since the reformation, as when the pope's picture and our Saviour's picture were so frequently burnt by the same hands, and upon the same account. We very well know the design of these men in both, but cannot so well tell how they will be able to excuse either the sedition of the one, or the scandal of the other; though, as for the pope, I dare undertake, that all the hurt that these fellows either can or will do him, shall never reach him any farther than in his picture.

But to return to the charge of popery made against the church of England. It is certainly the most frontless, barefaced lie, and the most senseless calumny, that ever was dictated by the father of lies, or uttered by any of his sons. And I could wish myself but as sure of my own salvation, as I am that those wretches stand condemned in their own hearts and consciences while they are charging this upon us. Nevertheless, since the world is witness that they have made the charge, and thereby drawn and abused a great part of these kingdoms into a cursed, soulruining schism, let us take an estimate of the villainy of it by these two considerations:

1st, Of the mind and carriage of the church of Rome, both towards the beginners and the supporters of the reformation of the church of England.

2dly, Of the several articles of the Romish belief, compared with the belief owned and professed by our church.

And I hope by these two we shall be able to discover what is popery, and what is not.

1. And first for the behaviour or carriage of the church of Rome towards us. Surely had she took us either for her sous or her friends, she would not have used us as she has done. For she is too wise to think to support her kingdom by dividing against herself. And as the apostle assures us that "no man hateth his own flesh," so neither does any church anathematize, curse, burn, and destroy its faithfullest and most beloved members. Fire and fagot, racks and gibbets, are but a strange sort of love-tokens, yet such as the church of Rome has still followed the English reformers with. We stand excommunicated by her as heretics and schismatics; and there has not a minute passed since the reformation, in which she has not been endeavouring our destruction. The authors and compilers of our Liturgy and book of Homilies paid down their lives for these books at the Stake; and will the virulent, unconscionable fanaties charge and reproach these books as popish, when the makers and assertors of them were butchered by the papists for their being so? The fanatics burnt the books, and the papists burut the authors. By the former I hope you will take notice how much the fanatics abhor popery, and by the latter how much the papists love us. Love indeed is usually com

pared to a fire, but I never yet knew that the party beloved was consumed by it. The papists would burn us for being protestants, and the fanatics would cut our throats for being papists. And now if you would learn from hence which of the two we really are, I suppose, when you consider the judging abilities of both parties, you will easily allow the papists to understand what they do and say much better than the fanatics. But let us now, 2dly, in the next place consider the several articles of the Romish belief, as compared with the belief owned and professed by our church. And here,

First of all, Does the church of England own that prime and leading article of all popery, the pope's supremacy, an article so essential to the grandeur of the papacy, that without it the pope himself would not care a rush for all the rest? No, the very cornerstone of the English reformation was laid in an utter denial and disavowance of this point, for which our kings have lain under the papal curse, and the kingdoms been exposed to the ambition and rage of foreigners. And as we begun, so we have continued the reformation, by placing the English crown and the English church-supremacy upon the same head; and it is much if our oath of supremacy to the king should consist with an allegiance to the pope, such as the sottish, senseless fanatics are still charging us with.

2. In the second place, Do we of the church of England admit of the pope's infallibility? No, we look upon it as a sacrilegious invasion of an attribute too great and high for any but God himself. And so far are we from looking upon him as infallible, that we do not own him so much as a judge appointed by Christ to receive the last appeals of the catholic church in matters of faith, discipline, or any thing else; and we are as little concerned whether he makes his decrees and pronounces his decisions in cathedra orextra cathedram. As no man has any other or better thoughts of a fox while he is in his hole than when he is out of it.

3. In the third place, Does the church of England own a transubstantiation of the elements in the sacrament into the natural body and blood of Christ, all the accidents of those elements continuing still the same? No, she rejects it as the greatest defiance of reason, and depravation of religion, that ever was obtruded upon the belief and consciences of men, and as a paradox, that, by destroying the judgment of some about sensible objects, undermines the very belief of the gospel, and the certainty of faith itself, the object of which must be first taken in by sense; and withal as a direct cause of the greatest impiety in practice, which is idolatry, and that of the very worst and meanest kind, in giving divine worship to a piece of bread, a thing so infinitely contrary to all the principles that the mind of

inan is capable of judging by, that if it could be made appear that the gospel did really affirm and declare this article in the very same sense in which the church of Rome holds it since the fourth Lateran council under Innocent III. I should be so far from believing it therefore, that I should look upon it as a sufficient reason for any rational man to demur to the divine authority of the gospel itself. For nothing can come from God that involves in it a contradiction. But as to this matter, our church has sufficiently declared her sense, both in her Articles and in her Liturgy.

4. In the fourth place, Does the church of England hold the divine authority of unwritten traditions equal to that of the Scriptures, or written word of God, making them, together with, and as much as, the Scriptures, part of the rule of faith? The church of Rome in the council of Trent positively and expressly affirms this. But the church of England explodes it as an insufferable derogation from the perfection of the holy Scriptures, and withal as a wide and open door, through which the church of Rome has let in so many superstitious fopperies and groundless innovations into religion, and through which (claiming, as she does, the sole power of declaring traditions) she may, as her occasions serve, let in as many more as she pleases.

5. In the 5th place, Does the church of England hold auricular or private confession to the priest, as an integral part of repentance, and necessary condition of absolution? No; the church of England denies such confession to be necessary; either necessitate præcepti, as enjoined by any law or command of God; or necessitate medii, as a necessary means of pardon or remission of sins: and consequently rejects it as a snare and a burden groundlessly and tyrannically imposed upon the church; and too often and easily abused in the Romish communion to the basest and most flagitious

purposes.

But so much of private confession as may be of spiritual use for the disburdening of a troubled conscience, unable of itself to master or grapple with its own doubts, by imparting them to some knowing, discreet, spiritual person for his advice and resolution about them; so much, I confess, the church of England does approve, advise, and allow of. I say, it does advise it, and that as a sovereign expedient, proper in the nature and reason of the thing, for the satisfaction of persons otherwise unable to satisfy themselves, but by no means does it enjoin it as a duty equally and universally required of all.

6. In the sixth place, Does the church of England hold purgatory, together with its appendant doctrine, of the pope's power to release souls out of it, and without which the pope would be little or nothing concerned for it? No, our church rejects it as a fable, and

has quite put out this fire, by withdrawing the fuel that only can keep it alive; to wit, the doctrine of venial sins, with that other of merit, and of works of supererogation.

7. In the seventh and last place, Does the church of England, either by its belief or practice, own that article about the invocation of saints, and the addressing our prayers immediately to them, that so by their mediation they may be tendered and made acceptable to God? No, our church cashiers the whole article, as contumelious to and inconsistent with the infinitely perfect mediatorship and intercession of Christ, so fully declared in 1 Tim. ii. 5, "There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus:" a mediator too great to need either deputies or copartners in the discharge of that high office. Besides that such addresses or prayers to the saints cannot possibly be made by us in faith, (which yet "without faith cannot possibly please God,”) since we have no assurance that they hear those prayers, or have any certain and distinct knowledge of what particularly occurs and falls out here below; though indeed a general knowledge of the common constant concerns of the church, by reason of their having lived in the world, ought with great reason to be allowed them. But that is not sufficient to warrant a rational invocation of them upon our personal and particular occasions, since a particular know. ledge of these can by no means be inferred or argued from a general knowledge of the other.

But

And thus I have gone over seven notable branches of the Romish faith, and there are many more of the like nature belonging to the same rotten stock; but these I am sure are the principal, it being impossible for a man to be a papist without holding these, or to hold these without being a papist. now which of all these do our learned mouthing friends of the fanatic party prove to be held by our popish church of England, as they call it? I confess my thus going over these particulars in our church's vindication, cannot but have been a needless trouble to most of my hearers, as well as to myself; it being but little better than bringing so many arguments, to prove that it is not midnight, while the sun shines full in a man's face. But being to deal with the height of impudence and ignorance in conjunction, and with a sort of men, who abound with ignoramuses in the trial of spiritual as well as temporal matters, I thought fit for their sake to come to particulars, and, by a kind of an inductive demonstration, to prove to their wonderful and profound understandings, that two and two do not make six and that what contradicts, overthrows, and destroys every article of popery, is not, cannot be popery. No; though the whole faction should, with a nemine contradicente, vote it to be so.

And perhaps those wretches never did real popery so great a service, nor gave their popish plot so mortal a wound, as when, tripping up the heels of their own narratives, by the advice of some half-witted Ahitophels, they began to stretch the imputation of popery even to the church of England too, calling all of its communion papists in masquerade. But thanks be to God, that the mask they provided for us has pretty well took off the mask from themselves, and that their wisdom has not been altogether so great as their malice; for it is manifest that they have not acted as the wisest men in the world, the merciful and good providence of God very frequently ordering things so, that in great villainies there is often such a mixture of the fool, as quite spoils the whole project of the knave.

In the meantime let popery be as bad as any one would have it, yet for all that let us not be deceived with words. We are men, and let us not sell our lives and our estates, our reason and religion, for wind and noise. For where the thing exclaimed against is extremely bad, yet if the persons that exclaim against it are certainly much worse, worse in their principles, worse in their practices, you may rest assured that there is roguery at the bottom, and that, how plausibly soever things may pass as they are heard, they would look very scurvily if they were seen. Something no doubt is designed that is not declared, but what that is, I will not presume to determine from an inspection of men's hearts. Only it having been always accounted a very rational and allowed way, to judge what may be by what has been, you may remember that about forty years since this word popery served such as brandish it about the cars of the government now, as an effectual engine to pull down the monarchy to the ground, to destroy episcopacy root and branch, and to rob the church, and almost all honest men, to the last farthing. From which it appears to be a very easy, natural, and hardly to be avoided inference, that the very same means, used by the very same sort of men, are and must be intended to compass and bring about the very same ends once again. And if so, it is left to you to consider, whether it can become sober and wise men (especially in such great concerns) to be deceived by the same cheat. And thus I have given you both the short and the long, the top and the bottom of all these enormous outcries against popery, together with an account how the church of England comes to be part of the church of Rome, while it stands excommunicated by it, and actually cut off from it.

2. And now, in the second place, to shew that the men whom we have been dealing with are no less artists in calling evil good, than in surnaming good evil; as they have imposed the name of papists upon us, so they

have bestowed that of true protestants upor themselves, both of them certainly with equa truth and propriety. But they must no think to carry it off so. For how popular and plausible soever the name of protestant may sound, it is not that which can or will credit or commend fanaticism; but fanaticism wi!! be sure to embase and discredit that. For names neither do nor can alter things, but ill things will in the issue certainly foul and disgrace the best names. But are these men (who have thus dubbed themselves true prote tants) in good earnest such mortal enemies to popery and the popish interest, as they pretend themselves to be? If they are, they will do well to satisfy many wise and considering men in the world about some things that they cannot so well satisfy themselves in, nor reconcile the reality of such pretences to.

1. As first, how came the old puritans and fanatics all on the sudden to be so more than ordinarily troublesome to the government. when the Spanish armada in eighty-eight, breathing nothing but popery and destruction to England, was hovering over our coasts, ready to grasp us as a certain prey? And in like manner, how came they to grow so extremely crank and confident, and importune both upon church and state, just before and about the time of the powder-treason? Both which remarkable passages (with some more of the like nature) have been particularly taken notice of by such as have wrote of the affairs of those times. Now that while the papists were attacking the government on the one side, the puritans should fall upon it on the other, and that both these parties should exactly keep time together in troubling it, if there were not something of peculiar har mony, or rather a kind of unison correspon dence between them, requires (in my poor judgment) a more than ordinary reach of understanding to conceive.

2. If the papists and the fanatics are really so opposite to one another, how came it to pass, that while they sat together in parlia ment, they constantly also voted together in all things that might tend to the weakening and undermining of our church? both of them with one heart and voice promoting indul gences and comprehensions, and such other arts and methods of destroying us? So that in all such cases our church was sure to find an equally spiteful attack from both sides.

3dly, If these two parties are so extremely contrary as they pretend to be, what is the cause now-a-days that none associate, accompany, and visit one another with that peculis? friendliness, intimacy, and familiarity, with which the Romanists visit the nonconformists and the nonconformists them? So that it is generally observed in the country, that non: are so gracious and so sweet upon one another, as the rankest papists and the most noted

fanatics of which I will not pretend to know the reason, though I doubt not but they do. 4thly, I would gladly know, what can be alleged why the papists never write against the nonconformists, though they are never so much reviled, and sometimes written against by them, unless it be, that the papists know their friends under any disguise, and can easily pardon a few rude words spoken against them, in consideration of many real services done for them? However, their great silence towards them in such cases must needs proceeed from one of these two things, either from love or from contempt; if from the first, then it is evident that the papists look upon them as their friends; if from the latter, then they look upon them as very contemptible adversaries. And they are free (for me) to pass under which of these two characters they please.

5thly, If popery and fanaticism are so irreconcileable, as our true protestants would bear us in hand that they are, how come we by that extraordinary discovery, made by them of late years, that the late blessed King Charles I. was murdered by the papists? For all that visibly acted in that hellish tragedy were that traitorous packed remainder of the house of commons, together with their high court of justice, and the officers of their rebel army. The names of all which are known, and stand upon record. So that if the king was murdered by papists, it is evident that these men were the papists. For we all know who they were who cut off the king. And we are now at length beholden to the faction for telling us also what they were. However, it seems many were engaged in this murder under masks and vizards, besides the executioner.

These things I thought fit to remark to you; from which yet I will not positively affirm, that such as call themselves true protestants are either indeed papists themselves, or by a very close confederacy united to them. I say, I will not positively affirm it; only the forementioned objections being all of them founded upon known matter of fact, I shall here leave these with them; and they may, if they please, and can, at their leisure, answer them.

In the mean time, there is one thing, which I cannot but observe upon them, as very material, and fit to be laid in their dish for ever; which is this: that if any branch of the royal family has unhappily drank in any thing of the popish contagion, these who call themselves true protestants are of all men breathing the most improper to decry, or so much as to open their mouths against, any such person upon that account. For they must thank themselves for it, who forcibly plucked the children out of the bosom of the best father

the firmest protestant in the world, and

sent them into foreign countries, there to converse with snares and traps, and to support their lives with the hazard of their faith, flying from such protestants for safety and shelter amongst the papists; a staggering consideration, let me tell you, to persons of such tender years.

But had that blessed prince been suffered to spin out the full thread of his innocent life in peace and prosperity, none had issued from his royal loins but what he himself would have tutored and bred up to such a knowledge of, and adherence to, the church of England, that it should not have been in the power of all the papists and Jesuits under heaven to have shook them in their religion.

So that the great seducers were Cromwell and his fellow-rebels, who, by banishing the royal family, cast them into the very jaws of popery and seduction, and not only led, but drove them into temptation. And now, will these fellows plunge men over head and ears in a ditch, and then knock out their brains for having a spot upon their clothes? kindle a flame round about them, and then with tragical outcries reproach them for being singed? do all that they can, compassing even sea and land, to make a proselyte to popery, and then strip him of his inheritance for being so? Oh the equity, reason, and humanity of a true protestant fanatic zeal! much according to the devil's method, first to draw men to sin, and then to damn and destroy them for it.

Upon the whole matter, we are eternally bound to thank our good God for all of the royal family that have not been perverted to popery, and to thank the rebels and fanatics, if any have. And so I leave these zealots to make good their claim to this new distinguishing title, and to prove themselves true protes tants, if they can, without either truth or protestantism belonging to them.

3dly, A third misapplied word, by which these men have done no small mischief to religion, is, their calling the late sacrilegious subversion of the discipline, orders, and whole frame of our church, by the name of reformation; a word which (as taking as it is to the ear) has yet some years since raised such a war in the state, and caused such a schism in the church, as hardly any place or age can parallel; a word which has cost this kingdom above a hundred thousand lives; which has pulled down the sovereignty, levelled the nobility, and destroyed the hierarchy; and, filling all with blood, rapine, and confusion, reformed the best of monarchies into an anarchy, and the happiest of islands into an aceldama: and doubtless that must needs be a blessed seed, that can thrive in no soil, till it be ploughed up with war and desolation, and watered with the blood of its inhabitants.

But if we will needs be at this reforming