ruine Non-conformists if they Teach many either Boyes or Men have no Law against Parents teaching their own Children 1. Are you fit for the Ministry your selves If so cannot you teach others what you know if you are defective in some useful Knowledge let them elsewhere learn that afterwards 2. Is there any so greatly obliged to take care of them as your selves will you be like those Parents who set God-fathers at the Font to Vow and Promise to do the Parents part and how do such Undertakers use to perform it Or will you be like the Women of this unnatural Age who get Children and not through disability but Wealth Pride and Coyness disdain to Nurse them but cast that on hired Women as obliged more by Money than themselves by Nature to all that Care 3. Cannot you do more at least to ground them well in Religion before you send them from you for other Learning or are you of the mind that to cant over the Catechism is Divinity enough before they have read Aristotle or Studied the Sciences and that they must be Proficients in Logick and Philosophy before they make sure of their Salvation and must read Smiglecius Ariago Zabaâ—el Suarez or be fooled by Cartesians Gassendus or Hobbs before they will Study the Gospel and Cross of Iesus Christ I am no undervaluer of any Academical advantages when the Stream of Academies runs pure and holy they are blessed helps to mens Salvation when their Stream is SENSUAL WORLDLY CORRUPT and MALIGNANT they are Seminaries for Hell and the Devils Schools to train up his most powerful Souldiers to fight against serious Godliness in Christs own Livery and Name and to send Youth thither is worse than to send them to a Brothel-House or a Pest-house 4. Are there not fewer Temptations in your own Houses than they are like to find abroad in the World you can keep them from the company of sensual voluptuous Lads and of Learned Reverend Enemies of serious Christianity and of worldly men whose Godliness is gain and would draw them ambitiously to Study Preferment and espouse them to the World which in Baptism they renounced if you cannot keep them from such Snares how shall they be kept where such abound 5. And one of the greatest motives of all for your keeping them long enough at home is that you will thereby have time to judge whether they are like to become fit for the Ministry or not Oh how many good men send Plagues into the Church by devoting unproved Lads to the Ministry hoping that God will hereafter give them Grace and make them fit who never promised it When you send them at fifteen or sixteen years of Age to the University from under your own eye you are unlikely to know what they will prove unless it be some few that are very early sanctified by Grace and when they have been a few years at the University be they never so unmeet they will thrust themselves into the Ministry and miserable men for a Benefice take the charge of Souls whereas if you will keep them with you till twenty years of Age you may see what they are like to prove and dispose of them accordingly If you say They will lose the advantage of their Degrees it 's an Objection unfit for a Christians mouth will you prefer Names and aiery Titles before Wisdom Piety and mens Salvation and the Churches good must they go out of their way for a Peacocks feather when they are in a Race as for Life or Death If you say They will lose their time at home the shame then is yours or they are like to lose it more abroad Teach them to read the Scriptures at least the Gospel in the Original Tongues and to understand and practise things necessary to Salvation which all Arts and Sciences must subserve and they do not lose their time and at ripeness of Age they will get more other Learning in a year than before they will do in many and what they learn will be their own when Boyes learn words without the sence If you say They will want the Advantage of Academical Disputes I Answer if Reading fill them with matter nature and common use will teach them how to utter it the World hath too many Disputers Books may soon teach them the true order of Disputing and a few dayes experience may shew the rest If you say You have not time to Teach them I answer you have no greater work to do and a little time will serve with willing teachable Youth and no other are to be intended for the Ministry what Boyes get by hearing their Tutors they oft bestow small labour to digest but take up with bare words and second notions but when they are set to get it from their Books themselves harder Study better digesteth it it is they that must bestow much time the Teacher need not bestow very much Countrey Schools may teach them Latine Greek and Hebrew let them stay there till they attain it you may then teach them the common rudiments of Logick and see them well settled in Divinity and serious Religion and then if Academies prove safe and needfull they will go out better fortified against all the Temptations which they must expect It is certain that Inconveniencies are not so bad as Mischiefs and it 's certain that all our Natures as Corrupt are Dark Carnal and Malignant and need the sanctifying Grace of Christ and its certain that as Grace useth all things to its increase so this serpentine nature will turn Studyes Learning and all such things to serve it self and that Carnal Sensual Malignant Nature cultivated by humane Learning is too usually ripened and sublimated into Diabolism and maketh the most potent Servants of the Devil against Christ And if this be but guilded with sacred Ornaments and Titles and pretences of the Churches Peace and Order it is Garisoned and fortified and a stronger hold for sin and Satan than open Vice And it is certain that as the Rage of Drunkards is raised in their riotous Meetings and as Conjunction Example and Noise put more Valour into Armies than seperated Persons have so combined Societies of Learned Reverenced Malignity do Confirm the Individuals and raise them to the height of Wiekedness So that Universities are either if holy a Copy of Paradise or if malignant the chief Militia of the malicious Enemy of man except a malignant Hierarchy or Clergy who are malignant Academies grown up to maturity If any say that there is no great and solid Learning to be got elsewhere let them think where great Augustine and most of the great Lights of the Church for four hundred years attained their Knowledge and whether the Scaligers Salmasius Grotius Selden and such others got not more by laborious secret Reading than by Academical Tutors and Disputes and whether such famous men as John Reignolds Blondel c. even in the Universities got not their great Learning by searching the same
THE Catechizing OF FAMILIES A TEACHER OF HOUSHOLDERS HOW To Teach their Housholds Useful also to SCHOOL-MASTERS and Tutors of Youth For those that are past the common small Chatechisms and would grow to a more rooted Faith and to the fuller understanding of all that is commonly needful to a safe holy comfortable and profitable Life Written by RICHARD BAXTER in hope that Family and School-diligence may do much to keep up True Religion LONDON Printed for T. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns at the lower end of Cheapside near Mercers-Chappel and B. Simmons at the Three Golden Cocks at the West end of St. Pauls 1683. The Reasons and Use of this BOOK MAN is born without Knowledge but not without a Capacity and faculty of Knowing this is his Excellency and Essence Nature Experience and Gods Word tell us the great necessity of Knowledge As the Souls essential form is the virtue of vital Action Understanding and Will conjunct so Holiness is Holy Life Light and Love conjunct The wisest men are the best and the best the wisest but a Counterfeit of Knowledge is the great deceiver of the World Millions take the Knowledge of bare Words with the Gramatical and Logical sence instead of the Knowledge of the things themselves which by these are signified as if the Glass would nourish without the Wine or the Dish without the Meat or the Cloathing or Skin were all the man God and Holiness and Heaven are better known by many serious unlearned Christians that cannot accurately dispute about them than by many Learned men who can excellently speak of that which their Souls are unacquainted with The Hipocrites Religion is but an Art the true Christians is a Habit which is a Divine Nature But yet the Words are signs by which we are helpt to know the things and must diligently be learned to that end and though men cannot reach the Heart God hath appointed Parents and Masters and Teachers to Instruct their Inferiours by words and hath written the Scripture to that use that by them his Spirit may teach or illuminate the Mind and renew the Heart God worketh on man as man and we must know by Signs till we know by intuition It is a thing well known that the Church aboundeth with Catechisms and Systemes of Divinity and doth there yet need more their scope and Substance is the same they differ most 1. In Choice of matter that there be nothing left out that is needful nor needless uncertainties and disputes put in 2. That the Method or Order of them be True agreeable to the matter and Sacred Scripture 3. And that they be not blotted with any drops of disgraceful Errour These are the requisites to desirable Catechisms No doubt but they should be sorted into three degrees suited to the Childhood Youth and maturer Age of Christians I. The Essentials of Christianity are all contained generally in Baptism this must be understood and therefore expounded the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue the Summaries of things to to be Beleived Desired in Hope and Practised were from the beginning taken for a good Exposition to those that were to be Baptized These three as Expounding Baptism are themselves a good Catechism the understanding of the Lords Supper being added for Communicants II. But here also Children will be childish and learn the words while they are mindless of the sence therefore an Explication of these in other words hath ever been thought a great part of the work of a Teaching Ministry whence the Ancients have left us their Expositions of the Creed c. But here the difficulty is made insuperable by the Learners indisposition if such a Catechism be short and much put in few words the vulgar cannot understand it if it be long and in many words they cannot learn and remember it III. For Remedy of this a Larger Catechism yet is needful not to be learnt without Book but to be a full Exposition of the Shorter which they learn that they may have recourse to this for a more full and particular understanding of a Shorter whose general words they can remember Accordingly having in my Poor Mans Family Book written two Catechisms of the former rank I here adde the third for those that have learned the two first Far am I from thinking that I have done any one of these to perfection I never yet saw a Catechism without some notable imperfection And no doubt mine are not free from such But while I avoid what I see amiss in others I hope God will illuminate some to do yet beter and to avoid what is amiss in mine The degree which yet pretendeth to greater accurateness in Method I have given in a Latine Methodus Theologiae The Uses for which I have written this are these I. For Masters of Families who should endeavour to raise their Children and Servants to a good degree of Knowledge I have divided it into short Chapters that on the Lords dayes or at nights when they have leisure the Master may read to them one Chapter at a time that is the Exposition of one Article of the Creed one Petition of the Lords Prayer and one Commandement Expounded II. For School-masters to cause their riper rank of Scholars to learn I am past doubt that it is a heinous Crime in the School-masters of England that they devote but one hour or two in a week to the learning of the Catechism while all the rest of the week is devoted to the learning of Lilly Ovid Virgil Horace Cicero Livy Terence and such like besides the loss and sinful omission it seduceth Youth to think that common Knowledge which is only Subsidiary and Ornamental is more excellent or necessary than to know God Christ the Gospel Duty and Salvation besides which all Knowledge further than it helpeth or serveth this is but fooling and doting and as dangerous diversion and perversion of the mind as grosser sensual delights He is not worthy the name of a Christian School-master who maketh it not his chief work to teach his Scholars the Knowledge of Christ and Life Everlasting III. But if they goe from the Countrey Schools before they are capable of the Larger Catechisms as to their great loss most make too much hast away why may not their next Tutors make it their chief work to train up their Pupils as the Disciples of Iesus and yet not neglect either Aristotle or any natural light To our present Universities I am not so vain as to offer such Instructions though to some small part of them I directed my Methodus Theologiae I learnt not of them and I presume not to make my self their Teacher Their late GUIDES their WORLDLY-INTEREST and their GENIUS have made my Writings odious to many even that which they like they will not read But I have oft with Lamentation wondered why Godly Ministers do no more of the work now appropriated to Universities for their own Sons Those men whose Church zeal would
and they driven hastily out they yearly continued the Eating of the Passover with unleavened Bread as in a hasting posture 3. Since the Law given in the Wilderness they constantly used the Sacrifices the Oblations the Tabernacle the Priesthood and Ceremonies as that Law prescribed them And the National constant use of these was an ascertaining Tradition of the matters of Fact which were their cause 4. Yea so tenacious were they of this Law that as they taught the very Syllables of it to their Children and kept in the Ark the very Tables of Stone that had the Ten Commandments so they were Enemies to Christianity because the Christians were against the Gentiles Observation of their Law and for its abrogation 4. Consider again that the Matter of Fact and the Divine Institution is since made certain to us by Christs Testimony Q. 11. But seeing this Law doth not bind us now nor the particular Messages of the Prophets were sent to us is it any of our Concern now to know or believe them It belonged to those that they were made for and sent to But what are they to us A. There is not the same necessity to know them and so to be such that they were all of God as there is to know and believe the Gospel But it is greatly our Duty and Concern to believe them 1. Because they were preparatory to the Gospel and bore an antecedent Testimony to it 2. Because the Gospel it self beareth witness of their Truth which therefore if we believe it we must believe 3. Because by the Holy Ghost's direction all now make up our Books of Sacred Records which is the certain Word of God though not all of the same Necessity and Evidence And here I must tell you a great and needful Truth which ignorant Christians fearing to confess by overdoing tempt Men to Infidelity The Scripture is like a Mans Body where some parts are but for the preservation of the rest and may be maimed without death The Sence is the Soul of the Scripture and the Letters but the Body or Vehicle The Doctrine of the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue and Baptism and Lords Supper is the Vital part and Christianity it self The Old Testament Letter written as we have it about Ezras's time is that Vehicle which is as imperfect as the Revelation of those times was But as after Christ's Incarnation and Ascension the Spirit was more abundantly given and the Revelation more perfect and Sealed so the Doctrine is more full and the Vehicle or Body that is the Words are less imperfect and more sure to us so that he that doubteth of the Truth of some Words in the Old Testament or of some small Circumstantials in the New hath no reason therefore to doubt of the Christian Religion of which these Writings are but the Vehicle or Body sufficient to ascertain us of the Truth of the History and Doctrine Be sure first that Christ is the very Son of God and it inferreth the certainty of all his Words and enforceth our whole Religion Q. 12. I perceive then that our main Question is both as to Necessity and Evidence How we are sure that the Gospel is true and the Records of it the very Word of God A. It is so And as it is this that must Rule and Judge the Church so we have to us fuller proof of this than of the Old Testament Because that the narrowness of the Iews Countrey in comparison of the Christian World and the many Thousand Years distance and a Language whose Phrase and Proverbial speeches and the very sence of the common words of it must needs make it more unknown to us than the Language that the Gospel is Recorded in And it is not the least proof of the Truth of the Old Testament that it is attested and confirmed by the New Q. 13. Will you first tell me How the Apostles and that first Age were sure that the Gospel of Christ was the very Word of God A. Here I must first tell you that the great Mystery of the Blessed Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost being One God is made necessary to us to be believed not only as to the Eternal unsearchable Inexistence but specially for the Knowledge of Gods three great sorts of Works on Man That is As our Creator and the God of Nature as our Redeemer and the God of Governing and and reconciling Grace and as our Sanctifier and the Applyer and Perfecter of all to fit us for Glory And so the Son as Redeemer is the way to the Father to know him and his Love and be reconciled to him And the Holy Ghost is the Witness of the Son The proof therefore of the Gospel of Christ in one word is the Holy Ghost that is the certain Testimony of God's Spirit And this Testimony consisteth of these several parts I. The foregoing Testimony of the Spirit by all the Prophesies of the Old Testament and the Typical Prefigurations which became a fuller proof than before when they were seen all to be fulfilled in Christ Yet many were fulfilled before When Abraham had no Child he was promised the Multiplication of his Seed and that all Nations should be blessed therein Gen. 12. 2. 13. 16. 15. 5. 17. 2. 18. 11 12. The 400 Years of their abode in Egypt and Canaan before were foretold and punctually fulfilled Gen. 15. 13 14. Ex. 12. 31 32. So was Iacob's Prophesie of Iudah's Scepter Gen. 42. 8 9 10. And Ioseph's dreams And verily Balaams last Prophesie was marvellous who when he had blessed Israel and foretold their Victories foretold also the Scepter of David and Christ and the success of the Assyrians and after that of Chittim against the Hebrews themselves Numb 24. And who seeth not the fulfilling of the terrible Prophesie of Moses against the Iews Deut. 31 Iosiah by Name and his Deeds were foretold 300 Years before he was Born 1 Kings 13. 2. 2 Kings 23. 15. Oft was the Captivity of the Iews foretold and the destruction of Babylon and the Iews return by Cyrus named long before he was Born and the very time foretold From the beginning Christ was promised and the circumstances of his coming foretold Gen. 3. 15. 26. 4. 49. 10. Deut. 18. 15. Psal. 2. 27. 89. 110. Isa. 53. 11. 1. Ier. 33. 15. Mic. 5. 2. That he should be Born of a Virgin Isa. 7. 14. in Bethlem Mic. 5. 2. and then the Infants killed Ier. 31. 15 that he should come into the Temple as the Angel of the Covenant whom they desired but they should not endure therein when he came because he came as a Refiner Mal. 3. 1. 3. That he should go into Egypt and return thence Isa. 19. 1. Hos. 11. 1. That One should go before him to prepare the way Mal. 3. 1. That he should do wonders for the People Isa. 35. 5. That a familiar should betray him and that for Thirty pieces of
Christ wrought his Miracles and rose again and that the Apostles by the Holy Spirit did work theirs and that Believers received the Spirit by their Ministry 2. They had not been made Christians but by these Miracles They all professed that it was the Gifts of the Spirit that Convinced and Converted them 3. All the forementioned Professions of their Christianity contained a Profession that they believed these Miracles As the use of the Lords day Baptism the Eucharist shewed their Belief of Christs Life Death and Resurrection 4. They suffered Persecution and Martyrdom in the Profession of that Belief 5. They pleaded these Miracles in all their Defences against their Adversaries 6. The Writings of their Adversaries commonly acknowledge this Plea yea and deny not the most of the Miracles themselves 7. But most fully their receiving the Sacred Scriptures as the Word of God as indited by the Holy Ghost in the Apostles sheweth that they believed the Miracles recorded in that Book Q. 25. You are come up to the last part of the Doubt in the History How are we sure that these Christians then commonly believed the Book as now we have it and that it is the very same A. We have for this full infallible historical Proof premising that some parcels of the Book the Revelations the Epistle of Iude the Second of Peter the Epistle to the Hebrews and that of Iames were longer unknown to some particular Churches than the rest 1. The constancy of Christian Assemblies and publick Worship is a full proof seeing that the Reading Expounding and applying of these Books was a great part of their publick work as all History of Friends and Enemies agree 2. The very Office of the Ministry is full proof which lay most in reading expounding and applying these same Books And therefore they were as much by Office concerned to keep them as Judges and Lawyers are to keep the statute-Statute-book 3. These Ministers and Churches which so used this Book were dispersed over a great part of the World If therefore they had changed it by adding or diminishing they must have done it by Confederacy or by single mens errour or abuse It was impossible that all Countreys should agree in such a Confederacy but the meeting motives and treaties would have been known But no History of Friend or Foe hath any such thing but the clean contrary And that it should be done by all single Persons in the Christian World agreeing by chance in the same Changes is a mâ—d supposition 4. And it is the belief of all Christians that it â—s a damnable Sin to add or alter in this Book And the Book it self so concludeth Therefore if â—ome had agreed so to do the rest would have detected and decryed it 5. They took this Book â—o be the Charter for their Salvation And therefore would never agree to alter it when Men keep the Deeds Evidences Leases and Charters of their Estates and Worldly Priviledges unaltered 6. When a few Hereticks rose up that forged some new Books as Apostolical and rejected some that were such indeed the Christian Churches condemned and rejected them and appealed to the Churches that had received the Apostles own Epistles and kept them 7. The many Heresies that rose up did so divide Men and set them in cross Interests and Jealousies against each other that it was impossible for any one Sect to have altered the Scripture but the rest would have fallen upon them with the loudest Accusations But all sorts of Adversaries are agreed that these are the same Books And though the weakness and negligence of Scribes have made many little Words uncertain for God promised not infallibility to every Scribe or Printer yet these are not such as alter any Article of Faith or Practice but shew that no Corruption hath been designedly made but that the Book is the same For instance Let it be questioned Whether our Statute-Book contained really the same Statutes that are there pretended And you will see that the Historical certainty amounteth even to a natural certainty the contrary being a meer impossibility For 1. They are the Kings Laws and the King would not bear a fraudulent alteration 2. Parliaments would not bear it 3. Judges that successively judge by these Laws would soon discover it 4. So would all Justices and Magistrates 5. Mens Lives and Estates are held by them and therefore Multitudes would decry the Fraud 6. Enemies have daily Suits which are tryed by these Laws and each Party pleads them for himself and their Advocates and Lawyers plead them against each other and would soon detect the Forgery So that to suppose such a Change is 1. To suppose an Effect that hath no Cause in Nature 2. And that is against a stream of Causes Moral and Natural and so impossible And to â—eign such forgeries in the Book that all Christians have taken for Gods Laws is just such another Case and somewhat beyond it That is but Moral Evidence which dependeth only on Mens Honesty or any free unnecessary acts of Mans will But Mans will hath also of Natural Necessity such as the Love of our selves and our felicity c. And it is a Natural Impossibility that all Men or many should agree in a Lie which is against these Acts of Natural necessity But so they must do if all Men of cross Interests Principles and Dispositions should knowingly agree c. g. That all our Statutes are counterseit that there is no such place as Rome Paris or other such lâ—â—s And so the Gospel History hath such Testimony of necessary Truth Q. 26. You have made the Case plainer to me than I thought it had been But you yet seem to intimate that some Words yea some Books of Scripture have not the same Evidence aâ— the rest can a man be saved that Believeth not all the Scripture A. All Truth is equally True and so is all Gods Word But all is not equally Evident He that taketh any Word to be Gods Word and yet to be false believeth nothing as Gods Word For he hath not the â—ormal essentiating Act and Object of Faith If God could lie we had no certainty of Faith But he that erroneously thinketh that this or that word yea Epistle or Text or Book in the Bible is not Gods but came in by mistake may be saved if he believe that which containeth the Essentials of Christianity A lame Faith may be a saving Faith And he may see how Miracles sealed the Gospel that cannot see how they sealed every Book Text or Word in the Bible Q. 27. Though we have been long on this it is of so great importance to us living or dying to be sure of the Foundations of our Faith that I will yet ask you Have you any more Proof A. I have told you of four Proofs already I. The Antecedent Testimony of the Spirit in the Old Testament II. The Inherent Constitutive Testimony in Christ and the Gospel III. The concomitant Testimony
which two General Councils have condemned his Body being a Spiritual Body now 4. They feign either himself to have eaten his own Flesh and Drunk his own Blood or at lest his Disciples to have done it while he was alive 5. They feign him to have been the Breaker of his own Flesh and Shedder of his own Blood and make him to do that which was done only by the Iews 6. They contradict the express words of the Scripture which three times together call it Bread after the Consecration in 1 Cor. 11. When yet they say It is not Bread 7. They condemn the belief of the soundest senses of all men in the World as if it were heresie All our Eyes Touch Tast c. tells us that there is Bread and Wine and they say there is none 8. Hereby they deny all certainty of Faith and all other certainty For if a man may not be certain of what he Seeth Feeleth and Tasteth he can be certain of no sensible thing For we have no Faculties but sence to perceive things sensible as such Nor any way to transmit them to the Intellect but by sense And we can no otherwise know that there is a Bible a Church a Council a Pope a Man or any thing in the World and therefore much less can believe any of them So that all Humane and Divine Faith are thus destroyed yea man is set below a Beast that hath the Benefit of sense 9. Hereby they feign God to be the grand deceiver of the World For things sensible are his Works and so is Sense And he makes us know no supernatural Revelation but by the intromission of some Sence And if God may deceive all men by the way of sense we can never be sure but he may do it otherwise 10. They set up Men who confess their own senses are not to be credited to be more credible than all our senses and to be the Lords of the understandings of all Princes and People in despight of sense And he that is to be believed before our senses is an absolute Lord. 11. They deny it to be a Sacrament For if there be no sign there is no Sacrament 12. They feign every ignorant drunken Priest every time he consecrateth to work greater Miracles than ever Christ wrought and so to make Miracles common and at the Wills of thousands of wicked men I must not here stay to handle all this But in a small Book call'd Full and Easie Satisfaction which is the true Religin I have shewed thirty one Miracles with twenty Aggravations which all Priests are feigned to work at every Sacrament Q. 10. What is it that is called the Mass which the Papists say that All the Fathers and Church used in every age and we renounce A. In the first Ages the Churches were gathered among Heathens and men were long Instructed and Catechized hearers before they were baptized Christians And the first part of the day was spent in publick in such Common Teaching and Prayer as belonged to all and then the Deacon cryed Missa â—est that is Dismist the unbaptized hearers and the rest that were Christians spent the rest of the time in such duties as are proper to themselves especially the Lords Supper and the Praises of God Hereupon all the Worship following the Dimission of the unchristened and suspended came to be called barbarously the Mass or Dismission And this Worship hath been quite changed from what it was in the beginning and the Papists by keeping the Name Mass or Dismission make the ignorant believe that the Worship it self is the same as of old Q. 11. What be the changes that have been made A. More than I may now stay to number Iustin Martyr and Tertullian describe it in their Time to be just such as the Scripture mentioneth and we now commonly perform that is In Reading the Scripture opening and applying it Praying as the Minister was able Praising God Baptizing and administring the Lords Supper After this Ministers grew less able and trusty and they decreed that they should pray and Officiate in set forms yet so that every Bishop might choose his own and every Presbyter must shew it to the Bishops and have their approbation The Creed Lords Prayer and Commandements and the Words of Baptism and Delivery of the Lords Supper were alwayes used in forms before After this they grew to use the same forms called a Liturgie in whole Provinces some Ceremonies were so Ancient that we cannot find their Original that is The Anointing of the baptized the giving them Milk and Honey to taste dipping them thrice cloathing them in a white Garment after to Worship with their faces toward the East and not to kneel in Prayer or Adoration any Lords day in the year nor any Week day between Easter and Whitsuntide and specially to observe those two yearly Festivals and Good Frydaies fast And quickly after the encouraging of persecuted Christians to suffer drew them to keep a yearly day at the place where a Martyr was kill'd or buryed to honour their memories and give God thanks for them After this they built Altars over them And they built their Churches where their graves or â—ome of their bones were laid and in honour of their memory called the Churches by their Names Next they brought their Names daily into the Church Liturgies And next they added to them the Names of such Bishops of those particular Churches as had left an honourable memorial behind them And the Lords Supper was celebrated much like as it is in our English Liturgy save these Names And thus far the changes were then accounted laudable and were not indeed such as should discourage any Christians from Communion Nor do we read of any that were against them Besides which they overvalued the use of Crossing But quickly though by degrees a Flood of Ceremonies came in and Popes and Prelates added at their Pleasure till Gods publick Worship was made quite another thing I. God who is a Spirit and will be Worshipped in Spirit and Truth is by Mass-Priests and Papists Worshipped by such a mass of Ceremonies as makes it like a Stage-play and representeth God so like the Heathens Idols delighted in Mummeries and toyish actions as is greatly to the dishonour of Religion and God II. They have brought in the Worshipping of God in a Language which the People understand not and praying for they know not what III. They have lockt up the very Scriptures from the people and forbid all to use it in their known Tongue translated but those that get a special License for it IV. They abolish all substantial Signs in the Sacrament as is aforesaid and say There is no Bread or Wine and so make it no Sacament V. They give the Laity the Bread only without the Cup. VI. They call the Consecrated Bread by the Name of their Lord God and taking it to be no Bread but Christs Body worship it with Divine