proving the present Roman church is in error, or that the ancient was?

Ans. It is, if the error be in those things wherein she is affirmed to be infallible; viz. in points of faith.

Reply. And this here spoken of, whether it be lawful to offer tapers and incense to the honour of the blessed Virgin, is, I hope, a question concerning a point of faith.

3. Demand. Whether offering a cake to the Virgin Mary, be not as lawful, as to offer incense, and tapers, and divers other oblations, to the same Virgin?

Ans. It is as lawful to offer a cake to her honour, as wax-tapers; but neither the one, nor the other, may be offered to her, or her honour, as the term or object of the action. For, to speak properly, nothing is offered to her, or her honour, but to God in the honour of the blessed Virgin. For incense, it is a foul slander, that it is offered any way to the blessed Virgin; for that incensing, which is used in the time of mass, is ever understood by all sorts of people to be directed to God only.

Reply. If any thing be offered to her, she is the object of that oblation: as if I see water, and through water something else, the water is the object of my sight, though not the last object. If I honour the king's deputy, and by him the king, the deputy is the object of my action, though not the final object: and to say these things may be offered to her, but not as to the object of the action, is to say,

they may be of

fered to her, but not to her. For what else is

meant by the object of an action,

but that thing,

on which the action is employed, and to which it is directed?

If you say, that by the object of the action you mean the final object only, wherewith the action is terminated; you should then have spoken more properly and distinctly, and not have denied her simply to be the object of this action, when you mean only she is not such a kind of object; no more than you may deny a man to be a living creature, meaning only that he is not a horse.

Secondly, I say, it is not required of Roman catholics, when they offer tapers to the saints, that by an actual intention they direct their action actually to God; but it is held sufficient, that they know and believe, that the saints are in subordination and near relation to God, and that they give this honour to the saints because of this relation; and to God himself rather habitually and interpretative, than actually, expressly, and formally as many men honour the king's deputy, without having any present thought of the king, and yet their action may be interpreted an honour to the king, being given to his deputy, only because he is his deputy, and for his relation to the king. Thirdly, I say, there is no reason or ground in the world for any man to think, that the Collyridians did not choose the Virgin Mary for the object of their worship, rather than any other woman or any other creature, merely for her relation to Christ; and, by consequence, there is no ground to imagine, but that at least habitually and interpretative, they directed their action unto Christ, if not actually and formally. And ergo, if that be a sufficient defence for the papists, that they make not the blessed Virgin the final

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,