heart very fore, that we could no longer diffemble fo great injury done to our mother the church, nor pass the fame over uncorrected.

• Wherefore we command and ftrictly charge you, that all occafions fet afide, you endeavour to remove yourself with all poffible fpeed unto your faid church, and there perfonally to execute the paftoral charge committed unto you in the fame. Otherwise we will you to know for certainty, that if you have not a care to do this, we will wholly take into our own hands all the temporal goods and whatsoever elfe doth belong unto the barony of the fame church; which for fpiritual exercife therein it is certain our progenitors out of a godly devotion have bestowed thereupon. And fuch goods and duties which we have commanded hitherto to be gathered, and fafely kept and turned to the profit and commodity of the fame church, the caufe now ceafing, we will seize upen and fuffer no longer that he shall reap temporal things, which feareth not unreverently to withdraw and keep back fpiritual things, whereunto by office and duty he is bound, or that he fhall receive any profits which refuseth to undergo and bear the burthen of the fame.

Witnefs the king at Hereford, the ift of June, in the 48th year of our reign.'

So much for the pride and covetoufnefs; I proceed next to confider whether or no fome degree of the fuperftition and idolatry of Antichrift be not also retained among our profeffed reformers.

By fuperftition I mean a ftrenuous adherence to feveral of thofe things which were introduced in the time of Popifh darkness and apoftacy, without any authority from Scripture. And by their participating of idolatry, I understand their inordinate and unjuftifiable veneration of mere outward figns, fhadows, and reprefentations..

Under the firft head I rank the present obfervation

of faints days among thofe of the establishment, who though they have juftly thrown out the great rabble of Romifh faints and fainteffes, yet ftill retain many without any authority from Scripture; the obfervation of which is ftill grofsly perverted to the purposes of vice, idleness, and the impoverishment of families, to the no fmall fcandal of the Chriftian profeffion, which furely it were now much better to lay afide, even as for this very reafon was the celebration of the feafts appointed on the days of the deaths of the early martyrs, being perverted to excefs and intemperance, in procefs of time, laid quite afide.* To the fame head I refer their dedications of churches, and confecrations of grounds and houses.

II. Though they have in part thrown out the holy water, one Jewish rite, they have thought fit to retain another, viz. the clerical habits, which have been before fhewn to be derived from the Jews, and were established in the times of popery, and yet are to this day infifted on as effential. What is this but an evident breach of gofpel liberty, and a relapse into Jewish bondage, the New Teftament being entirely filent about these things.

III. Though they have indeed most justly thrown down the popifh altars as well as images; yet if we impartially confider the degree of veneration paid by them to thofe two outward figns and fhadows commonly called the facraments, it seems to fall very fhort of idolizing them.

That this may appear, I offer to their confideration, I. That there have been raised more controverfies and quarrels (yea fometimes excommunications and perfecutions even to bloodfhed), on account of thefe outfide things, both betwixt Papists and Proteftants, and among Proteftants betwixt themselves, than matters effential to the falvation of the fouls of men.

* Cave's Primitive Christianity.

Now, what are fuch vehement and inordinate contentions about fuch things, but the genuine products of carnal minds preferring forms, fhadows, and circumftances, to the power, fubftance, and effence of things to the deftruction of charity, the badge of Christian discipleship?

II. The church of Rome indeed is accused of flagrant idolatry in falling down to worship a piece of bread; and the zeal and indignation of many of the first reformers on this occafion, is very remark, able, fome of whom did fnatch the hoft out of the priest's hands and deftroy it, in order to fhew by the evidence of fenfe the impotency of this their newmade god a method of reasoning that feems to me very juftifiable from what I find recorded with marks of God's approbation, in the conduct of king Hezekiah, in a cafe that feems to bear analogy to the present; viz. when the children of Ifrael burnt incenie to the brazen ferpent (though formerly erected by divine appointment), he broke it to pieces, and called it by way of contempt, Nehufhtan, i. e. a piece of brafs. But to return,

The common fnare to catch the firft reformers, was 10 ask them what they believed of the facrament of the altar, and their ufual anfwer, that it was an idol, fpeedily condemned them to the flames. Now as the Reformation had its beginning in their thus bearing teftimony against the fuperftitious, inordinate, and extravagant regard paid to outward figns and fhadows, fo fhall it receive its completion, when men, rejecting all vain confidence in thefe things, fhall embrace the fubftance.

In the mean time it must be owned that many of the fucceffors of the first reformers, have been fo far deficient in this refpect, or at least fo far from an harmonious and confiftent conduct on this occafion, as to have given too much grounds for the following farcafm of an adverfary, viz.

The Papifts have a better plea
Than you, when they adore't they fay
It is no longer bread and wine,
But changed by the word divine
Into the body of our Lord,

And therefore ought to be ador'd.'

But of the church of England, he says thus:

Kneeling when they communicate,
Although it is but bread they eat.'

They do not indeed avow with the Papists that the bread and wine is a propitiatory facrifice for the living and dead, and a means to deliver fouls out of purgatory; but yet, when befides the circumstance of kneeling, enjoined upon pain of a deprivation of divers civil as well as religious privileges, it is alfo made a viaticum morientium, or paffport for dying finners; when (without authority from Scripture) it is dignified by the title of a principal feal of the covenant of grace; and when we are told that the worthy receivers do really and indeed feed on Chrift crucified, and receive of his fullness, and are hereby made partakers of all the benefits of Christ's death to their fpiritual nourishment and growth in grace; I pray, what mighty difference is there between these things and what the Popish manual pronounces concerning their venerable facrament of the altar, viz. that herewith we are nourished, cleanfed, fanctified, and our fouls made partakers of all heavenly graces and fpiritual benedictions? Is not all this an abundant evidence of an inordinate and fuperftitious regard paid hereunto, and fuch as cannot be warranted by authority from Scripture? Is not this (in the words of an eminent author*) plainly attributing that to a

* Plain Account of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, published in London, 1735.

fingle ceremony, which, according to the constant tenor of the New Teftament, is due only to an univerfal, faithful obfervation of the laws of God: and I add, to the great damage of the fouls of men, who may be hereby betrayed into a dangerous and unwarrantable confidence in thefe outward things? And how much all this falls fhort of idolizing the outward and visible fign, I leave to the judicious.

Let us next fee whether we can entirely acquit them of the fame error with regard to water-baptifm. I do indeed find that the church of Rome placeth infants dying unbaptized in the upper part of hell; and truly the baptism of infants feems to have been the genuine confequence of an opinion of its being abfolutely neceffary to falvation, whence their licensing of midwives to baptize children in fome cafes; and they affirm that it maketh them children of God, infuseth juftifying grace, and all fupernatural graces and virtues. Now though I dare not affirm of feveral Proteftants, that they do literally proceed to all these lengths, yet when we find that when the child is required to anfwer, that by baptifm it was made a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven; when in the office for the burial of the dead, over all who have undergone this operation, whether faints or finners, thefe words, are pronounced, Forafmuch as it hath pleafed God of his great mercy to take the foul of our dear brother here departed unto himfelf, we therefore, &c. in fure and certain hope of the refurrection to eternal life,' &c. But on the contrary, if any have not been baptized, he fhall not have the honour of this which is called Christian burial; in fhort, when unto the ceremony of baptifm is peculiarly annexed regeneration, purgation from original fin, and a fure and certain hope of a happy refurrection, as it feems to be by the letter of the Common Prayer; it is obvious to remark, that what the judicious author above quoted has obferved con