the land of our Nativity as Maris told Julian He thank't God that had deprived him of his sight that he might not see the face of such a man Socrat. Hist l. 3. c. 10. So we shall take it as a little abatement of our affliction that we see not the Sins and Calamities of the people whose peace and welfare we so much desire Having taking this opportunity here to conclude this part with these Requests and Warnings we now proceed to the second part containing the particulars of our Exceptions and your Answers Concerning Morning and Evening Prayer Sect. 1. Rubr. 1. We think it fit that the Rubrick stand as it is and all to be left to the discretion of the Ordinary Reply We thought the end and use more considerable than custom and that the Ordinary himself should be under the rule of doing to edification Sect. 2. Rub. For the reasons given in our Answer to the 18th General whither you refer us we think it fit that the Rubrick continue as it is Reply We have given you reason enough against the imposition of the usual Ceremonies and would you draw forth those absolute ones to increase the burden Sect. 3. Lords Pr. Deliver us from evil These words For thine is the Kingdom c. are not in S. Luke nor in the antient Copies of St. Matth. never mentioned in the antient Comments nor used in the Latin Church and therefore questioned whether they be part of the Gospel there is no reason that they should be alwayes used Reply We shall not be so over-credulous as to believe you that these words are not in the antient Copies It is enough that we believe that some few antient Copies have them not but that the most even the generality except those few have them The judgement of our English Translators and almost all other Translators of Matth. and of the reverend B of Chester among your selves putting the Copy that hath it in his Bible as that which is most receiv'd and approved by the Church do shew on which side is the chief authority if the few copies that want it had been thought more arthentick and credible the Church of England and most other Churches would not have preferred the copies that have this doxology And why will you in this contradict the later judgement of the Church expressed in the translation allowed and imposed The Syriack Ethiopick and Persian translations also have it and if the Syriack be as antient as you your selves even now asserted then the antiquity of doxology is there evident and it is not altogether to be neglected which by Chemnitius and others is conjectured that Pauls words in Tim. 4. 18. were spoken as in reference to this Doxology And as Pareus and other Protestants conclude it is more probable the Latrines neglected than that the Greeks inserted of their own heads this sentence The Socinians and Arrians have as fair pretence for their exception a ainst 1 John 5 6 7. Masculus saith non cogitant vero similius esse ut Graecorum ecclesia magis quà m Latina quod ab Evangelistis Graece scriptum est integrum servârit nihilque de suo adjecerit Quid de Graeca ecclesia dico vidi ipse vetustissimum Evangelium secundum Matth. Codicem Chaldaeis Elementis Verbis conscriptum in quo Coronis ista perinde atque in Graecis legebatur Nec Chaldaei solum sed drabes Christiani paciformiter cum Graecis orant Exemplar Hebraeum à docto celebri D. Sebast Munstero vulgatum hanc ipsam Coronidem habet Cum ergo consentiunt hâc in re Hebraeorum Chaldaeorum Arabum Graecorum Ecolesiae contra omnes reliquas tantum tribuitur authoritatis ut quod sâ—la diversum legit ab Evangelitis traditum esse credatur quod vero reliquae omnes concorditer habent orant pro addititio peregrino habeatur And that Luke hath it not will no more prove that it was not a part of the Lords Prayer than all other omissions of one Evangelist will prove that such words are corruptions in the other that have them All set together give us the Gospel fully and from all we must gather it Sect. 4. Lords Prâ—often used It is used but twice in the morning and twice in the Evening Service and twice cannot be called often much lesse so often For the Letany Communion Baptism c. they are Offices distinct from morning and evening prayer and it is not sit that any of them should want the Lord Prayer Reply We may better say we are required to use it six times every morning than but twice for it is twice in the Common morning prayer and once in the Letany once in the Communion service once at Baptism which in great Parishes is usual every day and once to be used by the Preacher in the Pulpit And if you call these distinct offices that maketh not the Lords Prayer the seldomer used sure we are the Apostles thought it fit that many of their prayers should be without the Lords Prayer Sect. 5. Glor. Patri This Doxology being a solemn Confession of the blessed Trinity should not be thought a burden to any Christian Liturgy especially being so short as it is neither is the repetition of it to be thought a vain repetition more than His mercy endureth for ever so often repeated Psal 136. We cannot give God too much glory that being the end of our Creation and should be the end of all our Services Reply Though we cannot give God too much glory we may too often repeat a form of words wherein his name and glory is mentioned there is great difference between a Psalm of praise and the praise in our ordinary prayers more liberty of repetition may be taken in Psalms and be an Ornament and there is difference between that which is unusual in one Psalm of 150. and that which is our daily course of worship When you have well proved that Christs prohibition of battology extendeth not to this Matth. 6. we shall acquiesce Sect. 6. P. 15. Ru. 2. In such places where they do sing c. The Rubr. directs only such singing as is after the manner of distinct reading and we never heard of any inconvenience thereby and therefore conceive this Demand to be needlesse Reply It tempteth men to think they should read in a singing tone and to turn reading Scripture into Singing hath the inconvenience of turning the edifying simplicity and plainness of Gods service into such affected unnatural strains and tones as is used by the Mimical and Ludicious or such as feign themselves in raptures and the highest things such as words and modes that signifie Raptures are most loathsome when forced feigned and hypocritically affected and therefore not fit for Congregations that cannot be supposed to be in such Raptures this we apply also to the sententious mode of prayers Sect. 7. Benedicite This Hymn was used all the Church over Conc. Tolet. Can.
scandalous sinner may come to make this thanksgiving THus have we in all humble pursuance of his Majesties most gracious endeavours for the publick weal of this Church drawn up our thoughts and desires in this weighty affair which we most humbly offer to his Majesties Commissioners for their serious and grave confideration wherein we have not the least thoughts of depraving or reproaching the Book of Common-Prayer but a sincere desire to contribute our endeavours towards leading the distempers and as far as may be reconciling the minds of Brethren And in as much as his Majesty hath in his gracious Declaration ond Commission mentioned new Forms to be made and suited to the several parts of worship we have made a considerable progresse therein and shall by Gods assistance offer them to the reverend Commissioners with all convenient speed And if the Lord shall graciously please to give his blessing to these our endeavours we doubt not but that the peace of this Church will be shortly setled The hearts of Ministers and People comforted and composed and the great mercy of Unity and Stability to the immortal honour of our most dear Soveraign bestowed upon us and our posterity after us August 30. 1661. FINIS To the most Reverend ARCHBISHOP AND BISHOPS And the Reverend their Assistants Commissioned by his Majesty to treat about the Alteration of the Book of Common Prayer Most Reverend Father and Reverend Brethren WHen we received your Papers and were told that they conteined not onely an answer to our Exceptition against the present Liturgy But also severall Concessions wherein you seem willing to joyn with us in the Alteration and Reformation of it Our expectations were so far raised as that we promised our selves to find our Concessions so considerable as would have greatly conduced to the healing of our much to be lamented Divivisions the setling of the Nation in Peace and the satisfaction of tender Consciences according to his Majesties most gracious Declaration and his Royal Commission in pursuance thereof but having taken a survey of them we find our selves exceedingly disappointed and that they will fall far short of attaining those happy Ends for which this meeting was first designed as may appear both by the paucity of the Concessions and the inconsiderablenesse of them they being for the most part Verbal and Literal rather then Real and Substantial for in them you all allow not the laying aside of the reading of the Apocrypha for Lessons though it shut out some bundreds of Chapters of Holy Scripture and sometimes the Scripture it self is made to give way to the Apochryphal Chapters you plead against the addition of the Doxology unto the Lord's prayer you give no liberty to omit the too frequent repetition of Gloria Patria nor of the Lord's Prayer in the same publick Service nor do you yield the Psalmes be read in the new Translation nor the word Priest to be changed for Minister or Presbyter though both have been yielded unto in the Scottish Liturgy you grant not the omission of the Responsals no not in the Let any it self though the Petitions be so framed as the people make the prayer and not the Minister nor to read the Communion service in the Desk when there is no Communion but in the late Form instead thereof it is enjoyned to be done at the Table through there be no Rubrick in the Common Prayer book requiring it you plead for the bolinesse of Lent contrary to the statute you indulge not the omission of any one Ceremony you will force men to kneel at the Sacrament and yet not put in that excellent Rubr. in the v. and vj. of Edw. 6. which would much conduce to the satisfaction of many that scruple it And whereas divers Reverend Bishops and Doctours in a paper in Print before these unhappy Wars began yielded to the laying aside of the Crosse and the making many material alterations you after xx years sad calamities and divisions seem unwilling to grant what they of their own accord then offered you seem not to grant that the clause of the fourth commandement in the Common Prayer book the Lord blessed the seventh day should be altered according to the Hebr. Exod. 20. the Lord blessed the Sabbath day you will not change the word Sunday into the Lord 's day nor adde any thing to make a difference between Holidaies that are of Humane Institution and the Lord's day that is questionlesse of Apostolicall practise you will not alter Deadly Sin in the Letany into Heynous Sin though it hints to us that some sins are in their own nature Venial nor that Answer in the Catech. of two Sacraments onely generally necessary to salvation although it intimates that there are New Testament Sacraments though Two onely necessary to salvation you speak of singing David 's Psalmes allowed by Authority by way of contempt calling them Hopkins Psalmes and though singing of Psalmes be an Ordinance of God yet you call it one of our principal parts of VVorship as if it were disclaimed by you And are so far from countenancing the use of conceived prayer in the publick VVorship of God though we never intended thereby the excluding of set Forms as that you seem to dislike the use of it even in the Pulpit and heartily desire a total restaint of it in the Church you will not allow the omission of the Benedicite nor a Psalm to be read instead of it nor so much as abate the reading of the chapters out of the Old Testament and the Acts for the Epistles But rather then you will gratifie us therein you have found out a new device that the Minister shall say for the Epistle you will not so much as leave out in the Collect for Christmas day these words this day though at least it must be a great uncertainty and cannot be true stylo veteri novo In publick Baptism you are so far from giving a liberty to the parent to answer for his own child which seems most reasonable as that you force him to the use of sureties and cause them to answer in the name of the Infant that he doth believe and repent and forsake the devil and all his worke which doth much favour the Anabaptistical opinion for the necessity of an actual profession of Faith and Repentance in order to Baptism you will not leave the Minister in the visitation of the sick to use his judgment of discretion in absolving the sick person or in giving the Sacrament to him but enjoyn both of them though the person to his own judgment seem never so unfit neither do you allow the Minister to pronounce the absolution in a Declarative and conditional way but absolutely and conditionately And even in one of our concessions in which we suppose you intend to accommodate with us you rather widen then heal the breach for in your last Rubr. before the Catech you would have the words thus altered That Children being
with us in Doctrinals unless we digress to tell you who they be What if we were pleading for civil Concord among all that are loyal to the King must we needs digress to tell you who are loyal We are agreed in one Rule of Faith in one Holy Scripture and one Creed and differ not you say about the Doctrinal part of the 39. Art And will not all this seem to tell you who are Orthodox If you are resolved to make all that a matter of Contention which we desire to make a means of Peace there is no remedy while you have the Ball before you and have the Wind and Sun and the power of contending without controll But we perceive That the Catholick consent of Antiquity must go into your definition of the Orthodox but how hard it is to get a reconciling determination what Ages shall go with you and us for the true Antiquity and what is necessary to that consent that must be called Catholick is unknown to none but the unexperienced And indeed we think a man that searcheth the holy Scripture and sincerely and unreservedly gives up his Soul to understand love and obey it may be Orthodox without the knowledge of Church-History we know no universal Law-giver nor Law to the Church but one and that Law is the sufficient rule of Faith and consequently the test of the truly Orthodox though we refuse not Church-History or other means that may help us to understand it And to acquaint you with what you do not know we our selves after many Pastors of the Reformed Churches do question your Liturgie as far as is expressed in our Papers And we profess to adhere to Scripture and the Catholick Consent of Antiquity as described by Vincentius Liniensis If you will say that our Pretence and Claim is unjust we call for your Authority to judge our Hearts or depose us from the number of the Orthodox or else for your proofs to make good your Accusation But however you judge we rejoice in the expectation of the righteous Judgment that shall finally decide the Controversie to which from this Aspertion we appeal To those Generals loading Publick Form with Ch. pomp garm Imagery and many Superfluities that creep into the Church under the name of Order and Decency incumbring Churches with Superfluities over ridgid reviving of obsolete Customes c. We say that if these Generals be intended as applyable to our Liturgy in particular they are gross and foul Slanders contrary to their Profession page ult and so either that or this contrary to their Conscience if not they signifie nothing to the present business and so might with more prudence and candor have been omitted Reply You needed not go a fishing for our Charge what we had to say against the Liturgie which we now desired you to observe was here plainly laid before you Answer to this and suppose us not to say what we do not to make your selves matter of reproaching us with gross and foul slanders Only we pray you answer Mr. Hales as Mr. Hales whom we took to be a Person of much esteem with you especially that passage of his which you take no notice of as not being so easie to be answered for the weight and strength which it carries with it viz. That the li mitting of the Church Communion to things of doubtful disputation hath been in all Ages the ground of Schism and Separation and that he that separates from suspected Opinions is not the Separatist And may we not cite such words of one that we thought you honored and would hear without contradicting our Profession of not intending depravation or reproach against the Book without going against our consciences If we cite the words of an Author for a particular use as to perswade you of the evil of laying the Churches Unity upon unnecessary things must we be responsible therefore for all that you can say against his words in other respects we suppose you would be loath your words should have such interpretations and that you should be under such a Law for all your Citations do as you would be done by It was the wisdome of our Reformers to draw up such a Liturgy as neither Romanist nor Protestant could justly excopt against and therefore as the first never charged it with any positive errors but only the want of something they conceived necessary so it was never found fault with by those to whom the name of Protestants most properly belongs those that profess the Augustine Confession and for those who unlawfully and sinfully brought it into dislike with some people to urge the present Stave of Affaires as an Argument why the Booke should be altered to give them satisfaction and so that they should take advantage by their own unwarrantable Acts is not reasonable Reply If it be blameless no man can justly except against it But that de facto the Romanists never charged it with any positive errors is an Assertion that maketh them reformed and reconcilable to us beyond all belief Is not the very using it in our own Tongue a positive error in their account Is it no positive error in the Papists account that we profess to receive these Creatures of Bread and Wine do they think we have no positive error in our Catechism about the Sacraments that affirmeth it to be Bread and Wine after the Consecration and makes but two Sacraments necessary c. 2. And unless we were nearlier agreed than we are it seemeth to us no commendation of a Liturgie that the Papists charge it with no positive error 3. That no Divines or private men at home or of Foreign Churches that ever found fault with the Liturgie are such to whom the name of Protestant properly belongeth is an assertion that proveth not what authoritie of judgeing your Brethren you have but what you assume and commendeth your Charitie no more than it commendeth the Papists that they denie us to be Catholicks Calvin and Bucer subscribed the Augustine Confession and so have others that have found fault with our Liturgie 4. If any of us have blamed it to the people it is but with such a sort of blame as we have here exprest against it to your selves And whether it be unlawfull and sinfull the impartial comparing of your words with ours will help the willing Reader to discern But if we prove indeed that it is defective and faultie that you bring for an Offering to God when you or your Neighbours have a better which you will not bring nor suffer them that would Mal. 1. 13. and that you call evil good in justifying its blemishes which in humble modestie we besought you to amend or excuse us from offering then God will better judge of the unlawfull act than you have done But you have not proved that all or most of us have caused the people at all to dislike it if any of us have yet weigh our Argument though from the present state
Thanksgiving for our Justification and forgivenesse of sin and adoption and title to glory c. because many in the Assembly are Hipocrites and have no such mercies and many more that are sincere are mistaken in their own condition and know not that they have the mercies which they have and therefore dare not give thanks for them lest they speak an untruth Then the Liturgy that now speaks as in the persons of the Sanctified must be changed that the two fore-mentioned sorts or the latter at least may consent and when you have done it will be unsuitable to those that are in a better state and have the knowledge of their Justification This is the Argument which the Sectaries used against singing of Davids Psalms in the Congregations because there is much in them that many cannot truly say of themselves But the Church must not go out of that way of worship prescribed by God and suired to the state of the ordinary sort of the spiritual Worshippers because of the distempers or the super-eminent excellencies of some few It were easy to go over Davids Psalms and your own Liturgy and shew you very much that by this Argument must be cast out He that finds any passage unsuitable to himself is not to speak it of himself As for original sin though we think it an evil custom springing from false Doctrine to use any such expressions as may lead people to think that to the persons baptized in whose persons only our Prayers are offered up original sin is not forgiven in their holy Baptisme Yet for that there remains in the Regenerate some reliques of that which are to be bewailed the Church in her Confession acknowledgeth such desires of our own hearts as render us miserable by following them That there is no health in us That without Gods help our frailty cannot but fall That our mortal nature can do no good thing without him which is a clear acknowledgment of Original sin Repl. 1. He that hath his Original sin forgiven him may well confesse that he was born in iniquity and conceived in sin and was by nature a Child of wrath and that by one man sin entred into the world and that Judgment came on all men to Condemnation c. The pardoned may confesse what once they were and from what Rock they were hewn even actual sins must be confessed after they are forgiven unless the Antimonians hold the truth against us in such points 2. All is not false Doctrine that crosseth mens private Opinions which you seem here to obtrude upon us We know that the Papists and perhaps some others hold that all the baptised are delivered from the Guilt of Original sin But as they are in the dark and disagreed in the Explicatio of it so we have more reason to incline to either of the ordinary Opinions of the Protestants than to this of theirs 3. Some learned Protestants hold that visibly all the baptised are Church members pardoned and justified which is but that they are probably justified indeed and are to be used by the Church upon a Judgment of Charity as those that are really justified But that we have indeed no certainty that they are so God keeping that as a secret to himself concerning Individuals till by actual Faith and Repentance it be manifest to themselves Another Opinion of many Protestants is that all persons that are Children of the Promise or that have the conditions of pardon and Justification in the Covenant mentioned are to receive that pardon by Baptisme and all such are pardoned and certainly in a state of Justification and Salvation thereupon and that the promise of pardon is made to the Faithful and to their seed and therefore that all the Faithful and their seed in Infancy have this pardon given them by the promise and solemnly delivered them and sealed to them by Baptism which investeth them in the benefits of the Covenant But withall that first the professed Infidel and his seed as such are not the Children of the promise and therefore if the Parent ludicruosly or forcedly or the Child by errour be baptised they have not thereby the pardon of their sin before God 2. That the Hypocrite that is not a true believer at the heart though he professe it hath no pardon by Baptisme before God as being not an heir of the promise nor yet any Infant of his as such But though such are not pardoned the Church that judgeth by profession taking Professors for Believers must accordingly use them their seed 3. But though the Church judge thus charitably of each Professor in particular till his hypocrisy be detected yet doth it understand that hypocrites there are still will be in the Church though we know them not by name And that therefore there are many externally baptised and in Communion that never had the pardon of sin indeed before God as not having the Condition of the promise of pardon Such as Simon Magus was We have less reason to take this Doctrine for false than that which pronounceth certain pardon and salvation to all baptised Infants whatsoever And were we of their judgment we should think it the most charitable Act in the world to take the Infants of Heathens and baptise them And if any should then dispatch them all to prevent their lapse they were all certainly saved We hope by some reliques you mean that which is truly and properly sin For our parts we believe according to the ninth Article that Original sin standeth in the Corruption of the nature of every man whereby man is far gone from Original righteousnesse and inclined to evil And that this infection of nature doth remain in the Regenerate And though there is no Condemnation for them that believe and are baptised yet Concupisence and Lust hath of it self the nature of sin you say The Church acknowledgeth such desires c. Devices and Desires are Actual sins and not Original which consisteth in privation and corrupt inclination The next words There is no health in us it seems the Translators that put it into the Liturgy mis-understood But however you seem here plainly by your mis-interpretation to mis-understand it Nulla salus in nobis is spoken actively and not possessively or passively the plain sence is that there is no help deliverance and salvation in our selves we cannot help our selves out of this misery but must have a better Saviour as Christ is oft called our salvation so we are denied to be our own so that yet here is no confession at all of Original sin but of the effects The two next sentences confesse a debility and privation but not that it was ab origine but may for any thing that 's there said be taken to be since contracted Nor are the words in this Confession but in some other Collects else where which proves not that this Confession saith any thing of Original sin We know not what publick prayers are wanting nor
have no man cast out for using the worse It is more orderly decent and edifying for the Minister to read all the Psalms than for the people to read each second verse And yet we would not cast out men from the Church or Ministry meerly for that disorder It is more orderly and decent to be uncovered in divine worship than covered And yet rather than a man should take cold we could allow him to hear a Chapter or Sermon covered why not much more rather than he should be cast out But let us come to the Application It is no undecent disorderly worshiping of God to worship him without our Crosse Surplice and kneeling in the reception of the Sacrament 1. If it were than Christ and his Apostles bad worship undecently and disorderly And the Primitive Church that used not the Surplice nor the transient Image of the Croâ—e in Baptisme but in an unguent yea the Church for many hundred years that received the Sacrament without kneeling 2. Then if the King Parliament and Conâ—ocation should change these Ceremonies it seems you would take your selves bound to retain them For you say you must not worship God undecently But that they may be changed by Authority our Articles determine and therefore Charity may well require the Magistrate to change them without any wrong to the worship of God 3. We appeal to the common judgment of the Impartial whether in the nature of the thing there be any thing that tells them that it is undecent to pray without a Surplice in the reading place and not undecent to pray without in thâ— Pulpit And that it is undecent to baptise without crossing and not to receive the Lords Supper without And that it is undecent for the Receiver to take the Lords Supper without kneeling and not for the Minister to give it him standing that prayeth in the delivery These premised we Answer to your first Reason that those things which we call Indifferent because neither expresly commanded nor forbiden by God have in them a real goodnesse a fitnesse and decency and for that cause are imposed and may be so by the Rule of St. Paul by which Rule and many others in Scripture a power is given to men to impose Signs which are never the worse surely because they signifie something that is decent and comely and so it is not doubtful whether such power be given It would rather be doubtful whether the Church could impose such idle Signs if any such there be as signifie nothing Repl. To your first Answer we reply 1. We suppose you speak of a moral goodnesse And if they are such indeed as are within their power and really good that is of their own nature fiâ—ter than their opposites they may be imposed by just authority by equal means though not by Usurpers nor by penalties that will do more harm than the things will do good 2. Signs that signifie nothing we understand not It is one thing to be decent and another to signifie something that is decent what you mean by that we know not The Crosse signifieth our not being ashamed to profess the faith of Christ crucified c. do you call that something that is decent It is something necessary to salvation 3. Signs are exceeding various At present we use but two distinctions 1. Some are signs Ex primaria intentione instituentis purposed and primarily instituted to signify as an Esoucheon or a sign at an Inne door in common matters and as the Sacrament and Cross in sacred matters and some are signs but consequently secondarily and not essentially as intended by the Institutor so hills and trees may shew us what a clock it is And so every creature signifyeth some good of mercy or duty and may be an object of holy meditation so the colour and shape of our clothes may mind us of some good which yet was none of the primary or proper end of the maker or wearer 2. Signs are either arbitrary expressions of a mans own mind in a matter where he is let free or they are covenanting signs between us and God in the Covenant of Grace to work Grace on us as moral causes and to engage us Sacramentally to him such we conceive the Cross in Baptisme to be The Preface to the Common Prayer-book saith They are apt to teach and excite c. Which is a moral operation of Grace And the Canon saith It is an honourable badge whereby the Infant is dedicated to him that died on the Cross We are signed with it in token that hereafter we shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified and manfully to fight c. now if a thing may be commanded meerly as a decent circumstance of worship yet it is unproved that a thing that in its nature as instituted and in the primary intention is thus sacramentally to dedicate and ingage us in Covenant to God by signifying the grace and duty of the Covenant be lawfully commanded by man 1. Decent Circumstances are necessary in genere There must be some fit Time Place Gesture Vesture as such Utensils c. But that there be some such dedicating engaging signs in our covenanting with God signifying the Grace of the Covenant and our state and duty as Souldiers under Christ besides Gods Sacraments this is not necessary in genere and therefore it is not left to man to determine de specie 2. If there be any reason for this use of the Cross it must be such as was in the Apostles days and concerneth the universal Church in all ages and places and then the Apostles would have taken care of it Thus much here in brief of signs and more anon when you again call us to it To the second that it is not a violation of Christs Royalty to make such Laws for decercy but an exercise of his power and authority which he hath given to the Church And the disobedience to such commands of Euperiours is plainly a violation of his Royalty As it is no violation of the Kings Authority when his Magistrates command things according to his Laws But disobedience to the command of those Injunctions of his Deputies is violation of his Authority Again it can be no impeachment of Christs Laws as insufficient to make such Laws for decency since our Saviour as is evident by the Precepts themselves did not intend by them to determine every minute and circumstance of time place manner of performance and the like but only to command in general the substance of those duties and the right ends that should be aimed at in the performance and then left every man in particular whom for that purpose he made reasonable to guide himself by rules of reason for private Services And appointed Governours of the Church to determine such particularities for the publick Thus our Lord commanded Prayers Fasting c. for the times and places of performance he did not determine every of them but
diversity of Liturgies and Ceremonies be allowed where they allowed it May we but have love and peace on the Terms as the ancient Church enjoyed them we shall then hope we may yet escape the hands of uncharitable destroying Zeal we therefore humbly recommend to your observation the concurrent Testimony of the best Histories of the Church concerning the diversity of Liturgies Ceremonies and modal observances in the several Churches under one and the same civil Government and how they then took it to be their duty to forbear each other in these matters and how they made them not the test of their Communion or center of their peace Concerning the observation of Easter it self when other Holy dayes and Ceremonies were urged were lesse stood upon you have the judgement of Irenaeus and the French Bishops in whose name he wrote in Euseb Hist Eccl. l. 5. c 23. Where they reprehend Victor for breaking peace with the Churches that differed about the day and the antecedent time of fasting and tell him that the variety began before their times when yet they neverthelesse retained peace and yet retain it and the discord in their fasting declared or commended the concord of their faith that no man was rejected from Communion by Victor's predecessors on that account but they gave them the Sacrament and maintained peace with them and particularly Polycarp and Anicetus held Communion in the Eucharist notwithstanding this difference Basil Epist 63 doth plead his cause with the Presbyters and whole Clergy of Neocaesarea that were offended at his new Psalmodie and his new order of Monasticks but he only defendeth himself and urgeth none of them to imitate him but telleth him also of the novelty of their own Liturgy that it was not known in the time of their own late renowned Bp. Greg Thaumaturgus telling them that they had kept nothing unchanged to that day of all that he was used to so great alterations in 40. years were made in the same Congregation as he professeth to pardon all such things so be it the principal things be kept safe Socrat. Hist Eccl. l. 5◠c. 21. about the Easter difference saith that neither the Apostles nor the Gospels do impose a yoke of bondage on those that betake themselves to the doctrine of Christ but left the Feast of Easter and other Festivals to the observation of the free and equal judgement of them that had received the benefits And therefore because men use to keep some Festivals for the relaxing themselves from labours several persons in several places do celebrate of custom the memorials of Christs passion arbitrarily or at their own choice For neither our Saviour nor the Apostles commanded the keeping of them by any Law nor threaten any mulct or penalty c. It was the purpose of the Apostles not to make Laws for the keeping of Festivals but to be Authours to us of the reason of right living and of piety And having shewed that it came up by private custom and not by Law and having cited Irenaeus as before he addeth that those that agree in the same faith do differ in point of Rites and Ceremonies and instancing in divers he concludeth that because no man can shew in the monuments of writings any Command concerning this it is plain that the Apostles herein permitted free power to every ones mind and will that every man might do that which was good without being induced by fear or by necessity And having spoken of the diversity of customes about the Assemblies Marriage Baptism c. He tells us that even among the Novatians themselves there is a diversity in their manner of their praying and that among all the forms of Religions and parties you can no where find two that consent among themselves in the manner of their praying And repeating the decree of the Holy Ghost Acts 15. To impose no other burden but things necessary he reprehendeth them that neglecting this will take Fornication as a thing indifferent but strive about Festivals as if it were a matter of life overturning Gods Laws and making Laws to themselves c. And Sozomen Hist Eccles l. 7. c. 18. and 19. speaketh to the same purpose and tells us that the Novatians themselves determined in a Synod at Sangar in Bythinia that the difference about Easter being not a sufficient Cause for breach of Communion all should abide in the same concord and in the same Assembly and every one should celebrate this Feast as pleased himself and this Canon they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and c. 19. He saith of Victor and Polycarp that they deservedly judged it frivolous or absur'd that those should be separated on the account of a custom that consented in the principal heads of Religion For you cannot find the same traditions in all things alike in all Churches though they agree among themselves and instancing in some Countries where there is but one Bishop in many Cities and in other Bishops are ordained in the Villages After many other instances he adds that they use not the same prayers singings or readings nor observe the same time of using them And what Liturgy was imposed upon Constantine the Emperour or what Bishops or Synods were then the makers of Lyturgies when he himself made publick prayers for himself and auditory and for his Souldiers Euseb de vit Constantini l. 4. c. 18. 20 c. But the diversity liberty and change of Lyturgies in the Churches under the same Prince are things so well known as that we may suppose any further proof of it to be needless In the conclusion therefore we humbly beseech you that as Antiquity and the custom of the Churches in the first ages is that which is most commonly and confidently pleaded against us that your mistake of Antiquity may not be to our Cost or paid so dear for as the loss of our Freedom for the serving of God in the work of the Ministery to which we are called we beseech you let us not be silenced or cast out of the Ministery or Church for not using the Liturgy Cross Surplice kneeling at the Sacrament till ye have either shewed the world that the practice or Canons of the Catholick Church hav◠led you the way as doing it or requiring it to be done And make not that to necessary as to force men to it on such dreadful terms which the ancient Churches used with diversity and indifferency of liberty we beseech you shew the world some proof that the ancient Churches did ever use to force or require Ministers to subscribe to their Liturgies as having nothing in them contrary to the word of God or to swear obedience to their Bishops before you impose such things on us while yet you pretend to imitate Antiquity And have but that moderation towards your brethren as in suffering or at death or judgement you would most appear Remember how unpleasing the remembrance of such differences about Ceremonies was to Bp. Ridley as