Suppose our Religion did but begin then why must people be always in an Error Must they never reform when they have done amiss if there were monstrous Errors in the Church of Rome which the aforesaid Persons saw would be the Death of Christianity and which they could not subscribe to without debauching their Reason or wronging both their own and other Mens Consciences was it not rational they should protest against such things to give their fellow Christians warning When the House is on fire would you have no body awake to alarm the Neighbours to look to themselves did they see so many thousand Men ready to be drown'd and would you have had them hold their Tongues and barbarously suffered them all to be drown'd Did they see the Christian Religion like to be swallow'd up by Darkness and Ignorance and was it not time to rouze the slumbering World But however that these Men were the first broachers of our Religion is notoriously false First because long before them there were Men that lived in the external Communion of the Church of Rome but dislik'd the Errors as they crept in and grew dangerous and though they were over-aw'd and silenc'd many times by the higher Powers of the Roman Court yet they both detested those Corruptions and as they had opportunity protested against them as were an easie matter to prove from age to age if it had not been done already over and over by Divines of our Church so that though these Men that lived long before Luther and whom God still rais'd to vindicate his Truth as it grew more and more polluted were not call'd Protestants by the People yet in effect they were so and consequently there were Protestants many years before Luther and Zwinglius And though they were not suffered by the Ignorant and imperious Ecclesiastical Powers to meet and assemble themselves in publick yet they made a Church as much as the followers of Holy Athanasius did when the whole World was turned Arian as much as Elijah and those seven thousand the Oracle mentioned made a Church when the whole Country was over-run with Idolaters These seven thousand we read lay hid and durst not appear in publick being oppress'd by the Idolatrous powers that sat at the Stern and thought there was no good fishing but in troubled waters And indeed in this manner our Church was dispers'd long before Luther among the greater multitude of the followers of the corrupted Roman Church as a handful of wheat lies scatter'd in a bushel of Chaff and though it it did not appear in Pomp and Grandeur yet that external Splendour is not essential to the truth of a Church your own men may be convinced by the aforementioned examples Secondly if your Champions speak strictly of the Religion which we profess in the Church of England they are under a mistake when they make Luther or Zwinglius the Authors of it for our Reformation began some time after and was both begun and carried on with great deliberation and consideration under Edward the 6th by publick Authority whose proper province it is to take notice of what is amiss in a Kingdom or Commonwealth whether it be in Church or State and to reform and mend it It 's no great matter when a Reformation begins so the Reformation be but just and if such a Reformation had begun but yesterday that would not have made it unlawful and that our Reformation was just and necessary hath been prov'd by our Divines beyond all reasonable contradiction and how could it but be just when the Decrees of the Church of Rome controll'd the Word of the Living God and vyed with the Oracles of the Gospel How and when the several Errors crept into that Church is not material to determine it 's enough we found them there and it was God's mercy not to give all the learned Men of that age over to believe a lye But it 's pretty to hear your Church-men talk of the novelty of our Religion when it is evident to all the understanding World that our first Reformers began no new Religion but desired only to keep to the Old All their endeavour was to keep to the Religion of the Bible and to cut off all superfluities and things prejudicial to Salvation and was there any hurt in that They saw that many things then in use in the Church of Rome were diametically opposite to the Doctrines and practises of the Primitive Church and they justly thought it their Duty to reduce the Church to the antient Pattern the prouder Clergy of the Roman Church would not yield to it but would have all their new fangles and all their additions to the antient Symbols received as Articles of Faith though all perish'd and the coat of Christ were rent into a thousand pieces the more humble and more moderate of the Clergy saw the pride and insolence of the other and trembled and thus we and they parted we kept to the old Religion and your Men chose the new and much good it may do you with it and pray Judge by this which is the Schismatick Church we or they we that would have healed Israel or they that would not be healed so that it is not our Religion that began so lately as 150 years ago about Luthers time but it 's yours that commenced then for you then embraced the new additions to the antient Catholick Creeds with greater greediness and were resolv'd to maintain that by Bravado's which you were not able to defend with Arguments It 's a very ordinary thing for people who once incline to the Communion of the Roman Church to demand of us before they go over whither a person may be saved in that Church The Charity and moderation our Divines usually express in their answer to this Query I am sensible hath done our Church some harm whereas the Roman Priests being bold in their uncharitableness and damning all that are out of their Communion make some weak people believe that they must be in the right because they are more daring in their Asseverations We have far greater reason to be peremptory in excluding the Members of the Church of Rome from Salvation than they have to exclude us for if that Church be guilty of Idolatry as I see your Divines find it a very hard task to answer the Arguments of our learned Men that prove it Those that are guilty of this Crime may soon be resolved by the Apostle what their lot is like to be in another World for No Idolater saith St. Paul meaning one that lives and dies so shall inherit the Kingdom of God 1 Cor. 6. 9. yet we are modest and whatever the principles of that Church may lead Men to we hope there may be many in that Church that either while they live in the Communion of that Church have an aversion from the dangerous and Idolatrous practices of it or sometimes before they die do heartily repent of the absurd and unreasonable
Merits because I find your Priests have two strings to their bow and tell the People one thing and their Adversaries when they dispute with them another affirm and deny it as they see occasion and necessity requires Only one thing I must needs take notice of before I take my leave and that is the Gigantick Argument that some of your Gentlemen boast of and which strikes all Protestants dead at the first hearing of it If there be any thing true this must be true that there is a God if there be a God there must be a true Religion if there be a true Religion there must be a true revealed Religion if there be a true revealed Religion the Christian Religion must be that true revealed Religion and if the Christian Religion be true then the Religion of the Church of Rome must be true for the Argument that proves the Christian Religion to be true proves the Religion of the Church of Rome to be true which is this Either the Christian Religion was propagated without Miracles or by Miracles if by Miracles then it must be Divine if without Miracles then it is the greatest Miracle that a Religion so contrary to Flesh and Blood should prevail with sensual Men. The same say they is true of the Religion of the Church of Rome For if it be propagated by Miracles it must be Divine if without Miracles it must be so much more because it prescribes things contrary to Flesh and Blood as Penances Austerities c. and thousands of People do embrace it It will not make my self merry here in a thing so serious else I could have told you that I have heard of an Argument when I was at School somewhat like this He that drinks well sleeps well he that sleeps well commits no Sin he that commits no Sin will be saved therefore he that drinks well will be saved But I forbear And as to the aforesaid Argument whereby one of your Priests that hath printed it thinks to end all Controversies I will say no more but this First that as there is no Christian but must readily confess that the Miracles Christ and his Apostles wrought were a Confirmation of the Divinity of their Doctrine so there is no Man of any brains can admit of the other part of the dilemma as universally true that a Religion that goes against Flesh and Blood if propagated without Miracles must therefore be necessarily Divine Secondly that so far as the Religion of the Church of Rome agrees with the truly Christian Religion so far it is undoubtedly true and it will naturally follow that if the Christian Religion be true the Religion of the Church of Rome so far as it agrees with the Christian Religion must needs be true And the same may be said of the Protestant Religion but that the Roman Religion must therefore be true where it goes away and differs from the truly Christian Religion revealed to us in the Gospel is a consequence which none but Children can approve of Thirdly with this Argument a Man might prove the Divinity of almost any Religion in the World He that is no stranger to History must needs know what Severities what Austerities of Life the Brachmans or the Heathen Friers in the Indies do both prescribe and practice and what Proselites they make and how full the Kingdom of the great Mogul is of them how some wallow in Ashes day and night how others go charged with heavy Iron Chaines all their days how others stand upright upon their Leggs for whole Weeks together c. How in Japan and other places of the Indies the Priests perswade the People to fast themselves to death to go long Pilgrimages to give all they have to the Priests to throw themselves down from steep Rocks and break their Necks and all to arrive the sooner to the Happiness of another World c. I think there cannot be things more contrary to Flesh and Blood than these and yet we see these Doctrines are propagated daily without any force of Arms only by Example and Perswasion to be sure without any Miracle but I hope that doth not prove their Religion to be Divine It 's a dictate of the light of Nature that the way to Heaven is straight and therefore People that are religiously inclined are easily won over to those Men whom they see exercise such Severities upon themselves To conclude Madam when all is done what the true Church is must be tried by the Writings of the Evangelists and Apostles We see that even in the Apostles days Corruptions crept into the Church witness the Churches of Corinth Galatia and Colosse c. and the Simplicity of the Gospel began even then to be perverted and mingled with idle and foolish Opinions and Practices and therefore we must needs think that after the Apostles decease the Church of Christ was subject to the same fare so that if there be any Standard or Touchstone left whereby the Truth and Sincerity of a Church can be tried and we must needs think so well of God's Providence that he would not leave his Church without some Rule to rectifie their Errors by in case she should be infected with any it must be the Primitive Institution of the Christian Religion and that Church as I said before which teaches things that approach nearest to that Primitive Institution must be the true Church And Madam do but once more for your Souls fake and for your Salvations sake compare the Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome with the Doctrines and Practices of the Gospel the Fountain of Christianity and try whether you can find there the Doctrines of Communion under one kind of publick Prayers in a Tongue unknown to the People of Purgatory of the Mass of Transubstantiation of the Church of Rome 's Supremacy and Infallibility of Worshipping and Adoring the Virgin Mary and Praying to Saints of Veneration of Relicks and Images of Adoration of the Hoste c. Do not force any places of Scripture and try whether you can make sense of any of these Doctrines by Scripture View the stream of the Gospel and search whether there be any thing like these Doctrines in it Why will you make your Reason a Slave to your Priests magisterial Sentences How can you answer it to God that you did not improve your Reason more What have you your Reason for but to judge what is agreeable to the Word of God and what is not Is not this acting like a Creature void of Reason to be guided altogether by what a few blind Guides say to you without enquiring at the Law and Testimony whether things are so as they say or no Wonderful Stupidity I stand amazed at it It is not all the seeming Holiness of those Priests you converse withal that make the Church you are in a true Church There is no Sect in the World but when they are under a Cloud Necessity and the Discouragement they are
this outward Pomp they make not the least sign of the truth of their Church not remembring that if this be a good sign the idolatrous People in Japan and China whose Temples are infinitely more shining and glorious will have a better Title to the true Church than they I must confess that in Policy and Worldly Craft and Cunning the Church of Rome exceeds ours for they have not only turn'd the Spiritual Worship of the Gospel into a Sensual Service into outward Religious Formalities a thing strangely pleasing to flesh and blood but they have Shooes that will fit all sorts of Feet great and small and have Remedies for all Distempers and you may go to Heaven in that Church either through the straight way or through the broad which you please they can fit the Melancholy Person and the Jovial they have Monasteries and Nunneries and Severities to content the one and know how to allow greater liberty to the other they can either send a Man to Happiness through a tedious task of Mortification if he likes that method best or help him thither by a quicker dispatch by Confession Attrition and Absolution upon a Death-bed when the Man can hold Sin and the World no longer Live or die you cannot do amiss in that Church for living you may be forgiven and after Death you may be pray'd out of Purgatory sooner or later according as you will spend Money upon Masses for Gold doth strangely quicken these Supplications Such a Church Madam you have espoufed and divorced your self from one that prefers the Wisdom of God and of the Gospel before the Wisdom of the Flesh and glories in dealing plainly and honestly with all Men that keeps close to the Scriptures and yet is not against those pious Customes of Antiquity which are not contradictory to the Scriptures that generously maintains the Prerogative of God and gives no other Honour to Saints and Angels but what may consist with the Glory of her Creator that hath made no new Articles of Faith but keeps to the old and thinks it Rebellion against God to enjoin things as necessary to Salvation which God never made so that urges the strictest Life and encourages nothing but what may promote true Piety and Devotion that hath no more Ceremonies but what are decent and labours to free Religion at once from Slovenliness and Superstition that secures the Right of Soveraign Princes and teaches her Children to live like good Subjects and good Christians and though it be her misfortune that too many of her pretended Members live like Enemies of Christianity yet that 's not long of her Doctrines and Constitutions but long of the Stubbornness of Men who will not be reform'd by her Precepts As no Man blames Christ or his Apostles because Judas was a Hypocrite or because Simon Magus profess'd their Religion so they betray great Ignorance and Simplicity that for the monstrous Impieties of many that profess themselves Members of our Assemblies despise and slight our Church which in her Principles is most averse from all such practices a Church which as for mine own particular I have deliberately and premeditately embraced and chosen so I hope I shall never be so much for saken of God or of my Reason as to quit it to become a Papist I have not been altogether a careless Observer of the several Christian Churches dispers'd through the World Desire of mine own Salvation hath made me take particular notice what Corruption there is in them and what Affinity they have with the Primitive Professors of Christianity And I must freely confess upon a serious Examination of the Scripture and the Fathers of the three first Centuries after Christ that from my Heart I think there is no Church this day in all the Christian World be it Eastern or Western that in her Principles and Constitutions bears so much of the Image of the truly Primitive Church or comes so near it as the Church of England a Church which as your Fore-fathers had courage to burn for so I verily believe that he understands not her Innocent Designs and excellent Rules that dares not die a Martyr in her cause Once more your Faithful Friend to serve you A. Horneck FINIS i. e. Contradictions In the New Confession of Faith compiled and published by Pope Pius IV. a little above a hundred years ago Under one kind only
by them of old time and so far as God hath said it it is a Law unalterable Murder is a truly crying Sin for the Voice of thy Brother's Blood crys unto me from the ground saith God Gen. IV. 10. This is a Crime which Nature it self trembles at and yet we see there are Wretches and Monsters who can steel and harden their Consciences against the Horror of it But God thunders against it from Heaven and because the Crime is so great he hath made a Law and given it to all Mankind That whoso sheds Mans Blood by Man i. e. by the Magistrates shall his Blood be shed Gen. IX 6. Nay if a wild Beast tears a Man who is going about his lawful Occasions in pieces though an irrational Creature God will strike that Beast dead because it kill'd Sanctius his Animal a nobler and more sacred Fabrick So tender is God of the Life of Man nor would he suffer his Tabernacle or Sanctuary to be a refuge for such a barbarous Wretch The Horns of the Altar could not save the Offender and from the very Temple he was to be dragg'd to the Gallows or place of execution The whole Country comes to be defiled by the horrid Crime where it goes unpunish'd and that Magistrate makes his Soul black with guilt that connives at the inhumane Action or out of respect to Greatness or Rank or Quality pardons the intollerable Extravagance Where this remains unpunish'd when known a Nation falls under the Curse of God and whatever Judgments befal them an ounce of the unpunish'd Murder as the Jews say of the Sin of the Golden Calf may be said to be an Ingredient of their Calamity We have a Distinction in our Law betwixt Mans Slaughter and Murder A Distinction which I wish did not too often cover that Bloody Crime which ought to be avenged by publick Justice The Word of God knows no such Distinction and tho' it provides for Chance-medly and gives pardon to the Man that unawares and without any intent to kill proves the occasion of another's Death yet this is nothing to that Act which Wrath and Anger whether sudden or premeditate doth produce to the Horror of the Creation Neither doth the Law of the Gospel nor the Law of Moses in this case before us reverse the Law of Nature and God is so resolute that the Magistrate shall punish such Offenders with Death that where they do not himself sometimes takes the Sword in hand and executes the presumptuous Destroyer of his Image Nay many times makes the Wretch that did the Fact and escapes the Magistrates Sword his own Executioner Alphonsus Diazius a Spaniard and a Roman Catholick having kill'd his own Natural Brother for turning Protestant for which he receiv'd the Praises and Applauses of considerable Men in the Church of Rome haunted and hunted at last by the Furies of his own Conscience desperately hang'd himself at Trent de callo Mulae suae saith the Historian upon the Neck of his own Mule It 's true there are those who guilty of such Crimes do yet escape the revenging Arm of God and Man here but the more terrible will be their Cup of trembling hereafter and God lets some like stall'd Oxen grow fat on this side the Grave that with greater Terrour they may fall a Sacrifice when they die to hellish Furies Nor can Duels and single Combats upon an Affront receiv'd and Challenging one another to fight be excused from sharing in the Heinousness of this Guilt for whatever fine Names and plausible Descriptions the Law of Honour may have made of such Actions he that kills another in a Duel though he gets a Pardon of his Prince will be Arraign'd in the last day among the Murtherers who shall have their Portion in the Lake which burns with Fire and Brimstone I do not deny but that in the dark times of Popery such Combats have been allow'd of and publick Prayers have been said for Success in such Duels but what Credit can a Cause receive from Ages in which to understand Greek was a Crime and Hebrew next to Heresie We need not wonder that Babylon the Mother of Harlots should permit such things whose Garments have been died Red with the Blood of the Saints of God and which hath Tricks and Ways to Canonize Assassins to consecrate Murther and to Christen Massacres Services of Religon To call upon you to take heed of having a hand in Blood were to discourage you from drowning or poisoning your selves or running a Sword into your own Bowels for indeed this is no better and whatever varnish may be put upon it it is precipitating your selves headlong into the Gulf of Perdition There is in this Sin all that can aggravate a Deed it is to raise a Hell in your Bosom and the thing it self speaks so much abomination that to name the Sin is to give you a thousand Arguments against it But then that ye may not be under any temptation to this Sin let bitterness and wrath and anger be put away from you with all Malice which leads me to the third Proposition III. That Wrath and Anger without a just cause have their Degrees and according to them the Punishment in the next Life will be proportionable For whosoever shall be angry with his Brother without a cause shall be in danger of the Judgment and whosoever shall say to his Brother Raca shall be in danger of the Councel but whosoever shall say thou Fool shall be in danger of Hell-fire That some Anger is lawful is evident from hence because Christ himself was angry and very angry sometimes and so were the Apostles and we are permitted to be so but with this Caution be angry and sin not i. e. so as not to Sin Eph. IV. 26. So that all anger is not a mark of Damnation But then when the Author and Captain of our Salvation Christ Jesus and his Holy Apostles were angry it was only against Sin and out of a Zeal to Vertue and when Men were obstinate and would not be perswaded to do their Duty and a Sense of God's Glory kindled the fire of their Passion in which Case to be angry is a Perfection and to be passionate a Christian accomplishment provided still that the bounds of that Anger be observed and it's heat do not turn into Wild-fire that it be not attended with unseemly Expressions nor accompanied with furious Gestures and Actions I do not deny but a Man may be angry with his Servant a Father with his Children and a Master with his Schollars and proceed even to Correction but then it must be because they neglect their Duty or will not hearken to wholsome Admonitions and when gentler Addresses will do no good and the Anger must be more upon the account of their Sin than out of any Desire to revenge and it must be an Anger mingled with Pitty and Compassion and which ends in Prayer for the Offenders and it must be free from