Some Popish Errors Unadvisedly Embraced and Pursued, Title page
SOME POPISH ERRORS, unadvisedly embraced, and pursued by our ANTICOMMVNION MINISTERS.
Wherein is Discovered The dangerous effects of their discontinuing the Frequent publick Administration of the Lords Supper; the Popish Errors whereon it is bottomed; perswading the frequent Celebration of it, to all Visible Churchmembers, with their Free-admission thereunto; and prescribing some legal Regal Remedies to redress New Sacrilegious detaining of it from the people, where their Ministers are obstinate. With a New discovery of some Romish Emmissaries, QUAKERS.
By William Prynne of Swainswicke Esquire, a Bencher of Lincolns Inne.
John 10.10.
The Thief cometh not but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.
Chrysost. in Mat. Hom. 49.
Ex ipsis veris Ecclestis frequentèr exeunt Seductores. Proptereà nec ipsis omnino credendum est, nisi ea dicant, vel faciant, quae convenientia a sint Scripturis.
August. contra Faustum Manich. l. 19. c. 10.
In nullum nomen Religionis, seu verum, seu falsum, coagulari homines possunt, nisi aliquo Sacramentorum visibilium consortio colligentur.
LONDON, Printed for the Author, and are to be sold by Edward Thomas at his Shop at the signe of the Adam and Eve in Little-Britain, 1658.
A New Discovery of some Romish Emissaries, Quakers and others; as likewise of Popish Errors, Practices lately embraced, pursued, avowed by some Zealots, and Grand Deformers, in secluding their Parishioners sundry years from the Holy Communion of the Lords Supper, &c.
THe sad Complaint of old, to and of Constantius the Arrian Emperour, (who [a]Athanasius epist. ad solitariam vitam agentes. See Dr. Bilson his True Difference between Christian subjection, and unchristian rebellion. part 2. p. 182, 183.made his exorbitant Will, the only Law, and used this Papal Speech to Paulinus, and other Orthodox Bishops convented before him, for refusing to communicate with the Arrians upon his command, as being against the Ecclesiastical Canons: At quod ego …olo pro Canone sit: Ita me lequentem… Syriae Episcopi sust…n ut; aut ergo obtemperate, Aut vos quoque exules estote) made by St. Hilarie concerning the frequent changes of the Christian Faith, and multitudes of Religions under his arbitrary Tyrannical Government, viz. [b]Hilarius ad Constantium. l. 3.Faith is come now, rather to depend upon the Time, than on the Gospel. Our State is dangerous and miserable, that we have now as many faiths as wils, and as many Doctrines as manners, whiles Faiths … so writte… as we list, or so understood as we will. We make every year, and every month, a new faith, and still we seek a faith, as if there were yet no faith. [c]Hilarius, l. 1. Contra Constantium.This O Constantius woul… I … know …, what faith at length thou b…lievest? Thou hast changed so often, that now I know not thy faith. That is …amed to th… whi…h us th… fellow … if all builders, ever disliking their own doings, that thou still pullest down that thou art still setting up. Thou subvertest the old with new; and the new thou rentest in sunder with a newer correction; and that which was once corrected. thou condemnest with a second correction. O thou wicked one, W… a mockery dost thou m…ke of the Church, &c? May now be the dolorous just complaint of every sincere English Christian, touching the manifold changes of Faiths, the multiplicities of Religions in our Vertiginous, unstable, arbitrary and Tyrannical Age; wherein too many of all Degrees, make their own exorbitant lawless wills, the only Laws, Canons by which they act; making Faith to depend rather upon their pleasures (yea worldly designs) than on the Gospel; setting up of late years amongst us as many Faiths as Wills, as many Doctrins, opinions, as we have Manners, Sects, coyning, venting, professing, what New Faiths they list, and understanding our antient Creeds as they please to interpret them; new-making, or at least imbracing a new Faith every year, if not almost every month; running from one New Sect, Faith, Opinion to another, still seeking after the newest Faith, as if they had quite lost the old; changing so often, that none know of what Faith or Sect they are; being one month Presbyterians, the next Independents, the 3d. Anabaptists, the 4th. Quakers, the 5th. Ranters, the 6th. Seekers, the 7th. Arrians, Anti-Trinitarians; the 8th. Socinians, the 9th. Arminians, the 10th. Antinomians, the 11th. Antiscripturists, & the 12. professed Atheists. Subverting their old Church, Religion, Faith, Sect, wi…h a New one, that New, with a Newer, that Newer, with the Newest and last broached, (as our Fashion-mongers change the shape of their garments) till they have utterly lost all Faith, Piety, Religion, Conscience; and made the Church of Christ a meer Mockery; yea Christ himself, a Fable.
Neither are they lesse giddy or unstable in their State-Mutations than in their Ecclesiastical or Religious, still changing from one mishapen New-Model to another; so as what [d]Variae Historiae l. 5. c. 13.Aelianus records of the ficklepated seditious Athenians (the first inventors of New State Governments) is as really verified of these English Innovators. Athenienses omnino ad commutandos Re…publicae status erant versatiles, & omnium propensissimi ad vicissitudines, &c. In which respect [e]Iam. 1.8.… Iames his character of a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways, is now become their proper…t Mo…o, unlesse they like [f]Iude 12, 13▪ 16, 19.St. Iudes better; These be spots in your Feasts of Charity, feeding themselves without …: Clouds they are without water, carried about with winds: Trees, whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twi…e dead, plucked up by the roots: Raging waves of the Sea, foaming out their own shame: wandring stars, to whom is reserved the blacknesse of darkenesse for ever: Murmurers, complai…ers, walking after their own lusts, &c. These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit; though they proclaim themselves, the only Saints having the Spirit▪ which I grant most true, if meant of [g]1 Iohn. 4.6.the Spirit of Error ▪ or that [h]Isay 19.13, 14.Spirit of perversities (or giddinesses) the Lord mingled in the midst of Aegypt, and the Princes of Zoan, which caused Aegypt, (and now England) to erre in every work thereof, as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit.
That subtile Romish *Non Doctores, sed sedlictores; non Pastores, sed Impo…ores. Bernard.seducing Emissaries, Iesuites, Franciscans, Popish Priests, Friers of all sorts, disguised under the Vizors of Independents, Anabaptists, Dippers, Quakers, Ranters, Seekers, Soldiers, Factors, M…rchants Artificers, and mechanick Professions of all sorts, have been the principal Instruments to infuse this Spirit of Giddinesse into our intoxicated besotted English brains; the original Plotters, Broachers, Fomentors, Propagators of all the deplorable Warrs, Divisions, Errors, Sects, Heresies, Bl…sphemies, New Faiths, Changes of Government, which have of late years miserably rent both our Nations, Churches, Kingdoms, (heretofore [i]1 Iacobi c. 1, 2.3. Iac. c. 1.happily united in Christian Amity, Unity, under one Hereditary Soveraign) into diverse incoherent pieces, Schisms, Factions, Churches, irreconcilably divided from and against each other (threatning [k]Mat. 12.25.26. Gal. 5.15.our inevitable speedy ruine, without Gods infinite, reconciling, reuniting Mercy, beyond all human probabilities) I have at large demonstrated by irrefragable Evidences formerly published in [l]In my Cozens his Cozening Devotions, Quenchcole, The Popish Royal Favorite, Romes Master-piece. Hidden works of Darkness brought to publike Light. Canterburies Doom. Speech in Parliament. Memento: A Gospel plea. Ius Patronatus, Epistle to a Seasonable Legal Vindication, &c. A New Discovery of Free-State Tyranny: The Quakers unmasked.sundry printed Pieces: to which I shall adde some other Fresh Evidences, to open the closed eyes, awaken the Drowsie spirits of our infatuated, stupid English Nation, and reclaim them (if possible) from those ways of desolation, in which they run on headlong, without deliberation, discretion, fear or wit.
1. It is worth our special observation, that in [m]See D…. Iohn White his way to the True Church, and Preface before it: & My Quakers unmasked.Lancashire and those other Northern parts, where Popish Priests, Friers, Recusants formerly most abounded, there our last, newest, up-start Sect of Quakers first sprung up, and now most of all abound; sending out their Popish Romish Emissaries thence into all other parts of the Realm, to seduce the people, and openly to revile, traduce, affront, disturb our Ministers in their Churches, Pulpits, Houses; in going to, returning from their Churches, and in the open streets, in a more insolent manner, and with greater impunity, than ever the Popish Priests, Friers, or Papists in those parts, affronted, reviled, disturbed them heretofore, when they were most countenanced or connived at by our late Kings, or their Officers; being encouraged thereunto by many in greatest Authority in those parts, of which I have seen late sad complaints in Letters of Ministers thus insufferably abused, disturbed daily by them, to their great vexation▪ not only against [n]See Lamberts f. 19… 333.416. Da …on, p. 124, 115. Compleat Iustice, p. 223.the …uo St…tute of 1 Mariae, c. 3. but the antient Fundamental Laws of England before the Conquest, [o]Hoveden Annalium pars posterior, p. 601, 602. Lambardi Archaion. Spelmanni Concil. p. 619, 620. See 8 H. 6. c. 1. Rastall… Parl. 12.presented to William the Co…queror himself upon Oath, by the famous Grand Erquest of 12 of the principal men chosen out of every County, and ratified by him in Parliament in the 4th. year of his reign; providing for the peace and quiet of the Ministers and people too, against all affronts and disturbances, both in their going to, continuance in, and returning from their Churches, or Synods (as well as to our Parliaments, and other Courts of Justice) still in full Legal vigour; by which, all such disturbers may, and ought to be fined, imprisoned upon conviction, according to the quality of their offences, as well as [p]See Daltons Iustice of Peace, c. 38.other disturbes, infringers of the publike Peace, and bound both to the Peace and good behaviour for the future, ere released, with sufficient sureties.
2ly. It is remarkable, that these New Quakers were sent from those Northern Counties, into other quarters of the Kingdom, two by two, at first; no doubt by the direction of their Popish Provincial, just as the Franciscan Friers are sent out by their Provincial. In the [q]See My Royal Popish Favorite. Romes Masterpiece. Hidden works of Darkness brought to publike Light. Canterburies Doom.years 1638, 1639, and 1640. there were sundry Franciscans, with whole swarms of I…suits, Benedictins, and other Friers sent from forein parts, into England, Scotland, Ireland, Virginia, St. Christophers, and other English Plantations, to reduce the people back to Rome, towards which we were then running post. The Original Instruments of some of their Missions, with sundry of their Letters, Papers under their own hands and scals, relating their intentions, proceedings, (seised in the Capucins Cell, adjoyning to the late Queens Chappel at Somerset-house, and in Mary-land, (by a Sea-Captain my Client) where the Iesuites erected a New Colledge and Society, the whole History whereof, and of their proceedings in those parts, was comprised in their Letters) Gods providence brought into my hands, when they, and their seduced instruments were most busie in reforming, new-modelling our Church, Religion, Parliaments, Realms, Government, after the prescribed patterns of Robert Parsons the Jesuit, Thomas Campanella the Frier, and Richelieu the French Cardinal; as I have [r]My Speech in Parl. Memento; Epistle to my …us Paronatus; and Historical Lae…al Vindication.elsewhere demonstrated beyond contradiction. The chiefest of these Instruments, Letters, Papers (of great concernment to our Church, State, Religion) I intended long since to have published. But [s]See a New Discovery of Free-State Tyranny.Io. Bradshaw and his Whitchall Associats (out of their transcendent zeal to our Religion and Republike) in the end of Iune, 1650, by special warrants directed to Soldiers, plundred me of those, & all my other Papers, Letters, Writings, Records in my Study at Lincolns Inne, and at Swainswicke, which they could seise on; and then shut me up close Prisoner under strictest armed Guards, in 3. remote Castles, near 3. whole years, without any particular cause then or since expressed, or the least hearing or examination of me, only to hinder my Discoveries and publications of this Nature; whiles these Romish Emissaries, in the mean time, wandred freely up and down throughout our Dominions without restraint, [t]See the Beacons fired.published many thousands of Popish, heretical, blasphemous New Books; and some of them were Souldiers in pay in their very Guards; no doubt to help extirpate Popery, Superstition, Heresie, Schism, and for the Preservation, Defence, and Reformation of the Protestant Religion, the preservation of the Rights and Priviledges of Parliament, the Liberties of the Kingdom, the Honour, Happinesse, Defence and Preservation of the Kings Majesty and his Posterity, according to the [u]A Collection of all Publike Ordinances p. 424, 425.Tenor of the Solemn League and Covenant, the quite contrary way; and promoting their New Engagement, diametrically repugnant thereunto. Yet, notwithstanding all their diligent Searches, by Gods providence, they left one of those Original Popish Missions in Parchment, under Seal, undiscovered, (which I lately found in my Study at Lincolns Inn… ) whereby two Franciscans were sent by their Provincial of Britain, in the year 1639. to St. Christophers, and other Western Ilands where we had plantations; who ended their progresse at Somerset-house, (where this Instrument was seiled;) which because it may give some light towards the Discovery of our Quakers Missions in like manner two by two, I shall here print verbatim out of the Original in my custody; seen by many of my Friends.