(God be thanked) I know of no protestant church of any denomination whatsoever, that openly avoucheth any of those doctrines. I am sure, our church of England is far from doing so they are the errors or heresies, rather of certain, private, and unlicensed doctors, who took occasion to sow their tares, not when our watchmen slept, but when they were by a tyrannical power silenced, and driven from their charges in the time of usurpation. And the same men (when they are now not only not licensed, but themselves forbidden to preach) are the only men that still maintain and strenuously propagate those pernicious doctrines in their schismatical assemblies.

But having done this justice to ourselves, let us next call the papists to account. The church of Rome, I say, the very church of Rome, teacheth and avoweth such doctrine, as evidently and utterly destroys the necessity of a holy life, and encourageth men to hope they shall reap in mercy, though they sow not to themselves in righteousness. Such is that doctrine of theirs, "That a man by attrition, or "such a sorrow for sin as ariseth only from fear, " and is void of charity and the love of God above "all things, with the help of the sacrament of

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penance, that is, of confession to and absolution "from a priest, may obtain the pardon of his sins, "justification, and eternal life." This dangerous proposition the council of Trent doth plainly enough assert, in the fourth chapter of the fourteenth session, concerning Contrition. But in the Roman catechism (which was allowed and published by the order of the Trent Fathers and pope Pius the Fifth, and is therefore as much their doctrine as any thing decreed by them in their sessions) it is so manifestly

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delivered that there is no room for contradiction, in the fifth chapter of the second part of the Sacrament of Penance. [page 223, and the following, according to the edition of Antwerp, 1606.] The sum of their doctrine there is plainly this, "That true contrition, joined with the love of God above all things, is "indeed a thing very desirable, and most accept"able to God, even without the sacrament of pe“nance: but because very few have this true con"trition, that therefore God out of his infinite mercy "and indulgence, hath provided for the common "salvation of men in a more easy way." They are the very words of the catechism, wherein the Fathers seem to have forgotten the words of our Saviour, Strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it, Matt. vii. 14. And that therefore he hath appointed the sacrament of penance, as a help or crutch to a lame and defective repentance, as a supply to their contrition and sorrow for sin, wherein the love of God above all things is wanting.

Need I now to shew the danger of this doctrine? It is indeed a doctrine so dangerous, so damnable, that it seems of itself sufficient to unchristian and unchurch any society of men that shall teach and maintain it. It razeth the very foundations of the Gospel: it takes away those two great hinges, upon which (as our Saviour himself tells us) all the Law and Prophets depend and turn, viz. the love of God above all things, and of our neighbours as ourselves, for God's sake. For these, according to this doctrine, are not necessary: the rare device of the sacrament of penance can reconcile men to God without them; and by this expedient, men that never loved God

with all their hearts, in all their days on earth, may for ever enjoy God in heaven. People may expiate their sins at this rate of a servile attrition, toties quoties, as often as they commit them, and so be saved without ever having loved God above all things in their lives. But the danger of this doctrine will more evidently appear, if we apply it to such as are in agone mortis, at the point of death. Suppose a man to have lived in a course of wickedness for fifty or sixty years, and being now upon his deathbed, to be attrite for his sins, that is, heartily to grieve for them only out of the fear of hell, (and he is a bold man indeed that will not in earnest fear hell, when it gapes upon him, and is ready to devour him,) and in that fear to purpose amendment of life, if God restore him, and to have a hope of pardon; (and in so comfortable a church as the Roman, who hath any reason to despair?) this man, according to the doctrine of the council of Trent, though he cannot be saved without the sacrament of penance, yet with it he may.

If he hath but breath enough to tell the priest the sad story of his vicious life, and beg absolution, he can do wonders for him, more than God himself ever promised: he can by pronouncing only a few words over him, presently translate him from death to life; and make him, that was all his life before a child of the Devil, in one moment the son of God, and an heir of salvation.

Let not therefore the church of Rome boast any more of the strictness and severity of her doctrine; and that she especially presseth good works, and the necessity of a holy life; when it is apparent, that by such loose propositions as these, she utterly destroys

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