the people, and celebrating the service of God in an unknown tongue; the doctrine of an implicit faith, and abfolute refignation of their judgments to their teachers : thefe do all directly tend to keep the people in ignorance, and to bring them to a blind obedience to the dictates of their teachers. So likewife the neceffity of the intention of the priest to the faving virtue and efficacy of the facraments; by which doctrine, the people do upon the matter depend as much upon the good-will of the priest, as upon the mercy of God, for their falvation. But, above all, their doctrine of the neceffity of auricular and private confeffion of all mortal fins committed after baptifm, with all the circumftances of them, to the priest; and this not only for the ease and direction of their confciences, but as a neceffary condition of having their fins pardoned and forgiven by God: by which means they make themselves masters of all the fecrets of the people, and keep them in awe by the knowledge of their faults: Scire volunt fecreta domus, atque inde timeri. Or elfe their doctrines tend to filthy lucre, and the enriching of their church: as their doctrines of purgatory and indulgences, and their prayers and maffes for the dead, and many more doctrines and practices of the like kind, plainly do.

10. Our religion is free from all difingenuous and difhonest arts of maintaining and fupporting itself. Such are, clipping of ancient authors, nay, and even the authors and writers of their own church, when they speak too freely of any point; as may be feen in their indices expurgatorii, which, much against their wills, have been. brought to light. To which I fhall only add these three grofs forgeries, which lie all at their doors, and they cannot deny them to be fo.

Ift, The pretended canon of the council of Nice in the cafe of appeals, between the church of Rome and the African church: upon which they infifted a great while very confidently, till at laft they were convinced by authentick copies of the canons of that council.

2dly, Conftantine's donation to the Pope, which they kept a great ftir with, till the forgery of it was difcovered.

3dly, The decretal epiftles of the ancient Popes; a

large

Ser. 63. large volume of forgeries compiled by Ifidore Mercator, to countenance the ufurpations of the Bishop of Rome; and of which the church of Rome made a great use for feveral ages, and pertinacioufly defended the authority of them, till the learned men of their own church have at laft been forced for very fhame to difclaim them, and to confefs the impofture of them. A like inftance whereto is not I hope to be fhewn in any Christian church. This is that which St. Paul calls nubeia, the fleight of men, fuch as gamefters ufe at dice; for to alledge falfe and forged authors in this cafe, is to play with falfe dice, when the falvation of mens fouls lies at ftake.

II. Our religion has this mighty advantage, that it doth not decline trial and examination, which to any man of ingenuity muft needs appear a very good fign of an honest cause; but if any church be fhy of having her religion examined, and her doctrines and practices brought into the open light, this gives juft ground of fufpicion that fhe hath some distruft of them; for truth doth not feek corners, nor fhun the light. Our Saviour hath told us who they are that love darkness rather than light, viz. they whofe deeds are evil: for every one (faith he) that doth evil, hateth the light; neither cometh he to the light, left his deeds fhould be reproved, and made manifest. There needs no more to render a religion fufpected to a wife man, than to fee those who profefs it, and make fuch proud boafts of the truth and goodness of it, fo fearful that it fhould be examined and looked into, and that their people should take the liberty to hear and read what can be faid against it.

12. We perfuade men to our religion by human and Christian ways, fuch as our Saviour and his Apostles ufed, by urging men with the authority of God, and with arguments fetched from another world; the promife of eternal life and happiness, and the threatening of eternal death and mifery; which are the proper arguments of religion, and which alone are fitted to work upon the minds and confciences of men. The terror and torture of death may make men hypocrites, and awe them to profefs with their mouths what they do not believe in their hearts; but this is no proper means of converting the foul, and convincing the minds and confciences

fciences of men. And thefe violent and cruel ways cannot be denied to have been practifed in the church of Rome, and fet on foot by the authority of councils, and greatly countenanced and encouraged by Popes themfelves. Witness the many croifades for the extirpation of hereticks, the standing cruelties of their inquifition, their occafional maffacres and perfecutions; of which we have fresh instances in every age.

But these methods of converfion are a certain fign, that they either distrust the truth and goodness of their caufe, or elfe that they think truth, and the arguments for it, are of no force, when dragoons are their ratio ultima, the last reafon which their caufe relies upon, and the best and most effectual it can afford.

Again, we hold no doctrines in defiance of the fenfes of all mankind; fuch as is that of transubstantiation, which is now declared in the church of Rome to be a neceffary article of faith; fo that a man cannot be of that religion, unless he will renounce his fenfes, and believe against the clear verdict of them in a plain fenfible matter. But, after this, I do not understand how a man can believe any thing; because, by this very thing, he detroys and takes away the foundation of all certainty. If any man forbid me to believe what I fee, I forbid him to believe any thing, upon better and furer evidence. St. Paul faith, that faith cometh by bearing. But if I cannot. rely upon the certainty of fenfe, then the means whereby faith is conveyed is uncertain; and we may fay as St. Paul doth in another cafe, then is our preaching vain, and your faith alfo is vain.

13. Lastly, (to mention no more particulars), as to feveral things ufed and practifed in the church of Rome, we are on much the safer fide, if we should happen to be mistaken about them, than they are, if they fhould be mistaken for it is certainly lawful to read the fcriptures, and lawful to permit to the people the ufe of the fcriptures in a known tongue; otherwife we must condemn the Apostles and the primitive church for allowing this liberty. It is certainly lawful to have the publick prayers and fervice of God celebrated in language which all that join in it can understand. It is certainly lawful to adminifter the facrament of the Lord's fupper to the peoVOL. IV. M

ple

ple in both kinds; otherwife the Christian church would not have done it for a thousand years. It is certainly Jawful not to worship images, not to pray to angels, or faints, or the bleffed virgin; otherwife the primitive church would not have forborn thefe practices for three hundred years, as is acknowledged by thofe of the church of Rome.

Suppofe a man fhould pray to God only, and offer up all his prayers to him only by Jefus Chrift, without making mention of any other mediator or interceffor with God for us, relying herein upon what the Apoftle fays concerning our High Priest, Jefus the Son of God, Heb. vii. 25. that he is able to fave them to the uttermoft, who come unto God by him, (i. e. by his mediation and interceffion), fince he ever liveth to make interceffion for them; might not a man reasonably hope to obtain of God all the bleffings he ftands in need of, by addreffing himself only to him in the name and by the interceffion of that one Mediator between God and men, the man Chrift Fefus? Nay, why may not a man reasonably think, that this is both a fhorter and more effectual way to obtain our requests, than by turning ourselves to the angels and faints, and importuning them to folicit God for us; efpecially if we fhould order the matter so, as to make ten times more frequent addreffes to these, than we do to God and our bleffed Saviour; and, in comparison of the other, to neglect these? We cannot certainly think any more able to help us, and do us good, than the great God of heaven and earth, the God (as the Pfalmift styles him) that heareth prayers, and therefore unto him should all flesh come. We cannot certainly think any interceffor fo. powerful and prevalent with God, as his only and dearly beloved Son, offering up our prayers to God in heaven, by virtue of that moft acceptable and invaluable facrifice which he offered to him on earth. We cannot furely think, that there is fo much goodness any where as in God; that in any of the angels or faints, or even in the bleffed mother of our Lord, there is more mercy and compaffion for finners, and a tenderer fenfe of our infirmities, than in the Son of God, who is at the right hand of his Father, to appear in the prefence of God for us. We are fure, that God always hears the petitions which

we

we put up to him; and fo does the Son of God, by whom we put them up to the Father, becaufe he alfo is God blef fed for evermore. But we are not fure that the angels and faints hear our prayers, becaufe we are fure that they are neither omnifcient nor omniprefent; and we are not fure, nor probably certain, that our prayers are made known to them any other way, there being no revelation of God to that purpofe. We are fure, that God hath declared himself to be a jealous God, and that he will not give his honour to another; and we are not fure but that prayer is part of the honour which is due to God alone: and if it were not, we can hardly think but that God fhould be fo far from being pleased with our making fo frequent ufe of thofe other mediators and interceffors, and from granting our defires the fooner upon that account; that, on the contrary, we have reafon to think he fhould be highly offended, when he himself is ready to receive all our petitions, and hath appointed a great Mediator to that purpose, to fee more addreffes made to, and by the angels and faints, and bleffed virgin, than to himself by his bleffed Son; and to fee the worship of himself almost joftled out, by the devotion of people to faints and angels, and the bleffed mother of our Lord: A thing which he never commanded, and which, fo far as appears by fcripture, never came into his mind. I have been the longer upon this matter, to fhew how unreasonable, and needlefs at the best, this more than half part of the religion of the church of Rome is, and how fafely it may be let alone.

But now, on the other hand, if they be mistaken in these things, as we can demonstrate from fcripture they are, the danger is infinitely great on that fide: for then they oppose an institution of Chrift, who appointed the facrament to be received in both kinds; and they involve themselves in a great danger of the guilt of idolatry, and our common Christianity in the scandal and reproach of it; and this without any neceffity, fince God hath required none of these things at our hands: and after all the bustle which hath been made about them, the utmoft they pretend, (which yet they are not able to make good), is, that these things may lawfully be done; and, at the fame time, they cannot deny, but that, if the church had