Wesley Corpus

12. The advantage of the Church of England over the Church of Rome is equally great with regard to public worship. For it is manifest that the public worship of the Roman Church is wholly degenerated from the nature of Christ's kingdom and the simplicity of the first Christians: That at present it consists in magnificent buildings, altars, images, ornaments, and habits; in splendid ceremonies; in processions and pilgrimages, and prayers in an unknown tongue; and in reciting the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ave-Maria, over and over, according to the number of their beads: That they are not instructed to “worship God in spirit and in truth,” as their loving and most beloved Father; and to praise him, and comfort one another, with psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs: That their souls are not edified by sermons and catechising out of the word of God, the Scriptures being cited very sparingly in their sermons, and generally in a strained and allegorical sense: That they are not permitted to search the Scriptures at home, and seek food for their souls therein: That the common people are by this means purposely kept in the grossest ignorance and superstition. 13. It is manifest also that they are held in doubt as to the salvation both of the living and the dead, by the doctrine of purgatory; that hereby the minds of those who want to be assured of the state of their souls, are disquieted and disturbed; that pardon of sins, release from punishment due thereto, and redemption from purgatory by masses and indulgences, either for the living or dead, are daily sold for money. 14. It is no less manifest that their trust in Christ alone, the one Mediator between God and man, is hindered so much the more, the more the people are referred to the merits and inter cession of the blessed Virgin, and other saints; the more they are taught to adore their images and relics; to make vows to them, and to implore their help in any trouble; yea, and to place therein a very considerable part of their worship and 138 CHURCH of ENGLAND’s ADv ANTAGE devotion; as well as in a bare outward observance of saints’ days, and other festivals of the Church, and in the abstaining from some particular kinds of meat on what they call fast-days. 15.