1

all-fufficient Sacrifices of Chrift; to wit, one upon the Cross and one daily upon the Altar: Which is a flat contradiction to the Apostle, who tells us of no offering up of Chrift, but of that one which he once made of himself upon the Crofs. But your Church hath another all-fufficient Sacrifice of him, and of equal Merit in the Mass, not only fufficient to atone God for the Sins and Punishments of the Living, but for the Dead in Purgatory, who are not perfectly and fully purged. But according to our Doctrine, the Sacrament of the Altar is no more than a commemorative or representative Sacrifice in the fight of God made acceptable to him, and effectual to the worthy Receiver for obtaining Remiffion of Sin, and all other Mercies in virtue of, and in conjunction with the one propitiatory Sacrifice upon the Crofs, to which it is myftically united. And in this fenfe we have a true, full, and complete Sacrifice and Sacrament in both kinds; whereas you pretend to have a true Sacrament for the People but in one, contrary to the Doctrine and conftant Practice; and as it appears from thence, to the very Thoughts and Intentions of the Catholick Church for above a thousand Years. I pray God this facrilegious Doctrine of receiving whole Chrift in one kind, as well as the other of Christ's Body and Blood with his whole Soul and Divinity, being truly, really, and fubftantially in the Sacrament, make not both your Sacrifice and Sacrament an Abomination, and Iniquity in the fight of God.

I should also have observed, that at your Altar Chrift there declared to be corporally prefent with his Body, Soul, and Divinity, is as much adored as he is in Heaven: So that in that Prayer which you repeat Thrice, after a piece of the Hoft firft figned Thrice with the fign of the Cross,

Hoftiam confecratam genuflexus adorat.

is put into the Chalice, it is not eafy to difcern to which Chrift you address it, Chrift in Heaven or Chrift upon the Altar; when you fay, O Lamb of God, who takeft away the Sins of the World, bave Mercy upon us No Man alfo can doubt, but when the Canon of the Mafs was made, that the Nature of Bread and Wine remained in them after, as well as before the Confecration, as appears from thofe Prayers: The Perception of thy Body, O Lord Christ, which presume to take, &c. What we receive, O Lord, with our Mouths grant we may receive with a pure Mind; and let thy Body, O Lord, which. I have received, and thy Blood which I have drank adhere to my Bowels: And grant that no blemish of Sin may remain in me, who am refreshed by the Holy Sacraments, who liveft and reigneft for ever. Amen. But, Sir according to the later fuper-induced Doctrine of Transubstantiation, you eat Jefus Christ, to whom you addrefs thefe Prayers, and fwallow him into your Bellies, which is a Reflection I now cannot make without Horror and fome Indignation against your Church. So that ancient Petition of the Church, in which they prayed unto God, That the Elements of Bread and Wine may be [or become] unto us the Body and Blood of thy most dearly beloved Son Jefus Chrift, fhews, that the Doarine of Tranfubftantiation was not then the Doarine of the Church; but that the Body and Blood of Chrift, as in the Prayers above, are to be understood of his Myftical, or Sacramental, and not of his Real Body and Blood, of which the Church then had no Notion. do sved otin Man I 1. Sing you fee I have diligently compared the Doarine and Practice of your Church and ours, and brought them, as wellas ham able, to the Teft of Scripture and Chriftian Antiquity, of which the ་་

It was usual in the ancient Writers of the Church, to call the Bread in the Plural Number à frapusnea, the Holy Sacraments.

New Testament is the most primitive and authentick Record. Suffer me therefore to go on firft to the number of the Sacraments, which in the large Theological fenfe of the word Sacrament, as it is used in the Latin, and answers to Mystery în the Greek Church, fhe acknowledges to be many; and hath no difference with you about the number of Sacraments in that large Sense of the Word, wherein it is taken for an holy or religious Sign or Symbol; which mystically exhibits one thing to Senfe, and another to the Understanding. In this Senfe there are many Sacraments or Myfteries. But our Church with great Judgment and Propriety of Speech, according to the Doctrine of the Scriptures, hath reftricted the Word to its moft fpecial and eminent Senfe; in which as it fignifies holy, fœderal, outward Signs or Symbols of inward fpiritual Grace and Favour, inftituted by God in the Christian Church, as ordinary means of Grace and Salvation generally neceflary for all Men. And in this special strict Sense of the word, the owns only two Sacraments or Myfteries, Baptifm and the Lord's-Supper, and thereby diftinguishes the other Five, commonly called Sacraments, from thofe Two, as they ought to be diftinguished; because they are not Sacraments of the fame Dignity, viz. Holy Signs of the Covenant betwixt God and his Church, nor generally neceffary for all, as the other Two are, and binding to all in point of Duty; though God is not fo tyed to them, as he cannot act without them: They do not limit and confine him, who in cafes of true and abfolute Neceffity can give his Grace, both his pardoning and fanctifying Grace without them. I fay in true, and abfolute Neceffity, when all diligence on our part be ing used, we cannot have them, as in the cafe of Infants, whom dying unbaptized you exclude from Heave

K 4

Thus,

Thus, Sir, I have been taught by our Church, and her learned Divines, to understand the diffe rent Nature and Ufe of the Two Sacraments, or myftical fœderal Rites, from the other Five, which your Church makes to be true and proper Sacraments, of equal Dignity with the other Two. But I have been better inftructed in the Nature of every one of them.

As, First, of Orders or Ordination, which they hold to be facred, and neceffary, by divine appointment, for the Miniftry of the Church, and that whoever climbs up into the Fold without them, let his Gifts be never fo great, is a Thief and a Robber. And as our Ordinations are deriyed by continued Succeffion from the Apostles, so are they performed after the primitive Apoftolical manner, according to the Scriptures, by folemn Prayer and Impofition of Hands, without any of your new Mixtures, as the Cup and Patin, or the Benediction: In which the Bishop prays, that the Perfon ordained may be bleffed in the Prieftly Office, and offer propitiatory Sacrifices to Almighty God for the Sins of the People. Thefe additions you make Effential to the Ordination of a Priest, though but of late Original, as fome of your learned Writers are forced to confefs. I am unwilling to put you in mind of the Slander you raised of our Church, by the Fiction of the Nag's-Head Ordination, which fome of your Priefts are not yet afham'd to tell as a Truth,

Another of your Sacraments is Confirmation which tho' we believe it to be an Apoftolical Rite and Inftitution, which ought to be obferved in all Churches; and accordingly our Church hath a particular Office appointed for it, and our Bishops duly adminifter it with great Reverence, by Prayer and Impofition of Hands upon the baptized, when they are come to years of Difcretion, and are. Fightly infructed and prepared.

As to Penitence, or folemn penitential Confeffion, which you reckon among the Sacraments, our Church recommends it to Confciences troubled with the sense of their Sins. She holds it as requifite as Phyfick for the Sick, and thinks the minifterial Power of abfolving humble, and truly contrite Penitents a part of the Prieftly Office; and enjoins her Priests to abfolve fuch, according to the Power which our Lord Jefus Chrift hath left to his Church: But fhe appoints no Pœnitentiaries for auricular Confeffion, which with great reason, the difallows.

Matrimony we allow to be a Myftery, or Sacrament in the large Senfe of the Word, as it is taken for any facred Symbol, because it fignifies unto us the Mystical Union that is betwixt Chrift and his Church Who is pleased to call her his Bride, and Spouse, and himself her Bridegroom. And by his Love, and myftical Marriage-union with her, teacheth us the Holiness of the Marriageftate, and Husbands and Wives their mutual Duty to one another.

As to Extreme Unction, another of your Sacraments fo called, our Church at the beginning of the Reformation, reduced the great Abufe of it to anointing the fick Perfon with Oyl, according to Mark xvi. 13. and James v. 14. ordering the Priest, if the fick Perfon defire it, to anoint him on the Forehead or Breaft, only making the Sign of the Crofs; and to proceed to a devout Prayer for the

a

fick

The Order of the Vifitation of the Sick in the Book of CommonPrayer, fet forth in 1549. to be used throughout England.

RUBRIC K.

if the fick Perfon defire to be anointed, then fhall the Prieft anoint him upon the Forehead, or Breaft, only making the Sign of the Crofs, faying thus.

As with this vifible Oyl thy Body outwardly is anointed; fo our Heavenly Father, Almighty God, grant of his infinite Goodness, that thy Soul inwardly may be anointed by the Holy Ghost, who is the