indulgences granted by Pope Urban the Fourth, inserted in the Clementines, and enlarged by John the Twenty-second, and Martin the Fifth, and for their worshipping of the consecrated water they had authentic precedents, even the example of Bonaventure's lamb, St. Francis's mule, St. Anthony of Padua's ass; and if these things were not enough to persuade the people to all this matter, they must needs have weak hearts and hard heads; and because they met with opponents at all hands, they proceeded to a more vigorous way of arguing: they armed legions against their adversaries; they confuted, at one time, in the town of Beziers, sixty thousand persons, and in one battle disputed so prosperously and acutely, that they killed about ten thousand men that were sacramentaries: and this Bellarmine gives as an instance of the marks of his church; this way of arguing was used in almost all the countries of Christendom, till, by crusadoes, massacres and battles, burnings and the constant carnificia, and butchery of the Inquisition, which is the main prop of the Papacy, and does more than "Tu es Petrus,'-they prevailed far and near; and men durst not oppose the evidence whereby they fought. And now the wonder is out, it is not strange that the article hath been so readily entertained. But in the Greek church it could not prevail, as appears not only in Cyril's book of late, dogmatically affirming the article in our sense, but in the answer

of Cardinal Humbert to Nicetas, who maintained the receiving the holy sacrament does break the fast, which it could not do, if it were not, what it seems, bread and wine, as well as what we believe it to be, the body and blood of Christ.

And now, in prosecution of their strange improbable success, they proceed to persuade all people that they are fools, and do not know the measures of sense, nor understand the words of Scripture, nor can tell when any of the fathers speak affirmatively or negatively; and after many attempts made by divers unsprosperously enough (as the thing did constrain and urge them),-a great wit, Cardinal Perron, hath undertaken the question, and hath spun his thread so fine, and twisted it so intricately, and adorned it so sprucely with language and sophisms, that although he cannot resist the evidence of truth, yet he is too subtile for most men's discerning; and though he hath been contested by potent adversaries, and wise men, in a better cause than his own, yet he will always make his reader believe that he prevails; which puts me in mind of what Thucydides told Archidamus the king of Sparta, asking him, whether he or Pericles were the better wrestler?' he told him, that when he threw Pericles on his back, he would, with fine words, persuade the people, that he was not down at all, and so he got the better. So does he; and is, to all considering. men, a great argument of the danger that articles of

religion are in, and consequently men's persuasions, and final interest, when they fall into the hands of a witty man and a sophister, and one who is resolved to prevail by all means. But truth is stronger than wit, and can endure when the other cannot: and I hope it will appear so in this question, which although it is managed by weak hands, that is, by mine, yet to all impartial persons it must be certain and prevailing, upon the stock of its own sincerity, and derivation from God.

And now, Right Reverend, though this question hath so often been disputed, and some things so often said,—yet I was willing to bring it once more upon the stage, hoping to add some clearness to it, by fitting it with a good instrument, and clear conveyance, and representment, by saying something new, and very many which are not generally known, and less generally noted; and I thought there was a present necessity of it, because the emissaries of the church of Rome are busy now to disturb the peace of consciences by troubling the persecuted, and ejecting scruples into the unfortunate, who suspect every thing, and being weary of all, are most ready to change from the present. They have got a trick to ask, Where is our church now? What is become of your articles of your religion? We cannot answer them as they can be answered; for nothing satisfies them, but being prosperous, and that we cannot pretend to, but upon the accounts of the

cross; and so we may indeed “rejoice and be exceeding glad," because we hope that "great is our reward in heaven." But although they are pleased to use an argument, that, like Jonah's gourd or asparagus, is in season only at some times, yet we, according to the nature of truth, inquire after the truth of their religion upon the account of proper and theological objections; our church may be a beloved church and dear to God though she be persecuted, when theirs is in an evil condition by obtruding upon the Christian world articles of religion, against all that which ought to be the instruments of credibility and persuasion, by distorting and abusing the sacraments, by making error to be an art, and that a man must be witty to make himself capable of being abused, by outfacing all sense and reason,by damning their brethren for not making their understanding servile and sottish,-by burning them they can get, and cursing them that they cannot get, by doing so much violence to their own reasons, and forcing themselves to believe, that no man ever spake against their new device,-by making a prodigious error to be necessary to salvation,— as if they were lords of the faith of Christendom.

But these men are grown to that strange triumphal gaiety, upon their joy that the church of England, as they think, is destroyed, that they tread upon her grave, which themselves have digged for her, who lives and pities them; and they wonder,

that any man should speak in her behalf, and suppose men do it out of spite and indignation, and call the duty of her sons, who are by persecution made more confident, pious, and zealous, in defending those truths for which she suffers on all hands, by the name of anger,' and suspect it of malicious, vile purposes.' I wondered when I saw something of this folly in one, that was her son once, but is run away from her sorrow, and disinherited himself, because she was not able to give him a temporal portion, and thinks he hath found out reasons enough to depart from the miserable. I will not trouble him, or so much as name him, because if his words are as noted as they are public, every good man will scorn them; if they be private, I am not willing to publish his shame, but leave him to consideration and repentance; but for our dear afflicted mother, she is under the portion of a child, in the state of discipline, her government indeed hindered, but her worshippings the same, the articles as true, and those of the church of Rome as false, as ever, of which I hope the following book will be one great instance. But I wish that all tempted persons would consider the illogical deductions, by which these men would impose upon their consciences; if the church of England be destroyed, then transubstantiation is true; which indeed had concluded well, if that article had only pretended false, because the church of England was prosperous. But put the case the Turk should