reach to all that need the blood of Christ for the remission of sins; which not being restrained to the priests, shews that the cup, without a direct opposition to the mind and command of Christ, ought not to be taken from the people; and any that will read the goodly reasons given for this sacrilege, will see what a low account they have of the commands of Christ, when upon such trifling pretences they will violate them. And with how much cruelty they backed this invasion of Christ's authority, the history will declare, they beginning it with a perfidious burning of two witnesses who opposed it at Constance; and occasioning so much war and bloodshed against those who adhered to the rule of the gospel in this matter, and refused to stoop to their tyranny.

But I advance to another invasion of Christ's regal authority, committed by him who pretends to be the universal bishop of the church, and to have authority over all churchmen; whom he makes swear obedience to him, and looks on them but as his delegates. It was unluckily done of Gregory the Great, to be so severe on this head, as to condemn the title of universal bishop as antichristian: but little dreamed he in how few years his successor would aspire to that height of ambition. Now by this pretence all these officers, whom Christ hath appointed to rule and feed his church, are turned out of their authority, and made subject to him: and with how much pride he treads on his fellow bishops, the histories of many ages do declare. It is true, at first, as being bishop of the imperial city, the bishops of Rome were highly esteemed; but pride and ambition began soon to leaven them: yet they were for the first four ages looked upon by the other bishops but as their fellow bishops; and by the decrees of two general councils, the bishops of Constantinople were in all things, except the precedency, made equal to them; and by the decree of the council of Nice, other metropolitans are levelled with them. And here I must tell of a "shameful forgery of three bishops of Rome, who, one after another, would have obtruded on the African churches a decree of allowing of appeals from them to the Roman see, as if it had been made at Nice: which they of Afric rejected, and upon trial found it to be none of the appointments at Nice, but a decree of the council of Sardica."

But by degrees the bishops of that city got up to the height

they are now at; and not content with their usurping over their brethren and fellow churchmen, their next attempt was upon princes, who, deriving their authority from Jesus Christ, the King of kings, by whom kings do reign, it was an invasion of his power to attempt against his vicegerents on earth. But the popes made no bones of this; for being now held Christ's vicars on earth, with other blasphemous titles, as viceGod, yea, and Lord God, they thought their power was limited as long as kings and emperors were not even in temporals subject to them. And therefore, from the days of pope Gregory the Seventh, they pretended to a power of deposing princes, disposing of their dominions to others, and dispensing with the oaths of fidelity their subjects had sworn to them; and it was easy for them to make crowns change their masters as they pleased: for there were always other ambitious princes ready, for their own ends, to invade the dominions of these deposed kings, upon the pope's warrant; and the generality of the people were so possessed with the pope's power of releasing souls from purgatory, and from the punishments due to sin, that they were easily prevailed upon to follow his thunders and by that time the popes had swarms of emissaries of the begging orders, who, under shows of austere piety, gained much reverence and esteem in the world; and so got all subjected to the papal tyranny. Now, should I instance this in particulars, I should transgress the limits of a short discourse by a long history; but the lives of Gregory the Seventh, Alexander the Third, Boniface the Eighth, and Julius the Second, to mention no more, will sufficiently convince any who will be at the pains to read them, as they are written by those who lived in that communion. And Matthew of Paris will at length inform his reader how much and how often England smarted under this tyranny.

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And all this is so far from being denied, that it is defended avowedly by not a few of the canonists and Jesuits, and is a doctrine dearly entertained in the court of Rome to this day; as appeared from the late attempt of pope Paul the Fifth upon Venice: but the world is now a little wiser than to be carried away by these arts; and therefore that pretence is laid to sleep, till haply the beast be healed of the wound that was given it at the reformation.

But I cannot leave this particular without my sad regrets that too deep a tincture of this spirit of antichristianism is among many, who pretend much aversion to it; since the doctrine of resisting magistrates, upon colours of religion, is so stiffly maintained and adhered to by many, who pretend to be highly reformed. But thus far have we gone through the second part of Antichrist's character, and have discovered too clear indications of a deformity to the spirit and truth of the Christian religion, in all the branches of the honour and worship due to Jesus the only Mediator of the new covenant.

From this I proceed to the third part of my inquiry, which is, the opposition made to the great design of the Christian religion, for elevating the souls of men into a participation of the Divine nature, whereby the soul being inwardly purified, and the outward conversation regulated, the world may be restored to its primitive innocence, and men admitted to an inward and intimate fellowship with their Maker. The first step of this renovation is, repentance; for God commands men everywhere to repent; and repentance and remission of sins. are always united. And this being an horror at sin upon the sense of its native deformity and contrariety to the law of God, which makes the soul apprehend the hazard it hath incurred by it, so as to study by all means to avoid it in all time coming; nothing doth prepare the mind more for faith in Christ, and the study of a new life, than repentance, which must needs be previous to these. But what devices are found to enervate this? Sins must be divided into venial and mortal; the former deserving only some temporal punishment, and being easily expiated by some trifling piece of seeming devotion, and hereby many sins are struck out of the penitent's consideration: for who can have a great apprehension of that which is so slightly expiated? And this may be extended to the easy pardons given for acknowledged mortal sins: for he who thinks that God can be appeased for them with the saying by rote so many prayers, cannot possibly have deep apprehensions of their being either so displeasing to God, or so odious in themselves. But shall I to this add their asserting, that a simple attrition, which is a sorrow flowing from the consideration of any temporal evil God hath brought upon the sinner, without any regard had either to the vileness of the sin, or the

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offence done to God by it; that it (I say) can suffice for justifying sinners, and qualifying them for the sacrament; whereby the necessity of contrition, and sorrow flowing from the principle of the love of God, is made only a high degree of perfection, but not indispensably necessary. In the next place, all these severities they enjoin for penances, do but tend to nourish the life of sin, when sinners see a trade set up with which they can buy themselves off from the wrath of God. To this is to be added the doctrine of indulgences, which is so direct an opposition to evangelical repentance, as if it had been contrived for dispossessing the world of the sense of it.

That which is next pressed in the gospel for uniting the souls of mankind to God is, that noble ternary of graces, faith, hope, and love; by which the soul rests in God by a holy affiance in him, believing the truth of his gospel, expecting the accomplishment of his promises, waiting for the full fruition of him, and delighting in his glorious perfections and excellencies. Now how much all this is shaken by these carnal and gross conceptions, which the Roman doctrine offers of God in their image and mass-worship, and by their idolatry to saints, is apparent. Are they not taught to confide more in the Virgin, or their tutelar saints, than in the Holiest of all? Doth not the fear of purgatory damp the hopes of future blessedness? And, finally, what impious doctrine hath been publicly licensed and printed in that church, of the degrees of the love we owe to God! some blasphemously teaching, that we are not at all bound to love him; others mincing it so, as if they were afraid of his being too much beloved!

In a word, there is an impiety in the morals of some of that church, particularly among the disciples of Loyola, beyond what was ever taught amongst the worst of the heathen philosophers, which hath been fully discovered by some of the honester and more zealous of that communion. And though these corruptions have not been avowed by the head of that church, yet, by their being publicly vented, by the deaf ear he gives to all the complaints against them, and by the constant caresses and privileges he heaps upon that order which teacheth them, he discovers either his great satisfaction in that corrupt doctrine, or that, upon the account of other interests, he is content to betray the souls of Christians into the corrup

tion of such impious and ungodly leaders, since the order that hath owned all these corruptions is yet possessed of the consciences of the greater part of them that own that communion, they being the universal confessors. And since they license the public venting of so much corrupt doctrine in printed writings, what reason have we to suspect their base compliance with sins in their more secret and unknown practisings, with such poor deluded souls as trust to their conduct, of which many proofs are brought by others of that same church!

But I pursue my inquiry into the other traces of the Antichristian corruption of the purity and power of our most holy faith. Solemn worship and secret devotion are the great means of uniting souls to God, and of deriving the assistance of his Spirit and grace to us; but when these are performed in an unknown tongue, how uncapable are they of reaching that end! And the doctrine of the efficacy of the sacraments, for conveying of grace by the work wrought, looks like a design against all serious preparation for the worthy receiving of them; since by that doctrine a man, be he never so ill prepared, yet is sure of their efficacy; for if his priest absolve him, and he have a simple attrition for sin, without any thing of the love of God, he is by their doctrine and conduct qualified for receiving worthily, were his heart never so much united to sin, or averse from all devotion or application to Divine. matters. And what complaints shall be here made of those who teach that the sure way of gaining the favour of God, which they phrase by the keys of paradise, is to say the Ave, to bid the blessed Virgin good morrow every day, or to send our guardian angel to salute her? or, finally, to wear a medal or rosary in devotion to her, though, from the first time we begin to wear it, we never again think of her? Doth not all this look like a conspiracy against the power of godliness?

But we shall next consider the moral law, which though Christ said he came not to dissolve, but to fulfil, Matt. v. 17, yet they have found out distinctions and doctrines to destroy it. It is true, what may be said here cannot so directly, as to every particular, be charged on the Roman church, since it hath not been decreed by pope or council; but when profane casuists have printed doctrines which tend to the subversion of