Had they that compofed this Prayer believed any thing of Tranfubftantiation, they would have faid, (and could not have faid other ways, if they faid any thing of this matter) Almighty God, behold here, before me upon thy Altar, lies thy only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, by my Sacrifice unto Thee: that very Chrift, who is at thy right hand, I now take into my hands to prefent unto thy Majefty, under the Form of Bread and Wine. Him thou canst not reject, nor me his Priest, who offer Him unto Thee, &c. Or fome fuch like words, more befitting their prefent Notions, than defiring an Angel may carry what the Prieft offers, and prefent it unto GOD.

But we find quite contrary, which is the last thing I fhall obferve, that in conclufion, the Priest acknowledges, that by Christ Jesus God always creates, and fanctifies, and quickens, and bleffes (making a Cross upon the Hoft and the Chalice, at every one of thofe three last words,) all thefe good things. Which can be meant of nothing but the Bread and Wine confecrated to the Commemoration and Representation of Christ's Body and Blood facrificed for us. For Chrift's own very natural Body and Blood cannot in any tolerable fence, be faid to be continually created and quickned or made alive: unless you will fuppofe him to have been dead before, nay, not to have been at all. For Creation implies the thing not to have been; and Vivification, not to have been then alive, when it was quickned.

Yet this fancy, of Chrift's Real Prefence in the Sacrament, by Tranfubftantiation, against which there are fuch numerous Teftimonies in their own Communion-Service, is now become the main Article of their Religion. For we all know

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to our great grief and aftonishment, that when the publick Authority of this Realm was on their fide, fubfcription was not urged to any Article of their Religion, upon fuch violent and bloody terms, as unto this of the Real Prefence. The Mystery of which iniquity, as a great Man of our own faid, in the Age before us, cannot be better refolved than into the powerful and deceitful working of Satan; who delights thus to do despite to our Lord, and to his Religion; by feducing his profeffed Subjects into a belief of fuch things as make them and Him ridiculous unto Unbelievers; and ingage them in the worst kind of Rebellion, he could imagine, by worfhipping Bread and Wine instead of their Saviour and all this upon the leaft Occafions and fhalloweft Reasons.

ВЧТ

SECT. XIII.

Other Inftances of it.

UT befides these plain confeffions of that Church against it felf, there are many other things, (which I fhall but juft name) wherein we have the teftimony of feveral of their own learned Men (ready to be produced) for our, and against their belief: proving clearly, that the present is not the old Religion of that Church; but that they have brought into it many Innovations by adding to the Canonical Books of Scripture; by making their vulgar Latin Tranflation of the Bible (about which they themselves cannot agree) authentical; by forbidding the People

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to read the Holy Scriptures in their own Language; and by denying them the Publick Prayers in a Language they understand; by giving the Pope, not only a new Title of universal Bishop, but an Authority and Jurifdiction, which was never heard of for ma ny Ages, by increafing the number of Sacraments, and altering their Nature; by taking away the Cup from the People; and turning the Sacrament of Chrift's Body and Blood into a proper expiatory Sacrifice, by celebrating the Eucharift without any Body to communicate; by fetting up Images in Churches, and ordaining Religious Worship to be given them; by invocating Saints and Angels; (as was faid before,) and by the Doctrine of Purgatory and Indulgences, and many other; together with a vast number of strange ceremonies, in making HolyWater, confecrating Bells, &c. For which no Antiquity can be pretended.

The woful effect of which is this (if we may speak the plain Truth) that by preffing upon Mens Belief a great deal too much, and placing great vertue in trifles, they have tempted Men to believe nothing at all. As is apparent from hence; that where and when (as an excellent Writer of our own fpeaks) this Religion hath most abfolutely commanded, there and then Atheism or Infidelity hath most abounded. And how fhould it do otherwife? when, as he obferves, fo many lying Legends have been obtruded upon Mens belief, and fo many false Miracles forged to justifie them, as are very likely to make fufpicious Men queftion the Truth of all: And fo many weak and frivolous ceremonies devised and fuch abundance of ridiculous obfervances in Religion introduced, as are no less apt to beget a fecret contempt and fcorn of it in witty Men:

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and confequently Atheism and Impiety; if they have this perfuafion fetled in their mind (which is endeavoured to be rooted in them from their Child-hood) that if they be not of that Religion, they were as good be of none at all: And when a great part alfo of the Doctrines now mentioned, fo apparently make for the temporal ends of those who teach them; that fagacious Men can scarce forbear thinking, they were on purpose devised to serve thofe defigns: That particular Doctrine alfo of Transubstantiation being fo portentous, that joined with the forenamed Perfwasion of no Papifts, no Chriftians, it hath in all probability brought more than Averroes to this refolution; fince Chriftians eat that which they adore, let my Soul be among the Philofophers: And lastly, the pretence which is fo common, that there is no ground to believe the Scriptures, but their Churches infallibility; and yet no ground to believe their Churches infallibility, but fome Texts of Scripture; being too plain a way to lead those who difcern the labyrinth wherein they are, to believe neither Church nor Scripture.

SECT. XIV.

Whereby they have spoiled Chriftianity as the Pagans did the natural Religion.

HESE things, which have been already

the conviction of thofe who are capable of it, I repeat here again; because they seem to me very

powerful for the prefervation of those, who are not already tainted, or too far gone in that delufion. Which is fo great, (that to fum up all belonging to this Head) we may fafely fay, Popery is juft fuch a depravation of the true Chriftian Religion, as Paganism was of the Natural Religion. There cannot be a righter conception of it, than this; which appears too plainly, in the abfurd Doctrines and Opinions, which they have mingled with the Chriftian Faith; in their multiplied Superftitions; in their fabulous Relations of the Saints, wherein they have furpaffed the very Poets themselves; and (to pass by the reft) in their proftrating themfelves before Images: and giving Religious Worship to Men departed.

Which laft inftance furnished the Pagans. of Cochin with this anfwer to the Jefuits (as Chrif. Borrus, one of that Order, relates) when they pressed upon them the belief of one God, and no more. We do believe it faid they; but those whom you fee us worship in their Images, were Men of great Sanctity; whom pious People therefore worship according to their merit, just as you give to the Apostles and Martyrs and Confeffors divers degrees of honour and religious fervice, as you know them to have excelled in virtue and piety. And that they might confirm this to be their sense of the Divinity, they bid the Jefuits obferve one part of the Altar in their Temple to be void of Images, and to be hid in an obfcure and dark place; which, they said, was the proper feat of the moft high God, the Maker of Heaven and Earth, who could not be reprefented in any form and fhape; and that the Images which food about that place were the reprefen

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