that confidence in them: for they never will consider concerning any of their articles; their unlearned men not at all, their learned men only to confirm their own, and to confute their adversaries, whose arguments, though never so convincing, they are bound to look upon as temptations, and to use them accordingly; which thing, in case they can be in an error, may prove so like the sin against the Holy Ghost, as milk is to milk; if, at least, all conviction of error, and demonstrations of truth, be the effect and grace of the Spirit of God; which ought very warily to be considered.

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But this confidence is no argument of truth; for they telling their people, that they are bound to believe all that they teach with an assent, not equal to their proof of it, but much greater, even the greatest that can be,' they tie them to believe it without reason or proof: for to believe more strongly than the argument infers, is to believe something without the argument; or at least to have some portions of faith, which relies upon no argument; which if it be not effected by a supreme and more infallible principle, can never be reasonable; but this they supply with telling them, that they cannot err; and this very proposition itself, needing another supply (for why shall they believe this, more than any thing else, with an assent greater than can be effected by their argument?), they supply this also, with affrighting homilies and noises of damnation. So that it is no wonder, that the Roman people are so confident; since it is not upon the strength of their argument or cause (for they are taught to be confident beyond that), but it is upon the strength of passion, credulity, interest, and fear, education, and pretended authority, all which, as we hope God will consider in passing his unerring sentence upon the poor misled people of the Roman communion; so we also, considering their infirmity and our own, dare not enter into the secret of God's judgment, concerning all or any of their persons; but pray for them, and offer to instruct them; we reprove their false doctrines, and use means to recal them from darkness, into some more light than there they see; but we pass no further; and we hope that this charity and modesty will not, we are sure it ought not, be turned to our reproach, for this

in the avoxǹ nai μanpolvμíak, that toleration' of our erring brethren, and long sufferance,' which we have learned from God, and it ought to procure repentance in them; and yet if it does not, we do but our duty, always remembering the words of the great apostle, which he spake to the church of Rome, "Thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art, that judgest another; for in what thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself';" and we fear, and every man is bound to do so too, lest the same measure of judgment we make to the errors of our brother, be heaped up against our own, in case we fall into any. And the church of Rome should do well to consider this; for she is not the less likely to err, but much more for thinking she cannot err; her very thinking and saying this thing, being her most capital error, as I shall afterwards endeavour to make apparent. I remember that Paganinus Gaudentius, a Roman gentleman, tells that Theodore Beza, being old, and coming into the camp of Henry IV. of France, was asked by some, 'Whether he were sure that he followed the true religion?' He modestly answered, that 'he did daily pray to God to direct him with his Holy Spirit, and to give him a light from heaven to guide him.' Upon which answer, because they expounded it to be, in Beza, uncertainty and irresolution, he says, that many who heard him took that hint, and became Roman catholics.' It is strange it should be so, that one man's modesty should make another man bold, and that the looking upon a sound eye should make another sore. But so it is, that in the church of Rome, very ill use is made of our charity and modesty. However, I shall give a true account of the whole affair as it stands, and then leave it to be considered.

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SECTION VIII.

The Insecurity of the Roman Religion.

1. As to the security which is pretended in the church of Rome, it is confidence rather than safety, as I have already

said; but if we look upon the propositions themselves, we find that there is more danger in them than we wish there were. I have already, in the preface to the First Part, instanced in some particulars, in which the church of Rome hath suffered infirmity, and fallen into error; and the errors are such, which the fathers of the church (for we meddle not with any such judgment) call damnable. As for example; "to add any thing to Scriptures, or to introduce into the faith any thing that is not written; or to call any thing Divine, that is not in the authority of the holy Scriptures; which, Tertullian says, whosoever does, may fear the woe pronounced in Scripture against adders and detractors;" and St. Basil says, "is a manifest note of infidelity, and a most certain sign of pride;" and others add, it is an evil heart of immodesty, and most vehemently forbidden by the apostles." Against the testimonies then brought, some little cavils were made, and many evil words of railing published, which I have not only washed off in the second section of this Second Part, but have, to my thinking, clearly proved them guilty of doing ill in this question, and receding from the rule of the primitive church; and have added many other testimonies concerning the main inquiry, to which the weak answers offered can no way be applied, and to which the more learned answers of Bellarmine and Perron are found insufficient; as it there is made to appear. So that I know nothing remains to them to be considered, but whether or no, the primitive and holy fathers were too zealous in condemning this doctrine and practice of the Roman church too severely? We are sure the thing which the fathers so condemn, is done without warrant, and contrary to all authentic precedents of the purest and holiest ages of the church, and greatly derogatory to the dignity and fulness of Scripture; and infinitely dangerous to the church for the intromitting the doctrines of men into the canon of faith, and a great diminution to the reputation of that providence, by which it is certain, the church was to be secured in the records of salvation; which could not be done by any thing so well, as by writing what was to be kept inviolate; especially in the propositions of faith, relying oftentimes upon a word, and a phrase and a manner of expression; which, in the infinite variety of reporters, might too easily suffer change. Thus

censure.

far we can safely argue concerning the error of the church of Rome; and to this not we, but the fathers, add a severe And when some of these censures were set down by way of caution and warning, not of judgment and final sentence, it seems a wonder to me how these gentlemen of the Roman communion", that wrote against the book, should recite all these terrible sayings out of the fathers against. their superaddition of articles to the faith contained in Scriptures, and be so little concerned as to read them with a purpose only to find fault with the quotations, and never be smitten with a terror of the judgment, which the fathers pronounce against them that do so. Just as if a man being ready to perish in a storm, should look up and down the ship to see if the little paintings were exact; or as if a man, in a terrible clap of thunder, should consider whether he ever heard so unmusical a sound, and never regard his own danger. 2. The same is the case in their proλarpeiα, worshipping of consecrated bread:' in which, if they be not deceived, all the reason and all the senses of all the men in the world are deceived; and if they be deceived, then it is certain, they give Divine worship to what they naturally eat and drink; and how great a provocation of God that is, they cannot but know by the whole analogy of the Old and New Testament, and even by natural reason itself, and all the dictates of religion which God hath written in our hearts. On the other side, if we consider that if the Divine worship they intend to Christ, were passed immediately to him sitting in heaven, and not through that blessed thing upon the altar, but directly and primarily to him whose passion there is represented, and the benefits of whose death are there offered and exhibited; there could be no diminution of any right due to Christ. Nay, to them who consider, that in the first institution and tradition of it to the apostles, Christ's body was still whole and unbroken, and separate from the bread, and could not then be transubstantiate, and pass from itself into what it was not before, and yet remain still itself what it was before; and that neither Christ did command the apostles to worship, neither did they worship any thing but God the Father, at that time;-it must needs seem to be a

a Letter, and Truth will out,' &c.

prodigious venture of their souls, to change that action into a needless and ungrounded superstition: especially since after Christ's ascension, his body is not only in heaven, "which must contain it until his coming to judgment;" but is so changed, so immaterial, or spiritual, that it is not capable of being broken by hands or teeth. In not adoring that which we see to be bread, we can be as safe as the apostles were, who, we find, did not worship it; but in giving Divine honours to it, we can be no more safe, in case their proposition be amiss, than he that worships the sun, because he verily believes he is the God of heaven. A good meaning in this case will not justify his action; not only because he hath enough to instruct him better, and to bring him to better understanding, but especially because he may mean as well, if he worships Christ in heaven, "ad sua templa oculis, animo ad sua numina spectans;" yea, and better, when he does actually worship Christ at that time, directing the worship to him in heaven, and would terminate his worship on the host, if he were sure it were Christ, or were commanded so to do. Add to this, that to worship Christ is an affirmative precept; and, so it be done in wisdom, and holiness, and love, in all just ways of address to him, in praying to him, reciting his prayers, giving him thanks, trusting in him, hoping in him, and loving him with the best love of obedience: not to bow the knee, 'hîc et nunc," when we fear to displease him by so doing, cannot be a sin, because for that hîc et nunc' there is no commandment at all. And after all, if we will suppose that the doctrine of transubstantiation were true, yet because the priest that consecrates, may, indeed, secretly have received invalid orders, or have evil intention, or there may be some undiscernible nullity in the whole economy and ministration; so that no man of the Roman communion can say, that by Divine faith he believes that this host is, at this time, transubstantiated; but only hath conjectures and ordinary suppositions, that it is so, and that he does not certainly know the contrary. He that certainly gives Divine honour to that which is not certain to be the body of Christ,-runs into a danger too great, to promise to himself he shall be safe. Some there are who go further yet, and consider that the church of Rome say only, that the bread is changed into the