whatever they have faid or done is a fatal Contagion. What a difmal thing it would be for whole Chriftendom, if the like fol-1 lowing Argument were good! The Apo ftles were but the meanest Part of the Peo ple, quite destitute of Credit and Learning; therefore the Doctrine, to the preaching and maintaining of which they have facrificed their very Lives, is a fatal Contagion. What would St. Paul fay, if he were to come a gain into this World, he who pretended to demonftrate to the Corinthians the Excellency and Divinity of the Gofpel, from the great fuccefs it then met with notwithftanding the weakness of the Inftruments God then made ufe of to publish it. You fee, faid he to them, your calling, Brethren, how that not many wife Men after the Flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, But God has chofen the foolish things of the World to confound the wife, &c. That no Flesh Should glory in his Prefence. And in another places We have that precious Treasure in earthen Veels, That the excellency of this ftrength fhould be from God, not from us. But now it is quite the reverfe: For a Man must needs be of the Royal Blood; a Pope or a Cardinal, a Doctor of Sorbonne, or at least a Jefuit; otherwife nothing good or true can proceed from an ignoble mouth, or one that is not verfed in Logick.d, bogid wilt

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BUT what would then our good Father fay, if we fhould produce him a vaft Catalogue of noted Popes and Cardinals, of Bi

fhops

fhops and Doctors, and even of Jefuits," who have made themfelves very commenda ble, though their Names and Families were ftill more abject and despicable than those of Le Clerc and Pavanes? But this is not our method of judging of things. Great Men are always to be refpected, let their Birth or Station be ever fo mean and Scoundrels and Fools are always defpicable, though their Rank of Extraction were ever fo Eminent and Noble. But, in fhort, no Birth or Dignity, no Learning or Erudition can alter the nature of things, and make that which is true be falfe, or that which is falfe be true falsit to asadow 90 sa

(

THE acknowledgment made afterwards by Father Daniel, gives me a very great Satisfaction, which would have been far greater ftill, had he drawn the Confequences naturally rifing therefrom. He faith, that the fatal Contagion, that had its Source from those defpicable Names, he has alrea dy mentioned, by degrees overfpread all Parts of the Kingdom. How! Opinions afferted by obfcure and illiterate People, who in maintaining them could expect no thing but the utmoft Mifery, crowned with the most cruel Tortures; thefe Opinions, I Tay, afe embraced both by the Learned and the Ignorant, by Princes and Princeffes of the Blood; by the Nobility and the Plebeians; by Bishops and Abbots who receive them as well as the meaneft/ People, and perfft in the fame in fpite of all obite igoar

cles P

S

cles? Ah! had Jefuitifin met with fo good a Succefs, and in fo fhort a time in China, Japan, Siam and their other, Miffions, the Jefuits, I dare fay, had infallibly cried out, O wondrous! and canonized the Miffionaries, that had any share in thofe great Suce ceffes, had their Names been even twenty times more defpicable, than thofe of Le. Clerc and Pavanes. t lt to sing BUT why did not Father Daniel reflect a little on the Caufe of all these Succeffes. pfallo He was indeed too fharp-fighted, not to perceive, that they were chiefly owing to Evidence and Conviction. People at that time were taught and convinced from the Word of God, that the fupreme Being has under the feverest Pains forbidden us ever to pay any religious Worship, to Creatures even the most excellent, They were then Holste let et into the hidden Pipes, through which with great dexterity Branch to the eyes of a Crucifix, oroof ban ey had led & Vine Image of the Virgin Mary, through which it dropped in the time of its overflowing, or the rifing of the fap, an Humour that had the resemblance of Tears. The Altars were then uncovered in their View, that they might fee in the Cavities of them, the Chaffing-Dishes that were filled with a quick Fire of Coals; that, when any dead Child was to be baptized, it might feem to move fofoon as the heat had penetrated the Nerves. The Shrines

AUGUE 137 B Brines were then taken down, they were opened, and Objects very

dif

e

different from what they had expected to fee weren produced before their Eyes, for instead of the Relicks of a Saint, ti they found therein old rufty pieces of Iron, or fome Horfe or Afs-bone of the Relicks of Tome ofron other * Brute.The Holy Scriptures were laid open to them, that they might read the fourteenth famous Chapter of the first Epiftle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, wherein the celebrating Divine Service in an unknown Tongue is evidently forbidden. By fuch, and the like Demonftrations, it was that they were commonly taught and inftructed. How could they have refifted the force of fuch an Evidence; for every bio body is not of a jefuitical Temper. 10 10

19 But wronged Fatherpeti

on

I I faid, that he did not reflect ball thefe Caules of the Succefs of the Reformation. The Acknowledgment he makes us in his Pages 648, and 649, Thews the contrary, and convinces the that he was, when she pleased, capable of fome Sincerity and Candouro For after having made very great Complaints against Calvin's Inftitutions, through which Book he fays, Calvin had done many great Mischiefs, and which was backed with a Croud of other Writings, wherein the most horrid

Rome Defs of the

Church of were made, &c. he adds, that what gave the greatest Credit and Authority to thefe dangerous Books was, that the Clergy had occafioned and even authoVoy a ba

lib

fized

rized them by their Ignorance and Corrup tion, which were extreme at that time.

J2.

I own myfelf infinitely obliged to Fa ther Daniel for fo fincere an Acknowledg ment. Give me leave, my Lord, not to ftop in fo fair a way, but to follow him, fince he is difpofed to drop fome few words of Truth on that Subject. The Lutherans, continues he, had already urged for a long while, and laid much firess on all these pretences, which the People were very apt to give credit to. As to the Doctrines, nothing feemed to be more plaufible, than what the Innova tors propofed to us, viz. to take the Scripture for the fole Standard of the Belief of the Faithful They were never weary of challenging us to fhew them in the Gospel, Purgatory, the Worship of Images and Relicks, the Ma naftick Vows, the Celibacy of the Clergy, the feveral Hierarchical Orders, and other the like that are well-grounded on Tradition: (Not for well-grounded neither, except on the Tradition of the laft Centuries, for things were not fo in the beginning.) But which it is very difficult (he fhould have faid impoffible, and we would have agreed) to demonftrate with the fame Evidence from the Scripture alone. Even very few in France, were capable of diving rightly into thefe Mat ters and to prove Tradition on all thefe Points, for want of having already examined them fufficiently (But now, that they have been foldeeply fearched, has any body had yet the fkill to establish them on the Tradition

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