disobeying men deserveth excommunication Learn of our late Laws which account all the Ministers of England worthy to be cast out and silenced if they dare not take the imposed Declarations Oaths and Subscriptions and do what the Act of Uniformity imposeth And do you think it worthy of reproach to be as strict in obeying Gods known Laws as is required to the Act of Uniformity and the Canons 31. Even the Church of Rome applaudeth great Rigor and Strictness of life in such as will obey the Pope And they have allowed Orders of Fryars whose rules tye them to great abstinence to much praying and some to much Preaching so that Religion is all their calling And shall the strict obeying of Gods known Laws render men odious among professed Protestants Yea the Papists honour the very Bones and Relicks of their dead Saints And you your selves keep holy days for many Saints And will you at the same time hate and hurt those that endeavour to imitate them Will you imitate those Pharisees whom Christ pronounceth Woe against who at once honoured the dead Prophets with building them Monuments or Tombs and murdered the living that succeeded them 32. You can never come to Heaven or be saved from Hell your selves without serious Holiness Justice and Sobriety And will you hate that without which you cannot be saved 33. Scarce any sin doth more certainly prove you to be ungodly than hating godliness What ever hope there may be of those that sin against Conscience and wish to be better and purpose Repentance that man cannot be a truly Godly man that is an Enemy to godliness so that this is a dreadful deaths mark on you 34. You would extirpate the principle of self-love which God hath made inseparable from us There is somewhat in our nature which we cannot lay by which makes us unwilling to be damned If you that believe no Hell dare venture into it we cannot do so who do believe it If you say that it is our folly to believe that none shall be saved without Holiness and mortifying the deeds of the body by the Spirit bear with that folly which doth you no harm It is not Men or Devils that we had it from but the Holy Ghost in Scripture If it be your wisdom to give God the lie and believe a Drunken sot or the Devil before him it shall be none of ours Speed as you choose and let us speed as we choose we shall meet your Souls shortly in another mind and tune Strive not to make us choose damnation now our Eyes are open We were once too easily befool'd but cannot now so hate our selves 35. Moreover he that would not have a man live a life of holy obedience to God would have him lay by that which he was made for and that which God continueth his life for and that which he hath his reason and all his daily mercies for What else have we to do in the World Have men going to the Grave and Eternity nothing to do but Eat and Drink and Laugh and Play and run up and down like Ants with sticks and straws and then die and call all vanity and vexation too late If we may not spend our time in making sure of a better World we had rather we had never been born or had died in infancy or that we had a dose of Opium that would make us sleep out the rest of our lives in quietness rather than spend it as you do and then give a sad acâ—ount of all we had rather we had been Birds or Beasts Dogs or Swine than Men were it not for that life which you hate and the hopes which depend on it It had been a greater kindness to us to have murdered us at the birth than to tempt us to live for our damnation 36. What do you think it is that is Gods Image on mans Soul you know that it 's said in Scripture that God made man at first in his own Image and that Christ by his Spirit reneweth them to that Image What is it think you God hath not hands and feet and bodily parts as we have It is the Soul that hath his Image And do you think it is the love of Money and Lust and Sport or Gluttony or Drunkenness that is his Image Scripture saith Eph. 4. 23 24. Colos. 3. 10. it is Holiness And this is called the Divine nature as coming from God and inclining nature unto God. Either Holiness Wisdom and Righteousness is Gods Image or else there is none such on man And then you make Gods Word to be false And if this be it and this it which you hate are you not haters of God And is not that to be devilish and hated by God 37. While you are angry at them that say few are saved or that none but Saints or serious godly obedient men are saved you would sink all the World into utter despair and make none or next none to be saved One part of the haters of godliness believe no life to come And these would have all men despair For if there be none there is none to be hoped for and they that think men die but as Dogs Swine do must be expected to live like Dogs Swine The other part of you labour by all means to make themselves and others believe that the profession of more godliness than worldly carnal men have is but hypocrisy and that such are at the heart as bad as others And if this be so what is the consequence but that none are saved For unless you will give God the lie or be saved in spite of him you must believe that none are saved that are not sanctified by the Spirit of Christ and live not after the Spirit mortifying the flesh Ioh. 3 3 5. Heb. 12. 14. Rom. 8. 6 7. 8 9 13. 2 Cor. 5. 17. And that no man can be saved that loveth the world more than God and Heaven and fleshly pleasure more than holiness And therefore if there be none such then none are saved Hypocrisy will not save men God tells us that Drunkards Fornicators Covetous Thieves Extortioners Revilers Effeminate Idolaters cannot enter into the Kingdom of God 1 Cor. 6. 9 10. Eph. 5. 5. And if any man love the world best the love of the Father is not in him 1 Ioh. 2. 5. And if all that pretend to be better are hypocrites than none at all are saved It may be you have the kindness to except some few But if those few be all that be not either carnal men described Rom. 8. 5 6 7 9. or hypocrites how few then do you make to be saved if God be true 38. Who do you think it is that Christ meaneth when he saith I send you as Lambs among Wolves Ye shall be hated of all men for my names sakes Blessed are they that suffer persecution for righteousness sake When they say all manner of evil of you falsly for my sake The World will
their ancient and accustomed Liberty Regiment Laws they may not well be counted Rebels saith he of Obedience pag. 520. But I hear many now say the contrary and Condemn such Doctrine as disloyal I find some joyn with the Papists in accusing the Reformation as caused by Rebellions in Germany Geneva France Belgium c. And I find Bishop Iewel Bilson and other Bishops defending the French defence and Dr. Peter Moulin of Canterbury in his answer to Philanax Anglicus Contradicting their accusers as false in Point of History Abundance of such Political Controversies are now lately agitated some charging their adversaries with Rebellion and some with Tyranny Some saying they are guilty of Treason against the King and others They are Traitors against the Kingdom And too ordinarily damning one another as if these matters were Articles of our Creed What a dismal difference is there now about those words in the Declaration in the Corporation Act There is no Obligation on me or any other person from the Oath called the solemn League and Covenant Some say there are none but Rebels will refuse it And that if any obligation had been granted to things lawful or necessary some would have extended it to Rebellion or Schism And therefore all Obligation is to be renounced Others say that National perjury is a forerunner of National Calamity or ruine and that where Oaths bind not there can be no Trust and no Trust no Commerce And they think as Dr. Sanderson and Casuists Papists and Protestants do that though an Oath or Vow be unlawfully Imposed and Sinfully taken and part of the matter of it be unlawful and the Imposers and Takers are bound to repent and no one is bound by it to the unlawful part yet the taker is bound to that part of the matter which is lawful or necessary And they take it to be lawful and necessary to Repent of sin to oppose Prophaneness Schisms Heresy and Popery to defend the King and therefore that it obligeth them to these I meddle not with the Roman opinion that it is the Henrician Heresy to say that Kings have a power of investing Bishops and disobeying the Popes Excommunication and of such as Cardinal Perron that dare not question or deny the power of the Pope and Councils to Excommunicate and depose Kings because then they must condemn approved General Councils which are their religion itself and saith he must grant that the Pope is Antichrist and the Church erroneous that hath so long used this I name all these Political Controversies 1. To tell you that it is not factious and passionate enmity to each other on such accounts which I mean by enmity to Religion 2. And to remember men that if in so many and great points of Politicks and Government the Learned and Christian World have so great difference what reason is there that we should Damn or Excommunicate or hate each other about a hard opinion in Religion or a Ceremony 3. And to tell the Popish Church that if it were a good argument that there must be one Pretorian Court or Church to oblige all the World by an universal determination in what sence to expound the Scripture because it is abused to errour by mens mistake and there must be an end of Controversies by the same reason there must be an universal Pretorian Court to expound all human Laws and end the controversies of Lawyers Yea and to master all mens Reason for Scripture is no more commonly controverted and abused than Law is And not half so much as Reason is which is pleaded for almost all the falshood and wickedness in the World. § 10. Moreover it is not personal feuds between Man and Man that I mean by Enmity to Godliness No though any such be against an Innocent and Godly Man where it is not for his Godliness but some other difference § 11. I will say more though some dislike it it is not a Papist as such that I mean by a Malignant Enemy of Godliness I know that Education and Temptation and want of hearing the confutation of their errours judiciously made may cause Godly persons to think that the universal Church must be united in some humane Head or Soveraign power and that there is no other way to end controversies and schisms and that as Dr. Saywell saith there must be some over Kingdoms or National Churches as well as over particular persons that many may not escape while a few are punished It is easy to be deceived by the pretences of Unity and Concord while men see the divisions and discords of others And the false pretences of Antiquity are so confidently uttered by their Clergy that men unacquainted with the history may verily believe them And the plea for an uninterrupted succession of Ministerial ordination and that a Superior must give power to the Inferiors deceiveth many If there must be a Diocesane to ordain and rule all Presbyters and a Metropolitan to ordain or rule the Diocesanes and a Patriarch to rule them from whom shall the Patriarchs receive their power or commands but from a Pope The poor reasoning which the French now use with the Protestants puzleth unskilful persons viz. Was there any Church before your reformation If yea where was it And had not you your Ministerial power from it It was Rome or none And if it was the true Church then it is so now We answer them there was and is one only Catholick Church Of this Christ only is the Head or Universal governour and no man or men Of this all Lawful Pastors are his official guides in their several Provinces as many Justices and Mayors of Corporations under one King That all these having one King Jesus and one Law of Christ and one Spirit and one Faith and Hope are to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace and to use Synods when needful to that end but not as a Pretorian or Regent Aristocracy or Court. That the Church before Luther was all over the World where ever there were Christians in Ethiopia Egypt Syria Armenia Georgia Circassia Asia and where ever the Greek Christianity is in Moscovy and in all Europe where there were true Christians That the envious man having sowed Tares this Church is unhappily fallen into many corruptions diseases and factious sects almost all censuring one another no part of it is perfect That the Papal part is in Doctrine Worship and Government one of the most corrupted parts Yet so far as their diseases or errours nullify not their profession of Christianity they are parts though leprous And therefore though they are the most uncharitable and schismatical part as they cut off or unchurch all the Christian World save themselves yet being as Christians united to the rest in the common faith their Baptism Ordinations are not nullities as they invest men in the Christian Society and Christian Ministry though that part of them is a nullity which engageth men
of the Earth are Idolaters and Heathens And do I need to say how ignorant wicked and miserable they are Many of them publickly worship the Devil as Witches do with us and he deludeth them and appeareth in divers shapes to them and ruleth them as he doth Witches And those that are more civil are strangers or enemies to Christ Six parts of the thirty are Ignorant Mahometans destroyers indeed of Heathenish Idolatry and such as take Christ for a great and true Prophet but know him not as a Saviour but equal or prefer a gross Deceiver and live under barbarous Tyrants who by violence keep them in the dark The other five parts that are called Christians alas consist most of people bred up in lamentable Ignorance mostly barbarous or debased by the oppression of Tyrants such as the Moscovites most of the Greeks the Abassines Armenians and many Eastern Sects and Nations What Ignorance the vulgar Papists are bred in in Italy Spain Germany Poland France and other Countreys and what enmity to true Reformation prevaileth in Princes Priests and People and by what Lying and Cruelty they fight against Truth and what Inquisitions Murders and inhumane Massacres have been their powerful means I need not use many words to tell And are the Protestant Reformed Churches free from fleshly worldly wicked men from ignorant malignant cruel Enemies to Truth and Piety and Peace § 3. Our Kings Dominions are the best and happiest Nations on Earth Here is most Knowledge of the Truth and most proportionably that truly Love it and live in a holy obedience thereto and fain would live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness honesty and sobriety But alas they must be contented with their own personal uprightness and reward and the peace of their Consciences in Gods acceptance But with men there seemeth to be no hopes of common Wisdom Piety Love and Peace We are all baptised with one Baptism we all profess to be the servants of one God and the faithful followers of one Christ and to believe in one Holy sanctifying Spirit and to believe the same Canonical Scriptures as the Word of God indited by that Spirit and to be of one Holy Catholick Church which is all the Members of Christ on Earth and to hold the Communion of Saints We mostly in England and Scotland agree in the Protestant Reformed Doctrine and Sacraments Our concord in profession is so great that if some men had not devised some Oaths Professions Covenants Practices and Knacks and Engines of their own which they dare not say God made to become the matter of our unavoidable dissent they could hardly have known how to pretend any difference in religion among us and hell would scarce have found any Cloak for malicious accusations enmity and discord You shall scarce meet with a man that will not speak well of Love and Peace and say that we must Love God above all and our Neighbours as our selves and do as we would have others do to us And yet is there any Enmity or Disagreement Alas how great and how uncureable § 4. Who would think that knew us not by our Profession but only by our Actions but that the three Kingdoms consisted of the deadliest Enemies to each other Of Turks and Christians of Wolves and Sheep that I say not of Devils and Men Yea Turks and Christians can live together in Hungary and all the Eastern Countreys Orthodox and Hereticks can live together in Poland Helvetia Holland c. But Protestants and Protestants cannot live together in Britain Cities and Corporations Countreys and Churches i◠not Families also are distracted in enmity and more than mental feuds and war. Guelphes and Gibelines party against party studying Accusations against each other as if they were Scholars daily exercised in the School of him that is the Accuser of the Brethren All their Learning and Wit is called up and poured out to render others as odious as they are able All their power interest friends and diligence are used to ruine and destroy each other No lies or perjury with some seem unlawful to accomplish so desired an effect In all companies the discourse and converse that should be to edifie each other in Love and comfort each other by the hopes of dwelling together in Heaven is taken up with slanders backbitings scorning railing and plotting the overthrow of the best of their neighbours Innocency never wants odious or scornful names As if they were acting their part that called Christ and his Apostles and the ancient Christians Deceivers Blasphemers Enemies to Caesar Ring-leaders of Sedition that taught men to worship God contrary to the Law. Every drunkard and wicked liver can as easily make his conscionable neighbour a Rogue or a Traitor or a Schismatick or an Hypocrite as he can open his mouth and speak And to justifie all this malice is become a virtue hating the most religious is Zeal for Government and Order destroying Christs Members is standing up for the Church hunting them as Dogs do Hares or as Hawks do the lesser birds is a meritorious work of supererogation no doubt and will not finally lose its reward God is served by hating and scorning them that are serious in his service It is Religion to make Religion odious and call it Hypocrisie and to be for that which is uppermost and befriends their worldly Interest and to make him suspected of Disloyalty who is for obedience to God. Conscience and fear of sinning and of damnation is the mortal enemy to be conquered or driven out of the Land as if there were no quietness to be expected in mens minds no concord in the Church no obedience to the Clergy or the Laws no safety from Sedition till Conscience be silenced or banished and men give over fearing God or as if Christ and Caesar could not both reign but God or Princes must be dethroned And O that the sacred Tribe were innocent and none of them were the leaders in such hypocritical malignity Their Canons ipso facto excommunicate all not excepting Princes Parliaments or Judges that do but say that any of their Ceremonies Liturgy or Officers in Church Government not excepting the lowest or Lay-mens power of the Church Keys by decreeing Excommunications and Absolutions are repugnant to the Word of God And when they have ipso facto Excommunicated them all they call them Separatists for not coming to their Communion Think not the contradiction and hypocrisy incredible read but the 5 6 7 and 8. Canons and judge They have a Law and by their Law he is cut off from the Church or Christ that doth but call any of these the Inventions of Prelates sinful or say that God forbids them And the Jail must be his dwelling till he die there who in ten cases remaineth Excommunicate and doth not openly profess that he repenteth and judgeth that to be sinless which he is utterly unable so to judge When we have preached seven and seven years to
the rule now in France Spain Italy c. Or was it so in the Popes Catholick Church from An. 700 till the Reformation If it be General Councils I am weary of repeating the Proofs that there never was one nor ever is like to be one or ought to be If it be an European Council who shall call them and who shall judge whether it be equal and so far General And are not the greater number of European Bishops known Papists And will they not then be the Major Vote And so we must be as bad as they And if the rest of the Christian world be not bound by them in Greece Ethiopia Armenia Syria c. Why are we Is it the Council of Ariminum Sirmium Milane c. or of Ephesus 2 Nice 2d many at Constantinople at the Laterane at Lyons at Florence at Constance at Basil at Trent that are our Rule Must all that will be Catholicks and saved hold all the Heresies Contradictions and Corruptions that Councils have held and obey all their load of Canons If the Italians French English c. are all disagreed how many and which Councils we must obey can all poor people know which is in the right And hath Christ left Religion so uncertain a thing Or so mutable that General Councils of Prelates may be still increasing it If he was the the maker of it by himself and his Apostles we may know more certainly where to find it Most Christians may say Christ we know and Peter and Paul c. we know But your Councils are too many too voluminous too uncertain for us to know But if they are such an absolutely necessary rule as you pretend why do not teachers preach them to us daily as they do the Sacred Scriptures If any would come down to confine these universal Laws only to Things Indifferent alas must the world be confounded and divided about things indifferent Are not things indifferent variable as Countreys and Ages are And must the world have one Soveraignty to make Laws for them Cannot we have Life Liberty Peace and Love without things indifferent Or without agreeing in them Are there any two in the whole world that are not ignorant and that differ not about many greater matters than things indifferent Doth he know himself or know what a man is that thinks all tolerated Christians must be so Skill'd in all things indifferent which men may impose as to know them to be such When it is so hard to teach the people things necessary few and plain Alas Lord why must the Churches be left in such hands § 9. But some have found out another remedy for our divisions and that is That only the Bishops shall be engaged to a Forreign Jurisdiction or profess the necessity of obeying them under the name of a General Council and in the intervals of a Colledge of the Bishops of the whole world as one Aristocracy And that this shall not be imposed on any Lay-Communicants but their Consciences shall be left at liberty Nor at the first on the inferior Clergy till they are prepared to receive it But only that the People obey the Priests and Prelates and the Priests obey the Prelates and all their Governing Officers and the Prelates only profess obedience to the Pretorian Court called The Catholick Church Bishop Gunnings Chaplain tells us that the Laity are not required in order to Communion to declare for General Councils Whether they use the like Moderation in France Spain Germany I know not viz. For the Bishops only to Profess obedience to the Pope and the Priests to the Bishops and the people to the Priests and Bishops I hear they go further And if Conventicles as they will call them are also suppressed we need not fear Religious Violence Murder and Ruine upon a feared Roman Successour For saith the same Bishops Chaplain pag 283. For matters may be so ordered that all Officers Ecclesiastical Civil and Military and all that are employed in Power or Authority of any kind be persons both of known Loyalty to the Crown and yet faithful Sons of the Church and firm to the established Religion and the Laws that they act by may be so explained in the favour of those that conform to the publick Worship and the discouragement of all Dissenters that we must reasonably be secure from all violence that the Papists can offer to force our submission For when all our Bishops and Clergy are under strict obligations and Oaths and the people are guided by them and all Officers Civil and Military are firm to the same interest and under severe penalties if they act any thing to the contrary Then what probable danger can there be of any violence or disturbance to force us out of our Religion when all things are thus secured and the power of External Execution is generally in the hands of men of our own perswasion Ans. The Dr. says well I am of his mind in this When they have subdued and cast out all Dissenters as they do in France and the Bishops and Clergy are setled under a Forreign Church-Jurisdiction and the People setled in Obedience to them and all Offices Civil Military and Ecclesiastick in their hands I do not think they need to fear that the Papists will use violence to change their Religion whoever reigneth But the Question is whether this suppose an Vnion with all in England that are now against a Forreign Jurisdiction or only the destruction of them or else the forcing them to these terms As to a destruction of them or forcing them to such terms surely Violence must do this And what though the Subjects of Forreign Power fear no Violence are all the rest that is the Protestants of the Kingdom inconsiderable We suppose the old Church of England and all our Parliaments since the Reformation were against a Forreign Jurisdiction And will it be no loss to England to destroy so many that is the Body of the Land But the Question is Whether they may not be thus brought to concord by consent I answer no unless you suppose them to be men that indeed have no Religion and therefore can easily part with the bare name For they are sworn by the Oath of Supremacy against all forreign Iurisdiction And put the case that the Pope and a Council or the King of France would bring the Emperours or the Kings Army to serve him and be at his Command and he would only desire that the General Officers and Colonels may be engaged to obey him and the Captains and lower Officers to obey them and the Souldiers to obey the Officers but the common Souldiers shall be bound to no more than this obedience to their Officers Query Whether all these Souldiers be not Traitors to the King or Emperour Cromwells common Souldiers took no Commissions against King or Parliament they did but obey their Officers that pulled down both And were they therefore guiltless Protestants will not thus follow such
Canons are like to be the Law to the end of the World. § 11. But again what is it that maketh so many of the Laity serve the Popish Prelates universal claim or keep up the destructive enmity and divisions of the Christian World A stranger would think that it were chiefly caused by some great contrariety of real Interests or that one party adhered to some principles or practices which were really hurtful to the others rights While both were serious for Christianity But it is become by long experience notorious that all the Christian Worlds calamitous divisions are principally from the old enmity between the Womans and the Serpents Seed and that all is but the Prosecution of that which their first Patriarch Cain began exemplified after in the discrimination of the Children of men and the Sons of God and in Esau and Iacob Ishmael and Isaac and so down to the days of the Apostles And saith Paul As he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit even so it is now Among us it is notorious that if we knew how to cure men of the radical Enmity of the flesh against the spirit and of a carnal minds averseness to God and serious Godliness the rest of our differences were never like to continue our Wounds and cruel Factions In Families you may hear that this is the fundamental difference Husband and Wife Parents and Children Master and Servants upon the meer account of serious Godliness do live like Enemies that are impatient of each other If the Husband be ungodly the Wife Children or Servants that have but a care of their Salvation are still under his restraints or frowns or scorns This praying especially if it be without Book so much preaching and hearing yea any serious talk of God or Heaven or Scripture is a troublesom weariness to him and he tells them it is but Hypocrisie or more ado than needs If any compassionately tell him of the evil of his swearing or tipling or prophaneness he tells them they are precise Puritanes or Fanaticks and worse than he If they will needs hear Sermons he will have them go but to some cold or ignorant Preacher or one that will please him with a calumny or scorn at Puritans or that will say as he doth that this stir for Salvation and medling so much with Scripture and Religion is but proud self-conceited Fanaticism In a word it is serious Preaching and Hearing and Reading Gods Word serious Praying and Preparation for the Sacrament serious Discourse of the state of their Souls and Preparation for Death Judgment and Eternity serious fearing and avoiding sin and speaking against the sin of others that is the common eye-sore and trouble of the world which they secretly hate and cannot bear with in their Families in their Neighbours in Magistrates in Ministers or People And because it easeth their minds by vent and by keeping up some hopes that they may be saved without this serious Godliness themselves they cherish a conceit that the persons that herein differ from them are as bad if not much worse than others and gladly hear those that slander and deride them Such Company such Pamphlets such Sermons please them And to make them odious they have for them some contemptuous scornful Nickname which though it be of no signification is as effectual as the truest charge Among the Roman Sects do but call a man a Heretick or Schismatick a Lutheran a Calvinist a Zwinglian and elsewhere do but call him a Sectary a Schismatick a Puritan a Calvinist a Nonconformist an Independant a Presbyterian a Round-head a Fanatick a Whig and it serveth the turn as well as if you had proved him a proud Hypocrite or a Rebel And there be among the real Schismaticks also some persons that if you do but call a man Episcopal a Conformist an Arminian a Church of England man that goeth to the Common-Prayer they think that he must needs be a Temporizer Graceless or Dangerously unsound And thus the miseries of the Land are continued and increased But because the spirit of Cain is the Grand Incendiary and the Enmity against serious Holiness throughout all the world is the principal cause of Divisions Hatred Wars and Blood-shed I will here annex many Reasons which with men that have any Reason left them should cure this Malignant Enmity to Holiness if men will but soberly consider them I have said so much to such already especially in my Saints Rest Now or Never my Family Book and a Saint or a Brute that I cannot do this work again without repeating much that 's said But seeing all that doth not serve and the Ulcer breaketh out more dangerously than ever till it come to a Noli me tangere we must continue some hope and use of means and if we lay on fresh Plaisters of the old materials while only New Books are by such regarded we are bound to do our best It is but so much labour lost and it is not utterly lost to our selves while we have peace of Conscience in Gods acceptance But being sure to be misreported when I have done my best to be understood that I be not guilty of it I will first shew what I mean by serious Godliness and next what I mean by Malignity or Enmity to serious Godliness Chap. II. Whom I mean by Godly Persons and whom by Malignant Enemies to Godliness § 1. BY GODLINESS I do not mean 1. Any Superstition or making Religions or Religious Duties which God never made and extolling these and the Party that are for them God hath made us Religious work enough Could we do that well we need no more Religion so far as it is made by men is no Religion but a contradiction or equivocation for Religion is our Obligation and Duty to God and Conscience of it Could I be for Superstition or more Religion than God hath made us I might be for all the New Religions of Rome Franciscans Dominicans Carthusians Jesuits Oratorians and all the rest And I might be for their Works of Supererogation their Massings worshiping Bread Angels dead Saints Images their Pilgrimages Relicks and all their pretended Traditions and Councils their new made Church-Laws and I should know no end § 2. And 2. By Godliness I mean not any singular odd Opinion differing from the Scripture and making a Sect or any Errour whatsoever nor any Opinion which is contrary to any thing which the whole Church on Earth did ever hold as necessary to Salvation or Communion § 3. Nor 3. Do I mean any Truth or Duty of inferiour moment which only makes to the well-being of a Christian though this be an Inferiour part of Godliness at least not that which a godly willing person knows not to be his duty § 4. Much less 4. Do I mean any proud false conceit of a mans own Godliness and becoming one of an unwarrantable Sect that he may be conspicuous to others or
hate you as it hated me because you are not of the World but I have chosen you out of the World Marvel not if the World hate you As many as will live godly in Christ Iesus shall suffer Persecution c. Who do you think all this is spoken of It is not of you that are fleshly worldly ungodly men Who Persecuteth you for righteousness sake Who hateth revileth or imprisoneth or fineth you for living godly in Christ Jesus Do you suffer as much for reviling Preachers as we have done for Preaching What suffer you for all the Oaths that be sworn daily in Streets and Taverns and the horrid prophaneness Atheism Sadduceism Infidelity that men are guilty or If you did suffer for Whoredom Drunkenness Blasphemy is that for Christ or righteousness When the Holy Ghost saith As he that was born after the Flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit even so it is now is it such as you that he meaneth When Peter saith They speak evil of you and falsly accuse your good conversation in Christ 1 Pet. 3. 16. whom meaneth he When he saith 1 Pet. 4. They think it strange that you run not with them to all excess of ryot lasciviousness lusts excess of wine revellings banquetings and abominable idolatry who do you think he meaneth And when he saith 1. Pet. 2. 9. Ye are a chosen Generation a royal Priest-hood a holy Nation a peculiar People that ye should shew forth the praises of him that hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light who is it that he meaneth You 'll say It is Christians True But is it Hypocrites Is it those that will say at last Lord we have Prophesied in thy Name and Eat and Drunk in thy presence to whom Christ will say Depart from me ye workers of Iniquity I know you not Sure false Christians are worse than Heathens 39. The way which you take against Religious persons doth shew who it is that sets you on work and what it is that is the root of your enmity As Gods Image is in the understanding will and executive power of man so is Satans and he is accordingly described by Christ to be 1. A Liar and Deceiver 2. A Malignant Hater of Goodness or Holiness and a cause of sin 3. A hurtful murderer or destroyer And these are the three ways by which Godly people are prosecuted in the world 1. Belying them is grown so common with their enemies that there is nothing scarcely so notoriously false which they will not affirm of them and it 's well if some will not preach it print it or swear it And they make one another easily believe it Till experience proved it I did not think that humane nature had been liable to such impudent monstrous lying 2. The daily business of many is by wit and diligence to draw men to hate Religious men on false pretences As plainly as Christ preacheth and urgeth Love as his great Commandment so plainly do these press and urge men to Hatred But of this before 3. And Hatred tends to Hurtfulness What plotting and labouring is there in the world to ruine and destroy each other The malignant spirit is blood-thirsty It 's strange how the unclean Devils thirst to draw or suck some blood from Witches Nothing more alienates me from the Papal Kingdom than that it lives like Leeches upon blood To read over the History of the Inquisition and of their Massacres would make Men take Toads and Adders and mad Dogs and Wolves for harmless things in comparison of some Men. If any would requite them or others with the like I hate it in Protestant or Papist The Turks conquered the Greek Empire partly by the mutinous divisions of the Christians and partly by promising them Liberty of Religion And when the Christians thought they should have that they yielded up the Empire with the less resistance And that which was so advantageous to the Infidels might well used and limited be more advantageous to the Christian Truth and Church But though good things may be used in an ill cause it is a sign of a bad cause which needeth bad means That cause which is carried on by Lying Perjury and Deceit by malignant Love-killing endeavours and by cruelty and hurtfulness and blood is thereby made suspicious to all wise men It is a wonder of impudency in Baronius Binnius and other Papists to justifie Martin a Canonized Saint for renouncing Communion to the death with the Synods and Bishops who perswaded the Emperor to draw the Sword against the Gnostick Priscillianists and themselves to defend a thousand-fold greater cruelties and murders in their own Church on the account of Religion But sin is mad self-contradiction 4. I conclude with this great truth They that hate and oppose Godly mens obedience to God do seek to silence the chief Witness of Christ and to cast out Christianity from the Earth Christianity cannot be proved to be true but by the Spirit which is its Seal and Witness This Witness of the Spirit was not only extraordinary in Languages and numerous Miracles but also ordinary in the work of Sanctification This Seal is set on all that shall be saved in all times and places The Lord knoweth who are his And let him that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity He redeemed us to purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Iesus Christ Tit. 2. 12 13 14. By this healing work Christ is known to be indeed our Physician the real Saviour that saveth his people from their sins As man generateth man and the Father is known by the similitude of the Child and as he is known to be a good Artist that can make others such This is Christs standing Witness in all times and places And when you would turn this into scorn and cloud it with slanders or the charge of Hypocrisie and would have such judged an odious people and have them driven out of the world what do you in effect but spit in the face of Christ and crown him with Thorns and call him a Deceiver and crucifie him afresh and seek to expel Christianity from the Earth What reasonable man could believe Christ to be Christ the Saviour of the world if he did not sanctifie men and make them much better and fitter for Heaven than other men So that in this you directly militate for the Devil the World and the Flesh against God the Father Son and Holy Ghost against the Holy Catholick Church and the Communion of Saints and the Hope of Resurrection and life everlasting which if you did openly under the name of Infidels or Heathens or rather as the profest Souldiers of the Devil it were less disingenuous and hypocritical than to do it in
Christs Apostles did If this be their horrid wickedness that makes them unworthy to live out of Prison say so and pretend no other But if it be Heresie false Doctrine Perjury Fornication Robbing Treason Sedition or any other crime why are they not accused of these before the Judges And why are those charged with them that never were so accused and proved guilty Will not all wise men take those persons for malicious Liars who by their published accusations thus odiously charge multitudes and never offer to prove it against them at the Judicatures Their accusation shews they want not will therefore their not prosecuting them for any such sort of crimes shews that it is truth that is wanting 13. And if they be such wicked persons whence is it that they are charged meerly with Hypocrisy by such as say that they live soberly and justly and demurely but they are at the heart as bad as others Their accusers commonly confess that they are most free from all immoralities and have an outward shew of righteousness but these heart-searchers see that their hearts are bad And do they not by this confute their own accusations 14. And why is it that they that know them best can see none of the wickedness which you accuse them of beyond those humane infirmities of which they most accuse themselves As I have oft done I again solemnly profess as one that cannot be far from my account before the judge of all the the World that having now lived to the 68th year of my age and been most familiar since the age of sixteen or seventeen with that sort of men whom the Vulgar then called Puritans described by Mr. Bolton and such other Conformists though I have met with many that had their mistakes and frailties and troublesome differences in lesser things and some Hypocrites intruded among them yet I never knew any other sort of men comparable to them in Christian Knowledge Faith Obedience to God Hatred of sin Care of their duty to God and man Sobriety Temperance Chastity Truth Heavenly desires endeavours and hopes And that they so far excelled the rest of my acquaintance as made their grace amiable to me and confirmed my belief of the Sacred Scripture Yea more if I had not had the happiness of knowing such a sort of men that in holiness Justice and Love excelled the rest of my acquaintance or at least credibly heard of such I could not have believed in Christ as a Saviour of men whom he made no better than Turks and Infidels Nor could I have believed a Heaven for men no better prepared for it And that now near my end I see so great a difference in Holiness Justice and Charity between those commonly reviled for worshiping God but as the Apostles did and those that hate and persecute them as greatly helps me in believing that there is a Saviour and Sanctifier and Heaven for the faithful and a Devil that deceives the rest and a hell that will receive them which is even visibly begun on Earth Accus But say they it is not for their Godliness or Sobriety that we accuse them but for their sin and wickedness Ans. Still this is but General and signifieth nothing But 1. What is that odious sin 2. It 's Gods merciful Providence that keeps sin in general under such shame as that the actors of it speak against it even in their slanders 3. But if this be the true cause why do you cull out those that have least sin to fasten your accusations of sin upon If there be a conformable Minister that is more Holy Charitable and Zealous against sin than the rest he is one of those that is called a Puritan and accused of sin Why do we hear none of your furious charges against the common Drunkards Revellers Gamesters Whoremongers Persecutors Profane Blasphemers Lyars and the Families that call not upon God shew no serious regard of any Religion at all You can live among these and Swear and Drink and Play with them and never cry out against them as bad men Accus But religion being the best thing the Corrupters of that are worse than Drunkards and Swearers and Adulterers Ans. Such corrupters there may be as are worse indeed But what is it that they corrupt Religion in They subscribe to all the Bible and the ancient Creeds And if need be to the English Articles of Religion Is not all that enough Their many large published writings tell the world their Judgment in Religion Such as Mr. Arthur Hildershams Mr. Perkins Mr. Greenhams Dods Anthony Burges Richard Alleins and abundance such What errors are in these 2. Why are they not these twenty years accused of Preaching false Doctrine and proved guilty and punisht for it if they are such 3. If it be not in Doctrine what is it Accus They worship God contrary to the Law in not using the Common-Prayer book Ans. 1. Those that constantly joyn in the Parish Churches in the Common-Prayer are as much hated Reviled and Prosecuted as the rest Therefore this charge is but hypocrisy 2. What do they that for matter or manner is positively contrary to Law in Gods worship They read Scripture Pray Preach Praise God with Psalms Communicate in the Lords Supper Doth the Law forbid any of this 3. Not using the rest of the Liturgy is a Negation and no Act at all and therefore no act of worship and therefore no unlawful act no more than silence is He that is silent and he that omits the rest of the Liturgy worships not God by using it but he doth nothing contrary to it or forbidden by it 4. If Peter and Paul were unknown in England and worshipt God but as they did on Earth would you therefore call them Rogues or Rebels or lay them in the jail Did they worship God in an odious intolerable manner Did the Holy-Ghost by them write an infallible Rule for all things necessary in Religion and yet are they unsufferable rogues that worship God but according to that rule 5. Are they wiser men than they that have made us another rule or worship or have they more of Gods Spirit and more authority in religion 6. Do not the Imposers say that all which they add is no part of Religion but things indifferent And are they odious corrupters of Religion who omit no part of Religion but only humane indifferent things 7. Do you not reverence the Church for some hundred years after Christ which imposed no Liturgies but left every Pastor to use his own Prayers 8. Do you not harden the Papists that call our Religion new and ask where it was two hundred years ago if you make the Liturgy as now formed and imposed our Religion when it is not two hundred years old 9. The Godly Bishops of England have ever owned the other Protestant Churches and their Communion who have none of our Liturgies nor any like it 10. If this be the odious crime why do you
persons and closing for the future in mutual love was the only way to the Nations peace You would tempt men to think that you desire to see such days again by trying whether destroying men will tempt nature to a self-defence 2. But you have oft had it proved by Henry Fowlis Bishop Barlow and abundance more that no Protestants come near the Principles and Practices of the Papists as to King-killing and Rebellion And if yet you know not that the War began between two parties of Episcopal conformists here among the English you are unfit to judge of that which you know not And by reading Rushworth Whitlock or any true Histories of such times and matters you may be better informed As you may of their different principles if you read Iewel Bishop Bilson and Richard Hooker on one side and Mainwarning and Sibthorp on the other 3. But how few men are alive that had any hand in those miserable Wars You have oft been offered a thousand thanks if you will silence and hunt no other that are as innocent as you and more than many of of their accusers And shall thousands suffer for other mens deeds 3. What will wise men think of such a sort of men as charge multitudes in general with Rebellious and Seditious Doctrine and have accused so few of any such these twenty years that I know not of one publickly Accused Tryed and Proved guilty of all called Presbyterians in all this Land If they are guilty prove it and let the guilty suffer and not the innocent Only had I my wish I would Bar Perjury and Condemning men unheard Accus They are an unpeaceable sort of people Ans. That 's soon said Who hath these 22 two years manifested most desires of Peace They that have beg'd for it again and again Pleaded and written for it Offered their Oaths that they would obey any lawful Commands for it and do any thing which they did not believe that God forbids Or those Bishops that would not have one Form or Ceremony or needless Subscription forborn to save thousands of Ministers from being silenced and laid in Common jails nor to save many thousand of the people from suffering and to heal the divisions of the Church One would think this should be as easie a Controversy as when Soldiers are plundering the Country and the people on their knees intreating for their goods and lives to determine which of them is most against War. Accus But what need they make such a stir with their Religion What need they any more than go to Church and live obediently and be quiet Why will they be righteous over much will not less ado bring men to Heaven Why do they differ from their Neighbours and judge all carnal that be not as Scrupulous as they God is merciful and will he save none but Puritans or precise zealots Ans. Now you come to the real matter of your distast I did not meddle with the case of Nonconformity as it is a Controversy between Godly men but only as you make a pretence of it to exercise your enmity against serious Godliness and a handle to lay hold on many whom Christ will justify and save To all before said I add 1. If you think they do too much search the Scriptures and see whether it be not less than God commandeth And if so is it not God whom you accuse and reproach 2. If they do too much in obeying God why do Canon-makers impose such abundance on them as if God had not imposed enough 3. Why do you never find fault with men for being too strong too healthful too rich too great but only for being too obedient to God When Christ saith If we did all that God commandeth we must say we are unprofitable Servants we have done no more than was our duty and the best on Earth come short of duty But this which is the Core I answered before And conclude that all that be in their right wits can easilier bear all your accusations and persecutions of us as if we did too much in obedience to God than the accusation of Conscience and the displeasure of God for doing too little Which alas when we have done our best would sink us into despair had we not the merits of Christs suffering and perfect righteousness to trust to Chap. V. An humble Expostulation with the English Papists who by Information and Prosecution seek our ruine THough it be not Popery as such that I am here reasoning against the course that many Papists take in seeking our destruction giveth me cause of this humble expostulation And I speak now of no other but of them I mean 1. Those that write so hotly and ragingly to provoke Superiors to ruine us 2. Those that make a trade of being delators against us for worshiping God as we do 3. Those of them that break in upon us with greatest haughtiness and fury to take away all our goods and seek our imprisonment 4. Those that seek to ruine us by those Laws which were made against themselves 5. Those that would make Superiors believe that our Doctrine is more rebellious than theirs To these I offer a few modest questions Qu. 1. There are some among you that profess great Spirituality and strictness in Religion Serenus Cressy wrote to me commending Baker's book which he published that he forsook the Church of England because he found no Spiritual contemplation and devotion among us Such as Nerius Sales Kempis Gerson Borromaeus Renti c. are really the chief honour of your Church Much of that for which I am hated by the Enemies of serious godliness I acknowledge to Gods praise I was first chiefly awakened to by a book written by one whom Watson and others of your party grievously accuse I mean Parsons Book of Resolution corrected by Bunny True Christianity and Godliness is the same thing in all that have it Your Priest Mr. Hutchinson alias Berry writeth that the most of serious Godliness among Protestants is found among those called Puritans So that I was fain to defend the Conformists against his charge All this being so is it the Spirit of God that engageth and enrageth you with the most destructive bitterness against those men whom you confess to be the most Religious meerly because they are stiffest against your Church Government and way of worship And do you not know that it tendeth more sensibly than disputes to perswade the people whom you thus hate and prosecute that your Religion is malignant and enmity to real Godliness Qu. 2. Do you think it is prudent for you as soon as ever you get up and before you dare openly own your name and cause to begin with Malice Rage and Cruelty and that against the most religious as you say Will not this perswade the people that all is true that is said of your intended cruelty and make them fear you as so many Leopards or Wolves Will they not say if the young Serpents
can so easily sting what will the old ones do And if your infancy here begin with such destructive zeal what will you do when you are at full growth Qu. 3. You cannot be ignorant what cause to accuse your Church with Cruelty and Blood hath been given the world by your Church Laws and Practices By the Council at the Laterane under Innocent 3d the Council for damning Henrician Hereticks even Kings that claim Investiture of Bishops and those that decree the burning of all that you call Hereticks By the murder of so many thousand Albigenses Waldenses Bohemians c. By the Inquisitions more inhumane cruelties in Belgium and Spain c. By the Massacres in France and the murder of Henry III. and IV. By Queen Maries flames By the two hundred thousand murdered in Ireland And there be many among you who disown all this and say it is not from the principles of your Religion when yet General Councils approved are your Religion it self This being copiously opened as I said before by Henry Fowlis Bishop Barlow c. had it not been more prudent for you to have begun with Lenity and Love to have drawn men to think that you are better minded than to perswade them that you are of your rulers and forefathers mind and mean to imitate them Qu. 4. Have you not observed that all parties have faln by forcing multitudes to be their enemies by seeking to destroy or hurt them Most men love quietness and will live in peace if others will give them leave But when they see that they must offend others or not defend themselves it sets all their wit and power on work against their intolerable enemies There are few creatures in the world that have not some power and inclination to hurt others for their own defence The Bee hath a Sting to defend her Hive and Honey And do you not remember that your sufferings in England came most by Queen Maries flames and the Spanish Invasion and the many Treasons against Queen Elizabeth and by the Powder Plot And how the French Massacre and Murders of Kings and the horrid Inquisition set all our Parliaments against you And how the Murder of 200000 in Ireland drove many thousands into the Parliaments Army that else would not have gone And will you yet stir up all the Land to fear and hate you Qu. 5. Is it not both imprudent and unrighteous for you of all men to turn those Laws against us which were made against you and have so much slept and little troubled you You will by this call people to take notice of them that did not before For my own part as I never hurt any of you so I know not that any of the Ministers did whose ruine you endeavour We hear of none of your sufferings by any such Indeed these late years many have died as for the Plot so much talkt of But by whom did they die Was it not by the accusation and witness of Papists Were not Oats Bedlow Dugdale Turbervile Prance Dangerfield Ienison Smith alias Barry the York-shire Witnesses and the rest besides the Irish all men of your selves that came out of your own Bosoms whether the men died justly or unjustly I leave to God But sure it was men of your own selves that did it And will you be revenged for this on such Protestants that medled not in it And you should remember that you and we have a Protestant King who hath sworn all his Kingdom against all forreign jurisdiction and all endeavour of any alteration of Government in Church or state and so much abhors Popery that he hath made a law severely to punish all that shall but raise any suspicion that he is a Papist And you must in reason take heed of dishonouring and defaming him by defaming Protestants in general And sure since Queen Elizabeths days we have had no Kings whom you can justly accuse of cruelty towards you No not King Iames when the Powder Plot had provoked him if half be true that the Bishop of Ambrun saith of his conference with him or that Rushworth and others say of the Oath of the King Prince and Council for Toleration you are disingenuous if you accuse them of cruelty or rigorous severity In you Philanax Anglicus as formerly in the Image of both Churches you make all called Protestants of sincerity to be of Rebellious principles and their Religion introduced by it and yet profess that you honour the King as if you would have men doubt whether he be a Protestant of sincerity or else were as bad as you describe Had the severe Laws been executed against you especially for meer Religion no one could wonder if you desired relief But while you live quietly and Words and Paper hurt you not that I hear of to begin with so much hurtfulness to them that medled not with you will disserve your cause Qu. 6. And is it consistent with reasonable modesty to go about to make the World believe that the Protestant Doctrine is less loyal than yours Do you think your Books are invisible all your practices forgotten It is none of the business of this writing to accuse you herein of any thing but falsly accusing others and seeking to destroy us on such accusation Though you may thus deceive the ignorant that know no more of you than what you tell them that will but turn to your dishonour at last Are not your foresaid Council Canons which are your Religion visible Have not the forecited writers truly cited them and multitudes of your Doctors which may better inform men Are all the Wars of Italy Germany c. against Princes and Emperors for the Pope forgotten Was it not a Council of your Bishops that decreed that all the carcasses of those Bishops that were for the Henrician Heresy that is for the Emperors power of investing Bishops and his exemption from being excommunicated and deposed by the Pope should be digged out of their Graves and Burnt Was it not a council that deposed Ludovicus Pius How many more such acts have they done And are not your most learned Doctors allowed to publish the justification of the Popes power to excommunicate depose Kings if they deserve it in his judgment Do not your politick Writers Casuists and Divines ordinarily hold that the people give Kings their power and may take it away when they forfeit it and that tyranny is such a forfeiture And that the people should not suffer a Heretick to reign And that subjects may be absolved from their Oaths of Allegiance according to the foresaid Laterane and Greg. 7. Roman Councils But too much is said of this by many and the case is past a modest denial Even those Protestants that were in Arms for the Parliament and restored the King were so far from thinking that their Oaths of Allegiance may be dispensed with that if I knew any thing of those men and times it was principally the Conscience of two
Oaths the Oath of Allegeance and the Oath called the Covenant that by them overcame the opposition of the other Army and brought home the King. It was this that engaged the Ministers of England against both Cromwel and a Common-wealth and the Ministers were followed by most of the religious people of the land which broke the adversaries strength It was this that engaged the excluded members of the then long Parliament It was this that engaged the City of London It seems it was this that engaged Gen. Monk's Army when they say in their address to him see it in Englands Triumph for K. Charles the 2d p. 85. We hope to evince to his Majesty and all the world that we and all those that have been engaged in the Parliaments cause are his Majesties best and most real subjects and that your Excellency and the Armies under your command have complied with the obligations for which they were first raised for the preservation of the true Protestant Religion the Honour and Dignity of the King the Priviledges of Parliament the Liberty and Property of the Subjects and the Fundamental Laws of the land I am not justifying all that I recite I doubt not but they were much mistaken But if they had then been told that shortly all the Corporation Offices and Trusts in England shall be constituted by a personal Declaration of every one that There is no obligation on any person from the Oath called the Solemn Covenant to restore the King oppose Schism or to any thing whatever the effect would have been such as makes me wonder that the Royalists as then called should be very eager to make all such declare that all these Souldiers Ministers Parliament and Citizens that restored the King as bound to it by that Oath were therein mistaken and no such obligation thence was on them Qu. 7. I need not name to you the sorry fellows out of the Jails where they lay for inhuman villanies that have been our zealous ranting tearing prosecuters And do you think such actors are an honour to your cause If it be good use good men in it Qu. 8. Why do you play your game under board and behind the Curtain If you are not ashamed of your cause openly own it Is falshood lying and dissembling beseeming them that say they are of a Church out of which none can be saved I remember when Terret alias Iohnson had seduced the eldest Daughter of the Countess of Balcarres whom they stole away and made a Nun in France and she was after askt why she did so long go to our Churches join in family worship read Protestant Books and talk against the Papists and deride them after she was a Papist her self she answered that they had leave to do all that as long as they did not openly Profess their Religion and were not detected But when once they were discovered and openly professed themselves Roman Catholicks they must then suffer any thing rather than conform to us Gods cause needeth not such jugling and lying Qu. 9. Why do you not ingenuously plead your cause against us so as may satisfy an understanding Conscience before you seek our destruction 1. Your arguings are commonly fitted only to cheat the ignorant by ambiguities and confusion and equivocal terms Your queries or methods to the French sufferers are only a formed cheat by confounding 1. Subjection to Governours and Communion with neighbour Churches 2. Communion with your Church in Christianity and Communion with its sins 3. A Catholick Church informed only by the soveraignty of Christ and a pretended universal Church informed by the soveraignty of Man a Monarch or a Church-Parliament 4. The office of keeping delivering and teaching men Gods Laws and an absolute power to Judge of their sence and to make more as a supplement to their defects obliging all the world on pain of Excommunication and Death And more such 2. Any writings which undeniably open your frauds you take no notice of nor vouchsafe to answer upon the importunity of Mr. Iohnson and divers others I have lately written 1. A reply to Iohnson 2. A small book in answer to one of your Papers to prove that we have a certainty of Christianity without Popery 3. In answer to another a small Book called Full and Easy satisfaction which is the true Religion None of them will you answer nor those before written But instead of a sober investigation of the truth some of you raise odious slanders of my life and threaten and seek my destruction I never hurt any of you as I said before nor ever perswaded any to severity against you I have long ago publickly proposed terms on which we might live together as neighbours in peace But destruction and misery are in your way that I have observed and the way of peace you have not known There are three things which alienate common Christians from you more than all other disputes 1. That you can go so openly against the plainest words of God as in blotting out the Second Commandment in notorious contradicting 1 Cor. 12. and Rom. 14 and 15. about the terms of Church Union and Communion about Latin Prayers and Worship to the ignorant denying the Cup to the Laity denying sense in Transubstantiation 2. That you befriend Ignorance so much by the said Latin Worship forbidding most to read the Scripture translated and accuse Gods Spirit of writing obscurely to cover this 3. That your Religion liveth by cruelty and blood and cannot stand without it Which at least in prudence you should hide as long as you can Or at least not design to make the ignorant and vicious Protestants your Proselytes and Agents conjunctly to ruin those whom your Consciences know to be the most Consciencious and seriously religious By which already the flock of Christ do under your Sheeps cloathings so judge of you by your fruites that if any man that is called a Protestant Clergy-man do but Write and Preach for cruelty and ruin towards serious Conscionable Christians people by this very mark do presently suspect that he is either a Papist or so near them as that he is ready to pass over to them whom he so assisteth in destructive work Qu. What must be the cure of Malignity Ans. When the heel of the holy seed is sufficiently bruised the Serpents Head must be broken 1. The War in Heaven which formerly cast down the Dragon must break the supream Serpentine Head. II. Then his Heads military on Earth will be broken I. The usurping universal Head called Ecclesiastical II. The national Serpentine Heads I. Exterior Mahometan and Heathen II. Interior called falsly Christian I. Serpentine Monarchs that War against Christ. II. Serpentine Prelates and their Patrons that fight against Christ as in his own name and by his pretended commission And all this by Christ and not by sinful means Reformation is begun à Minoritis at the lowest for personal Salvation of the Elect But a Majoritis at the Heads for publick welfare And God must raise Reforming Princes and Pastors to that end FINIS A Catalogue of Books Printed for and Sold by Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers Chapel Mr. Baxter's Catholick Theology Folio A Third Volume of Sermons Preached by the late Reverend and Learned Tho. Manton D. D. In two parts Folio A Hundred Select Sermons on several Texts of Fifty on the Old Testament and Fifty on the New. Folio Choice and Practical Expositions on four Select Psalms Folio Both by the Reverend and Learned Tho. Horton D. D. late Minister of St. Hellens London The true Prophecies and Prognostications of Michael Nostrodamus Physician to Henry the Second Francis the Second and Charles the Ninth Kings of France and one of the Best Astronomers that ever were Folio Sixty one Sermons Preached mostly on publick occasions whereof five formerly Printed by Adam Littleton D. D. Rector of Chelsea in Middlesex Folio The Saints Everlasting Rest or a Treatise of the Blessed State of the Saints in their Enjoyment of God in Glory 4to The English Nonconformity as under King Charles II. and King Iames II. Truly Stated and Argued By Richard Baxter 4to A Discourse concerning Liturgies By the late Learned and Judicious Divine Mr. David Clarkson 8vo A Discourse of the Saving Grace of God. By the late Reverend and Learned David Clarkson Minister of the Gospel 8vo The Vision of the Wheels seen by the Prophet Ezekiel opened and applyed Partly at the Merchants Lecture in Broad-street and partly at Stepney on Ianuary 31. 1689. Being the Day of Solemn Thanksgiving to God for the great Deliverance of this Kingdom from Popery and Slavery by His then Highness the most Illustrious Prince of Orange Whom God raised up to be the glorious Instrument thereof By Matthew Mead Pastor of a Church of Christ at Stepney 4to The Life of Faith in every State. By Rich. Baxter 4to Alderman Ashurst's Funeral Sermon 4to A Key for Catholicks to open the Juglings of the Jesuits The first part of answering all their common Sophisms The second against the Soveraignty and necessity of General Councils 4to Full and easy satisfaction which is the true Religion Transubstantiation shamed 8vo Naked Popery Answering Mr. Hutchinson 4to FINIS