much easier to be
gravely disposed in reading a _Stage-Comedy_ or _Farce_, than in
considering and reflecting on the _Comedy_ and _Farce_ of _Popery_; than
which, Wit and Folly, and Madness in conjunction, cannot invent or make a
thing more ridiculous, according to that Light in which I see their
Doctrines, Ceremonies and Worship, the Histories and Legends of their
Saints, and the pretended Miracles wrought in their Church; which has
hardly any thing _serious_ in it but its Persecutions, its Murders, its
Massacres; all employ'd against the most innocent and virtuous, and the
most sensible and learned Men, because they will not be _Tools_ to support
Villany and Ignorance.

"Transubstantiation, says _Tillotson_[77], is not a Controversy of
Scripture against Scripture, or of Reason against Reason, but of downright
Impudence against the plain meaning of Scripture, and all the Sense and
Reason of Mankind." And accordingly he scruples not to say, in a most
_drolling_ manner, that "Transubstantiation is one of the chief of the
_Roman_ Church's _legerdemain_ and _juggling Tricks_ of Falshood and
Imposture; and that in all Probability those common juggling Words of
_Hocus-pocus_, are nothing else but a Corruption of _hoc est corpus_, by
way of ridiculous Imitation of the Church of _Rome_ in their _Trick_ of
_Transubstantiation_." And as he _archly_ makes the Introduction of this
monstrous Piece of _grave Nonsense_ to be owing to its being at first
preach'd by its Promoters with _convenient Gravity and Solemnity_[78],
which is the common Method of imposing Absurdities on the World; so I
think that Doctrine taught with such _convenient Gravity and Solemnity_
should necessarily produce _Levity, Laughter and Ridicule_, in all
intelligent People to whom it is propos'd, who must _smile_, if they can
with safety, to see such Stuff vented with a grave Face.

In like manner many other Divines treat and laugh at _Popery_. Even the
solemn and grave Dr. _Whitby_ has written a Book against
_Transubstantiation_, under the Title of "Irrisio Dei Panarii, _The
Derision of the Breaden God_," in Imitation of the primitive Fathers, who
have written _Derisions_ and _Mockeries_ of the _Pagan_ Religion.

And he takes the Materials whereof this drolling Performance of his
consists, from the _holy Scriptures_, the _Apocryphal Books_, and
_Writings_ of the _holy Fathers_, as he tells us in his Title-Page; three
inexhaustible Sources of Wit and Irony a