Old Religion which God revealed at first and which Christ and his Apostles taught That is truest which was the first saith Tertullian and that was first which was from the beginning So S. Cyprian We ought not to regard so much what some others before us have thought fit as what Christ himself who was before all hath done Now if that be the Old Religion which is taught in the Holy Scripture and the Creed herein the Religion of Rome cannot pretend to be Older than the Religion of this Church because we hold all these Articles as well as they yea if the case be rightly stated the Church of Englands Faith is the Old Religion and not that of Rome for she professeth To believe nothing as an Article of Faith but what is read in Holy Scripture or may be proved thereby Artic vi But the Roman Church declares They receive Traditions with the same veneration that they do the Scriptures Concil Trident. Sess 4. So that we hold all the Principles of the Old Religion and no other but they under the pretence of Traditions have invented and added many points to the Old Religion which are not mentioned in the Bible and Decreed other Articles contrary to the Old Religion recorded in Scripture and all these are a New Religion and yet these are the Doctrines in which we differ In all the Principles which are truly the Old Religion we and they generally do agree but if you take the Religion of the Roman Church for the Doctrines in which they differ from us it may be justly said they are of the New Religion and we of the Old since our Religion was recorded in Scripture sixteen hundred years ago as our Adversaries seem to confess when they call us Scriptuarii Scripture-men Prateol whereas all that which is properly their Religion is of much later Date And that I may not be thought to invent this Charge or to accuse the Roman Church wrongfully I will instance in the most principal of the Doctrines wherein we differ and bring in your own Doctors as Witnesses of this Truth 1. That Prayers to the Saints are not mentioned by Christ nor his Apostles is confessed by Salmeron Lindan and Bannes Etherianus saith as much of Prayers for the Dead Indulgences are not to be found in Scripture nor in the Ancient Doctors say Durandus Major Cajetan and Antoninus Transubstantiation it self cannot be proved by Scripture if you will take three Cardinals words for it And if our designed brevity would allow it the like might be proved of all the rest But we must proceed to shew there are some New things in the Romish Religion directly contrary to the Scripture The taking the Cup from the Laity is contrary to our Saviours Institution as that very Council of Constance confesseth which first enjoyned it for they say the Sacrament shall be given in one kind only to the people Non obstante c. notwithstanding our Lord did appoint it in both Concil Constant Sess 13. And your own Authentick Vulgar Translation as if this Innovation had been foreseen where the Greek only hath We are all partakers of one bread adds de uno Calice and of one Cup 1 Cor. 10. 17. The Veneration which you give to Images seems to all impartial eyes directly contrary to the Second Commandement and though your Priests will not directly confess it yet their general leaving out the Second Commandement in your Catechisms and cutting the Tenth in Two to keep up the number and conceal the omission from the Vulgar is a fair Evidence they themselves suspected that this Commandement made against them and feared others would apprehend it so To these you may add Praying in an unknown Tongue which S. Paul condemns in one whole Chapter 1 Corinth xiv as some of your own Commentators on the place confess As also the making Saints and Angels your Mediators to God when the same Apostle positively saith There is but one Mediator viz. Christ Jesus 1 Tim. ii 5. All these therefore cannot rightly be accounted any part of the Old Religion properly so called But if we shall descend lower these and many other Points of your Religion are so far from being the Old Religion that the Writers of the Roman Church do acknowledge they were not known to the Primitive Fathers yea they record the very time when most of them were imposed The Doctrine of Purgatory was first built upon the Credit of those fabulous Dialogues attributed to Gregory the First or if they were his which many doubt this was six hundred years after Christ and it was not generally believed in the Church five hundred years after as we learn from an Old Historian Otto Frising Chronic. An. 1146. And as for the Prayers made to deliver Souls from thence that gainful Article of your Church we are told by your own Authors that the first who caused them to be appointed by your Church was Odilo Abbot of Clugny An. 1000. The worshipping of God by Images was not allowed by the Ancient Fathers say your own Authors Clemangis Polyd. Virgil and Peresius Aiala And all men know this kind of use of Images can be derived no higher as to its being Decreed than that despicable Council in the Eighth Century but both the Doctrine and the Council also was rejected for many years after by the French English and German Churches Indulgences are not Ancient as Bishop Fisher confesses Nor is there any good proof in your own Authors for them before the time of Pope Alexander 3. A. 1160 or the Council of Clermont however An. 1096 And the first who made Mony of them was Boniface 9 th An. 1390. as Platina and Polydore Virgil tell us And the first Jubilee the great Market for them was not an hundred years before The forcing all Priests to vow Single Life and renounce their Wives was first obtruded upon the Church by Pope Hildebrand Without any Precedent saith an Old Historian and as many thought of an indiscreet Zeal contrary to the Holy Fathers Opinion And yet he was not obeyed here in England in this for above a hundred years after for our Ancient Records say All these Decrees availed nothing for the Priests by the Kings consent still had their Wives as formerly Auricular Confession to a Priest was never imposed as necessary until the Lateran Council It being little above fifty years before that we are informed by the famous Master of the Sentences and by Gratian your great compiler of the Decrees that it was in our choice whether we would confess to God only or to the Priest also and T. Aquinas confesseth this was the Opinion then Transubstantiation the discriminating Doctrine of your present Church was not held by the Fathers as your own Doctors acknowledge and one of the Infallible Heads of your Church affirms That the Elements cease not to be of
the substance and nature of Bread and Wine The Schoolmen confess Transubstantiation is not Ancient And two of the most famous of them plainly deny it The Administring the Sacrament in One kind is no older than the Council of Constance as was noted before the practice of the whole Church and of Rome it self being otherwise till then Finally many things were never decreed and imposed as necessary to be believed till the late Council of Trent such as the equalling Apocryphal books and Traditions to the undoubted Canon of Scripture Justification by the merit of Good works c. Which Council of Trent was never fully owned by the Catholicks of France Nor was it ever received as a lawful Council by this English Nation It would be too tedious to run over all the rest of those Points wherein the Roman differs from the English Church or else it might be shewed that the Appeals to Rome and the Pope's Vniversal claim Veneration of Relicks Invocation of the Blessed Virgin Pilgrimages c. were wholly unknown to the three first Centuries as the ingenuous Romanists will confess and our Writers have largely proved By all which it appears that the Old Religion of Rome for the first three hundred years had no formal Invocation of Saints nor Angels no Purgatory nor Prayers to be delivered thence no Images no Transubstantiation no half Communion no Jubilees no Indulgences ' no constrained Coelibate no Prayers in an unknown Tongue no customary Auricular Confession no Apocrypha in her Canon of Scripture nor the rest Now if you strip your Church of these Doctrines she retains scarce any thing but the Protestant Articles of the Church of England But if you take Rome with these Additions her Religion is not so Old by far as the Religion of this Church Perhaps it will be pretended Though these Decrees were made in later Ages yet the Determinations were made by vertue of Apostolical Traditions preserved in the Roman Church from the very beginning and upon this Pretence your Late Writers of Controversie have generally laid aside all Arguments from Scripture and Ancient Fathers and resolve all into Oral Tradition and the Infallibility of the Roman Church But what is this but to confess that the Scriptures the Ancient Fathers and all written Records which are Impartial witnesses do make against them only these unknown Traditions which are only in their own keeping and may be of their own devising these they say bear witness for them which is to make themselves Judges in their own Cause and may justly occasion your enquiry whether the former Popes knew of these Traditions or no if not how then came the later Popes to the knowledge of them If they knew of them of old why did they let them sleep so long and suffer the Church to erre for so many years for want of them Did they discharge their Vniversal Headship well in this Concealment But in very truth it is Evident the first Popes knew of no such Traditions and the later Popes have invented them to support their New designs which appears by the Ancient Popes declaring directly contrary to these pretended Apostolical Traditions of which take a few Examples Pope Gaius writes That the Righteousness of the Saints avails nothing to our Pardon or Justification Pope Gelasius denies Transubstantiation as was noted just now The famous Gregory the Great saith He himself was the Emperors Servant and owed him obedience and declares That God had given the Emperor power over Priests as well as others The same Pope disowns the Title of Vniversal Bishop as unfit for him or any other He also determines that it is lawful for Priests who cannot contain to marry And he allows Images for History and Memory only A later than he also in the Canon Law Decrees that in such Diocess where there be people of Divers Languages The Bishop shall provide fit men to celebrate Divine offices and Minister the Sacraments of the Church according to the diversity of Rites and variety of their Languages Decretal Greg. l. 1. Tit. 31. cap. 14. The aforesaid Pope Gregory the First affirms that the Book of Maccabees is not Canonical And as well the Ordinary Gloss as the Old Editions of the Bibles which were allowed by the Roman Bishops and used in that Church before the Council of Trent do all distinguish between the Canonical Books and those which the Protestant Church now call Apocrypha Yet the contrary to all these hath been afterwards decreed upon pretence of being Apostolical Traditions By which account you may see if your Prejudices hinder not that the present Roman Church as it differs from the Church of England retains neither the Old Religion of the Scriptures nor that of the Primitive Church in general nay nor that of the Ancient Church of Rome for they have omitted some Points added others and altered so many that though Rome keep the Old Name it doth not keep the Old Faith We may now seek Rome in the midst of Rome as Juvencus Vitalis said Nor can it be denied saith Another but the Roman Church is not a little different from its Ancient beauty and splendor There is not the Faith the Manners nor the Worship of the Primitive Roman Church and therefore according to S. Ambrose They that have not Peter ' s Faith cannot succeed to Peter ' s Inheritance and as S. Hierome observes They are not the Sons of the Saints who possess their places but they which follow their Works And That only saith Lactantius is the Catholick Church which retains the true Worship of God You might have seen and heard in Rome of Old a Bishop without a Triple Crown or the Title of Vniversal Churches without Images Priests under no Vows of Single life Litanies without any names of Saints or Ora pro nobis the Mass celebrated in a known Tongue Bibles calling divers books Apocrypha which are now reckoned Canonical Scripture People not enslaved by Auricular Confession not debarred of the Cup not frighted with Purgatory nor impoverished with purchasing Prayers and Indulgences to save them from thence c. To conclude therefore Why may you not justly desert them who have in so many things departed from the Old Religion taught by Christ and his Apostles believed by the Ancient Fathers and received by the first and best Bishops of that same Church If you desire to be really of the Old Religion nay if you would hold the Faith of the Primitive Roman Church you may come much nearer to it by embracing the Religion of your own Country than by retaining the Opinions of the Modern Church of Rome which are most of them meer Innovations And though you have reverenced them while you supposed them Ancient and Apostolical yet we hope you will now renounce them when they are evidently discovered to be Gibeonites disguised on purpose to deceive and
if they be tolerably good or less wicked than other men are Papyr Masson in Vit. Julii 31 An. 1550 and the rest of his Clergy and People are suitable for It cannot be dissembled saith a late exact Observer that the whole Country is strangely overflowd with Wickedness with filthiness of Speech with beastliness of Actions both Governors and Subjects both Priests and Fryers each striving as it were with other in an Impudentness therein Europ Spec. p. 27. But I will not pursue this most ungrateful Subject which I profess I do not relate out of any envy or delight in telling such sad stories but I am forced to say these unpleasing Truths to rescue your Souls from those who serve the ends of their Ambition and Covetousness out of your Devotion from those who perswade you to call that Religion which maintains them in the highest plenty and luxury from those who Decree that Good works merit Salvation not because they believe this Doctrine for if they did they would do more Goodworks themselves but because this Perswasion among the people fills the Churches Treasures and hath made the Old Pious and poor Priests and Deacons of Rome Illustrious Cardinals who in Magnificence and Pomp dare vye with the greatest Estates of Christendom and their Great Master scorns to have Kings and Emperors thought his Equals Wherefore when you have duly weighed all this and considered the Pride and insatiable Avarice of the Roman Church and withal observed how all the Doctrines in which they differ from us tend meerly to advance these ends you cannot think it unlikely that such men with such designs should alter and add to their Old Faith especially when you hear S. Paul say The love of Mony is the root of all evil which while some coveted after they have erred from the Faith 1 Tim. vi 10. It is nothing that is truly Ancient or really good that we perswade you to renounce but Novel Policies and Devices which minister to Secular designs and you ought to account him your Friend who would rescue you from this abuse and perswade you into that Church whose Principles are Primitive plain and honest whose Clergy are content with the Revenues which the Laws of the Land allow them having none of these Vnchristian Artifices of extraordinary gains nor no design to teach you any Doctrines but such as will make you good and direct you in the way to Heaven SECTION III. Whether the said Opinions were not established by evil means THe next Enquiry is By what means these New Doctrines became so generally believed And here first we may note your Church hath good reason to use this Proverb Ignorance is the Mother of Devotion because the wretched blindness of those Ages wherein these Opinions were propagated did hugely contribute to their Reception for it is not to be denied that from the time of the decay of the Western Empire and the Irruptions of the Goths and Vandals into Europe there began to be a great decay of Learning and Barbarism crept in by degrees which is evident by the different style and way of writing which the later Fathers use in comparison of those who lived in the first four or five Centuries and at length this Ignorance became so universal That the study of the liberal Arts was generally laid aside as an Old Historian complains and that Age which bred many of these Errors is commonly by your own Writers called The Obscure Age being wholly without any persons eminent for Wit or Learning the very inferior Priests being not able to translate an Epistle into Latin which Aegyptian darkness continued in all the Western world till a few years before the Reformation as your own Espencaeus confesseth Now this gross stupidity must needs make the World apt and easie to be abused with the most absurd and monstrous Doctrines for Ignorance is the Mother of all Errors as an Old Council affirms and not of true Devotion as you now pretend This made way for the Politick Guides of Rome to impose such Opinions on the Church as might best serve their own ends These Tares were sowed while men slept Matth. xiii 25. and there were many Circumstances concurring in those unlucky Ages which contributed to the furthering the Roman designs the withdrawing of the Emperors into the East and first the Decay of the Western Empire then the destruction of the Eastern and the desolation of all the famous Oriental Churches by the spreading Inundation of Turks and Saracens so that the Pope had neither Emperor nor Patriarch for a long time that could oppose him the Miseries of all Christendom giving him opportunity to make himself the sole Governor of these Parts of the World and none were able to contend with him though many complain'd of his Vsurpation Johan Sarisburiensis telling Adrian 4 th who asked him what men thought of the Roman Church That they esteemed it a Stepmother not a Mother and the Pope of Rome himself was grievous to all and almost intolerable I shall not now be so tedious to you as to relate how this Church by force and by taking all advantages did attempt to suppress all that did oppose her Impositions and Grandeur what wars the Popes raised against the German Emperors what occasions they took to enslave the Greek Church when they petitioned for relief against the conquering and cruel Turks what Persecutions they raised against the Albigenses Bohemians and Wicklevists and how they destroyed all that resisted their Innovations with Fire and Sword only desiring you to remark That the Roman Church was the first Author of putting men to death for that which they call Heresy A practice wholly differing from the Rules of Christianity from the Opinion and Practice of the Ancient Church It being a New and unheard of way of Preaching saith your S. Gregory to force men by stripes to believe yet by Fire and Fagot the modern Church of Rome affrights the World into the Embracing these Articles or by Inquisitions and Racks awes them into silence not daring to question them Her Greatness Riches Interest and Severity to Opposers hath been one means to obtrude the belief of her gainful Articles upon men and her Policies and Frauds have been another for you cannot think it unlikely that they who have so little Piety as to turn Religion into Policy should have so little honesty as to equivocate for the defence of their Politick Religion and verily the Ignorance and Credulity of those blind Ages were such that your Church never sought for solid Arguments to confirm their New Decrees but built them usually upon Fictions and proved them by notorious Forgeries and accounted this way of proceeding not only lawful but Pious so that whosoever reads those Discourses of your Jesuites in defence of these Deceits called by them Piae fraudes will conclude the High-Priests of Rome-Christian as well as Rome-Heathen to have been of Opinion
only serve to fill up so great a space of Time in the Catalogue of Roman Bishops And a Writer who lived in those Times tells us The World was amazed at the Manners of the Romans It is strange saith another Historian how far in that Age they were degenerated from the Piety of the Old Popes This Age as Another speaks was especially unhappy in this that for about an hundred and fifty years there were fifty Popes wholly fallen from the Vertue of their Predecessors being disorderly and Apostatical rather than Apostolical And if our brevity would permit it we could shew out of Platina Onuphrius and Others of your own Writers that there was no Reformation in all the Ages while these New Doctrines were in coyning Now it is the Great Philosopher's observation That Wickedness is destructive of good Principles So that it is no wonder if in such Decays of Piety and such a flood of Iniquity the Roman Church did bring in many New Articles suitable to her Manners and I think when Pride Luxury and Covetousness possess the Chair we can hardly expect any other Laws but such as shall gratifie these affections And the Practices as well as the Decrees of Rome for divers of the latter Centuries have so apparently tended this way that it hath been taken notice of by all those of her own Communion whose affection hath not rob'd them of their discerning Powers yea even in Catholick Countries it hath abated much of the Reverence formerly paid to that See by reason the designs thereof are so apparently Secular tending not to the Salvation of Souls but the support of their own Grandeur Which makes me admire our English Romanists should hug their Chains and adore those who abuse their well-meaning Devotion with Articles of Faith serving rather to carry on the Designs of the Imposers than the Salvation of their over credulous Believers Methinks an easie apprehension might discover that the Roman Guides govern you by Principles that have more of Machiavel in them than of Conscience or Gospel-simplicity and a little consideration will inform you that those things which they teach you to call Religion are Arts to enslave and impoverish you and Engines to advance themselves to the highest pitch of honour and abundance S. Bernard though a great friend to the Roman Church saw this when he said At Rome all regard is given to Honour but to Holiness none at all Were this the fault of particular mens Evil management from which no Society is free it were more excusable but there are Doctrines added to the Old Catholick Faith even most of the Tenets wherein they differ from the Church of England which are plain Artifices to increase the power and wealth of Rome Doctrines for which they dispute with us upon Demetrius's Principle because thereby they have their gain Act. xix 25. And many think the Guides of your Church contend for some of these Principles not because they believe them but because it is their Interest the people should be perswaded of them which makes them secretly laugh at their Credulity who will be imposed on by them as that great Cardinal did when he gave the People who flocked about him his Benediction in these words Qui vult decipi decipiatur And it is a vile suspicion of this which we may gather from that observation of Hospinian That in Italy the name Christian is used for an Ideot or Fool But to be more particular let us look over some Instances of such New Doctrines as are taught in the Roman Church for Secular ends We begin with the Doctrine of Implicit Faith or believing as the Church believes a Doctrine unknown in S. Cyrils time who speaking to his young Christians Bids them not meerly believe the things he spoke because he affirmed them unless he did demonstrate them to be so out of the Divine Scripture And truly this Novel Doctrine may agree with Pythagoras's Ipse dixit and is a good shelter for Paganism the best Argument for which Balbus saith is this That he had received it from his Fore-fathers The Jewish Rabbins told their Disciples They must believe whatever they taught them though they should say that their right hand was their left and it was becoming enough in Apelâ—es the Heretick to charge his seduced Scholars not to examine his Principles by Reason But it is below the Honour of true Religion to desire to be taken upon Trust so that this Doctrine is a policy of your Priests to secure their evil Principles from being enquired into and a device to make you depend on them as Infallible Oracles who can by this means lead you blind-fold whither they will and impose any thing on you which serves their Interest under the pretence of true Religion 2. Auricular Confession to a Priest was voluntary of Old and only used in case of a troubled Conscience or a strong Temptation But it is now made necessary at stated times in all probability to make the Priest master of every mans Secrets to discover the least inclination of their Proselytes to leave them to keep the Laity in awe and make them venerate and depend upon their Spiritual Guide who hereby hath them at his Mercy And their Doctors do affirm that in some cases it is lawful to discover what is revealed to them in Confession especially if it concern the Roman Church And thus they have an Intelligencer in the breast of every Great man of their Communion The Exempting the Regular Clergy from their Lawful Bishops Jurisdiction which S. Bernard complains of as an unjust thing And the freeing Ecclesiasticks from their Natural Princes Authority is that the Pope may have Subjects numerous and potent to give Intelligence and abet his Interest in the bowels of all Kingdoms The Popes Supremacy Appeals to Rome the Collation of Benefices and other Preferments the Creating their Maker in the Mass with many others do all aim at the Honour of the Church of Rome and the making its most inferior Priests revered But because the Honour of the Church of Rome cannot be maintained without vast riches it is obvious to all that many of their New Doctrines and Practices have been introduced with design to fill the Churches Treasuries or if Ignorance and Superstition were the Mother of these gainful Devices it is certain Covetousness hath been an officious Nurse unto them As in the case of Purgatory and Prayers to deliver Souls from thence a Novel fancy feared and suspected at first by some but countenanced and Decreed by that Church thereby to oblige the people to give liberally for themselves or their deceased Friends to those who sell their Prayers so commonly that they occasioned that Proverb No penny no Pater Noster It is impossible to reckon the vast sums that this Opinion brings in for so many Masses Dirige's Requiems for those Trentals Obits and Anniversaries which the deluded Romanists purchase
but must be confessed to aim at the present and future happiness of all that we shall address our selves to in this Matter And I shall rejoyce if my pains herein may attain these blessed ends and let you particularly understand how gladly I would encourage your Love to the Church of England and comply with all your Pious desires since I am Sir Your affectionate and faithful Friend Friendly and Seasonable ADVICE TO THE Roman Catholicks OF ENGLAND The Introduction My Friends and Country-men IT is observed by others and complained of by your selves That you lie under many inconveniences by reason of your stiff adherence to those Opinions which Rome calls Religion the charges you are at to maintain a forreign Jurisdiction and your want of the Communion of those Christians among whom you live the uneasie Rites imposed on you here and the great hazard of your Salvation hereafter are reckoned by others to be evils appendant to your professing the Faith of that Church But if you your selves do not feel or not fear these things and so account them no grievance yet you are sensible of other pressures and frequently complain that your Estates are obnoxious to the penalties of the Law and your Persons exposed to the general hatred of the People You tell us you want many Priviledges of other Subjects and lie under many burthens from which others are free You perceive that your actions are observed your designs suspected and your Party accused to be the cause of all Publick evils How far some of your own Perswasion have contributed hereunto I shall not take upon me to judge esteeming it a more charitable employment to offer some expedient to free you from those sad effects which you complain of than either to enquire after the cause of the Nations general Antipathy to your Religion or dispute about the Occasion thereof Wherefore whilst some accuse your practices and others deride your worship I have so much affection for your Persons as my Countrymen and so much charity for your Souls since you bear the name of Christian as to present you with some useful Advice 'T is true the common apprehension concerning you might almost discourage such an Attempt it being generally believed that a Roman Catholicks prejudice is like theirs in St. Augustine who being descended of misbelieving Ancestors preferred their Extraction before the Truth and like the resolution of Cotta in Cicero who says That no discourse of either learned or unlearned men should ever remove him from the Opinion received from his Fore-fathers concerning the worship of the Immortal gods But I know many of you are masters of more reason than to ground your Faith upon so uncertain a Foundation It is not the part of wise men saith a learned Father to be enslaved to a received Opinion nor rashly to give up themselves to their Fathers customes but to endeavour to find out the Truth And it is the advice of the great Apostle to prove all things and hold fast that which is good 1 Thess 5. 21. because it is a zeal without knowledge and a foolish obstinacy to be confident of that which we never did examine I can easily believe your Spiritual Guides will esteem no sin more mortal than to enquire into those Principles which you receive from them and they will scarce allow you the liberty to peruse a few lines presented by so charitable a hand But their Prohibitions methinks should make you more suspicious and inquisitive and cause you to resolve to try that Coyn which shuns the Touchstone knowing that Truth seeks no Corners and that which is Real fears no Test The Church of England puts no such Restraints upon her adherents nor is she unwilling to have her Doctrines tried by Scripture and the best Antiquity because she finds those are her best Sons that have enquired most narrowly Evil needs a mask and a disguise said the brave Agesilaus but Light makes true goodness to be more illustrious and more lovely And a greater than he saith Every one that doth evil hateth the light neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved but he that doth turth cometh to the light S. John iii. 20. 21. If therefore you have but so much consideration as to suspect and so much courage as to examine I should not be without hope that my Advice might take place since as Plato notes Every soul is unwillingly deprived of Truth which men cannot resist when once it appears unto them I shall ask no more of you than to search impartially whether the Doctrines wherein you differ from the Church of England deserve so firm an assent as you give them and he that dares not do this is not a Disciple but a Slave It may be those Counsellours may please the heady Bigots of your Perswasion better who advise them to ease their mind by reproaching the Laws and the Government or to attempt the shaking off their Grievances by more desperate courses But I do not believe the wiser and more sober Romanists can approve such cursed motions there are many of them too noble to admit such thoughts It is the Stoicks character in Galen That they would rather betray their Country than renounce their Maxims But I take those of your Party to be generally of a better temper and therefore I hope you will account it to be far more Friendly and Seasonable Advice to try these your Principles strictly before you expose your Country or your Selves to suffer all the ill-consequences of your rigid maintaining of them and if you once rightly understand them I hope you will discern they do not deserve to be retained at so dear a rate so that it is possible you may resolve to quit your mistaken Opinions and your real Sufferings together However though your Enquiry shall not have this effect yet this Trial of your Principles ought not to be wholly declined for I would advise you to examine the Roman Doctrines if it were but only to declare that your Religion is not a blind and accidental choice and to vindicate your selves from the charge of the Old Samaritans who worshipped they knew not what SECTION 1. Whether the Roman Opinions which differ from the Church of England be the Old Religion I doubt not but these who have been educated in the Romish Religion as well as those who have inconsiderately turned to it do please themselves in fancying they are of the Old Religion and hence they assume and appropriate to themselves the Name of Catholicks upon this presumption that they do intirely and in all things agree with the Ancient and Universal Church But my Friends if you have the patience to enquire you will find there is no good ground for this perswasion it being evident the Roman is not the Old Religion in any other Articles but only in those which are found in the Apostles Creed or founded upon the plain words of Holy Scripture for that is the