Popery condemned by scripture and the fathers - End Time Deception

SCRIPTURE AND THE FATHERS. 257
person who considers a matliematlcal demonstration,
may at first find himself sadly puzzled ;
but when he has made himself master of the
subject, he may admire it both for acuteness of
reasoning, and perspicuity of trrangement ;
and
studying mathematics by oral tradition, the R.
himself must confess, would be entirely a new
invention. Were the members of the Romish
Church left to their own judgement and the
scriptures, they would understand much more
of them than, would be consistent with the edification
of the clergy. But the R. and his brethren,
after perverting the minds of their hearers,
raise a clamour, " Thefe is a lion with-
" out ;" and these re-.echo, " I shall be slain
'*
in the streets."
Among the obscurities of scripture which oral
tradition explains, the R. has classed " the
" manner of administring the sacraments." Of
these Protestants
have nevri' been able to discover
more than two in the scriptures : so that ^he
might have placed the other five among his traditionary
doctrines. Eut if, from the obscurity
of some parts of scripture, we have never been
able to view these five as any thing else than Popish
excrescences in religion, we have generally
seen the Uiode cf administering the oilier twx^
pretty plainly taught. Nothing less than Popish
ingenuity could have discovered obscurity in the
scriptural account of the administration of bap-
L 3.
tism