called upon them to speak something against your religion from Scripture or right reason or Universal Tradition you had been secure as a Tortoise in her shell a Cart pressed with sheaves could not have oppressed your cause or person though you had confessed you understood nothing of the mysteries of succession doctrinal or personal For if we can make it appear that our religion was that which Christ and his Apostles taught let the truth suffer what eclipses or prejudices can be supposed let it be hid like the holy fire in the captivity yet what Christ and his Apostles taught us is eternally true and shall by some means or other be conveyed to us even the enemies of truth have been conservators of that truth by which we can confute their errors But if you still ask where it was before Luther I answer it was there where it was after even in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament and I know no warrant for any other religion and if you will expect I should shew any society of Men who professed all the doctrines which are now expressed in the confession of the Church of England I shall tell you it is unreasonable because some of our truths are now brought into our publick confessions that they might be oppos'd against your errors before the occasion of which there was no need of any such confessions till you made many things necessary to be professed which are not lawful to be believed For if we believe your superinduc'd follies we shall do unreasonably unconscionably and wickedly but the questions themselves are so useless abstracting from the accidental necessity which your follies have brought upon us that it had been happy if we had never heard of them more than the Saints and Martyrs did in the first ages of the Church but because your Clergy have invaded the liberty of the Church and multiplied the dangers of damnation and pretend new necessities and have introduc'd new articles and affright the simple upon new pretensions and slight the very institution and the Commands of Christ and of the Apostles and invent new Sacramentals constituting Ceremonies of their own head and promise grace along with the use of them as if they were not Ministers but Lords of the Spirit and teach for doctrines the commandments of men and make void the Commandment of God by their tradition and have made a strange body of Divinity therefore it is necessary that we should immure our Faith by the refusal of such vain and superstitious dreams but our faith was completed at first it is no other than that which was delivered to the Saints and can be no more for ever So that it is a foolish demand to require that we should shew before Luther a systeme of Articles declaring our sense in these questions It was long before they were questions at all and when they were made questions they remained so a long time and when by their several pieces they were determined this part of the Church was oppressed with a violent power and when God gave opportunity then the yoke was broken and this is the whole progress of this affair But if you will still insist upon it then let the matter be put into equal ballances and let them shew any Church whose confession of Faith was such as was obtruded upon you at Trent and if your Religion be Pius Quartus his Creed at Trent then we also have a question to ask and that is Where was your Religion before Trent The Council of Trent determined that the souls departed before the Day of Judgment enjoy the Beatifical Vison It is certain this Article could not be shewn in the Confession of any of the ancient Churches for most of the Fathers were of another opinion But that which is the greatest offence of Christendom is not only that these doctrines which we say are false were yet affirmed but that those things which the Church of God did always reject or held as uncertain should be made Articles of Faith and so become parts of your religion and of these it is that I again ask the question which none of your side shall ever be able to answer for you Where was your Religion before Trent I could instance in many particulars but I shall name one to you which because the thing of it self is of no great consequence it will appear the more unreasonable and intolerable that your Church should adopt it into the things of necessary belief especially since it was only a matter of fact and they took the false part too For in the 21. Sess. Chap. 4. it is affirmed That although the holy Fathers did give the Sacrament of the Eucharist to Infants yet they did it without any necessity of salvation that is they did not believe it necessary to their salvation which is notoriously false and the contrary is marked out with the black-lead of every man almost that reads their Works and yet your Council says this is fine controversiâ credendum to be believed without all controversie and all Christians forbidden to believe or teach otherwise So that here it is made an Article of Faith amongst you that a man shall neither believe his reason nor his eyes and who can shew any confession of Faith in which all the Trent doctrine was professed and enjoyned under pain of damnation and before the Council of Constance the Doctrine touching the Popes power was so new so decried that as Gerson says he hardly should have escaped the note of Heresie that would have said so much as was there defined so that in that Article which now makes a great part of your belief where was your Religion before the Council of Constance and it is notorious that your Council of Constance determined the doctrine of the half-communion with a Non obstante to Christ's institution that is with a defiance to it or a noted observed neglect of it and with a profession it was otherwise in the Primitive Church Where then was your Religion before John Hus and Hierom of Prague's time against whom that Council was convened But by this instance it appears most certainly that your Church cannot shew her confessions immediately after Christ and therefore if we could not shew ours immediately before Luther it were not half so much for since you receded from Christ's Doctrine we might well recede from yours and it matters not who or how many or how long they professed your doctrine if neither Christ nor his Apostles did teach it so that if these Articles constitute your Church your Church was invisible at the first and if ours was invisible afterwards it matters not For yours was invisible in the days of light and ours was invisible in the days of darkness For our Church was always visible in the reflections of Scripture and he that had his eyes of faith and reason might easily have seen these truths all the way which constitute our Church But
all the points of difference between us and your Church are such as do evidently serve the ends of Covetousness and ambition of power and riches and so stand vehemently suspected of design and art rather than truth of the Article and designs upon Heaven I instance in the Pope's power over Princes and all the World his power of dispensation The exemption of the Clergy from jurisdiction of Princes The Doctrine of Purgatory and Indulgences which was once made means to raise a portion for a Lady the Neece of Pope Leo the Tenth The Priests power advanced beyond authority of any warrant from Scripture a doctrine apt to bring absolute obedience to the Papacy but because this is possibly too nice for you to suspect or consider that which I am sure ought to move you is this That you are gone to a Religion in which though through God's grace prevailing over the follies of men there are I hope and charitably suppose many pious Men that love God and live good lives yet there are very many doctrines taught by your Men which are very ill Friends to a good life I instance in your Indulgences and pardons in which vitious men put a great confidence and rely greatly upon them The doctrine of Purgatory which gives countenance to a sort of Christians who live half to God and half to the World and for them this doctrine hath found out a way that they may go to Hell and to Heaven too The Doctrine that the Priests absolution can turn a trifling repentance into a perfect and a good and that suddenly too and at any time even on our Death-bed or the minute before your death is a dangerous heap of falshoods and gives licence to wicked people and teaches men to reconcile a wicked debauched life with the hopes of Heaven And then for penances and temporal satisfaction which might seem to be as a plank after the shipwrack of the duty of Repentance to keep men in awe and to preserve them from sinking in an Ocean of Impiety it comes to just nothing by your doctrine for there are so many easie ways of Indulgences and getting Pardons so many con-fraternities stations priviledg'd Altars little Offices Agnus Dei's amulets hallowed devices swords roses hats Church-yards and the fountain of these annexed indulgences the Pope himself and his power of granting what and when and to whom he list that he is a very unfortunate man that needs to smart with penances and after all he may choose to suffer any at all for he may pay them in Purgatory if he please and he may come out of Purgatory upon reasonable terms in case he should think it fit to go thither So that all the whole duty of Repentance seems to be destroyed with devices of Men that seek power and gain and find errour and folly insomuch that if I had a mind to live an evil Life and yet hope for Heaven at last I would be of your religion above any in the World But I forget I am writing a Letter I shall therefore desire you to consider upon the premises which is the safer way For surely it is lawful for a Man to serve God without Images but that to worship Images is lawful is not so sure It is lawful to pray to God alone to confess him to be true and every Man a liar to call no man Master upon Earth but to rely upon God teaching us But it is at least hugely disputable and not at all certain that any Man or society of Men can be infallible that we may put our trust in Saints in certain extraordinary Images or burn Incense and offer consumptive oblations to the Virgin Mary or make vows to persons of whose state or place or capacities or condition we have no certain revelation we are sure we do well when in the holy Communion we worship God and Jesus Christ our Saviour but they who also worship what seems to be bread are put to strange shifts to make themselves believe it to be lawful It is certainly lawful to believe what we see and feel but it is an unnatural thing upon pretence of faith to disbelieve our eyes when our sense and our faith can better be reconciled as it is in the question of the Real presence as it is taught by the Church of England So that unless you mean to prefer a danger before safety temptation to unholiness before a severe and a holy religion unless you mean to lose the benefit of your prayers by praying what you perceive not and the benefit of the Sacrament in great degrees by falling from Christ's institution and taking half instead of all unless you desire to provoke God to jealousie by Images and Man to jealousie in professing a Religion in which you may in many cases have leave to forfeit your faith and lawful trust unless you will still continue to give scandal to those good people with whom you have lived in a common Religion and weaken the hearts of Gods afflicted ones unless you will choose a Catechism without the second Commandment and a Faith that grows bigger or less as men please and a Hope that in many degrees relyes on men and vain confidences and a Charity that damns all the World but your selves unless you will do all this that is suffer an abuse in your Prayers in the Sacrament in the Commandments in Faith in Hope in Charity in the Communion of Saints and your duty to your Supreme you must return to the bosom of your Mother the Church of England from whence you have fallen rather weakly than maliciously and I doubt not but you will find the Comfort of it all your Life and in the Day of your Death and in the Day of Judgment If you will not yet I have freed mine own soul and done an act of Duty and Charity which at least you are bound to take kindly if you will not entertain it obediently Now let me add this that although most of these objections are such things which are the open and avowed doctrines or practices of your Church and need not to be proved as being either notorious or confessed yet if any of your Guides shall seem to question any thing of it I will bind my self to verifie it to a tittle and in that too which I intend them that is so as to be an objection obliging you to return under the pain of folly or heresie or disobedience according to the subject matter And though I have propounded these things now to your consideration yet if it be desired I shall represent them to your eye so that even your self shall be able to give sentence in the behalf of truth In the mean time give me leave to tell you of how much folly you are guilty in being moved by such mock-arguments as your men use when they meet with women and tender consciences and weaker understanding The first is where was your Church before Luther Now if you had
prevail against his Church which Prophecie is made good thus long till this day and is as a continual argument to justifie the Divinity of the Author The continuance of the Religion helps to continue it for it proves that it came from God who foretold that it should continue and therefore it must continue because it came from God and therefore it came from God because it does and shall for ever continue according to the word of the holy Jesus But after our blessed Lord was entred into glory the disciples also were Prophets Agabus foretold the dearth that was to be in the Roman Empire in the days of Claudius Caesar and that S. Paul should be bound at Jerusalem S. Paul foretold the entring in of Hereticks into Asia after his departure and he and S. Peter and S. Jude and generally the rest of the Apostles had two great predictions which they used not only as a verification of the doctrine of Jesus but as a means to strengthen the hearts of the Disciples who were so broken with persecution The one was that there should arise a Sect of vile men who should be enemies to Religion and Government and cause a great Apostasie which happened notoriously in the Sect of the Gnosticks which those three Apostles and S. John notoriously and plainly do describe And the other was that although the Jewish Nation did mightily oppose the Religion it should be but for a while for they should be destroyed in a short time and their Nation made extremely miserable but for the Christians if they would fly from Jerusalem and go to Pella there should not a hair of their head perish the verification of this Prophecy the Christians extremely long'd for and wondred it staid so long and began to be troubled at the delay and suspected all was not well when the great proof of their Religion was not verified and while they were in thoughts of heart concerning it the sad Catalysis did come and swept away 1100000. of the Nation and from that day forward the Nation was broken in pieces with intolerable calamities they are scattered over the face of the earth and are a vagabond Nation but yet like oyl in a vessel of wine broken into bubbles but kept in their own circles and they shall never be an united people till they are servants of the holy Jesus but shall remain without Priest or Temple without Altar or Sacrifice without City or Country without the Land of Promise or the promise of a blessing till our Jesus is their high Priest and the Shepherd to gather them into his fold And this very thing is a mighty demonstration against the Jews by their own Prophets for when Isaiah and Jeremiah and Malachi had Prophesied the rejection of the Jews and the calling of the Gentiles and the change of the old Law and the introduction of a new by the Messias that this was he was therefore certain because he taught the World a new Law and presently after the publication of this the old was abrogate and not only went into desuetude but into a total abolition among all the World and for those of the remnant of the scattered Jews who obstinately blaspheme the Law is become impossible to them and they placed in such circumstances that they need not dispute concerning its obligation for it being external and corporal ritual and at last made also local when the circumstances are impossible the Law that was wholly ceremonial and circumstantial must needs pass away and when they have lost their Priesthood they cannot retain the Law as no man takes care to have his beard shaved when his head is off And it is a wonder to consider how the anger of God is gone out upon that miserable people and that so great a blindness is fallen upon them it being evident and notorious that the old Testament was nothing but a shadow and umbrage of the new that the Prophecies of that are plainly verified in this that all the predictions of the Messias are most undeniably accomplished in the person of Jesus Christ so that they cannot with any plausibleness or colour be turned any other way and be applied to any other person although the Jews make illiterate allegations and prodigious dreams by which they have fool'd themselves for 1600. years together and still hope without reason and are confident without revelation and pursue a shadow while they quit the glorious body while in the mean time the Christian prays for his conversion and is at rest in the truth of Jesus and hath certain unexpressible confidencies and internal lights clarities of the holy Spirit of God and loves to the holy Jesus produc'd in his soul that he will die when he cannot dispute and is satisfied and he knows not how and is sure by comforts and comforted by the excellency of his belief which speaks nothing but holiness and light and reason and peace and satisfactions infinite because he is sure that all the World can be happy if they would live by the Religion of Jesus and that neither societies of Men nor single persons can have felicity but by this and that therefore God who so decrees to make Men happy hath also decreed that it shall for ever be upon the face of the earth till the earth it self shall be no more Amen Now if against this vast heap of things any Man shall but confront the pretences of any other Religion and see how they fail both of reason and holiness of wonder and Divinity how they enter by force and are kept up by humane interests how ignorant and unholy how unlearned and pitiful are their pretences the darknesses of these must add great eminency to the brightness of that For the Jews Religion which came from Heaven is therefore not now to be practised because it did come from Heaven and was to expire into the Christian it being nothing but the image of this perfection and the Jews needed no other argument but this that God hath made theirs impossible now to be done for he that ties to Ceremonies and outward usages Temples and Altars Sacrifices and Priests troublesome and expensive rites and figures of future signification means that there should be an abode and fixt dwelling for these are not to be done by an ambulatory people and therefore since God hath scattered the People into atomes and crumbs of society without Temple or Priest without Sacrifice or Altar without Vrim or Thummim without Prophet or Vision even communicating with them no way but by ordinary providence it is but too evident that God hath nothing to do with them in the matter of that Religion but that it is expired and no way obligatory to them or pleasing to him which is become impossible to be acted whereas the Christian Religion is as eternal as the soul of a Man and can no more cease than our spirits can die and can worship upon Mountains and Caves in Fields and Churches in