WE hear of your SEPARATION, and Mourn; yet not so much for You, as for your Wrong: You could not do a greater Injury to your Mother than to flie from Her. Say she were Poor, Ragged, Weak; say she were Deformed; yet she is not Infectious: Or if she were, yet she is yours. This were Cause enough for you to Lament her, to Pray for her, to labour for her Redress; not to Avoid Her: This unnaturalness is shameful, and more heinous in you, who are reported, not Parties in this Evil, but Authors: Your Flight is not so much as your Mis-guidance. Plead not: This fault is past excuse. If we should All follow You, this were the way, of a Church (as you plead) imperfect, to make no Church; and of a Remedy to make a Disease. Still the fruit of our Charity to you is, besides our Grief, Pity. Your Zeal of Truth has misled you, and you others; a Zeal, if Honest, yet Blind-folded, and led by Self­will.

Oh that you loved Peace but half so well as Truth! then this Breach had never been; and you that are yet Brethren had been still Compa­nions. Go out of Babylon, you say; the Voice not of Schism, but of Holiness. Know you where you are? Look about you, I beseech you, look behind you; and see if we have not left it upon our Backs. She her self feels, and sees that she is Abandoned; and complains to all the World, that we have not only forsaken, but spoyl'd Her; and yet you say, COME OƲT OF BABYLON.

And except you will be willingly Blind, you may see the Heaps of her Altars, the Ashes of her Idols, the Ruines of her Monuments, the Condemnation of her Errors, the Revenge of her Abominations. And are we Yet in Babylon? Is Babylon Yet among us?

Where are the main Buildings of that ACCƲRSED CITY? Those high and proud Towers of that Ʋniversal Hierarchy, Infallible Judg­ment, Dispensations with the Laws of God, and sins of Men: Dispo­sition of Kingdoms and Deposion of Princes, parting stakes with God in our Conversion, through Freedom of Will; in our Salvation, through the Merit of our Works? Where are those Rotten heaps (rotten, not through Age, but Corruption of Transubstantiating of Bread, Adoring of Images, multitude of Sacraments, power of Indulgencies, necessity of Confession, profit of Pilgrimages, constrained and approved Ignorance, unknown Devotions? Where are those deep Vaults (if not Mines) of Pennan­ces and Purgatories, and whatsoever else hath been devised by those Popelings, whether profitable or glorious, against the Lord and his Christ? Are they not all razed, and buried in the Dust? Hath not the Majesty of her Gods, like as was done to Mithra and Serapis, been long agone offer'd to the publick laughter of the Vulgar? What is this but to go, yea, to run (if not to flie) out of Babylon? But as every man is an hearty Patron of his own Actions, and it is a desperate Cause [Page 2] that hath no Plea) you alledge our comorting in Ceremonies, and say, still we tarry in the Suburbs. Grant that these were as ill as an Enemy can make them, or can pretend them: You are deceived, if you think the Walls of Babylon stand upon Ceremonies.

Substantial Errors are both her Foundation and Frame.

These Ritual observations are not so much as Tile and Reed, rather like to some Fan upon the Roof; for Ornament, more than use: not parts of the Building but necessary Appendances. If you take them otherwise, you wrong the Church; if thus, and yet depart, you wrong it and your self: As if you would have persuaded Righteous Lot not to stay in Zoar, because it was so near Sodom. I fear, if you had seen the Mony-changers in the Temple, however you would have pray'd or taught there: Christ did it, not forsa­king the place but scourging the Offenders: And this is the Valour of Christian Teachers: To oppose Abuses, not to run away from them: Where shall you not thus find Babylon? Would you have run from Ge­neva because of her Wafers? Or from Corinth, for her disorder'd Love Feasts? Either run out of the World, or your flight is Vain. If expe­rience of Change teach you not, that you shall find your Babylon every where, return not. Compare the place you have left, with that you have chosen: Let not fear of seeming to repent over-soon, make you partial. Lo, there a common harbour of all Opinions, of all Here­sies; if not a mixture. Here you drew in the free and clear Air of the Gospel, without that odious composition of Judaism, Arrianism, Ana­baptism: There you live in the stench of these and more. You are un­worthy of pity, if you will approve your misery. Say, if you can, That the Church of England (if she were not yours) is not an Heaven to Amsterdam. How is it then, that our Gnats are harder to swallow, than their Camels? And that whilst all Christendom magnifies our happiness and applauds it; your handful alone, so detests our Enormi­ties, that you despise our Graces? See whether in this you make not God a loser.

The thanks of all his favours is lost, because you want more: and in the mean time, who gains by this Sequestration, but Rome and Hell? How do they insult in this Advantage, that our Mother's own Chil­dren condemn her for Unclean, that we are dayly weakened by our Divisions, that the rude multitude hath so palpable a mortive to distrust us? Sure, you intended it not: but if you had been their hired Agent you could not have done our Enemies greater service.

The God of Heaven open your Eyes, that you may see the unjustice of that Zeal which hath transported you: and turn your heart to an endeavour of all Christian satisfaction: otherwise, your Souls shall find too late, that it had been a Thousand times better to swallow a Ce­remony, than to rend a Church: yea, That even Whoredoms and Murders shall abide an easier Answer than SEPARATION. I have done if only I have advised you of that fearful threatning of the Wise man. The Eye that mocketh his FATHER, and despiseth the Govern­ment of his MOTHER, The Ravens of the Valley shall pick it out, and the young Eagles eat it.