*Another thing that hath increased my distaste of your ways, is the common ungodliness of your ⟨image 12⟩followers. I have endeavoured as well as I could to be acquainted with them where I came and I have known but very few of them, but have been either Whoremongers, or Swearers, or Drunkards, or Gamesters, or sensual livers: nor did I ever meet with one to this day, to my best remembrance, that manifested a spiritual frame of heart, or had any delight to speak of the workings of God upon the soul, and the sweet communications of the love of Christ, or could give any savoury account of any such spiritual workings in them: but all their Religion was to stick to the Romish Church, and go on in their ceremonious forms of worship, abstaining from this meat, or that, and rioting and pampering their flesh on Holidays, &c. If I had known this to be the case only of the common people in Italy, or Spain, or France, I should not have wondered: for I know that most of the people, do take up their Religion but upon carnal accounts, and accordingly will use it: But to find it thus in England, where your number is small, and you pretend to hold your Religion in so much self-denial, the state being against you; and therefore your party should be the purest zealots, and show the face of your doctrine in its greatest glory; this makes me judge of the tree by the fruits. And the observing of this hath made me admire, ⟨image 12⟩that ever you can make the holiness of your Church, the matter of so great ostentation as you do: Yea that such men as H.P. de Cressy can have the face to pretend that your admirable holiness in comparison of ours, was the means of their conversion to you. Unhappy man! with whom did he converse while he seemed a Protestant? or where did he live? But this was not his fate alone; but of divers of his strain. When they are carnal Protestants, abhorring the power of the Religion, which they profess, and avoiding and reproaching the practicers of their own Religion, and so have no communion with them, nor experience of their holiness; it is a righteous thing with God to leave them to so much blindness, as to run from England to Rome for holiness; and that because they abhorred purity, they should be so blinded as not to discern the beauty of it, and yet to dote on the name and coat of it, which may be put on in the morning, and off at night.
*Another thing that hath encreased my distaste of your wayes, is the common ungodliness of your ⟨image 12⟩followers. I have endeavored as well as I could to be acquainted with them where I came and I have known but very few of them, but have been either Whoremongers, or Swearers, or Drunkards, or Gamesters, or sensual livers: nor did I ever meet with one to this day, to my best remembrance, that manifested a spiritual frame of heart, or had any delight to speak of the workings of God upon the soul, and the sweet communications of the love of Christ, or could give any savory account of any such spiritual workings in them: but all their Religion was to stick to the Romish Church, and go on in their ceremonious forms of worship, abstaining from this meat, or that, and rioting and pampering their flesh on Holidayes, &c. If I had known this to be the case onely of the common people in Italy, or Spain, or France, I should not have wondered: for I know that most of the people, do take up their Religion but upon carnal accounts, and accordingly will use it: But to find it thus in England, where your number is small, and you pretend to hold your Religion in so much self-denyal, the state being against you; and therefore your party should be the purest zelots, and shew the face of your doctrine in its greatest glory; this makes me judge of the tree by the fruites. And the observing of this hath made me admire, ⟨image 12⟩that ever you can make the holiness of your Church, the matter of so great ostentation as you do: Yea that such men as H.P. de Cressy can have the face to pretend that your admirable holiness in comparison of ours, was the means of their conversion to you. Unhappy man! with whom did he converse while he seemed a Protestant? or where did he live? But this was not his fate alone; but of divers of his strain. When they are carnal Protestants, abhorring the power of the Religion, which they profess, and avoiding and reproaching the practicers of their own Religion, and so have no communion with them, nor experience of their holiness; it is a righteous thing with God to leave them to so much blindness, as to run from England to Rome for holiness; and that because they abhorred purity, they should be so blinded as not to discern the beauty of it, and yet to dote on the name and coate of it, which may be put on in the morning, and off at night.
- *The abominable wickedness of your party, even the Roman Cardinals themselves, is proclaimed by many that have been your Priests and turned from you: as Copley, Sheldon, Boxhorne, and many more saith Sheldon (in his Survey of Rome: Miracles, p. 18. having spoken of the Cardinals Sodomy) [Believe it Reader, the abominations which are committed by these purpured Fathers, and the Supreme Fathers of that Synagogue are so detestable, that they pass all narration either of modest or immodest pen.] And it's long since Petrarch, Dantes, Aventine, Parisiens. Clemangis, Sabellicus, Grosthead, Ferus and more of your own Writers have said enough, to satisfy us of your sanctity. Many a one that hath been •iced to Popery in England, have been cured by a journey to Rome, seeing the abominations of that place.The abominable wickedness of your party, even the Romane Cardinals themselves, is proclaimed by many that have been your Priests and turned from you: as Copley, Sheldon, Boxhorne, and many more saith Sheldon (in his Survey of Rome: Miracles, p. 18. having spoken of the Cardinals Sodomy) [Believe it Reader, the abominations which are committed by these purpured Fathers, and the Supream Fathers of that Synagogue are so detestable, that they pass all narration either of modest or immodest pen.] And it's long since Petrarch, Dantes, Aventine, Parisiens. Clemangis, Sabellicus, Grosthead, Ferus and more of your own Writers have said enough, to satisfie us of your sanctity. Many a one that hath been •iced to Popery in England, have been cured by a journey to Rome, seeing the abominations of that place.
