the presence of God and that I should kneel or stand rather than sit at my Prayers because these are Natural postures of humility and reverence and have been esteemed so in all Ages and Nations whereas sitting or leaning or lying along do betoken a comparative carelesness and disregard of God and of his worship and will without question produce that bad effect upon the minds of men whereever they are put to practice as on the contrary a devout and submissive gesture and deportment of our selves at the times and â—â—aces of religious worship is of real benefit and advantage to our selves and is of good example to others and for the edification of all which things are so plain and so undoubted a justification of all significant Ceremonies that I need say no more concerning them Lastly there is no Ceremony in our Church which is or is pretended to be Idolatrous in its direction for as to the bowing towards the Altar or Communion-Table placed at the East end of the Church it is left to every man's liberty by the Canons of 1640. to behave himself in that matter as he pleases so that here is nothing imposed and yet because this hath been formerly so highly censured and perhaps with some more tolerable pretence than any of the other exceptions that are made I should not use it since I am not enjoined where it may give offence or be an occasion of scandal to the weak but in Cathedral or Collegiate Churches where the Congregations usually are better informed there is no reason why it may not be done for it is not pretended that we bow to any carved Image or to the likeness of any living Creature whether in Heaven or Earth which was the thing expresly forbidden by the second Commandment that we worship the Railes or the Table it self or at any time the consecrated Elements upon it which is likewise included in the meaning of that Commandment all which our Church does expresly declare against in as plain Language as words are capable of speaking And in the second place it is to be considered that the Israelites long before Christianity was thought of did always worship toward Jerusalem that is towards a certain quarter of the Heavens without any the least suspicion of Idolatry and that for ought appears onely by humane institution lastly I hope it will not be denied that God is in all times and places a very true and proper object of adoration and that there is no quarter of the Heavens besides the symbolical reasons upon which this practice depends towards which we may not worship him without Idolatry As for our kneeling at the Sacrament our Church hath sufficiently declared her self in this point that she intends no worship but to God onely to God the Father who sent his onely begotten Son into the World to die for our sins to God the Son who is then spiritually received and dies afresh for us in the merit and virtue and efficacy of his passion as often as we do worthily partake of those holy mysteries and to God the Holy Ghost whose Grace is then implored and received by us Because the Papists worship their Breaden God shall it therefore be unlawfull for us to kneel at our Prayers to behave our selves humbly in the presence of the true and onely God to acknowledge our offences and repent us of our sins and give thanks to God for his mercy to pray that the Body and Bloud of our Lord Jesus Christ may preserve our Body and Soul to everlasting life and to take that holy Sacrament to our unspeakable and eternal comfort meekly kneeling upon our knees But it would be infinite to say all that might be said upon so copious a subject in which I have all the way so plainly concurring with me the voice of reason of experience and of the wisest and best men of these and all times ever since the Reformation therefore I shall summ up all as I began with the words of the Apostle Let all things be done decently and in order THE END
us to be our Masters and Frogs were heard croaking in the Chambers of our Kings then you your selves will answer for me It was the tender Conscience dissolved into rebellious Pretences that carryed Order and Government before it and overflow'd all things with a resistless Stream it was a Cry against Discipline and Ceremonies and humane Institutions it was a Clamor for Liberty against Will-worship and the Ordinances of men it was a Spirit of Sedition a Thirst after Innovation an insatiable Humour of being dissatisfied with all the wholesome Establishments of Unity and Peace it was an Itch of new-modelling both Church and State it was a Pharisaical Pretence to farther Improvements of Purity and Holiness it was Discontent and Jealousie and godly Fear lin'd with Hypocrisie and Dissimulation that reduced our Beauty and Order into Ashes that laid the magnificent and comely Fabricks of the British Church and Empire the Amazement of themselves and the Envy of their neighbours equal with the ground and instead of one firm and well-compacted Building rais'd paper Tenements of crumbling Sects and Factions which instead of being able to support themselves betray'd us in a manner into that Security which we now enjoy While we forgetfull of those Miseries under which our Fathers and our selves have groan'd unthankfull for those Blessings which under the shade and protection of a wise and happy Government we receive ungratefull to Almighty God who out of that Chaos of Confusion has rear'd this new world of Establishment and Order displeas'd with the fatness of the Olive and the sweetness of the Figg-tree and quarrelling with the friendly and sociable Vine that cheareth God and Man are calling again for the Bramble to reign over us and for the Thornes and Briars to protect us or like the Israelites in the Wilderness surfeited with Miracles with Manna and with Quailes with the dew of Heaven and with the fatness of the Earth with liberty and ease and plenty we are looking back for Slavery from our old Taskmasters in the Land of Ham and longing for the Garlick and the Onyons of Egypt But because an instance taken from our late Confusions may but exasperate whenit should convince Let us avoid the mention of that Crying Guilt for which this Land of our Nativity has wept in tears of Bloud and should for ever mourn in Sack-cloth and humble her self before the Lord in Ashes and let us trace the footsteps of Antiquity and search the Records of the more innocent and early Ages What was the reason in the Mosaick Dispensation why all the external niceties of divine Worship in their Feasts and in their Sacrifices and in their Lustrations were so carefully adjusted by the particular designation and appointment of God himself It is true indeed that most of those Ceremonies were of a symbolicall nature and were designed to shadow out unto the Jewes either that purity simplicity and innocence of mind which God expects from all his worshippers and servants or else they were figurative and emblematicall Representations of the life and death and sufferings of the Messias and of that more perfect Dispensation which was to be introduced into the World by him But yet notwithstanding it must not be deny'd that there are many Ceremonies to be found in the Law of Moses which being equally commanded by God himself were of equall obligation as to their performance with any of the rest of which no such Typicall account can be given And therefore the reason of their Institution can only be this That since every thing must of necessity be done with some Ceremony in some Place or Time or Order or Gesture or Manner and Circumstance or other it pleased God for the avoiding of Confusion and for the preservation of an uniform and orderly way of Worship which would otherwise be exposed to perpetual change disturbance and alteration to adjust and determine the particular circumstances of those indifferent matters because considering the perverseness of some mens minds and the diversity of their several fancies and humours such changes and alterations could never happen without a considerable breach of Charity and Friendship among men which must needs be a wonderfull Obstruction as well to the interest of the Civil State as to all the religious Performances and Duties both as to their devotion in themselves and as to their acceptance with Almighty God If therefore the nature of Mankind be still the same under the Gospel that it was under the Law if the reasons for the necessity of Uniformity be the same now that ever they were in former ages if the method of this Uniformity be not adjusted by God himself under the Gospel as it was under the Law and if this Uniformity cannot be obtained unless the Church be invested with a right and power of prescribing the terms of it than it follows plainly as hath been already observed that the Church must be invested with such a power because else it would want the necessary means of its own unity and preservation which every Society must be supposed by the Laws of nature and reason to be invested with and if the Church be invested with such a power then all its Members are under an indispensable obligation to obey it because that Power which may be lawfully disobey'd is no Power at all And this is sufficient to vindicate the exercise of Ecclesiastical Censures And if you demand further Whether it be lawfull for the civil Sanction to interpose in behalf of the Church to see that its Orders and Injunctions be duly and faithfully executed and obey'd I answer that it is for this plain reason because the Civil Power has a right of exacting all kinds of lawfull Obedience from its subjects and this obedience if it were not Lawfull could not be enjoyned by the Church it self But besides the express provisions of the Law of Moses it self there were also several pretended traditions of Moses from Mount Sinai there were likewise the determinations of their Wise men in controverted cases the Decisions of the Tannaim and the Amoraim and of the Schools of Hillel and of Schammai the two so much celebrated but disagreeing Founders of the Pharisaick Order For which Traditions and Determinations of their famous Masters the Jewes had usually as great if not greater Veneration than for the Law it self and they were at length swell'd into so vast a bulk that like the Missals and the Rituals of the Romish Church at this day which are so full of Ceremonies burthensom in their number frivolous and superstitious in their use they ate out the very life and heart of true Religion as our Saviour himself in several places of his Gospel with no less Justice than severity complains The Heathen World had also their Sacred Offices prescribed by a certain Form as well before as under the Law And the same is the case with the Mahometan and Pagan Idolaters at this day which Ceremonies of theirs though for their
of the Abrahamitical Covenant and Mosaick Law the Holy of Holies was at that instant lay'd open whereinto not onely the High-priest with Sacrifices once a year but all mankind by virtue of that great propitiatory Sacrifice which was at that time offered up upon the Cross without any other Sacrifice of their own than that of a broken spirit and a contrite heart might enter and be happy and there was now ratified a New and better Covenant established upon better Promises whereinto not the Jews onely but all men that would accept of the conditions of the Gospel of what sort or quality or Nation soever they were whether Jew or Gentile bond or free Greek or Barbarian had a free and welcome admittance and it was in this sense onely that the Promise was litterally fulfilled to Abraham that his seed should be as the stars of heaven and as the sands of the sea shore for number that is not the carnal but the spiritual seed which was much larger than the other Rom. 9. 6 7 8. For they are not all Israel which are of Israel Neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children but in Isaac shall thy seed be called That is They which are the children of the flesh these are not the children of God but the children of the promise are counted for the seed And again Gal. 3. 29. If ye be Christ's then are ye Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise The Abstinence from Bloud though it be not so much a Jewish Institution but was as old as the Creation it self and continued all along in force till our Saviour's time yet then its obligation together with its reason was to cease the reason given in the Law which was the same before it being this that God had given it upon the Altar to be an attonement for the souls of men it is manifest therefore that when the Sacrifice and the Oblation ceased as they actually did upon the suffering of the Messias as to their efficacy and virtue and as the Prophet Daniel had long before expresly prophesied it should doe I say when the Sacrifices were no longer allowed in which this legal Abstinence was founded it is plain the Obligation to the Abstinence it self must cease together with it because sublatâ causâ tollitur effectus that Cause upon which this Abstinence was enjoyned being now finally antiquated and abolish'd the Effect of that Cause which was this Abstinence from Bloud must of necessity be supposed to be abrogated likewise But yet I know not how it came to pass not onely the converted Jews in the Apostolical times but the primitive Christians for many Ages together did generally abstain from Bloud and this Abstinence has not wanted very learned Assertors even in our daies Curcelleus has written a particular Diatriba or Dissertation De esu sanguinis wherein he defends this practice with what success I leave others to determin when they shall have considered what I have here said to which I will now adde to strengthen the Demonstration that that Text of Saint Paul's which I have already cited whatsoever is sold in the shambles that eat asking no question for conscience sake may as well refer and does as necessarily doe so to a permission of Eating the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we Translate things Strangled and to the Repealment of the prohibition of Blood as to the Idolothyta or things Offered up in Sacrifice upon the Table of Idols For they could not eat whatsoever was sold in the Shambles without eating many times such meat as was not killed with that exquisite Accuracy for the draining of the Blood which was peculiar to the Jews and derived afterwards to the Christians from them A particular Instance of this exceeding Care and Sollicitude of theirs we have 1 Sam. 14. v. 32. And the people flew upon the Spoil and took Sheep and Oxen and Calves and slew them on the ground and the people did eat them with the blood that is lying upon the ground the Blood could not so easily be drained out of the Orifice that was made and besides the Blood flowing about them polluted the the ground where they lay and defiled the Skins of the Beasts that were killed which put the whole Animal in a state of Levitical Uncleanness and that which made the touching of Blood to contract a Defilement was this that by the Levitical Sanctions the Blood was of an Expiatory nature and was always Offered up by the express Command of God before the door of the Tabernacle as long as the Israelites sojourned in the Wilderness and so being spilt by way of Expiation it was supposed to be Defiled with the Guilt of the Owner and his Family who were afterwards to partake of the Flesh and therefore was Unclean as all Expiatory Sacrifices were as is manifest not only from the reason of the thing Expiation being a Translation of Guilt and Guilt the cause of Uncleanness but also from the Rites of the Sin and the Trespass Offering which in some cases were by reason of their uncleanness to be burnt without the Camp and the Skins of these Sacrifices did not belong to the Priest as in some other cases because they were unclean Now though it is true that after the Children of Israel were settled in the Land of Canaan this Custome of bringing all Animals to be slain at the door of the Tabernacle was omitted and indeed was utterly Impracticable by reason of the great distance of many parts of Judea from the Temple and Tabernacle yet notwithstanding God did not by this lose that Right which he had appropriated to himself in the Blood but it was in the nature of a tacit or supposed Sacrifice in behalf of the Owner and those that partook with him of the Flesh though it were not sprinkled by the Priest before the Lord as the Law of Moses if by reason of Distance it had not been impossible would have required By this it appears how the Beasts that were killed in this place of Samuel came to be defiled and unlawfull to be eaten Let us now see which was the thing I first intended what care was taken by Saul for the redress of this neglect or at least to make some amends for it v. 33 34. Then they told Saul saying Behold the people sin against the Lord in that they eat with the blood And he said ye have transgressed roul a great stone unto me this day And Saul said disperse your selves among the people and say unto them bring me hither every man his Ox and every man his Sheep and slay them here and eat and sin not against the Lord in eating with the Blood And all the people brought every man his Ox with him that night and slew them there Nay it is probable that the Blood was also sprinkled from the hands of the Priests for it follows in the next Verse And Saul built an Altar unto the
Lord the same was the first Altar that he built unto the Lord. Now the reason of that Command of his of rouling a Stone to the place where the Beasts were to be killed was this That they were to be laid athwart it with their Necks hanging down that so the blood might flow with the greater freedom out of the Orifice which was made and might fall upon the ground without defiling the Bodies of the Animals themselves as I have already taken notice in another Discourse upon a very different Occasion from this and in another Language The Jews continue Obstinate to this day in a Religious abstinence from Blood notwithstanding their Temple be demolished and they do not so much as pretend to any thing of Sacrifice till it be rebuilt and I know a Learned Jew with whom I had for some years a particular acquaintance who was so scrupulous in this point that he would never eat any kind of Flesh which he had not killed himself But before I pass any further I will take notice of one cause of Saint Paul's Condescention as to the business of Abstinence from Blood which I did not think of before And that is That besides what I have said of its Levitical Pollution which it seems they that were the Patrons of this Opinion did not apprehend to be abolished by the fulfilling of all those legall Sacrifices in and by the Sacrifice of Christ they considered further that God having appropriated the Blood to himself which Property and Right of his they did not conceive him ever to have relinquisht they looked upon it as a kind of Sacrilege to seed upon Blood and therefore abstained from it upon the same Pious principle upon which they would have abstained from Robbing of Hospitals or Colleges or from Pilfering the Ornaments of Churches and seizing the Revenues of the Ecclesiastical State a sort of Piety so necessary to the honour of God and to the prosperity and happiness of the Church that it ought by no means to be discouraged though in a mistaken Instance much more if Saint Paul himself foresaw which we cannot tell but he might that Sacrilegious humour of the Saints which our times have experienced when the Church was swallowed up at one Morsel and the Kingdome at another when all that was Sacred and Devoted to the service of Almighty God was converted to profane uses by Thieves and Robbers in the disguise of Saints with as little reason as that for which Dionysius of Syracuse divested Apollo of his Golden Ornaments upon Pretence that they were too heavy and too hot for Summer and that in Winter they would not keep him warm We see therefore that it was not a bare Infirmity without any colour or pretext of Reason that was dispensed with in these cases for such Dispensations if they be once allowed there can be no end but Confusion and the utter Subversion of all manner of Government and Order We see upon what reasons and prejudices these Scruples were founded and how necessary it was at that time to Comply with them We see likewise that they were not matters of small Weight and Moment they were not things looked upon on both sides to be of an indifferent nature they were not Controversiae de Nugis Siculis Gerris Germanis de foliis Farfari aut Naevii Butubatis de umbrâ Asini aut de lanâ Caprinâ they were not matters of meer Ceremony and Show matters of External Discipline and Form that exercised the tenderness and infirmity of those times Those Babes in Christ that were but newly initiated into the Christian Faith and had as yet tasted only the sincere milk of the Word without adventuring upon stronger meats were yet better fed and better taught than to quarrel about Indifferent Matters or to Controul their Governours in things of Publique Decency and Order But the instances of their Scrupulosity were founded in such things as they looked upon to be in themselves Offences of the highest nature against the express Commands of God against the honour of his Name against the entire and incommunicable respect which is due from all Creatures both in Heaven and Earth to his Adorable Majesty and Greatness and against the indispensable duties of natural Reason and Religion in which though they were never so much mistaken yet these were Scruples not of small Concernment but of the highest Consequence and Importance and St. Paul did therefore comply with the Infirmity and with the mistakes of those Good Men not barely to gratify a squeemish Fancy which is out of love with things for no reason and without any end but lest by opposing Prejudices so deeply rooted in matters of so extraordinary a nature as these were they might be tempted to an Apostacy from the Christian Faith which did impose burthens upon them which their Consciences not being yet sufficiently informed of the true extent of that liberty which Christ had purchas'd for them could not possibly bear for this reason it was Saint Paul's rule to become all things to all men that he might save the more and he despensed with them in some cases out of meer necessity that his Brother for whom Christ dyed might not be destroyed by Relapsing to Judaism on the one hand or Idolatry on the other As our Learned Mr. Thorndike and out of him the Accurate and Industrious Doctor Falkner have observed And this latter case of Idolatry was therefore the more tenderly to be regarded because the Authour to the Hebrews speaking of this very business tells us c. 6. v. 4 5 6. It is impossible for those who were once enlightned and have tasted of the heavenly Gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the World to come if they shall fall away to renew them again unto repentance seeing they Crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame And St. John in his first Epistle c. 5. v. 16. tells us there is a sin unto death I do not say that he that is our Brother shall pray for it that is there is great danger that his Prayers will never be heard in behalf of such a person and what that Sin is he afterwards explains v. 21. Little Children keep your selves from Idols And this is likewise very suitable to the practice of the Church in the Primitive times who upon any such Relapse to Idolatry were not used to receive the Apostate though giving all imaginable demonstrations of Repentance into the bosom of that Church which he had forsaken by Sacramental Absolution sometimes at the very instant of Death and sometimes not till then as is manifest from the case of Serapio and others However since Peace is the thing above all others the most to be prized and valued and with the greatest passion and earnestness to be desired since no kind of discipline or external Form is any further