They
Begin Their Concert By Stamping Their Feet On The Ground, And
Playing Gently On Their Instruments; But When They
Have heated
themselves by degrees, they leave off drumming, and fall to leaping,
dancing, and clapping their hands, at the
Same time straining their
voices to the utmost pitch, till at length they have no regard
either to the tune or the pauses, and seem rather a riotous than a
religious assembly. For this manner of worship they cite the psalm
of David, "O clap your hands all ye nations." Thus they misapply
the sacred writings to defend practices yet more corrupt than those
I have been speaking of.
They are possessed with a strange notion that they are the only true
Christians in the world; as for us, they shunned us as heretics, and
were under the greatest surprise at hearing us mention the Virgin
Mary with the respect which is due to her, and told us that we could
not be entirely barbarians since we were acquainted with the mother
of God. It plainly appears that prepossessions so strong, which
receive more strength from the ignorance of the people, have very
little tendency to dispose them to a reunion with the Catholic
Church.
They have some opinions peculiar to themselves about purgatory, the
creation of souls, and some of our mysteries. They repeat baptism
every year, they retain the practice of circumcision, they observe
the Sabbath, they abstain from all those sorts of flesh which are
forbidden by the law.
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