which he instituted, yea, and that St. Peter and other Apo­stles, led their Wives about with them, when they were Apostles, is evident in 1 Cor. 9.5. And the Apostle expresly, both in his Or­ders about Bishops, and in those about Deacons orders, and much more allows, that they be Husbands of one Wife, and have their Children in subjection, which they would not have done, had they forbidden Marriage to the Bishops and Ministers of the Church, or judged it unfit for them, as these, according to his predictions of false Teachers, that would depart from the faith, do, 1 Tim. 3.2.4.11.12. with 4.12.3.) By which means they often put them upon the practice of uncleanness, whoredoms, furnications, and the like mischiefs; and allow them to keep Concubines for Money; besides, the Practice of Sodomy, even in the Popes themselves, some of them, and the notorious Wickedness of one of their Cardinals, that wrote and [Page 52] Wrote & published a Book in commendation thereof, & their allow­ing publick Stews for Mony, even in Rome it self are sufficient Proofs. And that they as little keep the eighth Commandment, their insatia­ble covetousness, and many frauds to get Mony, some whereof have by the way been hinted at, yea, their grasping whole Kingdoms to themselves, from their lawful Princes, as they did a great part of I­taly, yea, and Rome it self from the Emperours to which they belong­ed, and our Kingdom of England, in King Johns time, and taking away by force the Kingdoms of some Princes from them, and giving them to others whom they have incouraged to get them from them, as ap­pears in the History of the Albingenses, and the attempts of their Popes, and Sea of Rome, against our late Queen Elizabeth, are suffici­ent demonstrations, besides, the most horrible theft of all others they are guilty of in stealing or taking forcibly from men the word of God, not suffering men to know or be instructed into that; there­in taking away the key of knowledg, and shutting up the Kingdom of Heaven against them, and robbing their Souls thereof; a theft which God complained of in the false Prophets of Israel, when he saith, Behold I am against the Prophets which steal my word every one from his Neigh­bour, Jer. 23.30. Against the ninth Commandment is all their re­proaching and branding falsly, as Hereticks, those that will not sub­scribe to their corruptions, stirring up Princes and People against them, to make Havock of them. And that the tenth commandment is little set by, their Doctrine that denyes the first stirrings and mo­tions of Sin to be Sins, and their Doctrine of venial Sins, and their insatiable covetousness, may be evidence enough, so that they are hor­ribly guilty of not keeping the commandments of God, the like may be observed too, of their keeping the things given in commandment by our Lord Jesus Christ, that they keep none of his commandments purely and incorruptly, for whereas he commanded Baptism into the Name of the Father, & of the Son, & of the Holy Ghost, they have corrupt that with many devises, as of oyl, and cream, and spettle, and the like Fopperies; his commandment of his Supper, to take and break and eat Bread, set a part with blessing to that purpose, and drinking the Cup in Remembrance of him, and as a commemoration of his death, they have horribly corrupted and changed into a sacrifice propitiatory and unbloody, available for obtaining remission of Sins, for the quick and for Dead, and into private Masses, and half Communions, and the Pageantry of carrying the consecrated Host as a God in Procession, the command of Preaching the word sincerely they have exchanged into teaching for Doctrines of men, that is, their own precepts and devises, and his command about prayers and sup­plications unto God, they have corrupted by injoyning Prayers in [Page 53] unknown Tongue, and to others besides God, even to Saints and Angels.

But what needed I to have been so larg in going over these several commandments, when the complexion of much of their divinity is a clear patronage of all manner of Sin and Naughtiness, while they promise to men the pardon thereof, upon so easy termes, as the on­ly being at some small time before they dye, grieved that they have sinned, though, without any real contrition of heart for it, or love to God, and so hearty sorrow that they have offended him, as springing therefrom, provided that they receive but the Sacrament, as they will have it, of their extream Unction, and the absolution of one of their Priests, and have devised a Purgatory, in which, after death, they may be Purifyed, though they continue till death in their Sins, from the pains of which also, they perswade men they may be soon delivered by the propitiatory sacrifices, which they say they can, and do day­ly make in their Masses, both for the quick and for the dead, and by the indulgences which are in the Popes dispose, and which for such sums of Mony given to their Church-men, or for such uses as they prescribe, as for the procuring Masses, Dirgies, and such like fop­peries they propose to sale? what are all these devises of this cove­tous Church and its Church-men, but ways of making merchandise of mens Souls? and an incouraging them in and unto an impenitent breach of all Gods commandments all their days? for who that loves his lusts, and lives in any pleasurable or profitable way of Sin, will much 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 [Page 54] 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 [Page 55] 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 with it a worship of those that are deceased and canonized by the Pope, and that they may and ought to be invocated; they teach remission of Sins, but they corrupt the doctrine of it by teaching that it is to be sought for, not only in believing on, and yielding obedience to Christ, but also by their prayers to, and invocation of the Saints, by Pilgrimages and pe­nances of their own, or others imposing on them, by the merits of the Saints, and not by Christs only; by the virtue of their Mass, and the very reception of their Sacraments, and the like; they hold and [Page 65] teach the Resurrection of the Body, and Life everlasting; but they teach also this corrupt doctrine, that life everlasting may be merited of God by our good works, for so some of them do teach, that good works do truly merit grace in this world, and glory in the next; and that good works of just persons are of themselves worthy of the reward of Eternal life without any Covenant or acceptation of God; yea, and that no en­crease of dignity comes to just mens works by the Merits or Person of Christ, which the same works should not otherwise have had, had they been done by the same grace, bestowed by the liberality of God alone without Christ, and therefore also they say, that after grace infused, our works are so perfectly Meritorious of life that it cannot be denied them, and that therefore they never request of God, by the Merits of Christ, that the reward of eternal Life may be given to their worthy and meri­torious works; but that by Christ, grace may be given them, to inable them to merit worthily that reward; and much to the same purpose may be found in some of their Writers, as Vasquez his Disputations evidence. So that instead of keeping the Faith, and Testimony of Jesus, they egre­giously corrupt, and mix it with their own additions, which yet they require as much to be believed and practised upon, as they do any Articles of the Faith delivered in the holy Scriptures, and as much as the belief of the necessity of Circumcision, and of keeping the Law of Moses, was ur­ged and practised upon by the false Apostles. So that to any that will mind the Scriptures, and impartially will weigh what is said in them, and compare therewith the way of this Church, they cannot, unless they be stark-blind, or wilfully close their eyes, but see and conclude that this Roman Church is far from being a true or right Church of Christ, much­less can it be the only and Catholick Church, or Infallible in her Do­ctrines and Dictates; which things being so, it might be marvailed that all men do not fly out of, and from her Communion that have any care of their Souls, and desire the everlasting Salvation of them, and that may be the matter of another inquiry and consideration.

5. Whence it is that so many still continue in her Communion after so many convictions of the evil of her ways, by so many learned and able Protestants, and Reformed Writers and Preachers, in so many learned Treatises? yea, and not only so, but that many fall to her also that had rejected her, or have lived under the knowledge of the Scriptures, and the enjoyments of that light from them, by which they might be able to discern, and be led to beware of her?

In answer to which, in both its branches, it may be noted first of all, that this is nothing more than what the Holy Ghost fore-saw, and fore-signified in the Holy Scriptures; for in the Book of the Revelations, it is evident that Mystery Babilon would have many commit Fornication with her until her destruction comes upon her, yea, and they also many [Page 57] of them no mean persons; for it is said, that the Kings of the Earth who have committed Fornication, and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her when they see the smoak of her burning, stand­ing a far off for fear of her torment, and saying, alas, alas, that great City Babilon, &c. and the Merchants of the Earth shall weep and mourn over her, &c. and every Shipmaster, and all the company in Ships, and Sailers, and as many as trade by Sea, stood a far off and cryed when they saw the Smoak of her burning, &c. Revelations 18, 9, 10, 11, 17, 18. Yea, and the holy Ghost signifies, that after the Preach­ing of the everlasting Gospel, by an Angel flying in the midst of Heaven, to them that dwell on the Earth, warning them to fear God, and give glory to him, and worship him that made Heaven and Earth, &c. in di­stinction from and in opposition to all other false objects of worship, such as are in Babylon, as the Beast and his Image, and after another Angel following and saying, Babilon is fallen, is fallen, that great City, both fallen from her first love, fallen into false and corrupt worship, and fallen too from her first dignity and splendor which she had as Babylon, as that false Harlot that made all Nations drink of the Wine of the wrath of her Fornications, yet it is supposed that some might and would yet worship the Beast and his Image, Rev. 14, 6, 7, 8, 9. which may denote the con­tinuance of the Babilonish Idolatry after the Gospel Preached by the Re­formers, calling men to the right and true worship, and after the decay and fall of the Roman Church from her pristine splendor and grandeur; for the falling of her may be one thing, and her Plagues and burning may be another thing, between which, yet she may be strugling to recover herself, and while so, she may have some, not only continuing in her communion to the last, but some also joyning themselves to her Idol worship that were sometimes not joyning with her therein; to which purpose also may be interpreted these two expressions concerning the man of Sin the mystical Jereboam that caused Israel to Sin, that the Lord shall consume him with the breath of his mouth, that is, by his word and spirit in the Preaching of the Gospel as the Papacy hath been, and is at this day under a consumption thereby, and then at length he shall destroy him by the brightness of his coming, 2 Thes. 2.8. Now as it is in consum­ptions, we know persons that labour thereof, will sometimes be very ill and languish, and sometimes chear again, and revive, and seem to be on the mending hand, get up a little, and be somewhat brisk, so may it be with the man of Sin; he may seem sometime in his consumptive state to be getting heart again, and men may think he will recover his former health, and get rid of that deadly wound, that by the Sword of the Gospel he hath received, and bestir himself then again more vigorously [Page 58] than before, that he may keep up, and no more fall down; but yet at the brightness of the Lords appearance, he will thereby totally ruin and destroy him, but to speak a little distinctly to the causes and reasons both.

1. Of the continuance of so many still to cleave to her after she hath been so detected.

2. Of the falling of any to her after so great and long a discovery of her, and declining from her.

1. To the first of these, with respect to her self, and those that are more properly the constitutive and essential parts of her, the Church as distinguished by her self from the Laity, or people adhering to her, and especially the Court of Rome, she being as she is called, and as we have shewed, a Whore, a Harlot, it fares with her as it doth with other Whores, that is, as such a one that is a Whore, getting gain and profit to her self by her Whoredom, and finding pleasure and sweetness therein, is hardned against the discoveries of her false practises, and usually goeth on impenitently in her Trade, because of the profit and gain accruing to her thereby, and especially if She be Courted by great and rich Per­sons or Princes, they give her considerable gifts of Riches, Honours, and Dignities, and makes but a Tush at the Laws, Threatning Punishment, or Death, for such practises, she finding no effect or Execution of them for a long time to appear against her, by occasion whereof, She flatters her Self that it will be never otherwise with her than it is, but that She shall always escape punishment. So fares it with this Adulterous Church, she hath found, and finds so much gain and profit, of worldly Interest, Riches, Honour, Dignity, accruing to her since her trucking with Kings, and Princes, and Emperors, and obtaining of them to be owned and ho­noured in all her pretensions as the Catholick Church, the Church that all persons ought to comply with, and submit to, and that her Head and Bishop should be taken to be the Vicar of Christ, the highest power on earth, that its no marvail if She repent not of her so sweet and gainful a Trade, but by all means endeavours to keep up her credit that she may be still so courted and caressed; and if she hath gotten a wound that hath threatned her life, that she endeavours to get cured, and to reco­ver her Pristine strength, which if she do recover, we expect she will fol­low her old trade of Strumpetry and Blood-shedding, as hard or harder than ever, that so she may secure her self, if possible, from the threatned punishment and judgment, ordered of God and denounced in his Name against her by us, which maugre all her power and pollicy, she shall not be able to escape, for strong is the Lord God that judgeth her; the bright­ness of whose appearing that Man of Sin shall not be able to endure. To this purpose, that she may recover her Pristine strength and vigour, and follow her accursed Trade with the greater fervour or fury; her Poli­ticians, as so many Physitians, are at work very hard, beating their [Page 59] brains, and using all their skill and Industry to make her whole again: and wo to us for a while if her disease be cured, and the Beasts deadly wound be healed; for then will be indeed accomplished more fully that which is written in Rev. 13.15, 16, 17. but in the mean time there are many cleave to her, and have all along cleaved to her, Because,

1. Many of them are kept from, or have not the opportunity of seeing and hearing what is evidenced against her, though perhaps they have heard some rumour of the Gospel Preached to them that dwell on the Earth, and of the Fall of Babylon in part from her Pristine power and splendour, many are kept in ignorance, both of the Scriptures, and of the Sermons and Discourses in Writing of the Protestant parties, and many neglect to inquire into them, and so come not to know what is e­videnced against her; her Pandors or Merchants setting themselves to keep them in Ignorance and Error, to keep up their own grandeur and worldly Interests.

2. The cunning Sophistry and deceits of her Priests and Jesuits, men of a seared Conscience and stiff Impudence, who like Jannes and Jam­bres, who withstood Moses from or in his discovering the truth of God to Pharaoh and the Egyptians, do stand against the truth, and the Prea­chers of it, and the discoverers of the Romish Frauds and Impostures, prevail much with many who are apt to resolve their faith into their learn­ing, subtlety, authority, and appearing Piety and wisdom, (even as the slights of James and Jambres prevailed with Pharoah and many of the Egyptians) so as that though they hear and may hear, or read the dis­courses of the learned Protestants, wherein they have detected their a­buses, yet they do not seriously Ponder or weigh them, or are blinded from discerning the truth by the mists they cast before them.

3. Worldly interest holds in many both of the Kings and Greater Persons, their interest being interwoven with those of Rome, and where the Kings and Princes of the earth commit fornication with her, they do by their Laws in many places, made against them that reject her Com­munion, and their rigour and cruelty, deter many from listening to, and considering what is said against her; yea, and they keep out such disco­verers or discoveries of her lewdness; that otherwise would be afforded to them, as was predicted in Rev. 13.15, 16, 17. and where their Laws are not so cruel, yet by their bad examples, and their indulging their favours to her followers, they keep in many from listening to what would tend to withdraw them from her; the most of men not searching so much with sincere endeavors after what is true and right, as minding and rest­ing in what is uppermost in the world, and worshipping in truth its Power and Grandeur (which I take to be that which the Holy Ghost in the Apocalyps, calls the Beast) more than any other God besides.

4. The dependance that the younger persons have upon the Elder, or [Page 60] others related to them, the Children upon their Parents, and Kins­folks, and Friends one upon another, and the respect they have one for another, is some cause also of many being detained therein, be­ing carryed away with such as they have, such dependance upon, or respect unto, especially the being Educated under such Principles as have been maintained by, and transmitted to them from their Ance­stors and Progenitors, for many generations proves a powerful motive to retain, and not reject those principles what ever may be offered to detect and discover the evil of them, few being so redeemed from the vain con­versations received by tradition from their Fathers and Forefathers, or from the Earth and Men; even from earthly affections, and from their respects to, and dependances on men by the Blood of Christ, minded and regarded by them, as it hath been shed for them, as to renounce all such respect to Fathers and Forefathers, earthly affections, and depen­dance on, and respects to men, and to follow after Christ singly and sin­cerely where-ever he by his Word and Doctrine would lead them, or so as to make such due and diligent 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) [Page 61] 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 [Page 62] 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 Monasteries and Nunneries, places of separation from the World, in a sort to be devout in, if they be so disposed: and for those that have desires for Heaven, she can shew them (as she pretends) a certain way whereby they may not only obtain, but merit it too, and to that purpose ex­cites them to much devotion to God, and to the Saints, and provokes them to bounty, and works of charity, though she poysons them with her Doctrine of Merit, tending to puff them up, and corrupts all their good things with the sowre and evil leaven of Idolatry, and other false Opinions before reproved. For as the Apostle saith of the false Apostles, that they could transform themselves into the Ministers of righteousness, while corrupting men in and from the faith, they were for all their goodly appearance, in reality the Messengers of Sathan; and that they made a fair shew in the flesh, and gloried in appearance, not in heart, 2 Corinth. [Page 63] 11.13, 15. and 5.12. Gall. 6.12. So is it with these men. They are (as Dr. Stillingfleet hath very well and worthily observed, and in his Sermon upon that Text manifested them to be) Wolves in sheeps cloth­ing, and the Religionists that walk after their directions, are corrupt­ed and spoiled by them. For if the speaking with the tongue of men and Angels, gift of Prophecy, and understanding all Mysteries, and all Knowledge; yea, and Faith, so as to remove Mountains, and the giving all a mans goods to feed the poor, and his body to be burnt, will not profit him if he have not love or charity, 1 Cor 13.1, 2, 3. what profit think we can accrue to this Church, or to any of its Devotionists from all their Devotions, Gifts, Liberality, Penances, or whatever else is done by them while they are guilty of gross Idolatry, and corruptions of the Faith, as is before e­videnced. Surely no Idolater hath true love to God, nor any that is partaker with the Blood-thirsty, the guilt whereof lies upon this Church, and all in its Communion. When the Apostle commends Charity, it is a Charity out of a pure heart, and a good conscience, and Faith unfeigned, 1 Tim. 1.5. which cannot be where Idolatry and Supersti­tion, and corruption of the Faith take place, however liberal they may be in Almsdeeds to the poor; which the Apostle also supposeth may be, where that love and charity which is so necessary and excel­lent is yet wanting. Suppose the Gallathians seduced by the false Apo­stles to believe the necessity of Circumcision, and the observation of the Laws of Moses, should have been also perswaded by them to have retired themselves into Monasteries, and spent their time in Devoti­ons, and been free to give all they had to feed the poor, would any or all those things have profited them under that perswasion? I sup­pose not, seeing the Apostle saith, If they were circumcised, Christ would profit them nothing, Gall. 6.2. If Christ would profit them nothing, surely much less would those things, or whatever else could have been done by them. And doubtless if the corrupting their Faith by Circumcision would have so marred all their Religion, much more will Idolatry, Superstition, and the other Iniquities before detected in the Roman Communion, marr all their finest, and otherwise most laudable actions. But then on the other side, this wiley Church, like a wiley Strumpet, hath other entertainments for persons of other tem­pers or dispositions; and if they have a mind to live loosly, and in the practice of any Wickedness, they have plaisters to skin over such Ulcers; they can fit them with loose Doctrines and Principles, they can hold them in the Roman Communion, by telling them, that if they confess to the Priest once a year or oftner, and receive Absoluti­on from their sins upon some petty Penances, and seeming Austeri­ties to the flesh (which yet they may upon pretty light Devotions, or for mony have Indulgencies in) they may receive pardon for all their [Page 64] forepast faults, yea, perhaps for a great many years too, or for a great time to come, and if they continue in sin till death, returning to what they have confessed; yet if but an hour or two before their death they can but send for a Priest, and make confession of their sins with some attrition or grief that their condition is no better, though they be not contrite or broken in heart for their sins, nor have any love of God; yet having the Priests absolution, and being anointed with their Extream Unction, they are secured from Hell and damnation. Indeed they may be unfit for Heaven, as the foolish Virgins were, that slumbred and slept till it was proclaimed that the Bridegroom came, and then not having Oyl in their Vessels, their Lamps were gone out; ay, but they shall go but to Purgatory at the worst, and be purged by those pains for sometime; and from thence also they may be soon re­leased by vertue of the over-much Oyl in the wise Virgins Vessels, that is, by vertue of the meritorious works of Supererrogation done by their more religious Votaries, and Canonized Saints, and by the Masses and Sacrifices offered for the quick and the dead, and other Devotions performed by their living Priests; especially if they give a considerable sum of mony to them to purchase their Devotions for them when they dy, and then they may in a short time too be at rest therefrom. And these are fine pleasing baits to hook and hold in the Souls of vitious persons. Now who that's religiously inclined, but by a conceit of meriting, will be observant of the rules of such a Reli­gion? And who that loves his sins but will like such a Doctrine and Religion, as gives them so good encouragement to hold them fast, and propounds such easy remedies to secure them from the dreadful punishments of them? And that's a main reason of so many great and small being held fast in the arms of this loving Church, that she be­ing in her self gay, and gawdy, and deckt, and painted with fine co­lours, hath the wit, or craft, and subtlety to bait her Hooks accord­ing to the humors of the several persons for whom she fishes, and ac­commodates her self to the several dispositions of her Paramours; to be either more solitary and sullen, or more pleasant and gamesome, as may suit best with their constitution. What we have said upon this first Head, to the reasons of so many being held still in her Commu­nion, may suffice to that.

2. And truly in answer to the inquiry in its second branch, some things of what is said to the former might be repeated again, or ra­ther referred unto by us, as causes thereof; namely, of the falling off of so many to her that have been delivered from her, and brought up under that light by which they might so discover her false colours, as to keep from her. As the subtlety of her Emissaries and Factors, ha­ving now more liberty amongst us to negotiate for her than formerly; [Page 65] and the occasions of offence ministred by our own divisions, 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 [Page 66] 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, its 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 [Page 67] 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 Idolaters, by Mar­rying their Daughters, least they should prove a snare to them, and draw away their hearts after their Gods with them, Exod. 34.12, 13, 14, 15, 16. Deut. 7.3, 4. But too many now adays for­get and willfully overlook such warnings, not reguard such threat­nings, as that in Math. 2.11.12. Where after he had said, Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: for Iudah hath profaned the holyness of God, which he loved by Marrying the Daughter of a strange God, he adds, the Lord will cut of the Man that doth this, the Master and the Scholer out of the Tabernacles of Judah, yea, the making friendships, and but contracting familiarities with Persons of corrupt principles, or practises the Scripture notes and warns of as infectious and dange­rous; see to this purpose, Prov. 13.20. and 22, 24, 25. and 23, 29, 20, 2 Cor. 6.14, 15. But such warnings are in this case too much slighted.

4. To which we may add a particular subtlety & craft of in the Romish Factors, in that to ensnare people, they raise and scatter reports among them, that great persons in authority favour and underneath approve their Religion, Church and Doctrine, as knowing that the multitude too generally, and especially the looser sort, and those that are ambiti­ous of honour, and of the favour of great Persons, are apt to resolve their Religion into the wills and pleasures of Princes and great Persons, and will be ready to comply with their judgments, and steer their course by what they take to be their Compass to any point, whither right or [Page 68] wrong; towards Hell or Heaven, as is to be seen in all Nations where the Religion of the Princes and their Courts bears the greatest sway a­mong their subjects; they being, as was said before, the Gods that are by multitudes supreamly Worshiped; or if it be mens own bellies, their case, honour, wealth, pleasure, or the like, that is the highest and chief God with them; yet Kings, Princes, and great Persons, they look at as the most powerful Mediators, by whose means or favour those other things are most probably and fully to be compassed and enjoyed, and so their highest God may be most satisfyingly served. That the Priests and Jesuits take such a course now adays to perswade the people by such an Argument, to comply with their Principles, we have it made publick in Print, by the confession of the late converted Fryar, Mr. Anthony Aegan, in his Book wherein his Recantation Sermon Preached at London is Prin­ted, where we meet with words to this effect, ‘That after his Conver­sion to the Protestant Religion, several of the Papist Priests, and others living about Loughreats in Ireland, (whom, he saith, he is ready to name, and did thereby accuse) did publickly report that his Majesty, his Royal Highness, and all the Nobility and Gentry of the Kingdom of England, were privately of their Religion, using it as an argument to make or move him to fall back again to Popery.’ See here what notorious false­hoods they fear not to report, to the scandal of Authority, yea, and of our Nation it self, to carry on their own designs; for thanks be to God the contrary hereunto hath been, and is abundantly evidenced, as to such a general overflowing of their Religion over all those persons whom they have so traduced. Surely, that cause is naught that the maintainers of stick not to manage by so vile and indirect Mediums, as so to bely and slander their Superiors; there is no question but it is what they desire & would gladly effect, to make both the Kings Majesty & the Court, & all the Nobility & Gentry, of their mind & Religion, but God forbid that ever they should prevail upon them, or draw them, or any of them, into so great a mischief, and so certain a way to their own everlasting destruction. But no doubt but by such suggestions they may prevail upon no small party of men, whose Faith and Religion lies in the wills and practises of the Great ones, to listen and consent unto them, being too apt to take things upon trust of their, (that is) these mens honesty, and not duly weighing what is said by them, and that questionless is one thing that proves an effectual Engine to draw away disciples after them.

Upon these and such like accounts, this Church, though so corrupt, keeps up her self yet in the world, and gets too much credit with too many, who are either not able, or not willing to search into matters to find them out, with a diligent and impartial search, with such her Paints pass for excellent beauty and comeliness, especially her pretty frames and forms of Devotion in her Prayers and Croisons, partly to God and [Page 66] Christ, and partly to Saints really or supposedly such; Her abstinences and penances, or other austerities, which have such a shew of excellency, (as the Apostle saith of the commandments of men, Touch not, taste not, handle not: That they have a shew of wisdom indeed, in will-worship and humility, and neglecting, or (as the Margin reads it) punishing, and not sparing the body, Col. 2.21.23. As draws in unstable Souls, and beguiles them, (as the Apostles phrase is in vers. 18.) of their reward, which things, divers of them, I mean Devotion, Abstinence, Mortification, yea, and Almsdeeds, if rightly done, and upon right and sound principles, are in themselves very good, and may be, and are by some exercised up­on Protestant Principles, more worthily and acceptably than they can be upon those of Rome, and in conjunction with their corruptions, by which all their bests deeds are marred, though indeed I could wish they were more upon good and right principles, and in a good way practised among us, than they are, but it is too often found, that men are apter to do more in, and for a false way, than they or others are in and for a true, as our Saviour saith, Luk. 16.8. The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. So it may be said also, that the worshippers of Idols are more forward in their worship, than they that worship the true God, are in his worship; for so we find it no­ted of the Idolaters, that they lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh Sil­ver out of the ballance, and spare for no cost to make an Idol or false God, and then bear him upon their Shoulder, and carry him to his place, Isa. 46.6, 7. And as the Prophet Jeremy notes, they deck it with Silver and Gold, and fasten it with nails; yea, Silver spread in Plates is brought from Tarshish, and Gold from Ʋphaz; the work of the work­man, and of the hands of the Founder, blue and purple is their cloathing, &c. Jer. 10.4.9. that is, they spare for neither cost nor pains, nor mat­ter how they burthen themselves to carry on a false Religion and Wor­ship, when God, in and by Jesus Christ, the former of all things, and our Redeemer, who proffers to carry and bear us, and work all our works for and in us, in our listning to him, and following his Word and Spirit, we are too prone to slight, and think much to put our selves to cost and pains, and to stoop down to bear any burthens put upon us by him in and for his service. Israel in the wilderness could readily pluck off their Jewels, and Ear-rings, to make themselves a Molten Calf of, Exod. 32.2, 3. when as afterward they could find in their hearts to put off God with the refuse or worst of what he gave them; yea, and to rob Him of his Tithes and Offerings, Mal. 1.8.13. & 3.8. and so the false Worshippers of Rome are forwarder to put themselves to fastings and abstinence after their fashion, with Devotions, Alms-deeds, and the like, to make to themselves a confidence of, or establish to themselves a righteousness in, (as the Apostles Phrase is in Rom. 10.3.) and to pur­chase [Page 70] to themselves thereby forgiveness of (that I say not with refe­rence to some of them, also a license to practise) their Sins, and to merit and deserve Gods favour and eternal Life: when we that have the purity and simplicity of the truth of God more clearly among us, and are Instructed into the alone sufficiency in the grace in Christ Jesus, and have all freely promised to us upon his account only in a way of obedience to him, and his instructions are yet too backward to yield up our selves to him, and to be at such cost and charge, and exercise such pains and patience as his instructions direct us to, and his grace and love ingage us to, that we might enjoy the pourings out of his spirit upon us, glorify him worthily in our generations, and do good to others to our capacities.

6. Now upon all these premises I cannot but desire for all men, e­specially for my friends and acquaintance, that the Lord would grant to them, that by all that is said, or by what is otherwhere more fully and clearly said by more learned Persons, they may so discern, and see the Abominations of that Harlot, as to avoid them, and keep them­selves far from them, not listening to any of their fair and specious flatteries that would entice thereto, of whom I may say in Solomons words, None that go into her (that is, very few or none of those that wil­lingly go into fellowship with her) return again, neither do they take hold of the paths of life, so as to walk in the way of good men, and keep the path of the righteous; but with the simple ones, and the young man void of understanding, that declining towards the corner of the strange woman, go in the path to her house, who with her fair speech are made to yeild, and with the flattering of her lips are inticed; they go after her, as the Ox to the slaugh­ter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks, till a dart strike through their li­ver, as a Bird that hasteth to the snare, & knows not that it is for their life, even for the life of their precious Souls. Oh! might what follows with re­ference to this scarlet Whore be considered and received, wherein wis­dom adds— Hearken now therefore unto me, O ye Children, and attend to the words of my mouth. Let not thine heart decline or bend towards her way, go not astray in her paths; for she hath cast down many wounded; yea, many strong men (men of strong parts) have been slain by her, as to spiritual life. Her house is the way to Hell (whether men think and believe so or not) go­ing down to the chambers of death, Prov. 2.19, 20. and 7.7, 8, 9.21.22.23. &c. For if the Scriptures be true, as undoubtedly they are (both they and we confess, that though they love to puzzle men with que­stions needlesly, how they know them to be the Scriptures, or word of God, as if we must be beholding to them for that which is false) then seeing the Scriptures affirm that no Idolaters shall inherit the kingdom of God, nor any that love or make a lye, they then that are of, and hold communion with that Church, are in a sad and piteous [Page 71] case, they being clearly guilty of Idolatry, and gross falshoods, as may from what is said, & many other things that I have omitted be easi­ly discerned. And though some men (they think) charitably suppose that some, who through their invincible Ignorance, are necessitated to live in their communion, may find mercy with God, they believing and holding the fundamental Articles of the Christian faith, though joyned with such corruptions, as they joyn therewith; whose cha­ritable concessions to that purpose have, I fear, laid a snare for the feet of many; I am confident have been, and are abused to that purpose by her Priests and Jesuits to draw many in to joyn with them (though no ground be given in them for that) and to hold in them that were before of it. Yet seeing (as I question not) the false Apostles, and the Gallathians seduced by them, did hold the main Articles of the Chri­stian faith too, only joyned with them a necessity of Circumcision, as these joyn a necessity of communion with their Church in all that she injoynes and imposeth, unto their salvation; and the Apostle for all that pronounced, that in case they were circumcised, Christ would profit them nothing, Gall. 5.2. I know little ground we have for that cha­rity, or what more than we may have for those of the Turks or Jews or Pagans who are invincibly kept from the knowledge of the truth of God, and the true way of worshipping him, received among us Christians, by the prevalency of their false Teachers, or the severities of their Rulers under whose power they live, that they also may be winked at of God and saved. Which if it may be supposed, yet affords no good ground for any of us Christians to turn to any of their Reli­gions, and as little have we from the forementioned charitable con­cessions or suppositions of some to turn to Romes communion. Nay, its most dreadfully dangerous for any that have known better, or been brought up under the Protestant profession, where they have had or might have had clear convictions of the falshoods and evils of that Church, to depart from righter ways to her deceits and corruptions. For to such doubtless belongs that dreadful sentence which we read of in Rev. 14.9, 10. among others unto whom its possible it may here­after also be applicable upon a farther account. Where after the An­gels preaching the everlasting Gospel openly, as in the Mid-Heaven, and warning all Nations to fear God and worship him, in opposition to the false worship before in chap. 13. related; and another Angels proclaiming Babilon (that is Rome) to be fallen (both from the true Faith, and worship, and from her former lustre, as before we explica­ted it) there follows a third Angel proclaiming with a loud voice, that any man (namely, if now especially after the two former proclamations either yet, or having not done so before now) shall worship the Beast, and his Image, and receive his Mark in his forehead, or in his hand, (shall either [Page 72] more openly or secretly, either in profession or practice receive the mark and badge of communion and fellowship with the false worship of Rome, for that's clearly as was before noted, the Woman support­ed by, and riding the Beast, whose worshippers are here threatned) the same shall drink of the Wine of the wrath of God, which is without mixture poured into the Cup of his indignation, and shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy Angels, and in the presence of the Lamb, and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the Beast and his image, and whosoever receiv­eth the Mark of his name. A dreadful sentence worthy to be thought of and trembled at by all that still retain the false Idoatrous worship practised in the Romish Church, especially by such of them as live a­mong the Protestant reformed Churches, and more especially still that having had better light and education, do return or relapse there­to. A sentence in which is no respect of persons, but what or whoe­ver they be, high or low, rich or poor, Princes or peasants, God will not be partial in his judgment upon them; but if they will venture upon these sins, they must also expect to indure these terrible tor­ments here expressed, and the Mighty man shall cry there bitterly, Zeph. 1.14. O heavy portion of all our English Roman Catholicks. The Lord open their eyes to see the evil of the way they are in, and per­swade them to renounce it, & to depart therefrom, for it will be most sad in the latter end. Though its probable that they of Rome may de­vise to make sad the portion of such as warn & protest against them, & desire their conversion; and that they may also prosper a while in their designs, and bring sad things upon the righter Worshippers be­fore their misery come upon them, & therefore it follows in Rev. 14.12. Here is the patience of the Saints, here are they that keep the Commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus. Here namely about this time, when this is proclaimed; and this warning given that is mentioned in the fore­going verses, here is the patience of the Saints, then the Saints and right Worshippers shall have a time to exercise their patience in wait­ing for the accomplishment of that predicted judgment; or also they may have a sad time of tryal, and therein for exercise of their pari­ence because of some eminent sufferings then befalling them, to en­courage them under which, and to keep the Commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus, it is therefore added, That he heard a voice from Heaven, saying Writeb, lessed are the dead that dy in the Lord, from hence­forth, yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours, and their works shall follow them, as implying that thenceforth would follow such labours and sufferings of the Saints, as well would it be with those that should endure them to death, so as to dy in the Lord; and hap­py should be the dead of them rather than the living, before the sad [Page 73] doom of the Beast-worshippers come upon them. But yet as they that thenceforth especially dy in the Lord shall be blessed, so the Beast-Worshippers however long they may live, and their doom be deferred, are and shall be in the issue most accursed.

Which things being so, let us, I pray Sir, beware of that false wor­ship, keeping close to the Scriptures of truth, and to the sacred truths revealed in the Scriptures, and not for any respect, honour, friend­ship, or worldly and carnal advantages respect them, and turn aside to so corrupt and dangerous away and worship, as that of the Ro­man Communion. God will certainly better bare with such as have as it were been held captive by their deceits being always educa­ted and brought up under them, then with such as having been bet­ter instructed, do turn aside to them. Oh that these Nations and the Inhabitants thereof, would therefore look about them, and beware how they lissen to any that would thereto seduce them, and mind those many convincing arguments, and clear and unanswerable de­monstrations of the desperate badness of that Church, and its ways, and Doctrines, and doings, which by many hands have been offered to them, which yet if they please, they may consult with and consi­der, among which, beside these many worthy men who have for­merly wrote excellently against her corruptions, as Jewel, Reinolds, Morton, and many others, the Labours of the Learned Doctor Stil­lingfleet, Dr. Tillitson, Dr. Brevint, Dr. Whitby, Sr. Christopher Wyvel, (who it seems in his Minority was educated among or insnared with them) and Mr. Gilbert Burnet, in my judgment, are very worthy con­sideration. And oh that men would not dally and trifle in so great a matter as their own Salvation, but be serious and considerative in what they do therein, allways remembring that of our Blessed Savi­our, What will it profit a man to gain the whole World, and loose his own Soul? Or what shall a man give in Exchange for his Soul? For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his Angels, and then he will give to every man according to his Works, Math. 16.26.27. And that if thy hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee, and so if thy foot offend thee, for better it is to enter into the Kingdom of God, having but one hand or foot, and so halting or maimed, than having two hands or two feet to be cast into Hell Fire, where the Worm dyeth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine Eye (thy right Eye) offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee, for better it is to enter into the Kingdom of God having but one Eye, then having both thine Eyes to be cast into Hell Fire where the Worms dyeth not, and the Fire is not quenched, Mark 9.44.48. Consider what is herein (though but briefly and weakly) propounded, and the Lord bless it to every one [Page 74] that may and shall read it, for the establishing them in the truth where they are weak and wavering thereabout, if not, yet waved therefrom, and for the recovering such as have declined or departed from it, and the Lord deliver us all from every evil work, and preserve us to his everlasting Kingdom, in whom I take my leave, and remain