To the Reader.

THou which hast a tender Conscience, and desirest
nothing so much as to know the right
way to Heaven, having many doubts which
cause thee to leave thy own Pastor, and runne
not only to other publike Congregations, but also to the
private meetings of the Separatists and others for resolution.
For thy sake and safety I have published this Treatise,
in which thou maist discerne truth from error, having
their errors set before thee, with the confutation of them
out of the holy Scripture.
OUr Lord and Saviour in his holy Sermon in the
Mount, telling his Disciples of the narrow way that
leadeth unto life: He specially fore-warneth them of
false Prophets: Beware of false Prophets which come to
you in sheeps cloathing, but inwardly they are ravening
Wolves: As if he should say, my deare Disciples, you
hearing of the way to heaven, wil be enquiring after it,
and especially of Prophets. But let me forewarn you of
false Prophets: for instead of directing you, they wil put
you out of the way. False prophets will come, they are
not sent: St. Paul asketh how they can preach except
they be sent? and this standeth with good reason: every
true Minister standeth in Gods roome being the Lords
Embassadour to deliver his will, who dare do this unsent?
No man taketh this honour to himselfe, but he that
is called of God saith my Author to the Hebrews.
But whence come they now, from the Schooles of
the Prophets? no, many of them from mechannicke
Trades: as one from a stable from currying his horses:
another from his stall from cobling his shooes, & these
sit downe in Moses chaire to mend all, as Embassadours
of Jesus Christ, as Heralds of the most high God: these
take upon them to reveale the secrets of Almighty
God, to open and shut heaven, to save mens soules.
But to heare these fellows to discourse of the holy
Trinity, of Gods eternall decree and other deep points
of Divinity: you may heare the mad men in Bedlam
prate as wisely as they: and are not their hearers that
run after them as mad as they? Are they not bewitched?
as St. Paul telleth the Gallatians.
To you that are my Disciples: daily experience sheweth
us whom the Anabaptists, Brownists and other Sectaries
go about to seduce, viz. not Drunkards, Adulterers,
Swearers, and prophane persons whom the Devill
hath ensnared already, but such as are desirous of
heaven. They lead captive saith St. Paul, silly women
who are alwayes learning. They come unto you in sheeps
cloathing: That is, like zealous and holy Christians;
For example, the Divell turneth himselfe into an Angell
of Light: Baals Priests used long prayers: the
blasphemous Arrians as St. Bazill writeth were easily
beleeved because of their counterfeit holinesse.
The Romish seducers pretend great Sanctimony:
the begging Fryers befool'd the Christian world with
their pretended holinesse, with which they varnished
their lewd lives. Generally they come to you with
outward sanctimony, with a seeming contempt of the
world, with long prayers, fasting teares, almes-deeds,
seeming zeale, seeming humility, seeming harmlesnesse,
&c.
They come to you in sheepes cloathing, insinuating
themselves into you under colour of giving you good
counsell: as the Devill their chiefe, councelling our
first Parents to breake Gods Commandement, promised
to make them like God: and tempting Christ
in the wildernesse, promised to give him all the Kingdomes
of the world and the glory of them.
And that you may the better avoid their inchantments,
I will shew you the method they use in deceiving.
As first, they endeavour to separate the sheepe
from their Shepheards, bringing them into contempt
with their people, affirming them to be unprofitable,
unpowerfull, taxing their conversations as prophane,
and doctrine as erroneous: Thus smiting your Shepheards
with their tongues, they draw you to their
Conventicles.
2. To palliate their errors, they pervert the holy
Scriptures, as that Monster Arrius pretended to have
42. places of Scripture against the Deity of Christ, &
this he learnt of his father the Devill, who perverted
part of the 91. Psalme, to tempt our Lord to cast himselfe
downe from the pinacle of the Temple.
And for this cause these Heretickes are enemies to
the ten Commandements, being some of the Law to
the Creed being a briefe of the Gospell, and to the
Lords Prayer, being a perfect forme of Prayer, conteyning
all that can be asked or prayed against, by
which only a simple man may discern any Hereticke,
contradicting any Commandement of the decalogue,
Article of the Faith, and Petition of the Lords Prayer.
And for this cause the Church of Rome teacheth
the Laity them in Latine: and also they leave out part
of the Decalogue in their Catechismes: and for other
Hereticks, some doe null the whole Law, some the
Creed, and others the Lords Prayer, affirming it to
be abhominable.
Againe, whatsoever outward shew they make of
holinesse, they are indeed ravening wolves; Therfore
our Lord biddeth us beware of them: The word beware
precedeth danger. As sheep are in danger among
wolves, so are your soules in danger among false Prophets.
The journey of the Israelites to the earthly Canaan,
was a type of our journey to the heavenly. And did
not one false prophet, Balaam, do them more mischief
in their journey then Og the King of Bashan, Sehon
King of the Amorites, and all their enemies besides?
yea, would the Devill himselfe in his owne likenesse
have been more noxious to the Church of God then
some Hereticks have been? As one Heretick, Arrius,
denying the Deity of Christ, in a manner infected the
whole world.
The like did one other Heretick Eutyches, erring
concerning his humanity, affirming the immensity of
Christs divine nature to have swallowed up his humane.
Now if Christ had not been man, how could

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he have dyed for us sinners? and if not God, how
could he have wrought the salvation of man-kind?
Alas, what danger are we in now, being invironed
with such a multitude of Hereticks? Our Lord telleth
us againe, by their fruits you shall know them: they
pretend that they are led by the Spirit. The workes
of the Spirit St. Paul setteth forth to be love, joy,
peace, long suffering, gentlenesse, goodnesse, faith,
meekenesse, and temperance: If they were led by the
holy Spirit, these would be their characters. But St.
Paul telleth us that in the latter dayes there shall come
men, lovers of their own selves, boasters, proud, cursed
speakers, disobedient to Parents, unthankeful, unholy.
Master Calvin, that admirable man of God, whose
name is yet terrible in the Kingdome of Popery, setteth
down certaine characters of these Impostors, taken
out of St. Augustine:
1. Great boasters, making ostentation of their
owne worth like Simon Magus, who bewitched the
people, saying, that he himselfe was some great man:
like the Gnostikes who had a high conceit of their
own knowledge, as if they were the only knowing
men of the whole world: their common talke is of
their own worth and actions.
2. Superbia tumidi, blown up with pride, and among
us many proud spirits having not these preferments
which they thought themselves worthy of,
have forsaken our Church, and gone to Rome and
Amsterdam.
3. Calumniis insidiosi, deceitfull slanderers: and
in this faculty of all other Sects the Brownists excell:
The Iesuites are not so bitter against our Church as
the Separatists, compare their writings. Michael the
Arch-Angel durst not give the Devill such cursed
speaking, nor raile upon him as they doe upon us and
Gods Church.
4. Treacherously seditious, not preaching peace as
Christ commanded his Disciples to do, but division:
yea, the Brownists arrogate to themselves the name of
Separatists, which well they may, being separated
from their Mother Church, from all the Reformed
Churches, and malitiously divided among themselves.
5. Lest they should seem to be destitute of the light
of truth, they arrogate to themselves the shadow of
austerity and shew of holinesse.
6. Sacrilegious, what the appetite of all Schismaticks
hath bin in this way is notorious, caring not for
the ruine of the whole Church, upon condition that
they might get some-what. They have so taught,
that some thinke there is no such sin as sacriledge at
all.
Our Lord fore-warning us of false prophets, and so
lively describing them, and we having such characters
and markes to know them: Thou understanding the
Decalogue, Creed, and Lords Prayer: if thou be misled,
thy sinne will light upon thine own head. For is
there any man so simple, but can tell when their Doctrines
they reach crosse any of these?
And one thing more will aggravate your defection
before Almighty God, viz. Your Covenant & Oath
wherewith you bound your selves in the presence of
God to suppresse all Errors, Heresies, and Schisme;
God forbid but that you should keep your Covenant

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which we ministred, and you received with great alacrity.
To draw to an end, Epiphanius writeth of the heresies
of his time, calleth his Booke Paenarium, that is,
a medicinable box, containing saving medicaments against
lying doctrine.
The end of my writing is not to hurt any man, but
to give warning to well minded soules, and especially
to them that are entangled with errors, to pray to
God to give them grace to see and renounce their errors,
and to acknowledg the truth, that they may recover
themselves out of the snare of the Devill.
And if my paines shall do any good in the confirmation
of any against seducers, in fore-warning
them to beware of private Conventicles, and to keep
them close to the publike Ministery of the Word and
Communion of Saints in Gods Church, I shall thinke
my labour well bestowed.
The God of peace grant that all they that confesse
his holy Name may agree in the truth of his holy
Word, and liue in unity and godly love, Amen.
So prayeth thine in the Lord,
Old Ephraim Pagitt.