habits and acts of righteousness which thou seemest to relye upon even thine own conscience will tell thee have been imperfect unconstant partial yea sometimes none at all but thy soul hath frequently been inslaved to contrary vices therefore thou must have something of more integrity a more immaculate and spotless obedience to present me withal and make out thy interest therein too before thy claim be just Now let us see what answer the Protestant Principles will put into our mouths and let the safer the truer the modester carry it Thus then Lord I know thy Law is holy just and good 't is likewise eternal by the righteousness of this Law Justification is to be had even yet as well as in the Covenant of works made with Adam before his fall onely here is the difference It 's now accepted in the hands of a Mediator The Lord our Righteousness who as surety of a better Covenant and as Head of his Body the Church hath fulfill'd the Law in its utmost Demands My faith my obedience my charity are all weak poor inconsiderable things Eternal life and the whole of my salvation from the one end to the other is purely a free gift Though I have had some Graces of thy Spirit in such a measure as have been a comfortable evidence that my heart was set aright to serve thee for without a conformity to thy Son in holiness begun in the life below no flesh may hope with joy to see thy face above yet I dare not I ought not to present these unto thee as the matter of my justification I have through thy mercy been sincere but it is in Christ only that I am compleat We do know That we ought to have in honour the Saints departed and not to think meanly of the Angels those ministring Spirits But we do not acknowledge that we ought to invocate them or direct our prayers or vows unto them much less place confidence in the wearing their Reliques or Pictures to prevent lightning sudden death c. 5. We do know That an high and profound reverence is due to Fathers Councils voice of the Church But we acknowledge not That any particular place or succession of men is exempt from all possibility of Error Nor that Rome keeps her first Principles 6. We do know That men of ungodly unstable contentious dispositions do not look upon the Bible without danger to their own souls and pervert many things therein to their destruction But we acknowledge not That therefore the sincere milk of the Word is to be lock'd up from those that might grow thereby Nor that meat is to be kept from the children because it is sometimes abused to excess and riot by dissolute and licentious men LETTER IX THat Person to me yet unknown whom you did some years since substitute to shape me an answer unto a few Lines I then hastily offered to your view cut his Work into a very uncourtly Mode and takes it for granted that I have not so much understanding as to know they would be understood to place the Condignity of Merit in works done by Grace not by Nature nor so much Learning as to English Opus Operatum For the first I would have both him and you to know that we oppose as to Justifying before God all Works both of Nature and Grace For certainly if we consider the Testimony alledged Rom. 4. by Paul out of Genesis 15. to prove that Abraham was not then Justified by Works it will appear he was long before that Regenerate and had sundry Works of Faith It was a Work of Faith that he followed God's call out of his Countrey Compare Gen. 12. 4. with Heb. 11. 8. Other Works of Piety and Love see recorded Gen. 12. 8. and 13. 8 9. and 14. 16 20. Yet none of these but after them all Gen. 15. Faith was imputed to him for Righteousness and he obtained the Promise that is saw Christ afar off and had his share in him not by Working but Believing And if Works merely Natural had been in Question why comes in the Example of Abraham rather than of Abimelech Socrates or the like That St. James meant not to reach beyond Justification in Foro Humano by that which he attributes to Works is evident from what he subjoyns ver 18. Shew me thy Faith by thy Works He denies a saving power only to such a Faith as is not Operative and to such a one neither do we ascribe any thing at all The two Apostles both instancing in him to confirm their seeming contrary assertions makes it evident they are to be referred to the several Tribunals of God and of Conscience But if he will give me lieve to mind him that the Franciscans in the Council of Trent were of opinion that Works done before Faith were truly meritorious in the sight of God and how Sir Kenelme Digby doubts not to say The old Philosophers without Christ for so we all know they were if any of them followed the Dictates of right Reason no Grace is there mentioned might attain Heaven it may abate his anger at the Expression I there used I have set my self to School again that I might improve my knowledge in the Romane as well as the Latine Tongue and have learnt from those Doctors at Trent That there are some actions which cause Grace not by the devotion of him that worketh or of him that does receive the work but by virtue of the work it self And That Prayers in absolution are only laudable not necessarily added to I absolve thee So making the Efficacie to flow ab Opere Operato Thus I conceive is to be understood what I have more than once read in their Books That to the merit of Prayer it suffices that the words be repeated but if a man have a particular request to put up it 's necessary the heart and affections accompany them in that desire I think now there 's no great difficulty in construing Opus operatum nor was I much out of the way when I applied it to their practice in their Sacraments I do not conclude that all those who delight to be styled Roman Catholicks making light of the latter appellation if not ushered in by the former are guilty of all this high Treason against God's Truth nor of Misprision of that Treason neither for I am confident very few of the Laity amongst them are privy to such bold Positions as are maintained by Vasquez with the now predominant Faction of the Jesuits and their adherents yet it were well they would consider whereunto their implicite credulity would lead them I once had from the mouth of a Romanist whose memory has all the reason in the world to be ever dear to me an expression wherewith I was much taken as neighbouring very near unto Truth and far from the malignity of some I have before cited When I insisted upon the Righteousness of Christ as our justification it was
Scandal at them every time I read the Tenth chap. of S. Matthew since I am there told what is through the fault of Gain-sayers an ordinary Consequence of the Truths presence Perfect Unity in Opinion is the Privilege of Minds triumphant above and the Churches of the Apostles themselves were some of Paul some of Cephas c. If you will strain at a Gnat because you hear there are dissentions amongst us and yet swallow such a Camel as this That the Creed of every Christian must be resolved into the present Dictates of the Roman Church and that you ought not to question whether she tread in the good old Paths a shift that some of her Champions are driven to I must confess I am at a stand what to say to you But let us by one particular make a ghess what her posture hath been in the rest The Fathers of the first five Centuries may I think with a safe Confidence be affirmed to have intended nothing by their Merita but such a Title to the Recompence of Reward as is plainly co-incident in its meaning with our expectation of that Crown which God the Righteous Judge hath laid up against the last day for them that have finished their Course and kept the Faith therefore are they well called by some Certain Seminaries of Hope And they were so far from any thought of a Proportionate value or Condignity as they every where speak against it When the high-soaring Schoolmen hatcht that Opinion since fledg'd and much improved by the industrious care of the Jesuits with their adherents how unhandsome it appeared to men of sober minds you may observe from that place of Erasmus given you before two others the next Epistle shall acquaint you with and abundance more cited by the Primate of Ireland and Davenant in the Point We will here lay together the Judgment of Theodoret and Cyril of Alexandria with the late Positions of the Rhemists then judge whether there be such a Consonancy and Identitie betwixt Antiquity and Rome at this day as is pretended The former tells us that the Salvation of men depends upon the sole Mercy of God For we do not obtain it as a Reward and Wages of our Righteousness but it is the Gift of God's goodness The Crowns do excel the Fights the Rewards are not to be compared with the Labours c. And therefore says he the Apostle called those things that are looked for not Wages but Glory Rom. 8. 18. and again not Wages but Grace Rom. 6. 23. Although a man should perform the most absolute Righteousness Things Eternal do not answer Temporal Labours in equal poyse The same is Cyril's mind too for he tells us The Crown doth much surpass the pains which we take Not a paying a price for labour but pouring out the riches of his goodness saith Prosper Well now hear the Rhemists in another Note All good works done by God's grace after the first Justification be truly and properly Meritorious and fully worthy of Everlasting life and thereupon Heaven is the just Stipend Crown or Recompence which God by his Justice oweth to the Persons so working by his Grace c. And in another place they therefore will have us to think that the word Reward which in our English may signifie a voluntary or bountiful Gift is not expressive enough of the Original which they will render better by a very Stipend that the hired Workman or Journey-man covenanteth to have of him whose work he doth and is a thing equally and justly answering to the weight and time of his Travels rather than a free Gift But let them answer St. Paul who calls it so Rom. 6. 23. and it were their best in their next Edition of their Expurgatory Indexes to wipe out such pestilent places of former Writers as will not suffer them to hugg their Diana in quietness Thus you may discern in part how unsafe it will be to take up Religion upon trust without laying the several poynts thereof to the Square of Gods word a course which the Commendation fixed upon the Bereans may incourage all men unto and which I do God willing intend to make the Subject of some future Letters LETTER II. ALthough it be an old received Truth That Discords in Religion are the most bitter and for the most part prosecuted with most violence I shall desire to contract rather than widen the Differences betwixt us and leaving the Out-works which fortifie our Cause in other points we hold in Opposition to the Roman Church to stand a while upon their own Guard set my self at present to the defence of that which is most oppugned by Papists against which the Jesuites have raised their fiercest Batteries I mean our Doctrine of Justification Our answers are so Consonant in the first Quaere that one would think we were almost agreed and Dispute at an end for this Maxim is as I conceive imbraced on both sides We are saved by Grace But alas they have framed such strange Comments and affixed so perverse a Definition to the nature of their Grace as will and must needs keep us at a grand and perpetual distance Forasmuch as I have observed most of the Objections brought in against us to arise merely from a mis-understanding of that Faith to which only we dare trust our Justification I will in the first Place sub-joyn it's Nature and Office in three Propositions First the Faith we desire to establish is not a bare Opinion is not a mere Notion but it is a Grace a purifying a cleansing reforming Grace of God's Spirit And though the Principal and main Act of Faith be an Accepting Receiving and Resting upon Christ alone for Justification by vertue of the Covenant Yet they who are Effectually called and Regenerate have a new heart Created in them and are farther Really and Personally sanctified the Dominion of the whole Body of Sin destroyed the several Lusts thereof by degrees mortified and they more and more strengthned in all saving Graces to the practice of true holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. Nor do we say that good Works done by such an one are of their own Nature sins as we are slanderously reported to do No so far as they are good they are the Product of God's own Spirit and he approves them But because of a mixture of Imperfections adhering to the best of men in this Life and their Works We think they are no better than the Reeds of Egypt which if a man lean on them with hopes of Justice from them will break and wound his sides We are Justified by Faith alone without Works Not that Works are separated from Faith or can be But only excluded from the Act of Justifying A Dead Faith cannot Justifie a Living Faith cannot be Idle The Concurrence of Works is Certain their Agreement Amiable in the Life of one Justified Yet their Contrariety irreconcileable in the procurement
once-enjoyed comforts thou wilt soon confess thy best pleasing or most gainful sin to have been full dear bought and that sweet condition of peace and joy in believing far to fetch So that thy self shall ever after be a witness That the Doctrine of Perseverance rightly understood brings along with it what is as proper to the repelling of sin as it is to the establishing of Consolation Since the fear of losing Gods favourable Aspect hath something more of terrible in it than the unconverted who never had any feeling of such matter can apprehend I will fold up this sheet with the words of St. John Whosoever is born of God sinneth not for his seed remaineth in him 1 Joh. 3. 9. And leave it to you to find out his meaning if it import any thing less than the being sealed unto the Day of Redemption Ephes. 1. 13. 4. 30. LETTER VIII HAving made some reflections upon those words of yours when in our last discourse we rambled over many things very immethodically you named a great and pious Doctor of the Protestant Church who from the Pulpit had long since told you that the difference betwixt the Papists and us lay principally in this That we believed not so much as they So great an inadvertencie was then upon me that I made but little reply not indeed reaching so far as to deduce any objection which might concern us from the Doctors words nor I dare answer for him did he dream of such an acception of them as might represent the choice betwixt the Religions any way indifferent But by the manner of your speech I have since conjectured you perhaps thought there might be some weight in a surmise which would flow from the assertion as if they went beyond us in credible things or that our belief consisting more in Negatives were not sure but it might come short of what it ought to be whilst theirs taking in all might be look'd upon as safe I hope the former Letters if you please to re-view them will give you some satisfaction and may serve to demonstrate that we who dare not go beyond the Pillars set up by God himself in the holy Scriptures to bound our Faith are in a far safer way and posture than they who leap over or trample them down at their pleasures And that if we leave not them till they forsake the guidance of Gods Word and primitive practice of his Church we run no hazard at all nor ought to find less esteem upon that score but do indeed shun and avoid the danger of Will-worship than which there is nothing more prejudicial to man nor more displeasing to God because of ill consequence to his Truth 1. We do know That no man is made a Believer without a freeness of Will that is he is not drawn up to Heaven whether he will or no and all along by meer compulsion or without acting in the Duty as the Papists with other adversaries of the Protestant Doctrine seem to mistake us But he is made a Believer by Gods Grace that frees the Will and inables it to act according to the motions of the Spirit and to follow him in the way of his Precepts Promises Threats and Exhortations But we acknowledge not That the will of man on which in its natural capacity the Apostle James hath fixt the Appellations of Sensual and Devilish can of it self chuse the better part being only help'd forward by some perswasions or probable inclinations such as the outward Preaching of the Word may effect till God by an act of Renovation without any compulsion other than such as wherewith the Soul cannot chuse but willingly go along so sweetly are his operations tempered and suitable to the disposition of the Will hath brought to pass a work which never would be effected but by his exceeding great and mighty power Ephes. 1. 18 19. 2. We do know That in the Lords-supper all Christ with all the benefits of his Life and Passion are not barely represented but really and truly yet spiritually exhibited to every Faithful Penitent Humble Charitable Communicant But we acknowledge not That all Receivers do in a corporal and carnal manner John 7. 37 38. tear their Redeemer with their teeth since the Sacramental way of locution in the Old Testament leads us to the true understanding of This is my body in the New Compare Gen. 17. 10 11. Exod. 12. 11. with John 6. 47 48. 63. We do know That the act of Justification passeth not upon the Soul without a work of Sanctification in the Soul That good works are of such necessity in the business of Justification that there can be no Justification where the practice of them is contemned That the good works of the Regenerate so far as they are good and the product of Gods own Spirit are not displeasing to him nor of their own nature sin yet that in regard of much imperfection which the best of men will confess is adherent to their works in this life we take a safe course not to place confidence or set any value upon them but on him who is the Lord our Righteousness and our Advocate with the Father Jer. 23. 6. 1 John 2. 1. But we acknowledge not That the good works of just persons do truly merit and deserve Grace in this world and glory in the next Nor that such good works are of themselves without any Covenant or acceptation on God's part worthy of Eternal Life and have an equal value of condignity to the obtaining of everlasting Glory Nor that that is the just stipend crown or recompence answering to the weight and time of our labours rather than a free gift Nor that no accession of Dignity comes to the works of the Just by the Merit or Person of Christ which they should not have if they were done by the same Grace bestowed liberally by God alone without Christ Nor that it 's vain after Grace received or infused to expect a continued imputation of Christs Righteousness According to the best Definitions of that Grace which the Romanist allow to be procured for us by Christ their plea for Heaven must run after this manner Lord by the strength of that Grace which because thou didst foresee I would use it well thou hast extended to me I have so performed my duty in doing or suffering for thee as thou canst not in justice deny me for that the Kingdom of Heaven See the Rhemish Annotations upon 2 Tim. 4. 8. 1 Cor. 3. 8. But let them consider what Reply they could make if God should enter the lists with them and say I have a Law that requires perfect unerring universal constant perpetual obedience a Law that exacts Truth in the inward parts that is a discerner of the thoughts and spirit that is not satisfied without the whole heart I have said not one jot or tittle of it shall pass away till all be fulfilled Matth. 5. 17 18. 22. 37 38. These
Calvin is not New One Allfrick of Malmesburie in an Homily writ 650 years ago and publickly read on Easter Dayes before the Communion fully consents with the Reformed Churches herein And in another Book Dedicated to Woulstan Arch-bishop of York he says The Bread is Christ's Body and the Wine his Blood as Manna and the Water out of the Rock mentioned by Paul 1 Cor. 10. 3 4. were of old to the Israelites By these and some others was the right and true Doctrine contended for and in good measure held-forth though in the midst of those times wherein Knowledge both as to the concernments of Religion and of humane Literature was at a low Ebb till at length that Council at Lateran Anno 1215. Decreed That the Body and Blood of Christ must be believed to be in the Sacrament by Transubstantiation I know they will to this answer This Council did but invent a significant word to express what was before the Tenent of the Church But I am in some hopes what has been said will convince you of the contrary If not I wish I could prevail with you laying aside Prejudice to peruse the never enough honoured Primate and a late well writ piece of Doctor Taylor 's But what need we go farther for the Sence of the words of Institution than that place Joh. 6. ver 35. whereby our Lord himself had prepared his Disciples to receive them plainly attributing the quenching of that Appetite he desired to excite in them unto Faith or Believing LETTER IV. LET us in the next place use what means we can to discover that fitting Esteem and Value we ought to put upon the Heavenly Hoste I mean the blessed Quire of Angels and Saints who now rest from their Labours and reign with God You shall find us ready to afford them as much reverence and respect as the Word of God doth either Commend or Command and to deny them no honor which the purest or Primitive times thought requisite to give them We read in the New Testament of divers who made supplications immediately to Christ Rom. 5. 2. Ephes. 3. 12. Heb. 4. 16. John 2. 1. for he is by the Wisdom of the Father appointed to be our Intercessor and Advocate but not of one that prayed to the blessed Virgin Mary or other Saint and with Hierom we fear not to say Non Credimus quia non Legimus We read farther of some who being forward to prostrate themselves before appearing Angels were prevented by a See you do it not Revel 22. 9. We cannot but take notice of that interdictive Precept which disswades us from voluntarie humilitie c. Col. 2. 18 23. And therefore though we doubt not but those glorious Spirits do rejoyce at any access of happiness that befals the Church Militant or any Member thereof Though we should grant that they are instant with God for the consummation of the felicity of his Elect and that perhaps too they sollicite him for the particular concernments of his Servants here below Yet Invocation being a Prerogative belonging to the great Creator only and Intercession being an Office affixed so clearly to the person of Jesus Christ only We hold it safe for us and no way derogatorie from them to propose them to our selves for our Imitation but not for our Adoration 2 Chron. 6. 30. For thou Lord only knowest the hearts of the children of men If I had an express Precept for it really I would do it with all my heart and I am perswaded I could be a great Zealot in the way but in Religious as well as other affairs Sunt certi fines Quos ultra citráque nequit consistere Rectum and Will-worship is no venial Idolatry The Church of Rome has attributed so much of Merit to the Devotions Vows and Pilgrimages made to Saints and their Shrines that they have almost justled all other Piety out of door and drawn a dark cloud betwixt the eyes of the Vulgar and the Offices and Functions of our Saviour Whatever Artifice is used by the great Ones to usher in this very gainful Tenent unto the well-meaning sort of Papists under the Notion of Dulia a sort of worship which they will have to consist of an under-qualification to their Latria Yet the reverend Davenant hath made it apparent enough That the Orisons Vows Dedication of Churches with Altars as they are by Romanists directed to them are inconsistent with Truth Reason or Practice of Antiquity And here I shall insert what I promised in my first Letter an Ejaculation so strange that methinks it is sufficient to turn the stomachs of any and make them nauseating so absurd a practice not swallow down all that 's offer'd to them as wholesome food Mary of Portugal wife to Prince Alexander Farnezes calls upon her Husband in the Church of Scala to joyn in Prayer to the blessed Virgin supplicating Christ That in Obedience to his Mother he would give them another Son This yet hath more of Modesty in it than those particular Applications to her in terms which Erasmus a man that stood enough in awe of the Churches Name hath as before is hinted taxed of both vanity and novelty Such as this found in their Psalters Compel him to have Mercy upon us I am resolved before I end this Letter to rake together a huge bundle of such Applications made to and Appellations obtruded upon her out of Authors you will not disown as the wisest Papists will I believe not approve and the learnedst of them never can prove to be rightly used towards her Which may extenuate if not excuse the tartness of some of ours who seem to have mingled a great deal of Vinegar into their Ink when they inveigh not against her Person but the performance of such Devoyrs as are not due unto her Yet first I will give you in a few places out of the Fathers which speak my very thoughts to the full as to this point Epiphanius askes What Scripture hath delivered any thing concerning this Which of the Prophets have permitted a man that I may not say a woman to he worshipped For a choice vessel she is indeed but yet a woman Let Mary be in honour but let the Father Son and holy Ghost be worshipped This Mystery is appointed I do not say for a woman nor for a man but for God The Angels themselves are not capable of such kind of glorifying Although Mary be most excellent and holy and to be honoured yet she is not to be worshipped the Virgin indeed was a Virgin and honourable but not given unto us for Adoration c. Next Origen against Celsus exhorts us to endeavour to please God and to have him propitious unto us and if Celsus will yet have us to procure the good will of any other after him that is God over all Let him consider That as when the body is moved the motion of the shadow follows
it So having God favourable we shall have all his friends both Angels and Spirits so too And in another place thus Away with Celsus his counsel that we must pray to Angels for we must pray to him alone who is God over all and we must pray to the Word of God his only Son We must intreat him that he as high-Priest would present our prayers unto his God and our God Consonant to these besides a number more is St. Ambrose A miserable excuse says he have they that think to go to God by these viz. Angels as men go to a Prince by an Officer Men go to a King by Officers because he is but a man c. But to procure the favour of God from whom is nothing hid we need to no spokesman but a devout soul. Behold here a three-fold Cord so firmly twisted by the hands of three eminent Doctors as the strongest Arm no nor the united forces of the Romish Synagogue can untye or break asunder It 's true that in the times of Persecution some men were so exemplary for their active Zeal and passive Fortitude in the cause of God and their memory was so precious to their surviving Friends Scholars and Auditors as they conceived it heightned their Devotions to pray and perform their religious services near their Monuments which sometimes they did yet addressed them only to God And in their commemoratory Orations such as now we have divers on the Anniversary days of the dissolutions of certain extraordinary persons especially in our Universities recorded their praises in expressions whereby the Martyr was vocatus but not invocatus where the Lord being pleased to give a gratious answer to their prayers and to honour that Christian Profession which those Worthies had maintained unto the death Men began afterwards to conceive that it was at their suit and mediation those things were effected and that therefore they were themselves to be prayed unto The former part of which conjecture we need not much oppose but with Origen We do think That all those Fathers who are departed this life before us do fight with us and assist us with their prayers And yet with the same Origen hold fast the Truth in opposition to the latter part thus All Prayers and Supplications Intercessions and Thanksgivings are to be sent up to God the Lord of all by the high-Priest who is above all being the living Word and God For to call upon Angels we do not comprehend the knowledge of them which is above the reach of man is not agreeable to Reason And if by supposition it were granted that the knowledge of them might be comprehended that very knowledge declaring their Nature and the charge over which every one of them is set would not permit us to pray unto them or any other but God Now for those strange Apparitions and Cures said to be made at the places of their Sepulture or otherwhere whether it was so and so or how it was I am content with St. Augustin knowing the way of God in permitting such Events to be inscrutable and the wisdom of man in making application thereof to be often meer foolishness they should remain the Objects of my Admiration rather than the Subjects of my Scrutinie and I hold them in some sort able especially in the eyes of young Believers to confirm a point which is consonant to the Word of God but no proofs of any thing without or against it Deut. 13. And here it will be no unseasonable enquiry How it can be lawful for any sort or Calling of men to vaunt themselves at all times impowered to command unclean spirits Or by Exorcisms at their own arbitrement to pretend to order them A device whereof the Factors of Rome do at this day make great advantage and insinuate strangely into the minds of unstable people We know the arm of the Lord is not shortned nor infeebled from what it was We acknowledge that he may and sometimes does exert his own Almighty Power in a wondrous manner We are not ignorant That in the Apostles days there were many extraordinary gifts of which that of doing Miracles for the better settling of the infant Church was one nor that their is a certain miraculous Faith which pitching only upon the Power of God as it's Object may be where there is neither truth of Piety nor Principles But withal We have observed that our Saviour has told us how at the last day some should come before him and allege They had cast out devils in his name whom yet he would not own Matth. 7. 22. Revel 13. 14. We cannot forget that we are fairly warned of him whose coming was to be in great deceiveableness of Signs and lying Wonders 2 Thess. 2. 9 10. and therefore think such unfit to be the Over-rulers of our Faith especially where in the things they would perswade us unto they have not a probable at least concurrence of the written Word We cannot understand how those Pretenders by vertue of any calling whereto it is always affixed appropriate to themselves the gift of doing such Miracles in the Truth thereof unless they will lay their claim to All and see if they can perswade the world they have the gift of speaking with strange Tongues too To Enervate all Arguments drawn from their practices in this there needs no other convincement than the frequent Discoveries of most gross Forgeries Of this sort to give in one for instance omitting many that are of unquestionable Record was that accidentally made by Bishop Morton in his journey towards London when he found the Boy of Bilson had been long trained up by the Popish Priests and become a fit subject for those Impostors to shew feats upon But if we should say Satan himself may submissively comply with their Designs that go about to introduce a belief in others suitable to the interests of his own Kingdom Who could either question his forwardness to act in or Gods Justice in permitting such a fraud upon those Revel 13. 14. who neglecting the wells of Salvation whence flows the Water of Life have merited to see strong Delusions That they may believe a lye 2 Thess. 2. 10 11. One known to my self altered his Religion upon no better ground than because going in company with a Papist and a friend of his thought to be possest the suppos'd Demoniack imbraced him and would not come near the Papist Both St. Augustine puts us in mind that men are sometimes led into great errours by deceiptful Dreams and that it is just they should suffer such things And St. Chrysostome giveth a good Admonition that little heed should be given to the Devil's sayings in a Case of the same Nature with this we have been in hand withal These are his words What is it then that the Devils do say I am the Soul of such a Monk Surely for this I will not believe it because the Devil