But see, Christian Reader, how this man drags in crimes upon us, as Cacus did his oxen. We do, forsooth, part stakes with God in our conversion:-wherein? "in a devised Ministry, the means of conversion." Well fetched about: there may be a Ministry, without a conversion; and, è converso, there may be a conversion, without a Ministry. Where now are the stakes parted? Yet thus we part stakes, with the Apostle, that we are God's fellow labourers in this great work. He hath separated us to it, and joined us with him in it. It is he, as we have proved, that hath devised our Ministry. Yea, yourself shall prove it: it is his peculiar, to appoint the outward Ministry, that gives the inward grace. But hath not God given inward grace, by our outward Ministry? Your hearts shall be our witnesses. What will follow therefore, but that our Ministry is his peculiar appointment ? SECT. 35. Kneeling at the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Sep. "Where, say you, are those rotten heaps of Transubstantiating of Bread? and where, say I, learned you your devout kneeling to or before the bread, but from that error of Transubstantiation? Yea, what less can it insinuate, than either that, or some other the like idolatrous conceit? If there were not something more in the bread and wine, than in the water at Baptism, or in the Word read or preached, why should such solemn kneeling be so severely pressed at that time, rather than upon the other occasions? And, well and truly have your own men affirmed, that it were far less sin, and appearance of an idolatry that is nothing so gross, to tie men in their prayers to kneel before a crucifix, than before the bread and wine and the reason followeth, for that Papists commit an idolatry far inore gross and odious in worshipping the bread, than in worshipping any other of their images or idols whatsoever. Apol. of the Min. of Lincoln Dioc. part 1. p. 66." OUR kneeling you derive, like a good herald, from the error of Transubstantiation. But, to set down the descent of this pedigree, will trouble you: we do utterly deny it, and challenge your proof. How new a fiction Transubstantiation is, appears out of Berengary's Recantation to Pope Nicholas †. The error was then so young, it had not learned to speak: shew us the same novelty in our kneeling. Till of late, men held not the bread to be God: of old, they have held it sacred. This is the gesture of reverence in our prayer at the receipt, as Master Burgess well interpreted it; not of idolatrous adoration of * 1 Cor. iii. 9. Θεῦ γάς ἐσμεν συνεργοί. + De consecr. d. 2. Ego Bereng. Apol. the bread. This was most-what in the elevation: the abolishing whereof clears us of this imputation. You know we hate this conceit: why do you thus force wrongs upon the innocent? Neither are we alone in this use. The Church of Bohemia allows and practises it. And why is this error less palpable in the wafers of Geneva? If the king should offer us his hand to kiss, we take it upon our knees: how much more, when the King of Heaven gives us his Son, in these pledges? But if there were not something more than just reverence, why do we solemnly kneel at the Communion, not at Baptism?-Can you find no difference? In this, besides that there is both a more lively and feeling signification of the thing represented, we are the parties; but, in the other, witnesses. This, therefore, I dare boldly say, that if your partner, M. Smith, should ever, which God forbid, persuade you to rebaptize, your fittest gesture, or any other's at full age, would be to receive that Sacramental water, kneeling. How glad you are to take all scraps, that fall from any of ours for your advantage! Would to God this observation of your malicious gatherings, would make all our reverend brethren weary of their censures! Surely, no idolatry can be worse than that Popish agтohatgɛíα. The bread and the crucifix strive for the higher place. If we should, therefore, be so tied to kneel before the bread, as they are tied to kneel before the crucifix, their sentence were just. They adore the crucifix; not we the bread: they pray to the crucifix; not we to the bread: they direct their devotions, at the best, by the crucifix to their Saviour; we do not so by the bread: we kneel no more to the bread, than to the pulpit when we join our prayers with the Minister's. But our quarrel is not with them. You, that can approve their judgments in dislike, might learn to follow them in approbation and peaceable communion with the Church. If there be a galled place, you will be sure to light upon that. Your charity is good; whatsoever your wisdom be. SECT. 36. Whether our Ordinary, and Service-Book be made idols by us. Sep.-" Adoring of Images. To let pass your devout kneeling unto your Ordinary, when you take the oath of canonical obedience, or receive absolution at his hands, which, as the main actions are religious, must needs be religious adoration; what is the adoring of your truly human, though called Divine, Service-Book, in and by which you worship God, as the Papists do by their images? If the Lord Jesus, in his Testament, have not commanded any such book, it is accursed and abominable: if you think he have, shew us the place where, that we may know it with you; or manifest unto us, that ever the Apostles used themselves, or commended to the Churches after them, any such Service-Book. Was not the Lord, in the Apostles' time and Apostolic Churches, purely and perfectly worshipped, when the Officers of the Church, in their ministration, manifested the spirit of prayer, which they had received according to the present necessities and occasions of the Church, before the least parcel of this patchery came into the world? And might not the Lord now be also purely and perfectly worshipped, though this printed image, with the painted and carved images, were sent back to Rome; yea, or cast to hell, from whence both they and it came? Speak in yourself, might not the Lord be entirely worshipped with pure and holy worship, though none other book but the Holy Scriptures were brought into the Church? If yea, as who can deny it that knows what the worship of God meaneth, what then doth your Service-Book there? The Word of God is perfect, and admitteth of none addition. Cursed be he, that addeth to the Word of the Lord; and cursed be that, which is added: and so be your great idol, the Communion-Book; though, like Nebuchadnezzar's Image, some part of the matter be gold and silver; which is also so much the more detestable, by how much it is the more highly advanced amongst you." YET more idolatry? And, which is more, new and strange; such, I dare say, as will never be found in the two first Commandments. Behold here two new idols; our Ordinary, and our Service-Book; a speaking idol, and a written idol! Calicut hath one strange deity, the Devil: Siberia, many; whose people worship, every day, what they see first. Rome hath many merry Saints: but, Saint Ordinary and Saint Service-Book were never heard of till your canoni zation. In earnest, do you think we make our Ordinary an idol ? "What else? you kneel devoutly to him, when you receive either the oath or absolution. This must needs be religious adoration:"Is there no remedy? You have twice kneeled to our Vice-Chancellor, when you were admitted to your degree: you have oft kneeled to your parents and Godfathers, to receive a blessing: did you make idols of them? The party to be ordained, kneels under the hand of the Presbytery: doth he religiously adore them? Of old, they were wont to kiss the hands of their Bishops *: so they did to Baal. God and our superiors have had ever one and the same outward gesture: though here, not the agent is so much regarded, as the action. If your Ordinary would have suffered you to have done this piece of idolatry, you had never separated. "But the true God-Bel and Dragon of England, is the HumanDivine-Service-Book :" Let us see what ashes or lumps of pitch this Daniel brings. We * Paulus, in Vitâ Ambros. worship God in and by it, as Papists do by their images :-Indeed, we worship God in and by the prayers contained in it. Why should we not? Tell me, why is it more idolatry for a man to worship God in and by a prayer read or got by heart, than by a prayer conceived? I utter both they are both mine: if the heart speak them both, feelingly and devoutly, where lies the idol? In a conceived prayer, is it not possible for a man's thought to stray from his tongue? in a prayer learned by heart or read, is it not possible for the heart to join with the tongue? If I pray therefore in spirit, and heartily utter my desires to God, whether in mine own words or borrowed (and so made mine), what is the offence? "But," say you, "if the Lord Jesus, in his Testament, have not commanded any such book, it is accursed and abominable:" But, say I, if the Lord Jesus hath not any where forbidden such a book, it is not accursed nor abominable. Shew us the place where, that we may know it with you. Nay, but I must shew you where the Apostles used any such Service-Book : Shew you me, where the Apostles baptized in a bason: or where they received women to the Lord's Table; for your* vos, ὁ ἄνθρωπος, 1 Cor. xi. will not serve: shew me, that the Bible was distinguished into chapters and verses in the Apostles' time: shew me, that they ever celebrated the Sacrament of the Supper at any other time than evening †, as your Anabaptists now do: shew me, that they used one prayer before their Sermons always, another after; that they preached ever upon a text; where they preached over a table: or, lastly, shew me where the Apostles used that prayer, which you made before your last prophecy; and a thousand such circumstances. What an idle plea is this from the Apostolic times! And, if I should tell you that St. Peter celebrated with the Lord's Prayer, you will not believe it: yet you know the history . But let the reader know, that your quarrel is not against the matter, but against the book; not as they are prayers, but as stinted or prescribed: wherein all the world, besides yourselves, are idolaters. Behold, all Churches that were or are, are partners with us in this crime. O idolatrous Geneva, and all French, Scottish, Danish, Dutch Churches! All which both have their set prayers with us, and approve them. Quod ad formulam &c. " As concerning a form of prayers and rites ecclesiastical," saith Reverend Calvin §, "I do greatly allow, that it should be set and certain, from which it should not be lawful for Pastors, in their function, to depart." Judge now of the spirit of these bold controllers, that dare thus condemn all God's Churches through the world, as idolatrous. But, since you call for Apostolic examples, did not the Apostle Paul use one set form of apprecations, of benedictions? What were these, but lesser prayers? the quantity varies not the kind. Passage 'twixt Clifton and Smith. + Egyptii, ubi lautè epulati sunt, post cænam id faciunt. Socr. 1. v. c. 21, Platin. initio. Calvin. Epist. ad Protect. Ang!. Epist. 87. Will you have yet ancienter precedents? The Priest was appointed of old, to use a set form, under the Law; Num. vi. 23-26: so the people; Deut. xxvi. 3, 5-10, 13, 14, 15: both of them a stinted psalm, for the Sabbath; Ps. xcii. What saith your Doctor to these? "Because the Lord," saith he*, "gave forms of prayers and psalms, therefore the Prelates may! Can we think that Jeroboam had so slender a reason for his calves?" Mark, good reader, the shifts of these men. This Answerer calls for examples, and will abide no stinting of prayers, because we shew no patterns from Scripture. We do shew patterns from Scripture: and, now, their Doctor saith, "God appointed it to them of old: must we therefore do it?" So, whether we bring examples or none, we are condemned. But, Master Doctor, whom, I beseech you, should we follow, but God, in his own services? If God have not appointed it, you cry out upon inventions: if God have appointed it, you cry, we may not follow it. Shew, then, where God ever enjoined an ordinary service to himself, that was not ceremonial (as this plainly is not), which should not be a direction for us? But if stinting our prayers be a fault, for as yet you meddle not with our blasphemous Collects+, it is well that the Lord's Prayer itself beareth us company, and is no small part of our idolatry: which, though it were given principally as a rule to our prayers ; yet, since the matter is so heavenly, and most wisely framed to the necessity of all Christian hearts, to deny that it may be used entirely in our Saviour's words, is no better than a fanatical curiousness. Yield one and all: for, if the matter be more divine, yet the stint is no less faulty. This is not the least part of our patchery: except you unrip this, the rest you cannot. But might not God be purely and perfectly worshipped with out it? Tell me, might not God be purely and perfectly worshipped without churches, without houses, without garments, yea, without hands or feet? In a word, could not God be purely worshipped, if you were not? yet would you not seem a superfluous creature: speak in yourself. Might not God be entirely worshipped with pure and holy worship, though there were no other books in the world, but the Scripture? If yea, (as who can deny it, that knows what the worship of God meaneth?) what then do the Fathers, and Doctors, and learned Interpreters? To the fire with all those curious Arts and Volumes, as your predecessors called them. Yea, let me put you in mind, that God was purely and perfectly worshipped by the Apostolic Church, before ever the New Testament was written. See, therefore, the idleness of your proofs: God may be served + Counterpois, 236. * Answ. to the Minist. Counterpois. 237. Omnibus arietibus gregis, id est, Apostolis suis dedit morem orandi, Dimitte nobis &c. Aug. Epist. 89. |