aspicit Jesum imperantem dæmonibus, sed etiam potestatem dantem discipulis super omnia dæmonia, et ut infirmitates sanarent, dicet, non est secundum potestatem datam à Salvatore adjurare dæmonia; Judaicum enim est:" "If any one asks, whether it be fit to adjure devils? He that beholds Jesus commanding over devils, and also giving power to his disciples over all unclean spirits, and to heal diseases, will say, that to adjure devils is not according to the power given by our blessed Saviour; for it is a Jewish trick:" and St. Chrysostom spake soberly and truly, "We poor wretches cannot drive away the flies, much less devils."

But then as to the manner of their conjurations and exorcisms; this we say, If these things come from God, let them show their warranty, and their books of precedents: if they come not from God, they are like the enchantments of Balaam, the old heathens, and the modern magicians, that their original is soon discovered.

But yet from what principle it comes, that they have made exorcists an ecclesiastical order, with special words and instruments of collation; and that the words of ordination giving them power only over possessed Christians, catechumens or baptized, should by them be extended and exercised upon all infants, as if they were all possessed by the devil; and not only so, but to bewitched cattle, to mice and locusts, to milk and lettuce, to houses and tempests; as if their charms were Prophylactic, as well as Therapeutic; and could keep, as well as drive the devil out, and prevent storms like the old xanagopuranes, of whom Seneca makes mention of these things we cannot guess at any probable principle, except they have derived them from the Jewish Cabala, or the exorcisms, which it is said Solomon used, when he had consented to idolatry.

But these things are so unlike the wisdom and simplicity, the purity and spirituality of Christian devotion; are so perfectly of their own devising, and wild imagination; are so full of dirty superstitions, and ignorant fancies, that there are not in the world many things, whose sufferance and practice can more destroy the beauty of holiness, or reproach a church, or society of Christians.

In illa verba, [Qui credit in me, majora faciet.] h Ques. Nat. lib. iv. c. 6. Ruhkopf. vol. v. p. 254.

SECTION X.

To put our trust and confidence in God only, and to use ministeries of his own appointment and sanctification, is so essential a duty owing by us to God, that whoever trusts in any thing but God, is a breaker of the first commandment; and he that invents instrumental supports of his own head, and puts a subordinate ministerial confidence in them, usurps the rights of God, and does not pursue the interests of true religion, whose very essence and formality is to glorify God in all his attributes, and to do good to man, and to advance the honour and kingdom of Christ. Now how greatly the church of Rome prevaricates in this great soul of religion, appears by too evident and notorious demonstration: for she hath invented sacramentals of her own, without a Divine warrant, Δεῖ γὰρ, περὶ τῶν θείων καὶ ἁγίων τῆς πίστεως μυστηρίων, μηδὲν τὸ τυχὸν ἄνευ τῶν θείων παραδίδοσθαι γραφῶν, said St. Cyril, "Concerning the holy and Divine mysteries of faith or religion, we ought to do nothing by chance, or of our own heads, nothing without the authority of the Divine Scriptures" but the church of Rome does otherwise; invents things of her own, and imputes spiritual effects to these sacramentals; and promises not only temporal blessings, and immunities, and benedictions, but the collation or increment of spiritual graces, and remission of venial sins, and alleviation of pains due to mortal sins, to them who shall use these sacramentals: which because God did not institute, and did not sanctify, they use them without faith, and rely upon them without a promise, and make themselves the fountains of these graces, and produce confidences, whose last resort is not upon God, who neither was the author, nor is aṇ approver of them.

Of this nature are holy water, the paschal wax, oil, palm-boughs, holy bread (not eucharistical), Agnus Dei's, medals, swords, bells, and roses hallowed upon the Sunday called Lætare Jerusalem;' such as Pope Pius II. sent to James II. of Scotland, and Sixtus Quintus to the Prince of

a Cyril. Hieros. Catech. 4.

b Bellarm. de cultu Sanct. lib. iii. c. 7. sect. Secunda propositio, et sect. Secund. ad deletionem.

Parma: concerning which, their doctrine is this, that the blood of Christ is by these applied unto us, that they do not only signify, but produce spiritual effects, that they blot out venial sins, that they drive away devils, that they cure diseases, and that though these things do not operate infallibly, as do the sacraments, and that God hath made no express covenant concerning them, yet by the devotion of them that use them, and the prayers of the church, they do prevail.

Now though it be easy to say, and it is notoriously true in theology, that the prayers of the church can never prevail, but according to the grace which God hath promised; and either can only procure a blessing upon natural things, in order to their natural effects; or else an extraordinary supernatural effect, by virtue of a Divine promise; and that these things are pretended to work beyond their natural force, and yet God hath not promised to them a supernatural blessing, as themselves confess; yet besides the falseness of the doctrine, on which these superstitions do rely, it is also as evident, that these instrumentalities produce an affiance and confidence in the creature, and estrange men's hearts from the true religion and trust in God, while they think themselves blessed in their own inventions, and in digging to themselves cisterns of their own, and leaving the fountain of blessing and eternal life.

To this purpose the Roman priests abuse the people with romantic stories out of the Dialogues of St. Gregory, and Venerable Bede; making them believe, that St. Fortunatus cured a man's broken thigh with holy water, and that St. Malachias, the bishop of Down and Connor, cured a madman with the same medicine; and that St. Hilarion cured many sick persons with holy bread and oil (which indeed is the most likely of them all, as being good food, and good medicine); and although not so much as a chicken is now-adays cured of the pip by holy water, yet upon all occasions they use it, and the common people throw it upon children's cradles, and sick cows' horns, and upon them that are blasted; and if they recover by any means, it is imputed to the holy water: and so the simplicity of Christian religion, the glory of our dependence on God, the wise order and economy of blessings in the Gospel, the sacredness and

mysteriousness of sacraments and Divine institutions, are disordered and dishonoured: the bishops and priests inventing both the word and the element, institute a kind of sacrament, in great derogation to the supreme prerogative of Christ; and men are taught to go in ways which superstition hath invented, and interest does support.

But there is yet one great instance more of this irreligion. Upon the sacraments themselves they are taught to rely, with so little of moral and virtuous dispositions, that the efficacy of one is made to lessen the necessity of the other; and the sacraments are taught to be so effectual by an inherent virtue, that they are not so much made the instruments of virtue, as the suppletory; not so much to increase, as to make amends for the want of grace: on which we shall not now insist, because it is sufficiently remarked in our reproof of the Roman doctrines, in the matter of repentance.

SECTION XI.

AFTER all this, if their doctrines, as they are explicated by their practice, and the commentaries of their greatest doctors, do make their disciples guilty of idolatry, there is not any thing greater to deter men from them, than that danger to their souls which is imminent over them, upon that account.

Their worshipping of images we have already reproved, upon the account of its novelty and innovation in Christian religion. But that it is against good life, a direct breach of the second commandment, an act of idolatry, as much as the heathens themselves were guilty of, in relation to the second commandment, is but too evident by the doctrines of their own leaders.

For if to give Divine honour to a creature be idolatry, then the doctors of the church of Rome teach their people to commit idolatry: for they affirm, that the same worship which is given to the prototype or principal, the same is to be given to the image of it. As we worship the holy Trinity, and Christ, so we may worship the images of the Trinity, and of Christ; that is, with Latria,' or 'Divine

'honour.' This is the constant sentence of the divines; "The image is to be worshipped with the same honour and worship, with which we worship those whose image it is," said Azorius, their great master of casuistical theology. And this is the doctrine of their great St. Thomas, of Alexander of Ales, Bonaventure, Albertus, Richardus, Capreolus, Cajetan, Coster, Valentia, Vasquez, the Jesuits of Cologne, Triers, and Mentz, approving Coster's opinion.

Neither can this be eluded by saying, that though the same worship be given to the image of Christ, as to Christ himself, yet it is not done in the same way; for it is terminatively to Christ or God, but relatively to the image, that is, to the image for God's or Christ's sake. For this is that we complain of, that they give the same worship to an image, which is due to God; for what cause soever it be done, it matters not, save only that the excuse makes it, in some sense, the worse for the apology. For, to do a thing which God hath forbidden, and to say it is done for God's sake, is to say, that for his sake we displease him; for his sake we give that to a creature, which is God's own propriety. But besides this, we affirm, and it is of itself evident, that whoever, Christian or heathen, worships the image of any thing, cannot possibly worship that image terminatively, for the very being of an image is relative; and, therefore, if the man understands but common sense, he must suppose and intend that worship to be relative, and a heathen could not worship an image with any other worship; and the second commandment, forbidding to worship the "likeness of any thing in heaven or earth," does only forbid that thing which is in heaven to be worshipped by image, that is, it forbids only a relative worship: for it is a contradiction to say, this is the image of God, and yet this is God; and, therefore, it must be also a contradiction, to worship an image with Divine worship terminatively; for then it must be, that the image of a thing is that thing whose image it is. And, therefore, these doctors teach the same thing, which they condemn in the heathens.

an

But they go yet a little further: the image of the cross they worship with Divine honour; and, therefore, although

a Instit, moral. par. 1. lib. ix. c. 6.