fick Perfon, a Practice, I confefs, which I have Heard fome learned and pious Divines with had not been finee left out of the Office for the Vifitation of the Sick. But then, as your Church is guilty of many abuses, so particularly of perverting the Ufe of this Ceremony; not in anointing the Sick for bodily Health, but the Dying, of whofe Life there is no hope, as a Viand to them who are departing out of the World; for which there is no ground in Scripture, nor in the practice of the ancient Church.

As for Miracles, of which I have heard much among you, we hold them not neceffary to the Church, having the powerful Evidence of former Miracles, and the Teftimony of fo many holy Martyrs and Confellors, and the written Word of God, which we think fufficient Reafons and Motives of Belief; and that the Faith of those who have believed without Miracles, fince Miracles ceased, hath a partiêular Testimony of approbation and acceptance from his bleffed Mouth; who faid unto St. Thomas,

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Spirit of all Strength, Relief, and Gladness. And vouchsafe for bis great Mercy (if it be his bleed Will) to restore unto thee thy bodily Health and Strength to ferve him, and fend thee release of all by Pains, Troubles, and Difeafes, both in Body and Mind. And how foever bis Goodness (by his divine and unfearchable Providence ) fball difpofe of thee: We his unworthy Minifters and Servants, humbly befeech the eternal Majefty to do with thee according to the Multitude of his innumerable Mercies, and to pardon thee all thy Sins and Offences, committed by all thy bodily Senfes, Paffions, and carTab Affections: Who alfo vouchsafe mercifully to grant unto thee ghoftly Strength by his holy Spirit, to withstand, and overcome all Temptations, and Affaults of thine Adverfary, that in no wife he prevail against thee; but that thou mayeft have perfect Victory and Triumph against the Devil, Sin, and Death, through Christ our Lord who by his Death bath overcome the Prince of Death, and with the Father and the Holy Ghost, evermore liveth and reigneth God, World without end. Amen. So in the celebration of the Holy. Communion for the Sick, there is this Rubrick: And if the Sick defire to be anointed, then fhall the Prieft ufe the appointed Prayer without any Pfalm

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who would not believe without feeing, Bleffed are they, who have not feen and yet have believed. However if you, who talk fo much of your Miracles, will work beneficial and lafting Miracles among us; if you'll feed five Thousand of us with a few Loaves, and a few Fishes, if you'll Cure all Difea-i fes, give Sight to the Blind, make the Lame Walk, and Raise the Dead; and do thefe Wonders openly in the places of publick Concourfe, in our Streets and Piazza's, at the Gates of our Cities and Temples, and in the Highways; if you'll fpeak ftrange Languages, and Prophefie, and caft out Devils, and fhew thefe miraculous Powers and Gifts in heretical, and other fchifmatical Countries, then we will believe your Church to be the Holy Catholick Church; or if we do not, then shake off the Duft of your Feet as a Testimony against us, and Seal us up' in Unbelief. But Miracles, Sir, pretended to be wrought among your felves, only in your own Churches and Cloysters, and among the Ignorant, Credulous, and Superftitious; and those who already believe your Shrine-cures and Crucifix-cures, your fweating and bleeding Images, the Concep tion of your Women by virtue of St. Francis's Cor don, your Terefian Visions, and fuch like pretended Wonders among you, will never make us believe your Church to be the true, or only true Church to be the Mother and Mistress of all Churches; the Church, which is the Centre of Ecclefiaftical Communion, that infufeth Unity, the Form of Univerfality into all other Churches, who are no otherwife to be called Catholick but by participation and agreement in Doctrine and Worship with her, and Subjection to her Head, the Pope. Sir, the English Proteftants will never believe thefe, and your other incredible Doctrines upon the fight, or report of fuch pretended local Miracles among you, but rather harden them in their Herefy and Schifm, which you fo frankly lay to their charge.3

Next to your Miracles, you are wont to boast of your wonderful Converfions of Nations by your MifLoners: But how, or to what did you convert them? • You converted a great part of the Christians of St. Thomas, in the Eaft-Indies, by most cruel and barbarous Perfecutions, forcing them against their Confciences, to embrace your Religion, and come into the Communion of your Church. And if thefe, and all your Perfecutions, and the Havock you have made of God's People in them were computed, I fear it would appear, you have not converted more (I should have faid perverted) than you have detroyed. Mar Abraham and Mar Jofeph, as well as Cyril Lucar among the Greeks, will rife up in Judgment against you: And in the mean time the Blood fhed by you in Malabar, as well as in the Western World, will cry for Vengeance, and haften that terrible Day, when for fhedding the Blood of the Saints, God fhall give you Blood to drink.

I have alfo heard, that among the Chineses you are wont to reprefent Jefus Chrift to them as a great Hero, and not as a poor crucified Man; who proved himself to be God, and the Saviour of the World, by his Refurrection from the Dead. You there alfo, as I am told, allow your Converts to worship CONFUSIUS with Christ, and that you fet up their, and your Images together. Nor do you give the Nations under the Rising Sun, the pure Doctrines of the Gofpel, by which Heathens of old were converted; but fuch as the corrupt Gofpel of Hieronymus Xaverius, a Jefuit of Bifcay, which he made up of falfe, ridiculous, idolatrous, and other impious Mixtures, without mentioning the Inftituti

Of these barbarous Persecutions there is a good account given in a late excellent French Book, printed at Roterdam, 1707. with this Title, Differtations Hiftoriques fur divers fujets.

See a fhort and clear account of the Perfecutions of the Chriftians of St. Thomas. Monumens Authentiques de la Religion des Grecs. p. 8o.

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on of the Holy Eucharift, because he durft not expofe your abfurd Doctrine of Tranfubftantiation, which is fo contrary to the obvious figurative Sense of the words of its Inftitution. Thus you would be wiser than God; you would not trust to him in preaching the pure uncontaminate Gofpel to the Orientals, though by the Foolishness of it he confounded the Wisdom of the Greeks and Romans, who were as bright People as any the Eaft can fhew. But your Missioners took another courfe than the Miffioners of Chrift did; they would not trust to the Foolishness of God, which is wifer, and to the Weakness of God, which is ftronger than Men, but to their own human Politicks and Inventions. And I appeal to your Confcience, Sir, whether their Converfions are like thofe of the Apostles, unto the pure Faith of. the crucified Jefus, whom God hath made both Lord and Chrift. In fhort, Sir, your Conversion of other Christians is a mere Perverfion, and thofe you have converted from Heathenifm to your Religion, have need again to be converted to the true Catholick and Apoftolick Faith, which was once delivered to the Saints. In the West-Indies you were much more intent upon killing than converting, having had more mind to the Gold of the Natives of the Islands and Continents, than to their Conversion; and to plunder their Treasures, than to fave their Souls. In HiSpaniola the Spaniards reduced 3 Millions of innocent People to lefs than 300. They made the rich Island of Cuba, and many other Islands intirely defert; and in the Continent they ruined Ten Kingdoms bigger than all Spain, by moft barbarous and unheard of Cruelties. Don Barthol. de las Cafas, Bishop of Chiaba, relates all these inhumane Butcheries and Rapines, who was an Eye-witness of them; and Spain the most Roman Catholick of all Countries, is ftill in Debt to Divine Vengeance for these monstrous Cruelties, which no Man who is

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not abandon'd to Humanity, can read, relate, or hear without Horror.

You are also wont to object, that we have a Parliamentary Church, and a Parliamentary Religion, for no other Reason that I know, but because our Kings by their Acts in Parliament have confirmed the Reformation, and added the Civil Sanction to the Acts of the Church. For the fame Reafon your Church in the Realms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, was a Parliamentary Church, and your Religion a Parliamentary Religion before the Reformation: And you would be very glad to have it acknowledged, and established again in these Kingdoms by Acts of Parliament, as it was here in Queen Mary's Days. You alfo reproach us with owning the King to be the Head of the Church, which you fhould not do, were it true; because your Bishops and Clergy in their Act of Submission, first owned King Henry VIII. to be fo before the Reformation. But tho' your Bishops did, we do not own the King to be the Head of the Church, but the fupreme Governor over all Perfons, Ecclefiaftical as well as Civil: Or if you please, we own our Kings and Queens too to be the fupreme Civil Governors, or external Heads of the Church, under God, to protect and defend her, and fee that her Bishops and Priests do their Duties, to which God hath called and appointed them in the Church; and to coerce them by Civil Cenfures and Punishments, when they fail in their Duty; and to make the Canons of the Church, when they please, Statutes of the Realm, and to exact Laws for the external Regulation of Religion, as Conftantine, the firft Chriftian Emperor did; who therefore called himfelf the external Bishop of the Church in the Roman Empire. And if any of our Princes chance, at any time, to affume a greater Power and Authority in Matters Ecclefiaftical than is meet, Sovereign Princes and States, within the Pale of your Church,

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