Ferfidious fect they may be. So help me God. I LUTHER, in my father's fhoes. "I will go farther and declare to the whole world, that the Church of England, of which I have the honour to be a member, and more than a member, a Prieft, that confecrates the true and fubftantial Body and Blood of Jefus Chrift, declares and fets forth, as you have plainly heard me avouch out of her Common-Prayer Book, just as he has placed the words in my mouth, That our Lord is truly, really, and fubftantially prefent, as follows, by which we will prove ourfelves no Calvinifts or double-tongued mif

creants.

Whereas it is ordained in this Office for the Administration of the Lord's Supper, that the Communicants fhould receive the fame kneeling, yet leaft the fame kneeling fhould by any perfons, either out of ignorance or infirmity, or out of malice or obftinacy, be mifconftrued and deprayed; it is here declared, that thereby no adoration is intended, or ought to be done, either unto the facramental bread and wine, there bodily received, or unto any corporal prefence of Chrifl's natural fleth and blood. For the facramental bread and wine remain ftill in their very natural fubftances, and therefore may not be adored (for that were idolatry, to be abhorred of all faithful Chriftians.) And the natural body and Blood of our Savionr Chrift are in heaven, and not here; it being against the truth of Christ's natural body to be at one time in more places than

one.

(At

(At Receiving the Communion.) We do not prefume to come to this thy. Table, O merciful Lord, trufting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies, We are not worthy fo much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table, but, thou art the fame Lord, whofe property is always to have mercy, Grant us therefore, gracious, Lord, fo to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jefus Chrift, and to drink his blood, that our finful body may be made clean by his body, and our fouls wafhed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.

1 confefs myself in a great ftrait,

And to extricate myself is not poffible,
Jefus is verily and indeed in the facrament,
That is, Chrift, God and Man.

I am ordered to proftrate to my God,
It is nothing more than bread and wine.
To believe Chrift prefent is Idolatry,
As he is in Heaven, and can't be on earth.
The Real Prefence is hard to flesh and blood,
But nonfenfe never can be understood.

DRYDEN.

In what line am I to fhape my conduct.
To be, and not to be, is, I am, and I am not.
Mof. You have
put forth a riddle, folve it, who

can,

The task is too knotty, for angels or man.

Luth. Your timely affiftance may fave my livings,

Whose three tats produce, Nine hundred pounds

lavings.

Boy.

}

Boy. Your honour, dear Sir, if at heart no remorse,

Should raise you above such despicable drofs. › Luth. Difmay and anguish, My God, yet not my God.

Mof. There you will grapple, whilst tats produce fuch milk.

Boy. Vain deluded man, didst thou but know thyfelf.

Luth. Anguifh fills my heart, My doom, O grim despair.

Boy. I beg leave to repeat, what Mr. Calvin mentioned from the Gofpel, Whole fins you forgive, are forgiven. These are the words and commiffion of Him, who is to pronounce our doom, to his Priefts; Will any Chriftian fay, thefe Priests blafpheme, when they ufe this power in reconciling finners, either in the facraments of -Baptifm or Confeffion, to their JuDGE?

Mof. No Chriftian will doubt it; but Proteftants, who, with us Jews, deny it, because we do not believe Jefus God.

-Luth. In this also I am preffed and entangled, in the like fnare, as the other. For we damn all who die un-baptized, and that Baptifm forgives fins, at any time or age, from the hour of our birth even to the hour of our death, and might *be administered, by Jew, Turk or Infidel; that the facrament do not depend on the perfon, being only an inftrument; but in adminiftering the facrament properly; the facrament receiving its efficacy from the Godhead.

But

}

But, fay we, the Tribunal of Confeffion is co trived by the Pope to frighten a pack of idiots, women, and children, to hear their fecrets, and pick their pockets, a meanness never to be fub. mitted to, or encouraged, by men, or others of understanding. To think that man can forgive fins, is grofs idolatry; it robs God of his honour, and places man upon an equality with God, which is the height of blafphemy.

Mof. But what fool but mult fee, that both Sacraments, Baptifm and Confeffion, stand upon the fame ground, and receive their efficacy, with all the other parts of the chriftian doctrine, from the Holy Ghoft, which is the promife of Jefus Chrift. This convinces me more firmly, they do not believe in Jefus Chrift,

...

Boy. What fays your, Common Prayer Book? Luth. I dread as much to look, or open this book, fince I have found it a foare, as 1 heretafore hated and detefted Popery. But as you defire, I can refuse you nothing. Here it is in the Vifitation of the Sick. The Parfon fhall-defire the fick perfon to make a special; confeffion of his fins, if he feel his confcience troubled with any weighty matter, after which confeffion the Parfon fhall abfolve him after this fort.

Our Lord Jefus Chrift, who hath left power to his Church, to abfolve all finners who truly repent and believe in him, of his mercy forgive thee thine offences and by his authority committed to me, I abfolve thee from all thy fins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghoft. Amen.

:

The

-The deeper I fearch, new matter I find,
To torture, and add fresh grief to my mind,
Old Cromwell, that fnake, with Calvinist crew
Have Ipawn'd their black eggs, and mixt with the
ftew.

Mof. Your yefterday's meal don't seem digef ted; it was a moft extraordinary meis for a Parfon of the Church of England to fealt on, at this penitential time of Lent.

Luth. As I obferved in my foolish rhyme; you are not unacquainted with the late cataftrophe I call it late, because near, a most melancholy event, and firft. in the annals of Great Britain, contrived and carried into execution, by that feourge Oliver I just mentioned, and his fchifmatical tribe, who, to obtain their execrable and abominable end, put to death our Lord and King. They could charge nothing against him, but wished to change the conftitution, and mix their impious eggs or poifon, both in Temporals and Spirituals, as you cannot effect one without effecting the other; it being their known principle, invariably fixt, never to be patriots for kingly or fovereign authority in the State, nor hierarchy in the Church. America and our Weft-India Colonies, where they fwarin, and have the afcendency, prove what I here affert; as they never would permit a Bishop, and, with much reluctance a few parfons, and them they make beafts of. They are averfe to what they call fpiritual jurifdiction, or maw-worms. It is against their religion to be otherwife. G

Boy.