the observation of Lent as a Religious Fast the Example of Christ's fasting forty dayes and nights being no more imitable nor intended for the imitation of Christians than any other of his miraculous works were or than Moses his forty dayes Fast was for the Jewes and the Act of Parliament 5 Eliz. forbidding abstinence from flesh to be observed upon any other than a politick Consideration and punishing all those who by Preaching Teaching Writing or open Speech shall notifie that the forbearing of flesh is of any necessity for the saving of the soul or that it is the service of God otherwise than as other politick Laws are VI. That the Religious observation of Saints dayes appointed to be kept as holy dayes and the Vigils thereof without any foundations as we conceive in Scripture may be omitted that if any be retained they may be called Festival and not Holy dayes nor made equal with the Lords day nor have any peculiar Service appointed for them nor that the People be upon such days enforced wholly to abstain from work and that the names of all others not inserted in the Callendar which are not in the first and second Books of Edward the Sixth may be left out VII That the gift of Prayer being one special qualification for the Work of the Ministery bestowed by Christ in order to the edification of his Church and to be exercised for the profit and benefit thereof according to its various and emergent necessities It is desired that there may be no such Imposition of the Liturgy as that the exercise of that gift be thereby totally excluded in any part of publick worship and further that considering the great age of some Ministers and the infirmities of others and the variety of several services oft time occurring upon the same day whereby it may be inexpedient to require every Minister at all times to read the whole it may be left to the discretion of the Minister to omit it as occasion shall require which liberty we find to be allowed even in the first Common Prayer Book of Edward the Sixth VIII That in regard of the many defects which have been observed in that Version of the Scriptures which is used throughout the Liturgy many fold instances whereof may be produced as in the Epistle for the first Sunday after Epiphany taken out of Rom. 12. 1. Be you changed in your shape And the Epistle for the Sunday next before Easter taken out of Phil. 2. 5. Found in his apparel as a man As also the Epistle for the first Sunday in Lent taken out of the fourth of the Galatians Mount Sinai is Agar in Arabia and bordereth upon the City which is now called Jerusalem The Epistle for Saint Matthews day being taken out of the second Epistle of the Corinthians and the fourth We go not out of kind The Gospel for the second Sunday after Epiphany taken out of the second of John When men be drunk The Gospel for the third Sunday in Lent taken out of the eleventh of Luke One house doth fall upon another The Gospel for the Annunciation taken out of the first of Luke This is the sixth month which is called Barren and many other places we therefore desire instead thereof the Translation allowed of by Authority may alone be used IX That in as much as the Holy Scriptures are able to make us wise unto salvation to furnish us thoroughly unto all good works and contain in them all things necessary either in Doctrine to be believed or in Duty to be practised whereas divers Chapters of the Apocryphal Books appointed to be read are charged to be in both respects of dubious and uncertain credit It is therefore desired that nothing be read in the Church for Lessons but the Holy Scriptures in the Old and New Testament X. That the Minister be not required to rehearse any part of the Liturgy at the Communion Table save onely those parts which properly belong to the Lords Supper and that at such time onely when the Holy Supper is administrated XI That the word Minister and not Priest or Curate is used in the absolution and in divers other places It may thoroughout the whole Book be used instead of those two words and that instead of the word Sunday the word Lords day may be every where used XII Because singing of Psalms is a considerable part of Publick Worship we desire that the Version set forth and allowed to be sung in Churches may be amended or that we may have leave to make use of a purer Version XIII That all obsolete words in the Common Prayer and such whose use is changed from their first significancy as read who smote thee used in the Gospels for the Monday and Wednesday before Easter Then opened be their witts used in the Gospel for Easter Tuesday c. may be altered into other words generally received and better understood XIV That no portions of the Old Testament or the Acts of the Apostles be called Epistles or read as such XV. That whereas throughout the severall offices the Phrase is such as presumes all persons within the Communion of the Church to be regenerated converted and in an actuall state of grace which had Ecclesiasticall Discipline been truly and vigorously executed in the exclusion of scandalous and obstinate sinners might be better supposed But that there having been and still being a confessed want of that as in the Liturgy is acknowledged it cannot rationally be admitted in the utmost latitude of Charity we desire that this may be reformed XVI That whereas orderly connexion of Prayers and of particular Petitions and expressions together with a competent length of the formes used are tending much to edification and to gain the reverence of people to them There appears to us too great neglect of this Order and of other Just Laws of method particularly 1. The Collects are generally short many of them consisting but of one or two Sentences of petition and those generally usherd in with a repeated mention of the Name and Attributes of God and presently concluding with the Name and Merits of Christ whence are caused many unnecessary intercessions and abruptions which when many Petitions are to be offered at the same time are neither agreeable to scripturall example nor suted to the gravity and seriousness of that Holy Duty 2. The Prefaces of many Collects have not any clear and speciall respect to the following Petitions and particular petitions are put together which have not any due order or evident connexion one with another nor suitable with the occasions upon which they are used but seem to have fallen in rather casually than from any orderly codtinuance It is desired that instead of these various Collects there may be one Methodicall and entire form of Prayer composed out of many of them XVII That whereas the Puplick Liturgy of a Church should in reason comprehend the summe of all such sins as are ordinarily in Prayer by
tempore expressions which any man of natural parts having a voluable tongue and audacity may attain to without any special gift Repl. All inward Graces of the spirit are not properly called the spirit of Prayer nor is the spirit of Prayer that gift of Prayer which we speak of Nor did we call it by the name of a special gift nor did we deny that ordinary men of natural parts and voluable tongues may attain it But yet we humbly conceive that as there is a gift of Preaching so also of Prayer which God bestows in the use of means diversified much according to mens natural parts their diligence as other acquired abilities are but also much depending on that grace that is indeed special which maketh men love and relish the holy subjects of such spiritual studies and the holy exercise of those Graces that are the soul of Prayer and consequently making men follow on such exercises with delight and diligence and therefore with success And also God is free in giving or denying his blessing to mans endeavours If you think there be no Gift of Preaching you will too dishonourably level the Ministry If Reading be all the Gift of Prayer or Preaching there needs no great understanding or learning to it Nor should Cobblers and Tinkers be so unfit men for Ministers as they are thought Nor would the reason be very apparent why a Woman might not speak by Preaching or praying in the Church But if there be any such Gift as is pretended it is to be subject to the Prophets and to the Order of the Church Repl. The Text speaks as Dr. Hammond well shews of a subjection to that Prophet himself who was the Speaker Inspiration excluded not the prudent exercise of Reason But it is a strange ordering that totally excludeth the thing ordered The Gift of Preaching as distinct from reading is to be orderly and with due subjection exercised But not to be on that pretence extinguished and cast out of the Church And indeed if you should command it you are not to be obeyed whatever we suffer And why then should the Gift of Prayer distinct from reading be cast out The mischiefs that come by Idle Impertinent Ridiculous sometimes Seditious Impious and Blasphemous expressions under pretence of the Gift to the dishonour of God and scorn of Religion being far greater than the pretended good of exercising the Gift It is fit that they who desire such liberty in publike devotions should first give the Church security that no private opinions should be put into their Prayers as is desired in the first Proposal and that nothing contrary to the Faith should be uttered before God or offered up to him in the Church Repl. The mischiefs which you pretend are Inconveniencies attending humane Imperfection which you would cure with a mischief Your Argument from the abuse against the use is a palpable Fallacy which cast out Phisicians in some Countries and rooted up Vines in others and condemneth the reading of the Scriptures in a known Tongue among the Papists If the Apostles that complained then so much of Divisions and preaching false Doctrines and in envy and strife c. had thought the way of Cure had been in sending Ministers about the world with a Prayer-book and Sermon-book and to have tied them only to read either one or both of these no doubt but they would have been so regardful of the Church as to have composed such a Prayer-book or Sermon-book themselves and not lest us to the uncertainties of an Authority not infallible nor to the Divisions that follow the Impositions of a questionable power or that which unquestionably is not Universal and therefore can procure no universal Concord If one man among you draw up a form of Prayer it is his single conception And why a man as learned and able may not be trusted to conceive a Prayer for the use of a single Congregation without the dangers mentioned by you as one man to conceive a Prayer for all the Churches in a Diocess or a Nation we know not These words That the mischief is greater than the pretended good seem to expresse an unjust Accusation of ordinary conceived prayer and a great undervaluing of the benefits If you would intimate that the Crimes expressed by you are ordinarily found in Ministers prayers we that hear so much more frequently than you must profess we have not found it so allowing men their different measures of Exactness as you have even in writing Nay to the praise of God we must say that multitudes of private men can ordinarily pray without any such Imperfection as should nauseate a sober person and with such seriousness and aptness of Expression as is greatly to the benefit and comfort of ourselves when we joyn with them And if such general Accusations may serve in a matter of publick and common fact there is no way for the Justification of the Innocent And that it is no such common guilt will seem more probable to them that consider that such conceived Prayers both prepared and extemperate have been ordinarily used in the Pulpits in England and Scotland before our dayes till now and there hath been power enough in the Bishops and others before the Wars to punish those that speak Ridiculously Seditiously Impiously or Blasphemously And yet so few are the Instances even when jealousie was most busy of Ministers punished or once accused of any such fault in Prayer as that we find it not easy to remember any considerable number of them There being great numbers punished for not reading the Book for playing on the Lords dayes or for preaching too oft and such like for one that was ever questioned for such kind of praying And the former shewed that it was not for want of will to be severe that they spared them as to the latter And if it be but few that are guilty of any intolerable faults of that nature in their Prayers we hope you will not go on to believe that the mischiefs that come by the failings of those few are far greater than the benefit of conceived prayer by all others We presume not to make our Experiences the measure of yours or of other mens You may tell us what doth most good or hurt to your selves and those that have so communicated their Experiences to you But we also may speak our own and theirs that have discovered them to us And we must seriously profess that we have found far more benefit to our selves and to our Congregations as far as our Conference and Converse with them and our observation of the effects alloweth us to discern by conceived Prayers than by the Common-Prayer-book We find that the benefit of conceived Prayer is to keep the mind in serious Employment and to awaken the affections and to make us fervent and importunate And the Inconvenience is that some weak men are apt as in Preaching and Conference so in Prayer to shew their
weaknesse by some unapt Expressions or disorder Which is an evil no way to be compared with the fore-mentioned good considering that it is but in the weak and that if that weaknesse be so great as to require it forms may be imposed on those few without imposing them on all for their sakes as we force not all to use Spectacles or Crutches because some are purblind or lame and considering that God heareth not Prayers for the Rhetorick and handsome Cadencies and neatnesse of Expression but will bear more with some Incuriosity of words which yet we plead not for than with an hypocritical formal heartlesse lip-service For he knoweth the meaning of the Spirit even in the groans which are not uttered in words And for the Common-Prayer our Observation telleth us that though some can use it judiciously seriously and we doubt not profitably yet as to the most of the vulgar it occasioneth a relaxing of their attention and intention and a lazie taking up with a Corps or Image of devotion even the service of the lips while the heart is little sensible of what is said And had we not known it we should have thought it incredible how utterly ignorant abundance are of the sence of the words which they hear and repeat themselves from day to day even about Christ himself and the Essentials of Christianity It is wonderful to us to observe that rational Creatures can so commonly seperate the words from all the sense and life so great a help or hinderance even to the understanding is the awakening or not awakening of the Affections about the things of God And we have already shewed you many unfit Expressions in the Common-Prayer-book especially in the Epistles and Gospels through the faultinesse of your Translations as Eph. 3. 15. Father of all that is called Father in Heaven and Earth And that Christ was found in his Apparel as a man That Mount Sinai is Agar in Arabia and bordereth upon the City now called Jerusalem Gal. 4. 25. This is the Sixth Month which is called Barren Luke 1. And when men be drunk John 2. with many such like which are parts of your publick worship And would you have us hence conclude that the mischiefs of such Expressions are worse than all the benefits of that worship And yet there is this difference in the Cases that weak rash Ministers were but here and there one But the Common-Prayer is the service of every Church and every day had we heard any in extemporary Prayer use such unmeet Expressions we should have thought him worthy of sharp reprehension yea though he had been of the younger or weaker sort Divers other unfit Expressions are mentioned in the Exceptions of the late Arch-Bishop of York and Primate of Ireland and others before spoken of And there is much in the prejudice or diseased Curiosity of some hearers to make words seem Idle Impertinent or Ridiculous which are not so and which perhaps they understand not some thought so of the inserting in the late Prayer-book the private opinion of the Souls departed praying for us and our praying for the benefit of their prayers As for the security which you call for though as is shewed you have given us none at all against such errors in your forms yet we have before shewed you that you have as much as among imperfect men can be expected The same that you have that Physitians shall not murther men and that Lawyers and Judges shall not undoe men and that your Pilate shall not cast away the ship you have the power in your hands of taking or refusing as they please or displease you and of judging them by a known Law for their proved miscarriages according to the quality of them and what would you have more To prevent which mischief the former Ages know no better way than to forbid any Prayers in publick but such as were prescribed by publick Authority Con. Carthag Can. 106. Milen Can. 12. Repl. To what you allege out of two Councils we answer 1. The Acts of more venerable Councils are not now at all observed as Nice 1. Can. ult c. nor many of these same which you cite 2. The Scripture and the constant practice of the more antient Church allowed what they forbid 3. Even these Canons shew that then the Churches thought not our Liturgy to be necessary to their Concord Nor indeed had then any such form imposed on all or many Churches to that end For the Can. of Counc Carth. we suppose you meant Council 3. Can. 23. mentioneth Prayers even at the Alter and alloweth any man to describe and use his own Prayers so he do but first cum instructionibus fratribus eas conferre Take advice about them with the abler Brethren If there had been a stated form before imposed on the Churches what room could there be for this course And even this much seems but a Caution made newly upon some late abuse of Prayer The same we may say de Concil Male Can. 12. If they were but a prudentioribus tractata vel comprobata in Synodo new Prayers might by any man at any time be brought in which sheweth they had no such stated publick Liturgy as is now pleaded for And even this seemeth occasioned by Pelagianisme which by this Caution they would keep out We hope your omission of our 8th desire for the use of the new Translation intimateth your grant that it shall be so But we marvel then that we find among your Concessions the alteration of no part but the Epistles and Gospels As they would have no Saints dayes observed by the Church so no Apocriphal Chapter read in the Church but upon such a reason as would exclude all Sermons as well as Apocripha viz. because the holy Scriptures contain in them all things necessary either in Doctrine to be believed or in duty to be practised if so why so many unnecessary Sermons why any more but reading of Scriptures If notwithstanding their sufficiency Sermons be necessary there is no reason why these Apocriphal Chapters should not be as useful most of them containing excellent discourses and rules of mortality it is heartily to be wished that Sermons were as good if their fear be that by this meanâ— those Books may come to be of equal esteem with the Canon they may be secured against that by the Title which the Church hath put upon them calling them Apocriphal and it is the Church's testimony which teacheth us this difference and to leave them out were to cross the practice of the Church in former Ages Repl. We hoped when our desires were delivered in writing they would have been better observed and understood We asked not that no Apocriphal Chapter may be read in the Church but that none may be read as Lessons for so the Chapters of holy Scripture there read are called in the Book and to read them in the same place under the same title without any sufficient
the Church in the purest and most Primitive Times we have in obedience to His Majesties Commission made Inquiry but cannot find any Records of known Credit concerning any entire Forms of Liturgies within the first 300 years which are confessed to be as the most Primitive so the purest Ages of the Church nor any Imposition of Liturgies upon any National Church for some hundred years after we find indeed Liturgical Forms fathered upon St. Basil St. Chrysostome and St. Ambrose but we have not seen any Copies of them but such as give us sufficient evidence to conclude them either wholly spurious or so interpolated that we cannot make a Judgement what in them hath any Primitive Authority Having thus in general expressed our desire we come to particulars which we find numerous and of a various nature some we grant are of an inferiour consideration verbal rather than material which were they not in she Publick Liturgy of so Famous a Church we should not have mentioned others dubions and disputable as not having a clear foundation in Scripture for their warrant but some there be that seem to be corrupt and to carry in them a repugnancy to the rule of the Gospel and therefore have administred just matter of exception and offence to many truly religious and peaceable not of a private station only but Learned Judicious Divines aswel of other Reformed Churches as of the Church of England ever since the Reformation We know much hath been spoken and written by way of Apology in answer to many things that have been obiected but yet the doubts and scuples of tender consciences still continue or rather are increased We do therefore humbly conceive it therefore a Work worthy of those Wonders of Salvation which God hath wrought for his Majesty now on the Throne and for the whole Kingdome and exceedingly becoming the Ministers of the Gospel of Peace with all holy moderation and tenderness to endeavour the removal of every thing out of the Worship of God which may justly offend or grieve the spirits of sober and godly people the things themselves that we desire to be removed not being of the foundation of Religion nor the Essentials of Publick Worship nor the removal of them any way tending to the prejudice of the Church or State therefore their continuance and rigorous Imposition can no ways be able to countervail the laying aside of so many pious and able Ministers and the unconceivable grief that will arise to multitudes of His Majesties most Loyal and peaceable Subjects who upon all accasions are ready to serve him with their Prayers Estates and Lives For the preventing of which evils we humbly desire that these particulars following may be taken into serious and tender consideration Concerning Morning and Evening Prayer 1. Rub. That Morning and Evening Prayer shall be used in the accustomed place of the Church Chancel or Chappel except it shall be otherwise determined by the Ordinary of the Place and the Chancel shall remain as in times past We desire that the words of the first Rub. may be expressed as in the Book established by Authority of Parliament 5 6 Edwardi 6. thus The Morning and Evening Prayer shall be used in such place of the Church Chappel or Chancel and the Minister shall so turn himself as the people may best hear and if there be any controversies therein the matter shall be referred to the Ordinary 2. Rub. And here it is to be noted that the Minister at the time of the Cimmunion and at other times in his ministration shall use such Ornaments in the Church as were in use by Authority of Parliament in the second year of the Reign of Edward the Sixth according to the Act of Parliament c. For as much as the Rubrick seemeth to bring back the Cope Albe and other vestments forbidden in the Common Prayer Book 5. 6. of Edw. 6. And for the reasons alledged against Ceremonies under our 18. general Exception we desire it may be wholly left out The Lords Prayer after the Absolution ends thus Deliver us from evill We desire that these Words For thine is the Kingdome the Power and the Glory for ever and ever Amen may be always added unto the Lords Prayer and that this Prayer may not be enjoyned to be so often used in the Morning and Evening Service And at the end of every Psalm throughout the year and likewise in the end of the Benedictus Benedicite magnificat c. Nunc Dimittis shall be repeated Glory be to the Father c. By this Rubrick and other places in the Common Prayer Book the Gloria Patri is appointed to be said six times ordinarily in every Morning and Evening Services frequently eight times in a Morning sometimes ten which we think carries with it at least an appearance of that vain repetition which Christ forbids for the avoiding of which appearance of evil we desire it may be used but once in the Morning and once in the Evening Rubr. In such places where they do sing there shall the Lessons be sung in a plain Tune and likewise the Epistle and Gospel Or this Canticle Benedicite omnia opera Except The Lessons and the Epistles and Gospels being for the most part neither Psalms nor Hymns we know no warrant why they should be sung in any place and conceive that the distinct reading of them with an audible voyce tends more to the edification of the Church We desire that some Psalm or Scripture Hymn may be appointed instead of that Apocryphal In the Letany From fornication and other deadly sins Except In regard that the wages of sin is death we desire that this clause may be thus altered From fornication and all other beynous or grievous sins From battle and murther and from sudden death Except Because this expression of sudden death hath been so often excepted against we desire if it be thought fit it may be thus read From battle and murther and from dying suddainly and unprepared That it may please thee to preserve all that travel by land and by water all women labouring with child all sick persons and young Children and to shew thy pity upon all prisoners and captives We desire that the term All may be advised upon as seeming liable to just exceptions and that it may be considered whether it may not better be put indefinitely those that travel c. rather then universally The Collect of Christmas day Almighty God which best given us thy only begotten son to take our nature upon him and this day to be born of a pure Virgin c The Rubrick Then shall follow the collect of the Nativity which shall be said continually unto New-years-day The Collect for VVhitsunday God which upon this day c. We desire that in both collects the words this day may be left out it being according to vulgar acceptation a contradiction Rubrick The same Collect to be read on Monday and Tuesday
minde them of their duty as they do us of ours telling us it is our duty to imitate the Apostles practise in a special manner to be tender of the Churches peace and to advise of such expedients as may conduce to the healing of breaches and uniting those that differ For preserving of the Churches peace we know no better nor more efficatious way than our set Liturgy there being no such way to keep us from Schism as to speak all the same thing according to the Apostle Reply If you look to the time past by our Duties we suppose you mean our Faults For it is not Duty when it 's past If you in these words respect only the time present and to come we Reply 1. The Liturgy we are assured will not be a less but a more probable means of Concord after the desired Reformation than before the defects and inconveniencies make it less fit to attain the end 2ly Whether the Apostle by speaking the same thing did mean either all using this Liturgy of ours or all using any one form of Liturgy as to the words may easily be determined This is of much later date unless you will denominate the whole form of the Lords Prayer and some little parts And those that affirm that the Apostles then had any other must undertake the task of proving it and excusing the Churches for losing and dis-using so precious a Relict which if preserved would have prevented all our strifes about these things And in the mean time they must satisfie our Arguments for the Negative As 1. If a Liturgy had been indited by the Apostles for the Churches being by universal Officers inspired by the Holy Ghost and so of universal use it would have been used and preserved by the Church as the Holy Scriptures were But so it was not Ergo no such Liturgy was indited by them for the Churches 2ly If a prescript form of words had been delivered them there would have been no such need of exhorting them to speak the same thing for the Liturgy would have held them close enough to that And if the meaning had been see that you use the same Liturgy some word or other to some of the Churches would have acquainted us with the existence of such a thing and some Reproofs we should have found of those that used various Liturgies or formed Liturgies of their own or used extemporary prayers and some express exhortations to use the same Liturgie or Forms But the holy Scripture is silent in all those matters It is apparent therefore that the Churches then had no Liturgy but took liberty of extemporate expressions and spoke in the things of God as men do in other matters with a natural plainess and seriousness suiting their expressions to the subjects and occasions And though Divisions began to disturb their Peace and holy Orders the Apostle instead of prescribing them a Form of Divine Services for their Unity and Concord do exhort them to use their Gifts and liberties aright and speake the same thing for matter avoiding Disagreements though they used not the same words 3. Just Martyr Tertull. and others sufficiently intimate to us that the Churches quickly after the Apostles did use the personal Abilities of their Pastors in prayer and give us no hint of any such Liturgy of Apostolical fabrication and imposition and therefore doubtlesse there was nothing for it could not have been so soon lost or neglected 4. It is ordinary with those of the contrary judgment to tell us that the extraordinary Gifts of the Primitive Christians were the reason why there were no prescribed forms in those times and that such Liturgies came in upon the ceasing of those Gifts And 1 Cor. 14. describeth a way of publick worshiping unlike to prescript forms of Liturgy So that the matter of Fact is proved and confessed And then how fairly the words of the Apostles exhorting them to speake the same thing are used to prove that he would have them use the same forms or Liturgy we shall not tell you by any provoking aggravations of such abuse of Scripture And indeed for all the miraculous Gifts of those times if prescript forms had been judged by the Apostles to be the fittest means for the Concord of the Churches it is most probable they would have prescribed such Considering 1. That the said miraculous Gifts were extraordinary and belonged not to all nor to any at all times and therefore could not suffice for the ordinary publick Worship 2. And those Gifts began even betimes to be abused and need the Apostles Canons for their regulation which he giveth them in that 1 Cor. 14. without a prescript Liturgy 3. Because even then divisions had made not only an entrance but an unhappy progress in the Churches to cure which the Apostle exhorts them oft to Unanimity and Concord without exhorting them to read the same or any Common-Prayer-book 4. Because that the Apostles knew that perillous times would come in which men would have itching ears and would have heaps of Teachers and would be self-willed and unruly and divisions and offences and heresies would encrease And Ergo as upon such fore-sight they indited the holy Scriptures to keep the Church in all generations from error and divisions in points of Doctrine so the same reason and care would have moved them to do the same to keep the Churches in unity in point of Worship if indeed they had taken prescribed forms to be needfull to such an unity they knew that after departure the Church would never have the like advantage infallible authorized and enabled for delivering the universal Laws of Christ And seeing in those parts of worship which are of stated use and still the same forms might have suited all ages as this age and all Countries as this Country in the substance there can no reason be given why the Apostles should leave this undone and not have performed it themselves if they had judged such forms to be necessary or the most desirable means of unity If they had prescribed them 1. The Church had been secured from error in them 2. Believers had been preserved from divisions about the lawfulnesse and fitnesse of them as receiving them from God 3. All Churches and Countries might had one Liturgy as they have one Scripture and so have all spoke the same things 4. All ages would have had the same without innovation in all the parts that require not alteration whereas now on the contrary 1. Our Liturgies being the writings of fallible men are lyable to error and we have cause to fear subscribing to them as having nothing contrary to the word of God 2. And matters of Humane institution have become the matter of scruple and contention 3. And the Churches have had great diversity of Liturgies 4. And one age hath been mending what they supposed they received from the former faulty and imperfect So that our own which you are so loath to Change hath
them not to have but we hope you speak not the publick sense As the Apostles desired as aforesaid that all would speak the same things without giving them that ever was proved a form of words to speak them in so might we propose to you that uncertain opinions be made no part of our Liturgie without putting all their words into their mouths in which their desires must be uttered Your heartie desire and the reason of it makes not only against extemporarie Prayer but all prepared or written forms or Liturgies that were indited only by one man and have not the consent antecedently of others And do you think this was the course of the Primitive times Basil thus used his private Conceptions at Caesarea and Greg. Thaumaturgus before him at Neocesarea and all Pastors in Justin Martyrs and Tertullians daies And how injurious is it to the publick Officers of Christ the Bishops and Pastors of the Churches to be called private men who are publick persons in the Church if they be not every single person is not a private person else Kings and Judges would be so And have you not better means to shut out private opinions than the forbidding Ministers praying in the Pulpit according to the varietie of subjects and occasions You have first the Examination of persons to be ordained and may see that they be able to speak sense and fit to mannage their proper works with judgement and discretion before you ordain them And some confidence may be put in a man in his proper calling and work to which he is admitted with so great care as we hope or desire you will admit them If you are necessitated to admit some few that are injudicious or unmeet we beseech you not only to restore the many hundred worthy men laid by to a capacity but that you will not so dishonour the whole Church as to suppose all such and to use all as such but restrain those that deserve restraint and not all others for their sakes And next you have a publick Rule the Holy Scripture for these men to pray by and if any of them be intollerably guiltie of weaknesses or rashness or other miscarriages the words being spoken in publick you have witnesse enow and sure there is power enough in Magistrates and Bishops to punish them and if they prove incorrigible to cast them out In all other professions these means are thought sufficient to regulate the Professors His Majestie thinks it enough to regulate his Judges that he may choose able men and fit to be trusted in their proper work and that they are responsible for all their maladministrations without prescribing them forms beyond which they may not speak any thing in their Charge Physitians being first tried and responsible for their doings are constantly trusted with the lives of high and low without tying them to give no counsel or medicine but by the prescript of a Book or determination of a Colledge And it is so undeniable that your reason makes more against Preaching and for only reading Homilies as that we must like it the worse if not fear what will become of Preaching also For 1. It is known that in Preaching a man hath far greater opportunity and liberty to vent a false or private opinion than in Prayer 2. It is known de eventu that it is much more ordinary And if you say that he speaks not the words of the Church but his own nor unto God but man and therefore it is less matter We answer it is as considerable if not much more from whom he speaks than to whom he speaks as the Minister of Christ in his stead and name 2 Cor. 5. 19 20. And it is as a higher so a more Reverend thing to speak in Gods name to the people than in the peoples name to God and to speak that which we call Gods word or truth or message than that which we call but our own desire We make God a lyer or corrupt in his words if we speak a falshood in his name we make but our selves lyers if we speak a falshood to him in our own names The former therefore is the more heynous and dreadfull abuse and more to be avoided or if but equally it shews the tendency of your reason for we will not say of your design as hoping you intend not to make us Russians We do therefore for the sake of the poor threatened Church beseech you that you will be pleased to repent of these desires and not to prosecute them considering that to avoid a lesser evil avoidable by safer means you will bring a far greater evil on the Churches and such as is like to strip these Nations of the glory in which they have excelled the rest of the world even a learned able holy Ministry and a people sincere and serious and understanding in the matters of their Salvation For 1. As it is well known that an ignorant man may read a Prayer and Homily as distinctly and laudably as a Learned Divine and so may do the work of a Minister if this be it so it is known that mans nature is so addicted to ease and sensual diversions as that multitudes will make no better preparations when they find that no more is necessary when they are as capable of their places and maintenance if they can but read and are forced upon no exercise of their parts which may detect and shame their ignorance but the same words are to be read by the ablest and ignorantest man it is certain that this will make multitudes idle in their Academical Studies and multitudes to spend their time idly all the year in the course of their Ministry and when they have no necessity that they are sensible of of diligent studies it will let loose their fleshly voluptuous inclinations and they will spend their time in sports and drinking and prating and idlenesse and this will be a Seminary of Lust or they will follow the world and drown themselves in Covetousnesse and Ambition and their hearts will be like their studies As its the way to have a holy able Ministry to engage them to holy studies to meditate on Gods Law day and night so it s the way to have an ignorant prophane and scandalous Ministry and consequently Enemies to serious Godlinesse in others to impose upon them but such a work as in ignorance and idlenesse they may perform as well as the judicious and the diligent If it be said that their parts may be tried and exercised some other way we answer where should a Ministers parts be exercised if not in the Pulpit or the Church and in Catechising in private Baptism and Communion and in the visitation of the sick their work also is such as a School-boy may do as well as they their ignorance having the same Cloak as in publick If it be said that a Ministers work is not to shew his parts we answer but his Ministerial work is to shew men
their sins and to preach the wonderfull Mysteries of the Gospel to help men to search and understand the Scriptures and to search and to know their hearts and to know God in Christ and to hope for the glory that is to be revealed and fervently to pray for the successe of his endeavours and the blessings of the Gospel on the people and chearfully to praise God for his various benefits which cannot be well done without abilities A Physitians work is not to shew his parts ultimately but it is to do that for the cure of diseases which without parts he cannot do and in the exercise of his parts on which the issue much depends to save mens lives The ostentation of his good works is not the work of a good Christian and yet he must so let his light shine before men that they may see his good works and glorifie God And undeniable experience tells us that God ordinarily proportioneth the successe and blessing to the skill and holinesse and diligence of the Instruments and blesseth not the labours of ignorant ungodly Drones as he doth the labours of able faithfull Ministers And also that the readiest way to bring the Gospel into contempt into the world and cause all religion to dwindle away into formality first and then to barbarism and brutishnesse is to let in an ignorant idle vicious Ministry that will become the peoples scorn Yea this is the way to extirpate Christianity out of any Country in the world which is decaying a pace when men grow ignorant of the nature and reasons of it and unexperienced in its power and delightfull fruits and when the Teachers themselves grow unable to defend it And we must add that whatsoever can be expected duly to affect the heart must keep the intellect and all the faculties awake in diligent attention and exercise And in the use of a form which we have frequently heard and read the faculties are not so necessitated and urged to attention and serious exercise as they be when from our own understanding we are set about the natural work of representing to others what we discern and feel Mans mind is naturally sloathfull and will take its ease and remit its seriousnesse longer than it is urged by necessity or drawn out by delight when we know before-hand that we have no more to do but read a Prayer or Homilie we shall ordinarily be in danger of letting our mindes go another way and think of other matters and be senceless of the work in hand Though he is but an Hypocrite that is carried on by no greater motive than mans observation and approbation yet is it a help not to be depised when even a necessity of avoiding just shame with men shall necessarily awake our invention and all our faculties to the work and be a concurrent help with spiritual motives And common experience tells us that the best are apt to lose a great deal of their affection by the constant use of the same words or forms Let the same Sermon be preached an hundred times over and trie whether an hundred for one will not be much less moved by it than they were at first It is not only the common corruption of our nature but somewhat of innocent infirmity that is the cause of this And man must cease to be man or to be mortal before it will be otherwise so that the nature of the thing and the common experience of our own dispositions and of the effect on others assureth us that understanding serious Godliness is like to be extinguished if only forms be allowed in the Church on pretence of extinguishing errors and divisions And though we have concurred to offer you our more corrected Nepenthes yet must we before God and men protest against the dose of Opium which you here prescribe or wish for as that which plainly tendeth to cure the disease by the extinguishing of life and to unite us all in a dead Religion And when the Prayers that avail must be effectual and servent Jam. 5. 16. and God will be worshipped in spirit and truth and more regardeth the frame of the heart than the comeliness of expression we have no reason to be taken with any thing that pretends to help the tongue while we are sure it ordinarily hurts the heart And it is not the affirmations of any men in the world perswading us of the harmlesness of such a course that can so far un-man us as to make us dis-believe both our own experience and common observation of the effect on others Yet we confess that some forms have their laudable use to cure that error and vice that lieth on the other extreme And might we but sometimes have the liberty to interpose such words as are needful to call home and quicken attention and affection we should think that a convenient conjunction of both might be a well tempered means to the common constitutions of most But still we see the world will run into extreams what ever be said or done to hinder it It is but lately that we were put to it against one extreme to defend the lawfulness of a form of Liturgie now the other extreme it troubleth us that we are forced against you even such as you to defend the use of such Prayers of the Pastors of the Churches as are necessarily varied according to subjects and occasions while you would have no Prayer at all in the Church but such prescribed forms And why may we not add that whoever maketh the forms imposed on us if he use them is guilty as well as we of praying according to his private conceptions And that we never said it proved from Scripture that Christ appointed any to such an Office as to make Prayers for other Pastors and Churches to offer up to God and that this being none of the work of the Apostolick or common Ministerial Office in the Primitive Church is no work of any Office of Divine Institution To that part of the Proposal that the Prayers may consist of nothing doubtful or questioned by pious learned and orthodox persons they not determining who be those orthodox Persons we must either take all them for orthodox Persons who shall confidently affirm themselves to be such and then we say First The Demand is unreasonable for some such as call themselves orthodox have questioned the prime Article of our Creed even the Divinity of the Son of God and yet there is no reason we should part with our Creed for that Besides the Proposal requires impossiblity for there never was nor is nor can be such Prayers made as have not been nor will be questioned by some who call themselves pious learned and orthodox if by orthodox be meant those who adhere to Scripture and the Catholick Consent of Antiquity we do not yet know that any part of our Liturgy hath been questioned by such Reply And may we not thus mention orthodox Persons to men that profess they agree
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
of affairs or if you will not hear us we beseech you hear the many Ministers in England that never medled against the Liturgie and the many moderate Episcopal Divines that have used it and can do still and yet would earnestly entreat you to alter it partly because of what in it needs alteration and partly in respect to the Commodity of others Or at least we beseech you recant and obliterate such passages as would hinder all your selves from any act of Reformation hereabout that if any man among you would find fault with some of the grosser things which we laid open to you tenderly and spiringly and would reform them he may not presently forfeit the reputation of being a Protestant And lastly we beseech you denie not again the name of Protestants to the Primate of Ireland the Archbishop of York and the many others that had divers meetings for the Reformation of the Liturgy and who drew up that Catalogue of faults or points that needed mending which is yet to be seeu in print they took not advantage of their own unwarrantable Acts for the attempting of that alteration The third and fourth Proposals may go together the demand in both being against Responsals and alternate Readings in Hymns and Psalmes and Letany c. And that upon such Reason as doth in truth enforce the necessity of continuing them as they are namely for edification They would take these away because they do not edifie and upon that very reason they should continue because they do edifie If not by informing of our reasons and understandings the Prayers and Hymns were never made for a Catechism yet by quickening continuing and uniting our devotion which is apt to freeze or sleep or flat in a long continued Prayer or form it is necessary therefore for the edifying of us therein to be often called upon and awakened by frequent Amens to be excited and stirred up by mutual exultations provocations petitions holy contentions and strivings which shall most shew his own and stir up others zeal to the glory of God For this purpose alternate Reading Repetitions and Responsals are far better than a long tedious Prayer Nor is this our opinion only but the Judgement of former Ages as appears by the practice of ancient Christian Churches and of the Jewes also But it seems they say to be against the Scripture wherein the Minister is appointed for the People in publick Prayers the peoples part being to attend with silence and to declare their assent in the cloze by saying Amen if they mean that the people in publick Services must only say this word Amen as they can no more prove it in Scriptures so it doth certainly seem to them that it cannot be proved for they directly practise the contrary in one of their principal parts of Worship singing of Psalms where the people bear as great a part as the Minister If this way be done in Hopkin's why not in David's Pslams if in Meetre why not in Prose if in a Psalm why not in a Letany Reply What is most for edification is best known by experience and by the reason of the thing For the former you are not the Masters of all mens experience but of your own and others that have acquainted you with the same as theirs We also may warrantably professe in the name of our selves and many thousands of sober pious persons that we experience that these things are against our edification and we beseech you do not by us what you would not do by the poor labouring servants of your family to measure them all their dyet for quality or quantity according to your own appetites which they think are diseased and would be better if you work'd as hard as they And we gave you some of the reasons of our judgment 1. Though we have not said that the people may not in psalmes to God concur in voice we speak of prayer which you should have observed and though we only concluded it agreeable to the Scripture practice for the people in prayer to say but their Amen yet knowing not from whom to understand the will of God and what is pleasing to him better than from himself we considered what the Scripture saith of the ordinary way of publick worship and finding ordinarily that the people spoke no more in prayer as distinct from Psalmes and praise than their Amen or meer consent we desired to imitate the surest pattern 2. As we find that the Minister is the mouth of the people to God in publick which Scripture and the necessity of order do require so we were loath to countenance the peoples invading of that Sacred Office so far as they seem to us to do 1. By reading half the Psalmes and Hymnes 2. By saying half the Prayers as the Minister doth the other half 3. By being one of them the mouth of all the rest in the Confession at the Lords Supper 4. By being the only Petitioners in the far greatest part of all the Letanie by their good Lord deliver us and we beseech thee to hear us good Lord while the Minister only reciteth the matter of the prayer and maketh none of the Request at all we fear lest by parity of reason the people will claim the work of preaching and other parts of the Ministerial Office 3. And we mentioned that which all our ears are witnesses of that while half the Psalmes and Hymnes c. are said by such of the people as can say them the murmure of their voices in most Congregations is so intelligible and confused as must hinder the edification of all the rest For who is edified by that which he cannot understand we know not what you mean by citing 2 Chron. 7. 1 4. Ezra 3. 11. where there is not a word of publick prayer but in one place of an Acclamation upon an extraordinary sight of the Glory of the Lord which made them praise the Lord and say He is good for his Mercy is for ever When the prayer that went before was such as you call a long tedious prayer uttered by Solomon alone without such breaks and discants And in the other places is no mention of prayer at all but of singing praise and that not by the people but by the Priests and Levites saying the same words for he is good for his Mercy endures for ever towards Israel The people are said to do no more than shout with a great shout because the foundation of the house was laid and if shouting be it that you would prove it 's not the thing in question Let the ordinary mode of praying in Scripture be observed in the Prayers of David Solomon Ezra Daniel or any other and if they were by breaks and frequent beginnings and endings and alternate interlocutions of the people as yours are then we will conform to your mode which now offends us But if they were not we beseech you reduce yours to the examples in the Scripture
we desire no other rule to decide the Controversie by As to your Citation 1 Socrat. there tells us of the alternate singing of the Aruians in the reproach of the Orthodox and that Chrysostome not a Synod compiled Hymnes to be sung in opposition to them in the streets which came in the end to a Tumult and Bloodshed And hereupon he tells us of the original of alternate singing viz. a pretended vision of Ignatius that heard Angels sing in that order And what is all this to alternate reading and praying or to a Divine Institution when here is no mention of reading or praying but of singing Hymnes And that not upon pretence of Apostolical Tradition but a vision of uncertain credit Theodor. also speaketh only of singing Psalmes alternately and not a word of reading or praying so And he fetcheth that way of singing also as Socrat. doth but from the Church at Antioch and not from any pretended doctrine or practise of the Apostles And neither of them speaks a word of the necessitie of it or of forcing any to it so that all these your Citations speaking not a word so much as of the very Subjects in question are marvellously impertinent The words their Worship seem to intimate that singing Psalms is part of our Worship and not of yours we hope you disown it not for our parts we are not ashamed of it your distinction between Hopkin's and David's Psalms as if the Meetre allowed by Authority to be sung in Churches made them to be no more David's Psalms seemeth to us a very hard saying If it be because it is a Translation then the Prose should be none of David's Psalms neither nor any Translation be the Scripture If it be because it is in Meetre then the exactest Translation in Meetre should be none of the Scripture If because it 's done imperfectly then the old Translation of the Bible used by the Common-Prayer-book should not be Scripture As to your reason for the supposed priority 1. Scripture examples telling us that the People had more part in the Psalms than in the Prayers or Readings satisfie us that God and his Church then saw a disparity of Reason 2. Common observation tells us that there is more Order and less hindrance of Edification in the Peoples singing than in their Reading and Praying together vocally It is desired that nothing should be in the Liturgy which so much us seems to countenance the observation of Lent as a religious Fast and this as an expedient to Peace which is in effect to desire that this our Church may be contentious for Peace sake and to divide from the Church Catholick that we may live at unity among our selves For Saint Paul reckons them amongst the lovers of Contention who shall oppose themselves against the Custome of the Churches of God that the religious observation of Lent was a Custome of the Churches of God appeares by the Testimonies following Chrysost Ser. 11. in Heb. 10. Cyrill Catec myst 5. St. August Ep. 119. ut 40. dies ante Pascha observetur Ecclesiae consuetudo roboravit and St. Hierom ad Marcell saies it was secundum traditionem Apostolorum This Demand then tends not to Peace but Dissention The fasting Forty daies may be in imitation of our Saviour for all that is here said to the contrary for though we cannot arrive to his perfection abstaining wholly from meat so long yet we may fast forty daies together either Cornelius his Fast till three of the Clock afternoon or Saint Peter 's fast till noon or at least Daniel 's fast abstaining from Meats and Drinks of delight and thus far imitate our Lord. Reply If we had said that the Church is contentious if it adore God in kneeling on the Lords daies or use not the White Garment Milk and Honey after baptism which had more pretence of Apostolical tradition and were generally used more anciently than Lent would you not have thought we wronged the Church if the purer times of the Church have one Custome and later times a contrary which must we follow or must we necessarily be contentious for not following both or rather may we not by the example of the Church that changeth them be allowed to take such things to be matters of Liberty and not necessity If we must needs conform to the Custome of other Churches in such things or be contentious it is either because God hath so commanded or because he hath given those Churches Authority to command it If the former then what Churches or what Ages must we conforme to If all must concurr to be our patterne it will be hard for us to be acquainted with them so far as to know of such Concurrences And in our Case we know that many do it not If it must be the most we would know where God commandeth us to imitate the greater number though the worse or hath secured us that they shall not be the worst or why we are not tied rather to imitate the purer Ages than the more corrupt If it be said that the Church hath Authority to command us we desire to know what Church that is and where to be found and heard that may command England and all the Churches of his Majesty's Dominions If it be said to be a General Council 1. No General Council can pretend to more Authority than that of Nice whose 20th Canon back'd with Tradition and common pratice now bindes not us and was laid by without any Repeal by following Councils 2. We know of no such things as General Councils at least that have bound us to the religious observation of Lent The Bishops of one Empire could not make a General Council 3. Nor do we know of any such power that they have ever the universal Church there being no visible head of it or Governours to make universal Laws but Christ as Rogers on the 20. Article fore-cited shews our 21. Article saith that General Councils may not be gathered together without the Commandment and Will of Princes and doubtless all the Heathen and Mahomitans and all the contending Christian Princes will never agree together nor never did to let all their Christian Subjects concurre to hold a General Council It saith also and when they be gathered together forasmuch as they be an Assembly of men whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and Word of God they may erre and sometimes have erred even in things pertaining unto God therefore things ordained by them as necessary to Salvation have neither strength nor authority unlesse it may be declared that they be taken out of the Holy Scriptures And if they may erre in things pertaining unto God and ordained by them as necessary to Salvation much more in lesser things And are we contentious if we erre not with them Our 39. Article determineth this Controversie saying It is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places one or utterly like for at all times they have
note of distinction or notice given to the people that they are not Canonical Scripture they being also bound with our Bibles is such a temptation to the vulgar to take them for Gods Word as doth much prevail and is like to do so still And when Papists second it with their confident affirmations that the Apocriphal Bookes are Canonical well refelled by one of you the R. Reverend Bishop of Durham we should not needlesly help on their successe If you cite the Apocripha as you do other humane writings or read them as Homilies when and where there is reason to read such we speak not against it to say that the people are secured by the Churches calling them Apocripha is of no force till experience be proved to be dis-regardable and till you have proved that the Ministers is to tell the people at the reading of every such Chapter that it is but Apocriphal and that the people all understand Greek so well as to know what Apocripha signifieth The more sacred and honourable are these Dictates of the holy Ghost recorded in Scripture the greater is the sin by reading the Apocripha without sufficient distinction to make the people believe that the writings of man are the Revelation and Laws of God And also we speak against the reading of the Apocripha as it excludeth much of the Canonical Scriptures and taketh in such Books in their stead as are commonly reputed fabulous By this much you may see how you lost your Answer by mistaking us and how much you will sin against God and the Church by denying our desire That the Minister should not read the Communion Service at the Communion Table is not reasonable to demand since all the Primitive Church used it and if we do not observe that golden Rule of the venerable Council of Nice Let antient customes prevail till reason plainly requires the contrary We shall give offence to sober Christians by a causelesse departure from Catholick usage and a great advantage to enemies of our Church than our Brethren I hope would willingly grant The Priest standing at the Communion Table seemeth to give us an invitation to the holy Sacrament and minds us of our duty viz. To receive the holy Communion some at least every Sunday and though we neglect our duty it is fit the Church should keep her standing Repl. We doubt not but one place in it self is as lawful as another but when you make such differences as have misleading intimations we desire it may be forborn That all the Primitive Church used when there was no Communion in the Sacrament to say Service at the Communion Table is a crude assertion that must have better proof before we take it for convincing and it is not probable because they had a Communion every Lords day And if this be not your meaning you say nothing to the purpose To prove that they used it when there was none And you your selves devise many things more universally practised than this can at all be fairly pretended to have been The Council of Nice gives no such golden Rule as you mention A Rule is a general applyable to particular Cases the Council only speaks of one particular Let the antient Custom continue in Aegypt Lybia and Pentapolis that the Bishop of Alexandria have the power of them all The Council here confirmeth this particular Custom but doth not determine in general of the Authority of Custom That this should be called a Catholic usage shews us how partially the word Catholick is sometimes taken And that this much cannot be granted as least we advantage the enemies of the Church doth make us wonder whom you take for its enemies and what is that advantage which this will give them But we thank you that here we find our selves called Brethren when before we are not so much as spoken to but your speech is directed to some other we know not whom concerning us your reason is that which is our reason to the contrary you say The Priest standing at the Communion Table seems to give us an Invitation to the holy Communion c. what when there is no Sacrament by himself or us intended no warning of any given no Bread and Wine prepared Be not deceived God is not mocked Therefore we desire that there may be no such service at the Table when no Communion is intended because we would not have such grosse dissimulation used in so holy things as thereby to seem as you say to invite Guests when the Feast is not prepared and if they came we would turn them empty away Indeed if it were to be a private Mass and the Priest were to receive alone for want of Company and it were really desired that the people should come it were another matter Moreover there is no Rubrick requiring this service at the Table It is not reasonable that the word Minister should be only used in the Liturgy for since some parts of the Liturgy may be performed by a Deacon others by none under the Order of a Priest viz. Absolution Consecration it is fit that some such word as Priest should be used for those Offices and not Minister which signifies at large every one that ministers in that holy Office of what Order soever he be The word Curate signifying properly all those who are trusted by the Bishops with Cure of Souls as antiently it signified is a very fit word to be used and can offend no sober person The word Sunday is antient Just Mart. Ap. 2. And therefore not to be left off Repl. The word Minister may well be used in stead of Priest and Curates though the word Deacon for necessary distinction stand yet we doubt not but Priest as it is but the English of Presbyter is lawful But it is from the common danger of mistake and abuse that we argue That all Pastors else are but the Bishops Curates is a Doctrine that declares the heavy charge and account of the Bishops and tends much to the ease of the Presbyters minds if it could be proved If by Curates you mean such as have not directly by divine Obligation the Cure of Souls but only by the Bishops Delegation But if the Office of a Presbyter be not of divine Right and so if they be not the Curates of Christ and Pastors of the Church none are And for the antient use of it we find not that it was so from the beginning And as there 's difference between the antient Bishops of one single Church and a Diocesan that hath many hundred so is there between their Curates But why will you not yield so much as to change the word Sunday into the Lords Day when you know that the latter is the name used by the Holy Ghost in Scripture and commonly by the antient Writers of the Church and more becoming Christians Just Mart. speaking to Infidels tells how they called the Day and not how Christians called it All he saith is
Subject that can exempt him from the duty of obeying But it may ensnare him in a certainty of sinning whether he obey or disobey For as God commandeth him to obey and also not to do that which man commandeth when God forbiddeth it So he obligeth the erronious first to lay down his errours and so to obey But if a thing he forbidden of God and commanded of man and one man erroniously thinke it lawful and that he should obey and another is in doubt between both it is neither a duty nor lawful for either of them here to obey For mans errour changeth nor Gods Laws nor disobligeth himself from obedience But this mans duty is both to lay by that errour and to refuse obedience but if the question be only of the order of such a persons duty we answer If the thing be really lawful and obedience a duty then he that doubteth or erreth should if possible suddenly lay by his errours or doubt and so obey But if that cannot be he should first go about the fittest means for his better information till he be resolved and so obey And so on the contrary if really the thing commanded be unlawful if he be sure of it he must resolve against it if he hesitate he is not therefore allowed to do a thing forbidden because he is ignorant For his ignorance is suposed culpable it self but he is first to consult and use the best means for his Instruction till he know the truth and in the mean time to suspend his Act. But yet because of humane frailty between several faults we must consider when we cannot avoid all as we would in what order most safely to watch and to avoid them And so when I have done my best and cannot discern whether a Command be just and the thing lawful or not If it have the face of Idolatry Blasphemy or some hainous Sin that is commanded and our dis-obedience have the appearance but of an effect of involuntary ignorance it is more excusable in us to fear the greater Sin and so to suspend till we are better satisfied than to do that which we suspect to be so hainous a Sin though in leed it prove no sin So on the contrary if our disobedience be like to bring Infamy or Calamity on the Church and our Obedience appear to be but about a very small sin if we doubt of it it is more excusable to obey than to disobey though both be faulty supposing the thing to be indeed unlawful and we discern it not So that your Rule of obeying where you are not as sure c Is an unsure Rule unless as we have fullyer cautioned it Pretence of Conscience is no exemption from obedience for the Law as long as it is a Law certainly binds to obedience Rom. 13. Ye must needs be subject and this pretence of a tender gainsaying Conscience cannot abrogate the Law since it can neither take away the Authority of the Law-maker nor make the matter of the Law in it self unlawful Besides if pretence of Conscience did exempt from obedience Laws were uselesse whosoever had not list to obey might pretend tenderness of Conscience and be thereby set at liberty which if once granted Anarchy and Confusion must needs follow Repl Neither pretence of Conscience nor real Errour of Conscience exempteth from the Obligation to obey though sometime it may so ensnare as that obeying shall become of the two the greater sin so also real Errours or pretence of Conscience will justifie no man for obeying when it is by God forbidden Though Charity will move to pity and relieve those that are truly perplexed or Scrupulous yet we must not break Gods Command in Charity to them and therefore we must not perform publick Services undecently or disorderly for the ease of tender Consciences Repl. O that you would but do all that God alloweth you yea that he hath commanded you for these ends how happy would you make your selves and these poor afflicted Churches But as to the instance of your Rule we answer 1. When the indecency and disorder is so small as that it will not crosse the ends so much as our disobedience would we are here so far more conformable and peaceable than you as that we would even in Gods worship do some things indecent and disorderly rather than disobey And so should you do rather than destroy your Brethren or hinder that peace and healing of the Church For Order is for the thing ordered and not contrarily For example there is much disorder lies in the Common-Prayer Book yet we would obey in it as far as the ends of our calling do require It would be undecent to come without a Band or other handsome raiment into the Assembly yet rather than nor worship God at all we would obey if that were commanded us we are as confident that Surplices and Copes are undecent and kneeling at the Lords Table is disorderly as you are of the contrary And yet if the Magistrate would be advised by us supposing himself addicted against you we would advise him to be more charitable to you than you here advise him to be to us We would have him if your Conscience require it to forbear you in this undecent and disorderly way But to speak more distinctly 1. There are some things decent and orderly when the opposite species is not undecent or disorderly 2. There are some things undecent and disorderly in a small and tolerable degree And some things in a degree intolerable 1. When things decent are commanded whose opposites would not be at all undecent there Charity and Peace and Edification may command a Relaxation or rather should at first restrain from too severe Impositions As it is decent to wear either a Cloak or a Gown a Cassock buttoned or unbutton'd with a Girdle or without to sit stand or kneel in singing of a Psalm to sit or stand in hearing the word read or preached c. 2. When a Circumstance is undecent or disorderly but in a tollerable degree to an Inconvenience Obedience or Charity or Edification may command us to do it and make it not only lawful but a duty pro hic nunc while the preponderating Accident prevaileth Christs instances go at least as far as this about the Priests in the Temple breaking the Sabbath blamelesly and Davids eating the Shew bread which was lawful for none to eate ordinarily but the Priests And the Disciples rubbing the ears of Corn I will have mercy not sacrifice is a Leston that he sets us to learn when two duties come together to prefer the greater if we would escape sin And sure to keep an able Preacher in the Church or a private Christian in Communion is a greater duty caeteris paribus than to use a Ceremony which we conceive to be decent It is more orderly to use the better translation of the Scripture than the worse as the Common-Prayer-book doth and yet we would
of Conscience If by tendernesse of Conscience they mean a fearfulnesse to sin this would make them most easy to be satisfied because most fearful to disobey superiours But suppose there be any so scrupulous as not satisfied with what hath been written the Church may still without sin urge her command for these decent Ceremonies and not be guilty of offending her weak brother for since the scandal is taken by him not given by her it is he that by vain scrupulosity offends himself and layes the stumbling-block in his own way Repl. But the command for mans Institution of a new worship of God or of Rites Sacramental or so like to Sacraments as the Crosse is or for the unnecessary Imposition of unnecessary things which should be left to every prudent Ministers discretion and this upon pain of being cast out of the Church or Ministry and the Law for subscribing that all these are lawful and for swearing obedience to the Bishops all these Laws are not to be found in Scripture If you should but command your Servant to do what you bid him decently and orderly you would think he mistook you if upon that pretence he would do any other work which he could but say tended to the decency of yours And we would gladly hear what you think your selves is forbidden in Deut. 12. 32. If not such humane Ordinances And why you forbear giving the truer sense of the Text. It is a sad case with the poor Church when Gods wisdome that made a few and necessary things the matter of his Churches concord is no more valued But we will be wiser and when the experience of the Church that hath been torn into pieces 1400. years by mens Inventions and needless usages and Impositions is yet of no more force with us that come after them but what ever can be said or done or seen we will still make Laws that all men shall be tantum non unchristened and damned that is cast out of the Ministry or Church communion that will not wear this or that or bow thus or thus or look this way or that way or say this word or that word and when we have laid such a needless snare we will uncharitably cry out the world will be brought into cofusion because men that list not to obey would have the Laws abrogated Where hath Christ set you to make such Laws Is it not work enough for us you to obey the Laws that he hath made Why made he none for postures and vestures words teaching signs of this nature if he would have had them If he had not told us that there is one Lawgiver one Lord and that his word is able to make us wise unto Salvation and that he would lay no greater burden on us than necessary things and would not have us despise or judge each other on such occasions If he had but told us that he left any Officers after his inspired Apostles for the making of Ceremonies or new Laws of worship or teaching engaging signs for the Church we would as gladly understand and obey his will in these things as you what hurt is it to us to use a Crosse or other Ceremony if it were not for fear of disobeying God Enforce Gods Laws upon us zealously if you will and see if we will disobey But that the world shall run into confusion rather than we shall have leave to serve God as Peter and Paul did without Crossing Surplices and Kneeling at the Sacrament and then that we shall be reproached as the cause of all by our disobedience God hath told the world by his word and will tell them by his Judgements that this is not his way to Unity and Peace As to the Argument from your Brethrens weaknesse we say first It is not your strength to slight it or them Nor is it their weaknesse that they are willing to be esteemed weak The Apostle called those weak that placed a necessity in indifferent things Rom. 14 And not those that understood their indifferency But the truth is the nature of things indifferent is not well undestood by all on either side some may think evil of some things that deserve it not and in this they are weak though in other matters they may be strong And for the rest we speak according to the worst that you your selves can charitably suppose you can say no more of them but that they are weaker that is in this know lesse than you though perhaps we may take them to be stronger that is to be more in the right yet are we nor so confident as to censure you or others but speak of things difficult and doubtful as they are But how prove you it we would take it ill to be our selves or have those we speak of accounted ignorant in such things as these use us no worse than the ignorant should be used and till you would turn a man out of the Ministry or Church for being ignorant of the nature of a Ceremony which never was in his Creed the Decalogue or Scripture dealt not so by us that would be wiser if we knew how That all our ignorance is our own fault we deny not but it is an expresse of confidence and uncharitablenesse to rell us that there is so very much written as may satisfie any man that hath a mind to be satisfied and when we professe in his sight that knoweth the hearts that we have a mind to be satisfied and would know the truth at what rate soever if we knew how what would you have us do that we do not to be satisfied Do we not read as much for Ceremonies as the dissenters use to do against them Many Books against them are yet unanswered and we never shunned any publick or private conference with any of you and such reasonings as these are not like to convince us If you will be the judges of your brethrens hearts and say it is not tendernesse of Conscience but stubbornnesse we shall refer that to the day when your hearts and ours shall be opened Must none be tender Conscienc'd that dare not venture to obey you in such things When you may with undoubted safety forbear the imposing of your Ceremonies and so forbear the casting out of your brethren if you will not who shews lesse tendernesse of Conscience That the scandal is taken and not given is still the thing in question as to many things and if it were not just occasion of oftence you ought not to lay that which anothers weaknesse will turn into a stumbling block unnecessarily before them if the Apostles Argument be good Rom. 14. the Church may not urge unlawful things nor things meerly lawful upon such penalties as will exclude things necessary If an idle word be to be accounted for an idle Law is not laudable much less when all men must be excluded the Ministry or Communion that scruple it when yet a man may be a prophan swearer
for 12 pence an oath and may swear an hundred times before he payes that 12 pence A Papist shall pay 12 pence for not coming to Church and a Protestant be thrust out of your Communion for not kneeling at the Sacrament and a Minister suspended imprisoned undone for not crossing a Child or wearing a Surplice May Magistrates or the Church thus urge their commands Can any thing be spoken plainer than the Scripture speaks against this course And would you make the world believe that the brethren that do not all that you bid them are so unreasonably and obstinately scrupulons as to have no matter of offence but what they lay before themselves when they have the practice of the Apostles and the custom of the Primitive Church for many hundred years against you and this called by them an Apostolical tradition and decreed by the most uncharitable Councils that ever were If you had but one of these the decree of a General Council or practise of all the purest Churches alone for one of your Ceremonies you would think him uncharitable that so reproached you for pretending Conscience Sect. 11. The case of St. Paul not eating of flesh if it offended his Brother is nothing to the purpose who there speaks of things not commanded either by God or by his Church neither having in them any thing of decency or fignificancy to serve in the Church St. Paul would deny himself his own liberty rather than offend his Brother but if any man breaks a just Law or Custom of the Church he brands her for a lover of Schism and Sedition 1 Cor. 11. 16. Reply But because at our last meeting it was said with so much confidence by one that the case in Rom 14. and 15. was nothing to ours we shall here say the more to what you say that St. Pauls not eating flesh is nothing to the purpose your reasons are first because he speaks of nothing commanded by God or his Church Secondly not of any thing of decency or significancy to serve in the Church To the first we have oft told you that which is undenyable First that Paul was a Governour of that Church himself that had no superiour to controule him If you say that he then wrote not as a Governour we answer Yes For he wrote as an Apostle and wrote the Epistle that was to be a standing Law or Canon to them If this be not an act of his Office and Authority there was none such And then you must say the like of all the rest of the Epistles 2ly Moreover as Paul the Apostle excludeth all such impositions so he wrote to all the resident Pastours that were at Rome for he wrote to the whole Church and therefore these commands extend to the Governours that they make not such things the matter of Contempt or Censuces or any uncharitable Course but bear with one another in them Will you call men obstinate self-offenders that differ from you when you have no better answers then these to the plain decisions of the Holy Ghost What we speak of Rom. 14. 15. we speak also of 1 Cor. 8. And 3ly It is to the Rulers of the Church that we are speaking and it is they that answer us and shall the Rulers say If it were not a thing commanded we might bear with you when it is themselves that command them ecclesiastically and we intreat them but to forbear that and to concurre with us in petitioning the King to forbear commanding them coercively who no doubt will easily for bear it if they do their part 4ly Yea à fortiori it layeth a heavier charge on such Governours then others If it be so heynous a sin as Paul maketh it to censure or despise one another for meat and daies and such like things how much more to excommunicate silence and undo one another deprive thousands of souls of the preaching of the Gospel that consented not to their Pastours non-conformity 5ly Paul letteth you know that these things are not the Center or matter of our necessary concord but of mutual forbearance therefore condemneth all that will make them necessary to our united Ministry or Communion And the difference is wholly to the advantage of our cause For those that Paul spake to were not come so high as to go about to force others to do as they did but only to despise them for not doing it 2. And therefore to your second Reason we answer 1. If the things had been different yet so was Pauls injunction different from our Request For Paul goeth so high as to command them to deny their own liberty in not eating lawfull meats themselves lest they offend and hurt their brethren whereas we are now desiring you that you would not force others to do that which they take to be a sin and that with penalties that fall heavier on the Church then on them They had on both sides fairer pretences then you have The Cases before us to be compared are four The Case of the Refusers of meats and observers of daies then The Case of the users of those meats and non-observers of those daies The Case of our Imposers And the Case of non-Conformists The pretence of their Refusers of meats had in 1 Cor. 8. was that being offered to Idols they thought it made them partakers of the Idolatry so they sinn'd through weakness in being offended at others and censuring them that used their liberty And had they not here a fairer pretence for their offence and censures than you for your impositions you cannot shew half so great an appearance of good in the things commanded as they could do of evil in the things for which they were offended And the offended censurer in Rom. 14. had this pretence that the thing was forbidden in Gods own Law even the meats which he refused and the daies commanded which he observed and he knew not that the Law in these matters of Order Ceremony was abrogated which Peter was ignorant of when he refused to eat things common and unclean But you have no pretence of Gods own command for the matter of your impositions as these men had for the matter of their offence and censure so that here you are in the worser-side And for the other party that in 1 Cor. 8. abused their liberty and Rom. 14. despised their brethren they had a double pretence one was that it was their liberty and if every scrupulous party should drive them from their lawfull meat and drink they knew not whither they might drive them another was that the Law was abrogated by Christ and therefore if they complied in practice with the scrupulous or did not shew their difference they might seem to be guilty of the restoring of the Law and complying with the Jews and the Hereticks that both then were enemies to the Church and agreed in this Had not these men now a far fairer pretence for eating 1 Cor. 8. and for the
dissent shewed Rom. 14. then you ever yet produced for forcing others from Ministry and Church into sin and Hell if they will not obey you against their consciences and all for that which you never pretended to shew a command of God for and others shew you as they think Scripture and Councils and customes against To tell us then that Paul spake of things not decent and sign ficant is pardon our plainess to say much less then nothing For it was not against imposing that Paul spake but using and not using censuring and despising And their Arguments were sutable to their cause of another kind of moment then decency or indecency significancy or insignificancy even from supposed Idolatry rejecting Gods Law and complying with the Jews and Hereticks in restoring the Law and casting away the liberties purchased by Christ even in their private eating drinking To be no more tedious now we humbly offer in any way convenient to try out with that Reverend brother thaâ— so confidently asserted the disparity of the Cases and to prove that these Scriptures most plainly condemn your impositions now in question though we should have thought that one impartial reading of them might end the controversy and save the Church and you from the sad effects As to that 1 Cor. 11. 16. We answer first it is uncertain whether the word Custom referr to the matter of Hair or to Contention so many Expositours judge q. d. The Churches of God are not contentious 2d Here is no institution muchless by fallible men of new Covenanting dedicating or teaching Symbols or Ceremony nor is here any unnecessary thing enjoyned but that which nature and the custom of the countrey had made so decent as that the opposite would have been abusively undecent This is not your case A Cross or Surplice is not decent by nature or common reputation but by institution that is not all for if it be not instituted because decent it will not be decent because instituted nor are these sodecent as the opposite to be indecent The Apostles worshipped God as decently without them as you do with them the Minister prayeth in the Pulpit as decently without the Surplice as in the reading place with it 3d. Paul doth but exhort them to this undoubted comliness as you may well do if men will do any thing which nature or common reputation makes to be slovenly unmannerly or indecent as being covered in prayer or singing Psalms or any such like about which we will never differ with you but even here he talks not of force or such penalties as tend to the greater hurt of the Church and the ruine of the person Sect. 12. A. 4. That these Ceremonies have occasioned many divisions is no more fault of theirs then it was of the Gospel that the preaching of it occasioned strife betwixt father and son c. The true cause of those divisions is the cause of ours which S. Jam. tels us is Last and inordinate desires of honors or wealth or licentiousness or the like were these Ceremonies laid aside there would be the same divisions if some who think Moses and Aaron took too much upon them may be suffered to deceive the people and to raise in them vain fears and jealousies of their Governours but if all men would as they ought study peace and quietness they would find other and better fruits of these Laws of Rites and Ceremonies as edification decency order and beauty in the service and worship of God Reply Whether the Ceremonies be as innocent as to divisions as the Gospel a strange assertion will better appear when what we have said and what is more fully said by Dr. Ames Bradshaw and others is well answered If the true cause of our divisions be as you say lust and inordinate desires of honours or wealth or licentiousness then the party that is most lustfull ambitious covetous and licentious are likest to be most the cause And for lust and licentiousness we should take it for a great attainment of our ends if you will be intreated to turn the edge of your severity against the lustfull and licentious O that you would keep them out of the Pulpits and out of the communion of the Church till they reform And for our selves we shall take your admonitions or severities thankfully when ever we are convicted by you of any such sins We are loath to enter upon such comparison between the Ministers ejected for the most part and those that are in their Rooms as tends to shew by this Rule who are likest to be the dividers And for inordinate desire of honors and wealth between your Lordships and us we are contented that this Cause be decided by all England even by our enemies at the first hearing without any further vindication of our selves and so let it be judged who are the dividers only we must say that your intimation of this Charge on us that seek not for Bishopricks Deaneries Archdeaconries or any of your preferments that desire not nor could accept pluralities of Benefices with cure of souls that never sought for more then food and raiment with the Liberty of our Ministery even one place with a tolerable maintenance whose provoking cause hath been our constant opposition to the Honors Wealth Lordships and pluralities of the Clergy yea who would be glad on the behalf of the poor Congregations if many of our brethren might have leave to preach to their Flocks for nothing we say your intimation maketh us lift up our hearts and hands to heaven and think Oh what is man What may not by some History be told the world Oh how desirable is the blessed day of the righteous universal judgment of the Lord how small a matter till then should it be to us to be judged of man we hope upon pretence of not suffering us to deceive the people you will not deny us liberty to preach the necessary saving truths of the Gospel considering how terrible a Symptom and Prognostick this was in the Jews 1 Thes 2 15 16. Who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own Prophets and persecuted the Apostles and God they pleased not and were contrary to all men forbidding to preach to the Gentiles that they might be saved to fill up their sins alwaies for wrath was come upon them to the utmost We can as easily bear what ever you can inflict upon us as the hinderers of the Gospel and silencers of faithfull Ministers and troublers of the Churches can bear what God will inflict on them And so the will of the Lord be done Sect. 13. Cer. 3. There hath been so much said not only of the lawfulness but also of the conveniencies of those Ceremonies mentioned that nothing can be added This in brief may here suffice for the Surplice that reason and experience teaches that decent ornaments and habits preserve reverence and awe held therefore necessary to the Solemnity of Royal Acts and Acts of justice and
is ancient So there wants not a Bign Bellarm. c. to tell us of S. James his Liturgy that mentions the Confessours the Deiparam the Anchorets c. which made Bellarm. himself say de Liturgia Jacobi sic sentio Eam aut non esse ejus aut multa à posterioribus eidem addita sunt And must we prove the Antiquity of Liturgies by this or try ours by it There wants not a Sainctetius a Bellarm. a Valentia a Peresius to predicate the Liturgy of S. Basil as bearing witnesse to transubstantiation for the sacrifice of the Masse for praying to Saints c. When yet the exceeding disagreement of Copies the difference of some forms from Basils ordinary forms the prayers for the most pious and faithful Emperours shew it unlikely to have been Basils many predicate Chrysostomes Masse or Liturgie as making for praying to the dead and for them the propitiatory Sacrifice of the Masse c. when in one edition Chrysostom is prayed to in it saith Cook in another Nicolaus and Alexius that lived 1080 is mentioned in another doctrines are contained as de Contaminata Maria c. clean contrary to Chrysostoms doctrine must we now conclude that all is ancient that is Orthodox when one Copy is scarce like another or can we try our Liturgies by such as this The shreds cited by you prove a Liturgie indeed such as we have used while the Common Prayer-book was not used where the Psalms the words of Baptism and the words of Consecration commemoration and delivery of the Lords Supper and many other were used in a constant form when other parts were used as the Minister found most meet so Sursum Corda was but a warning before or in the midst of devotion such as our Let us pray and will no more prove that the substance of prayer was not left to the Minister's present or prepared Conceptions than Ite missa est will prove it The Gloria patri Bellarm. himself saith according to the common opinion was formed in the council of Nice which was in the 4th Century And even then such a particular testimony against the Arrians might well stand with a body of unimposed prayers and rather shewes that in other things they were left at liberty If the Benedicite the Hymnes or other passages here mentioned will prove such a Liturgy as pleaseth you we pray you bear with our way of worship which hath more of Hymnes and other forms then these come to That these Liturgies had no original from generall Councils addes nothing with us to their Authority but sheweth that they had an arbitrary original and all set together shews that then they had many Liturgies in one Prince's Dominion and those alterable and not forced and that they took not one Liturgy to be any necessary means to the Churches unity or peace but bore with those that used various at discretion We well remember that Tertull tells the Heathens that Christians shewed by their conceived Hymnes that they were sober at their religious feasts it being their custome ut quisque de scripturis sanctis vel de proprio ingenio potest provocetur in medium Deo canere Apol. cap. 39. Note here 1. that though there be more need of forms for singing then for praying yet even in this the Christians in publick had then a liberty of doing it de proprio ingenio and by their own wit or parts 2. That those that did not de proprio ingenio did it de scripturis sanctis and that there is no mention of any other Liturgy from which they fetch so much as their Hymnes And the same Tertul. Apol. cap. 30. describing the Christians publick prayers saith sine monitore quia de pectore oramus we pray without a Monitor or promptor because we do it from the heart or from our own breast And before him Just Mart. Ap. 2. p. 77. saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But if all these words seem not plain enough to some it is no wonder when they rest not in the greater plainness of the holy Scriptures where prayer is so frequently mentioned as much of the imployment of believers and so many directions encouragements and exhortations given about it and yet no Liturgy or stinted forms except the Lords prayer is prescribed to them or once made mention of no man directed here to use such no man exhorted to get him a Prayer-book or to read or learn it or to beware that he adde or diminish not whereas the holy Scriptures that were then given to the Church men are exhorted to read and study and meditate in and discourse of and make it their continual delight and it 's a wonder that David that mentions it so oft in the 119. Psalm doth never mention the Liturgy or Common-Prayer-Book if they had any And that Solomon when he dedicated the house of Prayer without a Prayer-book would onely begge of God to hear what Prayers or what Supplication soever shall be made of any man or of all the people of Israel when every one shall know his own sore and his own grief and shall spread forth his hands in that house 2 Chron. 6. 29. and that he giveth no hint of any Liturgie or form so much as in those common Calamities and talkes of no other book then the knowledge of their own sores and their own griefs And in the Case of Psalmes or singing unto God where it is certain that they had a Liturgy or form as we have they are carefully collected preserved and delivered to us as a choise part of the holy Scripture And would it not have been so with the prayers or would they have been altogether unmentioned if they also had been there prescribed to and used by the Church as the Psalmes were Would Christ and his Apostles even where they were purposely giving rules for prayer and correcting its abuse as Matth. 6. 1 Cor. 14. c. have never mentioned any forms but the Lord's Prayer if they had appointed such or desired such to be imposed and observed These things are incredible to us when we most impartially consider them For our own parts as we think it uncharitable to forbid the use of Spectacles to them that have weak eyes or of Crutches to them that have weak Limbs and as uncharitable to undo all that will not use them whether they need them or not so we can think no better of them that will suffer none to use such forms that need them or that will suffer none to pray but in the words of other mens prescribing though they are at least as able as the prescribers And to conclude we humbly crave that ancient customes may not be used against themselves and us and that you will not innovate under the shelter of the name of Antiquity Let those things be freely used among us that were so used in the purest primitive times Let unity and peace be laid on nothing on which they laid them not let
c. We reply 1. Profaneness may be opposed nevertheless for our instructing the people against Idolatry 2. The abounding of Papists who in this point seem to us Idolatrous sheweth that there is danger of it 3. The commonness of Idolatry through the World and the case of the Israelites of old shew that mans nature is prone to it 4. Prophaneness and Idolatry befriend each other As God is jealous against Idolatry so should all faithfull Pastors of the Church be and not refuse such a caution to the people and say There is no great need of it Publike Baptism UNtill they have made due profession of Repentance c. We think this desire to be very hard and uncharitable punishing the poor Infants for the Parents sakes and giving also too great and arbitrary a power to judge which of his Parishioners he pleaseth Atheists 〈…〉 Hereticks c. and then in that name to reject their children from b 〈…〉 Baptized Our Church concludes more charitably that Christ will 〈…〉 vourably accept every Infant to Baptism that is presented by the Church according to our present Order And this she concludes out of Holy Scriptures as you may see in the Office of Baptism according to the Practise and Doctrine of the Catholick Church Cypr. Ep. 59. August Ep. 28. de verb. Apost Ser. 14. Reply We perceive you will stick with us in more then Ceremonies To your reasons we Reply 1. By that reason all the Children of all Heathens or Infidels in the World should be admitted to Baptism because they should not be punished for the parents sakes 2. But we deny that it is among Christians that believe original Sin any absurdity to say that Children are punished for their Parents sakes 3. But yet we deny this to be any such punishment at all unless you will call their non-deliverance a punishment They are the Children of wrath by nature and have original Sin The Covenant of Grace that giveth the saving benefits of Christ is made to none but the faithfull and their seed Will you call this a punishing them for their Fathers sakes that God hath extended his Covenant to no more Their Parents infidelity doth but leave them in their original Sin and Misery and is not further it self imputed to them If you know of any Covenant or promise of Salvation made to all without condition or to Infants or any other condition or qualification but that they be the seed of the faithfull dedicated to God you should do well to shew it us and not so slightly pass things of so great moment in which you might much help the World out of darkness if you can make good what you intimate If indeed you mean as you seem to speak That its uncharitableness to punish any Infants for the Parents faults that a non-liberation is such a punishment then you must suppose that all the Infants of Heathens Jews Turks are saved that die in Infancy or else Christ is uncharitable And if they are all saved without Baptism then Baptism is of no such use or necessity as you seem to think What then is their priviledge of the seed of the faithfull that they are holy and that the Covenant is made with them God will be their God We fear you will again revive the opinion of the Anabaptists among the people when they observe that you have no more to say for the Baptizing of the Children of the faithfull then of Infidles Heathens Atheists To your second Objection we Answer You will drive many a faithfull labourer from the work of Christ if he may not be in the Ministry unless he will baptise the Children of Heathens Infidels and Excommunicate ones before their Parents do repent And the first Question is not Who shall be the judge But whether we must be all thus forced Is not the Question as great Who shall be the judge of the unfitness of Persons for the Lords Supper And yet there you think it not a taking too much upon us to keep away the scandalous if they have their Appeals to you And is it indeed a power too great arbitrary to have a judiciam discretionis about our own Acts and not to be forced to baptize the children of Heathens against our Consciences Who judged for the Baptizers in the Primitive Church what persons they should baptize We act but as Engines under you not as Men if we must not use our Reason and we are more miserable then brutes or men if we must be forced to go against our Consciences unless you will save us harmless before God O that in a fair debate you would prove to us that such children as are described are to be baptized and that the Ministers that baptize them must not have power to discern whom to baptize But who mean you by the Churches that must present every Infant that Christ may accept them Is every Infant first in the promise of pardon If so shew us that promise and then sure God will make good that promise though Heathen Parents present not their children to him as your grounds suppose if not then will the sign save those that are not in the promise But is it the Godfathers that are the Church Who ever called them so And if by the Church you mean the Minister and by presenting you mean baptizing them then any Heathen's child that a Minister can catch up and baptize shall be saved which if it could be proved would perswade us to go hunt for children in Turkie Tartary or America and secretly baptize them in a habit that should not make us known But there is more of fancy then charity in this and Christ never invited any to him but the children of the promise to be thus presented and baptized Sect. 3. P. 23. And then the Godfathers c. It is an erronious doctrine and the ground of many others and of many of your Exceptions that children have no other right to Baptism then in their Parents right The Churches Primitive practise forbids it to be left to the pleasure of Parents whether there shall be other Sareties or no It is fit we should observe carefully the practice of venerable Antiquity as they desire Prop. 18. Reply We conjecture the words that conclude your former Subject being mis-placed are intended as your Answer to this and if all the children of any sort in the world that are brought to us must by us be baptized without distinction indeed it 's no great matter what time we have notice of it It seems we differ in Doctrine though we subscribe the same Articles we earnestly desire you distinctly to tell us What is the Infants title to Baptism if it be not to be found in the Parent Assign it and prove it when you have done as well as we prove their right as they are the seed of Believers dedicated by them to God and then we promise to consent It s strange to
The reserving of Confirmation to the Bishop doth argue the Dignity of the Bishop above Presbyters who are not allowed to Confirm but does not argue any excellency in Confirmation above the Sacraments St. Hierom argues the quite contray ad Lucif cap. 4. That because Baptism was allowed to be performed by a Deacon but Confirmation only by a Bishop therefore Baptism was most necessary and of the greatest value The mercy of God allowing the most necessary means of Salvation to be administred by inferiour Orders and restraining the lesse necessary to the higher for the honour of their Order Reply O that we had the Primitive Episcopacy and that Bishops had no more Churches to oversee than in the Primitive times they had and then we would never speak against this reservation of Confirmation to the honour of the Bishop But when that Bishop of one Church is turned into that Bishop of many hundred Churches and when he is now a Bishop of the lowest rank that was an Arch-bishop when Arch-bishops first came up and so we have not really existent any meer Bishops such as the Antients knew at all but only Arch-bishops and their Curates Marvel not if we would not have Confirmation proper to Arch-bishops nor one man undertake more than an hundred can perform But if you will do it there is no remedie we have acquit our selves Prayer after the Imposition of hands is grounded upon the practice of the Apostles Heb. 6. 2. Acts 8. 17. Nor doth 25. Article say that Confirmation is a corrupt imitation of the Apostles practice but that the 5. commonly called Sacraments have ground partly on the corrupt following the Apostles c. which may be applied to some other of those 5 but cannot be applied to Confirmation unless we make the Church speak contradictions Reply But the question is not of Imposition of hands in generall but this Imposition in particular And you have never proved that this sort of Imposition called Confirmation is mentioned in those Texts And the 25. Article cannot more probably be thought to speak of any one of the 5. as proceeding from the corrupt imitation of the Apostles than of Confirmation as a supposed Sacrament We know no harm in speaking the language of holy Scripture Acts 8. 15. they laid their hands upon them and they received the Holy Ghost and though Impositions of hands be not a Sacrament yet it is a very fit sign to certifie the persons what is then done for them as the Prayer speaks Reply It is fit to speak the Scripture language in Scripture sense But if those that have no such power to give the Holy Ghost will say Receive the Holy Ghost it were better for them to abuse other language than Scripture language After Confirmation There is no inconvenience that Confirmation should be required before the Communion when it may be ordinarily obtained that which you here fault you elsewhere desire Reply We desire that the credible approved profession of Faith and repentance be made necessaries But not that all the thousands in England that never yet came under the Bishops hands as not one of many ever did even when they were at the highest may be kept from the Lords Supper for some cannot have that Imposition and others will not that yet are fit for Communion with the Church The Ring is a significant sign only of humane institution and was alwayes given as a pledge of fidelity and constant love and here is no reason given why it should be taken away nor are the reasons mentioned in the Roman Ritualits given in our Common-Prayer-Book Repl. We crave not your own forbearance of the Ring but the indifferencie in our use of a thing so mis-used and unnecessary These words in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost if they seem to make Matrimony a Sacrament may as well make all sacred yea civil actions of weight to be Sacraments they being usual at the beginning and ending of all such It was never heard before now that those words make a Sacrament Reply Is there no force in an argument drawn from the appearance of evil the offence and the danger of abuses when other words enow may serve turn They go to the Lords Table because the Communion is to follow Reply They must go to the Table whether there be a Communion or not Consecrated the estate of Matrimony to such an excellent mystery c. Though the institution of Marriage was before the Fall yet it may be now and is consecrated by God to such an excellent mystery as the representation of the spiritual marriage between Christ and his Church Eph. 5. 23. We are sorry that the words of Scripture will not please The Church in the 25. Article hath taken away the fear of making it for a Sacrament Reply When was Marriage thus consecrated If all things used to set forth Christs offices or benefits by way of similitude be consecrated then a Judge a Father a Friend a Vine a Door a Way c. are all consecrated things Scripture phrase pleaseth us in Scripture sense The new married persons the same day of their marriage must receive the Holy Communion This inforces none to forbear Marriage but presumes as well it may that all persons marriageable ought to be also fit to receive the Holy Sacrament And marriage being so solemn a Covenant of God they that undertake it in the fear of God will not stick to seal it by receiving the Holy Communion and accordingly prepare themselves for it Is were more Christian to desire that those licentious Festivities might be supprest and the Communion more generally used by those that marry the happiness would be greater then can easily be exprest Unde sufficiat ad enarrandum felicitatem ejus Matrimonii quod Ecclesia conciliat confirmat oblatio Tertul. lib. 2. ad Uxorem Reply Indeed will you phrase and modify your administrations upon such a supposition that all men are such as they ought to be and do what they ought to do Then take all the World for Saints and use them accordingly and blot out the doctrine of Reproof excommunication and damnation from your Bibles Is it not most certain that very many married persons are unfit for the Lords Supper and will be when you and we have done our best And is it fit then to compell them to it But the more unexpected the more welcom is your motion of that more Christian course of suppressing of licentious festivities When shall we see such Reformation undertaken Visitation of the Sick FOr as much as the condition c. All which is here desired is already presumed namely that the Minister shall apply himself to the particular condition of the person but this must be done according to the Rule of prudence and justice and not according to his pleasure therefore if the sick person shew himself truly penitent it ought not to be left