Jesus Have not you just reason to be afraid that God will reject your Prayers which are addressed to Saints as Mediators contrary to his order and injunction What Kings suffer here on Earth in letting their Subjects address 〈…〉 to them can be no example here for God as he intends not to regulate his Court by the Court of Princes so we know it is against his Order to go to his Servants when we are commanded to come directly to him and it is such a voluntary humility as deprives us of our reward as the Apostles expresly tells us Coloss. 2.18 God knew well enough if men addressed themselves to his Servants to have access to him something of the Worship due to him would stick by the way and rest upon his Servants to his dishonour and disparagement and therefore he mentioned nothing of this mediate address It s true we desire our neighbours here on Earth to pray for us but for that we have a command for the invocation of Saints departed we have none and in vain do they worship me saith God teaching for doctrines the Commandments of men Mat. 15.9 But besides when you desire your living Neighbours to pray for you I hope you do not fall down upon your knees to them nor use the same zeal and devotion to them as you do to God and for whole hours together as you do to Saints departed But why will you blind your self in a thing which your own practice contradicts you in you know you do not onely pray to Saints departed to pray for you but you do many times without making any mention of their Prayers for you beg of them with the same reverence and prostrations you use to God to deliver you from all evil and consequently you beg the same Blessings of them you beg of God And it is but a weak excuse to say that you intend by those Prayers nothing else but that by their intercession they may get those blessings for you for you go contrary to the nature of things and whereas words ordinarily are interpreters of the mind you make your minds interpreters of your words and actions which is a strange evasion and if such a thing be intended why do you lay a snare before the Common sort of People who being ordered to pray to Saints for such and such blessings know nothing to the contrary but that they are able to dispense those Blessings to them and thus commit Idollatry by your willful connivance whose blood will certainly be required at your Churchmens hands one day Examine but your Prayers to the Virgin Mary in your own Manuals when you have prayed to her and begged of her all that you can pray of GOD you add a word or two of her intercession which in good truth is nothing but a blind that you may not be said to commit down right Idolatry You know those Prayers to the Virgin Mary which in the Latine and I think in the English Manual too are ordered to be said to the Virgin Morning and Evening the one O my Lady Holy Mary I commend my self my Soul and Body to thy blessed care and singular custody and to the bosome of thy mercy this day and every day and in the hour of my going out of the World All my hope and all my comfort all my afflictions and miseries my life my end I commit unto thee speak seriously what can you say more to GOD that by thy most holy Intercession and by thy merits all my words and actions may be directed and disposed according to thine and thy Sons Will Amen Where it 's worth noting that first you do put as much trust in the Virgin as you do in GOD and then afterwards to make these harsh expressions softer you desire her to interceed for you that your works may be directed according to Christs Will nay and her own as if she were a Law-giver too Then follows Maria Mater Gratiae c. O Mary Mother of Grace Mother of Mercy Protect us from the Enemy and receive us in the hour of Death which St. Stephen thought was fitter to be said to Christ when he Cryed Lord Jesu receive my spirit Then followes the Evening Prayer to the Virgin Mary O Mary Mother of GOD and gratious Virgin the true Comforter of all distressed Creatures that call upon thee this Epithete by the way the Scripture gives to the Holy Ghost by that great joy whereby thou wast comforted when thou didst know that Jesus Christ was risen the third day from the Dead impassible be thou the Comforter of my Soul and by the same who is thine and GODS only Son in the last day when with body and Soul I shall rise again and give an account of all my actions do thou Vouchsafe to help me that I may escape the Sentence of perpetual Damnation by thee Pious Mother and Virgin and may come happily with all the Elect of GOD to Eternal joyes Amen Then follows vnder thy protection we flee Holy Mother of GOD despise not our prayer in our necessities but deliver us from all dangers alwayes O glorious and blessed Virgin Not to mention any more prayers of this nature whereof there is a vast number If GOD be a GOD jealous of his Glory how can he like and approve of such doings It 's true the Honour done to his Servants is done to him but then it must be such Honour as they are capable to receive so to Honour them as to give them the Epithetes and titles which the Scripture gives to none but GOD so to Honour them as to use in your prayers to them the same outward prostrations that you use to GOD when you pray to him so to Honour them as to spend more time in your addresses to them than you do in supplications to GOD as is evident from your Rosary so to Honour them as to say more prayers to them than to Christ so to Honour them as to joyn their merits with Christs merits This is an Honour which I believe will oblige GOD to say one day who hath required these things at your hands And how unlike the Worship of the true GOD is that Veneration you express to the Images and Pictures of Saints and to Relicks How unlike that plain and Simple Worship which the Gospel enjoynes One would think it should a little startle you to see that your Church is afraid to let the second Commandement be known to the people you know they leave it out in their Primmers and Catechismes or if they mention it they do so mince it that one sees plainly they are afraid the People should see the contrariety of their Worship to the express word of GOD. In the beginning of the Reformation the very sight of this Commandement made people run away from the Church of ROME as much as any thing indeed to consider the general termes GOD uses there Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven Image c. Thou shalt
as not to agree with the Church of ROME if they did not see plainly that there is Death in that Pot and that the Errours in that Church cannot be subscribed to without hazarding the welfare of their Souls I will but use your own Argument when you went over to the Church of ROME and were perswaded by the earnestness of her Priests to yeild to their reasonings what pleasure can we take in promoting your Damnation What can be our interest in deceiving you You used that Argument on their side why will you not use it on our side Judge you whither we that have the Gospel on our side for what we teach are not in a safer way than that Church which for all the new Doctrines they have added to the Old Creedes are forced to run to the broken Cisterns of Tradition and I know not what Fathers whose writings they know not whether they be genuine or no As you are now you live in willful opposition to the Doctrine and Precepts of the Gospel And O Remember what St. Paul doth say 2 Thes. 1.7 8. That the Lord Jesus will ere long come down from Heaven with all his Holy Angels to take Vengeance on those who have disobeyed the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Once more therefore I charge you before Almighty GOD and our Lord Jesus Christ to repent of your Errours and to return to the bosome of that Church in which you received your life and being and the Principles of Religion and Christianity But if all this seem to you no more but Bugbears I have delivered my own Soul and should be sorry that this discourse should stand as a Witness against you in the Last day which GOD knows was only intended as a motive to draw you back to that Fold from which you have Wandered and gone astray I am Madam Your Faithfull Friend to serve You. N. N. Feb. 20. 1677. FINIS Postscript Madam AS in the publishing of this Letter I had no other design but to prevent the fall of others into the like dangers so I have particularly insisted on those motives which have of late tempted some persons to go over to the Roman Church and though I have represented these motives as yours yet in this I have been so far from doing any thing against the laws of private discourse or friendship or acquaintance that I have only touch'd upon the common stumbling-blocks which make unwary people joyne themselves to that Church blocks which might easily be removed if men or Women would but give themselves leave to think and would prefer the solid dictates of their reason before the suggestions of their soft and sickly passions One thing I had almost forgot and which indeed is the great bug-bear whereby your Church men fright their people from running over to us and that is that our Church began but about an hundred and fifty years ago that Luther and Zwinglius were the Authors of it and that we had no Church before pittiful shists indeed to keep people from seeing the Sun at noon suppose our Religion did but begin then why must people be alwayes in an Errour 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 swallowed 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 Relâ—gion is Notoriouâ—â—y false First because long before them there were men that lived in the External communion of the Church of ROME but dislik'd the Errours as they crept in and grew dangerous and though they were overaw'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 easy 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 â—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 Ecclestiastical 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 Arrian as much as Elijah and those seven thousand the Oracle mentions 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 hand-ful of wheat lies scatterd in a bushel of Chaff and though 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 â—or our Reformation began some time after and was both begun and carried on with great delibâ—ration and consideration under Edward the 6. by publick authority whose proper province it is to take notice of what is amiss in a Kingdom or Common wealth 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 control'd the Word of the Living GOD and vyed with the Oracles of the Gospel How and when the several Errours crept into that Church is not Material to determine it 's enough we found them there and it was GODS mercy not to give all the learned men of that age over to beleive a lye
the World and whose design was to advance our Rational Souls by Contemplation and Meditation O Madam you are too Young to know the Tricks of that Church you live in they are more politick Heads than yours is that had the contriving of it Bold Men that had Learnt not to Blush at a Lye and then thought it their interest to Hector the World into a belief of it We that can Read Books as well as they and know the History of the Church as well as they can see through all these devices which they perceiving are angry with Us for discovering the Cheat. What was it Madam that you wanted in our Church to carry you to Heaven Did you want that which the Apostles and the Primitive Christians never wanted I mean did you want more Articles of Faith than they subscribed and believed If you wanted that we Confess we could not supply you for we dare say nothing and believe nothing with Divine Faith but what Moses and the Prophets and Christ and his Apostles have taught us If the Scripture contains all things necessary to Salvation then we teach all that If the Church of ROME knows more Articles than Christ or his Apostles knew of we will admire her insolence but cannot satisfie her unreasonable desire Did you want strictness of Life in our Church If all the Commands of the Gospel can make you Holy We teach them all and press them upon the People and I presume you do not aim to be Holier than Christ and his Apostles would have you to be Hath the Church of ROME another Gospel to teach you than we did instruct you in if they have much good it may do them We are not fond of the Apostle's Curse should an Angel from Heaven bring another Gospel to you let him be accursed I know your common Plea that We Protestants cannot rightly interpret the Scripture because We pretend to no infalliblity And do you blame Us for not being so impudent as the Church of ROME There is no Protestant but would be glad there were an infallible Interpreter of Scripture instituted by God and recommended to Mankind But where shall we find him Who is it that God hath imparted this Honour to If you say the Fathers you know not what you say for the Fathers differ many times as much in interpretation of the Scripture and are as contrary to one another as any Men. If you say the Church that 's a hard Word if you mean Christs Universal Church dispersed all the World over you must tell us where it is that this Church hath left an infallible Comment upon the Bible and how it is possible for a man that will be resolved in a point to go to all Christian People in the World If you say the Church of ROME you must first shew Us her commission for this infallible interpretation Secondly you must prove She hath infallibly interpreted the Scriptures and that those interpretations are infallible in all places Thirdly you must agree among your selves what part of your Church is infallible whether the Pope or an Universal Councel or all Christian People or whether all these together To say that this Infallibility lies in the Church though you know not where is to say a Needle lies in a Bottle of Hay and he hath good luck that finds it Nay I think the Church of ROME hath been so modest that notwithstanding all her pretences to infallibility She never hath dared to obtrude a comment on the Bible as infallible nor did I ever see any Interpretation of the Bible made either by Pope or councel which hath pretended tâ— Infallibility If that Churcâ— be infallible why do not theiâ— own Divines agree in Interpretation of Scripture iâ— there be an infallible Sense oâ— the Scriptures in that Church then the Members of thaâ— Church are mad not to keep tâ— that infallible Sense especially if they know where tâ— fetch it and they offer greaâ— injuries and affronts to theiâ— Church in differing so mucâ— about interpretation of Scripture when their Churâ—â— can give them an Infallibâ—â— sense of it For that Churcâ— having as they pretend thâ— Holy Ghost to guide them in all things I suppose that Spirit assists her in Interpretation of one place of Scripture as well as in another if they say it doth infallibly assist them in some places and not in all they destroy their own Principle and how shall a man be sure that just in those Points that are in dispute between Us and them they are Infallible Is the Spirit divided Or is he not alwaies the same Or doth not he exert his power upon all occasions Madam who so blind as those that will not see Who sees not that the pretence of Infallibillity is nothing but a juggle a device to maintain a triple Crown and an Engine to carry on a temporal Authority God indeed hath promised that his Church dispersed through the World shall last to the World's end and that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against heâ— but that promise differs very much from a promise of Infallibility and suppose it did infer an Infallibility how comes the particular Church of ROME to ingross it to her self that is at the best but a Member and a very unsound one of Christ's Universal Church It is one thing to be secured against being destroyed and another to be free from all possibility of Errour There is no doubt but a sober rational man that prays earnestly for illumination and reads the Scripture much and considers the Circumstances the Holy Writers were in when they writ and the Occasions of their writing and hath the advantage of Learning of Languages and History may give a very true Interpretation of Scriptures such an Interpretation as no man can rationally contradict though he hath not recourse to a Visible inâ—allible guide and though himself be not infallible Things may be very certain though they are not infallibly so and he that can make things out so that a prudent man cannot but give consent to them and hath no just cause to doubt of their truth may justly challenge beleif from other men But I will not insist upon this point because I never heard you speak much of it I will come a little closer to those reasons that moved you to goe over to the Roman Church whereof the principal was this that you were troubled in mind upon the account of your Sins and could get no satisfaction in Our Church though you sought it like Esau with teares whereas you did no sooner confess to a Roman Priest and receive absolution but you presently found unspeakable comfort And are you sure Madam that the peace and satisfaction you found in that Church was not delusion you tremble at that word But le ts consider the Nature of your peace When you were in our Church either you did truly repent of all your Sins or you did not If you did not most certainly you could