ration, honoring their reliques; which Bellarmine calls Sacra pignora patronorum noftrorum (a). It is in fhort, a grievous ufurpation and iniquity, a fore difgrace to reason and christianity; and by decreeing and difpenf ing, by an ufurped authority, and pretended infallibility, hath facrilegiously dared to fubftitute the most impious and fenfelefs ecclefiaftical traditions in the room of the perfect and perfpicuous holy fcriptures.

Nor is this the worft of that dreadful and long apoftacy. It hath not only most bafely corrupted the pure religion of Jefus in the Shocking articles I have mentioned, and introduced infinite fuperftitions in the place of the most reasonable fervice. It hath not only brought in a creed that ftrikes at the divine unity, and changed one half of the plaineft rite in the world, the inftitution of the Lord's fupper, into a doctrine full of all manner of abfurdity and contradiction: It hath not only reduced the worship of the church to plane idolatry, by a marianolatry, a demonolatry, and the worship of bread, by images, and the relicks of dead men (b), and

(a) Bellarm. de Relig-Sanct. cap. ii.

(b) The lapfe of the church into the worship of dead men's bodys, and rotten bones, and hair and nails, and old fhoes and clouts, is to be fure one of the greateft and moft deplorable victorys that the kingdom of darkness could gain upon christianity. The papal rites of worshipping these things are, proceffions, genuflexions, bowing the body,

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and bound thefe dangerous errors and corruptions on the faith and practice of her

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thurifications, deofculations, burning of lights, and pilgrimages; and in fo doing, the catholics far tranfcend the antient Romans adoration of their Ancilia, the supposed pledges of empire; or the idolatry of the Jews to that facred relique, the brazen ferpent; yet thofe doating devotionists of Chriftendom, learned and unlearned, are fo full of a divine and wonder-working virtue refiding in thofe inanimate things, that they fall down before them in the moft degenerat manner, and not only from the intire carcafes of those fuperi and fupera, but from the chine-bone of one fupernal, the finger of another, the toe of a third, the skull of a fourth, the blood of a fifth, and ten thoufand other trumperies, expect a cure, or falutary grace. Gratiam aliquam et falutem, fays Baronius (a). Their bodies and their bones (lays aPontifician,) are replenished with fpiritual grace, and a beneficial miracle-working power, and by touching them with faith, we may attract the fanctification and vivificative virtue which refideth in them: (in fanétis divinitas infita membris) (b). Dreadful stuff! And yet a thousand great Men of the Romish church have labored in defence of it, and for our worshipping the Veronica, the holy thorn, the wood and the rails of the cross, etc. etc. Even the admired Pafchal, that wonder of a man, has defended the holy thorn, and tells us, that it cured his fifter of a blind eye. The bigot! He was as thorow a papist in the mysteries, the hoft, the faints, the relicks, as any jefuit he writ againft. It was not popery he oppofed in his fine Provincial letters; but the wicked maxims of the politic fociety of Jefus. Pafchal dyed August 19, 1662, in his thirtythird year. He had the wax candles and the hoft in

(a) De Relig. Sanct.

(b) Petavius, tom. iv. p. 2. cap. 11. And chapters after chapters upon the fame senseless subject.

members by Anathema: but in direct oppofition to the extenfively-merciful and benevolent constitution of the gofpel, the church of Rome pursues with a merciless cruelty, all who refuse a full and intire affent to the fchifmatical principles and horrible corruptions of the Romish communion. With an abfurdity and iniquity that is amazing, the perfecutes honeft men, good neighbours, peaceable fubjects, who carefully avoid whatever would injure and provoke, and take all opportunities to ferve and oblige thofe about them and fends them to dungeons, galleys, and the wheel; tortures them with all the torments of her inquifition, and reduces their familys to beggary, merely because they will not go to her altars, and bow their knees before her idols; and this, notwithstanding it is felf-evident, that repeating a creed, or wearing a name, or performing a ceremony, cannot

his chamber the night he was dying, and he was anointed as plentifully as any of the people, in that miferable prieftly impofition, called the facrament of extreme unction. Note the Veronica is the impreffion of our Lord's face on a handkerchief, which one Veronica wiped his face with as he carryed his crofs. The handkerchief, as good tradition, that bleffed hiftorian, tells the ftory, was in three folds, and fo received three figures of Jefus Chrift. One Veronica is at Rome; another in Spain; a third in Jerufalem. The thing was never heared of till the eleventh century, and yet they pray as formally to the Veronica, as if they were fpeaking to Chrift himfelf.

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be true religion; but it is that inward conviction of mind and reasonable service, which violence and perfecution can never produce. For these reasons, Jewks, we must be eternal enemys to popery,and bent on her deftruction to the utmost of our abilitys. The thing we must abhor, as we honor God, and the religion of Jefus. But we must love the catholics, as they call themselves, because they are men, our neighbours and relations.

As to the honorable Dorcas, who founded the abbey I have mentioned, there is no farther account of her than that she was the daughter of one Richard Fitz-Peter, Earl of Effex, who lived in the reign of king John: But the pope who confirmed the foundation, and bestowed many privileges on the houfe, is better known to us. He is that fovereign pontiff to whom John made the infamous conceffion of his crown, and by whofe legate, Pandulphe, he was treated as a beaten flave.

This pope was the famous cardinal Lothaire, who took the name of Innocent the third, and dyed the 16th of July, 1216, three months and two days before the death of John; and three years and two months after he had, by virtue of his apoflolical power, made John fwallow the bitter cup of abjec

tion.

His holynefs, if we will credit Maimbourg, (Hift. de Croifs. 1. 8.) was elected by the ma

nifeft infpiration of the Holy Ghost; and on the other hand, one who had the honor of : canonization, I mean St. Lutgard, tell us, that this head of the church appeared to him, the faid faint, immediately after his the faid head's death, and his appearance was in a flame of fire from purgatory; that head told him, he fhould have been damned everlastingly, if it had not been for the interceffion of the mother of God, and notwithstanding his deliverance from eternal pain, that he was to be in the greatest torments till the day of judgment; that three things he had committed in his pontificat were the cause of thefe inflictions, and he related the three particulars to the faint; who related to them to Thomas de Cantinpré, who relates this story; but in regard to the pope, par refpect pour lui, he would not let the world know what the three particulars were. You will find this in the life of Lutgardis, ap. Surium, lib. ii. cap. 16. Junii. And if we cannot believe it, tho a faint is the teller, yet it fhews his holiness was a very bad man, in the opinion of the writers of his own church And of him Fleury fays in his Ecclefiaftical History, Liv. 17. Innocent III. avoit fait des grandes fautes.

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This pope having excommunicated fome princes who appeared against his tyrannical proceedings, preached a fermon upon the occafion, and chofe this text

Glaive,

glaive,