fountains of these graces, and produce confidences, whose last resort is not upon God, who neither was the author nor is an approver of them.

Of this nature are holy water, the paschal wax, oil, palm boughs, holy bread (not eucharistical), hats, Agnus Deis, medals, swords, bells, and roses, hallowed upon the Sunday called Lætare Jerusalem :" such as Pope Pius the II, sent to James the II, of Scotland, and Sixtus Quintus, to the Prince of Parma concerning which, their doctrine is this, that the blood of Christ is by those 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, 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 those 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 the most likely of them all as being good food, and good medicine ;) and although not so much as a chicken is now a-days cured of the pip by holy water, yet upon all occasions they use it, and the common people throw it upon their children's cradles, and sick cow's horns, and upon them that are blighted; and if they recover by any means it is imputed to the holy water: and so the simplicity of the 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 religion, 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.

ON INDULGENCES, AND THEIR SOUL
DESTROYING CONSEQUENCES.

THE Roman Catholic doctrine of Indulgences was the first occasion of the great change and reformation of the western churches, begun by the preachings of Martin Luther, and others; and beside that it grew to that intolerable abuse, that it became a shame to itself, and a reproach to christendom; it was also so palpable an innovation, that their great An

toninus confesses, that "concerning them we have nothing expressly, either in the scriptures or in the sayings of the ancient doctors;" and the same is affirmed by Sylvester and Prierias. Bishop Fisher, of Rochester, says, "that in the beginning of the church there was no use of indulgences; and that they began after the people were awhile affrighted with the torments of purgatory;" and many of the schoolmen confess that the use of indulgences began in the time of Pope Alexander the Third, towards the end of the twelfth century; but Agrippa imputes the beginning of them to Boniface the Eighth, who lived in the reign of King Edward the First, of England, but that in his time the first jubilee was kept, we are assured by Crautzius. This Pope lived and died with very great infamy, and, therefore, was not likely from himself to transfer much honour and reputation to the new institution. But that about this time indulgences began. is more than probable-much before, it is certain they were not. For in the whole canon law written by Gratian, and in the sentences of Peter Lombard, there is nothing spoken of indulgences. Now, because they lived in the time of Pope Alexander the Third, if he had been as ancient as St. Gregory (as some vainly and weakly pretend, from no greater authority than their own legends, it is probable that these great men writing bodies of divinity and law, would have made mention of so considerable a point, and so great a

part of the Roman religion, as things are now ordered. If they had been doctrines of the church then, as they are now, it is certain they must have come under their cognizance and discourses. Now, lest the Roman emissaries should deceive any of the good sons of the church, we think it fit to acquaint them, that in the primitive church when the Bishops imposed severe penances, and that when they were almost performed and a great cause of pity intervened, or danger of death, or an excellent repentance, or that the martyrs interceded, the Bishop did some→ times indulge the penitent, and relax some of the remaining parts of his penance; and according to the example of St. Paul in the case of the incestuous Corinthian, gave them ease lest they should be swallowed up with too much sorrow.

But the Roman doctrine of indulgences is quite another thing; nothing of it but the abused name remains. For in the Church of Rome they now pretend that there are infinite degrees of Christ's merits and satisfaction beyond what is necessary for the salvation of his servants; and (for fear Christ should not have enough) the saints have a surplusage of merits, or at least of satisfactions, more than they can spend, or themselves do need; and out of these the church hath made her a treasure, a kind of poor man's box; and out of this, a power to take as much as they list to to apply to the poor souls in purgatory, who, because