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Church of Rome, because the Defects of the one will not justify the intolerable Corruptions of the other. Do you think that the People of a pretended Church not far from our Land ought to turn Prpifts becaufe they want a lawful Miffion and Priesthood, and have none truly fent to feed them and govern them as the Flock of Chrift? What? Because they have none to preach, but only to talk true and faving Doctrine to them, muft they therefore go to a Church whose Priests and Preachers preach falfe and damnable Do&rines to them as Articles of Faith? Because they have no true Priefts to minifter for them in the Worship of God, muft they therefore go to a Church where he is worship'd by the Miniftration of true Priefts, especially in the Holy Eucharift, with a moft corrupt and idolatrous fort of Worfhip? Or because the Church fo call'd and establish'd among them wants that Apoftolical Polity and Frame of Government which Chrift inftituted for all Churches, muft they therefore go to a Church which, tho' it hath continu'd that Form of Government in a Succeffion and Subordination of Bishops, Priefts and Deacons, yet, as you may obferve by your Seducer's Letter, moft facrilegioully arrogates and monopolizes the whole Apoftolical Authority and Power of Sending to her felf, and fets her felf up as the Mother and Lady of all other Churches, and her Bishop as the Spiritual Monarch of the whole Chriftian World?

Wherefore, Madam, give me Leave to tell you, that before you had hearken'd to his Objections against the Church of England, you should have put him upon the Defence of his own Church; you should firft have put him to prove that the additional Doctrines to the old Catholick Faith in the Roman Creed are all primitive, true, and neceffary to be believ'd in order to Salvation; that their Invocation of Saints and Angels, and asking Temporal and Spiritual Bleffings of them, which none but God can give, N 4

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and the Adoration of the HOST, are lawful, and that their Doctrine of the fole individual Authority of St. Peter and his Succeffors, as Chrift's Vicars, is primitive, true, and confiftent with the Apoftolical Parity in the Power of the Keys, and of feeding the Flock of Chrift. This you should have done before you had lent an Ear to his Cavils against the Church of England, in which, as I have faid, tho' there were never fo many Defects, yet you ought not to go to the Church of Rome; nay, Madam, were our Church an Arian, or Socinian, or Pelagian Church, yet your Soul could not be fafe in the Church of Rome, which is refponfible to God for fo many grievous Corruptions in Doctrine, Worship and Polity, and for which you must also be refponfible to him, as foon as you become a Member thereof. I fay then, Madam, tho' our Church wanted a true Mission, and by Confequence true Minifters, nay, tho' fhe deny'd any Article of the Chriftian Faith, and were alfo defective in that refpect, yet you ought not to turn Papift: that, however, you ought not to do; and fhould you ask me what you or I then ought to do in fuch a fad Cafe, I would tell you, that we ought to ferve God with all Diligence in the folitary State of Segregation, to unite our felves in Heart and Affection to those found Parts of the Holy Catholick Church known or unknown to us, to which we could not go; to write, if we could, to any one faithful Bishop in any part of the Earth to look upon us in our deftitute Condition, as Sheep of his Fold, and to beg his Bleffing and Paftoral Letters of Confolation and Direction from him, and to pray every Day earnestly to God to reform whatever was amifs, and fupply whatever was wanting to the Local Church, with which we could not communicate; by reading to fupply the want of preaching, and by more frequent Deyotions in private to comfort and support our felves in the want of publick Minifterial Worship, not dobuting

doubting but God would accept our good Will for the Deed and not impute unto us what we could not do, because we would do it if we could.

This, Madam, is what we ought to do, and all that we could do in this fuppos'd deplorable Cafe; but not to turn Papifts, that indeed would be but to go from one unlawful Communion to another, to fall upon Sylla to decline Charybdis, to avoid Sin and the Destruction of our Souls one way, to run upon both another; and this, Madam, I fo firmly believe, that no fuppos'd Cafe, fhould it happen, could, by the Grace of God, make me embrace the Romish Communion; not Principalities, nor Powers, nor threatn'd Death, nor promis'd Life, nor Things prefent, nor Things to come, tho' I dayly pray God to give the Church of Rome Grace to reform her felf, as fhe hath done her Calendar, by cutting off all Luxuriances of Additions and Innovations, and fetting herself in the fame State and Condition, as the was in at the time of the firft General Council of Nice!

He hath the Confidence to tell your Ladyfhip, that Proteftants must allow that before Luther, it was only that Body of Chriftians in Communion and Obedience to the Bishop of Rome that was the vifible Holy Catholick Church. But muft tell you the contrary, or rather the Contradiction, That no Protestants allow it, becaufe for a long time before Luther the greatest part of Christendom was neither in Communion with nor under the Obedience of that Bifhop, against whofe Spiritual Monarchy or Soveraignty the Greek and Oriental Churches did, and ftill do, remonftrate and protest. Befides, Madam, I must tell your Ladyship, That in my Answer to his Paper above mention'd I have fhew'd the Abfurdity of affirming, That only that Body of Chriftians in Communion with the Bishop of Rome was the Holy Visible Catholick Church before Luther. He alfo calls it that great Body, but, Madam, it mat

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ters not how great it was if it was in the wrong, as was the great Body of the Ifraelites in the Times of Feroboam and Ahab, and the great Body of the African Chriftians in the Time of St. Auguftin and Optatus, and the great Body of the Chriftians in the whole Roman Empire in the Reign of Valens, when Arianism, like an Inundation, cover'd the Face of the Church. Indeed this great Body, of which he boasts, was much greater before Luther than it hath been fince, and he knows not how foon its present Greatnefs may still diminish; for had it not been for him, who did let and prevent above 20 Years ago, the most famous Member of the Romish Church had likely been moft happily reform'd.

He tells you alfo, That thofe who separated from this Body were by the Fathers in all Ages accounted Schif maticks, in which artful way of fpeaking there lyes a Fallacy, because in the Ages of the ancient Fathers other Chriftians, and Churches were no more in Communion with the Church of Rome, than fhe was with the other Churches, and all of them with one another; and fo indeed those who separated from this Body, or from any Member of it, as well as from the Church of Rome, were in thofe happy Ages accounted Schifmaticks, whether Separatifts from the Greek or Latin, or any Oriental Church. Then, as he loves to vary his Phrafe, he proceeds again to tell you, That this Body of Chriftians thus united to the Bishop of Rome was never accus'd of Error by any of the Fathers. But here, Madam, you must diftinguish Times one from another, to fhew the Fallacy in this collufive Expreffion, for if he means the Times of the ancient Fathers, or else it is nothing to his Purpose, they liv'd long before the Church of Rome was guilty of thofe Errors for which we were forc'd to reform our Church; and for the fame Reafon I can fay, That the Body of Chriftians which make up the reform'd Church of England was never accus'd of Error by any of the Fa-.

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thers, none of them ever did write against it, or any of its Reformers, none of them ever charg'd it with Herefy or Schifm, as the Popish Writers do, and fo his Argument taken from the Fathers never accufing their Church of Error is as ftrong and conclufive for ours. In the fame way of reafoning, Madam, I may argue against the Fact, or for the Murder of King Charles I. becaufe neither Bede, nor Afferius, nor Ingulph, nor Malmsbury, nor any of our ancient Hiftorians, either mention'd, or condemn'd that execrable Deed. But, Madam, tho' none of the ancient Fathers did accufe the Church of Rome of any of thofe Errors, yet many of them in and out of Councils have tax'd her Bishops of many great Faults, and fome foul Mifdemenors, of which he cannot be ignorant if he hath read the Ancients, and which I prefume he may know have been obferv'd by fone of their own learned Writers.

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He tells your Ladyship in another collufive Expreffion, That the great Body of the Church of Rome never fram'd it felf by a Change to Day from what it was Fefterday, whereas all other petty Bodies of Chriftians came out of the other by a Change: To this, Madam, I need fay no more, than to put your Ladyship in remembrance how gradually and infenfibly Changes and Alterations will creep into all Societies, and to tell you, that tho' they may not be made to Day from what they were Yesterday, or thisWeek, or this Month, from what they were last, yet in Progress of longer Time, which we call Ages, they may be made, and perceiv'd, and grow up like the Tares among the Wheat, efpecially in ignorant Times, while those who should watch are afleep. This, Madam, is the Cafe of his great Body of the Church of Rome, and the Churches in Communion with it, as hath been often prov'd by our Writers. And

In Two Councils of Carthage, one in which St. Cyprian sat, in the other St. Auguftin fat. Irenæus, Cyprian, Firmilian, &c

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