confess Emanuel to be truly God, and, therefore, the Holy Virgin to be Deipara, the mother of God-let him be anathema." Here the blessed

Virgin hath both the name of saint (aya) and (EOTOKOS) mother of God given her. All this you shall find in the sixth Act of the idolatrous council of Nice, where the enemies, whilst they would confute the definition of the Synod at Constantinople, have preserved it, which else had utterly perished, as the Acts thereof have done.

Now judge whether Constantine and his council were guilty or not of what the idolatrous faction charged them with. But we may wonder the less at this notorious impudency of lying companions, seeing we have experience of the like calumnies fastened upon ourselves this day, though there be so many thousand eyes and ears, and writings too, which confute them.

And thus you have seen what manner of times they were about the end of which our Simeon Metaphrastes lived. Was it not high time, think you, for him and those hands to which he was as beholden, for I will not charge him with all, to ply the old craft, and reinforce the legends with new lies, when the credit of saint-worship lay thus a-bleeding? It is not credible they would be so much wanting to themselves. And it is as apparent that those tales of the new strain, which we had out of Simeon, were coined in this age, and not before; for if any such thing had been known or delivered from elder times, how came it to pass no notice thereof was given us by any writer of ecclesiastical story, by any father, by any com

piler or forger of martyrs' lives and miracles, till now? Certainly so miraculous and wonderful things as voices from heaven, and Christ descending thence in a cloud, and the like, had been worth the telling. But alas! they could tell us but little of these martyrs, save only the names and time of their suffering. And thus I end my digression, which yet I hope hath not been altogether impertinent to the present argument.

BB

CHAPTER VI.

That Saint-worship was promoted by counterfeit writings under the name of antiquity.—That Image-worship and the idolatry of the Mass-god were advanced by the hypocrisy of liars.—This illustrated from several fabulous narrations. A foul story made use of by the Second Council of Nice in the behalf of Image-worship.

THE last particular of the hypocrisy of liars, I made to be counterfeit writings under the name of the first and best antiquity; St. Peter's Liturgy, the Liturgy of St. James, of Matthew, of Mark, the Apostles' Council at Antioch; foisted works under the names of Justin, Origen, Cyprian, Athanasius, and others, through which we need not doubt but the doctrine of demons was promoted, when we see some not ashamed still to maintain it by these counterfeit authorities.

Thus you see how the first-born and the most ancient part of the doctrines of demons, the deifying of saints and martyrs, was advanced by the hypocrisy of liars. The same you shall find to have been verified also in the advancing of the next-born demon changling, image-worship, and of the third, the idolatry of the mass-god; all brought in and established by the means and ways aforenamed. I need not spend time in historical allegations, they are well enough known; and-Primum in unoquoque genere est mensura

consequentium-by what I said of the first, you may judge of those which follow; yet for images, I will tell you a story or two for a taste.

Bale, our countryman, (Script. Illust. Britan. Cent. 1. c. 91, 99,) relates, that about the year 712, one Egwin of Worcester published in writing certain revelations, yea, express visions he had seen, wherein he was enjoined to set up in his diocese of Worcester the image of the blessed Virgin, for the people to worship; which Pope Constantine the First having made him confirm by oath, not only ratified by his Bull, but caused Brithwald, the Archbishop, to hold a council of the whole clergy at London, to commend them to the people.

In that idolatrous Council, the second of Nice, one of their proofs, among many other the like, for worshipping of images, is a tale (quoted out of I know not what Sophronius) of a certain recluse, who using to worship an image of the Virgin Mary holding Christ in her arms, had been a long time tempted by the Devil to fornication; whereat on a time, the old man being much aggrieved, the Devil visibly appearing, told him in plain terms, but under an oath of secrecy, that he would never cease to vex him, until he left worshipping the image of the blessed Virgin. The monk, notwithstanding the Devil had made him swear by the Most High he would tell nobody, yet acquaints one Abbot Theodore with the business, who not only allows of his perjury in revealing it, but gives him this ghostly

advice.* "It were better he frequented all the stews in the city, than not to worship Christ and his Mother in an image." I am afraid some of this monk's successors still observe this wholesome counsel.

I must tell you also some of the miracles and lies for laying the foundation of transubstantiation, and thence advancing the idol of the mass. A certain monk reports that " he saw Jesus Christ in form of a child sitting upon the altar." Another saith, yea more than one, that "Witikind, King of the Saxons, entering disguised into a church, and diligently observing the Christians' fashion of receiving the communion, saw them put a little pretty smiling boy into their mouths." These wonders, and other the like, of apparitions of flesh and blood, began not till about the end of the eight hundredth year. But that they may seem ancienter, Simeon Metaphrastes, hath a forged legend of Arsenius the Hermit; and somebody counterfeited the life of St. Basil, under the name of Amphilochius his companion, which now they begin to be ashamed of. And for fear the people might suspect that these were illusions, they keep you some of the flesh and blood which was transubstantiated for a monument in many churches. Beside these apparitions, to make all complete,

*

Συμφέρει δέ σοι μὴ καταλιπεῖν εἰς τὴν πόλιν ταύτην πορνεῖον εἰς ὃ μὴ εἰσελθῃς, ἢ ἵνα ἀρνήσῃ τὸ προσκυνεῖν τὸν Κύριον ἡμῶν καὶ Θεὸν Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν μετὰ τῆς ἰδίας αὐτοῦ μητρὸς ἐν εἰκόνι.