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A69044 A sermon necessarie for these times shewing the nature of conscience, with the corruptions thereof, and the repairs or means to inform it with right knowledge, and stirre it up to upright practise, and how to get and keep a good conscience. To which is adjoyned a necessarie, brief, and pithy treatise af [sic] the ceremonies of the Church of England. By Anthony Cade Batch. of Divinitie. Cade, Anthony, 1564?-1641. 1639 (1639) STC 4330; ESTC S107399 57,371 130

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Ceremonies to be approved by the reasons and testimonies of other learned reverend and pious men it would do much good to many more I have taken the pains to adde such an Appendix Wherein I might have alledged reasons out of many other worthy Authours Archbish Whitgifts books against Mr. Cartwright Dr. Bridges Mr. Richard Hooker Dr. Covel Dr. Spark Dr. Gardiner Dr. Powell Dr. Collins Mr. Francis Mason Mr. Ambrose Fisher and others But because I write specially to such younger and poorer ministers as either are not able or willing to purchase many costly books of this subject or not at leisure to reade them I have thought best to referre such Readers if they be not satisfied with my short Abstract specially to three of the last who have read and weighed all which the former Authours have written with the replies and answers to wit our Reverend Bishop Mortons Defence printed anno 1618. Dr. Burges his answer to the replie of a namelesse Authour who laboured to confute or elude B. Mortons Defence printed anno 1631. and Mr. John Sprint his Cassander Anglicus printed anno 1618. These and I hope the least shortest or lowest prized of these will satisfie any reasonable Reader if he turn in them to the larger handling of the points by my allegations Their reasons are occasionally dispersed through their whole books but I have here collected and referred them to certain heads or chapters for the Readers better ease in finding them and judgement in weighing them often contracting their larger discourses into fewer words where they may be abbreviated and onely using their words at length where they are more necessary and urgent then shorter could be These few short chapters I hope will passe and be read where greater volumes will not And this I have done simply and plainly without respect of gaining any credit or applause of learning to my self but onely of their love and out of an earnest desire to draw them with a good Conscience willingly and cheerfully to do that which otherwise of necessitie they must do ¶ A table of the Chapters and Contents of this APPENDIX CHAP. I. OVr Ceremonies are Adjuncts not Parts of Gods proper worship and alterable Set forms of prayers are of Divine institution CHAP. II. Our book of publick prayers and Ceremonies made known to the famousest forrein Divines were approved by them all CHAP. III. Answering the objection of Significancie CHAP. IIII. Answering the objections drawn from the old Testament and of things formerly abused by the Jews and Heathens CHAP. V. Answering the objection of Ceremonies abused formerly by Papists CHAP. VI. Three particulars the Surplesse Crosse in baptisme and Kneeling at Communions cleared CHAP. VII Our Ceremonies commended for their ancient and profitable use CHAP. VIII Imposed by lawfull authoritie they may not be omitted without sinne CHAP. I. Our Ceremonies are injoyned as Adjuncts not Parts of Gods proper worship and therefore alterable Set forms of prayers are of Divine institution and alwayes used in Gods Church IT is the constant doctrine of all Divines and Churches both Ancient and Modern that God hath sufficiently comprehended and perspicuously delivered the whole substance of his own proper worship and things necessary to mans salvation in the holy Scriptures and that these things must evermore be the same in all Churches and unalterable But the circumstances and ceremonies of his publick worship as of place time ornaments gestures c. for the more reverent and devout performance thereof he hath left to the wisdome of every particular or nationall Church to make choice of so that all things be done according to that generall rule the Canon of Canons delivered by S. Paul 1. Cor. 14.40 26. Let all things be done decently orderly and to edification These things the Lord left to the libertie of every Church partly because they are not of the substance of his worship or of mens salvation but adjuncts onely and partly because one form thereof cannot fit every countrey or age but must be varied and applied to severall nations and times as shall be found most convenient Thus teacheth Saint Hierom epist 28. ad Lucinum concluding thus Vnaquaeque provincia abundet in suo sensu And thus Saint Ambrose and Saint Augustine who is accounted The mouth of the Fathers epist 86 118 119. alibi passim Totum hoc genus say they liberas habet observationes And thus that old common saying Dissonantia jejunii non tollit consonantiam fidei And thus Zanchius the great reformed Schoolman tomo 8. Loco 16. De traditionibus Ecclesiasticis pag. 821 c. And thus all other late Divines as will appeare full enough in our chapters following And thus our Church professeth in our book of articles Anno 1562. Artic. 34. Every particular or nationall Church hath authoritie to ordain change and abolish ceremonies or rites of the Church ordained onely by mans authority so that all things be done to edifying And in the preface before the book of common Prayer confirmed by act of Parliament touching ceremonies we have these words We think it convenient that every countrey should use such ceremonies as they shall think fit to the setting forth of Gods honour and glory and to the reducing of the people to a most perfect and godly living without errour or superstition and that they should put away other things which they perceive to be most abused as in mens ordinances it often chanceth diversly in divers countreys And these words also These Ceremonies are retained for a discipline and order which upon just causes may be altered and changed and therefore are not to be esteemed equall with Gods law See here how vain and ignorant their doubt is that think our Ceremonies are imposed as parts of Gods proper worship And whereas some mislike that any set form of prayers should be imposed in the publick service of God I wish them to consider better that God himself not onely allowed but imposed such and his best servants used such Numb 6.23 On this wise saith the Lord shall ye blesse the children of Israel saying c. the three verses following set down the very words to be said and Num. 10.35 36. there is the set prayer which Moses must pronounce when the Ark was to go forwards All the Psalmes are prayers or praises of God in set forms and words answering the length and number of musick notes and when it was to rest And Deut. 26.3 the set form of words to be said at the offering of the first fruits and vers 5. and 13. And Psalme 92. was made properly for the Sabbath day and Psalme 22. for every morning and Psalme 102 for times of affliction This appeareth by the titles of these Psalmes The like is 2. Chron. 29.30 And we finde Rom. 1.7 1. Cor. 1.3 2. Cor. 1.2 Galat. 1.3 Ephes 1.2 Saint Paul used the same set form of words or prayers without variation And our Saviour Christ himself Matth.
used there they cannot reasonably reprove the old onely for their age without bewraying their own folly for in such a case they ought rather to have reverence unto them for their antiquity if they will declare themselves more studious of unitie and concord then of innovations and new fanglenesse which as much as may be with true setting forth of Christs religion is alwayes to be eschewed The writers against our ceremonies cannot deny that the Fathers practised them but they did it say they without examining their lawfulnesse or unlawfulnesse as men busied in those hard times of persecution about more substantiall matters of religion and not having time and leisure to look into these inferiour things See Burges pag. 383 384 627. Thus the namelesse replier upon Bishop Mortons Defence cap. 3. sect 29. shifts and shuffles off the ancient Fathers But 1. This is a poore evasion and abusing of the Fathers as if they said The whole Church of Christ even in the dayes of most pure zeal and frequent martyrdome was so wholly slack or blinde that they continued by joint consent in the use of unlawfull observations without searching or knowing whether they were lawfull or not 2. It is a vain evasion because still in the better and calmer times of the Church when there was leisure and time enough to examine them the same Ceremonies continued constantly and generally practised 3. It is a confession plain enough that the ancient Fathers are in this point fully against them And as they elude the Fathers so also the late Protestant Divines When we alledge Luther Calvine Melancthon Beza Bucer Martyr Zanchius and such other zealous champions as God raised up against the purple harlot or the blessed Martyrs of our own nation Ridley Cranmer Hooper Latimer c. who gave their lives in opposition to Antichrist and were the men that gave entertainment to these very Ceremonies Burges 387. Their answer is Either their meaning is mistaken or else They shewed themselves to be but men as if the Non-conformists were more then men or There is varietie in some of them touching this point or Sometime they waver in their words or forsooth Some of them wrote in the dawning of the day Others lived in England as Bucer Martyr Chemnitius was a Lutheran Zanchius of a timorous disposition or They were not well informed and such other geare Whereby all men may see that these grave Divines were not of their judgement But they had rather cast dirt in the faces of the Lords worthies then confesse any mistaking in themselves So that to disswade these indifferent things as unlawfull pernicious or evil is bitterly to tax disgrace and condemne all the ancient Churches primitive and the grave Fathers thereof yea the universall Church of Christ not onely in those times but in the after-times and all the reformed Churches in these last times and to appropriate all true knowledge sinceritie and godlinesse onely to the Non-conformists of this onely age and countrey CHAP. VIII Our Ceremonies imposed by lawfull authoritie may not be omitted without sinne THe former objections being answered and our Ceremonies cleared to be lawfull both by the late judicious Divines and also by the Fathers and customes of the ancient Church Behold now the Necessitie of Subjection to them being imposed by Lawfull authoritie For things in themselves indifferent do in a sort alter their nature when by lawfull authoritie they be commanded or forbidden for then being commanded they may not be omitted being forbidden they may not be done Beza epist 24. fol. 142 143. numero 6 7. So saith also our 30 Canon in the end B. Morton sheweth that although Ceremonies be humane in hypothesi in particular choice of some rather then of other yet they are Divine in thesi by the generall appointment or permission of God saying Let all things be done decently and in order to edifying 1. Cor. 14.40 26. B. Mortons generall Defence c. 1. sect 22. And Mr. Cartwright saith of lawfull ordinances that God commandeth them by the Church And we are so farre bound in Conscience to obey them as that we cannot neglect them without sin saith Beza ep 24. So teacheth also Calvine Bullinger Melancthon Zanchius Vrsinus alledged by Dr. Burges Answer p. 276. Yea saith Beza whosoever in the Church of God be they few or many do pertinaciously and tumultuously oppose themselves against the ministers of the Consistorie and will not obey them in things not contrary to the word of God they are of all men most justly to be accounted and censured as manifest enemies to the Church whose publick peace they trouble Beza epist. 24. pag. 149. Therefore Dr. Burges saith pag. 230. What Church is there that doth not punish the disturbers of her publick peace more severely then some other sinnes which in their own natures simply considered are unto God more offensive For what is this but an enervation or dissolution of good laws and government Therefore let no such man complain of the magistrates severitie when the fault is in himself Crudelem medicum intemperans ager facit And let no man pretend Offence either of the people or of his own person for altering his judgement and courses For Of offence 1. All the offence that people take grew from the errour and indiscretion of some preachers declaiming so earnestly against our Ceremonies which offence the preachers again may take away or prevent if they will be as earnest and diligent to inform their peoples Conscience aright about the purpose use and end of our Ceremonies as they have been to leade them into errour and mislike of them as Beza saith epist 12. pag. 99. The people also which have been led by the reverence they bare to their pastours to embrace whatsoever they taught without examination I wish them with the Bereans Acts 17.11 to search the Scriptures whether those things be so and to prove all things and hold fast that which is good 1. Thes 5.21 Ordinarie men in eating an apple will cut out the rotten the worm and the core and eat the good onely and spying a spider or any filth in a glasse of wine will take it out and not swallow down all together without discretion When we see a heap of gold-filings mingled with dust let us cull out the gold and leave the dust and neither think all is gold nor all dust nor scorn the gold because of the dust mixed with it nor esteem the dust because of the gold but separate them with good discretion Learning zeal painfulnesse is gold in the preachers embrace it but if any dust of erroneous opinions be mixed with it take not that for gold also Oves estis sed rationales saith Saint Chrysostome You say you are sheep and must be guided by your shepherds yet you are sheep endued with reason and may perceive when they drive you into bogs or briers Preachers yea Saint Paul himself 1. Cor. 13.12 see