Massacres as were in France of Thirty Thousand or Forty Thousand or in Ireland of Two Hundred Thousand hath made them think your Power inconsistent with their safety 3. And you must remember that the Positive Additions of the Church of Rome are in the Judgment of the Puritans very great sins But you have truly no charge against the Puritans for any one Article of their Religion but only for not receiving and for protesting against your Additions 4. But I perceive p. 5. your Instances of their defectiveness are that they are not for fasting days particular Garments for Priests set Forms Christmas-day Good-Friday Ascension Whitsuntide c. which they take for meer Humane inventions and Will-worship Because they think that the New Testament was written to instruct us Christians in the whold Body of Gospel-worship c. But you are best prove this only by telling us that you know some persons of that mind And when you have done I will demand your Proof that those Persons are no more than Puritans They have oft told you that their judgment is that for all that substance of God's Worship which is of Universal necessity to the Church and is of Divine Institution the holy Scripture is a sufficient Rule But that very many Circumstances and outward Acts have in Scripture but a General Law that they be all done to edification decently orderly in Concord c. and it is left to Humane Prudence to order them by such Rules We condemn no one that useth holy Fasts or Feasts but think them needful We judge not those that celebrate the Memorial of God's great Mercies to his Church by giving him thanks for the holy Life and Doctrine of his Eminent Saints c. But will you plainly have our judgment We think Saint Paul was in the right that taught the Church of Rome it self both the Rulers and the Flocks that they must neither judge nor despise each other for differences about Meats and Days but receive each other to Communion notwithstanding such differences as Christ received us Rom. 14. and 15. And we will not believe your Grand-Father nor Great-Grand-Father if they told us that the Apostles by Tradition did institute Holy-days and Vigils for St. Tecla or St. Bridgit or St. Thomas Becket or any that were not born till they were dead And any one Day or Order which you truly prove to us that the Apostles by Tradition ordained for the Universal Church we profess our selves ready and resolved to obey But if you plead not Tradition for any of these things but the Churches Commands as you must do or be singular or ashamed here you come to the quick of our difference 1. We know not of any Universal Vicarious Law-giver under Christ that hath any power to make Laws to the Universal Church throughout the World and we dare not own any such Usurper lest we be guilty of Treason against the only Head of the whole Church 2. We know not of any power that the chief Bishop in the Roman Empire hath over other Empires Kingdomes or Churches 3. But to our own true Pastors which are set over us according to Christ's order and his Apostles recorded in Scripture we Puritanes will submit in all such Circumstantials as aforesaid which are left to their prudent determination not putting us on any sin But 4. We detest making such things as you here name to be taken for the Characters of distinct Religions or distinct Churches as if we might not with Love Peace and Christian Communion differ about a Garment a Holy-day Fast or Vigil Thus far then you seem not to know what a meer Puritan is II. But Sir I have much more than all these little things against your Description of a Puritane I plainly perceive in your greatest praises of him that you know not what his very Religion it self is or else you would never describe him as only taken up with fears and cares and good desires to be better having yet greedy desires of the things of the World without any mention of the Love of God above all and of his Neighbour and a holy and heavenly Mind and Life with self-denyal mortification of the Flesh c. Either you judge of a Puritane by what you were your self or by what your acquaintance were or by what they commonly profess to be their Religion For the first you have no reason It followeth not that they have no better a Religion because you had no better For the second you had no reason For it 's ten to one you knew not the hearts of your acquaintance so well as to be able to know that they had not the Love of God c. And if you were so unhappy in your acquaintance what 's that to other Men Thirdly Therefore as you look that your own Religion should be described not as we find it in this or that man but as your Church professeth it so do we And I have told you before what our Religion is I have the more boldness in speaking the sense of others as I said both because I am as aforesaid stigmatized for a total Puritan and because the generality of all of them of my acquaintance as far as I can discern are of this mind A Puritan then as the Word is commonly taken by the Rabble is a serious Christian Protestant who truly believeth and practiseth what he doth profess and doth not mortifie that Profession which should help to mortifie his Sin His Religion is to be understandingly and sincerely devoted in the Sacramental Covenant to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost renouncing the Vanities of the World the Lusts of the Flesh and the Delusions of the Devil He believeth that all that truly consent to this Covenant have a right and part in and to the Love of God the Father the Grace of the Son and the Communion of the Holy Chost and that he that hath the Son hath Life Pardon Adoption Justification and Right to Life Eternal and that this Right is continued he performing his Covenant and continuing in that Faith which worketh by Love and not living impenitently in sin but sincerely obeying God his Father Saviour and Sanctifier He taketh the fear of Gods Justiâ—â— â—nd godly Sorrow to be but the lower steps of Holiness but that the Kingdom of God is not Meats and Days but Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost and that the Spirit of Christ without which none are his is not the Spirit of Bondage but of Power Love and a sound Mind even a Spirit of holy LIFE LIGHT and LOVE which are the Essentials of true Holiness and the Spirit of Adoption and Supplication causeth us with Love to cry to God and trust him as a Father They take Christ to be the only Mediator between God and Man whose sufficient Sacrifice for Sin and perfect Righteousness Habitual Active and Passive as called advanced in dignity by the Divine Nature is the Meritorious cause of
all their Mercies to Body and Soul Remission Justification Holiness and Glory They put up all their Services as into and by the Hand of Christ and from his Mediatory Hand they expect all mercies They take the Holy Ghost within them to be Christ's Advocate and Witness to them of his Truth and Love and their Witness Earnest Seal Pledge and first Fruits of endless Life They take Eternal Glory for their full Felicity and this World and Flesh Pleasure Riches and Honour to be so far useful as they signifie Gods Love and further our Love and Service to him but to be Vanity as separated from God in our Hearts and Enmity or Mischief as Competitors or as against him In a word Faith working by Supream Love and Obedience to God and Brotherly Love to Man by Honour to our Superiours Justice to all and by all the good that we can do in the World and by Repentance for our Sins patience in sufferings and by a Heavenly Mind and Life is the Sum of their Religion or plainlier as is said at first The Gospel-Covenant as expounded in the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue as the Summary of things to be believed desired and practised and the holy Scriptures as the full and comprehensive Records of the Doctrine Promises and Laws of God containing the Essentials Integrals and necessary Accidentals of Religion This is the Christian Religion and the Puritan in question is but the SERIOUS CHRISTIAN distinct from the HYPOCRITE or dead Formalist But if you add Non-conformity to the sense of the Word and to his Character so I need not tell you what the Impositions are which some deny Conformity to as to Oaths New-Covenants Subscriptions Declarations Practices c. which he protesteth that he would never deny Conformity to if after his best enquiry he did not believe that God forbiddeth it As you may see at large in their Savoy Petition for Peace to the Bishops These two it seems you join together and what their Objective Religion is I have better told you than you have told your Relations But as to the clearness of their Judgment in it and the measure of their Practice of it there are I think as various Degrees as there are Persons no two Men in the World being in all things just of the same Degree And now Sir give me leave patiently to ask you these two Questions 1. Why would you by temerity go about to deceive your Relations and other Readers by talking to them against that which you did not understand Even then when you blame others as dealing so by the Papists And why do you dishonour your own Relations so as to make so bad a Description of them Are they such as have no Love to God as God no delight in Holiness no Heavenly Minds nothing almost but fear and its effects Have they still the Flames of Concupiscence and greedy desires of Money and the things of this Life c. If it be not so you should not have told the World so of them If it be so I am sorry for them I suppose it is contrary to their profest Religion and you may have the greater hopes to make them Papists II. What wonder is it that you that were no better a Puritan than you describe are turned Papist You that profess you were a Puritan must needs be judged to tell us what a one you were your self when you tell us what they are Alas poor Man How came you to be so false to your own Profession against your Baptismal Vows as to keep so much of the World at your Heart in greedy desires after Money and to have no more Love to God and Man no more Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost Could you think that a Man could be saved without Love and good works Were you deluded by such Antinomian conceits as you describe and took that for Puritanisme How else did you quiet your Conscience in such a state of Hypocrisie If God and Holiness had not your chief Love as well as Fear you were but an Hypocrite And here give me leave to repeat what I have oft written What wonder is it at any Mans turning Papist when according to your own Principles no Protestant Puritan or other Christian turneth Papist that doth not thereby declare that he was a false-hearted Hypocrite before and had no true Love to God in his Heart And was not this your case For 1. You affirm that all Men that have true prevalent Love to God are in a state of Grace and have right to Salvation till they lose it 2. You affirm that none of us are in a state of Grace and Salvation that are not of your Church that is the Subjects of the King or Pope of Rome 3. Therefore it followeth that you take none but such Subjects or Members of your Church to have the true prevalent Love of God But you know that in our Christian Covenant and Profession we all take God for our God the infinite and most amiable Good our Father in Christ and Love it self and that Faith working by Love is our Religion And if any Man saith Saint Paul love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha And he that loveth the World the Love of the Father is not in him 1 Joh. 2. 15. So that by turning Papist you confess that before you were no true Christian nor had any true Love to God and Godliness nor to Jesus Christ And if so you were a false-hearted Hypocrite For as a Christian you profest and Covenanted it And what wonder then if God forsook you and gave you up to strong delusions when you would not receive the Truth in the Love of it that you might be saved 2 Thes 2. And note here that if any Man know that he truly loveth God and Goodness you tell him that he is none of those that you perswade to Popery For you perswade none to it but those that are ungodly Hypocrites having no true Love of God within them But can you think Sir in good earnest that Popery tendeth more to fill Men with the Love of God than our simple Christianity doth Is not Popery a Religion of Bondage and Servitude consisting mainly in Terrour and its superstitious effects What are most of your Tasks of Pilgrimages Penances and abundance such but the effects of servile fear The best of Religion next Heaven should be that which is nearest to Heaven And do you think you can love God better in the Fire of Purgatory Torments than if he took you unto Christ in Paradise Could you love God better in this Life if he tormented you in the Fire than if he give you comfort by his mercies You say that the Puritan is made negligent by his trust in Christ to adorn his Soul with Piety Charity Meekness Patience Humility and other Christian Vertues partly thinking them impossible to be attained partly deeming there is no absolute necessity of them
to his Salvation he having nothing to do but to believe that Jesus Christ hath done all for him Answ I had hoped there had been few such left in England Even Crisp and Saltmarsh were scarce so erroneous And were you such a one O miserable Man that was such a Puritan Who did bewitch you so grosly to contradict the whole Tenour of the Gospel It is just with God to leave you to set now as light by the Meritorious Righteousness of Christ as procuring you Pardon Grace and Glory as you did then set by Christian Virtues Piety and Love But what if it was so with you will that allow you to belie so many others How many score Volumes have the Puritans written which assert not only the possibility but the absolute necessity of Piety Charity Humility c. without which none can see God Infants Case is not here medled with I know not one Person in all the Land or World that will not abhor as false what you here charge in common on the Puritans unless he be a very gross Antinomian or some grosser Heretick here unknown Protestants Puritans Separatists Anabaptists yea Quakers all abhor it And yet you feared not to put this in Print Perhaps you will pretend for it the Doctrine of Justification by Faith alone But they that say that Faith alone going first with Repentance doth justifie them by procuring the pardon of their sins and their Union with Christ do say that at the same moment of time it also sanctifieth them by procuring from Christ the Spirit of Sanctification giving them Love Humility Piety c. And that this is of absolute necessity to their Salvation Heb. 12. 14. Mat. 18. 3. Rom. 8. 1. 6. 7. 13. So much of your false self-condemning description of a Puritan CHAP. III. II. YOU next Characterize the Prelatical Protestant Having said before p. 5. Their Preachers in their Sermons have little Life or Zeal and seldom discourse of such Truths as are apt to awaken Mens Consciences and make them lay to heart the great concern of the Salvation of their Souls Or if they do at any time preach of Judgment or of Hell Repentance or a New Life they do it very coldly and imperfectly and seem to talk like Parrots of what they have learnt by rote or out of others Books and not what they have had any experience of in their hearts And p. 6. Generally speaking I wish it were a slander Prelatick Protestants are very Prophane and give no signs of any interiour trouble of Conscience And if any of them begin to be heartily troubled for his sin he is observed either to turn Fanatick or Papist Answ If by a Prelatick Protestant you should unhandsomly mean only such as are worldly Clergy-men like too many of your Roman Prelates and their Curates who take Gain for Godliness and who allow their Flesh their Pride their Covetousness and Voluptuousness and Sloth to chuse their Religion whose God is their Belly who glory in their shame and who mind Earthly things and are Enemies to Cross-bearing and through Enmity to those that are better than themselves are Cross-imposers and Persecutors and Silencers of sober faithful Ministers because they cross their Pride and worldly Interest such it 's like may be no better Men than you describe them But why should you take the Word in so narrow a sense But if by Prelatick Protestants you mean all such Protestants whose judgment is for Episcopacy 1. You deceive and I suppose are deceived in your distinguishing these from Non-conformists It 's true that there are envious false-hearted Prelatists in the World that make false names for their Brethren to procure the belief of their false reports of them And God will cut out the lying Tongue But I will tell you the truth whose malice soever is against it there are Episcopal as well as Presbyterian and Independent Non-conformists now Yea divers that are against the late Wars of the Parliament and against the Covenant and never took it and some that have been Souldiers for the King and suffered for him Yea so considerable is the number of them that are Episcopal that in 1660. when the King called them to treat in order to agreement they offered him no other Form of Church Government than A. Bishop Usher's Reduction in which not a Pin of Honour nor one Farthing of their Revenue was desired to be taken from Archbishops Bishops Deans Archdeacons but only the Parish Ministers enabled under them to have done somewhat more that belongeth to their Office instead of Lay-Chancellors c. Most Non-conformists of my acquaintance would be glad of the terms contained in the Kings Declaration about Ecclesiastical Affairs where Bishops and Archbishops are left as rich and high as they were before So far are Non-conformists Episcopal Protestants 2. And though Conformity be very much changed from what it was heretofore Episcopacy is not And I must tell you that I do not think that the Christian World hath more godly learned worthy Ministers than many of the Episcopal were heretofore Do you know what men Bishop Jewel A. Bishop Grindall and many more of old were And A. Bishop Usher Bishop Hall Bishop Davenant and many more of late Who hath written more earnestly and hotly for Episcopacy than Bishop Downame who wrote the great Latine Book to prove the Pope Antichrist yet who that knew him did ever question his piety or diligence And if you look to the old Conformable Presbyters read their Books and enquire of the Lives of many of them and then confess that they were better men and better Preachers than you describe Peruse the Writings of Mr. Rob. Bolton William Whateley William Fenner Dr. Preston Dr. Sibbes Dr. Stoughton Dr. Gouge Mr. Thomas Gataker Mr. Crook and abundance of such others and enquire how they laboured and lived and you may hear that they were neither such Parrots nor prophane ones as you mention There may be some proportionable alteration supposed to be now made in the persons of the Conformists answerable to that which is made in Conformity it self But surely if you know London and many Miles near it and many Parishes in the several Counties you must confess that now there are many Learned Pious Conformists who Preach zealously and live religiously and hate Covetousness and Persecution and long to see the promoting of Piety Peace and Concord But if you expect a better Vindication of them I must desire you to consider of two things 1. That in most Countries and Ages the worldliest men that is the worst have been the greediest strivers and seekers for Church-Power and Perferments and he that seeketh most diligently is the likeliest to find And that ordinarily the Vulgar do dance after the Pipe of him that is uppermost and will be of the Religion of them that can help or hurt them be it what it will be Most will be of the Religion which is owned by Law or countenanced by
Princes and Magistrates to keep peace and order among them all Governing Glergie-men as they do Philosophers Physicians c. But yours hath an Utopian pretended Government of men on the other side the world whose Countries you scarce ever heard or dreamed of and an Usurpation of an impossible confounding kind and degree of Rule XII Our Religion is fitted to give Glory to Christ and his Grace and Kingdom But yours to set up Proud Usurpers over Princes and People in such an impossible Government making Subjection to him necessary to salvation As if a man unacquainted with Cosmography that never heard that there was such a Town as Rome in the world must be no Christian and be damned when yet the Popes name was never mentioned in our Baptism XIII Our Religion is Faith working by Love Christs Ministers that are truly of our Religion take only convincing evidence of Truth and unfeigned love and works of love to be their means of winning Souls And they take not Christs Discipline which worketh only on the conscience to be a leaden Sword or vain But yours is a hanging killing Religion Jails Strappado's Exterminating and Burning men are your means and works of love You take a Bonfire or the Ashes of the Bodies of such as will not believe in the Pope to be a great Medicine to save the peoples Souls Such Murders as were done on the Albigenses Waldenses in the Inquisitions the French and Irish Massacres Smithfield Flames Piedmont c. are your proof that you love God and Man and some of your good works XIV Our Religion tendeth to holy consolation and a heavenly mind and life For it teacheth us how to be certain of Gods love by its effects on our Souls and to know that we are justified by Christ and to trust the sufficiency of his Sacrifice Merits and Intercession and to believe that when we are absent from the body we shall be present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5. 1. 7 8. and to desire to depart and be with Christ Phil. 1. 23. But yours leaveth a man uncertain of his Justification For you mostly deride such distinguished Fundamentals as received essentiate a justified Christian And your Doctors lay all mens necessary Religion and so their Peace upon their receipt of so much truth as hath been authentically proposed to them whereas no man living is certain that he hath received so much as hath been so proposed All men are guilty of neglecting some such Proposal at one time or other And gradual neglects the best are guilty of And you cannot ascertain men what is an authentick Proposal You also tell men of the necessity of their own satisfactions for the sin that Christ forgiveth and that in the Fire of Purgatory so that as is said before none such can dye comfortably that look to go hence into such a Fire where torment may make it hard to you to love God that tormenteth you It is a spirit of bondage that seemeth to actuate your very austerities and to turn your Religion into superstitious tasks of self-made Services Ceremonies and expectations of the expiating Flames in Purgatory But you shew too little of the Spirit of adoption of power love and a sound mind 2 Tim. 1. 7. of righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Ghost Rom. 14. Terrour and Torments are temptations to you to desire the miserablest life on Earth much more a life of pleasure rather than to dye when such Flames must next follow XV. We offer God such Worship as we can prove by his Word that he commandeth and accepteth and such reasonable service in spirit and truth which is not unsuitable to the Father of Spirits and God of wisdom yet using all reverent and decent behaviour of the body as well as of the mind But it would be hard to number over all the Humane inventions of Formalities and Rites and Ceremonies and Images and other arbitrary external things by which you have corrupted the Worship of God and hid the body in your new fashioned Cloathing which you pretended to adorn And as worldly minds do cumber themselves as Martha with many unnecessary things and then say Is it not lawful to do this and that while they hereby alienate the thoughts affections and time which should be laid out on the one thing needful so do you in Gods Worship make such abundance of work with your Ceremonies for thoughts affections and time as maketh it very difficult to give the great and spiritual part of Worship its proportion far beyond what Augustine Epist ad Januar. so much complained of in his time and then think you justifie all if you can say How prove you this or that unlawful As if your Servant should instead of his work play at Cards most of the day and ask you How you prove it unlawful You never well studyed 2 Cor. 11. 3. I 〈◊〉 lest by any means as the Serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ nor Col. 2. 18 19 20. 22 23. nor Act. 15. 28. nor Rom. 14 and 15. nor Ioh. 4. 20 21. An ignorant Woman set upon Christ just as you pervert all holy discourse with turning all to Which is the true Church Our Fathers Worshipped in this Mountain and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men should Worship But Christ answereth you in her The true Worshippers shall Worship the Father in spirit and in truth For the Father seeketh such to worship him God is a Spirit c. Those that by Custom be not ingaged in your way of numerous Formalities and bodily actions can hardly think that you are spiritually and seriously worshipping God or can believe that Infinite Wisdom would be pleased with such things as I am loth to denominate or describe XVI Our Religion teacheth us that without Holiness none shall see God and none but the Pure in Heart and Life are blessed and if any man have not the sanctifying spirit of Christ he is none of his and that God must be loved above all and our treasure heart and conversation must be in Heaven and none but Saints are saved I think you deny none of this And yet you Canonize a Saint as if he were a wonder or rarity and you call a few sequestred Votaries Religious as if all that will be saved must not be religious And your Doctors are permitted to teach all that 's cited in the Jesuites Morals and Mr. Clarkson fore-cited Even that it is not commanded that God be intensively loved above all Tolet. li. 4. de Instruct Sacerdot c. 9. see our Morton Apolog part 1. l. 2. c. 13. Stapleton l. 6. de Justif c. 10. Valent l. de Votis c. 3. This Precept of loving God with all the mind is doctrinal not obligatory see my Key chap. 33 34. 38. And yet you have the Fronts to perswade men that we are for only Imputative Holiness and against good works
should on such Terms be of one Religion They believe Socrates and Sozomen who tell us of the great diversity of Rites and Orders in the ancient Churches which all consisted with the same Religion Faith and Love They abhor the Principle of hating persecuting yea and separating from one another for such differences as will unavoidably adhere to the imperfect condition of Christians here on Earth At this time in England a considerable part if not the far greatest of the silenced Ministers are for the Primitive Episcopacy and some Liturgie as you may see in their offer of A. Bishop Usher's Reduction to the King and their desires of a reformed Liturgie Among the old Non-conformists there were divers degrees such as Dr. Regnolds Mr. Perkins Dr. Humfrey Paul Bayn c. did yield to more than some others could do How can you tell then by the name of a Puritane what to charge any single Person with But it seemeth you take their Non-conformity in General and their temper of mind and life together But then you greatly wrong them and seem not at all to know what their Religion is There are two things which you say they mistake in 1. Their Doctrine of Imputed Righteousness and the Covenant and not solicitously endeavouring after the acquisition of Virtue because they trust to the Imputed Righteousness your words are too large to recite You partly here unworthily injure them by ascribing to them the very opinions and words of the Antinomians whom they have better confuted than ever you did And as to their Doctrine of Imputed Righteousness even Bellarmine in one sense owneth it And whether our sense be sound I provoke you to try particularly by your perusal of my own Writings on that Subject especially a late Treatise of Justifying Righteousness and Imputation and a Treatise called Catholick Theologie In which if there be nothing which you dare or can confute judge whether your meer derision of Imputative Righteousness be not delusory If you dare say that you trust not to Christs Sacrifice and meritorious perfect righteousness as procuring you pardon and life Jus ad Impunitatem Regnum Coelorum enjoy your self-confidence while you can But if you say in this as we then make publick Confession of the injury of your reproach of such Imputed Righteousness as you trust your salvation upon your self I imagine you will say that my judgment is no certain signification of the judgment of the Puritans for I am singular and therefore what I say in these Books is no proof of the sense of the Non-conforming Puritans But 1. my judgment of their sense is as good as yours 2. Do you know of any one Nonconformist that hath published any dissent to what I have written Dr. Tully was a Conformist 3. You profess before to borrow the name Puritan from the Prelatists And I have this to say for my Authority in declaring the sense of Puritans that one or more whose genius is of kin to the Roman but far less mild than yours who are Prelatical or super-Prelatical have about 17 years ago being Masters of that Language branded me with the Name of Purus putus Puritanus qui totum Puritanismum totus spirat The Pseudo-Tilenus hath just the same stile as the late Unmasker of the Presbyterians who revileth modest judicious pious and peaceable J. Corbet and in the most ingenious strain of wrath and malice doth valiantly militate against Love Therefore Prelatists being Judges I may as credibly as another tell you what is the Puritan Judgment 2. Your second accusation of the Puritan is that He begins to quarrel with all external Worship and Ceremonies But this is also spoken ignorantly and untruly You before mistook the Antinomian for the Puritan and here you seem to take the Separatist for the Puritan Read the Reformed Liturgy and other Papers offered at the Savoy to the Bishops and you may see that though they are not for silencing excommunicating and damning men for a Ceremony nor for making as many Religions as there are differences about Ceremonies yet they are for doing all things to edification decently and in order and for external as well as internal Worship of God As knowing that the Body is his and made to Worship him as well as the Soul and therefore should fall down and kneel before him and reverently and holily behave it self in his Service You say p. 5. He is much confirmed in this his imagination by considering the open profaneness and little sense of God he observeth generally in zealous Conformists And on the other side he taketh notice of his Brethren the Non-conformists that they are generally free from open and scandalous sins and at least sigh and breath after interior spirit and devotion which certainly must be that must give us a title to Heaven rather than a few Cringes and exterior Verbal Devotions which any one though never so prophane may easily exercise 1. But do you not here and in your former description quite contradict your self when you charge them as neglecting inherent righteousness 2. We are not so foolish as not to know that the unreverent hypocritical abuse of Gods external Worship by others whosoever will not excuse us for neglecting it Of the Conformists we must speak anon 3. By the way I would you could impartially consider if the Puritans be so good men as you fairly confess them to be what the reason is that Papists generally are far more fiery against them than against those whom you speak so meanly of as Prelatical Protestants Remember how your Writer after the London Fire answered by Dr. Lloid did flatter these as more suitable to the Papists genius in comparison of the Puritans And the Unmasker against J. Corbet will tell you out of Watson an honourable Witness hanged for Treason in Cobham's c. Conspiracy how bad the Puritans are comparing them with the Jesuites And if your Laws took place in England what abundance of these Puritans would you make Bonfires of yea your own Relations were not like to scape you They have told me to my face how quickly they would otherwise silence me than the Prelates do if I were in their power And the Decrees De Haereticis comburendis exterminandis more fully tell it us Yea whence is it that most certain experience proveth it that by how much the nearer any Protestants genius is to the Papists by so much the more bloody cruel malicious or slanderous and unmerciful he is to the Puritanes You 'll say for both that it is because the Puritans are most against them and Interest ruleth the World But I answer 1. God's Interest is highest with every true Christian 2. I confess it 's true that Puritans are most against Popery But truly as far as I have been acquainted with them they are not most against your Persons nor would have any injustice or cruelty exercised against you But the fear of your Faggots or Powder-Plots and such
Spiritual Body is extensive and invisible to us cannot tell you where it is present or absent no more than of an Angel 2. But we all hold as a piece of Plate or Silver Barrs is really and truly turned into the Kings Coine so the Bread and Wine is really and truly turned into Christs Sacramental Body and Blood and yet one is Silver and the other is Bread and Wine still The change is true but Relative by its Separation to that holy use as a Common person may be Really Changed into a King or a Lord or a Judge or a Captain or a Bishop or a Doctor and yet be a man still This real change we all Confess But the question is whether there be no Bread V. You say The Prelatick Protestant wonders that the Puritan when he is going out of this world should find difficulty to make a particular Confession of his sins if any grievous matter lye on his Conscience and humbly desire the Prelatick Priests absolution saying c. Answ I know of no difference between the Prelatist and the Puritan about Confession or Absolution Dr. John Reynolds a true Puritan received Absolution before he dyed Meer Puritans believe that it is a duty to Confess our sins to men 1. In Case of such injury to any as must have a Confession towards the injured persons Satisfaction and forgiveness 2. In Case of such difficulty about either the nature of the sin or Consequent dangers or dutyes as make a particular Guide necessary who cannot resolve our doubts till he know the Case 3. In Case that the Conscience be so burdened with the sin as that the sinner cannot by other means find ease till he have disburdened himself by such Confession 4. In Case it be necessary to heal any scandal given to others It is a very great duty for drunkards fornicators deceivers and such others to go to their Companions and lament their sin and perswade them no more to do as they have done And if required by the Pastors to take publick shame before the Congregation and acknowledg that the doctrine of Christ never countenanced them in any such sin that Religion and the Church may not bear the reproach of their delinquency And to beg the prayers of the Congregation for their pardon and that the Pastor by virtue of his office will pronounce it But we are not ashamed to confess that neither Puritans nor Prelatists think it lawful to make the people believe that they must needs tell the Priest of all the sins that they commit and dutyes that they omit Nor to uphold pragmatical Priests in the trade of knowing all mens thoughts and secret actions even Princes by which they may betray them 1. The number of people and of their sins is so great as render it impossible In this Parish it 's thought there is above threescore thousand souls How many thousand sinful thoughts or words or deeds a great part of these may commit in a year I leave to your Conjecture only I must tell you that if all men High and Low that are called Papists about us should but tell the Priest of every time they are drunk and every Fornication they have committed every prophane Oath they have sworn every Lye they have told especially against the Protestants and of every filthy and prophane Word that they have spoken and every Oppression of the poor and every filthy or covetons thought that hath been in their hearts they had need of a very Traditional Memory to remember them or great plenty of Ink and Paper to record them and a whole Diocess of Clergy-men in one Parish to hear them How many hundred Priests must this Parish have if all should thus confess all sins of Commission and Omission every cold Prayer and omitted Prayer Exhortation Alms Example c. especially the great Omissions of the Soul in the defects of the exercise of Faith Hope Love and Patience c. 2. And what good will it do a man that is himself of sound understanding and integrity to open his Conseience to an ignorant or unconscionable man that will call evil good and good evil and will put him upon sin as you here do by your Relations or that dare himself sin as boldly as you here do when you accuse Puritans and Prolates as holding meer Imputed Holiness 3. And how great a temptation and injury may this be to your Priests in such instances as Montaltus the Jansenist mentioneth with which I will not defile my Paper when alas most of them are not men fit to bear such temptations What if twenty thousand People in one Parish should each make this Confession to a Papist Priest I am afraid I have sinned in believing the common Report that you are a very ignorant drunken sot and a common whoremaster and a proud covetous lying man would it not be like to enrage the Priest into an enmity against his Flock If all the Fornicators in such a Parish should tell such Priests of all their filthy thoughts and words and their immodest actions and actual Fornications how like were it to make such impressions on the poor Priests Phantasie as would pollute him with many filthy imaginations VI. You adde The Prelatick Protestant wonders at the Puritan's niceness that he can by no means be perswaded to bow at the Name of Jesus When Nature teacheth us a Relative Reverence c. The sound of the Name Jesus is vanished and gone before the superstitious Worshipper can make his mimical Congie Whereas the Picture a far more lively representation of the same great Lord remains Ans 1. The Puritans think it not unlawful to bow when God or Jesus are named But 1. They are loth to serve those men that would turn all serious Religion into a dead Image of it 2. And they like not bowing at the Name Jesus and not at the Name God or Christ or Immanuel or Jehovah or the Holy Ghost 2. As to Images I will but refer you to Dr. Stillingfleet's last Book against Godwin which hath fully proved that you use them as truly Idolatrously as did the Heathens VII Your next Instance is The Conformists rejecting the Popish Girdle Stole and Casuble and yet wondring at the Puritans rejecting the Surplice Ans The former Answers serve to this Some Puritans would use the Surplice if that would serve and satisfie But they see that if they say A first they must say B next and so on to the end of your Alphabet But still you tell us what great things your new Religion doth consist of and what great cause you had to turn from the Puritans to the Papists If you had known no more than Books can tell you and your Grandfather had not known better than Baronius himself what the Apostles did and instituted we should never have known that the Religion which is integrated by a Surplice Girdle Stole and Casuble had been herein Apostolical and not rather a novel thing VIII Your
imposed Form only fit and a third think as the meer Puritan that both having their Conveniences and Inconveniences there should be seasons for both And I pray you here tell me two things if you can 1. Whether the great difference of Liturgies which are the very Words and Order of the Churches Worship be not liker a difference of Religions than the colour of our cloaths or the meat we eat or the lighting of a Candle c. And yet do I need to tell you how many Liturgies are recorded in the Bibliotheca Patrum Yea that it was six hundred years and more before the Churches in one Empire used all one and the same Liturgy and for some hundred years that every Church used what the Bishop pleased Yea that the first restraint of free-praying that we find was by a Council ordaining that the Presbyter should first shew his Prayer to the Fathers that they might be sure it was sound And had Basil and Chrysostome and all others that varyed as divers Religions as Liturgies 2. Whether all the doctrinal Controversies among your selves as between all your School Doctors about Predestination Grace and free will about Perseverance about the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary about the Power of the Pope over all Kings in Temporals and about the killing of excommunicate Kings and the absolving their Subjects and whether after excommunication they are Kings or no of which Hen. Fowlis hath cited great store on one side and all the Moral Controversies about loving God about Perjuries Vows Murder Fornication Lying Stealing Drunkenness Gluttony of which you may see great store in Montaltus's Letters The Mystery of Jesuitisme and Mr. Clarksons late Book called The Practical Divinity of the Church of Rome I say is not Religion as much concerned about all these differences and all the rest among you which make many Horse-loads yea I think Cart-loads of Volumes as it is in the colour of the Preachers Cloaths or the Meat he eateth And are not Protestants that is meer Christians disowning Popery as justifiable in their Unity and Charity for taking Men to be of the same Religion who use not the same Garments Gestures and Ceremonies and that bear with differences herein as your Church that beareth with all these loads of different Doctrines in your most Learned Famous Doctors and not in the weaker Priests alone even whether excommunicate Kings may be killed or no and whether the Pope hath Power to put down and set up Emperours and Kings If you say that your One Religion and One Church hath no such difference it must be by saying that you all agree to Gregory the seventh in Concil Rom. Innoc. 3. in Concil Lateran on the worser side and all own the Doctors cited by H. Fowlis aforesaid But indeed I must speak better of you even that some are of a better mind whom Goldastus hath gathered and preserved and divers of the Learned Men of France and some in Spain But we think the difference even between the Prelatists Presbyterians Independants yea and the moderate Anabaptists to be far less than these which your unanimous agreeing Church doth constantly bear with without Silencing Imprisoning Ejecting or Condemning or so much as disowning the judgments of the worser side He that readeth Parsons on one side and Watson's Quodlibets on the other Barclay and Witherington on one side and Zuarez and the far greater prevalent Party on the other will either wonder at the strength of your Unity which no doctrinal differences even about the Blood of Kings can at all dissolve or else he may wonder at the laxe and sandie temperament of such Protestants as cannot bear with a Man that readeth not in their Book and singeth not in their Tune and is still crying out against others as Sectaries because they have piped to them and they have not danced and such as no Man can live quietly within reach of unless they swallow every Morsel which they cut for them having Throats neither wider or at least no narrower than theirs As if King Henry the eighth's days were the measure of true Discipline when one Man was burnt for being too far from Popery and another hanged or beheaded for being Popish and it was hard to know the middle Region and harder to know how long it would be calm till strangers cryed Deus bone quomodo hic vivunt Gentes But as none are more cruel in Wars than Cowards nor in Robberies than Women nor any more gentle and pitiful than valiant experienced Souldiers so few are so insolent and bloody obtruders of their Dictates and Wills upon the World as those that being least able to prove them good have nothing but Inquisitions and Prisons Silencings and Banishings Fire and Faggot effectually to make them good But if St. James be in the right who saith that Pure Religion and undefiled is this to visit the Fatherless and Widows in their adversity and to keep our selves unspotted of the World then certainly the Jesuits Morals and the Mystery of Jesuitism and Clarkson's Roman Practical Divinity and Fowlis's Treasons of the Papists contain more of the concerns of Religion than preaching in a consecrated or unconsecrated place and than eating Flesh Fish or neither in Lent or on Fridays doth O the strange difference between your Unity and Concord and the Protestants How fast is yours How loose is ours And it is to be considered we pretend not to so much perfection in this world as ever to expect that all Men should be just of the same Size and Complexion or speak the same Language or have all the same Opinions Thoughts or Words If we can keep the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace in the seven Points named by the Apostle Eph. 4. 3 4 5 6. so far as we have attained do walk by the same Rule of Love and Peace and mind the same things till God reveal more to such as differ Phil. 3. we shall be glad of such a measure of Union For we believe it impossible to be perfect in Concord while most yea all are so wofully imperfect in Knowledge Faith Love and Obedience We wait for perfection of all in Heaven and we find that few things in the World ever did so much against Unity as pretending to more than is to be hoped for and laying ill on so high terms and so many as we know will never be received Therefore our Mutual Love and forbearance with different Forms and Circumstances is agreeable to the Principles of our Religion But for you that pretend to Unity Concord and Infallible Judgement to tolerate Cart-loads of Doctrinal Controversies divers Expositions of many hundred Texts of Scripture divers readings of the Text it self contrary Doctrines about God's Grace about all the Ten Commandments about the Estates and Lives of Kings and never so much as to condemn either side nor silence the Preachers never imprison them or banish them five miles from Cities and