forgo their stations, rather then yield to thefe harmelefs impofitions? So much the more, therefore, do I marvell-how any delator could get any ground from you, whereon to place an accusation in this kind! But this, and the reft of thofe hiftoricall paffages, being only concerning things paft, have their end in my notice; Let me rather turn my pen to that part which calleth for my advise, which, for your fake, I could well with,were worthy to be held fuch, as that your felf and your collegues might find caule to reft in it: howfoever, it shall be honeft and hearty, and no other then I would, in the prefence of God, give to my own foul! Matters (you think) will not stand long at this point, but will come on further and prefs you to a refolution! What is to be done? will you hear me counselling as a friend, as a Brother? Since you foresee this; meet them in the way, with a refolution to intertain them and perfwade others. There are five points in queftion: The folemn feftivities: The private ufe of either Sacrament: Geniculation at the Eucharift: Confirmation by Bishops. For thefe, there may be a I double Plea infinuated (by way of comparison) in your Letters; Expedience in the things themfelves; Authority in the commander: fome things are therefore to be done because they are commanded: fome others are therefore commanded ; because they are to be done: obedience' pleads for the one, juftice for the other; If I fhall leave thefe in the firft rank, I fhall fatisfie, but if in the fecond I fhall fupererogate which if I do not, I fhall fail of my hopes. Let me profefs to you feriously. I did never fo bufily and intentively study thefe rituall matters, as I have done fince your Letters called me unto this task. Since which time (I speak boldly) I made no fpare either of hours, or papers, Neque enim magna exiliter, nec feria perfunctorie, as I have learned of our Nazianzen ; and befides, this, under one name, feemed a common cause, and therefore too worthy of my care Thefe are not (you know) matters of a day old, neither is it his Majefties defire, to trouble you with new coynes, but to rub up the rufty and obliterate face of the ancient. And furely, the more my thoughts were bent upon them, the more it appeared to me, that his Majefties intention is to deal with your Church, as he hath lately done with your Universities ;From which, I know not) what what indifcreet and idle zeal had banished all higher degrees; the name of a School-Docter was grown out of date; only one Graduate (that I heard of) at St. Andrews, out-lived that injury of times: Now comes his Majefty (as one born to the honor of learning) and reftores the Schooles to their former glories: This is no innovation (you will grant) but a renovation. No other is that which his Majefty wifheth to your Church: For, tell me I beseech you ( my dear Mr. Struther) do not you think that. those which took upon them the reformation of your Church went fomewhat too far? And (as it is in the fable) inwrapped the Stork together with the Cranes? I know your ingenuity fuch, as you cannot deny it:This you will grant apparently in the Church-patrimony (witnels your own learned and zealous invective how miferably fpoyled) in the exauthoration of Epifcopal office and dignity, in the demolition of Churches, and too many other of this ftamp; fo violent was that holy furor of piety: that hence it might well appear, what difference there is, betwixt the orderly proceedings of princely authority, and popular tumult: And why fhould you not yield me this in the business queftioned? Do but confider how farr it is fafe for a particular Church to depart from the antient and univerfal, and you cannot be less liberal: Surely no Chriftian can think it a fleight matter, what the church diffused through all times and places, hath either done or taught For doctrine or manners there is no question, and why fhould it be more fafe to leave it in the holy inftitutions that concerne the outward formes of Gods fervice? Novelty is a thing full of envy and fufpicion, and why lefs in matters of rite then doctrine? The Church is the mother of us all, the lefs important those things are which (in the power of a parent) the injoynes, the more hateful is the detrectation of our obfervance; you remember the question of the Sy-rians wife Servant; Father, if he had commanded thee fome great matter wouldst thou not have done it? True it is, that every Nation hath her own rites, geftures, cuftomes, wherein it was ever as free for it to differ from the reft of the World, as the world from it, yet in the mean time the facred affaires of God, have been ever acknowledged to have one common fashion of performance, in those points especially wherein hath been an univerfal agreement, every face hath his own favour, his own lines,diftinct from all others, yet is there there a certain common habitude of countenance and disposition of the forhead, eyes, cheeks, lips common unto all, fo as who,under this pretenfe of difference, fhall go about to raise an immunity from fuch ceremonies, do no other then argue, That because there is a diverfity of proportions of faces, we may well want a brow or a chin. There is nothing that the pontificians do fo commonly and with fo much noife upbraid us with, as our difceffion from the mother church, that is, as they interpret, the Roman, neither is there any one amongst all the loads of their reproaches that hath wrought us more envy then this. And how do we free our felves from the danger of this odious crimination, but thus (not to ftand upon the imperious title of motherhood) That fince for order fake, we acknowledged this primacy of the Western Church, we never departed one inch from the Roman, fave where the is perfidiously. gone from God, and her felf? Now, the cafes queftioned are for the most part only fuch, as you will confefs before the fufpicion of Antichriftian Apoftafy to have obtained eachwhere in the church.. Begin if you please with the folemn feftivities, turne over (I beseech vou) the hiftories of times, and places; you fhall never finde where these were either newly appointed, or not conftantly and continuedly observed in the church of God. I confefs with Socrates that neither Chrift nor any Apoftle enacted a law for thefe, but withall, I muft put you in mind,that what he denies to constitution, he grants to cuftome, and, obfervatio inveterata (that I may speak with Tertullian ) præveniende ftatum facit. As for the folemn feaft of Eafter which the Ancyran counsel called Diem magnum, how hotly the Church (even then in her fwathing bands) contended about it, all the World knowes. I fpeak nothing of the friendly differences of Policarpus and Anacletus, nor of the Angel of Hermes; The East and Weft were in this point fearfully divided; one part pleads a tradition from John and Philip, the other from Peter and Paul, both fides fought long and fore; at laft the Roman Victor won the day, (poftquam Afiæ Epifcopos fulmine facro perculiffet) Let Ireneus deeply cenfure him as a furious difturber of the publick peace; I meddle with neither part: This ftrife at last well laid,is after revived by the Syrian Divines? How strongly dotu the famous Nicene Council oppose it self to these new Tefferade catites s catites (as thofe times called them) yea what other caufe was there (except the madneffes of Arris and his followers, the Meletians and Colluthians) of cailing that venerable affembly together? after all this what difcouries paffed betwixt Leo the firit, Archbishop of Reme and Pafchafinus Lylibetanus, were needlefs to rehearse; and,how hot Chryfoftome was in this caufe, need no other proof then, that, (as Socrates witneffes) he took away the Churches from them which tycd Eater to the fourteenth Moon. Now, then, wherefore (I beseech you) was all this Afian conflict, wherefore this triumph of Victor, wherefore this infamous brand of the Quartadecimani ? Wherefore were those pafchal Letters of the antient, or golden number, or the calculations of the Bishops of Alexandria, or the curious determinations of the Nicene fathers, or the nice reckonings of Leo and Pafchafinus, if this might have paffed for lawfull, with one breath to deny the day, and with one dafh to blot it out of the holy Calender? certainly the antients knew not how to be thus witty, neither durft they thus boldly cut that knot, in the untying whereof, perhaps, they overspent their care and diligence. O ridiculous head of antiquity, if this fhort courte might have been fafely held in thofe former ages! Yea, tell me, I pray you, in all your readings, where ever you met with any man (befides those whom the Church hath held worthy the black marke of herefy) who either denied all obfervations of this folemnity, or approved the refufal of it by others? I can name you Aerius, a man blemished with more then the fcars of one herefy; And what (faith he) is the Pafch, that you keep? you are again addicted to Jewish fables; we must keep no pafch, for Christ our pafch is offered for us, and I can fhow you Epiphanius flying in his face with this juft reply, Who is likely to know more of thele matters? this feduced wretch which is yet living in the World, or those witneffes which have been before us, and had the tradition of the Church with them, which received from their fathers, that which,their fathers received from their forefathers, and ftill retaines what they taught both for faith and tradition ? The fame reason is there for the other feafts. Unto this of the Eafter (that I may speak in Leo's words to the Bishops of Sicily) is added the facred folemnity of Penticoft in memory of the coming of the holy Ghoft,which depends upon the time of the pafchal feaft: Neither did Eufebim doubt to call this festivitatum omnium principem ; You You know how honourable mention is made of it by Gregory Nazianzen, The Jew (faith he ) keeps feaft daies, but according to the letter; the Gentile keeps feaft dayes,but according to the flesh; 'we keep fealt dayes alfo,but that we may fay or do fomething ac'cording to the Spirit; and foon after, The Hebrews keep their Pen'ticoft, and we keep it as we do fome other Jewish rites, but they "Typically, we Myitically,we celebrate Penticoft for the coming of 'the holy Ghoft, as the day fet for the performance of this prom fe and the fulfilling of our hope, and how great a myftery is this, how 'facred.--I cannot therefore paffe over that of our Centurifts which can fay there is fcarce any expreffe mention of any of the feasts in antiquity,befides Eafter; I may not admit all the bedroll that Polydore Virgill inferts into the Apoftolicall folemnities, I had rather hold the mid-way between both. That memorable place of Auftin is to me in ftead of a thousand witneffes, neither need we care for other evidence whileft we have one fo abfolute, you know where to find it, in the 118. Epistle to Januarius, Illa autem, qua non Scripta fed tradita custodimus, quæ quidem toto terrarum orbe olfervantur, dantur intelligi, vel ab ipfis Apostolis, vel plenariis conciliis (quorum eft in Ecclefia faluberrima authoritas) commendata, atque statuta retineri; ficut quod domini paffio, & refurrectio, & afcenfio in cœlum, & adventus de cœlo fpiritus fancti, anniverfaria folemnitate celebrantur, & fi quod aliud occurrerit ; quod fervatur ab univerfa, ( quacunque fe diffundit) Ecclefia. But if thefe feafts could not show fo ancient and noble a pedigree, what hinders that the Church may not appoint certain dayes to the bleffed memory of thefe excellent benefits > Doubtless, this right fhe hath heretofore challenged to her felf in leffer occafions, and I do not finde any man that ever accused her of rafhnefs, or prefumption, how folemn the dayes of Purim were to the Jewes, is known to all, denyed of none, and their (in) feaft of Dedication (which Castalio affectedly calls Renovalia) fet a part to the memory, not fo much of the temple,as the altar recovered from former profa-. nation,our Saviour himself (you know ) honefted with his prefence: look on the hiftory of the Maccabees ( that book, if for matter of faith it be Apocryphal, yet hath Canon enough for matter of fact) you shall finde that when Nicanor (the deadly enemy of the Jewes) was difcomfited, and flain, a day was appointed by publick autho Mm ricy |