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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
act_n	church_n	communion_n	perform_v	3,059	5	9.9633	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A82002	A sober and temperate discourse, concerning the interest of words in prayer, the just antiquity and pedigree of liturgies, or forms of prayer in churches : with a view of the state of the church, when they were first composed, or imposed. Together with a discovery of the weakness of the grounds upon which they were first brought in, or upon which Bishop Gawden hath lately discoursed, the necessity of a liturgie, or the inconveniency of altering the English liturgie, the utility of church musick, and the lawfulness of ceremonies : in which are mixed reasons justifying those godly ministers, who forbear the use of the Common-prayer, against the late out-cryes of the said bishop. / By H.D. M.A.	H. D. (Henry Dawbeny); Collinges, John, 1623-1690, attributed name.	1661 (1661)	Wing D449; Thomason E1086_14; ESTC R208152	100,305	119

uncharitably and falsly asserted We have not blessed be God such a pitiful Church that there are no Ministers in it but are liable to the charge of serving God in Prayer with rudeness unpreparedness barreness superficiality defect deformity and that both in matter manner judgment and expression No Jesuit ever had the confidence so to asperse the Ministry of England nor could speak more sordidly to their dishonour Possibly there may be some and there have been far more than now are who may be too liable to this charge But where 's the fault Is it not in those to whom the trust is committed of taking a due cognisance of such as offer themselves to be ordained or admitted to the cure of souls Should not they take care to admit none but such as are both able to preach and to pray Do they not discharge their work conscientiously while they admit such as are not able to pray without such rudeness as is here complained of or make no more conscience of it than to do it unpreparedly superficially with so much barrenness defect and deformity such as neither have judgment to compose a Prayer as to matter nor elocution to pray as to manner so but that people shall have just cause to nauseate the Worship of God 4. If the Doctor means by his phrase of every Minister being subject c. only that 't is possible that the best Ministers may so be negligent c. as to run upon this Rock that is as true concerning reading Prayers none will deny but he that can read very well may read false and if he keeps not his mind intent no doubt but he will perform the Service as rudely and superficially by reading as by speaking Instances might be given of this and shall if need be And certainly the conceiving of a Prayer will command more attention of mind than reading can All therefore said under this Head is meer air III. But Secondly He tels us That a Lyturgy is a most excellent means to preserve the truth of Christian and Reformed Doctrine by the consonancy of publick Devotions Pag. 10. into which otherwise corrupt minds are apt to infuse the sour Leaven of their own corrupt Opinions Fine words again But what reason we have before shewed it to be 1. Questionable whether a lawful means or no. 2. If lawful by no means effectual except it reach to all Praying and Preaching too 3. Not the only means a good Summary of Christian Faith is far more proper and rational 4. A means bringing a mischief as bad as what it pretends to cure yea far worse fit for nothing but to breed rents and separations the mothers of all Heresies 5. An Apochryphal means by which men make themselves wiser than Christ and his Apostles or the Purer Church We shall only propound this Question upon this suggestion If this be true how comes it to pass that all the Arminians and Popishly affected Clergy-men of England are such Zealots for a lyturgy The thing is demonstrably true that it is so let the Doctor answer this Question by his next IV. But Thirdly A Lyturgy he saith is necessary for the holy Harmony and sweet communion of all Christians as well in National as Parochial Churches whilst thereby they are all kept in one mind and Spirit praying the same things and chearfully saying Amen to the same Praises and Petitions Here is the old Fallacy still of Verba elegancia pro sensu simplici That all Christians have the same common wants and ought to pray for the same things in the main is to be granted though as particular persons so particular Churches may have renewing wants not common to all for which a Lyturgy will not serve the turn But is there any so simple as not to understand that the same things may be prayed for in different words and phrases The Doctor here mistook his Mark he should have proved that it is the Will of God that Christians should maintain their Communion in the use of the same phrases letters and syllables And when he had done that a Popish Priest should have improved his Notion and concluded that because the one body of Christ should have but one tongue and since the confusion at Babel men in several nations have spoke several languages therefore to the perfection of the Communion of the Church there is not only a Liturgy necessary but a Liturgy every where in Latine that being a Language most universally known The Churches external Communion lyes in their keeping the same Sabbath performing the same Acts of worship of which prayer is one confession of Original and Actual sins praying for the same mercies generally c. not in their saying all the same words sure He tells us fourthly That a Liturgical form is not onely of great benefit and comfort to the more knowing judicious and well-bred sort of Christians but highly to their security and to the holy and humble composure of their spirit in the worship of God who otherwise are prone not onely amidst the publique devotions curiously to censure but scoffingly to despise By the way this is no Demonstration neither of their Christianity nor of their good breeding yea many times to laugh at and at best to pity or deplore the evident defects and incongruities which appear in many Ministers odd expressions and incongruous wayes of officiating c. To reduce these many words to a short sum of reason the usefulness of imposed Liturgies is here pleaded 1. For the benefit of the most knowing judicious and well-bred sort of Christians 2. To avoid the censures scoffs and jears of others The Dr. hath not yet told us what benefit accrues to the former from a Liturgy nor yet what solid grounds of comfort for them to feed upon the want of which it may be is the reason that if others guess rightly that take all the professors of Religion that can but give any understanding account of the Systeme of Divinity and live in any sobriety of life and conversation and number them taking their judgment as you go along and in will be found that ten for one are against any imposed Forms On the other side it is certain that some others make it all their Religion So it was of old That Holy and Learned Oeculampadius living in a Noble mans house who yet was a Protestant and would seem a forward man in the Reformation complains of the slender regard the greatest part of the Family gave to him and to his Ministry in a Letter to his Friend in these words Such a man saith he sent for me that I might publickly in the Church instruct his Family in the Christian Religion or rather feed them with the words of Christ who were initiated already I counted it my chief duty to make the Evangelical Law known familiar at hand to them that so afterwards they might of themselves proceed in the true and sincere study of Christianity Peace Meekness

prayer both of them are lamentable restraints put upon the gifts of God bestowed upon his Ministers to that very end that by the use of them they might be profitable unto his people II. We are sure it is the unquestionable duty of every one that prayeth to do it with the highest intention of mind imaginable and with the greatest fervency of Spirit and that it is not lawful for any man in prayer to allow himself in any thing which may either divert his mind from the most fixed contemplation of God or intention upon his duty or which may any way cool the heat and fervency of his Spirit We cannot be induced to believe that any one can possibly so keep his soul fixed upon God or so intent upon God whiles he reads a Prayer as while he speaks it from his own conception we find by experience not to determine positively of the frame of other persons Spirits a great difference in the intention and fervency in our Spirits when our words in prayer are directed and determined by the inward heat fervency and affection of our hearts from what is when our words are determined for us by other men yea by our selves before the time of prayer vve humbly conceive that every Christian stands bound not onely to look that there be an habit of fervency in his heart vvhich at all times should dispose it to duties of communion with God but that a particular fervency should attend the act of Prayer If we durst boast of the former yet we find the latter certainly hindered by a prescribed form and we do believe this may be experienced by any person 's speaking to a man for his life vve do not think it possible for any man to have or shew the like affection and fervency in reading a Speech which another hath made for him no not in what he hath made for himself before that time as he may by such words as the present sense of his condition in that moment of time shall dictate to him nor have we ever heard of any malefactor at the bar that brought his Speech for his life in a form if he did we believe there was even by the hearers discerned a vast difference betwixt such speeches and such as a person speaks at that time to whom a lively sence of his condition dictates words in that hour III. Nor can we believe that any Minister praying in any form useth so rational and experimented a means to affect his hearers hearts as he who useth none As in preaching there is a certain lively efficacy of the voice which every hearer discerneth more in the Preachers speaking ex animo then from his reading a Sermon which is past denial evidenced though it be not so easie to say what it is So that a Sermon yea an ordinary Oration so spoke moves and affects the hearers infinitely more then a Sermon or an Oration read out of a paper though it be never so well starcht up with Oratory and set out with the highest advantage of an Oratorial reading tongue so we believe and find it in the matter of prayer and in very deed the reason of this we conceive lyeth much in this because the Speaker himself is discernably not so much affected in reading as in speaking 'T is one thing for the heart and affections to precede the action of the tongue and to see it on work another thing for them to follow the tongue and be commanded by it IV. Speaking is an immediate act of the Tongue but commanded by the Soul the Tongue is but the Souls Organ by which it exerciseth that power vvhich God hath given it and it cannot be so well performed as when the Soul that directs performs its work by dictating immediately to it So that much of the Spirit and life of prayer is lost in praying by forms V. Nay lastly to add no more if there were nothing else in the case we should think it very disputable Whether it be lawful for us in the publique worship of God especially as to the momentous acts and parts of it to do that for which we have no command in the Word of God no president or example and we cannot but think that the holy Psalmist's variety of prayers and the variety of prayers which we find used by the several Saints and holy pen-men of Scripture none of which as to words and phrases agrees per omnia with another should rather teach us that when we go unto God in prayer observing the general rules of prayer laid down in the Scripture we should take unto us words de novo as God shall put them into our hearts then borrow words from others hardly fitted to our hearts or present necessities If any have not ability to do it we conceive it is his own fault and it were far more consonant to the rule of Gods Word that such should be removed from Gods Altar then that the gifts of God bestowed upon others for the benefit of his Church should be restrained for their sake which we think would be something like his act who cut the man fit for the bed because the bed way not fit for him Certainly in all congruity of reason if the Church be pestered and must needs continue so with a generation of men who either through ignorance or through a wofull neglect to stir up the gift of God in them cannot pray without a book and for their sake a Liturgy or stinted forms in prayer be necessary yet from hence cannot be concluded any lawfulness much less necessity that those to whom God hath given other abilities and another spirit should be obliged to use it or that it should be imposed upon them CHAP. IX The Ministers second Reason drawn from the disputableness of the lawfulness of using any Forms of humane composure formerly defiled by use in an idolatrous service conjoined with the scandal of many Christians arising upon that account I. BUt suppose we were satisfied that it were lawful for Ministers of the Gospel to use Forms of Prayer and that at all times and that this were no stifling of the gift of prayer no diversion to the intention of our minds nor abatement to the fervor of our spirits nor to the affections of our people to do any thing apertly tending to any of which is simply unlawful yet there are particular reasons which appear to us cogent enough as to the restraint of us from the using of this form II. We cannot but have some doubts whether it be lawful for us in the worship of God by an act of ours to offer up any thing to God of meer humane composition which hath been once offered in an idolatrous service especially when our Brethren say unto us This hath been so offered That the worship of the Church of Rome is idolatrous grosly idolatrous vve hope no sober Protestants will deny their Veneration of Images Adoration of the Eucharists Invocation of Saints are all

idolatries Some of these are done as oft as their Mass-book is used so that their vvorship toties quoties as it is performed is idolatrous though not in every part yet in the complex III. We do observe how some Prelatists mince this point of the Idolatry of the Church of Rome they can grant vvith much ado vve believe that the worship of the Church of Rome is in some sense idolatrous what their sense is vve cannot tell nor care to inquire vve believe that except some few Pagans vvho might terminatively vvorship the Sun and Moon as thinking those noble Creatures vvere the very first movers and principles That never any heathens vvere guilty of more stupid sottish idolary then the Papists are For let vain persons talk vvhat they please it vvill never enter into our thoughts that either the Jews Jeroboam or Michal thought their Images the first principles of life and being such as reason teacheth to all that God must be nor yet that the Egyptians quibus nascebantur in hortis Numinae vvho vvorshipped any plants or any thing from vvhich they had good or hurt thought that those things vvere God They onely dreamt that God vvas Anima mundi the Soul of the World informing every living thing and vvorshipped an unknown God in the creature or by some created representation vvhich is yet gross and accursed idolatry and such is the Popish vvorship IV. VVe are not so filly as to think that the holy Scriptures dictated by the Spirit of God or any thing else of purely Divine Institution is capable of corruptions and therefore cannot but vvith some laughter read the argumentations of them vvho argue that if vve reject the Liturgy V. Dr. Causabon on the Lords prayer because the idolatrous Papists used it vve must also refuse the Scriptures and the Lords Prayer these are but toyes to blind common people vvho cannot see to the bottom of an Argument The holy Scriptures are incapable of pollution by any idolatrous service V. Their answer is as filly vvho tell us that then vve must use none of our Churches VVhen vve offer up Churches to God by any rational act vve vvill consider of this frivolous answer vvhich indeed may concern them that dream of a holiness in them by reason of dedication or the like it concerns not us vvho onely use them as convenient places in vvhich vve meet to serve God and believe them no more holy then any other places though the Law of Nature obligeth us to keep and use them decently VVe do so by our parlours vvhere we converse vvith our friends VI. Prayer is a piece of Gospel Sacrifice and by a rational act of our souls to be offered unto God now vvhether it be lawful for us vvhen the earth is the Lord and fulness thereof vvhereas God hath given us an ability to speak vvords in another form to take those very forms and to offer them up to God in true Gospel vvorship vvhich have been offered in an idolatrous service though the matter of those forms be not idolatrous is to us a great doubt nor can vve be satisfied in the lawfulness of it VII The ground of our scruple is in that known Text 1 Cor. 10. where the Apostle treateth concerning the lawfulness of eating meats that had been once offered to idols He determines as to a double case 1. That it is not lawful to eat such meats in an idols Temple 2. In case it be sold in the shambles and we know it not he determines that we may buy and eat it But in case our Brother saith unto us this hath been offered to an idol he saith Eat it not So that our Brethrens scandal upon such a foundation is to be avoided by us he gives the reason because there is other meat to eat The earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof VIII For our part we are not able to fathom a reason why a form of words fitted up for use in prayer should not be liable to the same corruption and pollution that a dish of meat fitted for natural use is or why it should be unlawful for one to eat the latter if once offered in an idolatrous service our Brother minding us of it and it yet be lawful to use a form of words in prayer so formerly used when our Brother is so scandalized IX We are aware of what the Drs. of Aberdeen said of old to prove that the scandal of brethren weighs light when put in the scale with the command of Authority There may something be said for their Assertion where the scandal is meerly passive and hath no foundation in re only men are offended because they are offended but where the scandal is such as is so far allowed by Scripture that a Negative precept is given upon it eat it not we are not of so easie a faith as to believe what they say when Gods word saith do it not Man cannot oblige our conscience to do it he may oblige us to suffer but not to act and that this is the case is evident Our Brethren say to us These Forms have been offered up in an idolatrous service and we know this is truth X. The Bishop of Exeter is mistaken therefore in suggesting that we forbear the using of the Liturgy out of a little point of reputation amongst some people rather weak then wise and to be pitied more then imitated and he shews little charity or candor in saying we sacrifice our judgements not to say our consciences to our credits and out of a fear or lothness to offend some people whom we might easily convince and satisfie as well by our examples as by arguments c. This is not spoken like a tender and a good Christian We hope we can say we value our reputation at a low rate in comparison of our duty Nor do we think non-conformity the way to credit now but that our peoples souls of which we confess we are tender are more weak then wise we cannot say Wisdom lies in avoiding sin yea the least sin and all appearances of evil That here is an appearance of evil no reasonable person can deny it is not so clear that we may do that as to forms of prayer which the word expresly forbids us as to a piece of meat not is it so clear to us that we may obey man in any case where the Word of God saith as to the thing commanded Do it not XI In the mean time we think those are to be pitied who had rather that their brethren should be all persecuted imprisoned banished together with those thousands of godly people who cannot in conscience worship God with these forms differences in the Church perpetuated and that so many thousands of sober people should have such a temptation to entertain hard thoughts of their Magistrate c. In short who had rather confound heaven and earth and scandalize all Christians in the world then lay aside forms of prayer of

question why should so many good Subjects be lost to a Nation why should they have temptations to estrange their hearts from the ancient and excellent government thereof But matters of policy we most humbly leave to the grave wisdom and deliberations of His Sacred Majesty and His Parliaments Onely we must add a word to one or two Suggestions more which the Bishop hath for the imposing of the Liturgy CHAP. XIV Bishop Gaudens two Arguments from the Authority of the Church the influence of Subjects Conformity in devotion to their Prince considered No necessity of using the Liturgy upon these accounts I. THe truth is in other parts of his Book the Bishop did but like the Lapwing fly far about from his main design and argument which p. 27. he toucheth and yet but very tenderly The Authority of the Church must not be baffled Here indeed is the bottom of all we must have Liturgies and Ceremonies imposed to maintain the Authority and pomp and grandieur of what they call the Church II. The name of the Church is a reverend name and her Authority is reverend and by no means to be baffled for Christ is in her But as the Name and Authority of a rightful King is reverend so both the name and authority of an Usurper is justly abominable And as no Magistrates command is to be obeyed where he hath no right to command so neither is any Church nor is denial of obedience in that case any contempt of the Authority either of the Magistrate or of the Church we must therefore enquire strictly what Church this is which is clothed with Authority and what power she hath in the things we dispute about III. The Church is either Triumphant or Militant The Militant Church is visible or invisible It must be the Militant visible Church this also is an homonimous term and either signifies the universality of the people or the messengers of the people The Universality of people baptized into the name of Christ over all the world make up the Catholike visible Church The whole Company of them in this of that Province Nation City Parish make such a National Provincial or Parochial Church But we do not think this is the Church clothed with Authority We understand by a Church in that sense The Officers of such a Church constituted according to Gods Word whether they be the Officers of a particular Church or the messengers of the particular Churches in a Lugentile Synod a National or Provincial Synod or if it were possible in an Oecumenical Synod To Churches in all these political senses vve ow great reverence and acknowledge that to their several capacities several degrees of authority to admonish suspend excommunicate deprive declare the doctrine of saith in doubtful cases appoint some things truly and properly relating to decency or order c. IV. But it is more then we know that any such Church as this ever established a Liturgie in England The Papists have devised a new notion of a Church to them the Pope and his Cardinals make the Church but that any such notion of Church is justifiable from Scriptures Protestants deny V. Our State hath been pleased in some Acts of Parliament to take Church in another notion and to call the Prelacy of England the Church of England That this application of the term Church is not to be justified from Scripture or Reason is plain nor is it needful they may if they please call the Prelacy of England the Parliament or by what other name they please what should hinder But they cannot give them that Authority which the word of God allows onely to a Church in another notion but may cloath them with vvhat civil power they please VI. Hence it appears that it is all one vvith us in England to baffle or despise the Church and State for that company of men whom vve call the Church of England by a new civil application of the term is nothing else Then a company of men by a Civil Power made Bishops and called to advise the State in things concerning Religion who have no more Authority then they derive from the King or Parliament for whence should they have it Not from Nature Surely no Ecclesiastical power is derived from thence Not from Scripture upon any pretence for if vvhen Christ gave the Keyes to Peter he intended his single person as the Papists vvould have it then St. Peter's successor only can pretend to them if he gave them to Peter as an Officer of the Church then there must be either a full Convention of such Officers or some persons chosen by them to use them If to Peter as a Christian then the Authority is in the Community VII It remains that according to the Constitution of English Synods the Churches Authority is but derivative from the Civil State and to disobey them is no sin further then it is a disobedience to the lawful Civil Magistrate to vvhom vve freely grant an authority so far as Gods vvord allows us and such an authority as none ought to resist or baffle as the Bishop sayes The Church of England which we so often hear of is a Civil Church not an authoritative Church in a Scriptural notion VIII We again say Far be it from us to oppose Civil Authority either exercised by Lay persons or Ecclesiastical persons We acknowledge it our duty to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars We further say vve are bound to obey the Civil Magistrate in all things in things lawful Actively in things unlawful in themselves or vvhich appear so to us by suffering their vvill and pleasure quietly and patiently That vvhich vve insist upon is onely a lawful means in order to our own preservation i. e. humbly desiring the Civil Magistrate to forbear imposing upon us in the tender things of God IX VVe freely allow to the Civil Magistrate a power to command us in all civil things and shall chearfully obey him 2. To command us to keep the Statutes and Commandments of God 3. To command us in the Circumstances relating to Divine Worship to do those things vvhich are generally commanded us in the vvord to appoint time and place and such circumstances vvithout vvhich the vvorship of God in the judgement of ordinary reason must be indecently and disorderly performed X. For his power in imposing Forms of prayer significant ceremonies c. vve do not dispute it but vve humbly crave leave to dissent in this and to have liberty to suffer his pleasure as becomes Christians rather then do those things vvhich our consciences vvould condemn us for And in this vve appeal to all sober Divines and all rational Christians vvhether vve speak not as becomes sober Christians XI VVe cannot vvithout some passion read vvhat the Bishop sayes p. 28. Doubtless Subjects cannot be so tite and firm or so zealous and firm or so chearful and constant in their Loyalty love and duty to their Soveraign if they

their guilt XIV 'T is true The number of Ceremonies retained in our Church pretending to any legal authority is but small The Surplis the Cross and kneeling at Sacrament are we think all See more of this point about Ceremonies in Altare Damascenum A dispute about the English Popish Ceremonies Dr. Ames his fresh suit against Ceremonies in all which this point about Ceremonies is execellently handled but we know how grosly all these are abused by the Papists that none of them have any footing in Scripture that kneeling as Sacrament was never heard of in the Church till 1226. in Pope Honorius his time admirably fitted to their idolatry of Transubstantiation That they grosly make the Cross an Idol That the Surplis is made significant of many things for which we can see no ground at all that all these have been strenuously opposed by as holy and learned men as any our Church hath bred That the patern of all Synods Acts 15. thought fit to impose only some few necessary things for the state of the Church at that time That the urging of these Ceremonies hath been the cause of sad separations the loss of diverse learned and holy mens ministry The offence of the generality of pious people That the imployment of the Ecclesiastical Courts was almost wholly taken up about Ministers and people not conforming to these instead of admonishing suspending excommunicating scandalous and debaucht Ministers and people c. XV. We know further that though there be no more Ceremonies established by Law as yet yet there are many probationers such as bowing at the Name of Jesus bowing to the Altar saying second Service much like the Popish in Secreto's which the people must not hear and what not almost And we can see no reason but the Churches power if allowed to appoint any save only such without which the Service of God would apparently to all rational men be performed indecently disorderly may appoint hundreds XVI Nor is it prudence could such a power he allowed to State or Church for either of them in such cases to do all that they may in strictness be proved to have a power to do Many men think that the State hath power in any civil things by Laws to oblige the consciences of Subjects to do any things not forbidden in Gods Word and doubtless the States power in such kind of Laws is far less disputable then in the case of Ceremonies relating to the worship of God Yet the wisdom of all States restrains them from enjoyning people by their Laws to do such kind of things for the doing of which rational persons may not see a just reason of the Law as either urging some Law of God or tending to a manifest publique or private good No State yet ever busied themselves or tied their Subjects by making Laws to command all their Subjects to wear Turbants or a thousand such things which would apparently signifie nothing of profit or advantage to the State nor yet to particular persons it where the way to bring their authority into contempt XVII We would fain know of what use or profit any of these Ceremonies are we look upon them as things that perish with the using and upon that account by no means reasonable if otherwise lawful for the grave Authority of a Church or State to interpose in And we hope God will thus far convince the Authority under which we are that they will not for these husks of Ceremonies destroy those many thousand Souls in England who cannot conform to them for whom yet Christ died And we are most humbly thankful to His most-Excellent Majesty for the indulgence as to them which he hath granted to us through which we can yet speak to our people that they may be saved how long we shall enjoy this breathing time the only all-knowing God can tell We are sensible enough how much others envy it we shall onely say as Calvin once of Luther We wish they would use their heat against the known enemies of God such as are drunkards blasphemers unclean persons cursers swearers c. rather then against the servants of the living God who shall one day judge betwixt them and us and who as it is very probable would more approve that zeal then this fury A Postscript Containing a Threefold Supplement to the former Discourses The first relating to the Chapter about the Antiquity of Liturgies The Second to the Argument about Idolatrous Usages The Third to the Argument concerning scandalizing of Brethren I. THere is nothing in which those we have to deal with in these Points of Liturgies Ceremonies Musick in Churches Suppl 1. c. will pretend more advantage against us than in the business of Antiquity nothing so much in their mouths as all Antiquity all the Fathers the Church of God in all ages hath been of their minds Our Brethren know or may know that the Writings of the Ancients for 8 or 900 years viz. from Pope Gregories time till the Reformation were in hands by no means to be trusted and that the Papists who for the most part of the time had them in their keeping as they had opportunity so they neglected not their time to correct the Fathers to put in and leave out what they pleased to suppress what of their Writings they pleased and to publish Canons of Councils and Commentaries Witness the Indices expurgatorii and other Writings under specious Names without any shadow of Truth or any reasonable Modesty So that it hath been a great piece of the work of our Reformed Divines to look over the books with which the Popish writers in that time had filled the world and prepared in M.S. for it which M. Scripts they have since published in part and what part yet remains who knows He is but meanly versed in Divinity that knows not that Bellarmine Sixtus Senensis Possevinus and Erasmus four Popish writers have took some pains of this nature and how many hundred pieces of pretended Antiquity not only Protestant writers but even the Papists themselves have been forced to disclaim and reject And how many more our learned Cocus Rivet Perkins and others have shewed them as much reason to reject Yet we cannot but observe how some late writers as if nothing had been said to disprove those spurious writings have with confidence enough urged those writings so rejected as pure and unspotted Authority witness Dr. Hamonds writings and Dr. Sparrow in his Rationale and indeed all those who have traded in the business of Liturgies and Ceremonies and for the Extravagancies of Episcopal Government c. we must confess we have upon this account no great value for any Arguments they bring us meerly from Antiquity as to matters that concern the worship of God because we think the word of God is a perfect and sufficient rule in the case and we want Vouchers to prove those pretended pieces of Antiquity which they produce to have been theirs