that necessity. Indeed it may be truly affirmed, that there is no society of Christians in the world, where antinomianism and libertinism more reign, than among the papists, into whose very faith they are interwoven, and men are taught them by the definitions of their church. It is no wonder so many vicious persons, especially when they come to die, turn papists, and no visitants are so welcome to them as the Roman confessors. They find them very easy and comfortable doctors for men in their desperate case, and admire their rare invention, who have found out a shorter way to heaven, and a readier one to escape hell and damnation, than the Scriptures ever discovered, or their former ministers of the church of England, following the guidance of the Scriptures, durst warrant to them. And what broken plank, yea what flag or reed will not a drowning man lay hold on? O how pleasant a thing is that which they call the bosom of the Roman church! how willingly do those forlorn wretches cast themselves into it! where they are promised, and in their own deluded imaginations enjoy, that rest and security, which they could not any where else, no not in the word and promises of God, find. But, alas! when they thus say Peace, peace unto themselves, behold, sudden destruction cometh upon them, and within a minute after they are launched out into eternity, a sad and dreadful experience convinceth them what a sorry refuge they fled to.

It is evident, that the church of Rome, in teaching this vile doctrine, aims only at her own interest and advantage, and hath no regard at all to the honour of God and the good of souls. It is absolutely necessary, she saith, for a sinner to make an

auricular confession to, and be absolved by, a priest, though God hath no where said so: but it is not necessary for him to be contrite, or to repent of his sins out of the love of God, though God himself in his own word hath an hundred times said it is. That is necessary for the honour and gain of the priest. The trade of auricular confession must by any means be kept up, because from thence they reap no small gain; and besides by it they govern, not only the silly common people, but great men, and kings and princes, by becoming masters of their secrets. But is not the doctrine of true contrition as necessary for the honour of God? Yes; but the promoting of God's glory in the salvation of souls is the least of their design or business. Indeed it were easy to shew how the whole frame of the religion and doctrine of the church of Rome, as it is distinguished from that Christianity which we hold in common with them, is evidently designed and contrived to serve the interest and profit of them that rule that church, by the disservices, yea and ruin of those souls that are under their government.

What can the doctrine of men's playing an aftergame for their salvation in purgatory be designed for, but to enhance the price of the priest's masses and dirges for the dead? Why must a solitary mass, bought for a piece of money, performed and participated by a priest alone, in a private corner of a church, be, not only against the sense of Scripture and the primitive church, but also against common sense and grammar, called a communion, and be accounted useful to him that buys it, though he never himself receive the sacrament, or but once a

year; but for this reason, that there is great gain, but no godliness at all in this doctrine? Why in their public eucharists must the priest only receive in both kinds, and the people be put off with a piece of a sacrament, against the plainest texts of Scripture, and the practice of the catholic church, for at least a thousand years after Christ, (as some of the Romanists themselves have confessed,) but that this tends to the advancement of the honour and estimation of the priest, as being alone qualified to offer up an entire sacrifice of Christ's body and blood? The sacrilegious practice indeed came in first upon the pretence of the doctrine of transubstantiation; but interest afterwards confirmed the practice. Nay their very monstrous doctrine of transubstantiation, though it seems to be fallen on by chance, in a most ignorant age, evidently serves the same design.

Again, to what purpose is there feigned a treasury of the merits of saints in the church of Rome, and that under the pope's lock and key, but to fill his treasury with money? And who hath not heard of their indulgences of pardon to the greatest sins and sinners openly set to sale, and made a trade of? I might pursue the argument farther, if time would permit; but this is sufficient to shew, by the way, that gain, not godliness, is the design of the Roman church, yea, that their gain is their godliness, as St. Paul said of some in his time, 1 Tim. vi. 5. And therefore that we are concerned to take heed to what follows in the same place, from such withdraw. Indeed Christianity, the best of religions, is, as they have taught it, truly become what one of

their popes is said to have called it, only a gainful fable. But I return thither, from whence I have somewhat digressed.

The church of Rome, I say, falsely glories in her being zealous for good works; seeing, as it appears, she evidently and many ways destroys the necessity of them. And yet very many among us are so foolish as to believe the pretence; yea, and to make the preaching up of good works a character of a papist. He is a papist, say they, for he presseth good works; and hence they themselves sit down in an openly vicious, or a careless conversation, in a life either fruitful of wicked works, or barren of good ones; pleasing themselves with I know not what faith, and esteeming themselves the truest protestants in so doing. But what an honour do they hereby do the papists! What a slur do they cast on the reformed churches! To undeceive these men in this grand mistake, let me inform them of this one thing; that the papists are indeed mighty zealous for external works, and works of their own devising, but the most regardless men in the world of those substantial and truly good works, which God hath commanded. They vehemently urge people to their beads, and the repeating of Ave Marys and Pater Nosters, to external abstinences and penances, (if they find them apt to receive their discipline,) to pilgrimages and offerings at the shrines of saints, to the endowment of monasteries and religious houses, as they call them, to a multitude of superstitious fopperies and ceremonies, that require so much time and care for their performance, as to eat out the very heart and life of true piety. And those that will do this drudgery of theirs, (and what

will not men do to be freed from the hard task of inward piety?) they can easily excuse from the truly good and essential works of religion, yea and persuade them to a presumption of meriting heaven, though in the mean while they are apparently men of unmortified affections and vicious lives; especially if they are zealous for the catholic cause, and against those whom they are pleased to call heretics. Nay if they have this zeal, they will forgive them all the This zeal shall be a fiery chariot, to convey even the murderers of their princes, with Elias, to heaven; and make them canonized for saints, and give them a name in the Roman calendar, as red as the blood they have spilt. It is true, some good men there are in the papacy, and as well as they can, declaring against this wretched corruption of Christianity among them. But the common, current, ruling, and prevailing religion of the church of Rome is certainly such as I have described.

rest.

But now the true reformed religion (I am sure that of the church of England) teacheth men the necessity of works truly good, of true contrition for their sins, of mortifying their sinful and carnal affections, of all the substantial works of piety, justice, and charity. It teacheth men not to expect heaven and salvation without these; but yet not to think of meriting heaven by them. It plainly teacheth, that for a man to be a protestant against popery, will not serve his turn, unless he equally protest against the sin and wickedness of the world: that to be a member, by profession, of a reformed church, will not save his soul, unless himself be truly reformed in his life and conversation. And if men after all this live vicious lives, as too too many among us do, they have