Body from thence as the Apostle speaks by joynts and bands having nourishment and knit together may encrease with the encrease of God These same things doth our Saviour teach when giving a Rule for governing ones self in private offences betwixt his brother and him he bids him Tell it to the Church Our Saviour meant not that upon every such occasion the Church Catholique should or could be convoked but onely that the offended should complain to the Governours of the Church he lived in the doing whereof is properly to complain to the whole Church yea to the whole Church Catholique as appears by our Saviours adding that if the offender refused to hear the Church he should be as an Heathen man as much as to say That if by refusing to hear his particular Church he refused to hear the whole Chuch Catholique he should then be as an Heathen man cut off from the Communion of the whole Church for it were no just sentence to cut off one from the whole Church for disobeying the particular unlesse that disobedience to the particular were disobeying of the whole Church Every particular Church then hath so farre the authority of the Church Universall that as to her own Members her voyce is the voyce of the Catholique Church and tyes them all in conscience to submit their judgements to hers and to yeeld observance to all her Ordinances that are not against the expresse Word of God nor judgement of the Catholique Church And even in her Ordinances that minister question whether they be Orthodox and agreeable to the Word of God or no her authority is so farre binding as that even those Ordinancesâ— are not to be rejected nor condemned upon the judgement of any of her private Members onely but either by her own review and censure by some more generall Nationall Assembly or if the consequence require it by a full and true Generall Assembly of the Church whose sentence when once it shall be obtained shall be received as the most sacred and most authentique judgement that may be had in that matter and neerest approaching to the judgement of the holy Ghost but shall not be received as infallible as if pronounced by a Judge infallible for what assistance soever God hath promised to his Church it is onely such as agrees with the condition of a Church Militant therefore he hath neither promised it to the single Ministers in every of their Preachings neither yet so to the Church it self as that in every of her Consultations and Decrees she should infallibly produce the sentence of the holy Ghost for then were the Scripture needlesse seeing the Church should be able to pronounce infallibly with authority equall to the very Text and the Church as to errour in knowledge and understanding should not be Militant but Triumphant but every judgement of every Church shall have such a potiority of credit and authority in respect of the judgement of any part or Member thereof as that it must not be rejected nor over-ruled by any other judgement than either her own revisall and censure Assembly of her proper Judges a more generall Nationall Assembly or a full generall Assembly of the Church To conclude then when for avoyding confusion in the Church God hath subjected the spirits of the particular Preachers to the concurrent judgement of all the Preachers for men under pretence of preaching Gods Word to preach their own private judgements in detraction from the authority of their Church and without submitting their opinions to the judgement of their Church this is so farre from honouring God by magnifying of his Word as that contrarily it destroyes the authority of the Scripture by confused and wrong arrogated judgement in interpreting of it it by sects and schismes subverts the peace of the Church and contrary to the Admonition that God hath given in that behalf makes God the author of confusion The assurance of our Orthodox profession depending upon the consideration of these things cannot but occasion a little further examination of them Religion a religando ex vi termini is that which whatsoever it be ought to binde the Professor but of all other Godlinesse which onely is the true Religion must not have that binding power of hers denyed and therefore will-worship as repugnant to Religion is to be rejected Ye shall not saith Moses to the people when they were to enter into the Land and be a setled Church Ye shall not saith he do as we do this day every one that which is good in his own eyes It is impossible for the Professor which followeth his own judgement or conscience onely to avoid disobedience and will-worship for private judgement and conscience are neither sure nor constant observers of Gods Law nor can a man alwayes tell whether his iudgement or his affection leads his conscience but as obedience is that which our Saviour himself learning sheweth that we all must learn so the power of Godlinesse is to constrain obedience And if there be a question what we shall obey the Scripture tells us the Priests lips should preserve knowledge and we should seek the Law at his mouth And our Saviour tells his disciples He that heareth you heareth me and he that despiseth you despiseth me and bids that he that will not hear the Church be as an Heathen man And St Paul tells us The Church is the pillar and ground of the truth and against private singularities and indecencies in the service of God he obiects that their Church had no such custome neither the Churches of God We are also commanded to submit to all manner of Ordinance of man for the Lords sake And that every soul be subject to the higher power that he that resisteth the power resisteth the Ordinance of God and receiveth to himself damnation The Scripture is abundant to this purpose and among many other places Gen. 27. 6. is remarkable When Jacob or Israel was afraid in the apparell of his elder brother to seek his fathers supreme blessing lest by seeking it in a undue manner he should instead of a blessing get a curse his mother requires his obedience to her voye Israel obeyed her and by it obtained the blessing If this Allegory so much concern us as that we be the Israel the younger brother that want and seek the blessing our Saviour our elder brother in whose clothing we seek it and God our father that gives it who is our directing mother by oheying whose voyce we obtain the blessing but she that is the wife of our father the Church of God By these then and many other Scriptures it appears That in all matters of Religion wheresoever there is a doubt and consesequently use of judgement the iudgement of the Church is to be preferred So Gods Word which must be observed directs so the exigence of things requires the particular man cannot otherwise avoyd will-worship and singularity nor the
shewing by asmuch unity of way as might be the unanimity and true communion of the Churches members that thorowout all her severall Congregations at least all of one Nation one Form of Divine Service should universally be observed Hence have the Western Churches where Religion flourished most and longest received much what one Form perhaps not all at once nor alwayes the very same but with some addition or change as use and experience gave occasion untill the Church of Rome corrupting with her greatnesse suffered not the service of God to be exempt from her corruptions and growing at length so licentious in them as even to subvert the Fundamentalls of Religion It pleased God in divers parts so farre to enlighten and strengthen his Church as to examine the Romane alterations by the Test of Gods Word which the Church of England having more happily than others performed reiected what was repugnant to Gods Word and wisely retaining the rest left us that Form of Divine Service that unto this day by the Laws of this Kingdome is advisedly confirmed in the Church In this our restored Liturgie the long practised judgement of the Church regarding one way the property of devotion and another the infirmity of man thought it fitting not to have prayers preaching and thanksgiving alone without the publique reading also of the very Word of God neither thought they it fit that the Confessions of sins Supplications and Thanksgivings that publikely were to be made should all at once in one continued exercise be performed lest happily in many devotion wanting matter of present excitation should wax cold and then the intention of the minde growing remisse and the thoughts wandring men in spight of their hearts should with their lips onely perform an empty mock-God service To the end therefore that the whole service of the Congregation should be truely publikely performed with true communion and likewise with true and lively fervour of spirit they ordained such change and succession of all duties belonging to Gods service as might best make those severall duties most effectuall to the performers First therefore That the Congregation observing one and the same demeanour thorowout all her Members should upon their knees with loud voyces and articular Confessions make an humble and publike and acknowledgement of their sins and vile dition and beseech God for mercy and forgivenesse and the Minister for the comfort of the penitent to pronounce Gods pronesse to forgive and to pray for them and with them That after their humiliation they should with Hymnes of mutuall exhortation taken out of Scripture stirre up one another to proceed to praise to singing and rejoycing before God Then some portions of the Scripture should be read in course of which the Psalms should ever be part which because they contain matter so abundantly usefull for instruction for meditation for comfort prayer praise and thanksgiving they should therefore be read alternally betwixt the Minister and the Congregation to make them in publique more fervent in the prayers and praises wherewith the Psalms abound and to make them also more perfect in the Contents of them for their private use then as Gods works especially of man Redemption are so done as that they ought to be had in remembrance so on Sundayes and other dayes of especiall Commemoration of them such portions of Scripture as tended most to the setting forth of Gods work on that day annually commemorated should be read at the end of which the Congregation as moved by the impressions which these portions ought to make in every one to render God that praise that glory and blessing which the sense of his mercy in his work then declared doth justly procure from the heart and mouth of the thankfull hearer and this they do in Hymnes either taken out of Scripture or composed and allowed by the ancient and generall approbation of the Church After the Lessons of Scripture and Hymnes ended the Congregation to stand up and make a publique confession of their faith and then prostrate on their knees in prayers fitted to the divers necessities and infirmities of humane nature to make supplications for all sorts degrees and conditions of men in which the Minister should not alwayes himself alone utter the words of prayer but for the better entertainment and incitement of devotion every Member of the Congregation with frequent interjecting of their Votes and Invocations should like more active parties in Gods service make a more frequent and effectuall joynt importuning of him Then after an especiall prayer for grace and sanctification the two Tables of Commandments to be read which summarily containing our whole duty both to God and man the Congregation conscious of the breach of every one of them should at the reading of each Commandment cry out for mercy for their breaking of it and implore grace for the betcer observing of it in future And that done some choice portions of Scripture of especiall comfort and instruction and more especially relating to the work of Redemption that day commemorated taken out of the Epistles of the Apostles and the Gospel of the Evangelists to be read with which unlesse the Communion be administred the Word preached or an Homily read the publique service of the Church to be concluded with certain prayers and with the Ministers blessing of the people How well this Ordinance provides for offering unto God the reasonable service of man we must leave unto the consciences of every man As for the exceptions that are made against it they are chiefly these First in generall That it is popish superstitious Antichristian a charge which is very foul if true then in particular That it is in a set Form Now first to be popish is no more than to partake of the Manners Customes or Ordinances of the Popes which when in plain tearms it is not forbidden in the Scripture we must seek how it it comes to passe that to partake of them must be unlawfull The Popes briefly were the Bishops of Rome of which the formost having both for life and doctrine been glorious members of the Church that Church grew so renowned as that for judgement in matters of Religion they had the priority of repute were to the Western Church the authors of many good Ordinances in Religion and the great support thereof till abusing their repute and by little and little degenerating they grew into so unspeakable corruptions as no intelligent man may partake in those things with them without a conscious committing of manifest sin against the Word of God Now though â—heir corruptions are by all means to be rejected yet are they not therefore corrupt or to be rejected because they were the acts of Popes but because they were things which the Popes acted contrary to the Word of God so as repugnancy to Gods Word being the true and onely ground of their unlawfulnesse we can reckon them no further unlawfull than that ground or reason will demonstrate and
we may no more for respect of persons be they Popes or whatsoever call good evill or evill good then we may for respect of persons break the Commandments of God Nor is it more to be abhorred as a popish corruption to use the Ordinances of Popes which are not wicked Ordinances in themselves than blessing the people of in the words wherewith Balaam blessed them is to be abhorred as a Balaamish corruption for when by the names of Popish Jewish Heathenish c. we condemne any thing we all intend that the thing condemned is of the nature of those things wherein they were especially corrupt and not of the nature of their doings which were neither good nor evill and much lesse of the nature of those wherein they excelled So as to be popish simply being no argument of necessary faultinesse we must see whether our Liturgie partakes of any popish corruption or no To come readily to the matter when in all the whole Frame of our Liturgie there is no Worship nor Innovation but of the true God onely neither is he worshipped any other way than by the sole and immediate mediation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ there first can be no Idolatrous corruption in the Liturgie Secondly It cannot be Antichristian because that contrary to the proper work of Antichrist which is to deny the Son and the Father and as God in the Temple of God to exalt himself above all that is called God the Liturgie thorowout the whole course thereof makes an exact acknowledgement adoration and exaltation above all things whatsoever and as it acknowledges them in profession so there is not any thing in it whereby they are denyed in practice So as to call it Antichristian is a malicious slander against the clear truth examined by the Light and Rule of Gods Word Lastly It cannot be superstitious neither for howsoever in the performance of it there may be some few Ceremonies brought in which rightly weighed do perhaps conduce more to worldly solemnity and ostentation in Religion than to true and necessary religious decency and reverence and therefore would be laid down yet being things otherwise indifferent introduced for decency onely and not pressed as things of any other necessity they can at the worst be but errours of Judgement mistaking what is decent and orderly they cannot be superstitious seeing they are not made matters of Religion but of decency and order without which nothing ought to be done When then according to true understanding and intention nothing is meant popish but what partakes of the superstitious corruptions of the Popes the Liturgy of the English Church must needs be acquit and discharged not onely of the infamous calumny of being Idolatrous Antichristian and suspicious but even also of that malicious aspersion of popish And then it will follow That the censures of those sinners against their own souls who in and for these things do falsly judge censure and condemn their Mother Church and renounce obedience to her and communion with her because as they suppose she is popish superstitious idolatrous Antichristian their unjust censures I say will prove the condemnation of themselves both of uncharitablenesse of self-conceit and of insolent exalting themselves against the Church of God at least if not of Antichristian persecution of it also and the more for this That while they promise liberty and freedome from superstition they themselves become slaves unto superstition making a matter of Religion not to obey the Ordinance of their Church in things indifferent and where the Word of God doth not forbid obedience but command it This briefly touching the generall exceptions Popish Superstitious Idolatrous Antichristian As for the particular exception That in our Liturgy all prayer praise and thanksgiving is in a set Form a device of mans not the command of God a muzling of the Ministers spirit a nurse of idlenesse and means of neglecting the gifts and graces of God c. We must consider 1. That there is not any expresse Scripture against set Forms of prayer and therefore the use of it is not against any expresse command of God 2. All Christian Churches thorowout the world as well the Greek and Eastern where Popery never raigned as these our Western Churches when once they attained a setled Government have in all ages served God in set Forms of Divine Service yea even the reformed Churches beyond Sea use some set Forms And for our set Liturgy if any man lift to be contentious against it we can truely say It is the Custome of our Church and also of the Churches of God and then the depravers of it will prove to be despisers of Authority and advancers of their own private judgement against the Universall Judgment of the Church Catholique 3 Under the Law there were set Forms of publike Confessions Thanksgivings Blessings c. which being no part of the Ceremoniall is warrant enough for Christians to use the like 4. The Psalms of David which as they abound with all those necessary parts of Gods publike service confession of sins prayers Praise and Thanksgiving so especially with Prayer many of them having that Title A Prayer they were not onely used publikely by both the Jewes Church and the Christians but were penned to that end and dedicated to the Priests that had the Office of praising God and were most excellent in those kindes of Musick to which they were set and the most excellent passages of praise and prayer in them had the word Selah added to them to the end that in the publike use of them those passages might be iterated and said or sung over again Also our Saviour himself having given us one Form of set Prayer which he bids When ye pray Say and not at all forbidden the use of set Forms makes it out of question that to pray in a given Form is lawfull so the Form be good And what doubt we but when John Baptist taught his Disciples to pray he did it by giving them some Form which our Saviours Apostles liking desired to have the like from him and our Saviour we see did not so much give them Precepts and Rules instructing them how to make prayers of their own though his Prayer hath that office too but gave them a perfect prayer in an exact conceived Form how much should men fear that their conscience offended at the use of set prayer without the Light of Gods Word declaring it to be unlawfull are consciences blinded with superstition afraid where no fear is and their consciences not onely darkened but their hearts also seduced with self-conceit and singularity unto perverse and affected contention with the Church 5. While they pretend to be free Ministers from a supposed restraint put upon their spirits by the use of set Forms they lay a reall restraint upon the spirits of all Congregations who being always perfect in the Contents and use of their set prayers do with prepared hearts
and spirits attend the publike and joynt presenting of their known supplications to God for those mercies and graces which the Church by those Forms declares all men to stand in need of and every ones particular spirit attesteth to be necessary for him But if all Congregations which God forbid should be deprived of the use of them every man shall go to Church bound in the spirit and know not what supplications he shall make to God till the mouth of the Minister shall declare it and then the single Minister whatsoever his gifts or faculties be shall determine of the devotion of the whole Congregation and conclude them all that they shall make no publike Invocation of God neither for matter nor form otherwise than as his spirit and perhaps sudden conceit shall minister unto him 6. When all the Service of the Church shall stand onely upon the strength and gifts of the Preachers and they differing in gifts one from another it will inevitably follow That those of the best gifts will more draw disciples after them than ever and men will become followers of men when they shall have no other means of publike communion with God either to hear him or to speak unto him than onely by the gifts of the Preacher and so the Church shall against Gods Word be necessarily drawn into Sectarism and Division 7. Lastly If we change our set Forms of Dâ—vine Worship into the various and arbitrary service that is to be performed by the Minister onely among many evills not now to be foreseen there is to be feared that when men shall have known no other publike exercise of Religion than by the Preachers arbitrary administration and that he be generally behâ—ld as the onely Minister of the spirit of publike service and prayer the consciences of men thenceforth subdued to an awfull dependance on him shall finde the Ministers like the Jesuites through the Soveraignty they hold in matters of Religion to exercise an externall dominion over their fortunes also and set on foot a more dangerous tyranny in Religion than hitherto the Church hath ever known And if their opposition to set Forms of publike Service and to what is used in the Church of Rome shall proceed so far as to reject the publike reading of the Scripture eight severall Lessons or portions of which are now by Gods mercifull providence dayly or at least every Sunday and holy-day publikely read in the Church then shall our Church of England by an ill-guided meaning to oppose the Church of Rome come to imitate her and towards her children commit the same cruelty that we justly condemn the Church of Rome for using towards hers who though she suffer her Layicks to hear the Word preached yet suffers them not to hear in their own Tongue the powerfull Word of God read unto them and we as well as the Romanists shall toward those that cannot or are carelesse to reade even wholly take away the means which our pious Mother the Church hath ordained for their conversion And whereas such publike reading of Gods lively and powerfull Word is no mean degree of Preaching we shall in an important part suppresse the Word of God and through disuse of frequent hearing breed a generall unacquaintednesse with the Precepts and Stories of the Scripture which will in time hinder both the understanding and applying of that which shall be preached We need not further seek to give particular answer to every quarrell that is now made against severall parts and passages of our Liturgy But when kneeling at the receit of the Sacrament is so agreeable to the religious performance of that Duty and yet is quarrelled with we cannot in silence passe it over For when want of due preparation is dangerous yet is not performed without humiliation contrition abhorring ones self forgiving others turning to them in all charitable affections thirsting for grace and fervent invocation of the Divine Majesty for them how can we perform these rightly without the lowliest prostration of soul and body that one can solicite God withall Will we say It should be done before but not at our receiving It is true it ought to be begun before but he that can so approve of his preparation before as to cease and say I have done enough he is rather to fear his presumption than to rest in such preparation he perhaps makes a popish opus operatum of his preparation and cries peace before there is peace nor can he say kneeling is an unfit posture to receive that grace in which is fittest to be begged on our knees Will we say kneeling is Idolatry to the Bread and Wine We must then shew that it is commanded to be done to the Bread and Wine or intended so or at least by Protestants abused so if none of those be but it be commanded only as the proper expression of the reverence and humiliation belonging to the duty then is the exception not onely without cause but slanderous and malicious Will we say That in the Institution of it our Saviour made not the disciples kneel True but let us also confesse that the disciples had the Bride-groom with them who though he were their Lord yet called them friends and admitted them to a liberty sutable We will not I am sure say the Sacrament is now to be celebrated in all things as it was then and no otherwise and if in any thing there be liberty of receding from what was done at first whose judgement shall we trust what we must hold and what we may recede from if not the Judgement and Practice of the Universall Church from the first to this present And if indeed we would observe the first Institution Why spurn we at receiving it together at the Table for so the the disciples did And Saint Paul calls it the partaking of the Table of the Lord and David The preparing of a Table for us Truely the receiving every one or every family apart by themselves in their seats â—uits not with observing of Communion nor coming together to eat nor eating together into one Body but savours of singularity and inconformablenesse to the observance of a true Eucharist It is not to be expected we should here examine all the dissentitions in Religion that are among us But seeing that in generall they are the quarrells of particular men for exercise of Religion in wayes either besides or contrary to the established Ordinances and usage of our Church in which yet they can neither charge the Church with violating the Word of God nor shew by the judgement of the Church Catholike that their own exercise of Religion is that which by the Word of God is only to be taught and practised It will not be unnecessary to represent to further search and consideration how much some passages of Gods Word too little examined by us are pertinent to the decision of these matters For Whereas true Christianity is a perfect Catholicisme and