CHARITY Commended, OR, A Catholic Christian Soberly Instructed.  
By J. C. M. D.  Quicquid deficiunt alia unica supplet charitatis gratia quae in aeternum non deficiet. St. Ber. 
LONDON Printed, and are to be sold at most Booksellers Shops, 1667.   

TO THE READER.  
PAper Kites on all sides fly high, born up with the air of popular applause, and wind off fancy to the admiration of plebeian heads; tho●gh the prayer-toyes of idle children while they misuse paper, and misspend time, are of as great value as the elaborate pieces of most polemics: whose books are the disguises of faction and diseases of Charity, by irreligious disputes of what they miscall religion, drawing that blood which should quicken the heart of Religion from men's hearts into their heads, leaving their hearts destitute of zeal to God and mutual dilection; and filling their hearts with choler, which produces that frantic zeal which discomposes the world; or stuffing them with phlegm which lulls them into a Lethargy of indifferency in religion; or raising those melancholy vapours which cause these Epileptic paroxisms in quaking enthusiasts: Hence comes this morris dance of religions, & the glorious body of Christianity, minced into factions makes but an Olio, distasteful to Jew or Gentile▪ and it would be a wonder to have a jew converted to Christianity, to what sect soever he was converted, the other would condemn him: and this might not seem a way to come to God, but a path to Belial, & even amougst Christians I have known not a few whose too forward zeal to find out religion hath carried them out of all religion: when their fiery zeal had made a blaze, it went out in the stench of Atheism. The specious name of Catholic hath biased no lesser numbers to Rome, but the spider's web of papal infallibility spun fine by school wits not strong enough to hold them, finding the lines drawn from bowels poisoned with self-interest: breaking this Cobweb net, they disdain all religions as religations to ensnare: and believe religion not above a state trick; or a vizard to fright Children, and cheat the world: since the world varies dssguises as frequently as it changes interests.  
A giddy minorage instructed me to make prodigious sallies, & join with these Babel builders, to try if I could elix truth out of so great a confusion of Languages: but the fruits of my curiosity proved not above the Apples of Sodom, I was discomposed by the noise rather then edified by the tongues, and taught with Octavian to cry out, utinam nescissem literas: to wish often that I had been ignorant of letters, since they could not furnish me with the knowledge of Christ's Cross, I retired within to seek that at home which I could not find abroad: and having anatomised others in vain, I now dissect myself rather then be inexperienced: here I find not those antipathies which I meet in others: I seem constellated for all Countries, and could live peaceably under any national Church, though I would not join with any schism which is made to colour over a rebellion, while a monstrous zeal, player-like takes a vizard which he rejects his part once acted: for this indifferency, though Erasmus-like, I am hung up betwixt Heaven and Hell, & renounced of all Communions, yet Conscientiae satisfeci, nihil in famam laborati, sequatur vel mala dum bene mereor. By being charitable to all, I cannot deserve evil of any; and I hope no national Church so ill but may deserve my charity: the first sally of my pen intended nothing beside an Apologetical Epistle, and by an autops●e, or self-unravelling to satisfy myself; and a Romanist of him, of whom he had talked much, and knew little (proposing neither order, or method, it being my Province to unravel the mysteries of riddling nature, rather than the disguises of Antic polemics, but my glib pen found it easier to engage then to retreat, and while the multitude of my own thoughts oppressed me, the fear of my own disability would not suffer me to betray the succours which reason offered, even the whole militant Church, lending the weapons of Antagonists, and offering the Canons of the Church against them; which I shall bring in with the flag of defiance to no Christian Communion: neither make use of the forces to gratify any faction, for all carry the Angels motro, glory be to God on high, and goodwill towards men. I introduce Charity, neither maimed nor mutilated; Since she is enriched with a plenteous offspring which she holds within the arms of Christian Communion: I would not deprive hereof any of her Children, whom none can truly express, it they do not describe her with her arms full; and although the Papist term; it, it is mistaken, yet mistaken charity is to be preferred before none, and should heady and shallow Enthusiasts misconstrue it, yet the learned and more refined spirit, who is more blear-eyed with prejudice, or squints to self-interest will afford me that charity which I afford all; to whom as Vespasian to A●ollonius, I conclude with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.   

To a Learnt Romanist.  
APologies serve only to multiply Discourses, and the itch of dispute becomes the Scab of the Church: Controversies being either the Ebullitions of indigested Idleness, symptoms of distempered zeal, or inebriations of Passion, while men in distractions lie idle, seriously foolish, or drunk with dispute, forget the Holy Ghost to talk of an holy Church; and by relinquishing their Charity lose the Communion of Saints: most Polemic Divines being no more to be believed then Lawyers, who have least right to that they plead for, and do it only for the fees of promotion, while the people are wrung by the ears, they easily remit their earrings, to rear a golden Calf to worship, or forge one out of silver, each Country being as able as Ephesus from a silver forge to produce a Diana. Who fancy profit raise Idols of their Fancy: gain profits by maintaining, & Prophets to maintain them. And no coin can be so adulterate as not to pass currant, if it be but stamped with the face of Religion. I would not act high treason against heaven by adulterating my King's Coin, or by an uncharitable clipping of it take away the Crown, and obscure the Image of my Redeemer; or by a pruriginous affectation of scribbling increase the Scab of Church or State; or that the Luxury of my fancy should like the rankness of other's wanton out into weeds in the garden of the Spouse. If error would not triumph over tacit truth; silence argues no assent, and introduces no supposition of guilt; though all may accuse the sallies of a prodigious curiosity, none should the excursions of a rasher pen; the spittle cast on me from inane and jejune noddles should only mortify my quick silver, and it heal the itch of my curiosity, the ink which I have taken from the pens of all ages be applied to cure the tetters of my own dilating vanity and not profused on others. Male de te loquuntur sed mali, men speak evil of thee, but evil men, was the comfort of a wise man, which I must not be entitled to whom you can discommend; you for whom ever silenced enmity studies commendations, they who cannot approve your judgement, admire your knowledge; say you have a greater Library in you, than you have lost, yet have you lost a greater Library than the County which you enrich with yourself a Panoply of knowledge can glory in. I could not bewail but rather congratulate such a loss: For should the hot zeal of some jack Straw of Reformation raise a combustion might fire half of our Anglican Libraries, (nay was even your Roman Vatican in a flame with half of the world's Libraries, which by kindling the flames of contention by disordering the Universe seem to antedate its combustion) if a tear could quench the fire, I should number it among my sins at the expense of so much water to redeem them.  
Error is of a teeming Constitution, this Hydra's heads multiply by amputation, there is no end of writing of Books the wisest of men dead said, and the wisest of men living lament. Study is a wearinesss to the flesh, I wish most men's studies were not only a weariness to their own but all flesh the effect of few men's wit & most men's idleness, while there is nothing new under the Sun, not only books but men are transcribed, men are lived o'er again: the Pythagorean Metempsychy is verified: the revolution of planets reduce the same constitutions, same errors: hence Learning is in the circle and not in the Progress: error hath altered her modes and garbs with times, someties more gaudy, better painted, trimmed and dressed to become more tempting, but still hath carried her old rotten body through all her veils and disguises discoverable to a curious inquiry. That which sends occasion to opinion to proclaim most men knowing, administers to me no infrequent suspicion of their ignorance, multitude of books, variety of notions like to Cadmus' Soldiers by mutual quarrels destroy each other. Light and darkness both met in the Chaos, but it was a work of omnipotency to separate them. I cannot be induced to believe either the greatest reader or writer, the best Clerk-men write much of little, because they know not how to comprehend much in little: a fly buzzes more about nothing, than a Bee with all her honey; most write much to instruct the world, they know little, the Iliads of their labours may be comprised within a nutshell, and that nutshell cracked found without a kernel. Uoluminous Tostati dilude the mountains of our hopes with a ridiculous mouse, who placed in competition with a single sheeted Mercury may be orevalued, while in floods of words scarce occurs a drop of reason, and these by malice only impostumed Authors betray their own corruption, or their tumid bodies of controversies are only symptoms of a drscracy, and show an Hydropsick constitution in Religion.  
But while these scrap-gatherers pick reversions from common places, and poor truth imprisoned for her plain dealing, fed at the Alms basket of uncharitable times is scarce kept from famishing, for you a reputed treasury of knowledge to cast no mite into her treasury; while these standing pools retain corruption, you who are an ambulatory Library, not to stream with excellence, & like the Philosopher's Elixir have as some say the price of all things in Epitome; yet you yourself know no value, this is a miracle which may refute yours and their adversaries who can believe miracles have a cessation: But lest you Sir should be lost in your Labyrinth of your own praises as the world in admiration of your intricate excellence, be pleased to know Sir, that the opinion of what you know cannot make you speak wisely of what you know not, and the Prerogative of greatness is no privilege for unworthiness; he may be evil himself who speaks good of another upon knowledge, but he can never be good himself who speaks evil upon suspicion of any one: though you are pleased to say I make a jest of Religion, yet produce one jest which did not give an earnest of truth. I must confess I have not loved a solemnity in folly, or serious Ildenesse, like children to contend with a passions vehemency for cock pins and hobby-horses; if I have admitted that no●i bonum ludere cum sanctis, it was only when they were dressed like unto Bartholomew Fair babies in a garb only to be made sport with; (honour their ashes which have been temples of the Holy Ghost, treasuries of knowledge, & Conduit pipes of salvation, and neither my pen nor tongue shall bedrible their ashes, which to speak Philosophically may retain some perfume of their sanctities. I am not ignorant of the stories of Gervase Montanus, Babylas, nor all the names which sanctify your year, or with their own bloods are writ in the Rubric of the Church: But yet I must believe, Honorandi sunt Charitate non servitute, and that best honour we can do them is to imitate their virtues and not belly their ashes, and make banquets for the serpent the father of lies, which thus may be said to have food out of the dust, which not to administer cannot entitle me to your livery, viz.  
A Heretic in Divinity, a Heretic in Philosophy, and in Physic, but not to a Physician's religion which you can please yourself by calling Atheism, but if you were acquainted with much felicity as to be entitled to the knowledge of Dr Brownes Religio Medici, you might be induced to believe a Physician still may prove an Evangelist, and I hope I shall not prove bess by bringing you the good tidings of the Religion you have lost; and though it be true as you say, I am none of the young men who see visions, yet I am content to give you the honour of an old man who dreameth dreams; not that you have truth revealed to you sleeping, but are content to snore in your errors; and please yourself with th● imaginations of truth, Chimaeras of your own distracted fancy, or the dream of melancholy Monks: if I recede from any, it shall be by their receding from themselves, and as Apostasy is but a recession, and Heresy which you inculcate an election, I am content with S. Paul after the way you call here sie to worship God by, election of truth without supposing it taken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Thyestiles expugnatio civitatis, but more especially the holy city of God, his holy Catholic and Apostolic Church militant on earth and triumphant in Heaven, yet I may that which is patient in the purgatory of your errors.  
And though you are supposed a Golia●h able to defy a whole host of Israel's, ye a poor contemptible boy whose best company hath been sheep, silly creatures in a wilderness of error, if when a Lion roared on him, one of yours E. S. I. who like a Lion goeth about seeking whom he may devour, he took him and rent with his own arguments, shall he not dare to encounter you out of the slender scrip of his own reason; and with pebbles drawn from a brook of clearer testimonies aim at your forehead that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pontificial infallibility in the head of your Church, and then amputate it by the two edged sword of verity, and the whole host of delusion your Catholic body of error, cui fumus pro fundamento shall evaporate, yet by wrinkling and shrinking truth, I shall not bring the Church in that narrow compass to give private spirits leave to ruffle her, or make her less Catholic or not infallible, which could she be, she might cease to be holy; nor could I be persuaded that the pontificial robes carried holiness to the Lord, that Vrim and Thuminim perfection and light were relative to the Mitre, and the lips of that high Priest only carried knowledge, I could fly the bosom of the common mother, but since from distempered parents we exuge poison, not nutriment, you must give leave to decline those breasts which flow not with the sincere milk of the word, and believe the body distempered, and of a richetty constitution: whose head so exceeds the proportion; had infallibility a tie above the, intention of a Priest in Collation of orders; to the proof of which, though I cannot express the exactness of pedantism in quotation, yet I shall not be warped from that may express ingenuity, and satisfy a pretender to it in a rural retirement, having no book but one of an imperfect edition, forced to read myself, ubi multa desiderantur & à desunt nonnulla, but nothing that may inform of truth, though I can make use only of some confused notes for the engraphical part of memory, yet in the agraphical part I shall not show so great a deficiency in the Mnenon●cal Art as may render truth suspected; truth shall be my aim, I may fly high, rove, yet never far from the mark, and perhaps escape the fa●lts of most polemics, who resemble a piece of Arras, where there is much in representation, and nothing in reality: or Plutarch's heartless fish with a sword assimilating body, want both vigour and acuteness: the discourses of umbraticall Doctors on all sides like bodies bred in the shade, cannot endure the Sun, or a shower: in their more serious retirements affecting nothing beyond Domitian's humour of catching of flies: which I shall without torture enforce them to confess: Could you but dispossess yourself of prejudicacy; truth is a garment that time can wear; who pretend to grey-headed error, rather discredit it then patronise it. Lay aside those great names of Seraphic and Angelic Doctors; look not on any Religion through the optics of blear-eyed prejudice, as I am confident you make not yours squint to self-interest.  
I have neither given up my name to regal or papal supremacy, neither protested, covenanted, or engaged to any faction; he who aims at truth by the Roman, or any other bias, will never come ne'er the mark: the fire of self-love, as it is kindled by the breath of the Father of lies so it partaketh of the quality of his flames, to be without light: since it keepeth us in darkness to ourselves, & an imperception of the true dimensions of others. This liking or disliking of others, is but the spurious issue of philautie which undervalues all, meets not in a compliance with the humour: some natures as Seneca observes, are so shady, as they think every thing turbulent and stormy, that is even, in a meridian l●ght. Some like to old rustics are content to meet in the Church porch of tradition to talk of mundan a affairs, which care not to enter into the Church to serve God in his Ordinances: others resemble young Novices which creep into the Church by holes to angle and ring the bells backward, neglecting the key of tradition: others by curious inquiries are put into a whee●, and are circled so long betwixt proving the Scripture by tradition and tradition by Scripture, till the Devil find a means to dispute them into infidelity; and make them believe neither. Most men's lips and pens open wide like to a moneyless purse; nothing comes out of this▪ and what is worth nothing out of them: yet this nothing must be placed in competition with nothing less than salvation: the tradition of the Church must be a satisfactory proof to believe by Divine faith, (if we may believe a Papist) Scripture, God's word. If we ask why we must believe? it is replied: because the Church is infallibly governed by the holy Ghost: if we inquire how? they run to revelation guilty of enthusiasm which they object to others: or if they offer to prove it by Scripture, as most do, it is an acknowledgement that the Scripture is of higher proof than the Church's tradition: thus these impertinents touch ne●ther Heaven nor Earth, in their discourses they open an entry into a room, but shut it presently. Some elate tradition above Divinity: the principles of any conclusion must be of more cred●● than the conclusion itself: the Articles of Faith, the Trinity, Resurrection and Communion, if the conclusions by which they are provable is Ecclesiastical tradition; it must follow that the Church's tradition is of more credit, when the Faith of the Articles must be finally resolved into the veracity of the Church's testimony. Others depress tradition even below humanity; are so far from equalizing it with rational discourses, as they prefer the dreams of fanatics before the Church's tradition: without which a railing Song thrust upon an evil air, is not worse music than the confused notes which some entitle the harmony of Scriptures; and if they know God's Law by heart, they have no heart to his Law, and after all these pretences of Knowledge and illumination, like to the Egyptian sages can produce nothing but frogs and blood: Nor do the Exotique Seminaries furnish us better than the weeds which the rankness of our own soil hath cast up: Apostolical pruging-hookes are exchanged for Sanguinary instruments, involving the world in blood, and staining their own lives▪ at the●r deaths leaving nothing behind but a memorial of some hideous impiety: while with styles solemnly religious, and even Seraphical devotions we find more principled in Caesar Borgia, and Nicholas the Florentine than Elemented in Religion, not erecting a Spiritual Kingdom for Christ, but a temporal for the Pope; which he honest good man, solemnly vows and protests against; for all the Bishops of Rome at their Creation, make a solemn vow and confess to observe inviolably all Ordinances made in the first eight general Counsels, in which is provided that all Causes be determined by the Bishop of the same Province where they are begun.  
This might check the exorbitancy of the Roman See, and confine Tibur within her own limits, if sober men having neither the inebriations of passion or self-interest might be judges: Neither might that impertinent question of triflers trouble the world: Where was your Religion before Luther? (retorted ingeniously by S. H. Wotton to a pragmatical Monk) where yours is not to be found now, in the word of God: But I may modestly and charitably aver, where yours was if you have any, and where much of what you call fundamental in yours, now is not to be found in the word of God. 
S. Hie● in Psal. 133.  Ecclesia non in parietitibus Consistit sed in dogmatum veritate: Ecclesia est ibi ubi fides vera: one impertinent question is not ill required with another, when a Romanist is asked where the Church's visibility and their judges infallibility was, 
S. Hier. ad Lucif. post med. tom. 2.  Cum ingemuit totus orbis & Arrianum se esse miratus est; and even the infallible Guide, Liberius even a Pope decoyed into Arr●an●sm: or while he was intainted, if a Pope was what you would have him, an infallible judge, is he not to be believed, when he answers the Emperor with an esto quod solus sum, 
Th●od. l. 2. Hist. Eccl. dialog. inter Constant Imper. & Lib. pap. 16.  non tamen fidei causa periclitatur: olim tres soli sunt reperti qui regis mandata resisterent. If a particular Nation do what the whole world did, sigh, and wonder at herself so soon turned Leper, it need not be the wonder of a wise man? they who sacrifice their Religion to successes must set up Fortune for a deity; which I believe is the World Idol, who Persian-like adore the rising Sun; and not like Israelites; they will not believe God as much in the Cloud as in the Pillar, though the one is the more glorious object. Can an intelligent man suppose religion dead in the Primitive persecutions, because buried alive in the Caves? or ours lost because some of ours are necessitated to imitate them, and you, if you have any Religion in this Kingdom? yet this meeting with weak judgements, and strong passions against the time, hath gained not a few Proselytes to Rome, and some seemingly learned, 
Vin●. Lir. Cont. Haer. c. 23. & 24.  whose error like that of Origen, & Tertullian magna suit in ecclesiâ dei tentatios  
While the Priest which should be the lungs of the Church to receive in the influences of Heaven, and temper the heart of Religion, sucking in the contagious air of popular fancies are tainted; and have brought an hectic fever in the body Ecclesiastic, subjecting it to continual heats by the exasperation of malignant humours, through the obstructions of self-interest, ignorance and the gross matter of ambition: but I shall endeavour to try these lungs, and let out the purulent matter which occasions the heat of disputes and cold fits of Charity, infallible Symptoms of a Consumption in the body of Religion: and though there may be Physicians more experienced; yet the Domestic Doctor is always called into Consultation, as best acquainted with the Constitution: there may be perfumes which may deceive those who converse with putrid lungs at usual distances; yet I, who have been intimately Conversant with Priest and Parson, and even protostickler of Schisms, which have attrived florent an Age with Civil Wars, dissected men living as well as dead, having read both men and books, may prescribe opposite remedies, having those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mollifying preparations which Hypocrates requires his Physician to have upon all occasions: And though I have arrived at Knowledge by prodigious curiosities; yet if we believe Alchemists, he who can fix quicksilver may make gold: and I doubt not God of his mercy will fix me volatile as Mercury, and produce that Elixir, which by its fluxion may convert the most obdurate metal into Gold; and having wandered long out of the Ark, not knowing where ' to rest my foot for the deluge of errors, I may from the tops of the Mountains, the holy Fahers, return with the Olive branch of peace to the Ark, God's holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church; from which only Ravens fly, those birds of prey, whose delight is in ruin, and 〈◊〉 devour mankind; which is far from him, who is a friend to all, and yours by an inviscerate dilection,  J. C.  
Medici Catholicon.  

Sect. 1.  
MOst Polemic Divines Comet-like rise out of indigested matter, from the vapour of History, tentered Scripture, and fragments of Fathers, these exhalations blaze and become portentous to Commonwealths by their apparitions: it is the art of Scripture, which every one challenges to himself; and the body of Religion which every Mountebank dares dissect; and those nobler parts whose discovery should be to the melioration of mankind, are slashed and Cauterised by cruel ignorance; and similar parts, which should exact a gentle and well experienced hand anatomised by the hand of self-conceit, and blinded passion, are so mangled and disproportioned, that there is nothing opened above their own follies, who pretend to anatomize others.  
An Anatomist must be able to discover the order, situation, substance, temper, relations, and confederate intercourses of parts contained, and continent, the different Cells, and different bowels, how roofed, and how partitioned, know all the wheels and Clockworks of the heart, the mystique causes, what pulleys close, and what dilate, what secret engines tune the pulse, when by a well ordered chiming, it shows what time health keeps in the body: Can demonstrate all the Maeanders and by-paths of sporting nature, where obstructions have lodged, where maladies bred; and by such patterns instruct how to remove the accretion of malign humours, by prescribing opposite remedies for prevention of such ensuing inconveniences, and rectifying the present purging those impurer humours which convert the food of life into poison: restoring those windy constitutions which are inflated with their own emptiness ●ccasion'd by weakness, and the obstructions of ignorance, vent nothing above noise and stench, curing the Hydrophodia in those who fear to look in the waters of life, by teaching to delight in the Scriptures, and healing the sting of the old Serpent, which Tarantula-like produces giddiness, only curable by harmony of Fathers, Counsels, Scriptures in the Church. And not having gleaned up a few simples in the garden of times, where weeds and flowers spring up together, poison as well as physic, observing neither quantity, nor quality, suppose he is enriched with Panaces, and Catholicons can cure the distemperatures of constitutions that he understands not: having weighed his compositions in the deceitful balance of his own lighter fancy, where there is no grain of wit, though some unnecessary scruples may intermix with the composition of folly, which may make it seemingly oreballance truth, and pass currant with the multitude, and weigh all by their own lead; and easily are induced to swallow the most bitter pill, when gilded o'er with profit and seeming complacencies.  
The people like the Planet Mercury, are good in conjunction with the good, and bad with bad, but to nothing resembling better than to wheels, who by turning round continually, are fit to carry on all designs, if an H●●resiarch, whose head hath some gingling fancies, lead the way forehorse-like; others as brainless as horses follow, the wheels are drawn glibly on while they are well greased, when they want the grease of maintenance, only creak, make a noise, and disquiet the world.   

Sect. 2.  
Most polemics, while they have too rashly charged the body of error, have made themselves her Captives; and lent Antagonists Trophies of their rashness: Though truth is a strong fort inconsideration may become a traitor, and expose it to the mercy of an enemy. Most men are so drunk with dispute and inebriated by their passions, that they cast at Antagonists heads all they can lay hold on, not fearing a rebound, or what weapons they administer to their own ruin: show the weakness of their adversaries with so much of their own, that they lend opportunities to error: they permit the wild bore in their Vineyards, would keep out the Foxes; and open a gap for the Foxes would expel the Wild bore: they whose malice named the Bishop of Rome Antichrist, their weakness opened a door to the Brownist, to bring in their own orders as rivulets from that See into the praemunire of Antichristian. While Rome would prevent dissentious, they are forced to descent from themselves; admit that overgrown monster, tyrannons' infallibility, like the Wild Boar of the Forest to lay waist God's Vineyard, grown cruelly subtle by age and confidence in his tusks, gores all that stand in opposition, ●oming with mali●e, ambition, and Avarice, and wallowing in impurities: they who descent from these, have not learned to agree with themselves: each one hath his distinct Idol, different Concubine, various gloss, on which their fancies set produces a brood of sects. While they adulterate the Scripture, and seem to approve that which they so much decry, while they wed themselves to the Idols of their own fancy, become the greatest Idolaters: or confirm Copernicism with their whimsies, the Earth's motion by a continuity of giddiness.   

Sect. 3.  
With the Lyrck, Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri, me quocunque rapit tempestas deferor. Neither shall I put gall in the ink I write of Religion because others sour their language▪ If I open sores, the launching shall be only to let out their corruption, or take away the proud flesh that keeps the wounds of the Church from healing. And though I may confess with S. 
S. Be●. Ser. de resurr.  Bernard, Non sit major superbia, quam ut unus homo toti congregattoni judicium suum praeferat tanquam ipse solus spiritum Dei habeat: yet 'tis a different thing for a man modestly in some points dissatisfied to propose quaeres, not to a Congregation only, but the Catholic Church: and a sober man may without trenching on irreligion, or the least touch of madness or insolency, dispute a matter of Religion with the Roman, or Church, or Prelate, as Irenaeus with Victor, modesty accompanying, 
Euseb. l. 5. Hist. Eccl. c. 26. & Socrat. l. 5. Hist. c. 22.  and a desire to fist out truth free from vanity and purposed opposition, even against a particular Church, though to dispute an ● Article of Faith, what the Catholic Church hath always believed, is what S. Austin calls insolent madness. But in other things, Consent of Nations, Authority confirmed by Miracles, and Antiquity of S. Peter's chair, 
S. Aug. Cont. Bon. de Bapt. e. 4. Contr. Fund. c. 4.  and succession from it, motives to keep in the Catholic Church must not hold against demonstration of truth; quae quidem si tam manifesta monstratur ut in in dubium venire non possit, proponenda est omnibus illis quibus in Catholicâ teneor: 
Ibid. c. 4.  ita si ali quid apertissimum Evangelio● they have opened the gates and made the way that went before us: non Domini nostri sed duces fuere: truth lies open to all; it is no man's several: patet omnibus veritas; nondum est occupata: multum exilia etiam futur is relicta: dissentire licet, sed cum ratione: non mihi credendum sed veritati.   

Sect. 4.  
Though I cannot look upon the Pope with that dreadful apparition, 
Papal infallibility sifted.  which some affrighted with the horror of their own imaginations, who character him by a Virgil's Polyphemus, monstrum horrendum, inform, ingens, cuilumen ademptum. Or some sad and distorted fancies fluttering betwixt the twilight of ignorance and self-conceit bandy against the name with prejudice, as it nothing could result from thence might not taint the odour of virtue and innocence; yet could I but believe infallibility to be the Prerogative of the the pontificial chair; I might believe with the Schoolmen, sin a nonentity, that Pontificial impurities passing for nothing, the chair might be secured from rasher imputations, 
Alphonsus contra hae. lib. 1. c. 4.  St. Irenaeus might not accuse a Victor, S. Cyprian a Stephen; S. Athanasius a Pope Liberius for Arrianism; 
A Martin in Chron. cen 17.  all that pretend to goodness, Heresy in an Anastatius, 
H. Blond. dec. 1. lib. 9 Bergomensis Martin in Chron. Sabel. Naucl. Marian Scot stella, Palmerio; Platina, Blondus, Vincentius, Henricus de Erfordia.  Honorius, John 22. Necromancy in a Silvester; Magic in a third Paul; a John the 8th 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. as if the name which implies gracious, could import a concatenation of mischief, they being linked together in with the 7th. 
impurities,  Boniface, for the most part entering like Foxes, living like Lions, 
Blondus lib. 3. dec. 2. Anto●ius 1. 16. c. 1. ex Iohanne de Col●a mina Sabellicus Na●clerus Platina.  and dying like Dogs: & non montes parturient ridiculum murem, sed secundum ridiculum morem, in the eight John, 
Ranulphus l. 5. c. 3●. Baleus Cent. 2. c. 30. c. 3. 10. Volateranus.  and Bened●ct the 9th. supposed to appear in the shape of a Monster after death, 
Martinus in Chronico, Marianus Scotus Sigeb. Platina Bergomensis, etc.  because in all his life he appeared not less than a Monster in all his Actions: a 6th. Vrban could drown five Candinalls for revenge, 
Martinus Polorues in Chronico, Platina & Petrus Demi●nus.  andas if this had been too little, let lose a deluge of impiety, the 5. Cardinal virtues suffering for name sake. But these are modest, veyed with witchcrafts incests, cruelties, of a sixth Alexander; Idolatrous sacrifices in a Marcelln; Diabolical applications in a Celestine; inhumations and such ridiculous pieces of cruelties in others, that even Paganism is charitable, and Mahometism itself comparatively virtuous: Should I omit a 10th. Leo's (that Father of Christendom in long Coats, who before the times, others do arrive at age, had attained to be Father of all the Aged, a Pope at twenty) quantum peperit nobishaec fabula Christi, and after a dispute, de animâ & redit in nihilum quod fu●t ante nihil: but I would sally no further, shrowds best befiit the dead, and by a candid retrogradation, to draw a white veil of innocence over those who should have been nursing Fathers to the Church; yet let me tell you Sir, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how assents he to Christ in his words, 
Benedict 9 Silveste● 3. Gregorius 6. Cent. 11.  who dissents from him in his works? Three blazing Comets conspicuous in the Roman Horizon at the same time, it would be strange if they should produce no alteration in the Ecclesiastic body, three Popes cohabiting at Rome, three in divers Countries, a schism for forty years, Popes at the French and Germane devotion, Ambition and Corruption to the attaining the Papal dignity (as Platina) being more prevalent than a Christian life it would be a miracle above any Legends pretend to, that Contrariety should reconcile, mutual Contradictions render infallible, while the Church music must be only set out of such discord.  
Antipopes not only in competition for, but opposition to the pontificial dignity; of the Pope's infallibility, see your own Gerson, Occam, Almain, Echius, Hosius Pigh●us, Waldensis at quarrel: about Original of Spiritual power, Abulensis, Turrecremata, Franciscus de victoria, Alphonsus de Castro: men whose very names speak battle and writings not much unity.  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will scarce prove a Rock of defence which implies a stone as well as Rock, and the twelve Apostles were all stones which went to the foundation of Christianity. No man, not warped by prejudicated ignorance, but may admit a primacy as great as those Princes, his Holiness dignifies with the titles of the most Catholic, or most Christian.  
Peruse the Spanish Edicts, and you shall find Cardinal Baronius book asserting Papal jurisdiction by King Ph●l●p, lest it might raise the flames of contention in his Subjects, made itself a Subject of the flames.  
Peruse the Constitutions of the Gallican Churches; nay even now see them menacing to ordain Bishops for Portugal, the Pope refusing.  
Reslect upon this darling Flanders, and find Brussels lately tearing his bull for a defamatory scroll, by one rent to prevent many.  
Take a view ●of Germany, her Henries, frederick's, 1. 2. here you shall find the story of the Eagle and Fox verifyied if the Eaglé touches but a Popeling, the Fox fires his nest.  
See the Eastern Empire, whose substance was lost, fight about shadows nay, the substance of Religion and Christ's Image, charity for a wooden one.  
Finally, let us look home and sweep our own doors from the ●irt which would cleave to them: the first appellant here in England was Wilfrid, Archbishop of York in the reign of Egbert and his Son Alf●ede; the Pope's Nuntios in his behalf were returned with a Compliment of honouring for grave lives, 
Spelman Conc. an. 705.  and honourable aspects, but they would not ' scent to their Legation.  
See anselm's Contest about appeals to Rome, 
Malin lib. 1. de gest Paul A●glor.  answered with a Consuetudo regni mei est à Patre meo instituta ut null●us praeter licentiam Regis papa appelletur: qu● Consuetud●nem regni toll●t potestatem quoque & Coronam Regis violate: Siquis inven●us fuer●t litter as vel mandatum ferens Domini papae, etc. Capiatur & deo eo uncut de● Regis traditore & Regne, etc. if it was treason then, reason will scarce expect thee Reward of loyalty now should attend his missaries.  
These you will not deny, such as you call Catholic, and cannot wonder if in those times they menaced ponere murum pro Domino rege, 
Math. Paris An. 1246.  they now place one pro republicá, and better learned by time: Now with the Grec: an Church they answer, we know your pride; cannot satisfy your Avarice; and therefore leave you to yourselves.  
For his Patriarchate, 
B. Bilson.  by God's Law he hath none in this Land; for 600 years after Christ he had none, for the subsequent 600. intent to greater matters, he would have none, above or against the Prince's sword he can have none; to subvert faith, or oppress his brethren, 'tis fit he should have none; you must seek further for subjection to his tribunal, this Land oweth him none.  
Finally to bring you home, and truth home to you; reflect upon your own Rome in the time of budding Christianity, Polycarp in Anicetus time comes to Rome, yet makes no appeal.  
Justin Martyr lives at Rome, & lends no suspicion of such power: he names a perfect of the brethren; 
In Apol. 2. Cont. Triphon. E●seb. lib. 5. c, 26.  calls all Christians High-Priests; and so he being one, may attain a pontifical dignity. Iren●us calls Soter, Anicetus, Hyginus, Pius, Telesphorus, Xistus Presbyters. 
Euseb. lib. 4. c. 23. lib. 5. c. 16.  Dionysins Corinthius calls Soter a Bishop. Apollinaris tells of Asiatic Churches excomunicating without the Roman. 
Lib. 5. c. 3.  The Gallican Churches in a dissension of Alcibiades and Theodotus not only appealed to, 
Lib. 5. c. 23.  but the Roman Victor was opposed by Polycrates, an Ephesian Bishop. Nay, even the name of Universal Bishop was so great a stranger to Rome, 
S. Greg. lib. 4. Ep. 76. 83. Ep. 78.  that a Pope though it designed the coming of Antichrist, was a name of blasphemy, and to admit it, was to lose the Faith; and no Sciolist in History but may discern if the Fox's tail had not been peeled to the Lion's skin, his Holiness might have now been but a petty Chaplain, and squared his Religion to some magnificoe's trencher▪ and he may thank Saint Paul's sword, which hath more advantaged him then the Cross keles of St. Peter.   

Sect 5.  
Who would be tied to that infallibility, which instead of adorning, hath so daubed the Gospel, that Christianity may be suspected for a Fable, & all religion pass for state policy, while quatenus Cathed●a doceat, this Nymph Egeria must inform the Roman Numa, and to resist it be no less treason, quam tentare arcana imperi? and yet his Holiness silence such prodigious pieces of masking foolery, golden Legend, Bridgets Revelations, Metaphrastes Saints, Monkish Chimeras, and pious frauds, which for excellence and probability may parallel Lucian's true History, render Pantagruel Orthodox, make Don Quixot for the transportations of his fancy pass in opinion for a S. and a Gusman may be canonised for a knave by revelation; as well as a Ronsard tenter our Saviour's miracles to an analogy with Hercules labours, and your Divine Ar●sto make Saint John a groom to feed an Hippogriph with Celestial Oats.  
Indulgence to vice shames virtue out of countenance: and the thread of falsehood interwoven with the gold of verity makes even truth pass in the supposition of counterfeit.  
Who would believe the treasury of Pontificial merits exceeds his Peter's pence, since no penny, no Pater noster, no our Father, the Pope, with Peter sure will scarce hold currant at Heaven gate?  
Or believe a Purgatory above unnecessary injunctions, and a fire in it above a Culinary one, which he maintains by it in his Kitchen, since he seems an adversary in the way, and who agrees not with him quickly, is cast into Prison, and scarce gets out till he pays the uttermost farthing.  
Or the Priests, when they cry edite & bibite de hoc omnes, and devour all themselves, lie not?  
Or mumming may not seem Religion, where Religion may seem but a mask of Antics?  
That lies and fancies be necessary for salvation, since who believes them not, Trent Council salutes with an Anathema?  
Or the Popes have not been the greatest Schismatics, since they have made more Schisms, than others Churches have Articles of Faith.  
That two Popes when they both do contradict each the other, are both of them infallible?  
Or enjoining several Bibles, I must peruse neither?  
That the people was not mocked by subtle divisors, who instead of milk to instruct their souls, milked their purses with the fictitious milk of the Virgin Mary, 
L. Her. Hist. H. 8.  visible in twelve places in the time of Henry the 8.  
That Saint Wilfrid's needle which opened to the penitent, and closed to the guilty, was not the needle, the Camel, Cable might pass through, the rich man to Heaven since, who gave most was always the most innocent.  
Or a rood moving like to a Puppet by wire, and weeping the tears of a bleeding Vine, gained not the Priests the blood of the grape, by inebriating the people with folly?  
In stead of showing of our Saviour's blood the price of Mankind, while they took a price for blood, shut up in Crystal, a darker veil might not better befit their impiety, belying the value of humanity with Duck's blood of no value.  
That John the Baptist, the voice and way to heaven, may not be mistake for a po●●er of hell, since what they feign of their Ceroerus, seem verified of him, three heads shown at three several places. While a piece of Bechets shirt must impregnate sterile women the mortifications of the flesh may not seem seminal pollutions, which like to Ave●rhoes Bath could procreate at distance, or nocturnal effluxions sanctified by inherency in his vestment, like the unguentum armarium by the effluviums of atoms may do miracles.  
Finally, nails, Bechets penknife, boots, dirt, S. Laurence coals, and trash fit only to be found in Kites nests, must necessarily show a green-sickness-like Constitution, and obstructions in Religion.   

Sect 6.  
These though venial to vulgar constitutions, who cannot go above the capacity of instilled notions, cannot be pardonable to K. P. W. M. L. B. yourself; men who seem constellated for learning, who do nothing if they outdo not others. God expects no splendour from the lesser stars, but if the Sun should not irradiate, it would seem a conspiracy in Nature: it is not sufficient for such to be carried in the stream of every idler fancy, biased by lead, but eminent in virtue, fortune and knowledge, propose Excellency for a Mistress, and Perfection for an aim. Amuse not yourselves for splendid nothings to gather cockles on the shore, but launch into the deep, and fetch home treasures above the In●●es, the everlasting Mines of Knowledge: Place your tabernacle in the Sun, and not in the shadow; in the substance of Religion and not form, lest you lose the essence of Religion, Charity to others in opinion, and the substance of Charity in your fortune; as the shadow of Religion, so gain the shadow of an estate, broken as your knowledge. The people whose credulities illimitable may promiscuously swallow any thing, have Diana's out of every silver forge, are sponges ready to suck in all the lees of fancy and dregs of ages; may believe in a stock, garlic, onions, a God for no God, all the absurdities of an Alcoran, a Moon descending into Mahomet's sleeve, the Angel Adriels death and Gabriels' bridge, Celestial generations by the smell of a Citron, an act of coition prolonged to a Jubilee of fifty years, or any thing while they are tools to a Machiavelli and he the Devils instrument may not lend occasion to wonder. But that a Avicenne, a Geber, and the learned Arabians should prostrates their beliefs so tamely to every fardel of foolish impossibilities and you have a vote for those Legends, which make a Ta●mud and an Alcoran seem modest, when you have a clew within yourself, which may extricate you from this Maze of folly, this is an inexcusable piece of ignorance in you, which might be venial in me, since the disfigurements on the face of truth, Junior indoctrinations, and minority of years, instructed by the ill complexioned zeal of most professors, might suffer me to toil in a Labyrinth of error, truth not attained to but by exantlation, having only time to peep into the Well, and not è puteo latentem eruere veritatem, view truth only by the glass of vain imagination, measuring truths image by my own: Finally consider what needed the Father's Cautions against Heresy, and hard Conflicts with Heretics; Christendom torn by distempered Counsels, 
Ter. de praej. vincen. Lir. de Haer.  as that of Ariminum, and the two of Ephesus, the whole world Arrian to the amazement of itself, and all this time the either envious or ignorant, never call for the necessary assistance of the Pope, and teach the ignorant world how the Bishop of Rome was infallible.  
I shall not deny with some Sciolists of ours, Peter's residence at Rome, a Bishop of the Jews, as Paul of the Gentiles; and believe them as little in this as in the two witnesses of the Revelation, 
Eiph. l. 1. adv. Carpar. l. 4. c. 6.  the two Jewish Bishops, 
pros. de prom. & produe. imprens. c. 5.  which some please to fancy themselves; 
Sab. Ennead. lib. 72.  some the Albigenses and Waldenses, 
Euseb. in Chr. pr. 10. Nicronis 14.  
Ignat. epist. ad Tract.  as truly as the fraternity of New England is the woman in the Wilderness: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in Ep●phanius, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 see● in Eusebius time, Petrus & Paulus Apostoli in Roma, in Prosper: Peter's concertation which Simon Magus at Rome; his Constitution of Clemens, confessed by such a cloud of witnesses, not easily to be blown away with every wind of fancy.  
Our Fencers in Religion, need not make falsifying strokes to hit the Roman head, since by rasher overtures their Antagonists by their own play lay their head open to have the infallible brains knocked out; if they fence not with Saint Paul's sword as well as ward with Saint Peter's Keys: Truth is like the Lake in afric▪ which one time or other discovers all that is cast into it.   

Sect. 7.  
I cannot be induced to believe the Pope, Antichrist with some, who believe nothing but what is writ in the stories of their own ignorance, and calculate all Religion by their own vertiginous pates▪ weighing not the consequences of bringing their own orders into a praemunire of Antichristian: the Enthusiasms of the Lady Elinor Davis, and the prophetic accomplishments of Rice Evans, who makes a Parliament Antichrist, sitting in the Temple of God, viz. the house was once a Chapel, are as probable and rational discourses as most in Brightman, Mede, Napier, Gresner, Witta●her, Cotton, etc. or should any one make a jack daw Antichrist, perking on the Pinnacle of a Temple like Belial, and exalting himself above all that is called God. viz. God's worship in the Church: A Romish Priest some years since informed me for a secret that Antichrist was born and now lived in Babylon about twelve years old, disputed Christ-like with learned men to admiration, could speak as soon as he was born, having Daemon●ack-like learned to speak in the belly. Another showed the time of his coming, his firing of Rome▪ and the Pope's name that should oppose him: some believe him with us now, 
Gaffar● mon. curios● 152.  and is a sending forces against Rome the year 1655. fatal to Italy.   

Sect. 8.  
If Antichrist shall come, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the working of Satan, in all power, signs, and lying wonders, Simon Magus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Satan's first born, as Saint Peter, and as Euseb●us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 
Euseb. l. 2. cap. 12.  may resemble him, i● to command fire to come down be any property of his? 
Arnob. adver. Gent. lib. 2.  Arnobius will inform v●derant currum Simonis, & quadrigas igneas Petri●re difflatas & nomin●to Christ● Evanuisse, etc. if to exalt himself above all that is called God belongs to him? 
Iust. mart. Ap. 1. Irenaeus, Philaster, Epiphanius, Theodoret.  he said all Nations worshipped him as God, though they gave him various names, do●uit seipsum esse qui apud Judaeos quasi filius apparuerit; in Samara auter● quasi pater descenderat, & in reliquis Gentibus quasi spiritus Sanctus adventaver●t; The God of the Jews, one of the Angels, and Simon himself, the Father who made the Angels: if to sit in the Temple of God as God denotes him? the Samaritans called Simon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worshipped 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with incense and sacrifice: who can doubt him, by the Samaritans worshipped in places set apart for God's service, and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. If the man of sin be an opposite term for him: he called his wench Helena his lost sheep; having left her in a Brothel, ad hanc descendit pater summus▪ and carrying her back to his Palace, ad hominem salutem respexit, had respect to humane health, & salutem hominis dixit esse liber ationem ab Angelorum imperio, qui-ipsos ad bonas actiones urgerent, nec promitterent agere quae vellent▪ the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or mystery of iniquity may quadrate with the impiety of his followers the Gnostics as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 man of sin or adversary with Magus, if to deny Christ to have come in the flesh, may be appropriated to Antichrist; the Gnostics denied Christ to have been born, lived, or died, but in apparition.  
Apostasy may be applicable to their relinquishing Christianity, to comply with persecuting Jews, that which impeded the mystery of iniquity, the Apostles compliance in some judaical observances; the swift destruction, see performed, 
Thes. 1. 5. 2. Euseb. lib. 3. c. 18.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a moment they were utterly destroyed by the breath of Christ's mouth, brightness of his coming; one denoting the Evangelicall power in the mouth of Peter and Paul personally opposing him, and Christ's coming to take judgement on the jews, and his favourites the Gnostics, who adhered to them in the persecution of Christianity.   

Sect 9  
This with our incomparable Doctor Hammond doth carry more probability than the whimsies of Brightman, who will have the Martyr Antipas antipapas; though he suffered in Domitian's time, must be an Antipope, or some men's fantastic humour of Anagrams where Doctor Chatterton may come as near the number of the Beast as Calixtus, whose name the Parson's torture in revenge of their deprived lechery: or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where they serve the fancy of Irenaeus, to that he did not apprehend: or Saint Hierom, Tertullian and Chrysostom about the Apostasy: it would be well, if with those Fathers they would ingenuously confess their ignorance of Antichrist, and not bias them to their fancies to call what they fancy not Antichristian: Nor is the whimsy of the Romanists and some Fathers more rational, who would have him of the Tribe of Dan; and the text of Dan, a Serpent in the way lies like a Serpent in the way to seduce them out of the ways of truth; as if there were any Jew expected a Messiah from that Tribe when there was never any that expected him not from the Tribe of Judah: the ten Asiatic Kings which Daniel saw must be the same with 
* Seleucus, Nicanor, Antiochus, Soter, Anto. Theos. Seleucus. Callinicus, Ptolomaeus Evergetes, Seleucus Ceraunus, Antiochus Magnus, Ptolomaeus Philopator, Antiochus E●piphanes. Whit. in thesi pro posit. & defence. in Cant. die Comitiorum.  the ten horns in the Apocalypse, and Antiochus Epiphanes must be the Pope, heaping up gold and silver (id est) adorning the Temples with gold and silver: extolling himself above God, viz. more zealous to have his own constitutions performed then Gods: the same arguments being applicatory to all Magistracy as well as the Pope fanatics have took notice of them to name them Antichristian, and the Churches have been robbed out of zeal, while sacrilege hath been encouraged, the unhappy companion of rash reformation; and if they are ushered in by rebellion, and attended by sacrilege a wise man need not wonder at either: while all think they are nearer to God by being further from each other: he that deserts the Romanists seldom stops till he hath o'errun all Church-fences by renouncing discipline; and our Precisian Proselytes (as I have known not a few) rarely prove not Jesuited Papists, and out of the frantic zeal called Conscience, brand their brethren with the names of Antichristian, etc. when men should hate corruption which depraves Religion, run from it, and not from Religion: Atheism and irreligion gather strength while the ship of the Church tossed with blasts of error endangers splitting in the waves of contention: there is in all national Church's truth enough to save men, but I fear malice enough to damn enun Angels: who resists any of their fancies, hath the spirit of Antichrist, though Antichrist in Divinity resembles the Elixir in Philosophy, many rules are prescribed, but few, if any have attained the Philosopher's stone; and though the Pope in hue and cry for him, might be taken on suspicion by the marks a Pope hath set on a him, yet suspicion entering the actions-plea, there wants proof to maintain the Plea.   

Sect 10.  
The motions of these superior bodies was in excellent order and perfection, till exhalations from the gross and putrid matter of ambition produced horrid trepidations, and became precursors of prodigious calamities, while they groveled here for truth, and traded away the stock of Christian Charity for fictitious coin, minted by passion, mutable affection, or seduced reason to prefer the pageantry of the world before the simplicity of the Gospel: and to blaze like Meteors with the vapour of an empty name, rather than shine like stars in an Orb of Sanctity, irradiating by their benigner influence, the horizon of Christianity: yet some good patriarchs maugre envy, triumph in innocence, the beams of their Sanctity too glorious to be o'ercast with the mantle of blind malice, though clouded and interwoven with specious pretences.   

Sect 11.  
I can find Lilies and roses, Pope's candid with innocence, and purpled with Martyrdom, whose blood became the seed of the Church: 
D. in vit Pontif. 33.  while Christian Rome as well as Pagan had her foundation in red ruins, the foundation of Christianity laid with the blood of Martyrs.  
Amongst those, some please themselves by naming Nimrods', abaddon's, and incurable Babylonians; I can find one die for the loss of a terrene Jerusalem, as well as others neglect a celestial. A Peter Marron alias Celestine the 5. so busied about his prayers, 
Stella & Platina.  that he can neglect to be called O holy Father in Earth, to cry our Father in Heaven; be persuaded out of a triple Crown here to ascertain one hereafter.  
A third Benedict, 
Test. Blon●. dec. 1. lib. 9 Martinus in Chronics  who can weep to be chosen. A Deodate a Sicilian Monk which being chosen, gave none ever occasion to weep.  
Agathon and Theodate reported to cure Leprosies by kissing, 
Platina & Liber pontificalis Cent. 78. 480.  as well as others by their ill breath cause the Leprosy of Schism o'erspread the face of the Church. 
Sigebert Marianus Scotus. Guliel Nubrigensis l. 2. c. 6. Cent. xij.   
A John giving sight to the blind, as well as others of the name blinding.  
A fourth Adrian, an English man, converting Norway, as well as others perverting Nations.  
A Gregory so charitable, as to call Anglos Angelos & de it a liberandos who called us Angels, I have no cause to believe him an evil one▪ 
Cambdens' remains.  since an Angel of darkness would not have sent Angels of light to deliver us from the wrath to come, which he himself might expect in utter darkness: who sent Ministers to give us light, and both his name and acts speak him to invigilate for the good of souls.  
A Stephen whom the Earth was scarce thought worthy to bear, 
Vid. john Stella Diaconus Plat.  carried on men's shoulders, because he supported the Church on his own.  
A Paul visiting Widows, and Orphans, by night lending light in darkness. A ninth Leo entertaining Christ, as well as a tenth cashiering with a quantum nob●s peperit haec fabula.  
Finally, a good as well as a bad Silvester, Constantine, 
Onuphrius Platina, dec.  Honorius, Severinus, a 1 Leo 2. 3. Martin Agapitus. 2. whose religions cannot be named, nor pure, nor not undefiled, since the Apostle names it so to visit the widow and Orphans: conclude, fuit Sergius vir sanctissimae vitae grataeque conversation●s, ante pontificatum & in pontificatu, 
Platina.  in pauperes liberalis; in amicos & familiares jncundus, in delinquentes Clemens; in Contumaces modestus, cantae praeterea prudentiae fuit, ut in toto pontificatu nihil reprehenal gubernantis negligentiâ possit; in deum enim omnem mentem Convertens quod facere pontifices omnes deberent juste atque 
C●nt. Ma. Cent. xi. p. 5. 20.  integrè omnia, ex animisui sententia bene nature a & mo●●bus inst●tuti gubernabat: extant & ejusdem apud Scriptores praeclara encom●a: and this by the Confession of the now quoted Pope: Antichrist making Centur●ators.   

Sect 11.  
In Tertullia's time, heathens used to say, see how these Christians love one the other? now even Turks exprobate us with a See how these Christian dogs are divided! while most resemble the envious man in the Fable, who would put out one of his own eyes that his enemy might be deprived of both; rather deny themselves part of that light, than their Antagonists should have any; like men who have the yellow Jaundice in their eyes, will apprehend no colour beside; their own superelevated devotion must be Antichristian in the holy Sequestrations of Monachism; and even the Apostles themselves Antichrists, while Episcopacy is the mystery of iniquity: all sides hear either Antichristian or Heretic, manifest truth and reason may be Heresy as to maintain an Antipodes, or the souls traduction, or such an impertinent trifle, as whether the Lord had brethren; in vain Christians may pray that the partition wall betwixt Jew and Gentile may be taken away, if they take not away these uncharitable partitions between themselves.   

Sect 13.  
I am so far from hating the Pope, that I would kiss his foot if his nails were but so pared, that he would not make blood run about all the mouths in Christendom: though I can please myself with their fancy, who tenter Pa●a to confess in Capital letters like his offence: a Presbyterorum Ambitiopepe●it Ant●chr●stum, and believe they have made many Antichrists; not only men of sin, but adversaries to Christianity: while they have toiled in mysterious iniquity, made titular holiness band to impiety; or serve only to obstetricate degenerate actions: producing ill shapen Monsters, whose prodigious births trouble and discompose the world, while instead of the desired honour Juno, Ixion-like he grasps a cloud, and begets Centaurs.  
Yet some grains of lightness must be allowed, gold having greater occasion of trial. Ambition is apt to creep into the most refined devotions, and persons consecrated to the Altars are not free: while there are men, there will be vices▪ and one common place will serve to declaim against all times: though we may discern cracks in the purest metals by the lustre that streams from them; yet if our eyes turn inward, we shall encounter with so much humane fragility, pity will shame pride, and we shall rather lament our own then glory in alien miscarriages: if the Church of Rome like the woman in the Gospel be taken in adultery, and every one hath a stone to cast at her, should we observe our Saviour's rule, and the guiltless cast the first, we might all retire into our own dark souls to hide us; and leave her alone to Christ, who of his mercy may release her with a sin no more.   

Sect 14.  
Though I am persuaded I may believe in God, 
Of the Creed.  and yet not introduce that Egyptian piece of darkness, by mantling the the Creator as they their Eneph, an old man in blue circumscribing ubiquity and painting invisibility, and so drawing under line the incomprehensible, and sin against his essence; yet I could as easily be induced to assent to this, as to a fiduciary Solifidian, have a Creed for servile will, irrespective election and reprobation, which might suggest irreverent thoughts of Divinity; while we affix tyranny to the most just, and partiality to him who is no respecter of persons, and sin against his attributes.  
Faith, Hope, Charity, Fear, Confidence, Honour and Worship, Prayer, and praise must be the affairs of that Jacob's Ladder which ascends to Heaven, and learns us to commerce with the attributes and essence of God. I believe all my belief will be irrite, my heart unpossess'd with the sincerity of his power; or my life warped with a nonconformity with it in the practice of Celestial virtues; he who gives God not all, giveth him nothing at all; to bepiece for God, and a piece for the world, is to be all for the world: he excludes him from all, who concludes him at all: or can he detest sin, makes God the Author of it? or dread the appearance of evil, who intails a necessity on it? or who believes a parity of sin, can he admit a conscience in any? fear to strain at a gnat or swallow a Camel, who perceives no difference in either?   

Sect. 15.  
I can believe in Jesus Christ, yet not daily make one with the Pontifician; or think that my fancy can make him mine with the fiduciary.  
May we show him our King while no disloyal sin or rebel lusts holds out against him; but every thought and action pays him the tribute of obedience; and vows good life and repentance, like so many oaths of supremacy, acknowledge our allegiance. May we every day to our high Priest bring the incense of prayer, and odours of good works, think no daily sacrifice Mass, or Popish oblation, no Church sup●rogations; nay, not even Christ's sufferings or his satisfying for us, satisfactory, if we abuse his grace into wantonness: this will by a clew of piety and humility teach us to extricate ourselves from the Labyrinths of impiety, and approach our reward, the Crown not of our works but of his graces.  
While we acknowledge him a Prophet, bow down and worship, bringing our reason into Captivity to Faith; and since a Prophet like Moses bring him the Jewels of Egyptians riches of nature, give God our strength for bulls, sacrifice the Calves of ourlips, and bring the innocence of Doves and Turtles to his service.  
May we pass over Jordan in Baptism▪ feed on the Manna of God's words, and not languish after the fleshpots of Agypt, be seduced by fleshly lust? but if the fiery serpent of our sins sting us, look up upon him who was lifted up with healing under his wings; and have respect to the fruits of the land of promise, that blessed Canaan, not being discouraged by the Giants of our sins; but lift up our hands with Moses, strengthened by the two Tables, the Commandments of God till we overcome them; and having the Corner stone, Christ Jesus to support us in our weakness (who will not fail them who rely on him in all their conflicts with the world, the flesh and the Devil) we may subdue the enemies of our peace, who hinder us in our progress to the promised Land.   

Sect. 16.  
I may believe him conceived of the Holy Ghost, yet may safely neither believe the Popes and some Pontificians, nor the conceptions of our enthusiastics of the holy spirit.  
I can believe Christ born of a Virgin Mary▪ yet need not believe a Virgin Mary's Temple born by Angels to Loretto; nor doubting the truth of the Virgin's milk, with which the Popish Priests impose on the vulgar, may impose the stigma of infidel on me, and deprive me of the milk of the word of truth.  
He who had respect unto her humility, will not have respect unto them who too much humble her; since the glory of Heaven overshadowed, and the Bridegroom of our souls shined forth from the closet of her womb.  
Nor exalt them, who her that was humbled in her own eyes, exalt in theirs above their Creator; Cashier his name to admit hers in the Psalter, while an Ave Mary can bring a Te deum Laudamus out of fashion, and Christ himself must still be in pupillage.  
May we all provide innocent, spotless, and Virgin hearts for a Saviour to be born in; so that we all may have by the overshadowing of the holy spirit a right Conception of him, whose Conception could not be without it, 
Mat. 12. v. 50.  and be accounted for the mother and brethren of the Lord, while we do the will of his Heavenly Father.   

Sect 17.  
I could wish that Christ still suffered not under a Roman Governor, but instead of a Pilate, he would be a good Pilot, no longer steer by the gales of profit, or the Whirlwind of ambition, which may engulf the bark of the Church into an Abyss of misery; but calming the troubled Sea of his own lusts into moderation, the winds of error, and waves of false Doctrine may cease; and the leaky vessel of the Roman Church by the pump of Faith, and sincere repentance, may arrive at the Haven of eternal security: in vain like Pilate he may seek to wash his hands from the guilt of Christ's blood, while he can imbrue them in the blood of Christians, and suffer his polemics to plant thorns on Christ's brow, spinous questions; and with the mock pageantry of state make Christian Religion ridiculous to Jew and Gentile.  
Neither the Clergy though their name implies lot, should as relative to their name and Christian warfare, Soldierlike cast lots for Christ's Coat; neglecting internal purity, quarrel about the supervesture, external ceremonies of Religion, while their tongues sharp as spears pierce Christ's sides through their brethren: who is still crucified by Jews, and betwixt thiefs who rob God's word, while we apprehend, examine, accuse, condemn, shame and crucify one another; when we should rather crucify the flesh with the affections and lusts thereof; as pride, envy, malice and contention; conforming ourselves to the Image of a crucified Saviour, and not to the crucifyers of a Saviour by our vices: since some truths, though seemingly precious, are not so placed in competition with Christian-charity, peace, and communion with all, who are fellow-members of Christ's body. We must relinquish that which is valuable, rather than him who is above all value: while dissension can renew his wounds in his members.  
Dull, phlegmatic and Plebeian constitutions are not only subject to paralytique, but even apoplectic distemperatures: sometimes they tremble and discompose Religion in their jealous furies; and sometimes are superstitious and supine, and stupid in trivial and ridiculous fooleries.  
Resembling Apes and Dotterels more apt to imitate mops, mows, and gesticulations than virtues: while others are madder than those who are ashamed of humanity, because Apes have some resemblance with humane nature.   

Sect 18.  
Cannot any one be persuaded Christ descended not into Hell (since a S. Cyprian averrs this Article neither in the Roman or oriental Symbol, and Tertullian takes no notice of it, and Sheol and his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implies the grave,) without descending thither? May I leave the works of Hell, pride, malice, and uncharitableness, by works of light treat with God, where he is in Heaven, by believing Christ was in Hell will not much advantage me in the way to Heaven, though my uncharitableness to a misconceiving brother may warp me toward Hell: Hell is described by the valley of Hinnom, where sacrificed children, weak ones in Christ while their tongues are kindled at Hell fire, who with trifling differences make schisms in the Kingdom of God's Church and Communion, which Saints should have for the service of Christ their King the Lords anointed against the powers of darkness.   

Sect. 19  
May not any one believe in the Holy Ghost, though he should not fancy the picture or the senseless story of the Doves want of gall, or the holy spirits non-appearance in that shape, but only hover like a descending Dove? Oh doubt the infallible pontificial, and enthustiasticks spirit, one being repraesentative of the other, where murder, revenge, Adultery, and treasons are Cohabitants, and by a necessary illation must pass for the fruits of that all-disposing spirit, consecreate impiety, and make villainy precious, while God himself must be introduced witness to a lie.  
May we have the innocency of Doves in our Conversation; the mourning of Turtles in the sorrow for our sins, and a delight in the streams of life, the holy Scriptures as the Dove in the waters; finally all the resemblances with the Dove which imitate the gifts of the holy Ghost, that the holy spirit may dwell in us which is pictured in the shape of a Dove.   

Sect. 20.  
Will it not suffice to believe a holy Church, and not to believe in it? since a Saint Cyprian informs me, God is only to be believed in: or believe not a Church or Christian can be out of the Catholic Church, since all men and Churches make up but one Catholic: and the notion of Catholic introduced in opposition to the Jewish Church, may not as oppositely be opposed to the Roman, who like Jews presume a monopoly of God's mercy? the light of ages, light of nature, supernatural light of Scripture must only shine in their dark lanterns; and all blind who believe things not only above reason but against it; while a part must be greater than the whole, a particular Church, the Catholic; resembling the madman, who lived in a Seaport town, called all ships his own which arrived at the haven: All Bishops, who have either writ, appealed, or communicated with theirs, must have sworn vassalage to the Papacy.   

Sect. 20.  
Or that communion of Saints was an article of levelling, taken up pro necessitate temporum, since Saint Cyprian takes no notice of it in his time, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; Praising God, and having all things common was the Saint's communion.  
May we all be members of one body, while we show a mutual sympathy; partake of the same head, by obeying Christ's directions, cemented together with his blood, and knit by the unity of his spirit: though every part may conduce to the good of the other, none can so supererogate, as the other may be useless: similar nor dissimilar breeds no contrariety, but all parts comply to the service of the whole; no dissimilitude of site, motion, ceremony, divide, but the gangreen of sin only enforces an amputation: ne pars sincera trahatur.  
The eyes are not incensed against the feet for not seeeng; nor doth the ear commence a quarrel with the hands for not hearing; or the back parts about the faces uncovering, since decency of one part is the indecency of another; every part not made for itself but for others, & all to the captivity of the head, in compliance of whose dictates, we must expect an unity in the body: But an uniformity would prove a monster above a sober expectation, above the chimeras or phantasms of Enthusiasts, who damn all the world, that, weather-cock-like, turns not round with their own vertiginous heads. Scimus quosdam quod semelimbiberint nolle deponere, 
S. Cypr. 1. 2. Ep. ●  nec propositum; suum facile mutare sed salvo inter collegas pacis & concordiae vinculo quaedam propria apud se semel usurpata retinere; nec nos vim cuique facimus, nec legem damus▪ was the opinion of Saint Cyprian. I could wish those, who pretend most to be of his opinion, would challenge a little of his charity.   

Sect 22.  
For forgiveness of sins, I as little believe a Solifidian, as a Romish Priest, that attrition by absolution becomes contrition; the one while he deceives himself by a lie, or the other, while he imposeth upon others, secure neither from being deceived: they may send to the father of lies, but lying will scarce bring to the God of truth, since none can be implanted in the death of Christ, who bring not forth the fruit of this tree of life, nor partake of the resurrection to life everlasting.  
He that will be saved must keep the faith, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, sound in faith and free from reproach in conversation, holy as well as whole; and so his holiness himself may be proved the most fallible; and though they violate the sense of the word while they render it inviolate, yet God grant that they may keep it inviolate, no more writh and wrench it to rivet in their own ambitious designs; and we may keep it so undefiled, that Momus himself may not carp at our lives: since Christ's death is mentioned for our regeneration, birth for mortification, resurrection, for our rising in newness of life, that we may enjoy the communion of Saints, remission of sins, and resurrection of our bodies to eternal life.   

Sect. 23.  
There are but a few credenda, petenda, and agenda, where I cannot avoid an Anathema, non credendo, non opponendo: I will seek security, embrace verities, all hold, if I cannot those wherein they differ▪ though sometimes interlacing discords graces the best Music, yet a quiet error is rarely not to be preferred before an unruly truth, and crotchets and quavers prove unseasonable, when they disturb the plain songs of peace; and it is better a son of the Church should be unknown, then, what they report of the viper, he should make his way through the bowels of his Mother; or a Millstone hung about his neck, and he buried in the depth of his imaginations, rather than they soar in the narrow way, and keep weak brethren from heaven.  
It shall not trouble me with Delrio, whether the old Serpent was a Viper; with Bonaventure and Comestor, a Dragon; or with Eugubinus, a Basilisk: or with others, a common Snake: it shall trouble me rather to continue the delusion of the Serpent, by endeavours of propagating error: that Adam tasted forbidden fruit may trouble me, what fruit, shall not; I shall number it among the forbidden fruits of knowledge, which so many wiser heads have made disquisitions after, and would have truth satisfied by the relish of their palates.   

Sect 25.  
Whether our Saviour's Crown was made of Paliurus, or a piece of it visited Glassenburie, and the precursor of his death, turns an Angel of his Nativity, blooming every Christmas day, is not worth a disquisition: I could make a Rose by moistening dilate, and by rendering again insuc●ous close: may I rather avoid those thorns, the curse of my sins, which may render me incapable of both.  
Whether Durantes distich of the Cross be true, need be no part of my creed.  
Pes Cedrus est, truncus Cupressus, oliva supremum  
Palmaque transversum Christi sunt in cruse signum.  
May I partake of no corruption like the Cedar, in mourning for sin resemble the Cypress, by fertility in goodness, assimilate the Olive: so shall I flourish like a Palm, even in the storms and pressures of this world, mount upward, by taking up the Cross, and following, be partaker of him who was crucified. Prudent symbols, and pious applications, may have an influence upon ingenious conceivers, which may elevate devotion: but on the mad rabble, melancholy Monks, and ignorant Priests, they have no other efficacy, beside warping to Magical applications, and miraculous expectancies: 
Tho. p. 345. ar. 2. c. persuam essentiam.  It shall not trouble me whether the soul of Christ, in triduo mortis, went into Hell really, as Thomas Aquinas believes; or virtually, and by effects only, 
Durand in 3 dij. 22. ques. 3.  as Durand; or whether the soul of Christ did descend really and in essence into the lowest pit of hell, and place of the damned, or really only into the place or region of hell, called limbum Patrum, 
Bella●. l. 4. de Christo. c. 16. Sect. 25.  and then but virtually from thence into the lower hell.  
The Father, to him who asked what God did before he made the world, (answe'rd) Provide hell for such curious scrutinists as you are. Non per difficiles Deus ad be atam vitam quaestiones vocat, etc. in absoluto nobis & facili est aeternitas Jesum suscitatum à mortuis credere; & ipsum esse Dominum confiteri. I will not procure a certain purgatory to myself here to make stranger guesses of an incertain one hereafter: or whether the inventor of it, 
Orig. lib. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, cap. 6.  origen's purgatory, which could even purify Devils, & reform them to Angels of light: or the differing purgatory of S. 
S. Greg. Nis. Orat. demortuis. p. 1066. Cypr. l. 4. Ep. 2. emendari igne.  Gregory Nissen▪ St. Cyprian, or St. Austin carry a greater probability, or the Roman purgatory, which took a platform from neither. I can believe, I may find a way to heaven without taking purgatory in my way: 
S. Aug. lib. 21. civ. dei. c. 17. Greg. Naz. Orat. ●in. th'. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. S. Hier. on 66. Psal. credimus. Boetius lib. 4. pros. 4. puro.  or else the Fathers before Gregory the great might mistake, never any one was directed that way with above an ut puto verisimile arbitramur, 
S. Greg. in Psal. 3. penitent. Prin●.  till he came in with a scio: And though I know not as much as Gregory, this I may presume to know, the place in Saint Paul, wracked so often to confess a purgatory, 
1 Cor. 3. 12.  may be appliable to it, being a building of hay and stubble; and have the charity to believe the foundation laid in Christ, faith in him, and love of him, the groundwork, though in the superstructure may be some light airy phantasms, stubble and straw, which in the day of trial shall vanish, yet he shall be saved, so as by fire, through, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  or out of fire, dross vanishes, but gold shall abide the fiery trial in the day of the Lord.   

Sect. 27.  
Rogula fidei una omnino est sola illa immobilis, & irreformabilis, according to Tertullian; and if your Occam is to be credited, nec tota Ecclesia, nec concilium generale, nec summus Pont●fex potest facere articulunqui non fuit articulus, etc. Therefore if any thing be fundamental after the Church defines, it must be fundamental before: for deductions are not prime and native principles, nor superstructures foundations: that which is a foundation to all, cannot vary to different Christians, in regard of itself, for than it could not be a common rule to any nor could the souls of men acquiesce on a tottering foundation, a trice foundation, as common to all, must be firm unto all; in which sense the articles of Christian Faith are fundamental, and not what men please to define; for as Irenaeus, quum enim una & eadem fides sit, neque is qui multum de ipsà dicere potest, plus quam oportet dicit, nec qui parum ipsam minuit: if every thing defined by the Church be fundamental in the faith, the Church's definition would be the Church-foundation, and so by consequence the the Church could lay her own foundation, and the Church have an absolute and perfect being before her foundation laid.  
If the too preposterous zeal of the Roman Church since she grew to her in controlable greatness, had not rashly determined those things to be matter of belief, which for many centuries passed only for pious opinions: Christendom might have served God in an holy fire of zeal and spiritual fervency, which now sacrifices myriads of souls to Belial in the flames of contention: what a sight is it to see writers committed together by the ears for trifling ceremonies, and beggarly distinctions, tanquam pro aris & focis, incensed, none are affrighted at their noises, and loud brayings, under Ass' skins; scioli and smatterers, in Divinity only busy in the skirts and outsides of learning, and yet will admit no salvation but by a compliance with their vertiginous pates: wise men should know, as the body hath certain diseases, that are with less evil tolerated then removed (as to cure a Leprosy with the blood of a child) so it is better a trivial error should dilate itself, than children of the Church should perish, while some error may be disseminated with less inconvenience then discovered: the use which wise men should make of other men's lapses, is to avoid a precipice: and the advantage pious men should make of these great flaws in Christianity, is not to join with them that make them: nor to help to dislocate these main bones in the body, which disjointed cannot be set.   

Sect 28.  
The uncharitable dealings of Christians with Christians, cannot induce me to be uncharitable to any; I must believe with St. Hierom, Haeretici fiunt, non quod Scripturas contemnunt sed quod non intelligunt; it is ignorance and not the contempt is the cause of most, if not all of our separations: The Sheba's of separation, all the Trumpeters of sedition may alarm the rabble, that brainless horse, to battle, to trample down order, and break the ranks discipline with a separate yourselves from Idols; curse you Meroz, curse you bitterly: What society hath light with darkness: Come out of Babylon my people: with a hundred such places of Scripture racked, and by an invention, witty in cruelty, tortured to confess, something may patronise their black designs, wring blood even out of the Gospel of peace.  
Which have as little relation to Christian societies as a Lo here is Christ! Lo there, go not out after them! racked so frequently to confess them Antichrists, who correspond not to the whimsies of every phanatique: denoting such as Judas, Theudas, Arthronges, and Barchosba, Impostors, who pretended to be Messiasses sent for the delivery of the Jews out of the hands of the Romans: and if it was possible, would deceive the Elect, the Jewish Christians, which are forewarned, but as the Calvinists, it is impossible for them to be deceived, who are the Elect: and as the Romanist who are in their Church, the treasury of all truth, cannot be deceived.  
But if the Elect can scarce be saved, what shall become of the ungodly? if the Christian Jew, who washed with Christ's blood, speaks better things then that of Abel's, what will become of them against whom it cries worse than that did against Cain? while they themselves could cry, Let it be upon us and ours: if the Elect (as the Papist) the Catholic with all his indulgengencies, masses, rosaries, and abstinences can scarce be saved, what will become of those who are out of the Communicative line of God's mercy, his Ark, City, our holy Apostolic and Catholic Church?  
If the Elect (as Fiduciaries) they that can believe they shall be saved, can scarce believe it so strongly, but that an intervening scruple of an obstreperous Conscience may damn them, what will become of a Papist, who believes in a God of wood, a God of bread, who says, we can have no assurance, since by faith we are saved? thus the stream of life is made the puddle of fanatic interpretations; while all like the Tyrant, who fitted wretches to his bed, hack, maim, and mutilate, or stretch and tenter the Scripture to adequate them to inhuman purposes: and Heaven itself must admit no room beyond the capacities of their empty noddles. Vain fuellers fit only to feed the flames of contention, out of whose embers are even raised combusti-   

Sect. 29▪  
Though Heaven gates be narrow, I cannot believe them so straight as most sects would make them, should I not believe one lie with the Fiduciary, or many with the Pontifician, not easily induced to believe heaven the purchase of fonder imaginations. Charity would persuade me it is even a receptacle to those, whose uncharitable opinions have mutually condemned and secluded each the other, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  
The practice of our lives, not tongues must make us Christians: we must be rather so by entering into imitation of Celestial virtues then curious inquiries.  
May we flourish in verity, which is the root; in humility, which is the flower; and well doing, which is the fruit of the tree of life.   

Sect. 30.  
Those aery mysteries which have unhinged so many Cardinal heads, shall not extend my Pericranium. God grant I may for futurity learn to do something, rather than hear others talk about nothing; which if they bring not into the praemunire with the fool in the Psalmist, who said in his heart there was no God; yet I have said in my heart with the Psalmist, all men are liars, and every one deceiveth his neighbour: I must believe as in Epiphanius time, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Piety or impiety must only distinguish Orthodox or Pseudodox: we glory and are inflated with the names of Churches, while we lose the power of godliness, soul of Religion, and prerogative of Christians, Christ's Legacy, Charity.   

Sect 31.  
Faith may lay a Foundation, but we may hope in vain, for that building which is made without hands, if charity here lays not her hand to make a superstruction: those Babel-builders who think to reach Heaven by another way, produce nothing but confusion of languages; impenitent confidence will shipwreck in an Ocean of infirmity; when penitent despair which expected to be ingulph'd into an Abyss of miseries, wasted with gales of sighs, and Seas of tears, may arrive at a Port of everlasting security: the Scripture says, Heaven is taken by violence, but 'tis a strange fancy the world takes up, that it may be taken with impudence: fronti nulla ●ides, may admit a double sense: though a Judas may veil impiety with kisses, yet if a timely repentance prevents not he may break in two, and discover his black soul naked.  
I cannot believe that Faith justifies, works justify, or both: yet we are justified by faith, by works, by both: the conditions, not causes of our justification: and the conditions not performed, it is impossible without this righteousness to see God. I will not say Christ cannot save, though the Scripture says, Christ could do no miracles in his own Country; not because he was less potent, but they were more incapable: where impenitence keeps the door; mercy cannot enter: it is not material whose Communion they boast of, or disclaim, who have fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness: since Idolaters, drunkards, liars, Adulterers; no dogs and unclean person shall enter into the City of God; or be partaker of the benefits of his holy Church.   

Sect 33.  
Of all graces the Apostle makes the greatest of charity, and the world least; of that charity which antidates Christ's presence here in his members: and outdates the other graces in futurity, when faith and hope shall be swallowed up in an abyss of ravishing realties, that which was but a Lamp here, will be then a star enlightened by the Sun of righteousness: a Lamp here with the oil of faith and light of good works, converting sinners from the darker ways of iniquity, shall shine like the stars in glory hereafter, and not such who compass Sea and Land to make a Proselyte, and make him worse than themselves: who tith mint and anise, boggle at trifling formalities, and forget the greater mysteries of salvation.   

Sect 34.  
Self-interest opens the floodgates of dissension to drown the humble valleys of peace: men esteem opinions because their own: all adore the Chimaeras of their own private brains; call light darkness, and darkness light; presume they have the most glorious stars for their Conductors, when they are only ignes fatui, which misguide to a precipice of flames. God's fire gave light and burned▪ Hell's fire burns without light; who leave the light of truth, & heat of charity to live in flames of contention, deserve that fire without light: even the best Apostles dissented; knowledge nor piety can amputate all differences; but wisdom and charity must prevent their prejudices.   

Sect 35.  
Not every light and airy error in disputable Doctrine, and points of curious speculation, can be a just cause of separation in that admirable body of Christ his Church, or of one member from another: He gave his natural body to be torn on the cross, that his mystical should be one: and as Saint Austin, he is no partaker of divine charity, that is enemy to this unity.  
All these divisions are disguises of charity, and vizards of factions, a pageantry of pompous folly, or preposterously inflated knowledge: and though they mask in the names of Papists, Protestants, Reformists, sub-Reformists, Atomist, Familist, 
Fa●san. on Ep. ad Sempr. quare ab haeretico homine noster hac appellatione dividit, cum Catholicus nuncupatur Christianus, mihi nomen Catholicus vero, Cognomen illud me nuncupat, istud ostendit, hoc probor, illo signi●●cor. Appellatio Catholici congregat homogena etc. S. Aug. in't. Cont. F●nd. c. 16. S. Cyp. de unit. Eccl.  Brownist, etc. the Church of God can have no music to set out such discords. My name is Christian, and my surname is Catholic; by the one I am known from Infidels, by the other from heretics and schismatick●: the name of Catholic congregates what is homogeneous, and dissipates what is heterogeneous, both in the Court of heaven, and in the Court of the Church.  
He cannot put on the garments of Christ, 
Vi●cent Lirinens●s libr▪ adv. Haer. c. 27.  who rends and divides his Church. Catholic is every where the same; that which is trusted to thee, not thate which invented by thee; which thou hast received, not imagined; a matter not of wit but doctrine: in which thou art not to be Author but a retainer: not to lead, 
S. Aug. lib. 4. de bapt. Cont. Donat. c. 24.  but follow: that which the whole Church holds not instituted by Counsels, but retained, is rightly believed Apostolical tradition, such as the Creed, Sacraments, etc.  
The ancient consent of holy Fathers is not in all questions of Divine Law, 
Vincent Lirinen. c. 3. Liban. Haeres.  but only in the rule of Faith by us with exact study to be sifted out and followed: there are some things in which the best defenders of the rule (Salva fidei compage) agree not, 
S. Aug. Cont. jul. Pet, c. ●.  but one thinks better and truer than another. Every error denies not Christ the foundation, or makes Christ deny it, 
Holkot in 1 Sent. q. ad. 4. K.  and thrust it from the foundation: not every error in those things which are of faith, is either infidelity or heresy; if men differ; it is no more than they have done ever: pious men even in differences may preserve charity entire: ●concord which is the effect of charity, est un●o voluntatum non opinionum. Some Churches build after the Italian fashion with a flat top; 
Thom. 2. 24. 37. A●. 1. c.  others with wide windows to let in the air, and catch the applause of the world; some build Babel-like and will have their head reach Heaven, and if their confusion of languages impeded not might be near allied: others of the Synagogue fashion will admit nothing but round, and limit Heaven in their narrow conventicles: it could be wished that all would be what the Apostle exhores, 
1 Cor. 1. 11.  of one mind; but it is not to be hoped whaile the Church is triumphant over humane▪ fragilities, which here hang thick and close about her; the want of peace, and unity even where Religion is pretended, proceeds from men and humours, 
B. ●. Cont. Fisher s. 58.  rather than things and errors to be found in them▪ Episcopacy squares with Monarchy: Presbytery with Aristocracy, independency with Democracy; men made Religion lackey to self-interest, and State policy; the great Turk walking in his Garden with a Bashaw, who wondered he would suffer the Christians distracted in Sects to o'erspread his Empire▪ asked how he liked his Garden? answering, it was admirable for the variety, replied: wouldst thou deny me that in my Empire, thou admirest in a Garden? am not I Emperor of them all?   

Sect. 36.  
I can join prayers with a Papist, if his be offensive to God, mine may be pleasing; can hear a French Huguenot with his hat on, uncovered; receive with a Dutchman kneeling, while he uses the irreverence of his breech; yet separated in my charity from neither: nor would I be in my mode rather than scandalise any: it is no less than frenzy for the misposition of a trencher to refuse a banquet, or be ingrateful to an Host. Nay, I could take an Host with a Romanist, 
Hoc totum pendet ex principiis Metaphysicis & Philosophicis & ad fidei doctrinam non esse necessarium Suarez in 3. Theoph. dis. 50.  as well as a Wafer with a Calvinist. If he believes a real body, I believe not less in energy, a Communion of the body and blood of Christ, a participation by every reception of his merits and passion, and the virtues really communicated to a worthy receiver.   

Sect. 2.  
It hath been ever thought convenient saith Saint Gregory, that there should be in unitate fideid versa Consuetudo, that eating of mea●s offered to Idols, totally restrained the Churches of Syria and Cilicia, 
1 Cor. 10 17.  seemed permitted to the Church of Corinth if no man challenged it; and that which was urged upon the Corinthians, was not imposed upon the Galatians; 
Gal. 1. 9 Col. 5. 2. 1 Cor. 11. 4.  to show every one is obliged to observe the rites of his own Church, lest they come under the Anathema of contentious and turbulent: yet this inhibited not that Saint Paul might become all to all, that he might gain some; and who will gain any to Christianity, must not play at petty games in Religion, adhere to Bonatus his humour, confine truth to places, as if she loved corners: or as if the Church which resembles the Moon, could like Mahomet's Moon be brought down to show tricks in a sleeve: the good Monica, Saint Austin's Mother, 
Aug. Conf.  who bathed the Leprosy of her Son in a Jordan of tears (ut non potuit perire tantarum lachrymarum filius) was content to relinquish her African customs at Milan: They who have gigged to Geneva for platforms, and Rome for Trinchets, have brought home matter to fewel-contention, none to kindle zeal: May none follow exotic forms here: a Spanish garb is ridiculous with us, and the English mode reputed an affront in Spain: No wise man will be angry if in his travels he meets modes not corresponding with his humour, and he is mad, who returning, will keep none company without they pluck down their house, and rebuild them to the model of his fancy, who taylor-like travels to dress Apes.   

Sect 38.  
The Religion of our Souls must imitate the reason of our bodies; 
Vinc. Lir.  which in the process of years, may evolve and explicate their numbers; but the bodies are one and the same: there is nothing produced in the maturity of age which did not latitate in the minority of children: yet who would endeavour to fit the clothes and shoes of puerility to a gygantick foot, or body.  
The apparel of Christ's Spouse is her rites; time and place may produce as great a variety in her fashions as in the world's garb of clothes, and modes of the world; though some may adorn more, none altars the constitution of the body: it would be a mad humour in the Spaniard to commence a quarrel, because the shorter wiskers of another Nation upbraided his mustachios: Or the French with the Spanish, 'cause the constancy of their habits might seem in derision of their levity: or both with a Nation which was servile to the fancy of neither.  
Those great Calciners of Religion, and reducers to the Primitive patterns need nothing above their own examples to condemn them.  
They must join with the Levellers in a Communion baptise in Rivers with the Anabaptist; make life a penniless pererration with the Franciscan; may spend both oil and labour, dawb but not cure bodies like the Apostles; have regard to washing of feet, yet continually be defiled in their ways; Confine themselves to Sandals, say, who use shoes are shod with iniquity, and walk in the footsteps of the ungodly; since they recede from the primitive pattern▪ and call this recession Apostasy: or lean upon one the other at the Lords Supper, 
Cyp. lib. 1. Epis. 2. lib. 4. Ep. 8. in Ep. ad Caecilium.  and lie down at the Table, and take it after Supper.  
The same things are not decent at all times: babes milk is unfit for ripe●age, and the nurse's Gibberish an undecent cialect for a Tutor; the stones of the foundation unfit for roof or walls: Our Master builder Christ, employed tongues, Prophets, Prophetesses, Evangelists his not still employing bids us acquiesce, while his silence exacts ours, which not assented to, introduces nothing but a profitless clamour, causeless malice, and endless contention. The Apostles which were forbid to carry money in their girdles, had afterward a Judas with a bag and the prohibition of clubs and staves was not so strict a rule, but that a Peter was found with a sword. Howsoever the Novati an Bishops erred, they could not err in the Canon of indifferency: for if Anselm is to be believed the multitude of ceremonies is so far from infringing, as they commend the unity of the Church, while all believe in one Christ. In the Primitive Church, somefasted one day, 
Test. Eusehex Iren●o.  some two, some more, other forty hours, computing day and night. In Italy some abstained forty days, others used abstinence twenty, 
In Epist. Theoph. cent. 2. 120.  others seven days, in relation to the creation, and some forty hours, in relation to the forty days our Saviour fasted: And if Socrates is to be believed, 
Socrat. Hist. Eccles. lib. 5. c. 22.  nor Gospels nor Apostles imposed observation of days, but the liberty was referred to the Church.  
The Church of Rome and the African distributed Sacramental bread the Alexandrian Church permitted the people to take it: 
Tertul. lib. de Cor. militis.  afric and Rome mixed wine with water, 
Dionysius Alexand. ad Christum Euseb. 1. 7. c. 9  and colder Regions drank it pure. 
Cypr. lib. 2. Ep. 3.  See the contentions about Easter, 
Euseb. Iraene.  till the Roman victor overcame all; but never could subdue the opinion of a proud Prelate, and a disturber of the Church's tranquillity.  
Some lifted up their hands to heaven, as if they intended a pious violence; some their feet, quast in coelum podibus ire, 
Tertul. in Apolog.  others threw themselves prostrate, as if they intended a rebound: some cast their eyes up, as if through those windows, 
Clemens in ult. stromat.  they would let our their souls unto their Redeemer; some fixed their eyes upon the ground, by contemplation of earth, to have an introspection into their own unworthiness: some beat their breasts, as if they would dislodge sin, and open a door to their hearts for the King of glory to enter. Since the love of God is linked with our neighbour, he who uncharitably condemns him, may lose the link of his own salvation. May none that pretend to the name of Christians, through the faintness of the constitution of their Religion, moulder into sects, or through the brittleness of their fancies, crumble into division, and then like a heard of silly animals, make a noise, and please themselves with the noise they make, yet know no reason why they make it.  
But defisting from fruitless and hellfuelling clamours, may we all with the good Polycarpus day and night, with a still voice, 
Epis. Smyrn. Euseb. lib. ●. c. 15.  like the breathing of God's Spirit, humbly invoke God's mercy for the peace of all Churches, spread over the face of the universe. And in our sehismes, neminem judicantes aut a jure communionis si diversum senser it amoventes: entertaining the charity of holy S. Cyprian, nor judging, nor excommunicating our brethren, because they will not permit their reason to be overweighed, perhaps with some unnecessary scruples, in the fallacious balances of lighter imaginations: calling our Brother Racha, witless, or vain for dissenting, and thou fool belched out so often in virulency, may endanger judgement and hell: In vain we may repair to the Altar, use outward forms and ceremonies, and neglect love, which is the perfection of the Law.   

Sect. 39  
Christ's spouse is an Army with Banners: as order to an Army, so is discipline to a Church. Though Troops do not move according to the discipline of War, it is not less an Army. Confusion may prejudice the success, it cannot the name. Though discipline is as an hedge to a Vinyard, or resembles the wall to a City, or proportion to a body; yet a Vinyard is not less a Vinyard for the defect of an hedge, nor the wall makes a City, or some misproportion or dislocation of parts, bring the body under the notion of incorporeal. I shall not cavil at what we want to the compliment of my desires, but praise God for what we have, that may conduce to his glory.   

Sect. 40▪  
I love to see Lent, the spring-time of sanctified resolutions, and times hourglass filled with the dust of mortified concupiscence, flow in lectures of mortality and repentance; while every good Christian verifies what's feigned of the Phoenix, in a bed of spices, in odours of devotion, kindled by the declining beams of the true Sun of Righteousness, can quicken out of ashes, an acceptable sacrifice to the Father of all lights. Yet if my abstaining from flesh will raise an evil spirit in my brother, I will abstain even from that abstinence may starve his soul, and not neglect that devotion which may feed my own.   

Sect. 41.  
Church music would elevate my devotion, and make my ravished soul in an ecstasy, treat with the God of harmony; and in my opinion, Religion, like a modest Matron, may make use of those ornaments, which vice misuses; and their zeal is strangely out of tune this can distemper, which if the stories of Hypocrates, Terpander, and Timotheus are to be credited, in the extremities of phranticks could once do miracles: but if that music which can appease an evil spirit in a Saul, can raise it in another, we must be content without the Kingly Prophet's Harp, Lute, and Organ, relinquish that music which can untune a Brother, and think no harmony good, interlaced with such dilcords, as the ill disposing of him for whom Christ died.   

Sect. 42.  
I have no prejudice by Surplice, Cope, Hood, all the Priest's garment, may be enterwoven with holiness to the Lord, putting on of these, may consist with the putting on of the new man, and the Breastplate of righteousness, external glory, with internal holiness. A Surplice to me can emblematize innocence, and the keeping the supervesture of my flesh unspotted, that clothed with virgin purity here, I may keep those virgin's company, which in long white robes of innocence follow the Lamb. Yet I think of these ceremonies, as Augustus of the Roman Senator's Glasses, who condemned a slave to his fishponds for breaking one of them, whom Cesar rescued, and broke the rest, saying, They are fine things, yet not worth a man. Yet I have observed, none are so ready to take offence, as they who are most proclive to give it; imperious, petulant, and envious sciolists, and to fear to offend them, is not to have respect to the weak in faith, but strong in passions.   

Sect. 43.  
At the glories of the Church, I am apt with Bonaventure, astonished at the sight of the French Queen, to cry out, If an earthly Queen be so glorious, how glorious is the Queen of heaven? Or with the Father at Rome, If an earthly City's glories be such, how great are the glories of the celestial Jerusalem? The splendour of these instructing my thoughts to think of him, who is interred into the holy of holies: and could not easily believe him to be of any Religion, who could spoil the glory of houses consecrated to God's service, to enrich his own: and could wish, they who seem so much to abhor Idols, would not commit sacrilege; and fear, that Eaglelike, snatching coals from the Altar, they will fire their own nests.  
Yet golden Priests, with wooden Chalices, are to be preferred before wooden Priests with golden.  
All who cannot have the convenience of outward Ordinances, may they have regard to inward holiness, adorn themselves with graces, fitting the Temples of the Holy Ghost, from the Altars of their hearts, send up the Incense of their Prayers to him, that dwells in a house not made with hands. And we who agree not about a Terrestrial meeting, may meet in a Celestial; while all worship him whose dwelling is in the heavens: And yet, where two or three meet together in his name, he will not fail (who cannot fail of his promise) to be with them on earth. Yet I could wish, that those, who even appear before men with fear and trembling, would not appear before their Maker like mountains: nor any would rush into Churches, 
Quis ferat populum in Templum irruente● 〈◊〉 in haram sues? certe non obsunt populo ceremoniae, sed prosunt, ● modus in eyes servetur, & caveamus ne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 loco ●abeanture, hoc est, ne praecipuam pietatem in ill is collocemus.  like to swine into a sty, there gruntle, and make a noise and run out again, to wallow in a puddle of impurities; 
Rhen●●us annot. in Tertul. de Cor. militis.  nor any like idle boys, when they should be learning a lesson in Christ's school, get books they understand not, and look on gayes, make devotion by pictures. The people on both sides may be bells of good mettle, but are so miserably rung out of tune, that they give notice of nothing but combustion: some oreburden God's service, and others leave it naked, as if, because one man had sweltered himself to death by too many clothes, another was privileged to starve himself to death with nakedness. God of his mercy grant the rabble may no more ring changes, but all chime in to his worship.   

Sect. 44.  
I know Episcopacy, 
Salmas. B. Blondel.  the primitive pattern, even the Antagonists by contradicting affirm it, what by their own concessions dilated itself over the universal face of Religion, envy not mussitating, or calumny daring to detract, in the beginning or about the middle of the second century must necessarily imply it, than no innovation, without we will imagine all the world sopite in error; 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. lgn. ad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Epist. ad Sempr. sic in Epist. ad Trall. philad & passim in omnibus ep. Vnum scire debes, siquis cum Episcopo non ●it, in Ecclesiâ non esse S. Cypr. Ep. 69. Filius impius qui contemptis Episcopis & Dei Sacerdotibus relictis constituere audet aliud altar. S. Cypr. de unit. Eccles. & Epist. 76. Ep. 40. etc.  and those holier flames of zeal, which could transport the Martyrs with fervent desires of being carried in fiery chariots of persecuting adversaries to Heaven, and administer no light to guide them upon Earth; and truth had wanted Champions, if some, like the Fox, who had lost his tail should not have persuaded beasts to a conformity to that which might deform them.  
Weak calumny, nor proud ignorance draws so black a veil, as we cannot discern the Lawn sleeves; if their own impious ambition have sullied them, I have tears to wash, rather than dirt to cast with others; and by going backward, would willingly draw a sheet of Lawn candid with innocence over the nakedness of these Fathers: and not with cursed Sons expose their shame. Those Foxes which called these grapes in God's Vineyard ●owr, were they who could not reach them. Doglike in the night of clouded reason bark at the Moon, who could not come near its height and lustre: no rich man turns Leveller, who introduced a parity in the Church, were those whose deficiencies lent no possibilities of their office●▪ they called to the hills with Mahomet to come down to them; but finding their labours irrite, they would not like him take the pains to go up by degrees of perfection, but set the rabble to Level: Episcopacy was made for a remedy to Schism, 
Hieron ad Evag. In Schismatis remedium factum est quod postea unus Electus qui caeteris praeponeretur unusuquisque ad se trahens Ecclesiae tumcam r●mperet.  if we will believe Saint Hierom: the remedy taken away, it can be no wonder if Paroxisms of Schism do concusse and discompose the tranquillity of the body of Religion: yet though I venerate Episcopacy as much as I hate a disease, I could not love idleness in pompous Pageantry; solemn ignorance blazoned with power; ambition and vanity dressed up with formalities; should I believe a St. Ambrose in a non aliunde haereses abortae ●ut nata schismata quam inde, quod sacerdotes non veneranur.  
Yet a devont Saint Gregory, a holy Polycarp, an indefatigable Saint Austin, a learned Nazianzen, eloquent Chrysostom, a meek Cyprian, and a resolute Saint Ambrose, etc.  
Such Bishops as these shining in sanctity of life, and doctrine, in the might of the Bridegroom's absence, would irradiate Christ's Spouse; and not in their dioceses like to prodigious Meteors, show more of distance and terror, then of light and Celestial virtues: if the Primitive Copy be so blotted that it cannot be taken out, I should be sorry; and those Lawn sleeves I could love whited with innocence, I could not approve purpled with blood: we● bogle at names, neglect poor truth naked; and yet may entertain her in a disguise: superintendent may imply as much overseer as Bishop, and Presbyter, the Elder of the Church was a Bishop; I shall not be troubled by what name we are instructed to serve God, or what stile we reject: so we reject not him who is the high Bishop of our souls.   

Sect. 45.  
Men of eminent parts are for Episcopacy, and take away the golden ball of honour and preference, and few will attain to the mark, or any eminency of knowledge. Men of indifferent call for parity, conscious of their own defects, of attaining any degree of excellence. The inferior, whom nature huddled up in haste, and neither Art nor Knowledge rectified are for the huddle: that by violating the well linked chain of Government, disorder and confusion making inroads, they themselves indistinguished, may pass in the crowd; and with these it is no wonder if How the Cobbler or pragmatical jack the Sopeboyler have more friends, and would find more Suffrages than Bishop Laud.  
The people by the Prerogative of nature act simply, lose their judgements, and dislike all but that which is but naught; and there was not such variety of beasts in the Ark, as there is of bestial natures in the rout; but more especially when the beast turns censorious; and even among the gentry there are some scarce a degree above them a company of Plebeian heads, whose difference is in their clothes; not understandings: and therefore it is no wonder, if in a multitude of such Councillors there may not be safety: while folly hath more votaries than wisdom, and voices, not judgements are weighed, knowledge may be easily outvoted▪ and had not a Lord Protector interposed, we by a fatal experience might have seen Church and State reformed into nothing, or a strange spiritual Government Hence the wiser Politician hath made it tentare arcana Imperii treason; and not unpolitick Princes have rather tolerated the Tyranny of Rome, then lent occasion to their subjects to take a platform by Geneva; for these popular reformations are so exact, that if one stone be defective, they seldom leave till they have plucked down the whole building, 
Tacitly.  in plebe nec veritas nec judicium inter faedam potentium a ●ulationem, & praeceps prostratorum odium manibus, stud●is & incond●tis motibus omnia miscent. Most are governed by Crude opinion, and as they are informed like or dislike, they know not what and do all in emulation. An Aristides, Photion, Themistocles, Camillus' Coriolanus, Scipio; with whom merit is treason, and virtue is guilt, it is no wonder if they must be sacrificed to the rabble, as if it was even sin enough to have preserved the ingrateful.  
He who silenced Rome, and checked the exorbitancy of Popery, our incomparable Primate, by polishing and filling up the Sciagraphy or rude draught of reformation to a lively resemblance of Primitive excellence, falls by those he had preserved: he fenced the Church with discipline; walled the City of God with Ceremonies against the incursions of irreligion and profaneness and made the Church militant move in order like an Army with banners terrible to her enemies: while by decent rites he gave proportion and comeliness to the Spouse, presenting her to her King in a garment of divers colours.  
If in Horace's justum & tenacem propositi virum, nor ardour c●vium prava jubentium, ment quatit solidâ, best Characters.  
He stayed till the times grew up to him, 
S. Edward Deering.  (as no friend of his confessed) and would not be lured to the fancies of the times: natus è q●er●n non èsalice; and so not complying with every wind of error, like a bending willow, but a sturdy Oak of reformation, giving shelter to the Sons of the Church against Roman tempests and fanatics blasts, though he was at length forced to yield to the Axe, yet not to be cast into the fire: for though he was numbered with the transgressors, like him whom he followed in the highway of the Cross, his red evening I doubt not was the praecursor of a glorious day, illuminated by the beams of the Sun of righteousness: and howsoever that excellent, though▪ unfortunate Primate fell, Saint Paul's will be a monument of his Charity; which should the preposterous zeal of time deface his book against Fisher will be an Epitaph to express his constancy to Religion, which maugre the iron teeth of time; and black mouthed Calamy or Calumny will continue: and though many with weak jugdements and strong passions against these times, 
M Pullein the same at Rome. Mr. Fullam of C. C. in Italy. Mr. Arthu● Wilson in Flanders.  have stooped to the Roman lure, supposing conformity introduced here as a Phosphor, or praecurfor of that glorious light called Popery: yet I could never meet with any learned Romish Priest, though acquainted with not a few, that would not confess that Rome had lost her greatest enemy; and the English Church within her head in Laud: too crabbed a piece to be ever brought to square with the Romish building.   

Sect. 46.  
Preaching brought Religion in, and hath carried it out of the world; some think all Religion in the ears, and none in the hands; to see Christ in the flesh, Jerusalem in her glory, and an Augustine in a Pulpit, was esteemed a wish of a pious transcendency: may we feel Christ in the spirit; see Jerusalem the holy City of his Church in her glory; whose walls are of precious stones, piety, chastity, meekness, and temperancy, etc. adorned with all the glories of Celestial virtues, and I could be content without satisfying the itch of my ear, though with a Saint Austin: A Boniface could be a traitor to his Prince; a coal of Hell; an incendiary of mischief, by blowing the flames of contention, and raising a combustion in his Country; yet neither the beams of light, effluxions of piety, streaming from this great luminary; nor the living water issuing from this great Fountain in God's Church could quench the flames of ambition, or kindle zeal in his so passionate an Auditor. A master would think that servant distracted, who would desire to hear his will often, and always do his own: yet such is the madness of the world, if they hear an Ambassador from Heaven patiently, though they list themselves to serve the world, flesh, and devil, they oblige God, and unserviceable to these, Heaven must entertain them, when perhaps instead of a Celestial Ambassador, they have only heard schisms, trumpeter.   

Sect. 47.  
Yet such an Orator as a Saint Austin, or Saint chrysostom might represent vice so formidable, that frighted at the horror of her own shape, the Chameleon vanity which changes into all shapes, but white, may renounce all for the Candour of innocene, the lust-scorched Amorist may feel an Icy chillness steal through all the veins; a magdalen's legion may depart with all Hell flames; though she keep her passion, may change her object, and Heaven have a Temple where Hell had a brothel: the wind and Waves may still obey Christ's voice, while ebullitions of rage and storms of passions, hearing God's word in his Ministers are calmed into obedience: Avarice may scatter her Idol-Gold to entertain the Image of her Saviour; Cast her bread upon the waters, not that they may return; but bring him who is the bread and water of life: Good resolutions might be thus confirmed; vice eradicated, devotion elevated, and zeal infused by the ear, may give it a durable consistence in the Soul: make it so enamoured with the Manna of God's word, that it might not languish after the fleshpots of Egypt, and carnal concupiscences. This was the custom of the Jewish Church: in the Christian intimated by a word of exhortation in the Acts to meekness, continence, and all the virtues which bracelet-like must adorn Christianity, which the defects of the Auditory, the times or propriety of Text suggested; and not to raise doctrinal points according to the whimsies of every Cockbrain Sciolist, who's seven year at an Academy, hath like Pharoahs' dream produced nothing but seven years' famine: or having scented Douai, St. Thomas, or some Romish fair, where having purchased a few trinkets, and a little gibberish may by order tu●● Hocus Pocus, juggle or make a Puppit-show in Religion; introducing superfluous definitions which fuel contention; excite rebellions, hatred, animosities, calumnies, contempt of superiors, disseminating error, and infusing prejudice; tantum religio potuit suadere●  
Preachers like winds have influence on the people, compared to waters.  
May none think salvi●icall preaching consists in state-invectives, but in teaching their auditors, decline the Islands of sin, and thrust into the fair havens of grace and glory.   

Sect. 49.  
Prayer is that sacred negotiation man hath with God, the art of imparadising our souls, the Jacob's Ladder, by which we may bring down Angels, and wrestle till they bless us: We may hear God speak in a Preacher, we speak to him in our Prayers. It cannot be obedience to hear our Master's command, but do his will. Thus with Enoch, we may walk in Paradise, and if we cast aside the mantle of mundan employments with Elias, mount up in a fiery chariot to heaven. God's house should be called a house of prayer, but most make it a den of thiefs: Not taking heaven by violence in prayer, but offer violence on earth. God's word is robbed of its efficacy, and the Priests by that advantage turned money-changers, and expose Doves to sale, God's innocent children in the Temple, as if these Doves could not mount up towards heaven, unless they were sealed; they are blinded in an unknown tongue, or entitle God's spirit to blasphemy, or battology, or ready to offer the sacrifice of fools, or make fools a sacrifice.   

Sect. 50.  
I have no prejudice to public Liturgy because the name may import sacrifice and Nature have some affinities with the Litanies in Mass: I could wish they might not challenge a greater affinity by an ite missa est, a period; and the Roman by an ite missá est ignorantiae pars, might challenge a greater affinity to what was ours; while Physicians have their Catholicons, Panchymagogy, and Panaces Soldiers their Magazines, and Panoplies: that spiritual Physicians should be unprovided, and Christ's soldiers unarmed to resist the wounds of sin, or wounded, want balm in Gilead: Could it be inconsistent with faith, it could not with reason: this might cement the body of the Church, preserve the communion of Saints, obstruct vanity, by sealing up the fountains of impurities, taking away the leisure which may administer occasions to sin: But if we cannot all agree in uniformity in God's service, yet God grant we may introduce no deformity into his worship; but agree all with one mind to serve him: none make long prayers to devour Widow's houses, or God's house a Widow, while with zeal, unlike david's, the zeal of God's houses ●ats, them not up, but their zeal eats up God's houses.   

Sect. 51.  
I shall not deny, a confession may be sometimes necessary to man as well as God. 
Tertullian urget in lib. depoenitent. ex aliquot Cyprianis locis apparet ut Ser. 5.ae lapsis & lib. 3. Epis. 14. & frequenter fieri jubet lib. 1. Ep. 3.  If some sores have festered by rash exposures, others have wrankled by unhappy concealments. There may be good Samaritans, who▪ when we fall among thiefs, sins which rob us of God's mercies, may comfort us with the wine of God's Word, and pour the oil of his Holy Spirit into our wounds▪ which they cannot, if they be not opened. But these traders in indulgencies, and picklocks of state, instead of curing us of our wounds, have robbed us of our clothes, the garment of Christ's righteousness, by teaching us relinquish our own, and then have exposed our nakedness to the cold air of an uncharitable world. Though we have Priests that pass by carelessly, Levites which only shake their heads, may we rely on that good Samaritan, who, when we had fallen among thiefs, poured the oil of his precious blood into our wounds, and left us two pence, his two Testaments, for our security, in the Inn of this world.   

Sect. 52.  
I cannot be so much an Iconomachist, as to think all image making Idolatry, it's eminently true of graven and molten, which after the ceremonies of consecration, was by the Gentiles conceived bodies of inspired Deities. Pictures by Gods own appointment lawful, as the cherubims; or if unlawful to the Jews, the commandment is as little relative to Christians, as the Sabbath; as little understood, as the taking God's name in vain, meant by forswearing: Yet he who keeps the seventh day to praise God for the Creation as the first, in memorial of the Redemption; or he who is so far from using God's name in vain, by forswearing it, as he will not misuse it in vain conversation, or hates so much an Idol, as his eyes will not treat with a picture. I honour him for his zeal, I wish I could as well commend him for his charity, and not misapprove him for his ignorance. We should not offend weak ones, yet some are so weak, that all things offend them: madder than he who persuaded himself he was made of butter, the sunshine of the Gospel terrifies them, and the least scintillation of charity seems dangerous. Others have the weakness of children, whom nothing but rattles and pictures will please; take away these, they grow querulous, bawl and disquiet the whole household of faith.   

Sect. 53.  
The bra●en Serpent, the emblem of our Saviour, curing the sting● of the fiery Serpents, our sins, while we wander in this wilderness of error, may be erected. But if the old Serpent creeps into the body, and tempts to Idolatry, a Monk, like an Idols Priest, can give responses from a rood, and make it move by a wire to induce a puppet-play in religion: a prestò be gone befits both the Juggler and his Hocus: 
2 Ephes. Con. 2 Canstan. Eleboris Canon 26. Concil. Carth.  had not four Counsels condemned them, and a jury of Fathers, Basils and Eus●bius testimonies on their side mistook: Athanasius, Chrysostoms', and Damasus suffrages for them suspected: therefore with Saint Hierom, nos unam tantum veneramur imaginem, 
Canon 14. Euseb. lib. 10. cap. 4. Hieron. in Ezek. 4. & 16.  Jesum nempe Christum, qui est imago patris. Though Basil says, the honour due to the abstract, is due to the pattern; if any one can show such an image of Christ, as Christ is of the Father, 
Epiph. haer. 79. A. 34. de moribus Eccl. lib. 1. cap. 10. de Consen▪ Eccles.  we will worship, else we may believe with the Father, Errare omnino meruerunt, qui Christum non in divinis codicibus, sed in parietibus quaerunt: Or as Irenaeus saith, where Pastors became dumb, there Images became their Pastors.  
These books of the unlearned, though made use of by Paulinus Bishop of Nola, since wooden Priests leave the rabble as unlearned as their books, it is better the images of Christ be defaced in Churches, than the image of Christ should be defaced in the people, which should be the Temples of the holy Spirit.  
But if any be lawful, sure the picture of the Father cannot, being a piece of intolerable folly, which in our fecundity of sects, may tempt a weak brother to reimbibe the humour of an Anthropomorphite. God who loves decency in his spouse, is so jealous of his honour in her, that he cannot approve that fucated face of Religion, which may shame honesty out of countenance: This Italian wash, and Spanish die, disfigures the face of Religion, whose grace is simplicity. What Caesar of his wife, can we believe Christ should expect less of his spouse, to be free not only from crime, but even suspicion.   

Sect. 54.  
Superstition which makes such a noise, the worshipping of Daemons, or Superstitum Cultus, the worship of the survivor to dead men's souls, as little as Idolatory, an Image inspired by a Devil, hath relation to Christians, the part of that commandment which forbids adoration, bowing down, or corporal worship to an Idol seems to intimate a tribute due to God: the worshipping God in spirit and truth, placed in opposition only to that in the Mountain and Jerusalem, impugns not this, who redeemed both body and spirit, expects reverence from both: Our spirits not less, such by corporeal allegation, even corporal worship is in spirit and in truth. Henry Burtons' Jesu-worship Idolatry, proved the ridiculous nonconformist an Idolater, who could Idolise his own fancy. Most of our Polemic Divines more Andab●tarum pugnant, their valour proceeds from their ignorance, hacking and hewing fellows which play prizes with the two e●g'd sword of Scripture, and care not how they maim and mutilate Christian communion, rather than not retain the airy name of Masters in the science of defence. Yet the decryers of Idolatry are the greatest Idolaters, covetous persons, who would be gilded o'er with promotion▪ and made worshipful, like petty thiefs, they care not what hedges they break, so they may warm their own fingers: take away the fences of the Church, to fence their own broken fortunes. Ceremonies are the hedge that fences the substance of Relgion, from the indignities which profanes, and sacrilege too frequently put on it. While the divines of England have preached down ceremonies, they have pulled up the hedge, and not only let in Foxes into their Vineyards, but opened a gap for the sheep to wander out of pasture of the Church, and become a prey to Romish wolves seducing th●m in sheep's clothing. It is true, that inter●all worship of the heart is the greatest service of God; but external worship of God, in his service, is the great witness to the world, that our hearts stands right in the service of God: take away this, and what light is there left to shine before men, that they may see our Devotion like a dayspring from above, or a star guiding wise men to Jesus, and glorify our Father which is in heaven? The Kingdom of heaven, his Church, without civil order and comeliness, religious exercises will be disorderly and confused, like the first Chaos, 
Ge●. I.  God made in the beginning void, and without form, and whose face darkness covered.   

Sect. 55.  
That Romanists deny Christ's humanity by transubstantiation, make irrite his death by merits and satisfaction, Credat Judaeus Apella, non ego. Christian charity will lend me no such deductions. A Chrysostom, Theodoret, Isych●us, Euche●●us, and some Primitive Fathers, with a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Vide Cent. Magdebur. Cent. 5 pag. 517. Chrysoft. ●0 15. Euch. lib. 2. in Genes.  if not a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 transfiguration, conversion, mutation, translation, transelementation, transition, if not a transubstantiation, generally believed a mystery, a matter of faith, not sense, to be believed, not grossly phancy'd if they have lent sun an occasion of error, shall administer to me an occasion Charity; though both within and without the pale of the Church, it may afford opportunity to scandal, not to be redeemed by a fictitious miracle of an Hosts conversion into flesh, when Christ's body is no longer present then the form of bread remains, how is Christ's body in the miracle, when the Species being gone, it is no longer a Sacrament?  
I love not such acute disputing about Christ's body as the kill of 1000 in a battle, and at Beziers 60000. how can we not dread Christ's appearance, who sing his Livery, Charity? who spilt his own blood to prevent the effusion of ours.  
Neither was a hudler of reformations tongue less cruel to his brethren, than the Papists sword with an Ego Sacramentarios haereticos omnes & aeterna paenà afficiendos duco. That which was given to unite into Christ's body should not divide from it: we must not dispute about Seals, while we lose the Covenant: it shall content me it is an Eucharist, not Axapist.  
May Christ's body be present to all by a worthy communication: and none forget him who commands it to be done in commemoration, he died for them; and so crucify him again by crucifying one the other. Whatsoever the consequences be of subtle brains, the consequences of worthy receiving will be salvation: may we all have sursum corda, 
St. Ambros de Sp. San. lib. 3. c. 12.  since a Saint Austin believes nemo d●gne manducat nisi ●prius adoraverit; and a Saint Ambrose, we must worship Christ in the mysteries, as the Apostles him in the flesh.  
He who injoins a worthy Communion under penalty of damnation, will not damn me sure for believing too worthily of what I receive: Transubstantiation nor Consubstantiation monopolise the real presence which no worthy communicant can be without. May all show he is really present, and communicated, while we receiving, praise God, and have charity with all; do become one with him, though not uniform with all: if we agree not in the way of serving him, yet all agree that serving is the way to him: I may be troubled that a brother shall refuse to put on the rob● of Christ's righteousness, but never be angry with him for not putting it on after my fashion: but could wish all would use that which is least offensive to them without a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
●spencaeus lib. 4. de Euchar adoratione. c. 3.  & quando Christiani adorant quod edunt, fit an●ma cum Philosophis, may be opinion of not a single Averro.   

Sect. 56.  
Most inflated with the opinion of their own knowledge, swell into controversies; others with the impostumations of their own malice are tumid and angry; open the one, and you shall find nothing but flatulency; and launch the other, and there will issue forth corruption: justification, whether by faith or works, or both? hath len● such occasion to contention, as men have renounced him who can only justify, Christ, who is Love: when justification is an acception of our persons, and a remission of our sins, it is an Enigma deserves an Oed pus to unmask, how we accept our own persons, and remit our offences.  
May we all like the wise Virgins provide ourselves with the light of Faith, and oil of good works: being called into God's Vineyard, consider we are to work, not talk: none suppose the finer threads spun from the Cobwebs of subtler imaginations can hold Salvation, but all provide that triple cord twisted by faith, hope, and charity, which cannot be easily broken.   

Sect. 57  
It hath been the fancy of not a few, that Christ came to fulfil the Law, and nothing hath been reserved for Christian duty but a Crede, and in via salutis ambulas, a magical Faith may oblige Heaven, and produce no less than miracles.  
Christ's Law is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if we may believe the Fathers a new discipline, 
Loz. lib. 2. Macar. l. 37. p. 442.  a spiritual Law accomplishing, extending & painting to the life the sciagraphy, or imperfect draught of Mosaical perfection, that forbids the fires of illegal concupiscences, this to fly even the very smoke by avoiding the occasion: that inhibits the ablation of our brother's blood, this the commotions of our own: the strictest of judaical observance or phylactered Romanists, who fringe Christian Religion with ceremonies, may be silenced with an except your righteousness exceed that of the Pharisees, You cannot, enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.  
Those which who say, Christ hath fulfilled the Law, and think that the crying a Lord, Lord, may entitle them to Heaven; may be dismissed with I know you not; if they will not cover their brother's nakedness, cloth their imperfections▪ give an Alms as well of their knowledge as fortunes, can break a commandment, or teach others to break; though they give up their names to factions: May miss their names in the book of life. Christ hath not done so much that we need do nothing: There is a treasury in the Church to de●ray humble and penitent sinners; but not to cast away upon Prodigals: whatsoever the Keys of the Church are of, this I am confident; every man hath the power of binding and loofing, sins bind, and repentance loses; yet though every Christian is entrusted with the keys Christ must be the Door, through which they must enter into salvation: they must unload themselves of iniquity, and knock by a spiritual fervency before they enter the narrow gate, (Peter's Keys without this) and the confidence of a Lord, Lord, encounter with a discedite, nescio vos: and meet with the punishment of the idle servant while they hide their Talon and accuse their master of hardness; weak and unstable souls, who wrest the Scriptures to their own damnation, that I do not speak in the person of a Carnal man by Saint Paul, must be tentred to a Saint Paul; could not that they have Saint Patro● to impiety, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if to live according to nature is the part of one that hath not believed not to arrive so high is below a Pagan. 
justin.    

Sect. 58.  
The poverty of Franciscans, abstinence of Carthusians, zeal of some Recollects, chastity of Nuns, devotion of Pilgrims, Anchorets▪ etc. Support the papal dignity beyond Jesuitical Sc●omachies, Homonyma's, Logomachies, and circulations, and while these ignès fatuì seduce, and are seduced into precipices by the Fanatic fires of their own imaginations, these sealed Doves may take occasion by their blindness to mount toward Heaven: for I cannot be so uncharitable as not to think these empty instruments may make a pleasing sound in the ears of the Almighty. I cannot look on them so, with blear-eyed prejudice, as I can not discern an Hilar●on, Antonius, Paulus, Eustochium, Marcelia, Paula, exercised with watchings, clothed with Sackcloth▪ and fed by fastings with the bread of life: a Sain Hieron, Saint Basil, Saint Chrysostom, Saint Austin sounding an Alarm to the battle, and encouraging to take up these arms of Christian warfare, Emperor's Kings, Princes, and Potentates casting down Crowns and honours at the feet of the Lamb, following Christ in the high way of the Cross, Myriad concomitating, who preferring Christian humility before mundan complacencies, in Gales of sighs, and Seas of tears have been transported to an Haven of eternal security: the partial fancy of the prejudice biased centuriators that Monachisms antichristian, or the petticoat zeal of some rash reformers, who entitle the Locusts of the infernal pit, shall not teach my pen a sally out into scurrility, or dash in strains of pollutions; marriage fills the Earth, and if virginity fills not Heaven, I may boldly affirm it prejudices not the way thither. I am neither of Vigilantius, or Jovinians mind, that either riches are to be preferred before poverty, or marriage before Virginity: and though I think marriage both honourable, and lawful in the Clergy, yet I am of the L. Bacon's opinion, Charity can hardly water the ground where it must first fill a Pond; a●d that many men believe not themselves w●at they would persuade others; less do the things they would impose; lest know what they most confidently boast; they only set the sign of the Cross over their outer doors, and sacrifice to the gut and grain in their inner closerts, and I must suspect the Sun of righteousness declining among these once not impious orders, where the shadows so far exceed the substance.   

Sect. 59  
Monachism prevails not so much in the sustentation of Popery: as what is called Arminianism might against it. I cannot think Bernevelt less the tongue and Genius of Holland, because they could separate both from the body Politic: nor that they enlarged not ignorance while they confined Grotius, and learning, and excellence suffered no less than by an Ostracism in this admirable Hugo. Men born to raise the Low-Countries, a pitch of excellence above their neighbours, had not the envy of their neighbours conspiring with headstrong ignorance, cast them below themselves; but that which raised a tumult there, and gilded a war here, hath subdued even the Conquerors: There is scarce a soldier but defends it; and by it repels, not introduces Popery into the Land.   

Sect. 60.  
Calvin lends more occasion to make Romish Proselytes than Ignatius Loyola: and the Gomarists of Holland expelled not Popery with Arminanism, but opened a gap for the wild bore to lay waste their Vineyard, whose entrance is by servile will, irrespective Election, and irreprobation parity of sins, the consequences of which to some more refined wits may seem to exceed the absurdities of a Talmud, Alcoran, and Popish Legends: asperse the deiety with Tyranny, juggling, and partiality; entitle goodness itself to sin; while God is made Author of iniquity, take away virtues essence by absuming will; the Gospel's promises, and force of Laws, confound the rational faculties of the soul, adequate humane nature to bestial, leave us to obey our fate, and follow the dust of stars: and teach such a trumpeter as the Jesuit Campian, who could only sound to battle, set others gether with noise, and have himself no weapon, or Trumpeter-like without a point, not come to the purpose, or can at most but scratch the face of Charity, and disfigure Christian communion with quorsum corruptio & haeretica contagio? ni●i ut qui sol● side gloriam rapturi sunt, in omnium tur pitudinum caeno volutati, noturam accusent; virtutem desperent; praecepta deonerent: as if these fancies were only broached to vent irreligion and impiety, by accusing nature despairing virtue, and deonerating precepts, ot wallow in the mud of impurities: yet these may be deducible from a Saint Augustine; their own Dominicans; and a stream of interpreters; while the Camels are forced to swim by the reason of the depth of the Enigmatical Apostle; and even the Roman Oracle himself dares not be more confident than the Delphian, gives only dubious responses, etripode. Nay, 'tis affirmed in their Angelic Doctor Aquinas, who if the Eulogies of three Popes carry credit quot articulos edidit, 
Jo. 22. in Literis Canonizat. urban 6.  tot miracula; in jungimus ut ejus doctrinam tanquam veridicam & Catholicam sectem ●ni & ecce plus quam Solomon hic: who with trifling arguments concludes, 
Innocent 5. in Sermon  for that the envy of which they would fix on the reformation.  
In some distempers, who feed the body, feed the diseases: if the too indulgent hand of some too officious Parent, instead of help, hath reached death to her beloved children, while zealous ignorance in a supposed antidote, administers poison (we know what a discracy the Roman Mother by rasher indulgences, hath reduced the body Ecclesiastic, if the preposterous zeal of other Churches, hath begot an atrophy in some constitutions, while ignorantly they take away Laws, terror, persuasions, make us loath food, or think ourselves incapable) it would be a strange Law would punish with death the rash zeal of a mistaking parent, in the ruin of a child, with the same medicine she cured others. Quos praedestinavit ad finem praedestinavit ad med●a. Endeavour to make your Calling and Election sure, may counterprise the poison in some, and strength of nature work it out in others. God of his mercy send the oil of his holy Spirit, that by the holy anointing, the tumours of venomous malice, may subside in all.   

Sect. 61.  
The satire in the Fable, seeing his Host blow his fingers to heat them, and his broth that he might cool it, renounced his society. We are all too Satirical, have too much of a Satyr's nature in us, the bestial part so far exceeds humanity, that we renounce communion, for that which might be rectified by reason. That which can infrigidate an Italians zeal, may inflame a frozen Islanders devotion. Urban the eight, demanded by a Cardinal, why he preferred one for Nuntio, whose capacities had arrived to no higher eminencies, than the trash and refuse of mankind, before a quick and refined piece, in whom nature, as in an Elixir, had placed all that might enrich in the mysterious excellencies of state, replied: This Eagle would not be lured to flies, and those higher elevations of fancy, would only render him incapable of himself and others; who measure other men's thoughts by their own, will prove ill Judges both of themselves and others.   

Sect. 62.  
From those whom I am divided in opinion, I will not prove a Separatist in my charity; I shall contend in nothing, but not to approve myself contentious. As I am an English man, I will use the liberty which God hath permitted me: was I a Spaniard, or Italian, I would think with Erasmus▪ si quid tyrannidis quod tamen non cogat ad impietatem, satius est f●rre qu●m seditiose reluctare, nec esse pium, nec esse rutum, de potestate, publicâ sinistram concipere aut serere opinionem, etc. Singularity not so precious as to cost the quiet of a Mother, neither should I be troubled with those squibs and erackers, the noise and fire that flies up and down, the stories of hell, for not confessing God before men: to confess the God of peace, the best way is to bepeaceable. I am not of the Gnostics humour, to deny God in the time of persecution, and worship Idols, which the mistaken places of these Scripture wire-drawers import. I should suppose I denied God a common Father, and persecuted the truth, should I so wed myself to the Idol of my own fancy, as not to worship the true God after any form.   

Sect. 63.  
Errors are more worthy of pity then hate. Reformations have been so tumultuous and refractory, that quiet error to sober Christian might seem to be preferred before unruly truths. All Churches betwixt invitation and menace, would persuade resignation of faith to a simple obedience; to believe our own without enquiring into others, cannot satisfy conscience. Damnation by all visible Hierarchies (every mouth smutcht with hell's firebrands) is thundered against them, which believe any Doctrine but theirs. It cannot be fit to believe God inspired this Church and no other, since mankind is come from the same carnal Ancestors, and God the common Father. Must we believe our Priests call their Doctrine faith, or argue controversies? if argue, how much time and wealth must we expend? by learning languages, reading Authors, unravelling ages, examining Fathers, conferring expositions, and reconciling contradictions, travailing over countries, pilgrims on earth, and at last we may be strangers to heaven; come as short of it, as life of examining all. To embrace all opinions, is as impossible, as to learn or number, since they are as numerous as the sand, which hath an analogy with their foundations. To reject all must relish of a stranger impiety, when one way all other serve God; though it would be a folly to leave a Meridian light to follow the ignis fatuus of every fanatic brain. We then that are Layicks must build upon such infallible grounds, that whatsoever superstructures of faith be raised, these may support them. All conclude virtues so eminent, that it includes the rest, ceremonies, rites, volumes tend to it, and no Sacrament but finally resolves into it; all essentials of Religion close in our faith, and love of God, by a pious life, and mutual charity, by fraternal dilection amongst Christians; among the propitiations for sin▪ contrition for it, repenting to God, and satisfaction to our neighbours, all believe necessary, heaven or hell, recompense or castigation, attendants of good or evil life: with these the Lamb may wade to an haven of perpetual felicities, while the swimming Elephant cramped with difficulties, drowns, or meeting with the quicksands of controversy, is swallowed up in an Abyss. These indubitable verities may not only prevent the inroads of impiety and Atheism, usher in repentance, and reduce men from airy controversy to solid virtue; and dispose to concord, since we agree in eternal causes, why should we disagree in trivial? these common truths being firmer bonds of amity, than any thing emergent out of traditions should dissolve in any, who uses not Religion for a cloak, while profit is as the body, for whose ease he changes it at pleasure: or as the thief, whose quotidian prayer was, that God would prosper him in his thievery, which he called the work of his vocation; and having enriched himself with spoil, praised God for the blessing his endeavours: Or seek their own, and not Christ's, while religion so zealously pretended, is made but a stalking horse to shoot at other foul, upon which their aim is set. While men change Religions more licentiously, than a sober man would his clothes, and put them on, alike ashamed, to seem naked, and in some times perilous, to be found without any.   

Sect. 64.  
I have not been much troubled with the toy of the world's Religion, Weathercock like, to turn round with every gale of profits toties quoties vertitur annulus Politicus, have not sought Religion for ends, but made it the end of my curiosity. I should not think Christ the less Christ for being sprinkled o'er with blood, or suffering not the scarf of Christian warfare: but I believe the Jesuits martyrology, like our Foxes, where weakness and ignorance hath many Martyrs, but God few Saints. Christ is still crucified between thiefs; I wish a timous repentance may not only make one, but both good, and poor truth may be rescued from the pillory of fanatic interpreters, nor have her ears bored through with a Roman Ecclesia, and a Pontifex maxmimus in Theology, like the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Philosophy, one bafling Religion, the other cashiering Reason with a contra negantem princip●a, take a view of those bulwarks of human knowledge, which have past impregnable in the esteem of ages, elated even above divinity, while divinity by the Schoolmen hath been brought to the touchstone of Philosophy: and when you find these mountains have traveled with a ridiculous mouse, having scarce left an infallible maxim, beside an Humanum est errare, think what 'tis to be infallible.   

Sect. 65.  
Reflect upon the great Hagarite, who conquered more of the world, than his Master Alexande●, by his reason subdued ages; yet see this praecurs●r Christi in naturalibus sicut Johannes in gratuitis, as some have termed him, discomposed by Telesius, degraded by Campanella, bills of accusation brought in against him by B. Chartes, Bacon, Digby, Hobbs; nay by all pregnant wits, and teeming constitutions, who have deserved to be a secretioribus naturae consiliis, by the nobility of extracts in Chemistry, or arrived to the exquisiteness of parts, by anatomical inspections, found guilty, and exploded after so great a revolution of ages.  
In medicine, see Hypocrates alter the Ancients, Galen him, Paracelsus both, Van Helmont dissenting from all; lacteall veins found out by Asellius, enlarged by Pecquer in dogs, by Bartholine in men, and the knowledge of them arrived to the Zenith in the elaborate pieces of that great Master of generation and circulation, Doctor Harvey: the Liver hath lost his office, the Senses their seat, and the use of the Nerves now only found out by Doctor Glisson.  
View the decay of nature against the opinion of all ages, contradicted by Doctor Hackwell, whose arguments are so irrefragable, that nature must seem to admit a stranger decay in him assents not to it.  
Let us contemplate Heaven, Earth, and Sea, and all of them will instruct us of human fallibility. The Jews calculated by the Lunar account, Pythagoras by the Solar, and Copernicus rectified both. Divert towards Astrology, Astronomy, and Geometry, and see how the Professors by a stranger improvement have verified what they call themselves Mathematics, see the Sea ruled by compass, which the land makes no use of, and the Land proved as giddy as her inhabitants, since Copernic●sm is approved by all. Unravel Lycostenes Apothegms●, Erasmus Adages, Cicero's jests, all the wisdom of Roman, and Grecian, and if you find nothing among Flores Poetarum, Wit's Commonwealth, and the Elixir of the Sages, which may outvie the Urbanities of a common wit▪ Cease to be so passionate an admirer of Antiquity.  
See the Antipodes confessed by all, which the poor Bishop Vergilius asserting, by the fiery zeal of Pope Zachary was committed to the flames, to instruct how infallible the Roman Oracle is, in condemning that which all do maintain; and he himself maintained an Antipodes in his life, his footsteps being opposite to those of meek and pious Ancestors. If these be dissatisfactory, unspread what elapsed times have rolled up: and as in a piece of Tapestry, you shall see Snakes lasciviating among Roses, and this Linsey-Wolsey interweaving truth with falsity, the fashion of all ages. There hath never wanted some, who blinder than Moles, 
Vid. D. Brown. Pseud. Epid.  have persuaded Moles have wanted eyes, Lampreys have many, Snakes at each horn; Cameleons living by air▪ Ostriges by Iron, Salamanders in fire, Coral obdurate by air, Crystal congealed Ice, Mandrakes resembling men, with two headed Serpents▪ Centaurs▪ Gryphins▪ and a Phoenix, which Noah took no notice of, while he took all into his Ark by pairs, Pigeons and Horses without gall, Elephants without joints, Swans entertaining death with melody, and all the masks of riddling nature in sympathies, and antipathies, Oak and Olive, Walnut and Oak, Cock, Lion, Spider, Toad, Panther, Hyena,, and the stork, an enemy to Kingdoms▪ and sympathising with free states, to which by her presence she testifies an approbation. To these, falling of Salt, crossing Hares croaking Ravens, tinkling ears, and burning chins, ridiculous and petty observances, which call for agonies and cold sweats, the glorious sunshine of the Gospel having not dispelled these darker clouds of benighted ignorance, or lighter mists of airy fancy. Our Saviour with long hair is mistaken for a Nazarite: Saint Hierom is pictured with a Cardinal's Hat, as if his head had Prophesied of the invention which should succeed in the time of Innocent the fourth: the story of Goat's blood dissolving Diamonds, resembled so often to our Saviour's; the figment of the Phoenix, inferred to quadrate to his death & resurrection, Hercules labours his miracles: Nay, even the Mythologies of Paganism are induced for comments on Christianity, that it is no wonder if Religion should be suspected for fabulous; Antesignanes of schism and faction, buffet, revile and wound Christ in their brethren; or Hell may have a Factor, neither Turk, Jew nor Christian, who may write of three impostors.  
Not only an Agamemnon sacrifices an Iphigenia, but a Jeptha, by Translators is introduced sacrificing a daughter, showing obedience by disobeying him▪ who abhors the bloody sacrifices of Gentilism.  
Who could believe the stories of Saint George, Saint Patrick, Saint David, etc. & might not have a Creed for Homer's Rodomontadoes? who Saint benedict's, Saint Frances, and Saint Dominicks Lives, Gregory's Dialogues, Saint Bridgets uncouth dreams, like the Apocalyptick accomplishments of Rice Evans, jacob Israel, Sedgwick, and Hannah etc. and wonder at Ovid's Metamorphosis.  
To omit the diseases in opinion of Christians, which have brought so strange a distemperature upon Charity it can be no wonder, if that Charity which Christ left to perfume the world, and those odours of Christian virtues, which should embalm and preserve untainted the body of Religion vanish: and neither the Haggard of reason, nor lure of Religion keep men upright from reeling into Atheism.  
Some are cried up for miracles, that he who would correct, must make but one blot whose chiefest art is to apparel lies handsomely, that though their nakedness might seem deformed, their dressing might attract readers: and these men of eminency by the Prerogative of their parts, seem only to deserve the highest degree in Bethlem. College, having arrived to the aim of madness, though hear nothing less than then Angelic and Seraphic, and think with extatick Paul, they have attained the third Heaven. Sure this obnubilation of verities, and darkness of humane nature, was the penalty for the taste of the forbidden fruit; which deprives of Paradise the pleasures of knowledge; that man who desired what was prohibited, should be deprived of that knowledge which was granted: and so having introduced a multiplication and confusion of Sciences, he should be punished with the amission of true knowledge, which was the same of all things.  
This is that Cherub, guarding Paradise with a flaming sword, which obcaecating the conscious minds of men with the splendour of his light deterrs them from the secrets of nature and verity of the universe: true knowledge even in humane things having no more a being, than the Philosophers mater●a prima, which is only in Terms.   

Sect. 66.  
Now let us retreat from humanity, whose Motto is humanum est errare and review Divinity, ubi verum non variat, yet we shall find variantes de vero: and when God's word is not a Lantern to their feet, and the Church the guide, go out of the way, stumble and are benighted with error.  
See Saint Cyprian a Rebaptist; Origen an Anthropomorphite; Tertullian a Montanist; Saint Na●●anzen an Angelist▪ Eusebius an Arrian; Papias, Justin▪ Millenaries; Saint Hierom a Mongamist a Saint Augustine need a book of recantations; Concilium Ariminense conclude with Arrius, 
In cap. quarto. Extr. de divortiis in cap. 1. dist. 31.  Ephesinum with Eutyches; a Tyrian condemn an Athanasius: a third Stephen in a Council rescinding the Acts of Pope Formosus; a tenth John in a Synod at Ravenna, the decrees of Stephen; A Pope Pelagius, and the first Gregory, an Innocent the third, and a third Celestine, so much contradicting each the other about divorces, that no rational man would believe infallibility wedded to the Pontificial chair, should no bill of divorce be issued forth by the Counsels of Constance and Basil, both general, both allowed; the first by Pope Martin the fifth; the second by Eugenius the fourth, their bills be at them, one say, the Council can err, not the Pope; the other, the Pope and not the Council; the Canon of the Council of Ferrara, 
Decretum de 4. Conclusionibus.  contrary to the Council of Florence; the one, the Council was above the Pope; the other, the Pope above the Council.  
Pope Alexander condemned Peter Lombard in a Council of 300. Bishops, Innocent the third acquitted him: Pope Pelagius▪ and Gregory thought the name of Universal Bishop n●men Blasphemiae, and to admit it, nihil al●ud quam fidem perdere; Boniface and their successors have assumed the title: if none of these have erred, error is something, which the World hath not learned to define. Stapleton confesses, vix ullum peccatum (haeresi exceptâ) cogitari potest quo illa sedes turpiter maculata non fuerit: but if it can't be tainted with Heresy, in vain their polemics have broached those trifling questions, 
Io. de Turre crem. lib. 4. par. 2. e. 20. Bellar l. 2. de Rom. Pon. c. 30. Cui. tract. de auth. pap. & Conc. c. 20.  whether a Pope may be deposed for Heresy: but Biel grants they may fall into it: Stella and Almain, that they have fallen, and ceased to be heads of the Church & in the time of his Vicar's defection left Christ to look to his cure himself: that Christ promised the keys to Saint Peter is true: but as true that he did it to the rest of the Apostles: 
Mat. 16. 18.  so to their successors as well as his; 
Mat. 18. 18.  so 'tis to thee and them, 
joh. 20. 22.  and not to thee to exclude them: 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theophyl. in Mat. 18. S. Chrys.  unless some will fancy Heaven-gate so easy, as they might open and shut without the ke●es, si hoc tantum Petro d'ctum, non fuit hoe Ecclesia, 
St. Aust. tract. 50. in St. Io.  if a Saint Austin may credited: Christ prayed that Peter's faith might not fail, viz. in application to his personal perseverance; 
S. Prosper l. de vo●. ●ent. c. 24.  if the Fathers are worthy of belief, for papal infallibility had no appearance hence in any except in Popes, whose eyes squinted toward self-interest for a 1000 years.  
The Pope infallible, the unnecessary trouble of calling Counsels might be spared: neither have they washed the Aethiop fairer, who have trifled about the infallibility of Counsels: it is one of their maxims, a general Council cannot err, if it be confirmed by the Pope, it cannot be confirmed till finished, if finished, it hath erred, or not erred; if erred, the Pope ought not to confirm falsehood; if not erred, it was truth before he confirmed it; and at best his assent is but signum pro causa: or a Council must be either infallible by the means, or the prophetic part, the conclusion; the means, humane learning, fallible means may have fallible effects, or if by the conclusion, the spirit makes no use of means: they must either make means useless, or open a gap for Enthusiasts to ruffle the Church.  
Where two or three are convened, Christ is in the midst of them to concede what he shall think fit for them, not they fit for themselves: a general Council may be supposed not to err, led by the spirit of truth in Scripture, and not presuming to lead both spirit and Scripture: no Father having to deal with Heretics, entitled Counsels infallible. 
S. Aust. lib. 1. Bap. Cont. Denat.  The letters of Bishops according to Saint Austin may be disputed by more learned Bishops, national Counsels by plenary; and even plenary may be amended, the former by the later: that only which is found in Scripture, may be neither doubted nor disputed. The comforter shall abide with them, 
Jo. 14. 16, 17. Isid. on Jo. 12.  and lead them into all truth, viz. the Holy Ghost that lead the Catholic Church not into all curious truths, in or about the faith, but all truth necessary to salvation, in which the Catholic Church can't err; for if it could err, it could not be holy.   

Sect. 67.  
Now let us peruse a little of the Elixir of the Fathers, which some Pontificians sure rightly understood, would turn all into Catholic Gold, in which we may believe them, but never that it is able to convert one intelligent man to be a Papist.  
Illa Ecclesia quae fuit omnium gentium jam non est periit, 
S. Aug. in Psal. 101.  apostavit? hoc dicunt qui in illa non sunt: O impudentem vocem! illa non est, quia tu in illa non es? vide ne tu ideo non sis, nam illa erit, etiamsi tu non sis. O vocem abominabilem & detestabilem, etc. hanc praevidit spiritus Dei, ecce ego vobiscum sum usque ad Consuminationem seculi.  
Sed forte ista civitas quae mundum tenuit universum aliquando evertetur? absit. 
S. Aug. in Ps. 47.  Deus enim fundavit in aeternum; si Deus fundavit in aeternum, quid times, ne cadat? Portae inferorum non praevalebunt contra eam: 
S. Chrys. in Ps. 148.  quod si non cred●s verbo, ipsis operibus crede. Multo facil●us m●hi persuaderem Christo non esse credendum, 
S. August. ad Honoratum. S. Aug. in Epist. joh. & Cont. Petilium in unit. Eccles. S. cyp. de unit Ecclesiae.  quam de illo quidquam, nisi ab his per quos credidissem esse credendum▪ Deus posu●t in sole tabernaculum suum, qui contra Lucernam in candelabro positam oculos claudunt, quid amplius dicturus sum quam caecos esse: Quomodo impur●ss●me Diabole Ecclesiam te posse putas de●jcere? adulterari non potest● sponsa Christi; incorrupta est, Pudica est; domum unam novit; unius cubiculi Sanctitatem casto pudore custodit: Hoc Ecclesiae proprium est, 
S. Hilari. us.  ut tum vincat cum laeditur, tum intelligatur cum arguitur, tum obtineat cum de seritur.  
Haec ergo navis Ecclesia est, 
S. Ambrose.  quae si quotidie saeculum istud tanquam aliquod pelagus fortiter infestum, nunquam elid●tur ad saxum, nunquam mergitur ad profundum; super petram fundata Ecclesia nullâ tempestate Concutitur; nullo turbine ventisque subruitur?  
Quorsum haec! 
S. Hieron.  what a flood of Fathers is here without a drop of reason? who ever denied God would have a Church spread o'er the face of the Earth; yet this implies that the Roman is only Catholic, a Monopoly of heaven, and mercy by usurpation of the name: or because the Rivers of life shall not cease (while time flows) to stream in the City of God, his holy Catholic Church, they lose their current, if they stream not in the channels of Romish fancies.  
Who would not with Saint Austin, rather believe nothing of Christ, than the Gospel of Peter, Bartholomew, Nicodemus, the Acts of Paul and Tecla, etc. ridiculous figments of giddy heresy, where the Devil in an Angel of lights shape, would have brought darkness in fashion; this implies not sure, we must not believe the true Gospel, without it is margined with Pontifician notes, and fenced with profit-angling baits of fanatic interpreters.  
God's Tabernacle is in the Sun, and he hath a Church like the Sun, shining with light, and eminent in virtues: who see not this light in a candlestick, or so great a mountain as God's Church, Christianity more eminent than all other Religions, with the Father I could call them no less than blind. I should think them hallucinate, could not see through the disfigurements of truth, and veils of ceremonies; a face of Religion in the Romish Church, but desperately blind, could see no other, and after he had received the fantastical garb, would shut his eyes, and think it immodesty to view poor truth naked.  
I may believe with Saint Cyprian, the Devil can't deject the spouse, who leaves not Christ's bed to lie with Adonis, or exchanges Christianity for Paganism, the joys of his Spirit, for the salt waters of Mundan complacencies, or the pure stream● of life, for polluted puddles of fanatic interpretations.  
I can assent to Saint Hilary, Persecution is the Church's seed: to Saint Ambrose, the Church is a Ship secure in storms: to Saint Hierom, a Rock▪ which winds nor waves move. Yet believe these sayings have no other relation to the Roman Church, than the Roman hath relation to the Catholic Church, by being part of the whole body of Christianity, of which Christ is the head.   

Sect. 68  
Papists, while they bring in the Fathers in vizards, may terrify some weak ones; but the vizards once plucked off from the faces of the Fathers, the children whom they have affrighted dare play with them, and wise men conclude the cause not honest, which needs a disguise, since the confines of truth is to be naked.  
Ignatius called the Roman Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Ignatius on p. 100: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  most chaste and Metropolis of the Region of the Romans, and wishes those things may be firm which they teach. May the Roman Church be firm to what it then taught, and then may all firmly believe what she teaches; and though not in a power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which Ignatius was ignorant of, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which he mentions, be Precedent.  
Polycarp communicated with the Roman Church, 
Polycarp. Anno Dom. 120. Euseb. lib. 5. cap. 24.  though disagreed about Easter, was content to pass over rather a trifling formality, then renounce his charity: who instructs us nothing of their Roman power may instruct us in the power of Godliness, not to relinquish Christian communion, for trivial observances.  
Irenaeus praises the Roman faith, 
Irenaeus Eus. Anno Dom. 150. lib. 3. cap. 3.  succeeding with Episcopacy: yet oppugns Victor: sure he dreamed not of Pontificial infallibility.  
Saint Cyprian says, the Romans are such, 
Navigare audent ad Petri Cathedram & Ecclesiam principalem etc. nec cogitare ●os esse Romanos, ad quos persidia habere non potest accessum. Cyp. lib. 1. Epist. 3.  to whom perfidia cannot have success, which scarce will imply error in faith or misbelief; but malicious falsity in matter of trust and action, such as Faelicissimus and his complices hasted to Rome with against Saint Cyprian.  
Saint Hieroms orbis Major urbe may dismiss him, and his zeal to Presbytery, confirm no friend to Papal glory. For Saint Austin, he is quoted to call himself rash, detestable, and strangely imprudent in a Council to resist them, with whom Christ could only be to the consummation of the age. Saint Cyprian in a schism is packed to hell se judice, macula istanec sanguine abluitur, nec pas●ione purgatur, inexp●abilis culpa non erit fidei corona sed perfidiae poena. He opposed Pope Stephen, and Saint Austin, and he, being both of the African Church, died excommunicate from the Roman; 
Baronius Anno 419. Binius in notis ad Epistol. Bonifacii 2. add Eulalium.  and if a Saint Greoories prayers brought them not from hell with Trajan, to bear him company, we may misdoubt a bene esse to those Romanists invoke as Grandees in the Court of heaven; if extra Ecclesia parietes Romanae non sit salus: 
Hier. ad Evargium Presbyt.  But God be praised a Saint Hierom comes to their rescue with a non altera Romanae urb●s Ecclesia alteratotius orbis aestimanda est. Gallia & Bythinia etc. unum Christum adorant: unam observant regulam veritatis, si authoritas quaeritur, orbis major est urbe? ubicunque fuerit Episcopus sive Regio, ejusdem meriti est, ejusdem sacerdotii, potentiae, divitiarum, & potestatis gradus & paupertatis hum●litas, sublimiorem vel inferiorem Episcopum non faciunt; omnes Apostolorum successores sunt.   

Sect. 69.  
If the Roman Church be a branch, she cannot be the Root, though an elder sister, she can be but a co-heir: we need not cry out with Esau, Hast thou but one blessing, O my father? Nor is it the essence of the Church, nor the representative part in a synod, but the virtual power in the Pope and his Cardinals, which are the Elixir, by whose virtue the name of Catholic is derivative. To be blanched with Innocence, or guled with Martyrdom, to carry the Enfigns of the Lamb, are nothing worth, without the cross keys of Saint Peter; the Purple of Christ invaluable should we deny the Cardinal's scarlet Robe: Who mocked Christ more than the Jews, who clothed him in it with a hail King, while the exorbitancy of their power takes away his, plants Thorns in Christianity, and buffets him in his members; who by uncharitable censures have not only separated Protestants from their communion, but Russian, African, Asiatic, Grecian Churches, where some praise God in the flames, while these lasciviating in the sunshine of God's mercies, have kicked against Divinity, and retiring into the shade, bellowing like mad beasts, have preferred forms and shadows before the light and glory of Religion: yet if we will believe what their Bulls roar, ten times their number is damned for not being Catholics for sooth, since every Christian under pain of damnation must be subject to the Roman Bishop. Who taught us, Our Father which art in heaven, forbids us an enclosure, and he who intends a Monopoly, will leave out Christ with his brother. The name of Catholic in the Creed placed in opposition to the Jewish enclosure of mercy, it will be strange if universal should now turn particular, and by not retaining the fancy of a particular Church, a man could not be of the universal; and yet every Church hath a particular fancy: and it is probable, all generally fancy by an audi Ecclesiam, and in the Commission, dic Ecclesiae, what Christ never intended.  
If thy brother trespass against thee, tell the Church, viz. a company of Christians; and if he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as an heathen or a publican; cite him before the Gentiles tribunal, as thou wouldst an heathen or a publican. It is true, there is but one true Faith, one true Church, but both Faith and Church is the Cathol●ck Christian, not the particular Roman; and this Catholic Christian Church, he who will not both hear and obey, the particular Church where he lives, so far as it dissents not with the universal in my opinion, is worse than pagan or publican.   

Sect. 70.  
The Catholic Church is God's house; 
Omnis Ecclesia virgo Appellata est. S. Aug. tr. 13. in S. john.  all national Churches are in this universal house as so many daughters, to whom▪ as Christ's Vicegerents, the care of the household is committed by God the Father, and the Catholic Church the mother of all Christians. If sisters disagree in a family, will the Father and the Mother, God and the Church, eject one child, because that an other is petulant & waspish: or hath Christ given power to Rome, because she is an elder sister, that she, or her steward the Bishop should cast out of the family which she pleaseth of the children of the family, for telling stories of an elder sisters, or steward's enormities.  
Romana Ecclesia particularis, 
Bell. lib. 4. de Rom. Pont. c. 9  according to Bellarmine; and without there be two Roman Churches, there cannot be both a particular Roman Church, and a Catholic. No sense will admit the Roman Catholic▪ she is not universal, so not Catholic in extent; not entire in Doctrine, in things belonging to the foundation, so not Catholic in belief, nor the prime Mother Church: Jerusalem was that, so not Catholic as fountain, head or root of the Catholic.   

Sect. 71.  
Catholica autem quae diffusaper universum orbem. 
S. Cyril. Hieros'. catech c. 18.  That Catholic Church which all Nations shall flow unto, Kings and Queens shall be nursing Fathers and Mothers, shall suck the milk of Gentiles; this is the way which the fool cannot err, when the wisest may mistake; there's universality, antiquity, succession, and unity here are unquestionable, while all agree, if not in manner, yet matter of belief, have the same limbs of Christian warfare that Constantine's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. This is the Ark of the Covenant, 
Cant, 6. Mar. 3. Eph. 5. Cor. 12. 1 Tim. 3.  holy City, fructiferous Vine, direct way, sole Dove, excelse mountain, celestial Kingdom, 
john 4. S. Aug. de unit Ecc. St. Cyp. de unit Eccl. S. Ambros.  spouse and body of christ, the house of God, gate of Heaven, a pillar and firmament of verity, a light in a Candlestick, a Tabernacle in the Sun, a ship secure in storms, a rock, which though the winds of schism arise, and waves of heresy beat, cannot be moved: here the sayings of Fathers,, writhed by Papists to rivet Saint Peter's tattering chair are all verified: 
S. Aug.  that which was the Church of all ages is apostated, perished this they say who are not in her, see lest thou may not be, she will be though thou art not: in vain he says▪ he hath God for his Father, 
St. Aug.  who will not acknowledge the holy Catholic Church for his Mother since in the expansed arms of her charity, she entertains the whole body of Christi●nity.  
Be wise my soul, lay thee a foundation here: so though storms arise, and waves beat, thou shalt not be moved; the quicksands' of heresy shall no more swallow thee up, the waves of schism warp ●hee to irre●l●gion, or bias thee toward Atheism.   

Sect. 72.  
There can be no cause, to make a schism or separation from the whole Church, for the whole Church cannot universally err in faith, for if it could, it would cease to be holy: neither can all the members of the militant Church err, either in the whole, or an Article of faith; if they could, there could be no union betwixt the head and members, and so no body, no Church: The Church of the Elect, is in the Church of them that are called, and the invisible Church in the visible; or else the invisible Church is tied to no duty of Christianity; for all such duties are required of the Church, and performed as 'tis visible: and consequently, if the whole Church of the Elect cannot err in fundamentals, the whole visible Church cannot err in which the Elect is. 
St. Aug. Ep. 48.  'Tis manifest out of Saint Austin, ipsa est Ecclesia quae intra sagenam dominicam cum malis piscibus natat, 
A malis piscibus corde semper & moribus separantur & corporalem separationem in li●tore maris in fine saeculi expectant. S. Aug.  grana sunt inter illam paleam quand● area cum videretur tota palea putabatur. There are bad fish in the net of the Lord, from which there must be ever a separation in heart and manners▪ but a corporal separation must be expected at the seashore, in the end of the world. And as the spirit of a man doth not quicken any member of the body, but as it is united to it; so neither doth the Spirit of God any member of the Church, but being united in the bond of peace.   

Sect. 73.  
I have weakened the lights of my body to introduce knowledge by by these windows of my soul; lost myself to find others, to magnify my age. I will not boast I have outlived Emperors, Popes: 
* Having lived above five times over the time which dispatched five Emperors, and five Emperors, and five Popes, viz. Galba. Otho, Vitellius, Aescus, Pertinax: Anno Do. 1275. 1276. Gregory 10. Innocent 5. Hadrian 5. john 20. vel 21. Nicholas 3.  If he lives only long who lives well, I am the shortest liver. I have served twice jacob's time to a more deceitful Master than Laban, an impious world: young in years, old in folly, a Labyrinth, riddle, bubble, nothing. The reward of jacob's servitude was blessed, mine cursed: could produce only spotted actions, chequered with the guilt of my own black imaginations, who have been carried about with the air of my own fancy, that I might not be transported with the wind of every fanatics error; discomposed my fortune to settle my mind. Amicus Plato, amicus Socrates, sed Magis am●ca veritas. If truth be not more my friend then any one my memory can challenge a familiar acquaintance with, I may modestly presume myself destitute of any: while I have moved upon quicksilver, and wheeled upon the incertainties of giddy chance, a Polypire, Ephorine, and Philaetic become all with all, not that I might gain others with the Apostle, or gain of others wi●h the world, but gain myself: And though this itch of my curiosity may produce bad blood, by exasperating malignant humours; yet I shall skin my own sores over by so good a conversation, and by no rash exposures of alien sores to the air, I shall endanger the wranckling of any into malcontent. I shall not relinquish my part in our elder Brother's legacy, the love that Christ bequeathed us, for the greatest of Mundan inheritances: for if my barns were full, my soul could not take her ease, should I disease my brother. I might fear with a Thou fool, hac nocte, in the night of error, illuminated by no beam of God's grace and mercy, from a darker action, to be cast into a darker dungeon, for having no mercy on him for whom the light in darkness rose. I would snatch a Brother out of the fire with fear and trembling, and not commit to flames with rigour and malice. The Spanish devotion shall prescribe no rule to mine, who hanged up thirteen Indians to the honour of Christ and his twelve Apostles.   

Sect. 74.  
I am not of the Tyrant's mind, oderint dum metuant: as I would incur no man's hate, so I would lend an occasion to no man's fear, since invention witty in cruelty should not wrack a confession, that may prejudice another. I would not endanger a Priest's life to save mine own. Bellum cum vitiis, Pax cum hominibus is my motto. I hate no Sect, but pray for all, that like Sampsons' Foxes divided by the heads, they may not be tied together by the tails in the country they reside, to raise a combustion; or Snake-like, return a sting for entertainment: and can wonder, that the twilight of nature, and noctiluce of reason in Heathens, should outshine the Sunbeams of the Gospel in Christians: while History presents us with an Aristodes, a Photion, and Themistcoles', who though their bodies suffered by an Ostracism, would not exile out of their minds that piety, which was due even to an ingrateful Country. One asked, What he would wish to his country for their ingratitude, answered, Never to want an Aristides. The second commanded his sons to forget their Father's injuries; and the third died rather than he would revenge his own: 
Ly●urgus.  and could wish the Athenian Legislator, might even prescribe a Law to Christians, who for blindness returned light, who instead of retaliating the loss of an eye, administered light to the Author, by opening the eyes of his understanding.   

Sect. 75.  
I would convince by reason, make no conviction by Law, make a confiscation of error, not goods, though I seek not their goods, but the good of their souls. Persecution is a seeds-time of error, as well as of truth. The Norfolk Arian could laugh at the stake; and though none can die well who live not so; no one can live so ill as cannot die desperately. The old Roman humour of braving death, sleeps not with Paganism: Rome hath still her Scaevola's, dare court the flames, and have a hand in every combustion: no part of the earth can make a breach, for which they can want a Curtius, who to make it up, will not engulf himself in misery. Some with Augustus can die in a compliment, more with Tiberius in dissimilation: No Priest, but Galba-like, will offer his neck with a feri si ere sit populi Romani; while with Vespasian they can smile with an ut puto Deus fio. A Garnet may be Sainted even for a powder plot. And some resembling Otho's friends, will die for society, while they, like him, murder themselves, under pretence of being public victims.   

Sect. 76.  
I would bring tears to quench, rather than fuel to the flames; not 'cause others to be disembowelled, but could even disbowell myself by an inviscerate dilection. Show excrementatam liquidiora tam crassiora non solùm pectoris sed religionis anatomiam. To reclaim these Traitors to reason, who believe heaven can side with factions, and omniscience cannot discover these disguises of charity. He who commands us. to let our light so shine before men, that they may glorify our heavenly Father, commands us not to light men for his glory. And though he, whom we must pattern, was a light in darkness, in usum nocturni luminis: Nero like, non proponit cremandos Christianos: These fires may show hell flames, but to show a way by their light to heaven they cannot, to mortify the flesh thus, is not the way to quicken the spirit. We must rather inform Eliah like, in fiery chariots of zeal, to mount up to heaven. Lend them examples to live well, not precepts to contend. Christ would not own those spirits who would have fire come down from heaven to destroy adversaries: He sent down fire from heaven to save, not destroy his enemies; in cloven tongues to divide truth, not divide by falsehood; who are divided in their ways, show whose footsteps they follow, the Devil, whose feet are cloven. He whose fiery zeal for the least dissension calls his brother to do penance in ashes, it must needs be so far from the spirit of God, as it is manifest his alliance is with the old Serpent, whose food is in the dust. The holy Father told the revenge-meditating Catholics, against their bloodthirsty enemies, the Arians, in the reign of the good Theodosius, that Christians are not to recompense evil for evil, but bless them that curse, pray for them that despitefully use; yet if they cannot arrive to this perfection, yet must at least leave revenge to God, who in his time will repay it. God fan is in his hand, I will not snatch it out: where God hath an Harvest, Belial will have a seeds-time: the wicked one will sow tares by night: men benighted in black, and wicked ways are disposed to imbibe the seeds of error: God grant the light of Heaven may so shine in us, that men may be converted from the darkness of their ways, and we may pluck up error, not them; we must not question his will, who permits them to grow till harvest: he that knows his own, it shall be my only endeavour he may own me for his: and not for raising flames of contention here, be cast into unquenchable fire hereafter. I will not renounce Christ because a Judas bears him company: nor any Christian communion, because a Judas may have his hand in the dish: but rather strive I myself prove no Traitor, draw near with my lips, my heart remote from him & cry hail Master, when I think to recrucify him in his members: Alas poor souls, though a Judas may veil impiety with kisses, the irrepentant wretch will dissipate and discover his black soul naked. I will note them that make contentions and avoid the contentions, not the men till three or four times admonition: if Physicians were to fly from the sick, we should gain little skill, and have a poor profession.   

Sect. 77.  
I can converse with a Jew with no passion beside a sorrow; lend tears to mollify him, and not fire to obdurate; and should he encounter my ear with a buffet, and bid me turn the other to express Christianity, I should not with that Christian, with a do as you would be done by, requite: but by my Saviour's example▪ for my sake buffeted, pray for him who knew not what he did: it is a strange humour in some Christians, to pray for the conversion of those Jews they will not admit into their society to effect it by a peaceable cohabitation. We might teach them by their Chàldean Paraphrast their Messiah; and by R. Jonathan, or R. Shimeony Son of Ishas, or R. Moses the Son of Nicar; or R. Haccodesh, show how R. Shahadiahs' 1200. years, R. Solomon and R. Jehudas 1390. R. Elias 4230. years are expired, and no Messias come. Judas the Son of Marbaeus; Theudas Arthronges, Barchosba, the Senior and Junior imposing even upon their Rabbis: the Bethlem which they confess to be the place of their Messiahs' birth, having now no being, their groundless fancies may vanish like it, while we show him who had a being with it: who died for his people; whose hands and feet they pierced; and for whose Vesture they cast lots; who was humble and sat on an Ass; after 62. weeks slain; showing the cause of their miseries, because they sold the innocent for silver, and the poor for shoes.  
The same day Christ was taken, their City taken, entered at the Brook Cedron, on the same feast day, same time of the year, thirty Jews sold for the price they sold him. We might show their Rabbins their letter, and learn their grave Fathers Christ's Cross row, we could lend them light out of darkness, while even a Pagan could confess aut Deus Naturae patitur aut machina mundi dissolvitur, 
Dionysius Areop.  we could inform them by the rending of their Temple, not to divide from the Church; which opened wide to instruct them of him, who was ordained to enter into the holiest of holies, even Christ Jesus the High Priest, though they trifle about Nazarite and Nazareth, we could dilucidate who was Natsar, the branch of the root of Jesse: but oh in vain we may tell them of him who is love, when we want it towards one another: how can they believe us to be heirs, when we have lost his Legacy. Defective not only in dilection he bequeathed his, but even that love he commanded to enemies: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or ill savour in Jews so often inculcated, as if lies could sweeten them; and make not Christianity stink in their nostrils worse than they in ours: for crucifying Christ.  
May all Christian Churches sweep their own doors from pride and malice, and uncharitableness which are engendered by trifling questions, and unnecessary disputes, the dirt and trash which clings to them; and keeps them from entrance, who are without. Lo the Jews who look for a sign, and Gentiles who inquire after wisdom, may find both: and all Christians by reforming themselves, 
S. Chrys. Mat. 13.  may act no less than miracles for the conversion of others.  
Si ex avaritiae in liberalitatem transieris, s●ccam & mancam manum recuperasti: si theatralibus ludis spretis relictisque caetos Ecclesiasticos petieris claudicanti pedi incolumitatem: si oculos tuos ab alienâ forma, & meretricum aspectu revocaveris caecum te illuminasti: si diabolicos cantus despexeris, & eorum loco spirituales Psalmos dediceris tum loqueris qui antea mutus esses haec maxima miracula signa eximia: such signs and miracles as these might call home the Jews: and bring in the plenitude of the Gentiles: so may their souls desire to enter into our secrets, and their glory be joined to our assemblies; while all Churches having their Lamps trimmed with the oil of good works, by the light of faith may lead to the Bridegroom, who biddeth the Bride come; and if she hath not the soundness of interior charity, all the gums and spices of alms and prayers do not sweeten her breath to her divine Lover: Odours after which the Bridegroom runneth & smelleth them when he kisses her with the kisses of his mouth.   

Sect. 78.  
It was the saying of the Doctor of the Gentiles, If any man be contentious, we have no such custom; nor the Churches of God. I could wish those who call themselves the Churches of God, had no such custom as being contentious: fight about shadows, forms of Religion, while we lose the essence of it, which is Charity: May every one abound in his own sense, and God of his mercy give every one sense to abound to his glory: May blindness be the mother of devotion in the Papists; and though pious frauds are used to induce zeal, may they be zealous without fraud: May light occasion no darkness in the Reformists, and peeping into the Ark, not strike them with the Leprosy of evil works. May the Motto of both be non loquimur sed vivimus: contend in nothing but who shall most glorify God: and our light may so shine before men, that they who are without, may be brought to glorify our Father in Heaven, by being brought into his Church, the Kingdom of Heaven here on Earth; May all hunger and th●●st after righteousness: and even Enemies by administering thy blessings one to the other, heap coals on each others head, till they melt into mutual affection, and obsequiousness to thy Law.  
May none without think worse of Christ because his Coat is divided, embrace those truths all hold; and all hold nothing to differ one from another: may all within seek rather grounds of aquiescence, than excuses of dissatisfaction: truth in differences like Gold in oar, wheat with chaff; none may neglect Gold because there's dross; or grain for the intermixture of offill: but all united into the same body may become one with thee, who art the bread of life; and refined from the dross of mundan corruption by the fire of this holy spirit bear the Image of our King: May he who boasts of the Church remember, no unclean th●ng can enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: and he that breaketh the least of the Commandments shallbe the least in the Kingdom of Heaven, of little repute in his Church. May they who cry, who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's Elect, live, so that no body may have any thing to lay to their charge: and while they boast, they are above all law, by sin come not under the praemunire of any: while they are Kings (as they pretend) whose hearts are in God's hands, may they not be slaves to their own lusts, & the Devils servants: may the Commonalty be no more an Oglio of knaves and fools, and tools to the Politician; nor he the Devils quilted Anvil on which he frames all sin; but both may be instruments of God's glory; finally may the Gentry have an use for estates above gilding their imperfections: and Papists abov an annual Composition for their follies● and not love to their purses make their Antagonists irreconcilable with their persons: and may I have no enmity with any thing but myself: who though I have not found what I may define friend, I know not what I may truly call Enemy beside myself: by the rules of Christian warfare, I am obliged to fight against the World, the flesh and the Devil: I find a world in myself: and a Devil in my flesh; which if I could but conquer, I could look down on those petty acquisitions of the nicknamed worthies which were kneaded up with dirt and blood, as something below myself. Legion is not only renewed in me, but Legions of Devils, as if they had not a lesser world to conquer and colonize, are entered into me: I find a Lapland, Finland, Gothland, and the storms they raise there in my passions: the various shapes in which they familiarise with their votaries, do but resemble the disguises of my curiosities, vied with which the Mythologies of Paganism, in an Achelous, Proteus; Polypus, Cameleon may seem sober verities.  
Nor could I be less than a world in whom all the Monsters of Africa have convened, and all the African tincture in my blacker impieties. I have had the blindness of America to sacrifice to the Devil ne noceat, by complying with aberrances: having with Asia lost a real Paradise by Euthymy: could challenge affinity with Mahometism, and dream of a Paradise in carnal concupiscencies. Nor hath any part of Europe been defective to the compliment of this Microcosm: Papist, Reformist, Subreformist, Familist, Atomist; all the fancies which crumble into factions, and mince into divisions, while old time is forced to chew the cud, and raise up the stubble and chaff of whimsies, swallowed fourteen ages passed have concentred in me: and met in this Mass of antipathies I carry about me.  
Lord teach me to know myself, so I shall not desire to exchange wisdom with a Solomon: lend me the auxiliaries of thy holy spirit, to subdue myself; and I shall be more a Conqueror than Alexander: by hating myself, instruct me how I shall love thee, and by loving thee, I shall be sure not to hate my brother.  
FINIS.