Had he intended plain dealing, and to persuade men by reason and arguments, he should nakedly and openly have laid do\\Ti the doctrine and practice of his church in this matter, and have attempted to justify the one and the other. This had been done like a man who liked and approved what his interest forced him to defend, and upon honest principles sought to draw others to share with him in their worth and excellency. But he takes quite another course, and bends his design to cover his ware, and to hoodwink his chapmen, so to strike up a blind bargain between them.
Two things he knows that, in the doctrine of his church about the veneration of saints, Protestants are offended at : —
1. " That we ought religiously to invocate and call upon them, pray imto them, flying unto them for help and assistance;" which are the very words of the Trent Council, the avowed doctrine of his church, which whosoever believes not is cursed.
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2. " That we may plead for acceptance, grace, and mercy with God, for their merits and works;" which our author gilds over, but cannot deny.
If he will plainly undertake the defence of either of these, and ' endeavour to vindicate the first from superstition, and the latter from being highly derogatory to the mediation of Christ, both, or either, to have been known or practised in the first churches, he shall be attended unto. To tell us fine stories, and to compare their invocation of saints to the psalmist's apostrophes unto the works of the creation to set forth the praise of the Lord, which they do in Avhat they are, without doing more, and to deny direct praying unto them, is but to abuse himself, his church, his reader, and the truth; and to proclaim to all that he is indeed ashamed of the doctrine which he owns, because it is not good or honest, as the orator charged Epicurus. In the practice of his church, very many are the things which the Protestants are offended with : — Their canonization, framed perfectly after the manner of the old heathen apotheosis; their exalt- ing men into the throne of religious worship, some of a dubious existence, others of a more dubious saintship; their dedication of churches, altars, shrines, days to them ; their composing midtitudes of prayers for their people, to be repeated by them; their divulging feigned, ludicrous, ridiculous legends of their lives, to the dishonour of God, the gospel, the saints themselves; with innumerable other things of the like nature, which our author knoweth full well to be commonly practised and allowed in his chiu'ch. These are the things that he ought to defend, and make good their station, if he would invite others to a fellowship and communion with him. Instead of this, he tells us that his Catholics do not invocate saints directly; when I shall imdertake (what he knows can be performed) to give him a book, bigger than this of his, of prayers allowed by his church, and practised by his Catholics, made unto saints directly, for help, assistance, yea, grace, mercy, and heaven, or desiring these things for their merit, and upon their account : which, as I showed, are the two main parts of their doctrine condemned by Protestants. I can quickly send him Bonaventure's Psalter ; Prayers out of the Coflrse of Hours of the Blessed Virgin ; Our Lady's Antiphonies of her Sor- rows, her Seven Corporeal Joys, her Seven Heavenly Joys, out of her Rosary ; Prayers to St Paul, St James, Thomas, Pancratius, George, Blase, Christopher, whom not? — all made directly to them, and that for mercies spiritual and temporal ; and tell him how many years of indulgences, yea, thousands of years, his popes have granted to the saying of some of the like stamp: and all these, not out of musty legends, and the devotion of private monks and friars, but the authentic instruments of his church's worship and prayers. Let our author try whether he can justify any of these opinions or practices
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from the words of the Lord in Jeremiah, " Though Moses and Samuel should stand before me, yet is not my soul unto this people," — declar- ing his determinate counsel for their destruction, not to be averted by Moses or Samuel, were they alive again, who in their days had stood in the gap and turned away his wrath, that his whole displea- sure should not arise; — or from the words of Moses, praying the Lord to " remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob his servants ;" which he immediately expounds, as they are also in a hundred other places, by remembering his " covenant made with them, and the oath he sware unto them." These are pitiful, poor pillars to support so vast and tottering a superstruction ; and yet they are all that our author can get to give any countenance to him in his work, — which indeed is none at all.
Neither do we charge the Komanists with the particular fancies of their doctors, tlieir " speculum trinitatis," and the like; no, nor yet with the grosser part of the people's practice in constituting their saints in special presidentships, — one over hogs, another over sheep, another over cows and cocks, like the ruder sort of the ancient hea- then,— which we know our author would soon disavow : but the known docti'ine and approved practice of his whole church he must openly defend, or be silent in this cause hereafter. This mincing of the matter by praying saints, not praying to them; praying to them indi- rectly, not directly; praying them, as David calls on sun, moon, and stars to praise the Lord ; so praying to them as it is to no purpose whether they hear us or no, — is inconsistent with the doctrine and practice of his own church, to which he seemeth to draw men, and not to any private opinion of his own. And a wise piece of business it is indeed, that our author would persuade us that we may as well pray to saints in the Roman mode, as Paul desired the saints that were then alive to pray for him ! We know it is the duty of living saints to pray for one another; we know a certain way to excite them to the performance of that duty in reference unto us; we have rule, precedent, and command in the Scripture to do so; the requests we make to them are no illicit acts of religion ; we pray to them neither directly nor indirectly, but desire tliem, by virtue of our communion with them, to assist us in their prayers, as we miglit ask an alms or any other good turn at their hands. I wonder wise men are not ashamed thus to dally with their own and others' eternal concern- ments. After all this, at one breath he blows away all the Protest- ants as childish (just as Pyrgopolynices did the legions of his enemies) : " They ' are all childish.'" Let him show himself a man, and take up any one of them as they are managed by any one learned man of the church of England, and answer it if he can. If he cannot, this boast- ing will little avail him with considering men. I cannot close this paragraph without marking one passage toward the close of it. Lay-