Aaron saw it he built an Altar before it and Aaron made proclamation and said To morrow is a feast to the Lord. v. 31. And Moses returned unto the Lord and said Oh this people have sinned a great sin and have made them gods of gold Isa 3.12 Oh my people they which lead thee cause thee to err and destroy the way of thy paths Mat. 23.3 Do not ye after their works for they say and do not Quest What is a Fifth Error of the Papists Ans That the Pope is Universal Head of the Church Quest What is the Protestant belief in this matter Ans We deny that there is any such visible Head therefore the Pope cannot be so Quest How prove you that Ans Because neither our Creed nor the sacred Scriptures hath revealed any such thing to us Quest Whom then do the Protestants affirm to be universal Head of the Church Ans Jesus Christ and him only Quest How prove you that Ans Because the Scriptures reveal it Psal 2.6 I have set my King upon my holy hill of Sion Ephes 1.22 And hath put all things under his feet and gave him to be the head over all things to the Church Quest What is a sixth Error of the Papists Ans That Kings and Emperors with their respective subjects are at the Popes disposal in general and particularly that the persons and estates of the Clergy are not under the power of the Civil Magistrate Quest What is the Protestants belief Ans 1. That Kings and Emperors are not properly Subjects to the Pope nor hath the Pope any power to absolve any of their Subjects from their Allegiance 2. That even the Clergy are subject to secular Princes and their bodies and estates under their government Quest How prove you that Ans Because they are in the number of those on whom the Scripture chargeth subjection Rom. 13.1 Let every soul be subject to the higher powers Tit. 3.1 Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers to obey magistrates 1 Pet. 2.13 14 15. Submit your selves to every ordinance of man for the Lords sake whether it be to the King as supreme or unto governours as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil-doers and for the praise of them that do well For so is the will of God that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men Quest What is the seventh Error of the Papists Ans That the Pope of Rome is next under Christ Quest What say the Protestants Ans That he is Antichrist because none have more the marks of Antichrist than he Quest How prove you that Ans Because no Antichrist can do worse things than he 2 Thes 2.3 4 9 10. That day shall not come except there come a falling away first and that man of sin be revealed that son of perdition who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or is worshipped so that he as God sitteth in the Temple of God shewing himself that he is God v. 9. Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders v. 10. And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish Rev. 13. throughout Quest What is an Eighth Error of the Papists Ans That the Protestants are Hereticks for separating from them Quest What say the Protestants to this Ans They say that it being granted that the Protestants did separate from the Church of Rome yet that they did it upon just grounds Quest How do you prove that Ans Because they did it for the sake of Christ and the Purity of Religion for which reason they are commanded so to do 2 Cor. 6.15 16 17 18. What concord hath Christ with Belial or what part hath he that believeth with an Infidel What agreement hath the Temple of God with Idols ye are the Temple of the living God Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate saith the Lord and touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you and will be a father unto you and ye shall be my sons and daughters saith the Lord Almighty Quest What was there in the Romish Religion that occasioned their separation Ans In that it was a Superstitious Religion Idolatrous Religion Damnable Religion Bloody Religion Traiterous Religion Blind Religion Blasphemous Religion Quest But why do yo you say their separation being granted Do they not grant their separation Ans They need not for the Church of Rome more properly separated from them than they from the Church of Rome in that they broke off from the foundation of the Apostles Doctrine which the Protestants retain still holding the head the Papists having separated them from their company and cast them out for the son of mans sake Luk. 6.22 Quest What is a Ninth Error of the Papists Ans That the Church of Rome is the only true Church Quest What say the Protestants to this Ans We deny it Quest Why Ans Because the Roman Church agreeth not with the definition of a true Church Quest What is the true Church Ans The true Church is an Universal Congregation or fellowship of Gods faithful elect people built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ being the chief corner-stone Quest What are the marks of a true Church Ans Such as these Pure and sound Doctrine preached the Sacraments administred according to Christs institution the right use of Ecclesiastical Discipline John 10.4 The sheep follow him for they know his voice Eph. 5.26 he might sanctifie and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word Quest What is a Tenth Error of the Papists Ans Their praying to Saints and Angels Quest What is the Protestants opinion in this matter Ans That praying to Saints and Angels is a dangerous corrupting of holy Worship and abominable in the sight of God Quest How prove you that Ans 1. It is absurd and ridiculous 1. They being not 〈…〉 to hear our prayers 〈…〉 â—â—â—â—rant of us Is◠〈…〉 2. In that they cannot be sure they are all real Saints to whom they pray nay we know the Pope hath canonized many wicked men 2. It hath no warrant from the Word of God but forbidden Mat. 4.10 Him only shalt thou serve 3. It is Idolatrous 4. It is injurious to the Mediatory-office of Christ 1 Tim. 2.5 There is one God and one Mediator between God and man the man Christ Jesus 1 Joh. 2.1 If any man sin we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous 5. Angels refuse it Rev. 22.9 See thou do it not for I am thy fellow-servant Quest What is an Eleventh Error of the Papists Ans Their Doctrine of Purgatory Quest What do you understand by Purgatory Ans A place wherein Saints are purged after thâ—◠〈…〉 were not fully purged 〈…〉 â—hey may enter purer into Heaven Bellarm. de Purgat lib. 2. cap. 6. Quest What is the Protestants
whom God grant a long and happy Reign Nor have we only instances at home but abroad the Murder of Henry the 4th of France and many others but above all the unparallel'd Murder of that Emperor whom they poysoned with the Sacrament I call it unparallel'd having never met with a Religion before that would poyson their God to kill their Emperor 6. 'T is a Blind Religion It leads men out of the way of salvation it hides the danger of damnation to all who have not their hearts thorowly changed from the love of sin to the love of God and Holiness from their eyes it covers the pit whose descent is into that which is bottomless with Spiders webs and perswades them 't is firm-ground it leaves them no sense noâ— notice of many sins no conscience of the most no fear of any no not of the worst such as themselves call deadly crimes it gives as much security to such wickedness as a heart that hath sold it self to it need wish for it keeps the Bible the Law of the Lord which good men make a light to their feet a lanthorn to their paths away from them it will not suffer men to believe their senses or act their reason nor bottom their faith upon the Scriptures That as that General first blinded the men then led them into the Enemies quarters so do they and all the answer you shall have from the common sort among them is this They believe as the Priest bids them and if he deceive them the Devil take him And as their faith is such is their Devotion the matter of their Prayers is lock't up from them and they as little concerned to know what becomes of them sure if the blind lead the blind they must both fall into the ditch Lastly 'T is a Blasphemous Religion In ascribing the peculiar Excellencies of the Divine Majesty and the Prerogatives of our Lord Jesus Christ to the blessed Virgin and other creatures and to their Popes though divers of them as themselves acknowledg were Monsters and Incarnate Devils When one Phocas took the Emperor Maurice and his family Prisoners who was his lawful Soveraign and having slain his Wife and Children before his eyes not sparing the little Innocent which hung at the Breasts did afterward cause his Master's Throat to be cut likewise a Proceduce so black and barbarous that Historians cannot mention it without horror Yet Pope Gregory congratulates this bloody Treason with abominable Blasphemies and begins his Address to this Phocas in his 36 Epistle with Gloria in Excelsis the Song of the Angels at the Nativity of our Saviour Glory be to God on high and then proceeds Let the Heavens send forth acclamations the Earth leap for joy and let all the people be glad thereof The Jesuits frequently teach that Jesus Christ might have sinned might have been subject unto vices might have fallen into error and folly and that it is no more repugnant to him to err or to speak a thing false in it self by the nature he hath assumed than to be tormented and dye in the same nature so Amicus so Vasquez and many more of them No other sort of Hereticks not excepting Turk Jew nor Pagan no not those of Calcute who adore the Devil did ever maintain by the Grounds of their Religion that it was lawful or rather meritorious as the Romish Catholicks calls it to murther Princes or people for the quarrel of Religion and although particular men of all professions of Religion have been some Thieves some Murtherers some Traitors yet ever when they came to their end and just punishment they confessed their fault to be in their nature and not in their profession But these persons cleave to it at their deaths as zealously as if all they had been doing were the immediate guidance of the blessed Spirit Such is their blasphemy A Protestant Fathers Letter of Advice to his Son in danger of being seduc'd to Popery SON BY a Letter last Week from your Uncle I am to my grief inform'd that you have lately fallen into the unhappy Acquaintance of some Popish Emissaries and are in danger of being inveigled by them to revolt from the Protestant Church to that of Rome I confess the news much surpriz'd me and I cannot but esteem it an essential part of my Fatherly care to admonish and warn you both of the unreasonableness and danger of such a change I do not much admire that those that have been always conversant in darkness should find their eyes offended with the Light which makes me extend very charitable thoughts to poor Souls train'd up in Papal ignorance labouring under the almost invincible prejudices of corrupted Education and Erroneous Principles but that you born and brought up in a Gospel Meridian and as I well hop'd understandingly grounded in the Protestant Doctrine should now stagger in those important Truths and be gull'd and cheated out of the Religion sealed with the Blood of your Martyr'd Ancestors and hazard your Soul by a Relaps to that long since exploded Faction and their slavish as well as ridiculous superstitions is matter of no less wonder than trouble to me the rather for that I am satisfied your circumstances admit not of any temptations of profit or honour to engage you to their party and without those allurements I profess you are the first that my experience can remember in danger of such a shameful Apostacy I shall not swell this Paper with a particular Examen of all the Romish Errors that task has been sufficiently and unanswerably performed by multitudes of our Learned Writers to whom I refer you and charge you to weigh their Arguments seriously before you suffer your Judgment to be debauch'd to a contrary perswasion but because I have some hopes your duty and filial respect may oblige you to a more near and sensible regard of what is said though briefly and weakly by my self that can have no design but the good of your Soul than to the abler reasonings of others more remote I shall offer some general Considerations which methinks should deter you from casting away your self in their communion First then I do affirm to you That to body of the Popish Religion so far as it differs from the Protestant is composed notwithstanding all their pretences to Antiquity of strange Doctrines Innovations and Abuses never instituted by Christ nor warrantable by Holy Scripture nor known nor practic'd in the Primitive Church but introduced at several times in latter Ages meerly to serve the pride or the vanity the covetousness or the sensuality of the Inventors 2. That their Doctrines interfere with and infringe the Greatness and Soveraignty of God and tend to the diminishing the honour and service due to him witness their dividing adoration betwixt him and Images Invocation betwixt him and Saints and absolute obedience betwixt him and the Church c. Now what gross and horrible sacriledge is this What is it less than to divest
when life is concerned rather than a Protestant shall be safe in any of his concerns where they can reach them It is a virtue a duty in their Religion to snap asunder all security by which the world hath hitherto been preserved to ruin a Heretick They who would see more of this at large may read the Jesuits Morals the Practical Divinity of the Papists and Mystery of Jesuitism besides the late instances which they have given at their Deaths who have been executed for Treason and Murders denying the things for which they suffered though proved upon them as clear as the Sun at noon-day occasioned by the awe their Priests have upon them being so far led away with them that the obedience of the dying Proselyte is prevalent even above his Considerations for a future estate This will be more apparent if we consider that hundreds of Irish Papists are executed in the Kingdom of Ireland every year for Murthers Thefts c. and though taken in the very fact yet when they come to dye usually take it upon their Deaths and as they must appear before the great Judg that knows all things that they are as innocent from the fact for which they dye as the Child unborn For they having discharg'd their Consciences by confessing it to the Priests and received his absolution it would bring an odium on their Religion and would be a strengthening the hands of the Protestants if the Priests should suffer it Whereas on the other side could they perswade the simple people to believe they dyed innocent they hope it may lay a stain upon that Religion which they call so often by the name of Heresie And though those Priests have always that regard to their Church as to impose upon the Prisoner to let the world know he dyeth a Roman Catholick yet he hath also much care of the Man that he must not desire the Prayers of any but Papists These things being so usual among them any considerate man will easily judg without breach of charity upon what ground such men are seduced to commit a sin and then out-face the truth of the matter of fact even in the face of Death BEcause the Papists shall not say the charge I give their Religion under the Eighth Error is groundless I shall instance in particular And 1. I say 't is a Superstitious Religion It were innumerable to account the many vain fopperies in their Devotions which they place Religion in as the Tooth of St. Christopher The Hair of St. Peters Beard The shift that came off the back of the Virgin Mary and the Dust and Vermine which they keep of some Saints Valla a great person of Learning and Eminency among them saith There are ten thousand such things in Rome if the Host fall to the ground it must be licked up the ground is to be scraped and the scrapings reduced to ashes is to have place among their Reliques Add to this their Holy-water their salt their spittle their Holy Oyl their Beads Whippings Fish-days Pilgrimages Nunneries Crossing themselves Baptizing of Bells Fonts c. So that the great Erasmus in his Annotations approved by Pope Leo the Tenth saith Their whole Religion is almost brought to their superstitious treatment of Reliques through the covetousness of Priests and the Hypocrisie of Monks fed by the foolishness of the people 2. 'T is an Idolatrous Religion In invocating Saints adoring the Host and worshipping Images Their worshipping of Reliques giving Religious Worship to such things as they do but fancy to be Reliques and not only when they are whole and sound but when they are corrupted and reduced to dust or nothing else left of them but the Vermin bred in them Henricus one of the School Doctors concludes That the Reliques in the form of dust and ashes may and ought to be adored but not under the form of Vermin and gives some reason for it But their great Vasquez rejects this scruple and the ground of it as vain and frivolous and concludes they may be worshipped as well when they are Vermin as when they are ashes Besides their Angel-worship Image-worship and Saint-worship 3. 'T is a Damnable Religion In that it overthrows the very foundation of Christianity their Doctrine of Transubstantiation overthrows the Truth of Christs humane Nature their proper Sacrifice his only Sacrifice for sin offered once for all their Doctrine of Merits for his Merits the multitude of Mediators among them deny that only Mediator betwixt God and Man the man Jesus Christ Their Sacrificing-Priests overthrow Christs Priestly office Their villifying the Scriptures and setting up their unwritten Traditions to be received with equal reverence with them overthrows Christs Prophetical office The great Article of forgiveness of sins and free justification through the Grace of God in Jesus Christ is overthrown by their Doctrine of Merit Pardons Indulgences c. 4. 'T is a Bloody Religion wherein Papal Rome exceeds Heathen Rome Witness the horrid Murthers and Massacres of the poor Waldenses who have been persecuted with Fire and Sword Armies and Inquisitions and very many Thousands nay infinite numbers of them have been inhumanely murdered That Barbarous and prodigious Villany and great Massacre of Protestants in France Anno 1572 where about 30 or 40000 innocent Protestants in Paris and other parts of France were suddenly and inhumanely murdered by Papists Witness Spains Invincible Armada in Anno 1588 when Romes force threatned to swallow us up Witness the Gun-powder Treason a black and unparallel'd villany worthy Rome and a Jesuit the blowing up of a whole Parliament King Lords and Commons the murdering a Kingdom in its Representatives and this in a moment After that their bloody Rebellion in Ireland where they murdered a Hundred thousand Protestants in cold blood without any provocation given but to kill Hereticks Add to this their bloody Traiterous design of late against His Majesty Person the Government and the Protestant Religion a Conspiracy had it taken might have turned England into an Aceldama a Field of Blood or Shambles of Popish Butchers These things considered I hope no man will be so mad to kiss the Popes Toe until his Nails be pared so as he will not scratch and make the blood run about the mouths of Christendom 5. 'T is a Traiterous Religion For they teach that the Pope may depose the Emperor or a King not subject to the Emperor that the Pope may lawfully absolve subjects from their Oath of Allegiance That subjects if they have the Popes consent which they are sure to have if it makes for his interest may depose their Kings That if the King be a manifest Heretick as all Protestants are with them then the Church may depose him Nor have they been wanting to put this their principle into practise so often as they could find occasion as their attempts on Queen Elizabeth by poyson Pistol Dagger on King James by Powder-Treason on King Charles the First and on our King to
him of his Royalty and give his glory to another 3. Their Doctrines tend to the dethroning of Christ the disparaging his performances and lessening the Glory and Praise belonging to him witness their dividing the Soveraignty and Headship betwixt him and the Pope Satisfaction betwixt his Sufferings and their own Merits and Intercession betwixt him and Saints 4. Their Doctrines are against the power of Godliness and rob God of his prime Sacrifice the Heart witness their Tenets that the Opus operatum is enough their prayers in an unknown tongue and their assigning to God chiefly external superficial Service consisting in a rabble of empty childish Rites and gaudy Ceremonies thereby taking from him the nobler part of his Creature without which the Services or Emasserations of the body how splendid or severe soever are no more pleasing to him than the noisom evaporations of a Putrid Carcass to us 5. Their Doctrines tend not only thus to formality and lukewarmness but to open profaneness and dissolute living witness their notion of Venial sins their Pardons Absolutions Indulgences Dispensations c. It being observable that the most ignorant and careless or the most wicked and debauch'd make up the greatest part of their Proselytes nor is it strange since false Principles and bad Lives like Ice and Water mutually begat each other 6. Their Doctrines are absurd 1. Witness their fancy of the Popes Infallibility you can scarce cast your eye on any story where the Villany of Popes is not at large discovered and who can believe that the pure Spirit of God should endow with Infallibility of judgment Monsters so visibly fulsome and abominable We find that the Holy Ghost did under the Law hate and forbid all Impurities though in meer outward Circumstances how then should he under the brighter light of the Gospel suffer himself to be poured out of one unclean vessel into another beginning again with a Conjurer where he left with a Sodomite 2. Witness likewise the Prayer for the dead a practise if I may use so light a comparison altogether as vain and impertinent as that of Bowlers strenuously crying out rub or fly after they have delivered their Cast 3. Witness too their Darling whimsie of the corporal Presence attended with a numerous train of contradictions and incongruities they say it is a Sacrament or sign and can it be at once both the sign and thing signified If it be Christs body really how is it sacramentally If sacramentally how really and corporally They say there is no real and corporal Presence till the Priest repeat the words and if so then the creature and oftentimes a sad one makes his Creator and in receiving the Creator is comprehended by the Creature absurdities nothing short of Blasphemy when our Saviour instituted the Supper and said Take eat c. was the Bread and Wine both the giver and the gift the body blessing and the body blest did the same body hold the same body in its own Fingers Was it eaten in pieces by every one of the Disciples and yet then all whole without them all Mysteries of Religion may be above but never so directly against reason and seriously I admire any man of sense can be a Papist when the chief demonstration of his Religion must be his not understanding it 4. Their Doctrines are dangerous to the Temporal estate and just rights of Princes witness their Usurpations over not to say Assassinations of Kings disposing of Crowns absolving subjects from their Allegiance c. For in short the whole Romish Hierarchy is so far from being suited within the order of the Gospel that the main design of their Popes Cardinals Jesuits and Fryers of many sorts esteemed of the Religious Tribe is but to advance themselves above all that is called God and to gratify their base lusts instead of pleasing of him Directions how you may keep your self from being a Papist 1. STudy to have right notions and due apprehensions of the matter import and chief design of the Gospel be not a stranger to the knowledg of God in Jesus Christ and the blessed Spirit Acquaint your self with the mystery of the Gospel as it lyes in the Person Natures Offices Life and Death of the Lord Redeemer Let the Scriptures be your constant Counsellor without knowledg the heart cannot be good and a bad heart is prepared to suck in bad Principles 'T is not for nothing the Papists make Ignorance the Mother of their Devotion they that have truly learnt Christ and the Gospel will hardly be taught by Romes School-Masters 2. Study a sound and thorow Conversion I never yet knew any man blest with a broken and contrite heart that is a heart broken for sin and a heart broken off from sin that ever was taken with their Relligion 3. Get a faithful and a tender conscience I say faithful for then it will not be satisfied with dross instead of Gold with paint instead of true and sound Piety A faithful conscience will inform you that God is a Spirit and the more spiritual we are in our Devotions the more we please him that 't is not a pompous but a pure worship that he is delighted in And as to expiation of our guilt nothing but the blood of Christ can take away sin that 't is not their blind penances pilgrimages crossings cringings will answer the great end of our Redemption but a heart devoted to his fear and love and a mind fully set upon him 4. Be well acquainted with the plague of your own heart the nature of Original sin how it hath defiled and weakned all the powers of the soul This will let you see the necessity there is for the blessed Spirit to heal and help those spiritual distempers that without him ye can do nothing that 't is he that works in you both to will and to do 5. Look upon Superstition as a fruit of the flesh and that nothing is more grateful to flesh and blood than Idolatry and formality they that know what proneness there is in the nature of man to a carnal sensual vain Religion will not think it strange that the Papists have foisted in so many fulsome things into their Worship to comply with the carnal humours of men 6. Be much in the duty of Mortification and that will acquaint you with the way means and manner of it 't is through the Spirit Believers come to mortify the deeds of the Flesh at best the Popish Penances can but pen up sin but the next temptation will break the hedg Whereas the blessed Spirit lays his strong hand upon the irritating power of indwelling sin and thereby subjects the heart unto himself he heals the pollution of our nature renews us in the spirit of our minds cleanses our affections and thereby causes us who formerly delighted in flesh pleasing vanities to delight our selves in him his word will way c. 7. Know the mischief of Idolatry The setting your self against heart-Idols will keep you from Idol-worship you know who tells us expresly I will not give my praise to graven Images Remember how smartly the Jews suffered for this sin and yet had not such a spiritual dispensation as we that are under the Gospel if it be so dangerous to shape Idea's of God in our Fancies and Imaginations though never so much raised in our invention how dangerous must it be to be in a place where such Images are found in Wood and Cloth Lastly Allow your self in no known sin 'T is the conscience being made deceitful through such deceitful works that makes people forward to cover themselves with those figments of Popery whereas the man that makes it his due care and conscience to keep himself unspotted from allowed evil is the likeliest man to save himself from such an untoward generation of men as would put such a yoke on us as we nor our Fathers were not able to bear Your careful Father L. D. FINIS The two following Books are neâ—â—â— Printed for and Sold by Doâ—â—â—â—â— Newman at the Kings Aâ—â—â—◠〈◊〉 the Poultrey LIfe in Gods favour A 〈◊〉 discourse in Death-Thâ—â—◠〈◊〉 times being the substance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sermons upon Psalm 30.5 In 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Life By O. Heywood Minisâ—â—◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gospel Twenty Sermons Preached 〈◊〉 â—â—veral Texts by that late Reveâ—â—â—◠〈◊〉 â—â—ous and painful Preacher Mr. 〈◊〉 Nalton Minister of St. Leonard 〈◊〉 lane in the City of London Published for publick good