of the Bible, that varied but a Word from his?' And yet did not Pope CLEMENT VIII. put out another very much different from the former, and damn all that us'd any other? If you deny this I can prove it; and therefore which of thofe Bibles to ufe, as the Rule of Faith, you your felves will be hard puzzled to tell: Or if Infallibility be placed in the Pope, which of these two Popes was in the right? If Clement, whofe Bible you now use, was in the right, then Sixtus in Cathedra was in the wrong. O unhappy Papifts! who are involved in thefe and many other inextricable Difficulties, which if I had known as well formerly, as I thank God, I now do, I had not, Sir, become your Profelyte, nor remained fo long in your Church, Then as to that which is the Capitol of Rome, I mean the Pope's Supremacy, the Doctors of Sorbonne are as much against it, as the Doctors of Lovain are for it; both Romish Universities and Schools. And as to the Title of Universal Bishop, St. Gregory the First was as zealous to condemn it, as Gregory VII, who was no Saint, was to affume and maintain it; both Bishops and Popes of Rome : and as fuch according to your prefent Doctrine, Heads of the Univerfal Church. Touching the immaculate Conception, what fierce Contentions are there concerning it among your Priefts; I have heard it my felf preach'd by fome of your Priests, as neceffary to be believed under the Pain of Damnation; and I know Profelytes that believe it equally with any Article of their Creed; and if I would have been one of thofe credulous Souls, I should have been a Favourite among them: But I was of their fide, who did not believe it at all, much lefs could I bring my felf to affent to it, as a Doctrine which was neceffary for a Chriftian to believe.

Wherefore, Sir, not finding that Unity among you which I was bid to expect; but on the con

trary

trary, as many and great intestine Parties and Divifions, as in any other Church, I began to fear I had made an unhappy Exchange: and that perhaps as there was not that entire Union among you, which you promifed, fo there might not be that Purity of Doctrine and Practice neither in your Church, which you affured me there was. I began then, by the Grace of God, First, to reflect on your many and foul Superftitions, and fuperftitious Practices, of which the Religion I had left, was free and pure. I need but name Indulgences, Relicks, Images, Medals, Scapulars, Bells, Girdles, fet numbers of Prayers, Beads, Offices of the Bleffed Virgin, and the Offices of the Sodality, which call themselves of the Society of Jefus, and the like; which were taught me by the Jefuits, under the fpecious Pretences of Piety, Merit, and ftrange Virtue and Efficacy; though you, Sir, prudently and craftily concealed them from me. But though it was my good Fortune to be profelyted by you, yet how many Thoufands are misled into thofe fuperftitious Errors by other Guides; who allow not their Difciples, when once reconciled, any farther ufe of their Reafon. But you did not fo ftrictly impose upon me, whom you difcerned to be of an inquifitive Temper, which led me to inquire into the Grounds, and Caufes, and Originals of Things. Indeed it was against my Nature to believe implicitly, I could not forbear to examine, and judge, and give Attention to the Arguments of Adverfaries, with whom I now and then contended for what I was made to believe was Truth.

After I fet my self to examine and enquire, I found fome falfe and groundless, others dangerous, and fome uncertain and dubious Doctrines impofed by your Church upon the Belief of her Children, as neceffary to Salvation. I need not mention them all to you, or infift upon them: For the single Doctrine of Tranfubftantiation is enough to fright

any

a

any one, who, confiders it, from your Worship, and by confequence from your Church. For can I be fure not to commit Idolatry at the Mafs? Because if the Prieft's Intention, and other Qualifications, which your Miffal faith are requifite to that Sacrament, chance to fail, as I cannot be certain that they all, or fome of them may not, then there is no Sacrament, no Transubstantiation; and yet Adoration must be given to the Hoft. In that cafe the Worshippers must be guilty at least of material Idolatry. But from the lowest kind and leaft Tincture of that piacular Sin, from the Friages as well as the Garment of that Abomination which provoketh God to jealoufy, Good Lord deli

ver me.

Sir, it is matter of great Humiliation to me, to think I'muft leave a Church to which I was engaged, and in which through Mistake, I thought my Soul fafe. But having, by God's Grace, difcovered my Error, and how dangerous it is to perfevere in it against my Convictions, I think my felf obliged to acknowledge my own Weakness and Ignorance in being miffed; and rather to take Shame to my felf as an humble Penitent, than stand out any longer against the Truth. Change I muft once more in returning to my Mother Church, whom I was fo unhappy as to leave in her Diftrefs; and I hope you will not impute my Change to Rashness, or prefuming upon my own Under

t. If

a De defectibus in celebratione Miffarum occurentibus. the Bread be not wheaten Bread, there can be no Sacrament. 2. if the Wine be not made of Grapes of the Vine, or if it be made of foure or unripe Grapes, there is no Sacrament. 3. If the confecrating Prieft happen to leave out any words in the Confecration, which are neceflary to the Form of Confecration, there is no Sacrament. And the Priest fpeaking the words of Confecration fecretly, none of the People, at leaft those who kneel at a good diftance from the Altar, can tell what he says, or whether or no he leaves out any necellary words out of the Form of Confecration.

2

standing;

ftanding; for I affure you, Sir, it is the effect of long, and ferious fearch and deliberation. I have done what I could to find out the Doctrines and Practice of the ancient Catholick Church, and have followed her Guidance in understanding the Scriptures, which I believe contain all Verities neceffary for Salvation. And I here declare, and profefs, that I believe all that the Universal Church taught and believed as Matters of Faith for the first Five Hundred Years; and particularly I believe all that is in the Confeffion of Faith made by Pope Gregory the First, in which I can find none of the Twelve new Articles that are in the Creed of Pope Pius IV. But I find that the prefent Church of Rome doth not agree with the Univerfal Church of God for the first Five or Six Hundred Years. She hath not Antiquity, Univerfality, and Succeffion of her fide, nor can I believe her to be the Catholick Church, either as Catholick fignifies Univerfal Church, or as it fignifies a found and pure Church which hath the ancient Apoftolick Faith, Worship, and Government. Firft, She is not Catholick, as Catholick fignifies the Universal Church, because fhe, and all the Churches within her Pale and Communion, are but a part, and perhaps not above the Twentieth part of Christendom, or of the Univerfal Church difperfed over all the Earth. Nor is fhe, and the Churches in Communion with her Catholick, as the word fignifies Sound and Pure, but a Corrupt, Unfound, Impure part of the Univerfal Church. Corrupt, as our learned Writers have fhewn, in Doctrine, Worship, and Government, having receded from the Rule of Scriptures, and from the true, ancient, Catholick Tradition, to which all Churches ought to be conformed, and according to which I wifh fhe were by a happy Re

* See the Confeffions of Gregory I. in Liber diurnus Romanorum

formation

a

formation made, as conformable as ours. How corrupt and eccentrick fhe is in Doctrine from the ancient Catholick Church, your Creed compared with the ancient Creeds and Confeffions doth fhew, and how corrupt in Worship she is, and differing in that from the Practice of the ancient Church in all Places: Your praying unto Saints for bleffings Temporal and Spiritual, your invocation of Angels, your worshipping the Crofs, and declaring Latria to be due to it, and your confecration of Images, fetting them over your Altars, and directing your Devotions through them to Chrift and the Blessed Virgin, and other true or falfe Saints, whom they are made to reprefent, are a plain, full, and ample Testimony. And then as for the Government or Difcipline of it, it is mere Tyranny and Ufurpation, contrary to the collegiate Nature of the Catholick Church; the particular Church of Rome not only pretending contrary to Fact delivered in Scripture, to be the Mother and Mistress of all Churches, and as fuch to be the Center and Principle of Unity unto the Catholick Church; but that her Bishop, as St. Peter's Succeffor, is Christ's Vicar and fupreme Head of his Church on Earth; which the Greek, and all the Oriental Churches, and the Church in the Abyffin Ethiopia with the greatest Scorn and Indignation withftand to this Day... Yet this is the Church you say, which brings me to the Scriptures, and from which I must receive the Senfe of the Scriptures, tho' fhe hath added Books to canonical Scripture, which the ancient Catholick Church never owned to be fuch, and wrested them to Senfes in divers places, in which the never understood them. But admit it were the which brings me to the knowledge of the

The Rubrick to Ordo ad recipiendum proceffionalicer Imperatorum, in the Roman Pontifical.

Scriptures