was
on account of this gross absurdity, and the irreligious application of
it, that our first reformers suffered, and so many were put to death in
the reign of queen Mary.

TRANSUBSTANTIATION.] Roman catholics profess, that in the most holy
sacrament of the Lord's supper, there is really and substantially the
body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of Christ, and that
the whole substance of the bread is turned into his body, and the whole
substance of the wine into his blood; which conversion, so contradictory
to our senses, they call transubstantiation, but at the same time they
affirm, that, under either kind or species, only one whole entire
Christ, and the true sacrament, is received. But why are those words,
"This is my body," to be taken in a literal sense, any more than those
concerning the cup? Our Saviour says, "I am the true vine, I am the
door." St. Paul says, "Our fathers drank of the rock that followed them,
and that rock was Christ;" and writing to the Corinthians, he affirms,
that, "he had fed them with milk." Can these passages be taken
literally? Why then must we be forced to interpret our Saviour's words
in a literal sense, when the apostle has explained the intention of the
sacrament to be "to show forth the Lord's death till he come!"

PURGATORY.] This, they say, is a certain place, in which, as in a
prison, after death, those souls, by the prayers of the faithful, are
purged, which in this life could not be fully cleansed; no not by the
blood of Christ: and notwithstanding it is asserted in the scriptures,
"if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us, and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 1 John i. 9. This place of
purgatory is in the power of the pope, who dispenses the indulgences,
and directs the treasury of his merits, by which the pains are
mitigated, and the deliverance hastened. For the tormented sufferers, in
this ideal inquisition, his monks and friars say masses, all of whom
must be paid for their trouble; because, no penny, no pater-noster; by
which bubble the church of Rome amasses great wealth.

IDOLATRY AND CREATURE-WORSHIP.] In all the Romish worship the blessed
virgin is a principal object of adoration. She is styled the queen of
Heaven, lady of the world, the only hope of sinners, queen of angels,
patroness of men, advocate for sinners, mother of mercies, under which
titles they desire her, by the power of a mother, to command her Son. In
so