A Letter from Rome
Collection of disparaging remarks in protest of Catholic Tradition. By Conyers Middleton, 1683-1750. This new edition, 1856, includes the author's defence against a Roman Catholic opponent. (update: The opponents book and response is ready.)
... “But this kind of reasoning, how plausible soever it may be with regard to the first ages of Christianity, or to nations just converted from Paganism, is so far from excusing the present Gentilism of the church of Rome, that it is a direct condemnation of it; since the necessity alleged for the practice, if ever it had any real force, has not, at least for many ages past, at all subsisted; and their toleration of such practices, however useful at first for reconciling heathens to Christianity, seems now to be the readiest way to drive Christians back again to heathenism.”