Men are not very well instructed they will be apt to beget in them most pernicious Notions contrary to the Honour of God to the Nature of our Saviour Christ and to the Covenant of His Gospel 7. For tell me I beseech you Was not this the great reason wherefore God forbad any Resemblance to be made of Himself under the Law Deut. IV. 15. Isa XI 18. that it was a lessening and debasing of his Nature so to do And does not St. Paul urge this very consideration against the Athenian Idolatry Acts XVII 29. Act. XVII 29 And is not the Divine Nature as excellent now and as much debased by yours as ever it was by their Representations of it I need not tell you of the frequent Pictures of God the Father in the shape of an Old Man and commonly in a Pope's Dress and the meaning of which if one may conjecture the design of this by the Natural tendency of it can be no other than this viz. to perswade the Ignorant that as you sometimes call the Pope a God on Earth so God is no other than the Pope of Heaven 8. And this were it only in some Sacred Places would yet be too prophane for any Pious Christian to endure But alas you have not been so reserved Every Office carries this Abuse in it Hardly a Psalter or Catechism without it Nay I will add what I should hardly be credited in had not thousands among us with indignation beheld it that in the open Streets of your Cities we may see That God who is over all blessed for ever exposed to the scorn and meanness of a Sign-post 9. How miserably have you by these Pictures abused the Mystery of the Sacred Trinity sometimes you make it a Monster As where you paint one Body with three Heads One Head with three Faces sometimes one Body with two Heads and a Pigeon in the midst of which Card. Capisucchi makes mention Capisucchi pag. 613. Gerson The Sacred Trinity in the Belly of the Virgn which Gerson says He saw with his own Eyes in a Church of the Carmelites the most ordinary Figures are Either an Old Man holding a Crucifix in his Hands and a Pigeon upon his Shoulder Or as in your Eye-Catechism on one side an Old Man with a Globe on the other a Younger with a Cross upon his Shoulder and a Dove betwixt them And what is all this but to debase the glorious Godhead In St. Paul's Phrase Rom. I. 23 25. to change the truth of God into a lie by representing the Incorruptible God by an Image made like unto a Corruptible Man And where is there a Christian so insensible of that dishonour that is hereby done to the Majesty of that God whom the wiser Heathens themselves never debased to the likeness of any created Being as not with the same Apostle to have his Spirit stir'd within him Acts xvii at the sight of such Impiety 10. Nor are you at all less excusable in your Representations of our Blessed Saviour and the Holy Virgin not to descend to any other of the Saints For besides that such Similitudes exhibit only one and that his inferior Nature viz. his Manhood how do these Pictures insensibly breed a mean Opinion of him in the minds of the Ignorant and Vnwary As 1st Nothing is more ordinary in the most solemn Places of your Worship than to see our Blessed Lord still set forth as a Child in the Arms of his Mother And what Notions this has bred in many of your Communion I would to God the greater esteem they seem to have for the Virgin than for Christ did not too plainly shew But that which renders this more intollerable is that you thus represent him not only upon Earth but at this time even in Heaven and indeed seeing in your Legends you speak of him as a Child still I do not wonder if in your Pictures you represent him too as such 11. Thus in one of your Eye-Catechisms set forth in Portugal for the Instruction of the People the latter part of the Ave-Maria is set in this manner before them All sorts of Men and Women upon Earth are drawn in an open Scene upon their Knees and Hands lifted up to Heaven and in the Clouds over them the Blessed Virgin in Glory with our Saviour as a Child in Her Arms and under it this Inscription O Holy Mary Mother of God pray for us Sinners now and in the hour of Death Amen Jesus 12. In the Calender of the Saints of your Order There is a Figure of St. Odilo Tom. 1. Jan. 1. devoting himself to the blessed Virgin in this manner O most Holy Virgin and Mother of the Saviour of all Ages receive me from this day forward as your Servant and in all my Causes be my most merciful Advocate For from this time after God I set nothing before thee but voluntarily deliver my self for ever to be your Possession as your proper Servant Amen Above Him sits the Blessed Virgin in Glory with our Saviour in her Arms holding her about the Neck after the manner of a little Child Many of the like kind are there in those Volumes but I may not insist upon them I will add only some of those Figures in which the whole Trinity are made to concur to her Honour Thus in the Office in the Virgin printed at Antwerp She is set forth in Glory in Heaven with God the Father on the one side and God the Son on the other holding a Crown over her Head the Holy Ghost above overshadowing Her and all the People on the Earth below Adoring 13. I will not deny but that these may be very good Instructions for Father Crasset's or Doctor J. C's Disciples But I cannot see how any of the Expounding and Representing Party will be able to prove such Pictures as these to be much for the Edification of the People I shall finish these Remarks which have already run out into a greater length than I design'd tho I might have added much more with the account which the Learned Gerard Vossius gives us of a Picture over an Altar in Flanders in which that blasphemous Epigram is express'd of Mens doubting whether they should run to the Blood of Christ in which alone there is Redemption to be obtain'd or to the Milk of the Virgin. This is certainly to contradict the very Foundation of the Gospel and to lead the Ignorant into Error in that Point in which it is of all others the most dangerous to be mistaken viz. Whether they ought to place the Hopes of their Salvation in the Redemption of Christ or in the Mercy and Interest of his Mother 14. You may at your leisure consider how to improve these things into Helps of Devotion and useful Instructions for the illiterate Populace I might have added what has lately been elsewhere observed of the Prophaness of many in Italy especially in this Point Where the
the same kind to VOW and to PRAY but says he We pray to the Saints in Order to God and therefore in the same manner we Vow to them too And the main Excuse which He makes for both is the utter ruine of yours and Monsieur de Meaux's Pretences viz. That the Saints are GODS BY PARTICIPATION Bellarm. de Cult SS Lib. iii. c. 9. p. 2235. D. A Remark which Card. Bellarmine thought so considerable that He from thence distinguishes between the Promises that are made to Men on Earth and to the Saints in Heaven so that the former are Only Promises the latter are Vows Because a Vow does not agree Otherwise to the Saints than as they are GODS BY PARTICIPATION 21. The Consequence of all is this plain Conclusion That if a Vow be strictly and properly an Act of Religious Worship and not only call'd so by an extrinsecal Denomination from the Cause and Motive of it and Prayer as Card. Cajetane says be an Act of the same kind with it then are they both Acts by your own Acknowledgment due only to God And therefore it must be a Sin to give them to any Other and being a Sin in a matter of Religious Worship whereby that Honour is given to the Creature which is due only to God it remains according to our Notion that it must be Idolatry 22. And thus have I hitherto argued against that Worship you pay to the Saints upon your own Principle and according to your own Proposal I shall only add to close this First Point That whether these Arguments shall be thought of force sufficient to convict you of what I am persuaded you are guilty in this Service it is your Concern alone to weigh If they are I need not say any thing to exaggerate your Offence which you commit in this Matter If they are not yet whilst we are neither defective in our Veneration towards those Blessed Souls but pay them all that Honour as I have before shewn of which they are now Capable whilst we transgress no Command of God in our Omission of these Superstitions nor fail continually to Address our selves to the Throne of Grace through our Great and Only Mediator Jesus Christ We are not only sure of his Intercession who we know is able both to Hear and Help us but also in a most likely way of obtaining the Charitable Assistances of those Holy Souls too who if they have any Knowledge of us or Concern for what passes Here below will doubtless need no Sollicitation to be kind to us but without our Intreaty offer up their Prayers to God for all those who thus serve him in Sincerity and Truth 23. But I must now go much farther and bring my Charge more closely against you by shewing secondly II. POINT What the True Doctrine and Practice of the Church of Rome is as to the Point of INVOCATION of SAINTS Now the Sum of this Point may I think best be reduced to these Four Considerations by which you endeavour in your Reply to justifie your selves in this Particular For I. As to the Prayers themselves you cannot deny but that in the natural Sense of them they do imply a proper and formal Invocation of the Saints to whom you Address But then you tell us That the Churches Sense is much otherwise and therefore that whatever their Words may seem to imply yet the Intention of them all is One and the Same viz. PRAY FOR US II. That as to what We object concerning the MERITS of the Saints your coucluding of All your Prayers in this Form Through Jesus Christ our Lord plainly shews that you mean no more by it than this Reply Art. iii. §. 18. p. 23. That God would vouchsafe to call to mind the glorious Actions and Sufferings of his Saints performed in and by His Grace and upon those Accounts accept your Sacrifices or hear your Prayers III. That for those Addresses you have the Warrant both of Scripture and Antiquity Whereas IV. We have neither against them Those Pretensions I offer'd in my Defence being either false or deceitful or at least not conclusive enough to engage you to lay aside a Practice which has been so many hundred Years in the Church and that by our own Confession This is the Sum of what is said on this Occasion not only by your self but by the generality of your Party And to this I shall answer with all the Plainness and Candour that I am able SECT I. Whether all the Prayers that are made to the Saints by those of the Church of Rome are fairly to be reduced to this One Sense PRAY FOR US 24. For thus it is that you Expound your selves That in what Terms soever those Prayers which you address to the Saints are Couch'd Reply Art. iii. sect 16. p. 22. the Intention of your Church reduces them always to this Form PRAY FOR US You charge me with VOLUNTARY fixing the Words of your Addresses which are Equivocal to a Univocal Sense and that Had I either as became a Christian or a Scholar taken notice of this Direction laid down by the Bishop of Condom both in his Book and in his Advertisement I should have saved my self the labour of Amassing such an Appendix as I have made to this Article and the Reader the trouble of perusing it to as little purpose Since tho your Church does indeed make her Addresses to the Saints for Protection and Power against your Enemies for Help and Assistance and the like yet it does Appear manifestly to any one Who is not WILFUL in his MISTAKES that all these are reduced to an Ora pro nobis it being a kind of Aid Succour and Protection to recommend the Miserable to Him who alone can succour them 25. Answer Such then are your Pretences To your Reflections I have spoken Already I come now to examine your Reasons And to convince Others if not You that I was not WILFUL in my MISTAKES as to the meaning of your Prayers but that you are a sort of Miserable Shufflers in your pretended Expositions of them For tell me now I beseech you by what Authority is it that your New Guides * Answer to Dr. St. p. 399 406 407. T. G. and the Bishop of Meaux undertake thus to detort the plain Expressions of your Addresses to a Signification utterly repugnant to the natural Meaning of them Have any of your General approved Councils positively defined this to be all your Design in them Full Answer p. 6. And if they have not are you not according to your own Language Ibid. p. 7. in your accusing of me on this Occasion a Falsifier a Calumniator and a Misrepresenter TOO Does the Council of Trent where it decrees this Service is to be paid to them say that this shall be the Universal Ecclesiastical Sense of these Devotions Nay does but so much as One single Rubrick in all your Offices give us the least Intimation of it
mixture of Infirmity This He illustrates with a Story which at once shews what their Power is with reference to us and How they are pray'd to in the Church of Rome upon presumption of it St. Gregory says he relates in his Book of Dialogues Lib. iii. cap. 36. That a certain Holy Man being just ready to be slain by the Hangman whose Arm was stretch'd out and Sword drawn for that purpose cry'd out in that Instant Saint John hold him and immediately his Hand wither'd that he could neither put it down again nor so much as move it S. John therefore continues the Cardinal from the highest Heaven heard the Voice of his Client and struck his Executioner with this Infirmity so suddenly as to hinder the Stroke already begun This is the Power of those Heavenly Kings that neither the almost infinite distance of Place nor the Solitariness of a poor and uâ—â—â—m'd Righteous Man nor the multitude of Armed Enemies could prevent S. John from delivering his SUPPLIANT from the Danger of Death 32. I shall not need to transcribe what He in the next place adds concerning the Worship that upon this and other accounts is paid to the Saints beyond that of any Earthly Monarch But from what has been said I conclude That it is the Opinion of those in the Church of Rome that as the Council of Trent expresses it The Saints reign together with Christ and are Gods by Participation that is are made Partakers of the Dignity and Power of God. 2. That therefore whatever Intercourse the Faithful upon Earth may have with them it must be vastly different from what they have with their Brethren here below who are neither admitted to such a Dignity nor Partakers of this Power 3. That since the Saints are thus Kings in Heaven when those of the Roman Church address to them in a SUPPLIANT manner as their CLIENTS for Help and Assistance they do not do this in the same Spirit of Charity Expos Mr. de Meaux sect IV. nor after the same Order of Fraternal Society with which they would desire the Prayers of their Fellow-Christians yet living And 4. That seeing the Bless'd in Heaven have Power together with God of taking Care of us and bestowing Blessings upon us there is neither Truth nor Reason in that vain Pretence Reply p. 22. That all the Prayers that are made to them must be reduced to this One form PRAY FOR US but that we ought indeed to understand them to desire of the Saints what both their Principles allow them to do and their Words declare that they do desire viz. THEIR HELP and ASSISTANCE as reigning TOGETHER WITH Christ 33. But Thirdly I have yet more to say in Answer to this Evasion It is well known how much those Prayers you make to the Saints scandalized many of the most Eminent Men of your Church In Elencho Abusuum Wicelius doubted not to say of one of your Hymns that it was full of downright Blasphemy and horrible Superstition of others that they were wholly inexcusable Ludovicus Vives profess'd Lud. Vives Comm. in S. August de Civ dei lib. viii cap. 27. that he found little difference in the Peoples Opinion of their Saints in many things from what the Heathens had of their Gods and that numbers in your Church worshipp'd them no otherwise than God. Now this the Council of Trent could not but know and it then lay before them to redress it If therefore those Fathers had thought that there was no other form of Invocation allowable to the Saints than as you now pretend to Pray to them to Pray for us is it to be imagined that at such a juncture as this they would have taken no care about a thing so justly scandalous not only to the Protestants whom they desired to reduce but even to many of their own Communion How easie had it been for them to say That to satisfie the complaints of these Learned Men and of their Enemies and to prevent any mistakes of the like kind for the future it seem'd good to the Holy Ghost and to them to declare that in what terms soever the Prayers of their Church were conceived yet that the Ecclesiastical sense of them was in all one and the same viz. Pray for us But now instead of such a declaration and which such wise men in this case would never have omitted they regard no Complaints that were made against this Service but roundly decree an Invocation to be due to them and establish it upon the Old Foundation before-mention'd and which had given rise to all these excesses viz. that the Saints REIGN TOGETHER WITH CHRIST and were therefore in A SUPLIANT MANNER to be call'd upon and that for the obtaining benefits of God they were to fly not only to their Prayers but also to their Help and Assistance And when according to their Order for reciting the Missals and Breviaries they were again set out the one Four the other Six years after the Council was ended the Hymns and Prayers were left still as we see and not so much as the least Note in a Rubrick for a right Exposition of them 34. Nay I will go yet farther There was not only no Care taken then but at this day men are suffer'd to run without Censure into the same Excesses We know to what Extravagance Card. Bona Father Crasset and but the other day Doctor J. C. our own Countryman have gone and no One of your Church censures them for it Cassander immediately after the Council no less complain'd of these things than Vives and Wicelius before and that too was disregarded On the contrary whilst the Extravagances of these Votaries are encouraged the moderation of the others is censured by the highest Authority of your Church The Psalter of S. Bonaventure goes abroad with permission but the Comments of Lud. Vives are put in the Expurgatory Index and George Cassander's Works absolutely prohibited Crasset devotion veritable pref p. 2. If Advices are given from the Blessed Virgin to her indiscreet Worshippers All the Servants of the B. Virgin run to Arms to encounter him The Learned of All Nations write against him the Holy See condemns him Spain banishes him out of all its Dominions and forbids to Read or Print his Book as impious and Erroneous But if a Crasset in his Zeal for the Mother of God runs into such blasphemous Excesses as no pious Ears can hear without indignation If he rake together all that the Folly and Superstition of former Ages has said or done the most excessively on this Subject to make up a Volumn scandalous to that Church and Society that endures him not only the Divines of his Order approve it but his Provincial licenses it to be Printed the King's Permission is obtain'd for it and the Expounders themselves are so very good natur'd that they cannot see any harm in it And then let the World judge what your true
to a Jupiter or an Apollo that never lived in the World as to a St. George or a St. Christopher that never had any more being in it than they And yet were we now to inquire into these Circumstances without a full knowledg of which this Invocation can never be a reasonable service what uncertain accounts should we receive from you For In his suppress'd Edition Expos of Mr. de Meaux Sect. IV. p. 7. 127. First As to the main foundation of all Whether the Saints hear your prayers In what doubt is your Bishop of Meaux still in his Exposition and you know he was once in a great deall more All he has to say is that you teach That your prayers to the Saints are very profitable Whether it be that they know them by the Ministry and Communication of the Angels or whether it be that God himself makes known to them our desires by a particular Revelation or whether it be that he discovers the secret to them in his Divine Essence in which all truth is Comprised If we enquire of your more Ancient Authors we shall find all full of Uncertainty Lombard sent lib. IV. dist 45. Scotus ibid. Qu. 4. Gabr. Biel. in Can. Miss l. 31. Lombard thought it was not incredible to suppose that the Saints might know the prayers that were addressed to them Scotus went a little farther and judged it to be probable that God revealed these things to them And so did Gabriel Biel. Those who pretend to more certainty yet are able to give but very little reason why * Bellarm. de Eccles Triumph l. 1. cap. 20. unless you will take this for a reason that their Church generally belives so and that otherwise it would be vain and absur'd to pray to them In short how the Saints hear your prayers you do not pretend to know and I desire you to give Me but one rational Argument to convince me that by whatever means it is they do ordinarily and constantly and certainly and particularly understand the Addresses that you make to them For to deal freely with you I never yet met with any thing that but inclined me to believe this but much to the contrary 128. Secondly Concerning the Canonization of your Saints may I beg leave to ask you Are you sure that all those whom your Church has placed in Heaven are truly there if you are not I am sure you do very unreasonably to pray to them Now this I the rather desire to be satisfied in because here again I find your Authors very much unresolved what to say Bellarm. l. 1. de Beat. SS e. 8. 9. Vasquez l 1. de Ador. disp V. c. 3. First It is but the common Opinion no matter of Faith that the power of Canonizing Saints belongs to the Pope and therefore it cannot be without all doubt whether those whom he Canonizes are infallibly Saints or no. Secondly The Jesuit Vasquez tells us there are Catholicks He means those of your Communion who do not think it without doubt that all whom your Church has Canonized are indeed Saints Cajetane libr. de Indulg c. 8. Canus loc Theol. lib. 5. c. 5. Gerson de 4. dom cons 2. c. de Exam. doctr cons 1. See Bishop Taylours Polem disc pag. 333. And he mentions no less a man than Cardinal Cajetane for one And that Cardinal in the book to which Vasquez refers alledges the great Doctour of your Schools S. Thomas for another To these I will add Melchior Canus Antoninus and Gerson who at most esteem it but piously credible not absolutely certain But Augustinus Triumphus goes farther and doubts not freely to declare that all who are Canonized by the Pope cannot be in Heaven And Prateolus tells us that Herman the Author of the Heresie of the Fratricelli was for twenty years together after his death honour'd as a Saint and then his body was taken up and burnt for a Heretick And now if you are not yet sensible of the danger you run by this means whilst you not only call upon a damned soul for aid and assistance but as in some of your prayers you do pray unto God so to give you Grace on Earth as he has glorified them in Heaven De SS beat l. 1. c. 9. Sect. secundo I shall leave it to your own Cardinal Bellarmine to inform you of it Thirdly It is confessed by those of your own Church that among your Canonized Saints some there have been whose Lives were not to be commended Others whose Opinions have been condemned as Heretical and for my part when I consider the Character of some to whom you pray such as Thomas a Becket Dominick c. I cannot but say that if these be the men whom you place in Heaven what the poor Indians did of the Spaniards that then the other is certainly the more desirable portion For and I am perswaded that were but S. Martin again alive to summon their Souls before him as he once did that of a supposed Saint in his time Vid Bellar. de beat SS l. 1. cap. 7. they would make the same Confession that wretched Spirit is reported to have done and prove much more worthy your Compassion than your Adoration Now that which the more encreases this danger is Fourthly The almost infinite Number of Saints that have been received amongst you and whose Consecration depending wholly on matter of Fact in which you do not pretend the Pope to be Infallible it can hardly be supposed but that he must have very often proved mistaken For to keep only to your own Order a late Author of yours tells us Calendarium Benedictinum ad 26. Dec. that your Domestick Saints alone did long since by computation amount to fourty four thousand And I find another †Dr. Jackson T. 1. p. 937. list increasing them to fifty thousand Now to consider all the Arts and Intrigues that are used to procure these Canonizations by what Popes many of them have been placed in Heaven what Characters several among them have in your own Histories of their Lives these and many other Reflections would I confess prompt me were I otherwise as well satisfied of the Innocence of this Worship as I am fully convinced of the unlawfulness of it yet to pray to the greatest part of your Saints as he once did to Saint Cutbert Si Sanctus sis Ora pro me IF THOU ART A SAINT pray for me 129. It is I know the last refuge of many who consider this uncertainty to say That at least your good intention shall render these Prayers acceptable to God Vossius Thes Theol. p. 106. for what says the Learned Erasmus if the Saints do not perceive our desires yet Christ do's know them and will for them give us what we ask But yet still this will not make it a reasonable Service nor can you with a firm Faith call upon those in Heaven of whom you have
thing extraordinary The Writer of her Life assures us that she was often wont to take him into Her Arms and play with him And the like happened to many other of your Saints as for instance Ibid. Mart 30. Saint Aldegundis St. Francisca of whom we are told that being committed to the care of an Arch-angel she did oftentimes read the Office of the Blessed Virgin in the night lb. Mart. 9. by the Light that proceeded from his Rays And was for her diligence in it so acceptable to the Virgin that she several times came down from Heaven to refresh her and offer'd her Son to be kiss'd and embraced by her Tom. IV. p. 590. Dec. XI 156. But the Favours of the Blessed Virgin to St. Ida were of all others the most considerable For coming down into Her Cell with her INFANT JESUS Behold says she O Ida thy Love Take Him into thy Lap and satisfy thy self with the Kisses and Embraces of him whom thou lovest My Author goes on beyond all bounds even of common decency But I must stop here and not repeat those Blasphemies which cannot be read without trembling But O Blessed Jesus How long wilt thou suffer this dishonour and permit an unbounded Superstition to run to these Excesses I appeal to all the Christians of the World what mean dishonourable Notions must they have of the God of Heaven and Earth that in such a discerning Age can presume to publish such Romances These Stories might indeed become a Homer or a Virgil But what is fancy in them being applied to a Venus and a Cupid is an unpardonable Blasphemy to be thus used of the Saviour of the World who is God over all blessed for ever 157. These are the effects of this Superstition I might add many other Examples no less Horrible in which our Blessed Lord has been diminish'd to make up the Honour of his Servants But I shall shut up all with an Impiety of another kind though the effect of this Worship and which ought the more to be taken notice of both because it was done by a Society which would be thought at least the most zealous of any for their Faith and was exposed publickly in the sight of the Sun and before the Eyes of many to whom I now write See the Account publish'd by that Society La S te Vierge Patrone Honoree Bienfaisante dans la France dans le Luxembourg The thing I mean is the late Procession of the Jesuits at Luxemburg May 20. 1685. designed for the Glory of the Blessed Virgin the Honour'd and Affectionate Patroness of France and Luxembourg The Procession indeed was singularly extravagant and it needed the skill of that Learned Society to put Prophaness into so Scholastick a dress Heathenism and Christianity walk'd together as if the Fathers of the Society had equally reverenced the Ancient Deities of the One as the Modern Deities of the Other On the one side were carried the Image of the Blessed Virgin and the Holy Sacrament On the other Mars Vulcan the Cyclops and Nayades Ceres Flora Pomona c. And these too with all the Pomp and even under the Names of GODS and DIVINITIES At several Stations where the Procession was to rest Theatres were erected to serve to inspire agreeably say the Learned Fathers in the Account which they printed of this days Work a Piety towards our Lady of Consolation So the Blessed Virgin there is called The second of these Theatres was for the GOD MARS who commands his Warriors to take heed not to commit any insult from henceforth upon the Chappel of our Lady of Consolation This is Mars's care And the Device for the GOD Mars was Procul ô procul ite profani Virg. In the third Theatre Ceres Flora Pomona c. rejoyce at the return of our Lady of Consolation And their Motto still under the Title of Divinities was Jam redit Virgo redeunt Saturnia Regna It were too long to transcribe all the other Follies and Impieties of this days Solemnity in which the Holy Scripture found no room the Sacrament but very little The whole Piety was designed to the Blessed Virgin and because Christianity had not Gods enough in it to set forth her Glory all the Poetic Deities were revived to inspire agreeably a Devotion into the People for Her. This was indeed a Master-piece of Contrivance and what Invention shall next be had to excite a Devotion to her we may expect to see the first time the Gentlemen of the Society shall have Occasion to make their complying Consciences do something extraordinary for the Flattery of a Prince so much their Friend and therefore so much their Favourite as he for whose Honour this Solemn Procession was in great measure designed In the mean time I shall leave it to the Reader seriously to consider what sad Effects such a Devotion as this has given birth to and what just Cause we have to oppose a Superstition contrary to the Holy Scripture unknown to the best and most Primitive Antiquity unreasonable in its self and which is worst of all not only very Vnprofitable but very Wicked too in its Practice ANSWER TO THE FOURTH ARTICLE OF IMAGES and RELIQUES IN the beginning of this Article you tell me but with very little reason that you might have past over this point without any further consideration Reply p. 23. the best Argument you bring for it being if I mistake not this That you are not obliged to defend what I had advanced against you upon it And indeed tho the reason be but a poor one yet I am perswaded you had done better both for the interest of your Cause and for your own credit to have contented your self with it and have past over this Article altogether rather than by giving such loose Answers to my Allegations to have satisfied the World that you have no just Exceptions to make against them 2. Were I minded in return to excuse my self the trouble of any farther Answer to you I could I believe give you some more plausible pretences for it I might tell you 1st That your Distinctions are now so well known and have been so often exploded by us Reply Ibid. that there is no longer any danger that even my friends the Vulgar should be circumvented by them I might add 2dly And that with great truth that this whole subject has been utterly exhausted by that Learned Man I have so often mention'd in his Defence of the Charge of Idolatry against T. G. and from whom you have here again borrow'd your chiefest strength I might mind you 3ly How after two endeavours to reply to him T. G. was forced to give over and it is now above eight years since neither he nor any of your Church has thought fit to carry on the Dispute I might desire you 4thly To compare your performances upon this point with what the Representer ventur'd not above a year since to make