or that any worship was to be paid to them; and the same has been confessed by others of no less note of that Church, Vasquez, Lorinus, Azorius, and even by his own Visorius, whom he has before alleged, but is not pleased to take notice of on this occasion.

But here our author supposes he has something to boast of; for if we may believe him, our own great defender of this charge has given up the cause as to this matter, and confessed that it was lawful to worship towards an image (p. 130), but not to give worship to one. This is, I fear, a wilful perverting of that learned man's words. The question was about the "Jews' adoration towards the ark, and the holy of holies." His answer is this, "that they only directed their worship towards the place where God had promised to be signally present among them, which," says he, "signifies no more to the worship of images, than lifting up our eyes to heaven doth when we pray, because God is more especially present there." What is there in all this, to allow it to be lawful to give worship towards an image, but not to it? Nay, he plainly denied that there were any images for worship there, or any worship directed towards them. But there was a symbol of God's immediate presence as on his throne between the cherubim, and this appointed by God himself, and thither the people directed their worship; and I desire this author, if he can, to tell me what there was more in this, than there is in directing our worship towards heaven, when we pray and whether, according to his true and only notion of idolatry, he may not as well say, that we worship Apis, or Baal, or Moloch, i. e. the sun, moon, and stars, in this, as that the Jews worshipped the cherubim by that?

Nor is there any more sincerity in what he calls his second reply, and in which he represents him as allowing "that the cherubim might be adored once a year by the high priest, but not exposed to the people to worship." For in that For in that very place he denies the cherubim to have been any representations of God: but says, "that his throne was between them on the mercy seat;" and adds in plain words, "that they were never intended for objects of worship." And yet this author insults and triumphs upon this in a very glorious manner, as if the cause had been gained by it. Had that learned man said, "that the high priest adored the cherubim once a year,” then indeed there might have been some colour for those sweet expressions of shameless shifts and pretences. But this he

utterly denied, and he might as well have made him confess it to be lawful to worship images, though he disputed against it, and have brought him in allowing that it was no idolatry so to do, as to represent him confessing that the "high priest adored the cherubim once every year." But what defence can there be against such adversaries, as will make men confess what they reject, and affirm what they deny; and yet when they have done, dare to appeal both to God and the world for their sincerity?

And now from what has been said, I will venture to conclude in behalf of our Church, and of those learned men of our communion, who have been concerned in this controversy, that the notion of idolatry which both the one teaches, and the others have defended, is, after all this author's clamours against it, neither new nor unlearned, nor fanatical, nor anticatholic, nor anti-Christian, nor any of those ill things he pretends; but the truly ancient, learned, and catholic notion of it. The notion which God in his holy Word has established; which the Jews received; the Apostles taught, and the Christian Church till these latter days, that men's interest prompted them to seek out to themselves new inventions, constantly maintained. It was by this notion that St. Paul censured the worship of the golden calf as idolatrous, and condemned the Gentile world of the same crime, Rom. i. 21, 23: "That though they knew God, yet they did not glorify him as God, but changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like unto corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things."

This was the notion that made our forerunners in the faith choose rather to suffer martyrdom, than to give religious worship to any creature whatsoever. And whatever this author thinks of those primitive saints, I am confident he will find but very few besides, that will believe they sacrificed their lives to their folly and passion, and died only to defend a mistaken notion of idolatry.

It was this notion upon which the ancient Fathers condemned the Arians of idolatry; they did not believe Christ to be either the sun or moon, or any other visible or corporeal Deity, or the image of the supreme and invisible Godhead. They believed him to be the most divine and excellent being after God, only they denied that he was co-eternal and co-equal with the Father; and yet those holy, orthodox Fathers censured them as idolaters, because supposing him to be a creature, they worshipped him as a God.

And upon the very same notion it is that the Reformed Churches have ever looked upon the worship of images and saints in the Church of Rome, as deserving the very same censure; and I cannot but wonder that this author should charge the invention of this notion upon a person now living, which he must needs have known both our Church and the writers of it have constantly asserted, before any of this generation ever saw the light.

I should now add somewhat in answer to those bitter reflections he has made upon the same reverend person, whom he seems to have resolved at any rate to run down: but though the charge be severe, yet it is so inartificially laid, as plainly shews there was no Ahithophel in the contrivance; and I will only say, that whoso shall consider the little credit he had in those days, to which this author refers, with them whom himself looks upon as the contrivers and managers of that plot which he would be thought to lay to his charge, will soon discover a great deal of ill-will utterly ruined, for want of a little skill in the management of it.

But we ought not to wonder, if he who in the beginning of his discourse flew out into such violence against all the abettors of this charge, as a company of fanatic, antimonarchical villains, has in the close thought fit to fix some particular marks of his displeasure upon the last and most learned assertor of it. This was the least he could do to make amends for the misfortune of approving and licensing that very book which was written in defence of this charge. And it is well for us that there are some men in the world, who, as Ulpian tells us, can do no injury, sive pulsent sive convicium dicant.

How far this author may be reckoned in the number of these, I shall leave the final result of his judgment in this case to satisfy the world, viz. "That idolatry made the plot, and the plot made idolatry, and the same persons made both." For whether this can be the result of any man's judgment that is well in his head, I shall leave it to those who have no distempers there to determine.

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But he has delivered himself, "as he will answer for his integrity to God and the world." To this judgment I now leave him and though I fear it to be too late to provide against the sentence of the last, yet I heartily pray he may consider what he has done, and how he will stand in judgment before the other.

BOOK II.

THE WORSHIP OF THE CHURCH OF ROME JUSTLY CONDEMNED AS TO THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS.

A DISCOURSE OF THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS.

THE Sacrifice of the Mass is the most considerable part of worship in the Roman Church; it is their Juge sacrificium, their daily and continual offering, and the principal thing in which their religion does consist; it is, they tell us, of the greatest profit and advantage to all persons, and I am sure their priests make it so to themselves; for by this alone a great number of them get their livings, by making merchandise of the holy sacrament, and by selling the blood of Christ at a dearer rate than Judas once did. The saying of masses keeps the Church of Rome more priests in pay, than any prince in Christendom can maintain soldiers; and it has raised more money by them, than the richest bank or exchequer in the world was ever owner of; it is indeed the truest patrimony of their Church, and has enriched it more than any thing else; it was that which founded their greatest monasteries, and their abbeys, and it had well nigh brought all the estates of this kingdom into the Church, had not the statutes of Mortmain put a check to it; the donation of Constantine, were it never so true, and the grants of Charles and Pepin, were they never so large, and the gifts of all their benefactors put together, are infinitely outdone by it; the gain of it has been so manifestly great, that one cannot but upon that account a little suspect its godliness, but yet if it could fairly be made out to be a true part of religion, it were by no means to be rejected for that accidental though shameful abuse of it; it is accounted by them the greatest, and the most useful and comfortable part of Christian worship, and if it be so, it is a great defect in us that want it; they charge us very high for being without it, without a sacrifice, which no religion (they tell us) in the world ever

was before. And one amongst them of great learning, and some temper in other things, yet upon this occasion asks, "whether it can be doubted, where there is no sacrifice there can be any religion?* We, on the other side, account it a very great corruption of the Eucharist, to turn that which is a sacrament to be received by us, into a sacrifice to be offered to God; and there being no foundation for any such thing in Scripture, but the whole ground of it being an error and mistake, as we shall see anon, and it being a most bold and daring presumption to pretend properly to sacrifice Christ's body again, which implies no less than to murder and crucify him; we therefore call it a blasphemous fable,† and as it is made use of to deceive people into the vain hopes of receiving benefit by the communion without partaking of it, and a true pardon of sin by way of price and recompense is attributed to it, and it is made as truly propitiatory as Christ's sacrifice upon the cross, both for the dead and living, and for that purpose is scandalously bought and sold, so that many are hereby cheated not only of their money, but of their souls too, it is to be feared, who trust too much to this easy way of having a great many masses said for them, and because when the priest pretends to do those two great things in the mass, to turn the bread and wine into the very substance of Christ's body and blood, and then to offer Christ up again to his Father as truly as he offered himself upon the cross (which are as great as the greatest works which ever God did at the very creation and redemption of the world), yet that he really does no such thing as he then vaunts and boasts of: for these reasons we deem it no less than a dangerous deceit.‡

These are high charges on both sides, and it concerns those who make them to be well assured of the grounds of them. And here I cannot but passionately resent the sad state of Christianity, which will certainly be very heavy upon those who have been the cause of it, when the corruptions of it are so great, and the divisions so wide about that which is one of the most sacred and the most useful parts of it, the blessed Eucharist which is above any other the most sadly depraved and perverted, as if the devil had hereby shewn his utmost malice and

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An dubitari potest, ubi nullum peculiare Sacrificium, ibi ne Religionem quidem esse posse? Canus in loc. Theol. 1. 12. p. 813. + See Article 31 of the 39 Articles of Religion.

See Article 31 of the 39 Articles of Religion.