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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A80530	Experience, historie, and divinitie Divided into five books. Written by Richard Carpenter, vicar of Poling, a small and obscure village by the sea-side, neere to Arundel in Sussex. Who being, first a scholar of Eaton Colledge, and afterwards, a student in Cambridge, forsooke the Vniversity, and immediatly travelled, in his raw, green, and ignorant yeares, beyond the seas; ... and is now at last, by the speciall favour of God, reconciled to the faire Church of Christ in England? Printed by order from the House of Commons.	Carpenter, Richard, d. 1670?	1641 (1641)	Wing C620B; ESTC R229510	263,238	607

up and with their best clothes on and dance by the high Altar before it in imitation of David that danced before the Ark and the people stand about them as they doe in our Country Townes at their Summer sports only the Altar-side is cleare And whereas the people were infected with an evill custome of giving reprochfull names one to another as they met occasionally in the high-wayes the Pope hath taught them a Salutation and bound a sufficient Indulgence to it Alabado sea el santissimo sacramento Praised be the most holy Sacrament which words they usually pronounce one to another as they meet But I would he had taught them to say something which he had learn'd of the Primitive Church CHAP. 10. 2. THe Bread and Wine in the Sacrament are signes and figures onely of the body and bloud of Christ broken and powred out for us The tearme figure is used in this matter by Tertullian S. Austen and others of the Latine Church Wisedome hath builded her house saith the Wise-man Pro. 9. 1. By what secret passage can it enter into the heart of man that the Son of God the wisedome of the Father building a house a faire house a Church and building it in the defiance of Paganisme and to the ruine and overthrow of Idolatry under the heavy burden of which all habitable parts of the world all Kingdomes Countries people groaned would now forget his main plot and so institute the master-peece of Religion that his Followers comming to him with a zealous contempt and loathing of Idolatry should be taught presently in the Schoole of Truth to adore the glorious Majesty of Heaven and Earth in the likenesse of a little peece of bread to the great scandall and aversion of all that should beleeve the contrary For what is more frequent at this day in the mouth I cannot say of an uncircumcised but of an unbeleeving Turk when hee mingleth discourse with a Christian concerning God and Religion then to say in a reproachfull manner Alas good man I pitty you you make your God that which I eat at my Table And this Reason though it be drawne but ab improbabili yet urges because besides that nothing is improbable which is God hath ordained probability to be one of the first steps to knowledge If wee goe to the University and ask the Philosophers they will tell us it is requisite to the nature and Essence of a body that every part should have his proper place neither can a body be conceived to be a compleat body without extensive distinction of parts or to be but in a place And it is the exigence of materiall Accidents saith Aristotle as of quantity figure colour to be rooted in a body But here they are supposed to stand by themselves without a prop. And when a reason of these things never thought of in any kind of learning either in themselves or in their grounds is required the greatest schollers in the world on their part can say nothing but wee must goe up with holy Abraham the good old man to the top of the mountaine who having a strong promise that his seed should be multiplyed as the starres of Heaven was yet commanded to kill and sacrifice his onely sonne Isaak and we must leave the servants and the ignorant Asse at the foot of the hill that is the senses and Reason But if the senses be servants they are faithfull ones and are not deceived in the knowledge of their proper objects due order and conditions being kept on both sides and if Reason be an ignorant Asse what distinction is there betwixt a man and a beast They speake on As the Captaines of the Army put off their garments laid them in a heap and setting Jehu upon them cryed Jehu is King So we building a Throne for Faith over Sense and Reason must hold up our hands and pray that Faith may have a long and prosperous raigne over us Vive la Foy long live Faith There was a farre more searching kind of Philosophy taught in the sound and sincere dayes of S. Austen who in his Epistle to Dardanus thus draweth his argument from the deep grounds of true Philosophy Spatia locorum tolle corporibus nusquam erant quia nusquam erunt nec S. Aug. ad Dardan erunt tolle ipsa corpora qualitatibus corporum non erit ubi sint ideò necesse est ut non sint Take away from a body place and the body will be no where and being no where will not be take away from a body the qualities of a body and there wil be no place for the body to reside in and therefore the body must be no body I yeeld that in the part of Divinity which treateth of the blessed Trinity Reason must strike saile and stoope and Reason teacheth us that in the scanning of such high things Reason must be guided by a more certaine though not a clearer light and therefore still we follow the safe conduct of Reason but in materiall things proportion'd to our capacity and confined to their natures by the God of nature I cannot see with the eye of Reason or any other eye why Reason should not be one of the Councell and passe her judgement as shee does and ever did in these inferiour things Answer mee now Doth it not follow and flow out of these principles that the body of Christ in the Sacrament hath the being of a body and the being of a spirit at the same time and that if an Angell should take a particle of the Hoast and divide it continually for all eternity because such a division can never strike something to nothing as likewise no creature can ever lift something from nothing still in that little thing very like to nothing and many thousands of yeares before not perceptible by any sense of man Christ shall be as truly and as plentifully present as hee was in the world and upon the Crosse Answer mee againe Doe not they worship as Christ said to the woman of Samaria they know not what For when the Priest is supposed to be a Ioh. 4. 22. Priest and is not which often happeneth according to their Divinity either for the defect of Baptisme or for want of intention either in the Priest or Bishop or for want of orders in the Bishop then certainly they worship they know not what And it is a fearefull thing to draw the chiefe and most noble acts of Religion within the lists of such notable danger And the law of not administring the Sacrament in both kinds being one of the young handmaids which wait upon this doctrine took earnest first in the Councell of Constance And Pope Gelasius cursed all those who presumed to maime the divine ordinance and to receive it onely in one kinde And Transubstantiation the other feat waighting-maid was hired in the Councell of Lateran By little and little it was made a most huge Monster The bramble groweth

and for us all MEDITATION III. ANd the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his Gen. 2. 7. nostrhils the breath of life and man became a living soule For when the Angels enriched with such absolute gifts and dowries of nature by occasion of their shining and beautifull nature had lost and lost beyond recovery the fairest beauty under Heaven which is Grace God turning his Omnipotencie to the Creation of man made as if he feared the like inconvenience all that is visible in Him of Earth of base and foule earth Which lest it should continually provoke a loathing he hath changed into a more fine substance covered all over with a fair and fashionable skinne but with a condition of returning at a word and halfe a call from Heaven unto Earth and into Earth That although he might afterwards be lifted up in the scale of his soule hee might be depressed againe presently on the other side by the waight and heavinesse of his body and so might lay the deep and low foundation of humility requisite to the high and stately building of vertue If now God should turn a man busie in the commission of some haynous crime into his first earth that presently in steed of the man should appeare to us an Image of clay like the man and with the mans cloathes on standing in the posture in which the man stood when he was wholly tooke up in committing that high sinne against God Should we not all abominate so vile a man of clay lifting himselfe against the great God of Heaven and Earth And God breathed upon his face rather then upon any other part of his body because all the senses of man doe flourish in his face and because agreeably to his own ordinance in the face the operations of the soule should be most apparent as the signes of feare griefe joy and the like wherefore one calls the eyes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most exact and accurate images of the Damascenus in vita Isidori minde But stay I grant that God in the beginning first rais'd all things by a strange lift out of nothing And I confesse it is true not that which Pythagoras his Schollers had so often in their mouthes Ipse dixit and no farther but ipse dixit facta sunt as the Prophet David singeth God spake the word and all this gallant world rose presently out of nothing as if sencelesse nothing had heard his voyce and obeyed him And I am sufficiently convinced that God brought our first Father from cōmon earth that we cannot touch without defiling our fingers to earth of a finer making call'd flesh But how are we made by him wee come a naturall way into the world And it is not seene that God hath any extraordinary hand in the work Truly neither are the influences of the Sunne and Starres apparent to us in our composition yet are they necessary to it Sol homo generant hominem sayes Aristotle The Sunne and a Arist man betwixt them beget a child The reasonable soule is created by God in the body at the time when the little body now shapen is in a fit temper to entertaine it For the soule is so noble and excellent both in her substance and operations that shee cannot proceed originally from any inferiour cause nor be but by creation And if God should stay his hand when the body is fitly dressed and disposed for the soule the child would be borne but the meanest part of a man And doubtlesse God useth Parents like inferiour officers even in the framing of the Body For if the Parents were the true Authors and master builders of the body they should be endued naturally with a full and perfect knowledge of that which they make They should fully and perfectly know how all things are ordered and fitted in the building They should know in particular how many strings veins sinewes bones are dispensed through all the body in what secret Cabinet the braine is locked up in what posture the heart lyeth and what due motion it keepes what kinde of Cookery the stomack uses which way the rivers of the bloud turne and at what turning they meet what it is that gives to the eyes the principality of seeing to the eares of hearing to the nose of smelling to the mouth of censuring all that passes by the taste and to the skin and flesh the office of touching Nor is this all But also when the body is taken up and borded by a sicknesse or when a member withers or is cut off truly if the Parents were the only Authors of the body they might even by the same Art by which they first framed it restore it againe to it selfe As the maker of a clock or builder of a house if any parts be out of order can bring them home to their fit place and gather all againe to uniformity So that every man naturally should be so farre skill'd in Physick and Surgerie and have such an advantage of power that his Art should never faile him even in the extraordinary practice of either To this may be added that the joyning together of the soule and body which in a manner is the conjunction of Heaven and Earth of an Angell and a beast could not be compassed by any but a workman of an infinite power For by what limited art can a spirit be linked to flesh with so close a tye as to fill up one substance one person They are too much different things the one is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Gregory Nazianzen speaks a ray of the S. Greg. Naz Divinity the other a vile thing extracted from a dunghill Nor is there any shew of semblance or proportion betwixt them And therfore to make these two ends meet is a work which requires the hand and the onely hand of the Master Workman The Divines give three speciall reasons why God joyned a body to a soule First moved by his infinite goodnesse because he desired to admit a body as well as a spirit to the participation of himselfe and all creatures being spirituall or corporall a body could never have beene partaker of blessednesse had it not beene joyned to a spirit Secondly for the more generall exercise of vertue in the service of God for a soule could not have acted many vertues without the aide of a body as the vertues of temperance and chastity For the Devils are not delighted with the sinnes contrary to these vertues but for our guilt Thirdly the perfection of the universe For as there are creatures only spirits as Angels and creatures onely bodily as beasts and trees so it was a great perfection that there should also be creatures both spirits and bodies By which it is evident that God placed man in a middle condition betwixt Angels and beasts to the end he might rise even in this life with Elias to the sublime and superiour state of

there were good men there Evaristus saith worthily writing to the Bishops of Egypt as he is alleadged by Gratianus Deus autem omnipotens ut nos à praecipitatae sententiae Evar. ep 2. ad Episc Aegypti prolatione compesceret cùm omnia nuda aperta sint oculis ejus mala Sodomae noluit audita judicare priusquam manifestè agnosceret quae dicebantur The omnipotent God to draw us back from the precipice of rash judgement although all things are naked and open to his eyes yet would not judge the sinnes of Sodome upon a single relation hee would manifestly see the truth of the matter in practise and draw an experimentall conclusion Not that God acquireth knowledge by experience or other wayes for experience is a knowledge of things which we knew not but for our learning Vnde ipse ait saith my Author Descendam et videbo utrum clamorem qui venit ad me opere compleverint an non est ita ut sciam Wherfore God saith I will goe downe now and see whether they have done altogether according Gen. 18. 21 to the cry of it which is come unto me and if not I will know Wee had lost many good things had not Gratianus beene in the way and this was one First God will go down and take paines to see the truth of what hee hath heard and then he seems not to know what he knowes that we may learne and know what wee know not Knowing and seeing hee went downe to see and know I knew not and I went to see and having seene I know Scientia est ejus cujus est demonstratio saith the Philosopher we know ●striA that which is evident to us by a demonstration And that I may cement the discourses of men with truth and because the contrary hath beene preached and mightily defended and it is my part to maintain truth on all sides here I cannot hold from plain-speaking In all the Churches which ever I saw belonging to the Church of Rome in France Spaine Italy and the low Countries and also in Rome it selfe the high Altar where the Sacrament is kept and delivered and which onely can fitly be likened to our Communion Table in regard it is but one is encompassed with Rails which Rails are cōmonly placed above the steps by which they ascend to the high Altar within which Rails the Priest only and he that serveth at Masse do abide except in the singing of high Masses when hee is accompanied with the Deacon Sub-deacon Master of Ceremonies and two Acolythi Upon which Rails in all Communions is laid along cloath of linnen which the Communicant holdeth with his hand toward his mouth while he doth cōmunicate and at which Railes the people doe alwayes receive the Communion I contribute this Testimonie towards the satisfaction of Truth-maintainers Oyee Ministers of England yee are or ought to be the light of the world the salt of the earth Shine therefore to the world and season the earth by your good examples Be humble as Christ was humble Be temperate be contented sorte vestra be laborious But above all seeke peace and pursue it And forget not to be direct and sincere Preachers of the Gospell of Christ If the Trumpet give an uncertaine sound who shall prepare himselfe to battell I confesse I am bold It is my 1 Cor. 14 8. love that speaks mixed with a feare lest we should fall into the foulest scorne of proud Rome I will close up all with an Apostolicall Admonition Now I beseech you Brethren by the name of our Jesus Christ that yee 1 Cor. 1. 10. all speake the same thing and that there be no divisions among you but that yee be perfectly joyned together in the same minde and in the same judgement And spare O spare the seamlesse garment of Christ And what I know I can demonstrate This shall end this Priests if they will be call'd so are like starres upon the powerfull influence of which dependeth all the course and disposition of this inferiour world If they be starres of a gentle and milde aspect they bring health peace plenty every good thing if otherwise plague warre famine all mischiefe Either what wee preach let us preach over and over and over againe by example or we shall after all our long talking from the Pulpit onely cast an offensive block before our weake brethren put innocent Christ to the blush whose royall person we present and vilifie our doctrine It is said Iesus began both to doe and teach And this way ranne the streame of his Act. 1. 1. doctrine Hee that shall doe and teach shall be called great in the Kingdome of Heaven First let us do and afterwards teach For then it is beleeved that we beleeve our own doctrine when we teach it preach it proclaime it the second time in the schoole of Manners Salvianus saith truly Atrociùs sub sancti nominis professione peccamus We sinne Solvia lib. 4 de guber Dei more grievously when our sinne breaketh out from under a glorious profession I will not denie while I live but that as Unity is the due perfection of a Thing so order of things For in a diversity of things there must be order or confusion If not confusion a unity in diversity which lest it should be lyable to frequent divisions must be dealt and disposed by order from whence rises that faire good Greek word made for the purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 faire goodnesse For things are good as things and faire as ranked in order Dionysius giveth us an example in beauty where every part feature and colour is proportionably placed in order I grant willingly that the Church of Rome is outwardly one and orderly but this may be policy not religion If shee be one and orderly as shee ought to be shee must be one in faith and doctrine with the Apostles and the same in doctrine and practise The Cameleon they say sheweth all colours on her skin but white and red and yet those onely set our perfect beauty And the fairest in the Canticles is white and ruddy and his Spouse like him In operibus candida in sanguine purpurea white in works and purple with bloud snow-white not whited like a wall A word here pray It is past my graspe to comprehend and I beleeve beyond the Sphere of all our Activities how the notes and marks by which the Romanists professe to know the true Church when they see it may in reason be noted for such Antiquity is an accidentary thing a thing seperable if a thing may be said seperable which was never joyned from the true Church and a thing common to it with other Churches Accidentary because it founds not the Essence of the Church but happens to it by the fluencie of Time Seperable because the old Church in the dayes of Adam and the new Church in the time of the Apostles stood firme and was it selfe without it

likewise to give evidence of our faith by our works It is Christian doctrine which Christ teacheth As Moses lifted up the Serpent in the Wildernesse even so must the Son of man be lifted up that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternall life Saint Leo strikes home Effusio pro injustis sanguinis S. Leo. justi tam potens fuit ad privilegium tam dives ad pretium ut si universitas captivorum in redemptorem suum credoret nullum tyrannica vincula retinerent The powring out of the just mans bloud for the unjust was so powerfull by way of priviledge so rich by way of price that if every captive soul had believed in Christ Jesus hel should not have held one damned soule in it Who then can despaire He permitted himselfe to be fastned to the Crosse to proclame that he could not run away from any man Press on boldly hee cannot stirre His feet are sure and therefore you may be sure he cannot run away Nor can he free his feet with his hands for the hands are as sure as the feet And if hee were loose hands and feet poore wounded man he could not go farre for he is now parting with all the bloud in his body And when hee does withdraw himselfe from those that call upon him it is onely that he may give them opportunity to call more earnestly and that hee may be more honoured These are the cunning tricks of Lovers Saint Gregory Nazianzen writing to his Friend Nicobulus objecteth to him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you flie when I S. Greg. Naz. ep ad Nicobul follow you loves practitioner to make your selfe more precious MEDIT. 5. O Lord how should a poore man do to passe his life in the due and solid consideration of the great secret of Christs Passion to consider that he would appear to men in a vile and despicable manner that he would weare a Crowne of thornes an old purple Robe and beare a Reed in place of a Scepter to be firme occasions of dispensing his heavenly gifts and ornaments to us to consider how Pilate and Herod joyned hands and met in his destruction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and contraries concurred to his punishment S. Greg. Naz. as Saint Gregorie Nazianzen wrote of a Martyr burned alive in an old Ship to whose death fire and water did agree to consider how the Sun as Dionysius declareth in his Epistle to his Master Apollophanes in ipsius verae lucis occubitu lucere Dionys ep ad Apolloph non potuit in the setting of the true Sun could not shine to consider that hee did not take a phantasticall body in the Incarnation that hee might seeme to suffer when he did not as some vainly thought and that he did not chase away the bitternesse of his Passion by the power of his Divinity as others imagined but that hee drew up and concealed his Divinitie and gave nature no succour in her pain when hee giveth to his Martyrs power above nature to consider that all the parts of the body in which sins are committed were in him accordingly punished even though the sins were not in him to consider that hee stretched out his armes to imbrace sinners bowed his head low to kisse sinners gave water with bloud to signifie that his bloud was able to make white the blackest and most deformed sinners to consider that hee died Hee died and yet the World stands the earth stirs not and the cruell Jewes are not swallowed alive into Hell O pietie O pittie whatsoever Histories have mentioned Verses have sung Fables have framed is to this a trifle And is he dead Good soule when hee was alive hee was the best man living And when hee died hee died sweetly he bowed his head to all that were about him and so died O the strange inventions of love O the bottomlesse abysse of love Unhappy Jews they sold Christ for 30 pence Titus son to Vespasian the Emperour after the destruction of Ierusalem sold them thirty for a peny they cried they forsooth had no King but Caesar and the Statue of Caligula the Emperour was soon brought set up in their great temple they crucified Christ were crucified thēselves under Florus the President till there was no roome in the fields adjoyning to Jerusalē wherin to raise a crosse The death of his forerunner was in like maner revenged for the body of the dancing-maid slipped under the yce while her head was seene to dance above it And thus God dealt with Leo the Emperour if the Popish Writers doe not juggle with us for having took by violence from the great Church of S. Sophia in Constantinople a pretious Carbuncle Zonar annal to 3. an ulcer rose in his head called a Carbuncle of which hee miserably dyed And shall not vengeance be severely taken of those that murder Christ every houre I will strike my brest with the Publican and cry to my selfe Remember alwayes when thou art brooding sinne in thy heart that then thou art breeding a most bloody and stubborne intention to kill Christ and that thou bloudy man doest to the full extent of thy power actually kill him and therefore thou art a murderer a murderer of Christ and it is a wonder that as thou passest in the streets the stones doe not cry out from under thee stop stop the murderer stop the man that kill'd his Master his Lord his Redeemer his Father his King his God and all at a blow Goe thy wayes ungratefull world thou hast lost a jewell of the sight of which thou wert not worthy Good God how naked the world is now Christ is out of it for when he was in it it was very full O my spirit since he is gone solace thy selfe with his memory and being dead let him live in thee in thy thoughts in thy discourse in thy actions he will be very sweet company And my spirit goe with mee a little Christ being dead it is pitty but he should have a Funerall Let the Usurer come first with his bags of money and distribute to the poore as he goes The drunkard shall follow with the spunge filled with gall and vinegar in his hand and check his wanton thirst Then the young Gallant barefoot-like his master and with the crowne of thornes upon his head Then the factious and angry person in the seamelesse coat and carrying the Crosse upon his shoulders The wanton person shall beare the rods and whips wherewith his Master was scourged and fright his flesh The ambitious man shall goe clad in the purple roabe The proud Magistrate follow with the reed in his hand The twelve Apostles shall beare up the corps with one hand and with the other beare every one the instrument of his owne death And the blessed virgin shal goe after sighing weeping and at every other pace looking up to Heaven Then Mary Magdalen divided betwixt love and sorrow with a box of pretious

verbis Apost if they merit salvation they merited likewise the death of Christ But Saint Austin saith Neque enim illum ad nos merita nostra bona sed peccata duxerunt our merits did not draw him to us but our sinnes The Protestants have onely two Sacraments because Christ intended to give life and to maintaine it They have Baptisme to give spirituall life and the Sacrament of the Eucharist or the Lords Supper to keepe and cherish it The Papists have seven Sacraments as there are seven Planets and because there are seven deadly sinnes And yet if every visible signe of an invisible gift be a Sacrament the old Law was exceedingly stored with Sacraments The Protestants give Christ to be eaten by faith the Papists wholly and carnally and in the same manner as he is in Heaven And therefore the sacred institution is maimed and the poore Laity deprived of the Cup because they are beleeved to take all Christ his body ex vi verborum and his bloud soule Divinity and the blessed Trinity it selfe per concomitantiaem in regard that Christ cannot be parted The Protestants teach according to S. Paul that a Bishop may be the husband of one wife which the Papists 1. Tim. 3. 2 would faine turn to one Bishoprick or Benefice but S. Paul cuts them off having his children Verse 4. in subjection with all gravity Both the Bishop and Priest with the Papists professe to live a most Angelicall life and to carry with them out of the world an unspotted robe of chastity And yet while they bring glory to their Church by a compulsive restraint of the Clergy from an honest and lawfull act they ruine the precious soules of many thousands of thousands as appeareth by the great and grievous complaints of many devout persons in the Councell of Trent and by the beaten and ordinary practise of their Priests who by force turned from the true channell runne over all bankes into all beastlinesse And I have from their owne mouths two matters of notable importance First that indeed marriage had beene granted to Priests in the Councell of Trent had they not upon the suggestion of the Jesuits feared poverty and contempt By which it is as cleere as Gods Sunne that they more aime in their adventures at the glory of the Church their visible Mother then of God their invisible Father Secondly that the Jesuits hewed the Councell into this conceit for this end lest because the Jesuits can throw off their habit at their pleasure all their able men should have left them and runne a wiving And it is a great reason of a great rule they have that no Jesuit may be a Bishop or Cardinall without an extraordinary command and dispensation from the Pope because their houses would then be deplumed of Schollers I feare the religious persons of the Church of Rome clad so meanely in the greater part thinke themselves as great as the greatest Tertullian saith of Diogenes Superbos Platonis thoros alia superbia deculcat he kicks the pride of Plato being altogether Tert. Apol. cap. 46. as proud as he The Protestants are alwaies humble suppliants to God for the remission of their sinnes and still laying open before him and recounting the sins of their youth And the uncertainty holds them alwayes in a feare and trembling and in a meeke submission to God The Priest in Confession will give to the Papists a full and absolute forgivenesse of all their sinnes whensoever they please to read or tell them over And yet nothing is more dangerous to an ignorant soule then a deceitfull security they beleeve their sinnes are forgiven and the care is past Confession cannot be necessary necessitate absoluta that is necessary to salvation or in the list of Sacraments For why did the Greeke Church the most devout and most learned Church in the world and the Nursery of our greatest Doctors moved onely with one abuse ushered by Confession abolish it Can the abuse of a Sacrament amongst reasonable creatures and sensible of their owne condition deface the use of it And therefore doubtlesse they held it by the title of a good and pious custome not in the name of a Sacrament Turne another way God who commandeth every servant of his to keepe the dores of his senses and by all honest violence to prevent the entrance of sinne upon the soule will he give a Sacrament wherein the soule shal under the pretty color of sanctity stand open to all kindes of uncleannesse And he that commandeth me to shut my eares against lewd discourses will he now out-goe himselfe and command me to heare them They reply the relations are now in mourning and delivered in a dolorous and humble manner But the disease being catching we cannot be too cautious and it is not likely that God would linke a holy Sacrament with a knowne temptation It is a knowne truth that these confessions and especially of women when they relate the Acts and circumstances of their fleshly sinnes doe make strange motions not onely in the minds but also in the bodies of their Priests which their Authors confesse even out of Confession Confession as they use it is an optick instrument through which they looke neerely upon the soule that according to that sight they may governe And therefore it is one of the private rules amongst the Jesuits that in all their consultations which are many the Bell having rung them together the Ghostly Father especially shall be present and his counsell most observed And although the Generals of their Orders checked by the Popes have given publike commands to the contrary yet they are all but a face and a flourish Confession thought a Sacrament is to many the bane of perfection For leaning heavie upon the pretended strength and efficacie of the absolution they bate much of the sorrow which is the principall part of true repentance The Protestants keepe one day in the weeke holy in obedience to the Commandement given with a Memento Remember the Sabbath day to keepe it holy and other Euod 20. 8. speciall dayes according to an appointment squared by the rule of the ancient Church The Papists have many Holy-dayes and yet doe not seriously observe the Sabbath insomuch that the Jesuits boast their Founder to have complained much of Sabbath-breaking A Councell held under Guntranus Concil sub Guntrano complaines too Videmus populum Christianum temerario more diem Dominicum contemptui tradere we see the silly people animated with a rash custome contemne the Lords day First keepe the Commandement and then let your devotion stretch as God shall enable it In this point they are like themselves when they say their prayers For let my Reader imagine that he seeth two persons on their knees praying The one speaketh distinctly and lifteth up his eyes hands heart and voice together and in a fit time maketh an end The other looketh here and there and runneth with his tongue and

to his Master desiring that my Parishioners might not be stirred in their service of God or averted from their allegiance to the King inserting these words concerning my selfe Set aside the sweete name of Christ I would rather choose to be a Turke then a Papist I descerned no change in the working of my letter but only that I was defamed through the Countrey and proposed as one that had more inclination to Turcifme then to Christianity in them that part which qualified the proposition set aside the sweet name of Christ being wholly concealed and set aside in the report and my intention evacuated The occasion of my inserting that clause was because the Popish servant had said he was sure that I would quickly bee theirs againe which is alwayes a great part of their plea when the man that commeth from them is circumspect in his life I see that where one notorious abomination dwels all other sinnes are neighbours This my letter was shewed by the Papists to one of my owne cloth and profession But one whom the Papists have bought and seal'd their speciall friend by speciall benefits and entertainments He speaking as affection prompted him not as Religion so farre helped them on both in their opinions and in their depression of me that he perswaded them the proposition which they had chose for the instrument of their abuses Set aside the sweete name of Christ I had rather be a Turke then a Papist to be no other thing but elegant nonsense His reasons were as I received them from his owne mouth First because the sweete name of Christ could not be set aside Secondly because the proposition being resolved into the sense of it if it hath any is this Set aside the sweete name of Christ I had rather be a Turke then a Christian I reply This is the discourse of flesh and bloud or rather of hunger and thirst and wanton appetite Were there the greatest of all connexions betwixt the name of Christ and the Popish Religion I might borrow of the Philosophers an hypotheticall and imaginary separation per impossible But my meaning in the inwards is I doe not conceive there is any mighty businesse of Christ amongst the Papists but his name and that wheresover it is is a sweete name and a name without a thing will easily be removed by an Intellectus agens And therefore it will stand as close as this mans tongue does to the Papists Set aside the sweete name of Christ I had rather bee a Turke then a Papist And his second reason is most injurious to his owe Religion I meane the Religion which he professeth For it comes with a long taile and implies that nothing is signified by the word Papist but Christian they being termini convertibiles and that every tenent of Popery is Christian and derived from Christ But the wonder is that I am forced to defend my propositions and assertions by which I disclaime Popery against a Brother The Father of Heaven in his Sonne Jesus Christ blesse and continue the Parliaments of England or many a faire birth-right will be sold for a messe of Pottage Two things I have learn'd and experience was my Schoole-mistresse speaking to me from the lives of others The first is that to divide and rend our selves betwixt two Religions is the nearest path to Atheisme And the second that men so rent divided are company-keepers lovers of pleasure hunters gamsters caet And by such I shall joyfully be resisted having so good an assurance that I fight Gods battels And that the Papists may rise as high as scandall can mount they have spread into the world that I have tooke one of their Priests by whose hands God hath beene very kinde to me To this I thus answer First that my obligation to my Prince the State and the Parliament being the representative body of the whole Kingdome doth binde me farre more strictly then the private kindnesses betwixt friend and friend Secondly as I desire to be washed with the bloud of Christ I had no hand in the taking of that person nor knowledge of it The man I tooke was one from whom I was utterly disinteressed a scandalous person a scandall-raiser and one by whose practises I am as sicke to the Popish Religion as I would bee dead to its sinnes The other my quondam friend I could have taxed in a fit place of this book for his wily dealings with a maid said to be possessed with a Devill and related that the Devill lurking in a lump of her flesh would runne from part to part and could not endure to be touched with his fingers used in the touch of the consecrated Host But I spared my friend I could be copious if I should not bee tedious in these relations Old wives tales are odious And Saint Gregory Nazianzen taxeth Julian the Apostata for blowing the coales at the Devils Altar with old women How their wisedome is confounded It is vainely done of the Pelican that seeing her nest fired by Shepheards commeth in all haste and thinking to redeeme her young from the danger by the waving of her wings bloweth the fire and encreaseth the flame and at last applying her whole body loseth her wings the safety of her body And these reports are in effect the same The flame of my devotion towards the Church of England is increased and they lose their wings and themselves in the fire when doubtles they thought to scape away like the Fish in the black inke they cast round about them upon their brother O these reports They goe as Demosthenes saies of the waves in the Sea one confusedly tumbling over the back of another without any stop or intermission And he that flyeth from Babylon is like one of the Martyrs in the Primitive Church Church tormented in a brazen Bull. The bellowing and roaring that you heare is in the thing it selfe the voice of the Martyr but much altered by passing through the wide throate of the brazen Bull. The torments of Marcus Arathusius were strange ones described S. Greg. Naz. orat 3 in Julian by Saint Gregory Nazianzen The venerable old man was drawn through the kennels through all sorts of unclean places He was hung up by the armes and tossed from side to side where the boyes stood with Pen-kifes to receive his naked body He was drawne up in a basket in the heate of a burning day and all spread with hony to gather a meeting of Bees upon his body But he was happy And happy were the Martyrs who prayed and meditated walking upon hot fiery coales as upon Roses I complained to one of them of these scandals And it was answer'd that I might be called an Adulterer a Ravisher and the like because I had defiled the Spouse of Christ and turned to a Harlot But why then is the crime delivered without the comment Some dayes after the publication of my closing with the Church of England a Popish

of every thing which may impeach or impaire it She is filled with the holy Ghost and doubtlesse speakes all languages when she prayes because shee prayes in all her children with understanding that she may offer from the Altar of every heart a reasonable Sacrifice And I doubt not but you have your Emissaries and Intelligencers abroad Certainly had not one of the Presses into which my Book unhappily dropped beene almost it selfe pressed away surcharged with your notorious and scurrilous Pamphlets containing those most horrible and irreligious imputations of so many strange Sects amongst us those as false as foule discourses of Adamites and the like moving and disposing to the ruine and overthrow both of Church and Common-wealth which my experience assures me were yours and moreover had not your humble Petition taken place in it and wrought upon covetousnesse it had beene day with my booke long agoe You will me to to thinke and that without passion if this be not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Your will is to me a law I doe thinke and thinke without passion And now I have thought without passion I have learned that indeed this is to fight against God stay pray leave nothing behinde you if to fight against more then Luciferian pride against Blasphemy against Idolatry and against all other sins be to fight against God Pardon me He that railes is unreasonable either in the matter of his speech or in the delivery When I beleeve and can make it perspicuous to a cleare eye that the Church of Rome is a corrupted and putrified body head-sick and heart-sick and therfore ill all-over doe I fight against God if I labour to prevent and keepe off the infection ne pars sincera trahatur Her head is so weake that she thinkes it stands as high as the clouds at least if not as high as the starrie Firmament Her heart is not well For she is diseased in that which is the very primum vivens and ultimum moriens of Faith the doctrine of Christs merits And therefore her tongue speakes strange languages she knowes not what Her eyes have not the gift of discerning aright An Image appeares to her a little God Her eares are out of order they are more taken with melody then words of edification she doth not praise God in the musicall instruments because shee staies in the noise and ends in delight as it is in use with her to sleep and take her nights rest in opere operato Onely her taste is right and yet she thinkes it is not because she doth not taste the very flesh bloud of Christ Her hands are weak they give almes to force and extort a reward Her feete are worse they run to shed bloud And is she not a very sick creature And therefore you may put up your dagger For the words following wound not And with what weapons c. Concerning the gifts of nature which you call mine improved by industry the account of both Agnosco benefactorem I acknowledge a heavenly Benefactour And though no man is obliged ad optima to the performance of the best things yet in this point how can I better imploy the Talents with which I am intrusted then in the service of Gods Church But you come with a fresh supply Can I call a Church a thing so torne and distracted Can I make a belly-full of husks Was not the Church governed by the Apostles vexed with clamours of people crying I am of Paul and I am of Apollos It is in the body politique and Ecclesiastique as in the naturall body Every quick and sudden alteration cals up all the humours and they being up draw the body into parties either pulling to themselves by Sympathy or putting off by Antipathy The water is troubled but expect a little and it will settle againe For the husks I confesse with sorrow of heart there are many and those meate onely for swine dull and drossie-headed people as the profane rudenesse of shoo-makers Bakers Button-makers in the sacred house of God the contempt of Divine Service and of the Liturgy and consequently of Ministers and their Orders the crying down of Learning and of the reward of it conclusions sucked from Mahomet and now the discourse of vulgar people amongst Christians With such I proclaime it to the world I and my devotions shall have no communion though they were able to lash me to death with their foule tongues but they cannot touch me with them These earthy people doe not understand that minus perfectum ad magis perfectum referri atque ordinari debet every lesse perfect thing ought to submit and be referred to the thing more perfect their weake apprehensions and erroneous consciences to the truth and service of God What if the Logicians say that quae sunt eadem uni tertio sunt idem inter se and yet the Father Sonne and holy Ghost being the same in Essence differ in persons Reason informeth us that as the Pope forsooth or a Bishop will reserve cases to himselfe and his owne Court so God may and must reserve the knowledge of many things and especially of Mysteries to his owne privacie And it is very fit we should now bee ignorant of the things wee shall not hereafter know And every man understanding according to the capacity of his understanding why should not the ignorant man stoope to what is sufficiently expressed to him with consideration to his ignorance Though ignorance hath sometimes Ignorantia purae negationis an excuse obstinacie hath never any And the man that hath but sipped of outlandish experience will easily beleeve that a Papist was the malignant contriver of that swelling and wordy but chaffie senselesse and empty Pamphlet ballassed with the name of A true Relation of a combustion hapning at Saint Annes Church by Aldersgate betweene a stranger sometimes a Jesuit but now thankes be to God reformed to our Church and one Marler a Button-maker c. Wherein the Author of the true Relation hath scarce a true word to beare witnesse that he knowes what is truth And if there be a true word in all the Pamphlet it is that onely reformed to the Church of England For neither was the Preacher a Button-maker but a Divine neither did we joyne any kinde of discourse neither came I neere the Pulpit though invited by the Minister and Vestry-men Your prayer in the end is charitable on your part which with your leave I borrow of you and turne upon you againe But whereas you conclude all with which he prayes day and night that loves you night and day it had beene a truth of truths if it had run thus which he prayes day and night that loves night more then day And thus a sleight worke I have answered with a worke of as loose a composure CHAP. XX. IN the first Chapter of Genesis where the Vers 2. Latins turne it Spiritus Domini ferebatur super aquas the Spirit of God was