contribute towards making him acquainted with the whole Body of the Scriptures 2. But then Secondly I charge you with casting out the reading of the Word of God from most of your Publick Assemblies Insomuch that in many of your Meetings setting aside a Verse or two for a Text or Quotation at the discretion of the Teacher the Voice of God is never Publickly heard amongst you This Mr. Boyse censures p. 92. as a bare-fac'd Untruth but your selves shall be Judges First then I have proved that Reading the Scriptures for the Instruction of the People is a Publick Ordinance of God Chap. 3. Sect. 1. and tho' it is not determined how much we ought to read at a time yet it ought to be so Ordered that the diligent Hearers may in a competent time be acquainted with the whole Body of the Scripture and in this I have the Concurrence of your Directory Now if you can Name but one Meeting in the North of Ireland where this has been Observed Mr. Boyse may have some Ground to contradict me but the Case is far otherwise you have thrown this Orderly Reading of the Holy Scriptures not only out of most or many of your Meetings but out of all of them 2. But further I appeal to your selves whether any of your Ministers ever read one Portion of Scripture but what was either designed for a Text to a Lecture or Sermon or a Quotation If any one pretend the contrary I must desire him to name the Time and Place that I may reprove those Informers that Mr. Boyse affirms p. 92. have so greatly imposed on me But till the Time and Place be named my assertion is literally true and in a larger sense then I expressed it I heartily wish you who are Teachers would amend this fault and I shall then acknowledge that this part of my Book is Effectually Answered and of no further force against you And let me tell you that your complyance in this would beget an honour and esteem in the People for Reading the Scriptures Publickly which is an Institution of God and satisfie the World that you have a greater value for the Word of God then for your own Expositions which no Impartial Considerer will ever believe whilst you allow it no place in your Meetings but when you can have leisure to bring in your own Expositions And sure it seems strange that you can allow at least an hour for a Sermon of your own Composing and cannot allow 10 minutes for the Word of God which is the Truth of the Case however Mr. Boyse endeavours to palliate it A third Mater of Fact denied by Mr. Boyse is That a Man may frequent your Meetings all his Life and yet have no security or hardly possibility of Learning from your Publick Teaching all the great Mysteries of his Religion This he censures p. 83. as a gross and shameless Accusation and advances it as a known Truth that the great Mysteries and Principles of the Christian Religion are not seldomer taught in your Pulpits than in ours Now to discover whether I deserve the hard words which Mr. Boyse gives me on this account I desire you to consider 1. That the great Mysteries of our Religion are the Conception Birth Passion Resurrection Ascension and final coming of our Saviour to judge the quick and the dead together with the Doctrine of the Trinity in whose Name we are Baptised and the descent of the Holy Ghost 2. That we in our Church have a certain time appointed us every Year for the Teaching each of these and our Ministers do professedly handle each of them in their discourses on these times So that every one who desireth to be informed concerning them is sure at a certain time of the Year to have a full discourse in every Parish on each of them in Order to the Explaining and Inculcating them with the uses and effects 3. As to your Ministers there lies no Obligation on them to go thro' these Mysteries in any such time nor indeed in their whole Lives And whereas Mr. Boyse alledges p. 83. that The Directory requires that Ordinarily the subject of the Ministers Sermon shall be some Text of Scripture holding forth some principal or head of Religion This Obligation is taken off by the following Words which are these or sutable to some special occasion emergent or he may go on in some Chapter Psalm or Book of the Scripture as he shall think fit From whence it is plain that the Directory lays no Obligation on your Ministers to handle professedly any of these Mysteries and that you have no Security other then the pleasure of your Ministers that you shall ever learn from their Publick Teaching all the Mysteries of your Religion But Fourthly I have examined and put it to many of your Persuasion whether they ever heard any Minister of Yours that professedly made a whole discourse on the Trinity Conception Nativity Resurrection or Ascension of our Saviour or on his sending down the Holy Ghost and I do profess that I never yet amongst many met one Man that could satisfie me in this point or assure me that his Minister had done it Which shews how dangerous a matter it is to leave these things to Men's choice I heartily desire you that Read this to recollect your Memories and examine your own Consciences and say whether your Ministers do once every Year handle professedly each of these Mysteries as ours do and if they do not judge whether it be true that Mr. Boyse asserts p. 84. That the peculiar Mysteries of the Christian Religion are so much more frequently inculcated in your Sermons then ours as has occasioned some of you to reproach us as Preaching little but Morality These I am sure are the greatest Mysteries peculiar to the Christian Religion and they are professedly and indispensably taught in our Church once every Year What ground can there then be to accuse us of teaching little but Morality 5. As to Mr Boyse's excuse for you in this behalf That there is no Scriptural Rule or Example prescribing to Ordinary Teachers the exact Order in which they should explain the Mysteries of Christian Religion to the people I would desire you to observe that the Scripture obliges us to Teach them all these the whole Council of God and the same obliges us to do this and all other Religious performances in Order or according to an Order There ought therefore to be in every Church an Order whereby every Teacher may be obliged to Teach them all in a competent time as it is in our Church and the Directory has manifestly failed in this having made no such Order but left it to the discretion of every Minister whether he will make any of these Mysteries his Subject in his whole Life and some have been so indiscreet as to Preach for half a Year nay a whole Year on the same Subject I have seen many Sermons Printed by your Party and yet
105. He calls Sitting at Prayers a Sloathful Posture p. 3. and says he cannot excuse it from Irreverence and hopes that those who have been guilty of it heretofore will not persist in it without real Necessity I hope therefore that you will take no Offence at our Service or Abstain from it because Bodily Worship is required in it or use any more that indecent Posture of Sitting at Prayers in your Meetings when your own Advocate Condemns it 10. He cannot condemn Kneeling at the Lord's Supper as Unlawful p. 123. and grants that you ought to Stand up at your Thanksgivings and Blessing before Receiving and after and that he will not excuse you if you do otherwise in it p. 112. And therefore as far as you are of his mind in this matter you will have no reason to condemn us for Kneeling as guilty of Idolatry or wonder that we receive the Elements on our Knees since we receive them with Prayer and Thanksgiving and continue whilst we eat and drink in the exercise of them with the most earnest Passion that our Minds are capable of II. He agrees with me as to the Frequency of Celebrating the Lord's-Supper p. 131. And owns it was one Constant part of the Christian Lord's-Days Worship in the Apostles time And that he thinks it past all doubt that this was the Universal practice of the Christian Church for several succeeding Ages And therefore I hope you will endeavour to Restore this Apostolick and Primitive Institution to what it was and consider how Unreconcileable your present Practice of Receiving is to this Institution of Christ and Universal Practice If these things be universally Believed and Received amongst you I can see no reason why you should decline our Churches at least when you cannot go to your own Meetings and hope you will not hereafter go out when our Prayers begin as if you were in danger of being Polluted by them or refuse to conform in the Bodily Expressions of Worship used at them as I have sometimes observed some of you to do who rather chuse to stay then disturb the Congregation by going unseasonably away If I could gain these Points of you I should think my Labours in my Book bestowed to a most Excellent purpose and be content with Joy to endure a Thousand more hard things than Mr. Boyse has been pleased to say of me who appears by his Book to be much a Stranger both to you and me and to have intermeddled with us before he understood either of our Practices or Circumstances and I hope by Gods help it shall not be in his power to make you conceive otherwise of my Sincere Affections and Concern for your Souls than I have profest and shall always desire to Maintain III. I shall now proceed to the third thing I promised in this Admonition and that is to shew you That whereas there are several Matters of Fact which I affirm and Mr. Boyse denies the mistakes lye on his side notwithstanding he imputes them to me with great assurance as Falshoods and asserts that I am hard'ned in them For the Proof of this I need no more than to Appeal to your own Consciences and I must tell you that what I have Wrote was from Sight Experience or certain Information on the place whereas he has his account of things only at second-hand and produces no Vouchers I will instance in some of the principal matters of Fact which he contradicts 1. First then One of the Principal Matters of Fact in dispute is what I assert Chap. 3. Sect. 3. N. 2. That in all the Meetings in the North of Ireland in a whole year perhaps there is not so much Scripture read as in one day in Our Church by the strictest enquiry I could make This he contradicts with great vehemence and asserts p. 93. that there is nothing like Truth in the Assertion with a great many ill words You mâ—y observe that I expressed my self doubtfully in this Case with a perhaps it was so but I assure you that I had no doubt of the Truth of it only I was willing to say such ungrateful Truths as softly as I could that I might give the less offence to you To make this appear I will take Mr. Boyse's own Computation and allow that there are read in each of your Meetings every Lord's-day for 3 Quarters of the Year half a Chapter tho' you know the case is not Universally so for in some places in this Diocess there has been no Lecturing in some of your Meetings for two Years together but allowing it to be as he says Then in this Diocess there are Nine Meeting-places and Lectures in each 39 Lord's-days in the Year and half a Chapter read at each Lecture which in all makes 175 ½ Now because the First of April was on a Lords-day this year I will take it and compute how many Chapters and Psalms were read on that day in our Church and you will find it thus On the First of April are read 8 Psalms for the day 3 before and between the Lessons That is the 95 the 100 the 67 besides the Song of the Blessed Virgin So that 11 Psalms were read that Day in every Parish-Church Besides these are read 4 Chapters for Lessons and the Epistle and Gospel make a large Chapter more So then in every Parish-Church there are read Psalms and Chapters tho' there be no Funeral or Churching of Women or other Occasional Office 16. There are then 42 Congregations in this Diocess at present in which the Offices of the Church are constantly performed and if we Multiply 42 by 16 it follows that there are read in this Diocess in one Lord's-Day Chapters and Psalms 672 whereas allowing the utmost of Mr. Boyse's Computation there are read in the Meetings in this Diocess in a Year but 175 and a ½ Let me observe that the Meeting-Houses are more Numerous here then in my Neighbour Diocesses in the North there being that I can learn only 4 in Rapho Diocess in which and in the other Diocesses of the North the Parish-Churches are proportionally as many more then the Meetings as they are in the Diocess of Derry And from thence it follows that there is really 4 times more Scripture Read in Our Church in the North in one day then in all the Meetings in the North in a Year which is a great deal more then what I asserted I had a Computation like this in my mind when I wrote my Book and should not have Published it if these Remarks by imputing Falshoods and Untruths to me had not obliged me to do it in my own Justification to the World for to you who know so well the Truth of it it was needless And we have this advantage by reading the same Chapters and Psalms in every Church that whatever Church a Man go to so he be constant at any he is sure to find the Scriptures read on in Order which must needs
and your Worship is confessedly indefensible without it I may expect that you will think your selves obliged to stand by it and that you will not judge of your own Worship by one Rule and of ours by another But further since the determination of these things according to Mr. Boyse is left to Human Prudence it is most reasonable that great caution and care should be used in determining these Modes left undetermined by the Scripture and that it should not be trusted with every private Man but be referred to the wisdom of the Church and Kingdom and therefore what the Clergy by their Representatives in Convocation and the Laity by their Representatives in Parliament have determined as prudent concerning these Modes methinks should stand against all private Judgments which in matters of meer Prudence ought to submit to the general Wisdom Especially when what has been so determined has been confirmed by long Custom and the universal Consent of the Churches of God for many Ages Therefore you must not hereafter on this principle ask any proof from Scripture for any thing in our Worship but you must prove it expresly forbidden there or else you must conform to it as being determined by Human Prudence Which in this case by Mr. Boyse's Rule is sufficient I hope by this time you see that it was not interest or design to serve a Party that made me omit this Rule since I might have made so much use of it But to deal ingeniously with you I could not approve of it in the Latitude Mr. Boyse proposes it and I thought my self obliged not to propose any thing to you that I did not approve my self For I can by no means allow that God has left the determination of Time Place Order Circumstances Postures and Utensils in all Cases to Human Prudence He has not only given us general Rules to praise him pray to him hear his Word to Worship him with our Bodies and to receive his Supper but he has likewise given us many particular Rules and Examples concerning each of these to which if we diligently attend and mind the consequences of them and apply them to like Cases we may have sufficient Directions from Scripture to order our Worship without having recourse to Human Prudence which is a very uncertain and infallible Rule in the Worship of God I have collected many of these particular directions and examples in my Book and shewed our Worship to be Justifiable by the strict letter of them and sure 't is a great presumption to lay aside these particular directions and examples and to substitute others in their stead because our own Prudence judges them more for Edification It is not easie for us to agree in the determinations of Human Prudence but we may easily agree in a plain particular direction of Scripture Thus God has determined a 7th Day for our Ordinary Worship and you see we have no dispute about it He has likewise given us Precedents in Scripture to perpetuate the memory of signal Mercies by yearly Solemnities or Festivals but because these are not so particularly determined by Scripture as the other you may observe how difficult 't is for us by Human Prudence to agree in them We ought therefore to be very Thankful to God for his particular directions afforded us in Scripture and to stick to them as close as we can As for Example God has not given us any Precedent of Verse Psalm or Hymn in the New Testament either Originally there or by Translation out of the Old Testament in those portions of the Old Testament Psalms that are Quoted therein but he has given us in the New Testament positive Precedents of Prose Psalms and Hymns both Original and Translated and this ought to teach us what sort of Translation is most proper to be offer'd to God in his Praises God has given us examples of solemn Adorations in his Worship of Kneeling Bowing and Standing before him and this alone is sufficient to bring you and us to uniformity in this point And the like may be said of all those Instances I have given you in my Book where I have laid down the particular Rules and Directions God has given us for performing the several parts of his Worship In all which the letter of the Scripture is clearly on our side and Mr. Boyse has not opposed Scripture to Scripture but has declined the literal sense in many Cases without reason and has preferred the determinations of Human Prudence in others as being more for Edification than the Scripture Examples as is manifest in your manner of Singing Psalms and many other particulars But I remember the Apostles Rule 1 Cor. 1.25 The foolishness of God is wiser than Men the meanest example or precedent in Scripture is to me more conclusive in the Worship of God than the most wise Determination of Human Prudence And therefore I conclude that we cannot have a more clear or certain Rule or more likely to unite us in God's Service than what I have laid down in my Book and I intreat you again to compare your Worship with it and to reform those things that are not contained in Scripture or warranted by Example of Holy Men in it or may not be deduced by clear consequence or parity of reason from them This Rule is plain enough to any capacity and to go about to explain it will only as Mr. Boyse has done make it obscure and uncertain II But 2 dly Mr. Boyse endeavours to perswade you That the greatest exception you have against joyning with us is not the matter of our publick Ordinary Worship Hence in his Preface he tells you that I have taken the greatest pains to maintain the best Fortified parts of our Churches constitution and left the Feeble unguarded and p. 169. he says That I take no notice of Human Inventions in the Discipline of the Church about which he alledges That I know the Contest between the established Church and Dissenters chiefly lyes and upon this he proceeds and makes many proposals or demands But I desire you to observe First That my Discourse was concerning the Inventions of Men in the Worship of God and it is a Subject large enough and to handle it well and in such a Method as may help the Reader to have a clear understanding of it is an useful work and sufficient for one Discourse and for Mr. Boyse to tax me for not writing another on the Inventions of Men in the Discipline of the Church is very unreasonable He is not pleased that I wrote this and yet he would have had me write another on a Subject more apt to give offence for I assure my self if ever I should write on that Subject you would be less pleased with my performance than in this since I must look on the general frame of your whole Constitution at least so far as its conformable to those Heads of Agreement that Mr Boyse owns to be a
thereof And accordingly when omitted in private Baptism by Order of the Church 't is declared that in that case all is well done and according to due Order concerning Baptising the Child I conclude therefore directly contrary to what Mr. Boyse alledges That besides Divine Institution every thing is wanting to make the Sign of the Cross a Sacrament that is proper to Baptism or any other Sacrament And I must profess that I find as little strength in this Argument again the Cross as in any that Mr. Boyse has produced on the other Heads and the whole force of it seems to me to proceed from two Mistakes concerning the Nature of Sacraments First As if they were Signs from us to God and not wholly from God to us And Secondly As if we were to learn the Nature of Sacraments from the Schools and the partial Definitions of interested Disputants and not from the Holy Scriptures only Hence he has not given us one place of Scripture to prove his imperfect Account of a Sacrament p. 464. But instead thereof tells us of the Cross being set up to represent Christ Crucified Our being brought under solemn Obligations to confess the Faith of Christ and of Moral Casuality ascribed to this Ceremony All which have little to do with the Nature of a Sacrament I would have you better consider for what a Sacrament is intended then that you should be led to use these as the only Design of it If we keep to the Holy Scriptures and to the Words thereof as I have laid them down we shall have a much better understanding of its Nature III. But to proceed in the Third place I say that the use of the Cross in Baptism is Warranted by Scripture And here I must desire leave to be something large and particular that I may explain this Point to ordinary Capacities And in order to enable you to judge of it I desire you to consider 1. That we are obliged to express the inward Reverence and Sense of our Minds concerning God by some outward means whereby we may preserve and increase that Sense in our selves and may make appear to others what we think of God and Holy Things Thus we are obliged to express our Sense of God's Excellencies by Praises our Sense of our Dependance on him by Confession of his Power and Prayers our Sense of having Offended him by Confession of our Sins and our Resolution of Amendment by Promises and Vows 2. The Scriptures command us to express these inward Thoughts and Sense of our Minds by Actions as well as by Words Thus we express the Submission of our Minds by Adoration our Humility before God by Kneeling or Prostration c. Which Actions the Scriptures have as much Warranted in our Addresses to God as they have Words and generally speaking they are rather more Effectual and Sincere Expressions of the Sense of our Minds then Words 3. The Scriptures teach us to Express our Thoughts and Sense of our Minds in such Words and Actions as on other serious Occasions serve to express the like Sense and Dispositions of Mind So that we are not to invent new Words or Actions to signifie our Submission or Thankfulness c. to God but we are to use such as the general Custom of our Country have made significant in the like Cases for by using them our Neighbours will best understand us and we our selves will be most likely to be stirred up by them That it is our Duty to use these Actions in the Worship of God will appear from the whole Tenour of the Scriptures Thus because bowing the Body in all places of the World argues Respect therefore the Scriptures warrant our bowing when we come into God's Presence Thus because by the general Custom of the World Kneeling is a token of humbly Supplicating those to whom we Kneel therefore in our Confessions and humblest Addresses to God the Scriptures prescribe to us to Kneel Thus because Servants stand when they attend their Masters therefore in our Praises and in some other Services we pay to God the Scriptures Warrant us to stand Thus because in the Eastern Countries those that came into the Courts of Princes put off their Shoes out of neatness or respect therefore God sometime required his Worshippers to approach his presence in the like manner Thus because it was the Custom for Masters to give their Servants a new Name at their admission into their Families therefore God gave Abraham a new Name at his admitting him to his peculiar Service and hence came the Custom of giving a Name at Circumcision Thus it was the Custom of the World to express a Sense of deep Sorrow by Fasting lying on the Ground covering themselves with Sackcloath Renting their Garments and Beating their Bodies and hence we find Holy Men using all these to express their Sorrow for their Sins Thus they expressed their Religious as well as Civil Joy by Singing Feasting Dancing sending Portions to their Friends by White Garments and more then Ordinary Neatness in their Dress And of this Nature there are many other Instances which fully shew us That the Scriptures warrant us to make use of such fit Actions to express our Thoughts and Sense of Religious Things as the Custom of each Country has made proper and significant to express the Passions of our Minds on other Occasions and do no more bind us to the particular Actions of Holy Men mentioned therein if they have lost their Significancy then they bind us to their Words which we do not understand This appears from many Instances of Scripture Actions now disus'd by us and of others brought into use Particularly that of Uncovering the Head an Action never used in Scripture as a Sign of Reverence yet lawfully used by us from the forementioned implyed Rule of Scripture because Custom has given it a general Signification of Respect 4. Glorying in the Sufferings of Christ and professing our selves ready to follow him even to the most ignominious Death on the Cross is a Duty incumbent on us by the Scripture Gal. 6.14 God forbid I should Glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ therefore we ought to express this Duty and Glory in it by such outward Means as are most proper and do most effectually and generally Signifie it And since by universal Custom there are Actions as well as Words that signifie this our Glorying in the Cross of Christ Scripture-Precedents warrant and oblige us to use both 5. Making the Sign of the Cross is an Action which Universal Custom in all Ages and Churches since the Apostles Time till the Reformation have applyed to Signifie your Glorying in the Sufferings of Christ and 't is understood by all those that have heard of Christianity tho' Enemies to it to have this Signification Therefore the Scriptures warrant the use of it to this purpose as much as standing uncovered in token of Reverence at our Prayers and the Scriptures themselves