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actual failings are frequent (as I showed before out of pope Adrian), it will be but a weak excuse to say, 'I worship thee if thou be the Son of God, but I do not worship thee, if thou beest not consecrated;' and, in the mean-time, the divine worship is actually exhibited to what is set before us. At the best we may say to these men, as our blessed Saviour to the woman of Samaria, "ye worship ye know not what; but we know what we worship." For, concerning the action of adoration, this I am to say, that it is a fit address in the day of solemnity, with a 'sursum corda,' with 'our hearts lift up' to heaven, where Christ sits (we are sure) at the right hand of the Father, for "nemo dignè manducat, nisi priùs adoraverit," said S. Austin; "no man eats Christ's body worthily, but he that first adores Christ." But to terminate the divine worship to the sacrament, to that which we eat, is so unreasonable and unnatural", and withal, so scandalous, that Averroes, observing it to be used among the Christians, with whom he had the ill fortune to converse, said these words: "Quandoquidem Christiani adorant quod comedunt, sit anima mea cum philosophisi:" "Since Christians worship what they eat, let my soul be with the philosophers." If the man had conversed with those, who better understood the article, and were more religious and wise in their worshippings, possibly he might have been invited by the excellency of the institution to become a Christian. But they that give scandal to Jews by their images, and leaving out the second commandment from their catechisms, give offence to the Turks by worshipping the sacrament, and to all reasonable men by striving against two or three sciences, and the notices of all mankind. "We worship the flesh of Christ in the mysteries (saith Ambrose), as the apostles did worship it in our Saviour."- For we receive the mysteries as representing and exhibiting to our souls the flesh and blood of Christ; so that we worship it in the sumption, and venerable usages of the signs of his body. But we give no divine honour to the signs we do not call the sacrament our God. And let it be considered, whether, if the primitive church had ever done, or taught, that the divine worship ought to be given to the

h Vide Theodoret quæst. 55. in Genes. et q. 11. in Levit.

· Αβελτερίας ἐσχάτης τὸ ἐσθιόμενον προσκυνεῖν. Theodoret q. in Gen. q. 55. De Spir. S. 1. 3. c. 12.

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sacrament, it had not been certain, that the heathen would have retorted most of the arguments upon their heads, by which the Christians reproved their worshipping of images. The Christians upbraided them with worshipping the works of their hands; to which themselves gave what figure they pleased, and then, by certain forms, consecrated them, and made, by invocation, (as they supposed) a divinity to dwell there. They objected to them, that they worshipped that which could neither see, nor hear, nor smell, nor taste, nor move, nor understand: that which could grow old, and perish, that could be broken and burned,-that was subject to the injury of rats and mice, of worms, and creeping things, that can be taken by enemies, and carried away,that is kept under lock and key, for fear of thieves and sacrilegious persons. Now, if the church of those ages had thought and practised, as they have done at Rome, in these last ages, might not they have said, 'Why may not we as well as you? Do not you worship that with Divine honours, and call it your God, which can be burnt, and broken, which yourselves form into a round or square figure, which the oven first hardens, and then your priests consecrate, and, by invocation, make to be your God,-which can see no more, nor hear, nor smell, than the silver and gold upon our images? Do not you adore that which rats and mice eat, which can grow mouldy and sour, which you keep under locks and bars, for fear your God be stolen? Did not Lewis IX. pawn your God to the soldan of Egypt, insomuch that to this day the Egyptian escutcheons, by way of triumph, bear upon them a pix with a wafer in it: true it is, that if we are beaten from our cities, we carry our Gods with us; but, did not the jesuits carry your host (which you call God) about their necks from Venice, in the time of the interdict? now, why do you reprove that in us which you do in yourselves? What could have been answered to them, if the doctrine, and accidents of their time, had furnished them with these, or the like instances? In vain it would have been to have replied; yea, but ours is the true God, and yours are false gods.'-For they would easily have made a rejoinder; and said, that this is to be proved by some other argument; in the mean-time, all your objections against our worshipping of images, return violently upon

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you. Upon this account, since none of the witty and subtle adversaries of Christianity ever did, or could make this defence by way of recrimination, it is certain, there was no occasion given; and, therefore those trifling pretences made out of some sayings of the fathers, pretending the practice of worshipping the sacrament, must needs be sophistry, and illusion, and can need no particular consideration. But if any man can think them at all considerable, I refer him to be satisfied by Michael le Faucheur, in his voluminous confutation of Cardinal Perron'. I, for my part, am weary of the infinite variety of argument in this question; and, therefore, shall only observe this, that antiquity does frequently use the words προσκύνητος, σεβασμιώτατος, θειός, προσκυνούμενος, “ venerable,' ' adorable,' 'worshipful,' to every thing that ought to be received with great reverence, and used with regard: to princes, to laws, to baptism, to bishops, to priests, to the ears of priests, the cross, the chalice, the temples, the words of Scripture, the feasts of Easter; and upon the same account, by which it is pretended, that some of the fathers taught the adoration of the Eucharist, we may also infer the adoration of all the other instances. But that which proves too much, proves nothing at all.

These are the grounds by which I am myself established, and by which I persuade or confirm others in this article.

I end with the words of the fathers in the council of Constantinople, ἄρτου οὐσίαν προσ έταξε προσφέρεσθαι, μὴ σχηματί ζουσαν ἀνθρώπου μορφὴν, ἵνα μὴ εἰδωλολατρεία παρεισαχθῇ. “ Christ commanded the substance of bread to be offered, not in the shape of a man, lest idolatry should be introduced."

Gloria Deo in excelsis:

In terris pax hominibus bonæ voluntatis.

Lib. 4. c. 5. de la Cêne du Seigneur.

m A. D. 745.

A

DISSUASIVE

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POPERY.

PART I.

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