R. I'll tell you what followeth. 1. It is no wonder if you forsake the Protestants Religion, who never truly entertained it. If your Heart and Life were not devoted ⟨p. 4⟩unfeignedly to God, you were no true Christian, nor indeed had any true Religion at all: And he that hath no Religion, turneth from none which he truly had. If you were never a true Christian, you were never a true Protestant: And then what wonder if you turn Papist? For you have no experimental Knowledge of that Religion which you seem to forsake.
2. And how could you expect better, but that God should penally forsake you, and give you over to believe deceits, if you have dealt so falsely and deceitfully with him, as to live to the world and flesh which you renounced, and neglect that God and Saviour and sanctifier to whom you were so solemnly devoted? And if you have been so treacherous and unwise, as to prefer a brutish transitory pleasure, before Gods Love and the Joys of Heaven?
3. And what honour is it to the Church of Rome, that none but Infidels and false-hearted hypocrites, and perfidious breakers of their Covenant with God, did ever turn to them? If you turn Papist, you confess that you were a wicked hypocrite before.
4. But the chief thing which I would tell you is, that turn up and down as oft as you will, to this Church or that Church, to this side or that side, you will never be saved, unless you become a holy, serious, mortified Christian: As long as you love pleasures, wealth and honour more than God and Holiness and Heaven, you shall never be saved, whether you be Papist, or a professed Protestant. It would make the heart of a Christian ache, to see so many thousands cheated by the Devil, to take this opinion or that opinion, called the true faith, and this side or that side, called the true Church, to be to them instead of a holy heavenly heart and life. And how many thousands, especially Papists, that are truly of no Religion, do dispute, and plot and disquiet the ⟨p. 5⟩world, as for Religion. To hear a profane man swear that his Religion is right; or that man to think to be saved for being of the true Church and faith, whose heart was never set on Heaven, but liveth in drunkenness, lying, idleness, fornication, and thinketh that the Priests absolution sets all right again. Without true Holiness no man shall be saved, what Church soever he join with;
R. I'le tell you what followeth. 1. It is no wonder if you forsake the Protestants Religion, who never truly entertained it. If your Heart and Life were not devoted ⟨p. 4⟩unfeignedly to God, you were no true Christian, nor indeed had any true Religion at all: And he that hath no Religion, turneth from none which he truly had. If you were never a true Christian, you were never a true Protestant: And then what wonder if you turn Papist? For you have no experimental Knowledge of that Religion which you seem to forsake.
2. And how could you expect better, but that God should penally forsake you, and give you over to believe deceits, if you have dealt so falsly and deceitfully with him, as to live to the world and flesh which you renounced, and neglect that God and Saviour and sanctifier to whom you were so solemnly devoted? And if you have been so treacherous and unwise, as to prefer a bruitish transitory pleasure, before Gods Love and the Joyes of Heaven?
3. And what honour is it to the Church of Rome, that none but Infidels and false-hearted hypocrites, and perfidious breakers of their Covenant with God, did ever turn to them? If you turn Papist, you confess that you were a wicked hypocrite before.
4. But the chief thing which I would tell you is, that turn up and down as oft as you will, to this Church or that Church, to this side or that side, you will never be saved, unless you become a holy, serious, mortified Christian: As long as you love pleasures, wealth and honour more than God and Holiness and Heaven, you shall never be saved, whether you be Papist, or a professed Protestant. It would make the heart of a Christian ake, to see so many thousands cheated by the Devil, to take this opinion or that opinion, called the true faith, and this side or that side, called the true Church, to be to them instead of a holy heavenly heart and life. And how many thousands, especially Papists, that are truly of no Religion, do dispute, and plot and disquiet the ⟨p. 5⟩world, as for Religion. To hear a prophane man swear that his Religion is right; or that man to think to be saved for being of the true Church and faith, whose heart was never set on Heaven, but liveth in drunkenness, lying, idleness, fornication, and thinketh that the Priests absolution sets all right again. Without true Holiness no man shall be saved, what Church soever he joyn with;
