thirtieth Canon of the same Booke or to the three and thirtieth Canon of the Councell of Laodicea which was celebrated in the yeare of our LORD GOD 364. as Iustellus writeth DIALOGUE Gent. What other errour doe you find to be in the Service-Booke Min. The interrupting of the Minister by the Clarke and the whole Congregation is a foule errour and such an error and confusion as doth much offend God and that therefore many are unwilling to come into the Church till the Service be all read ANSWER I doubt me you are none of those who will be so diligent as to reade the whole Service your pretended errours and dislikes which you here lay downe in this Dialogue are cause enough to make me think so And therefore they of your Parish had need to come betimes to Church if they meane to know your Text or heare any more than a peece of your Sermon except you doe as no few of your Sect trifle away a great deale of time in vaine repetitions and idle tautologies in some prayer of your own which our Saviour Himselfe likens to the practice of the Heathen and calls no better than much babling DIALOGUE Gent. How doe they interrupt the Minister Minist By rehearsing his words with a loud voyce and by taking words out of his mouth and by mingling their prayers with his ANSWER This may be answered out of Doctor Boys whose words be these I am occasioned saith he in this place justly to defend the peoples answering the Minister aloud in the Church The beginning of which interlocutory passages is ascribed by Platina to Damasus Bishop of Rome by Theodoret to Diodorus Bishop of Antioch by Walfridus Strabo to Saint Ambrose Bishop of Millane all which lived 1100 yeares before the Church was acquainted with any French fashions and yet Basil Epist 63. alleadgeth that the Churches of Aegypt Lybia Thebes Palestina Phoenicians Syrians Mesopotamians used it long before Socrates and Strabo writ that Ignatius a Scholler unto Christs owne Schollers is thought to be the first Author hereof If any man shall expect greater antiquity and authority we can fetch this order even from the Quire of Heaven I saw the Lord said Esay Esay 6.3 set on an high Throne the Seraphims stood upon it and one cried to another saying Holy holy holy Lord God of Hosts all the World is full of His glory Esay 6.3 Blessed spirits in praising God answer one another interchangeably though unhappie scornefull spirits unmannerly tearme this custome Tossing of Service an interrupting of the Minister a foule errour yea such an errour and confusion as doth much offend God DIALOGUE Minist The Minister when he prayeth is the mouth of the people speaking to God for them therefore they ought to bee silent till he hath done speaking and then to say Amen 1 Cor. 14.16 and not to interrupt him by rehearsing every word after him as in the confession of sinne when the Minister saith Almighty and most mercifull Father we have erred and strayed out of thy wayes like lost sheepe and in the Letany when he saith ô God the Father of Heaven have mercy upon us miserable sinners The Minister must stop and be silent till the Clarke and people have with a loud voyce rehearsed every word after him in which time it is impossible for the Minister to keep idle and by-thoughts from comming into his minde ANSWER If it be so with you that idle and by-thoughts will not be kept from comming into your mind pray to God to settle you better and bee not so rash as to measure other mens corne by your owne Bushell Saint Ambrose tells us that in his times the Church resounded againe with the responds of Men Women and Children like to the Sea with its beating waves or like to the rushing of many waters Thus in the Latine Church And in the Greeke Church Saint Basil is witnesse that the voyce of their prayers and Responds was like the noise of waters beating against the Rockes The patterne whereof seemes to be in Revel 14.2 besides what was before out of Esay 6.3 This is therefore all that I may yeeld you viz. that in every part of the service it is not requisite that it should be so For in many of the Prayers the people are to be silent and have no more to doe with an open and loud voyce than to say Amen But then again when occasion is offered I must say unto them as David did O praise our God yee people and make the voyce of his praise to bee heard Psalm 66.7 Or as it is in another Psalme Psal 95.1 O come let us sing unto the Lord let us make a joyfull noise to the Rocke of our salvation Or as in another Psal 107.31.32 ô that men would praise the Lord for his goodnesse and for his wonderfull works to the children of men Let them exalt him also in the Congregation of the people and praise him in the assembly of the Elders And in a word as for those times in which by the Apostles warrant they are to say Amen at the end of the Ministers prayer it was not without due care observed in the ancient times Saint Paul mentions it in the place alledged by you 1 Cor. 14.16 And as Saint Hierome writes it was the praise of the Primitive Church That their Amen was like a clap of thunder and their Halleluja as the roring of the Sea DIALOGUE Minist Also when hee prayeth for the King saying Lord save the King they interrupt him by mingling their prayer with his saying And mercifully heare us when we call upon thee The Minister being interrupted and put out in praying for the King doth pray for Ministers saying Indue thy Ministers with righteousnesse they doe then also interrupt him by mingling their prayers with his saying And make thy people joyfull ANSWER This is strange that you dare dally thus These Suffrages at which you kick with scorne are answerable to that prayer of David in the hundred and two and thirtieth Psalm where hee prayes for the Prince Priests and People orderly For the Prince Lord remember David For the Priests Let thy Priests be cloathed with righteousnesse For the People Let thy Saints sing with joyfulnesse So we in like manner Lord save thy King Indue thy Ministers with righteousnesse And make thy chosen people joyfull This also justifies our order in praying for the King first for the Clergie next and for the Laity last of all in our well composed Letany with which you quarrell next But had your quarrell been with the mattter of it as with the manner I should have said as worthy Hooker did What one petition is there found in the whole Letany whereof we shall ever be able at any time to say That no man living needeth the grace or benefit therein craved at Gods hands And a little before It now remaineth saith he a work the absolute perfection whereof upbraydeth with error or
Christians of the Primitive Church ANSWER The errour of Transubstantiation we detest as much as you but may not therefore fall in with you in your irreverence If the King offer us his hand to kisse we take it upon our knees How much more when the King of Heaven gives us his sonne in these pledges on whom wee feede in our hearts by Faith with Thanksgiving Another reason is because it is received in Prayer and if men will be ruled by reason they will not when they are to petition the King of Kings omit such a gesture of humility as kneeling is being the most sutable for a man at his prayers and for this cause we kneele at the Communions receiving whereat wee both lift up thankfull hearts unto God for the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ as also begge of God that by the merits thereof our bodies and soules may be preserved to everlasting life It would trouble you sure to derive our kneeling from the errour of Transubstantiation and therefore to no purpose doe you come in with the name of Pope Honorius and tell us of what was hatched at the Councell of Lateran If you were acquainted with Tertullians accipere reservare you would be ashamed to say that Pope Honorius was the first that brought in kneeling Adoration of the Host was indeed brought in by him but not kneeling without such adoration in the act of receiving for they kneeled at the Sacrament in Tertullians time and hee lived betimes and was flourishing about the yeare of our Lord 200. which was 1020. yeares before the Councell of Lateran But you thinke it a great matter I perceive to set up a Shaw-foule to scare a foole yet men of understanding will find you out To ollow on therfore that of Tertul. In the Primitive times were times of persecution when the christians could not meet so often as they would for feare of troubles they had also their Station dayes on which it was not lawfull to worship kneeling In the first case they did accipere reservare receive this Sacrament from the hands of the Priest at Church in severall portions and take it home and eate it there at such times as they thought it fit for their ghostly comfort that they might be sure to have it for their last Viaticum at the approach of sudden and unexpected danger but did not alwayes so for that were to overthrow the nature of the holy Supper and make the Communion to become a private eating And secondly on the dayes of station when they might not kneele they rather chose to forbeare the receiving and partaking of the holy Sacrament than to take it standing Tertullian therefore wisheth them to come though they might not kneele and take it standing at the Altar from whence they might bee suffered to carry it home and eate it at their owne houses kneeling The Leper which came to Christ as Saint Marke reports he kneeled and as St. Luke he fell on his face teaching us in prayer to fall down and kneele before the Lord our Maker He that worships God irreverently shewes himselfe not a Christian but a Manichee who thought God made the soule but not the body It is recorded of the Heathen that before they began their Sacrifices the Priest first beheld the people round about him and demanded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Who is here who is here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 say the people againe meaning A company of good folkes Intimating hereby that if there were any there guiltie to themselves of any foule offence they should depart as unworthy the sight of those rites or mysteries of their religion which were then to bee performed And yet because they used to sit at their Sacrifices Tertullian blamed them Ter. lib. de Orâ—t cap 12. For esteeming them to bee Gods whom they worshipped they ought to shew more reverence than to sit before them whom they thought to bee Gods and thereupon inferreth Quanto magis sub conspectu Dei vivi Angelo adhuc orationis astante factum istud irreligiosissimum est Meaning that if it were irreligious for them to sit before their false Gods seeing they esteemed them for true ones it would be more irreligious for us to doe the like before the true God indeed But you say that the Apostles did not kneele when Christ Himselfe delivered the Bread unto them I answer that if this be a good argument then we should receive in no place but in an upper Chamber have no more company but twelve no women but men and take it at no time but after Supper al which we know is otherwise throughout the whole Christian world it being in the Churches power to alter matters of circumstance although she may not alter any matter of the essence or substance of either this or the other Sacrament The rule which we find in Scripture is 1 Cor. 14 40. that all things bee done decently and in order And without question what is reputed enough decently and orderly done at some time and place and upon some occasion is not so at another time and place where no like occasion is we doe not therefore make our selves wiser than Christ and his Apostles but follow the rule which his word affordeth So then if they sat when they received most like it was because they sat down to supper and were not yet risen from the Table nor did they know what their Master was about to do it was more than ever he did before They might perhaps be therefore lesse orderly than otherwise they would have beene And yet that they tooke it irreverently is no where manifest neither that their sitting was like your fashion of sitting but after another manner as differing from your sitting as kneeling is from standing Or however this is certaine that things were not brought into order but by degrees Saint Paul had else never said it that other things he would put in order when he came 1 Cor. 11.34 I tye you then still to Scripture For though the Kings Daughter be All glorious within Yet her cloathing is of wrought Gold Psal 45.13,14 so saith the Psalmist in the 45. Psalme at the 13. verse And whereas you terrifie us with the noise of Canons when you know how to alledge them to better purpose wee shall be willing to heare you For to urge Canons that were against Canons that are is nothing for you It shewes indeed your factious zeale in the way of Shismaticks and the desire that you have to separate from us although wee care as little for the Pope as you But because you talke of ancient Canons I will afford you one to your little comfort namely That with Heretikes or Shismatickes wee ought not to pray which Canon you may reade in the Code of Canons For the Universall Church authorized by the Emperour Iustinian And that you may the sooner finde it I direct you to the hundred and seven and