object of their worship, but worship her, not for her own sake, but for her relation unto Christ; Epiphanius surely did ill to charge the Collyridians with heresy, having nothing to impute to them, but only that he was informed, that they offered a cake to the honour of the blessed Virgin; which honour yet they might, and without question did, give unto her for her relation unto Christ, and so made her not the last object and term of their worship and from hence it is evident, that he conceived the very action itself substantially and intrinsically malicious; i. c. he believed it a sin, that they offered to her at all; and so by their action put her in the place of God, by giving unto her this worship proper to God; and not that they terminated their action finally in her, or did in very deed think her to be God, and not a creature.

But, to speak properly (you say) nothing is offered to her, or to her honour, but to God in honour of the blessed Virgin.

Belike then, if through Henley I go from hence to London, I may not be said properly to go to Henley, but only to London; or if through water I see the sand, I may not be properly said to see the water, but only the sand. Away with such shifting sophistry; either leave your practice of offering to saints, if it be nought, or colour it not over with such empty distinctions, if it be good : Christ saith to his apostles in regard of their relation to him, "He that heareth you, heareth me, and he that despiseth you, despiseth me;" and yet who doubts, but they that heard the apostles, did properly hear them, and they that despised them, did properly despise them, though their

action staid not in them, but reached up to heaven and to Christ himself? You pray to saints and angels, though you do not terminate your prayers in them; and yet I doubt not but your prayers to saints may be as properly called prayers, as those you make to God himself. For though these be of a more excellent nature than they, yet do they agree in the general nature, that they are both prayers: as, though a man be a more excellent creature than a horse, yet he agrees with him in this, that both are living creatures. But if nothing be properly offered to her, or to her honour, why do you in your sixth answer say, You may offer any thing to the Virgin Mary, by way of presents and gifts, by the doctrine of the Roman church? Certainly he that offers by way of gift or present, offers as properly as he that offers by way of sacrifice; as a horse is as properly a living creature as a man.

But if it were so, as you say, (which is most false) that you did not properly offer to the blessed Virgin, but to God in honour of her; yet in my judgment, this would not qualify or mend the matter, but make it worse. For, first, who taught you, that in the time of the gospel (after the accomplishment of the prediction, "Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, but a body hast thou prepared me;" after this interpretation of it in the Epistle to the Hebrews, "He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second,") that it is still lawful to offer tapers or incense to God? Secondly, in my understanding, to offer to God in honour of the Virgin, is more derogatory from God's honour, than to offer to her in the honour of God; for this is, in my apprehension, to sub

ordinate God to her, to make her the terminating and final object of the action; to make God the way, and her the end, and by and through God to convey the worship unto her.

But for incense (you say) it is a foul slander, that it is offered any way to the blessed Virgin.

To this I answer, that your imputing slander to me is itself a slander: for, 1. In your fifth answer you have given a clear intimation, that you have never been out of England; so that you cannot certainly know what is the practice of your church in this point beyond sea. And he that lives amongst you, and has but half an eye open and free from prejudice, cannot but see, that the Roman religion is much more exorbitant in the general practice of it, than it is in the doctrine published in books of controversy; where it is delivered with much caution and moderation, nay, cunning and dissimulation, that it may be the fitter to win and engage proselytes; who being once ensnared, though they be afterwards startled with strange and unlooked-for practices, yet a hundred to one but they will rather stifle their conscience, and dash all scruples against the pretended rock of their church's infallibility, and blindly follow those guides, to whose conduct they have unadvisedly committed themselves, than come off again with the shame of being reputed weak and inconstant; so terrible an idol is this vain nothing, the opinion and censure of foolish man.

But to return again to you, I say, your ignorance of the practice of the Roman church beyond the seas does plainly convince, that you have rashly, and therefore slanderously, charged me with the crime of slander. As for your reason,

you add, Consider it again, and you will see it is worth nothing. For what if incensing in time of mass be understood by all sorts of people to be directed to God alone, (which yet you cannot possibly know) yet this I hope hinders not, but that in processions you may incense the images of the saints, and consequently (according to your doctrine) do this honour to the saints themselves represented by the images. I myself (unless I am very much mistaken) was present when this very thing was done to the picture of St. Bennet or St. Gregory, in the cloister of St. Vedastus in the monastery in Doway.

But indeed what a ridiculous inconsequence is it to think, that wax tapers may lawfully be offered to the saints, and incense may not; or if incense may not, which you seem to disclaim as impious, that wax tapers may!

4. Demand. Whether the Collyridians were not condemned as heretics by the ancient church, first, for offering a cake upon an anniversary feast to the blessed Virgin secondly, for that they did this, not being priests.

Ans. The Collyridians were condemned as heretics for two things: first, for employing women in the place and office of priests to offer a cake (not in the nature of a gift or present, but) in the nature of a sacrifice, which was never lawful for any but † men, and those ‡ consecrated.

* Ut in nomen Virginis Collyridem quandam sacrificarent. Epiph. hær. 78. Offerunt panem in nomen Mariæ, omnes autem pane participant.

+ Deo enim ab æterno nullatenus mulier sacrificavit. Idem hæres. 79.

Diaconissarum ordo est in ecclesia, sed non ad sacrifican

Secondly, for offering this* sacrifice is ovoμa in the name of the blessed Virgin, id est, unto her, herself directly and terminatively, as an act of † Divine worship and adoration, due unto her, as unto a sovereign ‡ power and Deity.

Reply. It seems then these women might offer this cake to the honour and name of the Virgin Mary, if they had done it as a gift or present, and not as a sacrifice. Epiphanius then surely was too hasty to condemn them, being informed of nothing, but that they offered a cake unto her. Methinks before he had put them in his catalogue he should have inquired whether they offered this cake as a gift only, or as a sacrifice. Certainly, had the practice of offering to saints by way of gifts been the practice of the church in his time, he would not have been so uncharitable, as to condemn that action as impious and heretical, which might have received so lawful and pious a construction. But he, good man! it seems, could not conceive a difference between a sacrifice, and

dum; nam neque diaconis concreditum est, ut aliquod mysterium perficiant. Id. ibid.

* Vid. sup. notam.

+ Mortuis cultum divinum præstantes, Id. ibid.—And again : Revera Virgo erat honorata, sed non ad adorationem nobis data, sed ipsa adorans Deum.-And again: Non ut adoretur Virgo, nec ut Deum hanc efficeret, &c. Sit in honore Mariæ; Pater, et Filius, et Spiritus S. adoretur, Mariam nemo adoret. Deo debetur hoc mysterium. Id. ibid.

↑ Pro Deo hanc introducere statuerant. Id. ibid.-Revera sanctum erat Mariæ corpus, non tamen Deus.-And again : Mulierem eam appellavit Joh. ii. velut prophetans: et ne aliqui nimium admirati sanctam, in hanc heræsin dilabantur.-And again : Non tamen aliter genita est præter hominis naturam, sed sicut omnes ex semine viri et utero mulieris. Id. ibid.