A vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat lux

And are not your Countrymen beholding unto you, for endeavouring so industriously to draw them off from the Institution of Christ, to place their Confidence and devotion in that which hath not the least footstep in Scripture or Antiquity, but is expressly condemned by them both? ⟨p. 469⟩But to tell you my judgement, you will prevail with very few of them to answer your desires. Will they judge it meet and equal think you to change a blessed Sacrament that Christ hath appointed, to embrace a Sacrifice that you have invented? to leave calling upon God according to the sense of their wants with understanding, as they do in that Celebration of the Eucharist which now they enjoy, to attend unto a Priest sometimes muttering, sometimes saying, sometimes singing a deal of Latin whereof they understand never a word? To forego that internal humility, self abasement, and prostration of soul unto God which they are inured unto in that Sacrament, to become spectators of the Theatrical gestures of your Sacrificers? Besides they are not able to comply with your request, and to make your Mass the sum of their Devotion and worship of God, without offering the highest violence to their Faith as they are Christians, their Reason as they are men, and that Sense which they have in common with other Creatures. And what are you, or what have you done for them that you should at once expect such a profuse largeness at their hands?

And are not your Countrymen beholding unto you, for endeavouring so industriously to draw them off from the Institution of Christ, to place their Confidence and devotion in that which hath not the least footstep in Scripture or Antiquity, but is expresly condemned by them both? ⟨p. 469⟩But to tell you my judgement, you will prevail with very few of them to answer your desires. Will they judge it meet and equal think you to change a blessed Sacrament that Christ hath appointed, to embrace a Sacrifice that you have invented? to leave calling upon God according to the sense of their wants with understanding, as they do in that Celebration of the Eucharist which now they enjoy, to attend unto a Priest sometimes muttering, sometimes saying, sometimes singing a deal of Latine whereof they understand never a word? To forego that internal humility, self abasement, and prostration of soul unto God which they are enured unto in that Sacrament, to become spectators of the Theatrical gestures of your Sacrificers? Besides they are not able to comply with your request, and to make your Mass the sum of their Devotion and worship of God, without offering the highest violence to their Faith as they are Christians, their Reason as they are men, and that Sense which they have in common with other Creatures. And what are you, or what have you done for them that you should at once expect such a profuse largeness at their hands?