of Images c. if they could endure their Superstitious Rites they would not stick at what might remain of a little Ancient Order and receiv'd Decency and were that all would as soon return to Rome as we Nothing can make an honest man suspect our Church of Popery but his Ignorance what Popery is He may take all that to be Popish which the Papists do and believe and presume those guilty of their Superstitions who do not dissent to their whole Creed and are not Nonconformists to their whole Practice and in his opinion the purest Church of the Reformation must be that which is most opposite to the Church of Rome But he forgets then that the Church of Rome is Christian still though abominably corrupted that to run contrary to her in all things must be to deny our God and Saviour that by this Rule we must lay aside their Scripture as well as their Traditions and neither give alms fast nor pray because it is the practice of that Church He considers not that such an Anti-Papist is in a much worse condition than the Papist himself and that if we take what the Pope proposes in gross and together it is infinitely more dangerous to reject all than to admit it By Popery therefore can be meant nothing but the Corruptions that Church has suffer'd and the Usurpations it has advanc'd For the Faith of that Church was once as far spoken of as now its Errors are and had she continued in that Purity we ought to have been of her Communion and now we are to depart from her no otherwise than she shall be found to have departed from herself to have varied from the Truth and to have corrupted the Doctrine that was once deliver'd from the Saints Now the Test whereby these Doctrines are to be examin'd whether they are Popish that is Corrupt or no is this Whether or no they are Consonant to the Holy Scriptures This being the Common Principle and Touch-stone with all Protestants That nothing is to be Believ'd or Practic'd as Necessary to Salvation but what is contain'd in the Scripture and that nothing is to be Believ'd or Practic'd in any manner whatsoever that is contrariant to it A Principle this is deliver'd to us with the New Testament by the first Ages that Receiv'd and Transmitted it By this Test their Additional Traditionary Doctrines fall their Infallibility proves the greatest Falsity and their Illimited Jurisdiction is cut off the number of the Sacraments is retrench'd their Worship of the Host of Images Prayers to Saints for those in Purgatory or in an unknown Tongue are taken away whatever was impos'd as necessary to Salvation and had no warrant from God's Word or was otherwise propos'd and yet repugnant to it Such errors and corruptions you will find mark'd out in our Book of Articles and there distinctly condemn'd But tho' nothing is to be enjoyn'd as necessary to Salvation but what God himself the Author of our Salvation has declar'd yet we are not to think that no circumstance is to be us'd in his service that he has not distinctly commanded This being no Protestant Doctrine but the greatest Falsity For then no Action that is even of necessity to be perform'd could be perform'd had not God prescrib'd the Circumstance too Whereas on the contrary there cannot be a plainer Truth than this in the World that he who orders an Action to be perform'd and orders no Circumstance must be suppos'd therefore to leave the choice of the Circumstance to Discretion And it is as clear that in such Cases where in private we are left to our private choice there in publick we are to be directed by the publick Discretion the Election of the Superiours Provided always that in both Cases no circumstance be us'd that is contrary to the Intention of the Action and the Will of God It was therefore in the Power of our Spiritual Governours after they had retrench'd what they were constrain'd to take away all that was unlawfully believ'd or practis'd Idolatrous Superstitious or Erroneous to retain or reject as they should see cause all indifferent circumstantial things Which as they were not commanded by God so neither were they forbidden by him Innumerable Ceremonies therefore they cut off Some inseparable Companions of the falsities and superstitions they had abolish'd some impertinent to the main action others choking or incumbring it And some too they left so few that they rather expected to be ask'd why no more and those the freest from offence and the fittest to be retain'd For they consider'd that an innocent useful Ceremony which had either been laudably us'd before Popery came in or was not proper to the superstition to which it had been annexed when purg'd of that superstition was restor'd to its Innocence and Indifference and might be us'd as lawfully now as in its first state And therefore though they took the liberty to leave off several rites however in themselves innocent and in use before Popery began because they were of little Edification yet they kept up others which appear'd more necessary to the Church and which at the same time might shew both their Temper and Moderation towards the Modern Roman which they were forc't to leave and their respect to the Primitive which they desir'd to imitate And with such a view as this if you will look upon the particulars for which we are accus'd you will see how little of Popery that is Corruption or Superstition there is to be found The Particulars in which we chiefly differ are these Government by Bishops a Liturgy of some Ancient Prayers Kneeling at the Communion the Cross at Baptism the Surplice and the Observation of some Christian Fasts and Feasts 1. First then as to Government by Bishops had it been a thing purely indifferent we might have lawfully retain'd it and our Church might have taken leave to have chosen a sort of Aristocracy as others have been pleas'd with a kind of Democracy But take it as it is intimated in the writings of the Apostles and manifestly of their Institution we then had been oblig'd to reduce it if the Roman Government had been Presbyterian When we found it therefore there what reason had we to abolish it Shall we allow the Pope so much Power as to make that unlawful by his Use which the Apostles and their Disciples have recommended to us by theirs 2. For our Liturgy of some Ancient Prayers is it Popish as a set form or as a form of those Prayers A set form is so expedient and necessary to the Church if but for the sake of the People that they may be sure to have no other Petitions suggested than what are fit that their Devotion may not suffer by the weakness or indiscretion of the Minister that they may know beforehand how to prepare their thoughts what frame of Spirit is to be brought to Church that I may take leave to say had a set form been us'd
purity of the Gospel And it was given out to be as fit to reform from us to them as it was before from the Pope to us The first Rule of this new Method I mean as imported and translated to us was to have no Circumstance in Divine Worship that was not expresly determined in Scripture By this Rule they cut off all our Establishments as they thought at once but by this they could have none of their own for their Elders were not to be found in the Text considered better and unordain'd Annual Deacons had as little ground not to mention their lesser Rites That Rule therefore failing they were to have another measure of Purity and that was to be at the greatest possible distance from the Church of Rome And then we were to have no Bishops because the Pope was one we were not to pray to God at set hours or by a set form because the Papists did we were to have no Christian Fasts or Feasts and all our Observations though never so Edifying and Primitive were to be laid aside by those that would be Pure if they had been us'd at Rome We have already though briefly discovered the falsity of both those Principles The first was a gross Falacy put upon the People by their Teachers who to the great Maxime of the Reformation That no necessary Christian Doctrine was to be received not warrantable by Scripture had Sophistically joyn'd this great Untruth That no Circumstance of Worship was to be us'd that could not be shewed there The other too that condemn'd indifferently all the Practices of the Roman Church whatever was nothing else but a Sophistical Imposture put in the place of this Truth That none of its Corruptions were to be retained it was nothing but a dis-ingenuous unchristian abuse of good Peoples Zeal to make them dislike the good usages of ours and the ancient Church with the same warmth they rejected the Depravation of the Roman Either of these two Principles if they had been true would have put an end to the Dispute about Church Ceremonies and therefore though Baffled and Confuted they failed not to be always inculcated into the Ears of the People To prove the Rites of our Church unlawful step by step had been a troublesome Task and might not have succeeded well either the People might not have born the length of their Discourse or seen through the weakness But here to cut the work short they had a Maxime or two that their Followers might easily grasp and it may be as easily swallow And accordingly one or both of these the People were always taught to believe These were the little lumps of Leaven that were cast in and all along fermented the Nation till the whole was Leavened and they were work'd up at last to the utmost Perfection and most exalted state to the Holy Covenant whose great ends forsooth were to pluck up Episcopacy Root and Branch as Popish and to Establish Presbytery the Form of Gods own appointment But these false Principles could not be fixed so they were pursued by their own Party and run down in Fact For as to the First there rose up those that could no more spye out Presbyterianism in the Bible than they had been suffered to see Episcopacy before Ministry and Tythes were not to be found in the Gospel they said They asked you your Text for every thing you did for saying You rather than Thou for taking off the Hat before God or Man And so as to the other Maxime it was found out at last that Geneva it self was not far from Italy and Classes and Synods who would have thought it were esteemed a little Popish too if they valued themselves on their distance from Rome there were those that could go farther than they The Independents presently outwent them these were outstripped by others and at last the Quaker seemed before them all but all things moving circularly these last came very nigh to that point on the one side from which they were most remote on the other instead of one pretending Infallible Spirit we had Legions and all the Opposition to the Pope of Rome ended in this that every Man was to be Pope himself These were the visible and palpable absurdities consequent to those two false Maximes and those Maximes have been mentioned here upon occasion indeed of the Geneva Reformation but with no design of undue Reflection They being but Additions grafted on that way since it was brought into England not natural nor proper to it though with us too closely combin'd Ridiculous untruths of a destructive Nature to be disclaimed and discountenanced by all sober Men. However our Foreign Brethren of that Constitution as they design'd their Form of Government for themselves and not for us for a Bond of Peace and Discipline at home and not to give disturbance abroad so they will we do not question give us leave to think so well of our own way as not to be willing to exchange it for any other that may in Charity be allowed to stand on equal terms but will not we hope pretend advantage For Good Men and who know the grounds and reasons of our Reformation were at a loss what the late Design might mean of bringing our Church nearer to the Protestants abroad to those of our Brethen of Calvins way we suppose they intended We hope the Intention was not to insinuate an unjust reproach as if we had not the Amity and Affection for them which we ought did not rejoyce in their Edification or compassionate their Affliction but only this to alter our Constitution into a nearer resemblance with theirs But if any of ours desired this for Amendment as a farther Reformation and greater Perfection it was because they were not pleas'd to consider their own frame well nor could any honest man of our Church and who understood her right have ever Consented And if the Designes was only Political though the Policy appears not yet why might it not be as fit for those Protestants to come nearer to us But not to stand on such terms how could we have went nigher to the Calvinist without departing from the Lutheran Our Church is already in the middle and reaching out her Hands on either side settled there long ago by weighty Reason and upon mature Deliberation for although the word Protestant has been here at home appropriated to a Party and the Reformed Church abroad has been still understood onely for those of one way Yet every one knows that the Lutheran is the first Reformed and that the term Protestant is only proper to them and particularly to those only of the German Nation This then is the first Fallacy endeavoured to be put upon the People that those to whom some of our Dissenters pretend a nearer approach are the onely Reform'd and Protestants in the World as if the Lutheran were not to be understood by his own Name The other is this that the Calvinist is so
denominated from the few Malefactors of its number which it punishes as soon as it discovers We have of Church-men some too it may be inclinable to the Separation why are not the Dissenters pleased too for their sakes to think favourably of the whole and to let us all be True Protestants on the one side by same reason we are Papists on the other But is it not strange that those who have distinctly subscrib'd to the Articles of the Reformation at each Degree in the University at the promotion to either Orders at their Institution to any Preferment who have publickly read and owned these Articles in their several Congregations that those who have given all manner of assurances to the World must be suspected still and traduc'd by those that have yet given none of whom we know not yet if they themselves do but at random and at large of what profession of Religion they are God pardon them their uncharitableness and we are to thank them that they have not made us Jews or Mahumetans It may have been enough to all honest Men and truly Conscientious to have shewn them the untruth of the prejudice that has been raised against our Church and the iniquity of the Irreligious Slander as they feared God so they would be afraid to speak Evil falsly of a Church of Christ and of the Service of their Maker nay we might hope that such upon the first Reflection would be the more hasty and forward to return to-our Communion lest they should seem any longer to countenance so unjust and ungodly a Calumny But they may be pleas'd to consider further not only the sinfulness but the Mischief of the Action and that we are not so sensible of the injustice done to our selves as of its ill Consequences the Dammage and Prejudice it brings on the Cause of God The Differences and Schisms that have happened in Protestant Churches have it is known been very scandalous to the Common Cause and formed into an Argument against us It is said by our Adversaries that as soon as we fell from them we fell from Unity and Order and that the infinite folly of the following Separations was but a Consequent natural to the first That it was a Spirit of Pride and Opposition that ingaged us first in the Schism and that we had no Bowels for the Divisions of the Church See therefore say they how they break into endless Fractions they are no more tender of their own Communion than they were of ours they part out of Humour and Fancy and in this they do us right they submit to no other Constitution It is true that the wantonness and petulance of Men has given too much place to this reproach already but when the measure of a thorough Reformation shall be the utmost Opposition to Rome and a Protestant Church quarrelled and reputed Popish for some common innocent Usages then it it is that the Romish Advocates may triumph well then may they justly insult Here say they you discover the right Protestant Temper you may see in the True Protestant and the True Reformed the True Spirit of Contradiction How upon a Pique to us they fall out with all Christendom and will leave the Churches of all Ages for our sakes Let us but use what is Primitive or Orderly and we may have them as Indecent Confus'd and Ridiculous as we please For the Truth is the Principle those men have chose does not only scandalously condemn the Churches of the Second and Third Ages but is the most inconvenient that could be imagined and may bring them into as great Absurdities as they indeavour to avoid From this Maxime the Church of Rome may take its measures and manage if they please the humour of Opposition as easily as a Vow of Obedience it is but their taking one side and our Sectaries are bound to take the other side they are to be led by Contraries and out of a Childish crossness will refuse what the other would seem to direct So may the Romanist appropriate to himself all Gravity Decency and Antiquity And should he reform may he not expect that these would quit the Reformation This is the direct tendency of the Principle and this way it goes though the Papist may not think fit to follow it However we have seen what occasion of Obloquy and Reproach it gives and what a Disparagement and Dis-reputation it brings on the Cause of the Reformation Shameful to our selves and an Offence to those that otherwise might come to us We may now see in the next place how it operates by the Odium it fastens on our Church and what mischief it produces there how convenient and serviceable the Scandal is to the Designs of Rome if not invented yet fomented by them and it self therefore to be esteemed Popish for much better reason than our Ceremonies have been For after the Reformation was by the Grace of God once brought about and the Church of Rome could not hinder her Corruptions from being seen and her Usurpations from being laid open all that they in their Craft could devise or the Malice of the Devil could have suggested was to divide and dis-unite those that were gone away and to promote Variance and Disagreement between us But the design was never more Artificial than when they were able to raise a Jealousie that one part of this Reformation was Popish still and could make men overlook all the substantial difference of this Church from that of Rome and conclude them the same only from the common use of some indifferent things The Church of England they found had manifested their Depravations exposed them beyond any defence and raised up a fix'd and resolute Indignation against them This Zeal as long as it was sober rational well grounded they could not possibly withstand they try therefore whether they cannot divert it upon something else and direct it against its own Party whether they cannot take this Artillery turn it upon something laudable and innocent and level it against its Friends Being Hatred to Popery is unavoidable let the English Church be Popish too So are the Romanists content if we may come in for a share of the Guilt that not only part of their Worship but the whole may be reputed Corrupt and they are ready to help to accuse themselves in the wrong place that the charge may fall upon those that are in the right And now the Romish Emissaries have accomplished their errand in one sence If they have not perverted those of our Communion yet they have seduced others to believe it done and we are become all Papists at least in the Opinion of the Dissenter If he may be believed and we are to be added to the number the Roman Catholicks are vastly increased And well may they have the Reputation abroad to be very considerable in their Country at least well may their Priests report that we are inclinable to return and easy to be reconciled
when they have the concurring Testimony for it of the Sectary their seeming Adversary and this though but a Mistake and Fame yet has its effect it keeps up the hope of the Principals at Rome and redoubles the indeavours of their Seminaries But they have too a more certain and real aim For by this Opinion they may either gain some of us to themselves or be sure however by the Jealousie to keep us asunder one from another They may hope that some even of our Communion may at last have a more favourable esteem of the Religion to which they have been join'd so long by report and that here as it happens sometimes in Marriage we may be content to embrace that Faith to which Fame has said we were contracted before But to the Honour of our Church be it spoken this has not been effected neither by the Caresses of one nor Affronts of the other neither out of Affection nor Indignation So little tendency is there in our Constitution that way of which we have been unreasonably suspected Their greater hopes I suppose of this kind are upon the Party that pretends to be most averse and makes at Present the more clamorous and extravagant opposition for it may be rational to presume that he that knows not the Reasons nor Intent of the Reformation and makes nothing of the vast difference between us and Rome may easily therefore step over it and be as willing to return to them as us it may be enough to make such a Convert to satisfie him in the sign of the Cross or kneeling at the Communion as soon as he finds himself Convinc'd of the lawfulness of that Popery he may be willing to yield to the rest and may comply as undiscerningly as before he abhorred Such an Intention as this we may see is feasible enough how far it has been practised in Fact I will not say or whether the Quakers have not been justly suspected For making of Proselytes the Romanist cannot have a more proper Method than to infect the People with Prejudices against us and to hinder them from settling on the true certain bottom the Foundation so well laid by the first Reformers from keeping in that Church which is so sure a place and may be so easily maintained However besides the Converts they gain by the Jealousies they Infuse they heighten our Divisions and Animosities break and scatter us they hinder us from joyning in what might oppose them and prevail that we have no common Interest Nay things have been sometime brought to that pass that the Sectarians have rather joyn'd with the Papists themselves and in publick Counsels confederated with their pretended Enemies to impeach our better Establishment So much Popish were we then that the professed Roman Catholick was less And now by force of this accursed Scandal see into what difficulty the Church is brought either ingaged in a perpetual intestine quarrel if she stands as she is or else obliged to change at the pleasure and by the direction of her sworn Enemies If she thinks fit to stand on her own bottom where so many good and necessary Considerations have fix'd her and where she has rested so long she must then expect the continuance of all the Dissenting Out-cries nay want of Moderation reproached and the Schism imputed to her even by some of her own popular Sons If she shall be inclinable to comply where she lawfully may yet there the humorous Exceptions are so various and so unreasonable that she sees no good Issue has no reason to presume that the Faction desires to be content neither can she tell what Church she shall be at last if she is to alter still as often as her Establishments shall be accus'd to correspond with Rome Now the Church of Rome which has fix'd it self invariably upon the Council of Trent and for the same Reason would have its Adversaries unsettled still most willingly sees us alter shift and change not only that the uneasiness inconstancy and uncertainty may be verified upon us with which they sometime reproach us that ours may be still wavering and more easily drawn to them and that theirs may be unwilling to come to us into a Body so mutable and after an whole Age so little satisfied of the Lawfulness of its Rites and Usages but in hopes too nay out of certain prospect that by such changes we shall be further from settlement than before and nearer to the Dissolution they would indeavour The Demanded Alterations it is plain are not for the satisfaction of those that are of our Communion but of those that are not and by such our own may be scandaliz'd and shaken but the others will hardly be oblig'd For when we are ready to change not mov'd by Arguments and Reason for those are most Frivolous and Sophistical but to comply with Fancy or gratifie Opposition the Humour it is certain will be the morâ— hard to satisfie and obstinacy when inâ—ourag'd will onlâ— learn to ask more Especially when the Principle by which they move is full of endless dissatisfaction and has an equal quarrel against the whole Constitution So that when they have effected one alteration they have only made way for another and are never likely to rest till thâ—y have destroyed the whole Now for Example the Surplice the Cross and kneeling at the Sacrament are demanded to be releas'd the particular objections against them are quite out of Countenance and no longer pressed only that General one of Popery or a General Scrupulous Fancy and Humour which they call Conscience are now urg'd It is evident then that it is as casy a matter for the same Masters of these Scruples to teach their Auditors for as worthy Reasons to be dissatisfied with more and it is as plain that they have already taught them a general Avernon Should they be excusâ—d kneeling at the Sacrament themselâ—es might it not then be a great Offence to seâ— the Minister or any other kneâ—â— As now they pretend an Offence at the Sign of the Cross tho' they themselves look only on Would they not think themselves oblig'd to avoid the very sight and separate from the Communion of that Popish Practice Is think ye the Consecration Prayer free from all Suspicion The reverence prescrib'd in handling of the Elements may come near the Idolatry of the Host and the whole Service accus'd for the Mass Is the Cross after Baptisme mention'd by them because they have forgot their quarrel at God-Fathers and have a better Opinion of the Office of Confirmation The Gown may as well be disputed as the Surplice Episcopal Orders may be thought a very indifferent thing and are they content enough with the Rank of Bishops themselves The whole Form of Prayers has its Faults and how many are there for no Form at all So that it is evident those things are rather ask'd to begin and break ground for further Approaches there are neither better Reasons nor is there
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND Free from the IMPUTATION OF POPERY LONDON Printed for W. Abington next the Wonder Tavern in Ludgate-Street 1683. THE Church of England Free from the Imputation OF POPERY THE Case between the Church of England and the Dissenters from it The Imputation requiring not much of Learning or Speculation it might well seem to be no difficult matter to see into the bottom of it and clear the difference And indeed the Duty of Obedience in things indifferent and the obligation of each Christian to preserve the Unity of the Church are so convincing and the Expedience of some Ceremonies in general and the Innocence of ours in particular so plain that the Reconciliation of our Brethren to us upon the view of our Reasons and the Answers we have given to their Scruples might be easily expected were there not some General Prejudice upon the minds of otherwise well-disposed men that like an interposing mist either diverts the light that would otherwise come in or lets it not appear in its own colour And this seems to be no other than the Opinion many men have been poffest with that our Worship is Popery and that to return to our Communion is to make a step towards Rome to joyn company with those that are going thither For this conceit once entertain'd a Minister of the Church of England is a disguised Emissary of the Romish Church and all the Arguments and Perswasions he offers for Conformity are receiv'd no better than if he was endeavouring to pervert to the Papal Superstition If we speak to them of the Common Prayer they think of the Mass and while we discourse to them of the fitness and lawfulness of kneeling at the Communion they imagine nothing else but the Worship of the Host and the Doctrine of Transubstantiation By whose Malice and Artifice soever this Prejudice has been rais'd and cherish'd they we must confess have gain'd their point by it They have stopt the Ears and blinded the Eyes of those that otherwise would know the voice of their Brethren The Aversion of the people deservedly raised against Popery they have had the skill to turn against the greatest and best Church of the Reformation And they have had the pleasure to put her under the most sensible affliction of lying under an imputation she so much abhors and hearing her self reckon'd amongst those she has so openly and so justly condemn'd None can be ignorant how far this Prejudice has prevail'd and with what success tho's indeed it is a conceit so unlikely and inconsistent that we might well expect no rational person should have entertain'd it And did not Popery let us know what gross absurdities may find credit with the ignorant it would be very hard to imagine how any belief should be given to such an impossibility Transubstantiation it self being as conceivable a thing as that a Protestant really of our Church should be a Papist too and any other contradiction as easily reconcil'd as that Neither can they fairly object Ignorance and an Implicite Belief to the Papists who know so little the constitution of the Protestant Religion as not to see it in our Church and who resign themselves to their Teachers so far as with the same credulity to call our Chruch Popish with which the Papists are taught to call it Heretical So Causeless I hope and Groundless will this mischievous Calumny appear to all those that shall consider and all those who will be willing to consider that do not wilfully chuse a mistake so scandalously unjust to a great Reform'd Church and so destructive and ruinous to the whole Reformation As therefore they would not be found ignorant of the Religion they profess as they would not continue so highly uncharitable to their Brethren nor be guilty of the Ruine of what they would be thought so much to contend for if there be in them any love of Truth any care of Justice and tenderness of Conscience any concern for the publick cause and our common Religion let them think of these things In the first place therefore False to begin with the unreasonableness in general of this Jealousie wherewith some men are prepossess'd Who would not stand amaz'd to hear that Church stil'd Popish the purity of whose Faith has been declar'd so expressly so illustriously attested and spoken of through all the World Know they or care they what they say that say this of a Church that has solemnly and positively disown'd all the Usurp'd Authority and condemn'd all the false Doctrines of the Roman See its Supremacy Infallibibility Transubstantiation Idolatry of the Angels and Saints Purgatory c. that has not done this in a corner or in the ear but proclaim'd it on the House top that like a City set upon a Hill has been as high and eminent on the one side as Rome it self with its seven boasted Hills has been on the other and has as remarkably oppos'd the Errors of that Church as ever they had been advanc'd What a new wonder must this be to the World to hear the Church constituted by Cranmer and Ridley accus'd of Popery that Faith and Worship suspected to be un-reform'd which was deliver'd down to us by those great Martyrs Is this the reward of a Church whose Sons have given so loud Testimony against the Roman in their Lives and by their Deaths who have still born the burden and heat of the day who have felt the fiercest rage of the Enemy and have return'd them the dead-liest wounds who have been foremost still in all encounters all along in the last age and in our own the famous and the Victorious Champions of the Protestant Cause If this Church and these Men after the declaration made in our Articles after repeated subscriptions and abrenuntiations after all this zealous opposition of Popery must be yet suspected of Popery as well on the other side may the Decrees of the Council of Trent be said to comply with the Reformation and the Pope himself be thought a Protestant One would imagine from the suspitions of these men that traduce is that there was some small inconsiderable difference betwixt the Papists and us something that might easily be reconcil'd not that we differ as much from them and in as substantial points as those very persons that complain For let all the Harmony of Protestant Confessions be consulted and see if we are not of the Harmony and our Articles do not conspire with theirs if ours are not as express and as directly opposite to the Roman Church if there can be any hopes of reconciling us sooner than of reconciling them For though there are of the Protestants that retain not some indifferent Ceremonies which we have and that we might well do it you will see presently yet it is to be suppos'd they would not stand out against the Roman Church on that account if the rest were well agreed If they could once allow their Transubstantiation Idolatry
or Improper by those Nations that by the Mercy of God have yet a better Neighbourhood always of great Edification to the Devout but particularly to be remembred by those whom Commerce carrys into remoter Countries where tho if Report mistake not it has by some been most scandalously forgot So Clear and Free is the Sign of the Cross as Us'd by us from the least shadow of Superstition 6. Lastly the Fasts and Feasts of the Church come as unjustly under the same groundless imputation The time of assembling is a Circumstance of our Worship that cannot be left to particular choice but must be determin'd in Common and what is to be done at that time must be determin'd too in any Orderly Assembly so that it must be left to the Discretion of the Governours when we are to keep a Festival and when a Fast As to the Keeping of the Lord's Day our Church was not at Liberty without she would have rashly departed from Apostolick observation and the Continued practice of all Ages and Places since the beginning of Christianity As for the Keeping of Easter she was too under the like Obligation the Annual Feast of the Resurrection the Creat Lords Day being known to have been the Chief and the Cause of all the Weekely And as to the Fast of Good Fryday it was nigh as early as the Feast of the Resurrection They lamented their sins our Saviour dy'd for on the Fryday before as constantly as they commemorated His Rising again for our Salvation the Sunday after And in Order to the keeping of those two great Days with more Devotion there was likewise in the Church some time beforehand set apart for better Recollection and greater Preparation The number of Days in some Places more in some less That of Forty no Superstitious Number had obtain'd in the Western Countrey and therefore was still kept and would to God it were as Religiously observed as it was Piously appointed Whitsunday too the Day on which the Holy-Ghost descended was Observ'd Always and Universally by the Ancient Church Onely the Nativity of our Saviour was of later remembrance but yet before Popery came in First observ'd in the Western Church and afterwards taken up by the Eastern in St. Chrysostom's time as it slands recommended by him to the People of Antioch Other times besides these have been Appointed too for our Religious Assemblies which besides the general Worship of God the Examples of his Saints and Martyrs are gratefully remembred and piously propos'd and those Days are call'd commonly by the Name of the Person then particularly Commemorated Not that the Worship is to the Saint or that the Day is employed in his Honour onely because on the Occasion of his Memory or Martyrdom we come together as to Pay our other Duties to our God so to thank him for the Graces of his Servant and to be Edified and Instructed by the Example It is true the Church heretofore when God had been bountiful to them in the Number of his Saints increased in some proportion those Days of his Worship and it is to be Confessed that Popery had both acknowledged Saints to God which he might not own and gave the True Saints an Honour which they must disclaim But with is the Number of those Days is not greater then that the Affairs of the World may well comply and as the Number of the Apostles is not large so their Sanctity sure is unquestionable and then on those Days we neither Beseech by their Merits nor Recommend our Selves to their Intercession You see then how unreasonable the Objection of Popery is here too but see to what absurdity it goes on First it is Suppos'd Popery to keep a Day in the Memory of an Apostle and then it is thought as Popish to call him a Saint A Great Person at Geneva it seems presum'd it somewhat Popish to Observe Sunday it self and consider'd about Changing the Day Nay some are so perversely Superstitious on the other hand as that That Day on which all the Christian World remembers our Saviour's Bitter Passion has seem'd to them the fitter for a Feast and the Time Universally now set Apart for the Joyful Memory of his Blessed Nativity the more proper for a Fast This indeed is not like the Papists No it is like a Jew or a Healthen So I hope it has sufficiently appear'd how little guilty those Usages are of the Popery of which they are accus'd the cheif designs of these papers But having not been able to discourse of their Innocence without some discovery of their use I shall crave the Readers patience for a short digression wherein he may see that the first Governours of our Reform'd Church did not only use their Liberty and impose them as things Indifferent but as things expedient and to which they were oblig'd in all Godly Prudence For altho the Persons who now enforce this account may think so much of themselves as that the weakest of their Possible Jealousy ought to have been consider'd most yet the First Reformers were not to engage themselves in a task so endless nor to content themselves with so narrow a view several other respects more weighty and things more practicable did expect their care For in the Reformation there were more considerations to be had then some are pleased or capable to understand There was a Regard to Truth to Increase of Piety to Gravity and Decency to Antiquity to All the Modern Churches the Roman it self the Grecian and the then Reform'd Regards then had and ever since to be continued They were indeed to provide in the first place that their prescrib'd Rites should be such as might not in any manner reasonably offend their own members but be the most fit to raise and promote their Devotion They were too at the same time to take care that no offence should be givin to other Churches no just scandall even to that they left For as to the Church of Rome tho we were forc'd to part from Her it was to be withal Christian meekness and Charity with a desire that she would return to Herself and us and would at last follow the Reformation which she had been often desir'd to begin And therefore when we cut off Her Corruptions and Superstitions we retain'd some of her most Laudable and Antient. Ways not leaving them tho' Godly and Venerable because Practis'd by Her as the Spirit of Opposition would have directed but for that Cause the rather practising them our Selves as it was fit for Christians and Brethren All the Innocent Ceremonies indeed we did not keep because their Number was Excessively great and they of small or no Edefication Tho' under that Burden we could have been content to rest had that been the Onely Dispute and were it to have been the Condition of our Peace But the Tyranny of their Corruptions by which they forc'd us out of their Communion having restor'd us to our First Liberty and taken
off that Humane Right or Usurpation by which their Bishops pretended Authority oyer Ours from a Prescription whose Date we know we us'd then that Liberty too in other matters and both shew'd that we were not under Bondage and that we were in Charity leaving that Church a Pattern for Her to imitate and Usiing towards her a Temper by which she was not needlesly provoked So did the first Reformers discharge their Duty towards the Roman Church by this Conduct giving to the Sober and Well-minded all reason to commend us and taking away from the Rest all occasion to Blaspheme reducing themselves in all Material Points to the Standard of the Primitive Church and in lesser matters taking leave to vary as several Countreys then of the same Ages had us'd to do in hopes that other Nations would by the Grace of God be at last invited by so fair an Example we not proposing our selves so much as the Ancient Church to their Imitation The same Apology might too be Satisfactory to the Greek Church from whom if we differ in Doctrines or Worship it was because we presumed our selves constrained by the Truth so to do but that we affected not wantonly an unnecessary Contrariety they might perceive by our choosing some such Custom as had the general Approbation and by conforming to Antient Usage A Church of another Climat not being to expect that we of the North-West should Agree in all but that it might appear by Common Practice of some things that it was not out of Opposition that we had abstained from the rest Such Respect there was to be to the Roman and Greek Churches there was too a consideration of the Reform'd the Lutheran a chief regard was to be had to her and the upper hand of Fellowship given as to the Elder Sister She first had Protested against the Romish Corruptions stood the dangerous Shock of Papal Tyranny and boldly advanc'd a Reformation which too she Planted wide and Setled in very Powerful Countreys This Noble Example our First Reformers followed from Them they learn'd to cast off all Modern Usurpation and to restore according to the Earlier Pattern not taking our Copy indeed from theirs but from the same antient Original tho' with some difference yet with a near resemblance Our Episcopacy by the Piety of our Princes was left more Entire than with Them in some Places The Doctrine of Consubstantiation which determines the Mode of Christ's Real Presence at the Time of Participation we were not Satisfied in but yet as they condemn'd the Idolatry and Superstitions of the Popish Transubstantistion equally with us so did we equally with them Adore the Mystery of the Holy Sacrament and were ready to Communicate on our Knees After their Example our Churches and Cathedrals were not Neglected the Places where Gods Honour dwells nor His Altars where His Mercy and Love shew themselves forth The Worship of the Soul was Commanded to be express'd in the Posture of the Body The Bowing to the Holy Name of JESUS recommended and a decent Gravity every where kept up tho' with fewer Ceremonies So Serviceable were these Orders of ours in respect of the rest of Christendom and so fit to be retain'd for their Edification in Love the Fruit of which we had the Satisfaction to reap not only from the Approbation of those our Brethren not so well Satisfied elsewhere but from the Confession even of some Romanists themselves They were too as Proper for our own Edification and for the Advancement of Gods Worship here To that Purpose these Rules were as exactly fitted as if it had been the only Design For what could have been better design'd for the Honour of God and Increase of Religion amongst Men then that the People should be Ordered had it not been their Custom before Solemnly to meet to pay their Devotions on certain Days of the Week that there should be Annual Commemorations of the Mysteries of our Redemption and of the Zeal and Doctrines of the Blessed Apostles And how could our Devotions be more Certain and Sufficient more Grave and Regular than under a well consider'd Form If the Minister were then in another Garment did not the very Sight of him Admonish before the Exhortation began that the People were to lay aside their ordinary Thoughts not to meet him there as Abroad but to be a Holy Congregation If they were directed to be on their Knees at Prayers and at the Communion was it more than became their Duty or a Hinderance think we to their Devotion Or was it to be expected that when a Congregation saw a Person admitted into the Number and the Doctrines of the Cross declar'd over him as the Terms of his Reception they should be Offended that it was so evidently set forth and declar'd to the Eye as well as to the Ear and should so far forget its Benefits as rather at that time to think impertinently of an old Superstition that was gone and of Popery that was abolished than to joyn and recognize our Saviours Death and their former Vows and zealously to resolve the Profession of their Holy Faich in despight of all its Enemies But on this Subject I proceed no further to the other unquestionable parts of our Ritual it being plain that even the lesser Appointments have their proper use When therefore the Reformation began for such just Reasons and several Respects to others and to our selves was the present Form Established At that time the other Protestant Church of Calvin's Model that the Reader may not think it forgot above was but just set up in the narrow Territory of Geneva and therefore indeed not much considered by our Reformers only under their general Rule that as they begg'd leave in Indifferent things to use their own Liberty so they impos'd not on other Churches By our leave therefore the Reformers of that place might have us'd fewer Ceremonies and those of their own Invention so they would be pleased not to dictate their Regulations as necessary Rules to us Nay even there where otherwise we might think they had gone too far the necessity of their Circumstances might have pleaded for them provided they prescribed not their Orders and Discipline to foreign Countries Though therefore they had abrogated Episcopacy though Lay Elders and Lay Deacons were Novelties in the Church of Christ though a Liturgy of Prayers was wanting and they seemed in several things to condemn the ancient Church too much yet they were still regarded by us as Brethren their Correspondence desired and Communion with them maintain'd But when the Neighbourhood of Geneva had with the Doctrine of the Reformation carried this peculiar Discipline into France It began thence to come over hither as a Mode and to take it may be the more because it was new And then it was urg'd not as convenient to the Circumstances of a little Town or of a scatter'd distressed People under Popish Bishops but as necessary to all that professed the
great that the other deserves not to be mention'd whereas the other have still been the far greater Number and the much more considerable Our Trade indeed makes us look into Holland where tho' the true Calvinists make not above a third of the people and our Fashions into France and would to God their Numbers increas'd there we speak much of Switzerland and the Lower Palatinate but we forget to take notice of the large Countrys that are intirely of the other Profession as Denmarke Sweden the Dominions of the Elector of Saxony and Brandenbourgh of the Great House of Lunenburgh and the many Imperial Cities So that the Design mention'd before of coming nearer to the Reformation abroad was nothing else but this to perswade us to go farther from the Universal Church Primitive from the Major part of the Moderns Reformed from our innocent agreement with general Christianity and from those of our selves who are much edisied by our Present Constitution to come nearer to those abroad who to speak in the fairest language are not better constituted than our selves and to comply with those at home who are certainly neither the greater nor the best part of us to give way to the falsest and most destructive Prejudice opposite to all Catholick Agreement and to Countenance and Encourage a most causeless and Seditious Separation But to return from this Digression We have seen upon the View of the Particulars most in question no Popery in them no Superstition nor Idolatry no favour nor tendency to any of the Roman Corruptions nothing in them that is not directed to the promoting of Gods Honour the raising of our Devotion and the Teaching of our Duty nothing but what either was in use before Popery took place or must be allow'd commendable even in the Papists themselves And yet notwithstanding all the Zealous abhorrence our first Reformers had for Popery declar'd by their Writings and confirm'd by the Testimony of their Deaths notwithstanding the constant continued Professions of the same Faith still made by all that officiate in the Church Altho' all possible care has been taken to prevent the Suspicion and disavow all Popish Intention yet our Church is Popish and we all Papists still The grossest and the most inexcusable Calumny that ever was invented We have seen already to what ends this notorious Untruth was first devis'd by the Dissenting Party to widen the Separation to six men in it and to keep them at an irreconcileable distance But I cannot tell whether it had not been more excusable before God and Man to have separated upon no Reason than upon one so scandalously false They had then onely been accountable for their departure and forsakeing us but now besides for all this Injustice which they have done us and the Calumnies under which they have left us For so under the Old Law where a man might at pleasure have put away his Wife and without Cause shewn yet if he had given occasion of Speech against her and brought an Evil Name upon her had accus'd her to have been Corrupt he was then by the Judgement of the Elders to make reparation by a Pecuniary Mulct to suffer Corporal Chastisement and not to put her away for ever If then those Persons had not in them that Brotherly Love which should have made them desirous of our Company nor that Sence of their Duty to our common Father by which we are oblig'd to make our joint Appearance before Him yet in common justice they should have forbore their Slaunders and in reverence to the God of Truth they should not have condemned us so rashly in matters that concern him For seems it so small a thing to any man especially to one that professes a more tender Sence of his Duty to accuse one rashly and falsely before God and the World of Superstitions Abominations and Idolatry of perverting the Gospel of Christ and corrupting his Worship of carrying the Souls of men into Error and Sin and endangering their Eternal Salvation Were this Scandal spoken of any single Priest that had the care of the smallest Parish what Sufficient Satisfaction could be made him But when it is spoke of the Pastors and Teachers of a Great People of the Constitution and Frame of a whole National Church what amends shall be given then For here the consideration is not onely of Disreputation and Loss of Honour unjustly sustain'd but of the Horrible Mischiefs that have followed Nor do those suffer so much of whom the Scandal is said as those do who credit and entertain it The greatest prejudice is not to us but to those who on that account are gone from us who have been scar'd by it into Schism and Faction have been engag'd into uncharitableness and the breach of the Peace of God the Unity of his Church into Heats and Animosities into Temporal and Spiritual Disobedience who have been thence perverted into Deadly Errors and Heresies and hastning from us have run upon Rocks and made Shipwrack of their Faith These are the dammages of that Wicked Scandal to be estimated by the Hazard and Perdition of thousands of Souls the loss is to the Catholick Church and to be answered for hereafter to the Great Shepherd So big is this foul slaunder of Infinite Mischief tho' its single guilt be so great that it needs no accumulation Judge not that ye be not Judged says our Lord and Master And who art thou that Judgest anothers Servant says his Blessed Apostle So unwarrantable and dangerous a thing it is to pass a hasty Peremptory sentence even upon our fellows and equals in any thing that relates to God it is to attempt upon his Authority and to usurp his Seat He then that passes a Sentence notoriously unjust what is he to expect at the day of the righteous Judgment of God And who art thou that so judgest not only another's Servant but thy own Superior and whom the Great Master has commanded thee to obey If thy Slanders were against any foreign Sister Church of God it were a high breach of Charity and for which you ought to beg pardon of Christendom but to Calumniate maliciously ones own Church and to charge her falsely with the highest Crimes is a Lye not onely against those to whom you owe common respect but to whom you are to pay Duty and Subjection it is as if you Blasphem'd your Father or your Mother But to pass away from such sad Considerations on which tho' the concern'd should reflect very seriously and to conclude in the easiest and most favourable manner Those that go this way to destroy our Reputation with the Vulgar have not provided well for their own with intelligent men they will not after this be well able to make good their Pretences to much knowledge and their Profession of greater zeal for Truth For the difference betwixt us and Popery is so wide that those who accuse us of it except they excuse themselves by ignorance cannot be
more Contrariety against them than against the other parts of our Constitution Onely these three Circumstantials are most visible the one upon the Minister and the other at either of the Sacraments and so may be signal enough for a Dissenting Triumph a present Ease to their Scruples which they will please to accept in earnest of what is to follow Were there any just reason for the Scruple of the meanest person or inconsiderablest number God forbid but the Church should give redress And could it have been presum'd that the Schisme would be heal'd by the removing of those three Ceremonies however innocent and edifying they would no doubt have been remitted long ago But the Governours of the Church know well what the Spirit and Genius of the Dissent is and to what it drives upon what Causes it is founded and the medley of the Persons that are ingag'd in it How small a part the Sincerely Scrupulous make and how the Harmless are in the hands of the Crafty and the Weak manag'd by the Sturdy that the prevailing governing Party are not to be satisfied with a Ceremony or two but with more substantial Things Nay that Religion it self is but a Circumstance to their other Designes This our Superiours know who want not the Charity or Condescention that any Reconciler would recommend but are oblig'd in all holy Prudence and their Duty to the Church to take in more considerations than purchance a private Writer may Comprehend They are to be as innocent as Doves but as Wise as the Serpents themselves But this is beyond design of this Paragraph the Scope of which is only this That if things are but indifferently well to change is alway extreme inconvenient but then most especially when there will be no probable Stop That the Papists will be as well pleas'd with such alterations as the Dissenter and neither fully satisfy'd but with our total Abolition So is a Change tho' in things perfectly Indifferent no Indifferent thing But all things call'd Indifferent are not of equal Indifference and particularly the change This Maxime we are speaking of would perswade which the Dissenters endeavour and our Popish Adversaries wish is still for the worse The one pretends to see Popery in our Government and Rituals the other with grief sees ancient Order and approv'd Decency retain'd and the Primitive Church restor'd They are sensible with what disadvantage they encounter us that here is no Novelty to reproach and that the Truly Catholick Church is of our side They have a Church in their sight as it were one of the first Ages reviv'd upbraiding them by its Presence and discovering the Counterfeit by the Comparison To disorder and confound this is the Folly of the one Party and the Interest of the other to drive us off from the Ground on which we stand with so much advantage to take away from her all Order and Beauty and to strip her of all the Marks of Antiquity and Badges of Catholick Agreement So shall we be that which the Enemies of our Church desire their Scorn and Mockery first and afterwards their easie Prey While having our eyes only upon Rome and running still backwards from her we fall into the Snare that she has laid behind us It were to be wish'd that those who are so jealous of our Symbolizing with Rome in Indifferent things would be as Cautious in joyning with her in her pernicious Designs and Conspiring to the Ruine of the Reformation If they will take their Measures in Opposition to Popery let them then close with that Church that is most hated by the Pope and come in and help to defend that place against which he bends his greatest Force And let them take care lest if they know Popery so little now as to accuse us of it they assist not that Religion so long and so effectually till they bring it in indeed and learn what it is by a Dear Experiment FINIS