A09453:469
A Reformed Catholic
A reformed Catholic: or, A declaration showing how near we may come to the present Church of Rome in sundry points of religion: and wherein we must for ever depart from them with an advertisement to all favourers of the Roman religion, showing that the said religion is against the Catholic principles and grounds of the catechism.A reformed Catholike: or, A declaration shewing how neere we may come to the present Church of Rome in sundrie points of religion: and vvherein we must for euer depart from them with an advertisment to all fauourers of the Romane religion, shewing that the said religion is against the Catholike principles and grounds of the catechisme.
Cambridge: printed by John Legat, 1598Cambridge: printed by Iohn Legat, 1598
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
The second sin is Idolatry: and that as gross as was ever among the heathen. And it is to be seen in two things. First that they worship the Saints with religious worship, ⟨p. 343⟩which without exception is proper to God. Yea they transform some of them into detestable idols, making them in truth mediators of redemption, specially the virgin Mary, whom they call a Lady, a goddess, a queen whom 1Christ her son obeyeth in heaven a mediatress: or life, hope, the medicine of the diseased: and they pray unto her thus: Prepare thou glory for us: defend us from our enemies, and in the hour of death receive us, loose the bon•s of the guilty, bring light to the blind, drive away all devils—. •HEW THY SELF TO BE A MOTHER, let him receive the prayers. Again their idolatry is manifest, in that they worship God in, at, before images: having no commandment so to do, but the contrary. They allege that they use and worship images only in a remembrance of God. But this is all one, as if an unchaste wife should receive many lovers in to her house in the absence of her husband: and being reproved, should answer: that they were the friends of her husband, and that she kept them only in remembrance of him. Thirdly, their Idolatry exceeds ⟨p. 344⟩the Idolatry of the heathen, in that they worship a Bread god, or, Christ in and under the forms of bread and wine. And if Christ according to his humanity be absent from the earth, as I have proved, the popish Host is as abominable an Idol as ever was.
The second sinne is Idolatrie: and that as gros•e as was euer among the heathen. And it is to be seene in two things. First that they worship the Saints with religious worship, ⟨p. 343⟩which without exception is proper to God. Yea they transforme some of them into detestable idols, making them in truth mediatours of redemption, specially the virgine Marie, whome they call a Ladie, a goddesse, a queene whome 1