A LETTER WRITTEN By A LEARNED AND REVERENT DIVINE, TO WILLIAM LAUD, NOW L. BISHOP OF CANTERBURY: CONCERNING HIS INCLINAtion to Popery, persuading him not to halt between two Opinions, but to be steadfast to the Protestant Religion.  
Printed in the year of God's great and merciful deliverance from sundry Romish and Jesuitical plots against this State and kingdom.   

Expostulating the cause of his unsettledness in Religion, which is pleaded to be our dissensions: showing the insufficiency of that motive, and comparing the state of our Church herein, with the Romish.  
I Would i knew where to find you: then I could tell how to take a direct aim, whereas now I must rove and conjecture. To day you are in the tents of the Romanists; to morrow in ours; the next day between both; against both. Our adversaries think you ours, we theirs; your conscience finds you with both, and nether. I flatter you not: this of yours is the worst of all tempers: heat and could have there uses; lukewarmness is good for nothing but to trouble the stomach. Those that are spiritually hot, find acceptation; those that are stark cold, have a lesser reckoning; the mean between both, is so much worse, as it comes nearer to good, and attains it not. How long will you halt in this indifferency? Resolve one way, and know at last what you do hold; what you should. Cast of either your wings or your teeth; and loathing this Bat-like nature, be either a bird or a beast. To die wavering and uncertain, yourself will grant fearful. If I must settle, when begin you? If you must begin why not now? It is dangerous deferring that, whose want is deadly, whose opportunity is doubtful. God cryeth with Jehu, who is on my side, who? look at last out of your window to him, & in a resolute courage cast down this Jezabel that hath bewitched you. Is there any impediment, which delay will a bate? is there any which a just answer cannot remove? If you had rather waver, who can settle you? But if your love not inconstancy, tell us why you stagger. Be plain or else you will never be firm: What hinders you. Is it our divisions: I see you shake your head at this, and by your silent gesture bewray this the cause of your distaste: would God I cold either deny this with truth or amend it with tears: But I grant it, with no less sorrow, than you with offence. This earth hath nothing more lamentable, than the civil jars of one faith. What then? must you defy your mother; because you see your brethren fighting? Their dessension is her grief: Must she lose some sons, because some others qua●rell? Do not so wrong yourself in affecting her. Will you love Christ the less, because his coat is divided? yea let me boldly say; the hem is torn a little, the garment is whole; or rather it is fretted a little, not torn; or rather the fringe, not the hem. Behold, here is one Christ, one Creed, one baptism, one heaven, one way to it, in sum, one religion, one foundation, and (take away the tumultuous spirits of some rigorous Latherans) one heart: Our differences are those of Paul and Barnabas not those of Peter and Magus if they be some, it is well they are no more; if many, they are not capital. Show me that Church, that hath not complained of distraction: yea that family, yea thàt fraternity, yea that man that always agrees with himself. See if the Spouse of Christ, in the heavenly marriage song, do not call him, a young Hart in the mountains of division. Tell me then, whither will you go for truth, if you will allow no truth, but where there is no division? To Rome perhaps, famous for unity, famous for peace. See now how happily you have chosen, how well you have sped: Lo, Card. Bellarmine himself, a witness above exception, under his own hand acknowledgeth to the world and reckons up 237. contrarieties of doctrine among the Romish Divins. What need we more evidence? O the perfect accordance of peter's See! worthy to be accorded for a badge of truth. Let now all our Adversaries scrape together so many contradictions of opinions among us, as they confess amongst themselves, and be you theirs. No, they are not more peaceable, but more subtle; they have not less dissension, but more smothered. They fight closely within doors, without noise; all our frays are in the field; would God we had as much of their cunning, as they want of our peace, and no more of their policy, than they want of our truth. Our strife is in Ceremonies, theirs substance; ours in one or two points, theirs in all. Take it boldly from him that dares avouch it, there is not one point in all divinity (except those wherein we accord with them) wherein they all speak the same. If our Church displease you for differences, theirs much more; unless you will be either wilfully incredulous, or wilfully partial: unless you dislike a mischief the less for the secrecy. What will you do then? Will you be a Church alone? Alas, how full are you of contradictions to yourself! how full of contrary purposes! how oft do you chide with yourself! how oft do you fight with yourself! I appeal to that bosom which is privy to those secret combats: believe me not, if ever you find perfect unity anywhere but above: either go thither and seek it amongst those that triumph, or be content with what estate you find in this warfairing number. Truth is in differences, as Gold is in dross, Wheat in chaff; will you cast away the best metal, the best grain, because it is mingled with this offal? Will you rather be poor and hungry, then bestow labour on the Fan or Furnance? Is there nothing worth your respect but Peace? I have heard that the interlacing of Discords graces the best music; and I know not whether the very evil spirits agree n●t with themselves. If the body be sound, what though the coat be torn? or if the garment be whole, what if the lace be unripped? Take you Peace; let me have Truth, I cannot have both. To conclude: Embrace those Truths that we all hold, and it greatly matters not what you hold in those wherein we differ: and if you love your safety, seek rather grounds whereon to rest, than excuses for your unrest. If ever you look to gain by the Truth, you must choose it, and cleave to it. Mere resolution is not enough; except you will rather lose yourself then it.  
FINIS.