innovations as the turning the Table to an Altar and the low crindging towards the Altar so erected but as for the Leiturgy or Service of the Church of England not a touch of either in his thoughts or tongue Now brethren learne you hence just matter of private humiliation for so foule a sclander of a grave and religious Bishop and in him of this whole Church For learned Calvin if those who professe to honour his name would have beene ruled by his judgement wee had not had so miserable distractions in the Church as wee have now cause to bewaile all that I say of him is that his censure of some tolerable fooleries in our holy Service might well have beene forborne in alienâ Republicâ your vindication is that hee wrote that Epistle to the English at Francford Who doubts it The parties were proper the occasion just but not the censure Parciùs ista when wee meddle with other mens affaires I may well be pardoned if I say that harsh phrase doth not answer the moderation which that worthy Divine professeth to hold in the controversie of the English AS for that unparalleld Discourse whereon you run so much descant concerning the Antiquity of Liturgies deduced so high as from Moses time you argue that it cannot be because you never read it Brethren your not omniscient eyes shall see that my eyes are so Lyncean as to see you proudly mis-confident you shall see that others have seene what you did not and shall sample that which you termed unparalleld It is neither thank to your bounty nor praise to your ingenuity that the question is halfe-granted by you but an argument of your self-contradiction An order of Divine service you yeeld but not a forme or a forme but not prescribed not imposed and for this you tell us a tale of Iustin Martyrs Leiturgie and Tertullians Leiturgie how much to the purpose the sequell shall shew In the former you grant that after the Exhortation they all rose and joyned in prayer prayer ended they went to the Sacrament but whether these prayers were suddainly conceived or ordinately prescribed there is the question and whether that Sacrament were administred in an arbitrary and various forme mee thinks your selves should finde cause to doubt But Iustin saies to cleare this point that in the beginning of this Action the President powred out prayers and thanksgiving according to his ability and the people said Amen What ever his ability was I am sure you have a rare ability in mis-construing the Fathers and particularly these testimonies of Iustin and Tertullian To begin with the latter out of him you say The Christians in those times did in their publike assemblies pray Sine monitore quia de pectore without any prompter but their own heart Prove first that Tertullian speaks of publike assemblies Secondly know that if he did the place is to your disadvantage for as a late learned Author well urges would ye have it imagined that the assembled Christians did betake themselves publikely to their private devotions each man by himself as his own heart dictated this were absurd and not more against ancient practise then as your selves think piety Was it then that not the people but the Minister was left to the liberty of his expressions What is that to the people How did they ere the more pray without a prompter How is it more out of their heart when they follow the Minister praying out of unknown conceptions then out of foreknown prescription So as you must be admonished that your Sine monitore without a prompter is without all colour of proof of prayers conceived your Zephyrus blows with too soft a gale to shake the foundation of this argument and indeed is but a side-winde to my Heraldus and the very same blast with your Rigaltius though you would seem to fetch them out of different corners If I give you your own asking you have gained nothing For what would you infer Christians prayed for the Emperors without a monitor as the heathens did not therefore they had no formes of Christian prayers He were liberall that would grant you this consequent when rather the very place shews what the forme was which the Christians then used We are praying still for all Emperors that God would give them a long life a secure raigne a safe Court valiant hoasts faithfull Counsellors good people and a quiet world This was Tertullians Leiturgie wherein the hearts of Christians joyned without a monitor It is small advantage that you will finde in my sense of Sine monitore not being urged by any superior injunction If no injunction you say how could it be a Leiturgie a commanded imposed forme You are unwilling to understand that the injunction here meant is generall a command to pray for the Emperour not a particular charge of the forms injoyned in praying this was therefore the praise of their Christian loyaltie that even unrequired they poured out their supplications for Princes Shortly then after all these pretended senses Tertullian will not upon any termes be drawne to your partie Those other two places of Tertullian and Austine are meerely sleevelesse and unproving not making any whit at all more for conceived prayers then for prescribed Who ever made question whether wee might build our prayers upon our Saviours form or whether we might vary our prayers with our occasions Those Fathers say no more we no lesse Ye dare not say there were no publique Leiturgies in S. Austins time My Margin was conviction enough which ye touch as an Iron too hot with an hand quickly snatcht away Your denial should have drawn on further proofs Iustin Martyr though fifty yeers before Tertullian follows him in your discourse How guiltily you both translate and cite him an Author of no mean judgement hath shewed before me I shall not therefore glean after his sickle But shortly thus take your {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in your own best sense for quantum pro virile potest what will follow The President prayed and gave thanks to the utmost of his power therfore the Church had then no Leiturgie What proof call you this Look back Brethren to your own citation you shall finde Prayers more then once in their Lords-day meetings These latter were the Presidents the former some other Ministers these in the usuall set forms those out of present conception both stand well together both agreeable to the practise as of these so of former ages BUt whiles I affect over-full answers I feel my self grow like you tedious I must contract my self and them Your assertion of the originall of set forms of Leiturgy I justly say is more Magistrall then true and such as your own testimonies confute That of the Councell of Laodicea is most pregnant for set formes before Arrius or Pelagius lookt forth into the world wherein mention is expresly made of three formes of Prayer
one by and for the Catechumeni the second for the Penitents the third for the Faithfull You cannot elude so cleare a proofe by saying the Councell required prayers for all these but did not binde to set formes in prayers for the same Councell stops your mouth whiles it tels you in plaine termes {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} that the same form or Liturgy of Prayers was to be used morning and evening And Clemens though not the true yet ancient tels us {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} c. and in the eight Book of his Constitutions recites large prayers which were publiquely used in the Church Let the Reader now judge where this shuffling lies The Canon requires one of these prayers to be in silence what then So doth our Liturgy require in the Ordination of Ministers that in one passage of this solemne act our prayers should be secret and silent yet the rest is no lesse in set formes You might then bee ashamed to object want of fidelity to me in the citation of that testimony which I but barely quoted in my margin Neither can you avoid a self-confutation in your owne proofes There was no noise of the Arrian heresie till the Nicene Councell The Councell of Laodicea wherin set formes are notified was before the Nicene by your owne account Yea but say you the heresie of Arrius was not just borne at the period of the Nicene Councell True but was it borne so long before as that any Councell tooke notice of it before the Nicene This you dare not affirme But for a second shift the heresie of Arrius troubled the Church sometime before the name of Arrius was borrowed by it Grant we upon good authority of Fathers and Councels that the ground of the cursed error of Arrius concerning the Son of God was laid before by others what is that to the question of set prayers What is if this be not a plaine shuffle Neither is it any other then a meere slurre wherewith you passe over the unanswerable pressure of the Laodicean Councell before mentioned by cavilling the difference betwixt prescribing and composing the Councell is flat in both and injoynes one and the same Liturgy of prayers Certainly brethren you finde cold comfort at Laodicea Let us see how you mend your selves at Carthage The Fathers there injoyne that no man in his prayers should name the Father for the Son or the Son for the Father that in assisting at the Altar their prayers should be directed to the Father that no man should make use of any other forme then is prescribed unlesse he did first confer with his more learned brethren Hence you gather there was no set forme in use in the Church and no such circumscribing of liberty in prayer that a man should be tied to a set Liturgie The charge was doubtlesse given upon a particular occasion which is buried with time whether it were ignorance or heedlesnesse in those African Priests that they thus mistook in their Devotions I cannot determine But why might it not be then as it is with too many now that notwithstanding the Churches prescriptions men will be praying as they list and let fall such expressions as may well deserve censure and restraint However that they had set formes seemes to bee sufficiently implyed in their own words Quicunque sibi preces aliunde describit for what can that aliunde relate unto but some former prescription which that they had even in these African Churches we need no other testimony then of the Magdeburgenses who cite Cyprian himselfe for this purpose in his Booke de Oratione Dominica where he tels us that the Priest began with Sursum corda Lift up your hearts and the Congregation answered Wee lift them up unto the Lord To which they adde Formulas denique quasdam precationū sine dubio habuerunt They had then without doubt certaine set formes of prayers and to suppose that they had prescribed formes for publique use which no man should be required to use it were a strange and uncouth fancy Neither need wee any better contest for our defence then him whom you cite in your margin learned Cassander in the just allegation both of this Councell and the Milevitane the Canon whereof runs thus It pleaseth the Fathers that those prayers or orisons which are approved in the Synod shall bee used by all men And no other shall bee said in the Church but such as have beene made by some prudent Authors or allowed of the Synod lest perhaps something may bee composed by them through ignorance or want of care contrary to the faith Say Readers is not this a likely testimony to bee produced against set formes of Prayer What is it then that you would hence inferre First that this being Anno 416. is the first mention of prayers to be approved or ratified in a Synod and the restrayning to the use of them Grant that it were so of prayers to bee ratified or restrained Is it so of prayers to be used Are you not sufficiently convinced herein by the Synod of Laodicea It is the occasion that draws on the Law till now this presumption of obtruding private mens prayers upon the publique use of the Church was not heard of in those parts now only was it seasonable for correction Secondly you say the restriction was not such but that it admitted a toleration of prayers framed by prudent Divines no lesse then those which were approved by the Synod What gaine you by that when these prayers were said and not conceived and so said that they were put into formes not left to arbitrary delivery Secondly the occasion of this restriction being the prevention of errours in praying is so universall both for time and place that it may well argue this practise to be most ancient for the originall and worthy to be perpetuall for the continuance And now that the Vindicators may see how small cause the Remonstrant hath to be convinced of the latenesse of set forms imposed not till the Arrian and Pelagian Heresies invaded the Church let them be pleased to tell the Reader what those {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Prayers prescribed were whereof Origen speaks in his 6. book against Cels so frequently used and if that word may undergo another sense what those {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} can be construed wherefrom he quotes three or four passages of Scriptures in the fourth book against Celsus Lastly what the meaning and inference may be of that which the Centuries alledge out of Origen in his 11. Homily upon Ieremy Vbi frequenter in oratione dicimus Da omnipotens da nobis partem cum Prophetis da cum Apostolis Christi tui tribue ut inveniamur ad vestigia unigeniti tui If this be not part of a set form of prayer and long before Arrius or Pelagius I have lost both my aim and the day if
frequented by Ministers and people and this hath hitherto been obediently and peaceably observed now upon some new exotick scruples good people are taught to place pietie in the disobedience of those acknowledged Lawes and nothing will quiet their many thousand consciences but an abrogation of the good Lawes they were wont to live under What must the indifferent Reader needs think of this The Law is the same it was under which our religious fore-fathers went happily to heaven the change is in us Oh miserable men whom some few tempestuous blasts from New-England and Amsterdam have thus turned about and made insensible of our former blessings Meane while that which pincheth you in my Reply you are willing to passe over in silence Were the imposition amisse what were this to the people The imposition if faulty is upon the Minister how can that more concerne the people then their joyning with him in an usuall prayer whereto hee ties himselfe of his owne making If the case bee equall why doe you not labour to convince your people of so unjust a partialitie and to reclaime them from so palpable an errour the end whereof without a speedy remedy can bee no other then that I have most unwillingly fore-spoken perfect difformity and confusion I May not omit to proclaime to the Reader your eminent charity to me of whom you say Yea so resolute he is not to yeeld to a libertie in what is established c. that wee evidently see by his answer that had the reading of Homilies beene as strictly enjoyned as the Booke of Common Prayer the ablest Minister in England were the Law in the Remonstrants hands must be held as strictly to them as to this How now Brethren What in so angry a confidence On what ground I beseech you The Remonstrant is well knowne to have beene as diligent a Preacher as any in your Alphabet and to bee still as not yet defective in that dutie so as great an incourager of Preaching as the best of your Patrons why will yee thus unjustly raise so envious a suggestion against him Hee is soresolute not to yeeld a liberty Alas what power hath hee to either yeeld or denie a libertie who professeth as hee ought nothing but humble obedience But when a question is stated concerning the injunction or freedome of a Liturgie you may be pleased to give mee leave to defend that part which my conscience and I thinke upon sure grounds dictates to me for a certaine truth Non eadem sentire bonis c. had wont to bee a received rule but as to this challenge it selfe might the Readers leisure serve him to cast back his eye upon this passage of my Defence he shall no lesse marvell at the injustice then the uncharitablenesse of it Hee shall there see with what inoffensive caution I marshall Homilies and Liturgie in the same ranke so making our obedience the rule of the use of both as that I professe a just liberty yeelded in both showing that if Homilies were injoyned to be read and yet a free use of Preaching allowed there were no more cause to refuse them then we have now to refuse the Liturgie having withall a freedome to our conceived Prayers In which position I would faine see what malice it selfe can finde to carpe at AS for that strange project of yours of imposing the use of set formes as a punishment to un-sufficient Ministers yee might well give mee leave to smile a little at so uncouth a penance and so unheard-of a mulct whereat others perhaps will laugh out You answer mee with a retortion of my owne words and seeme to please your selves much in the conceit calling the ingenious Reader to record of your owne grosse mistaking Be this once pleased Readers since you are call'd up to examine these mens confident fidelitie I had as I well might taxed this rare project of theirs Yet himselfe say they comes out with a project about Preaching never a whit better and doth as good as confirme our saying in the latter end View the place I beseech you see if you can finde any the least intimation of either preaching or project All that passage is onely concerning prayer the gift whereof I say every forward Artizan will be unjustly challenging Away then say I with the booke whiles it may bee supplied with his more profitable non-sense and conclude how fit it is where is nothing but an empty over-weening and proud ignorance there should bee a just restraint a restraint I say in a limitation of the formes of prayer For what should Artizans have to do with preaching Or what such absurd project is there in this just restraint Tell me now Reader whether this bee not as like Bellarmine as the man in the Moone Truely how either the Cardinall came into the line or the Noble Peere into the margin he were wise that could tell What was professed in the hearing of some of you and some of your Superiours of a willing condescent to part with that which is indifferent to themselves if they might bee informed it is offensive to others must be supposed to import as a true information so a just offence wherein they should bee sure of the concurrence of some whom you are pleased to censure as lesse mercifull then whom none can bee more ready to make good that of Gregorie in putting to their hand for the removing of customes truely burdensome to the Church Thus you have very poorly vindicated the first part of your Answer concerning Liturgie having made good nothing which you have undertaken disproved nothing which I affirmed and if as you professe your desire was a sincere pursuit of truth you are the more to be pitied that you missed it it is not yet too late for you to recover it bee but ingenuous in confessing what you cannot but see and wee cannot differ And if you doe heartily joyne with me in lamenting the breaches and miserable distractions of the Church why should you not joyne with me in the effectuall indeavours to make them up Why do you suffer your hands to widen that which your tongues would seeme to close If peace bee the thing you desire who is it that hath broken it Wee are where we were the change is on your parts and if there have beene some particular incroachments and innovations in some few hands what is that to the whole Church of England what is that to those whose proceedings have beene square and innocent Wee hope then that the Worthies of that High Court the great Patrons of peace and truth will soone see and seriously consider where the grief of the Church lyes and by their wisdoms put a seasonable end to these miserable and dangerous distempers SECT. III. YOur third Section is nothing but a meere jangle of words wherewith it was too much for the Reader to be once troubled for whose sake I shall cut you up short making it apparent that my affection to
it be repent of your confidence and recant your errour and grant at last that out of most venerable Antiquity the approvers of Liturgies have produced such evidences for their ancient use as your insolent wisdome may jeer but can never answer HOw I admire your goodnesse Mercifull men you pardon that fault which in justice ye could not find or cannot prove my confident assertion of the prayers wherewith Peter and Iohn joyned when they went up into the Temple at the ninth hour of prayer that they were not of a sudden conception but of a regular prescription shall be made good with better authority then your bold and braving deniall I say the prayers wherewith they joyned not the prayers which they made the prayers which they made were their own which wipes away your stout instance in the Pharisee and Publican but the prayers wherewith they joyned were publike and regular For in all their Sacrifices and Oblations the Jews had their set Service of prayers which gave life to those otherwise dead or at least dumb actions The noble and learned Lord Du-Plessis the great glory of the Reformed Church of France speaks home to this purpose so doth the renowmed P. Fagius the dead Martyr of our Cambridge besides learned Cappellus whom we cited in our late Defence Confessio olim in sacrificio solennis ejus praeterquam in lege vestigia in prophetis formulam habemus In ipsis Iudaeorum libris verba tanquam concepta extant quae sacerdos pronunciare solitus saith the said Mornay Du-Plessis There was a solemn confession in their sacrifice of old whereof besides that we have certain footsteps in the Law we have the very form in the Prophets In the books of the Iews the very expresse words are extant which the Priest had wont to pronounce Thus he And Lyranus wel acquainted with the Iewish practises as being one of them himself tels us that the Priest was used to confesse in generall all the sins of the people as saith he we are wont to do in the entrance of our Masse But Ludovicus Cappellus the French Oracle of Hebrew learning hath those very words whereat you jeer so oft as falling from my pen Ex quibus videre est orationem cujus causa Petrus Johannes petebant Templum fuisse eam quae à Iudaeis dicitur {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} quae respondet oblationi vespertinae lege praescriptae quae fiebat ut loquitur Scriptura inter duas vesperas Thus he whom I beseech you Brethren laugh at for company Admire with me Reader the subtlety of this deep exception Our Saviour I say prescribed to his Disciples besides the Rule a direct form of prayer What say my great Challengers to this The Remonstrant will have an hard task say they to prove from Scripture that either John or our Saviour gave to their Disciples publike Liturgies or that the Disciples were tyed to the use of this form Truly the task were as hard as the very mention of it is absurd and unreasonable For shame Brethren leave this palpable shuffling the Remonstrant spake of a Prayer ye ask for a Liturgie the Remonstrant speaks of prescribing ye talk of tying which till your Reply came not so much as into question It must be a weak sight that cannot discern your grosse subterfuges The use that our Saviour was pleased to make in his last Supper of the fashions and words which were usuall in the Jewish feasts is plainly affirmed not by Cassander only whose videtur you please to play upon but by Paulus Fagius at large by Mornaeus by Cappellus And if these tooke it from Maimonides who wrote not till a thousand yeares after Christ yet from whom I beseech you had Maimonides this observation A man of yesterday may upon good grounds of authority tell a truth of a thousand yeares old I let passe the meere non-sense wherewith you shut up this Paragraph as more worthy of the Readers smile then my confutation who will easily assume by comparing the place how little I meant to fetch a Liturgy from a feast or necessity out of an arbitrary act TO prove that the Jews had a form of Liturgy even from Moses his time I produced a monument above the reach of your either knowledge or censure a Samaritan Chronicle now in the hands of our most learned and famous Primate of Ireland written in Arabick translated into that tongue out of the Hebrew as Ios Scaliger whose it once was testifies fetching downe the story from Moses to Adrians time and somewhat below it out of this so ancient Record I cited the very words of the Author which these men would faine mistake as my own wherein hee mentions a booke of the old Liturgy of the Jews in which were contained those Songs and Prayers which were used before their sacrifices Adding For before every of their severall sacrifices they had their severall Songs still used in those times of peace all which accurately written were transmitted to the subsequent generations from the time of the Legat Moses unto this day by the ministery of the high Priest Thus he This is our evidence now let us see your shifts First you tel us Those were onely Divine hymns wherein there was alwayes something of Prayer If but thus wee have what wee would for what are prayses but one kind of prayers And what can be more said for a set forme of hymns then of petitions But brethren yee might have seene in the Authors owne words which you are loath to see Songs and Prayers which were ever used before their Sacrifices and were comprised in that ancient Service-book See now Reader whether there bee not something for set Prayers in the Authors own words which these men would wittingly out-face and not willingly see The Testimony cannot be eluded now it must be disparaged Ioseph Scaliger had certainly but two Samaritan Chronicles Who saies he had more I cited but one what needed you but to shew the world you can tell something to talk of two What businesse have we with that shorter Chronicle which you will needs draw into mention Let that bee as fond as your exception is unseasonable What is that to us How else should wee have knowne that you had taken notice of a Samaritane Pentateuch and learned Mr. Sel. dens Marmora Arundeliana Away with this poore ostentation speake to the purpose What can you say against that large Samaritan Chronicle which I produced turned out of Hebrew into Arabick written in a Samaritan Character and now not a little esteemed by the great and eminently judicious Primate in whose Library it is Surely as I have heard some bold pleaders when they have feared a strong testimony pick quarrels at the face of the witnesse so doe you brethren in this case Scaliger himselfe you say the former owner passes this censure upon it that though it have many things worthy
of knowledge yet they are crusted over with Samaritan devices Who can expect other but that a Samaritan should speak like himselfe when it comes to a difference in Religion but this is no reason why in matters accorded there should bee any distrust What a Bellarmine writes of the holy Trinity passeth for no lesse currant then the best of our owne If Ainsworth lived and died a Separatist yet we dare beleeve him in his report of Jewish Antiquities no lesse then Broughton Weems Drusius So as this winde shakes not the authority of this relation But judge you say how much credit we are to give to this book for Antiquitie as far as Moses which makes no mention of their own originall any other wayes then That they came out of Egypt by Moses A poor and groundlesse exception for that which wee alledge this Author for is onely the report of a booke containing the formes of prayers used by the Jewes since Moses and as for the mention of their owne Originall it was their glory to fetch themselves from the first Jewish Patriarks as the Samaritan Woman did at Jacobs Well neither would they challenge a lower rise no marvell therefore if they passed in silence the Historie of the defection of the ten Tribes as rather tending to their owne blemish especially considering what Josephus reports of their fashion That ever when the Jewes prospered they claimed brotherhood of them when contrarily they proclaimed hostility And what if this Author doth onely touch the names of Sampson Samuel David what doth this detract from the credit and validity of his historie So as notwithstanding your frivolous cavils we will take leave to make so much of our Samaritan Cronicle as to avow it for a noble and ancient proofe of that my confident assertion of the use of Liturgies since Moses YOur pretended proofe to the contrary which you so gloriously bring out of your famous Rabbi Moses Maimonides in his Mishneh will prove but a vain flourish if it worke any thing it will be for my advantage For what is it that hee sayes It is saith hee an affirmative precept that prayers should be made to God every day c. Caeterùm neque numerus c. But neither the number of those prayers nor the obligation to this or that prayer nor the certaine and definite time of prayer is injoyned in the Law Thus he Now how doth that concerne us Who ever defended that Moses in the Letter of the Law had given order for either number or time or obligation of particular prayers of severall Israelites although under your good favour we know that even then there were solemne formes of words to bee used in the remove and resting of the Arke and in the solemne benedictions of Israel and in the trialls of Jelousie prescribed by God himselfe to the Priests whereof what can yee make other then a shorter kind of stinted Liturgie Length or brevitie makes no variance But what doth this imply other then that there were of old prescriptions both of number and time and formes though not expressed in the Law particulars whereof we shall produce in the sequell such as were not onely for the helpe of the ignorant but for the direction of the Priests themselves and for the better devotion of the people That Ezra therefore and the men of the great Synagogue made use of those eighteene formes of prayers or benedictions prescribed by them so long agoe it argues nothing that the like formes were not in set practise before their times so as your Maimonides after all your proritation holds no other then faire termes with our Samaritan Chronicle And would learned Capellus thinke you make himselfe so merrie at the view of this passage surely brethren it would be at your fond and ridiculous mis-prison in playing not upon my words but your owne idle fancy I cited Capellus for the formes of prayer used at the Minchah and other Sacrifices which you cannot gain-say but that I should inferre from him that the Jewish Liturgies were as ancient as Moses it is your meere dreame not my assertion It would become you to make more conscience of your suggestions As for the marginall note out of Buxtorfius it is worthy of but a marginall touch What such abuse were it to say that Maimonides tooke those thirteene Articles of his Creed from the Jewes devotion when the same Author confesses they had a being before but were by Rabbi Moses Bar Maimon redacted into this Order wherein they stand Surely that ever since Ezra's time they had a known forme of prayer is confessed clearely by the same Rabbin in his Misnah as we have formerly seene and what place could bee more proper for the seat of a Creed But to meet a little with your crowing insultation in this passage of the age of the Jewish Liturgie what say you to that expresse testimonie of Paulus Fagius a man one of the best acquainted with Hebrew learning of all ours in his age who upon the Chaldee Paraphrase of Leviticus Chap. 16. in the words Et confiteatur super eum hath thus Forma confessionis quâ tum usus est summus Pontifex secundum Hebraeorum relationem haec fuit c. The forme of confession which the high Priest then in the first times of the Law used according to the relation of the Hebrewes was thus O Lord thy people of the house of Israel have sinned they have done wickedly they have grievously transgressed before thee I beseech thee now O Lord forgive their sinnes and iniquities and transgressions wherein thy people the house of Israel have sinned and done wickedly and transgressed before thee And when the said high-Priest offered a Bullock for a sin offering then he said in this manner O Lord I have sinned I have done wickedly and have grievously transgressed I beseech thee now O Lord be mercifull to those sins and iniquities and grievous transgressions wherein I have sinned done wickedly and transgressed against thee And when he should offer the other Bullock he used much what the same forme adding I and my house and the Sonnes of Aaron thy holy people have sinned c. I beseech thee now O Lord pardon the sinnes and iniquities and transgressions c. This triple confession did the high-Priest solemnly use in the feast of Expiation And what the forme of the high Priests prayer was when he appeared before the Lord the said Fagius showes us out of the Thalmud Besides this there was a set forme and that somewhat large of prayer and benediction which the Master of the Familie amongst the Jewes was privately wont to use in his holy feasts which the same Author elsewhere in his Chaldee Paraphrase upon Deut. 8. fully expresses adding withall which you were pleased to make sport with as mine Verisimile est Christum quibusdam quae in his precibus continentur usum fuisse It is very likely that
our Saviour made use of some passages which are contained in these prayers And Paulus Burgensis tells us it was an old Tradition amongst the Jewes that when they had eaten the Paschall Lambe they sung the Psalmes from Laudate pueri Dominum to Beati immaculati that is from the 113th to the 119th adding Verisimile hos à Domino decantatos It is likely that these were sung by our Saviour in his last Supper By this time the Reader sees there is somewhat more ground for a set forme of prayer amongst the ancient Jewes then your deepe Rabbinisme would condescend unto I have dwelt somewhat longer in this point because I see the chiefe pride of your Vindication lies in this passage of Jewish skill wherein I well see with whose heifer you have ploughed and what name you might adde if there were roome to your learned Acrosticks but when all is done I am deceived if you may not put your gaines in your eye FOr Christian Liturgies your like confidence challenges the Remonstrant to produce any Liturgie that was the issue of the first three hundred yeares I name those under the stile of James Basil Chrysostome as ancient though spuriously interserted You tell me of those of Peter Matthew Marke c. though Peters was the same with Markes and cite learned Rivetus who censures these as zizania the tares which the enemie sow'd whiles the husbandman slept Quite beside the cushion Those were such as all wise Christians will confesse with St. Austin were A sutoribus fabularum sub Apostolorum nomine conscripti Broached by some cogging merchants under the name of the Apostles But these other were generally both for matter and manner holy though interspersed with some passages that might argue a later hand whiles others of them beare such age as that they are cited by ancient Fathers for authentick parts of the formerly received Liturgies shortly then to produce those intire Liturgies which were in the first three hundred yeares is as unreasonable to demand as impossible to performe How many noble monuments besides these have perished as swallowed up by the devouring jawes of time which it were a vaine hope to revoke But that there were such Liturgies in use with those Churches within the time required I doubt not to evince what else I beseech you was that Euchologium which Origen before that time cites whence were those passages of interchanged devotion which the Centuriators themselves instance in from Cyprian fore-alledged by mee I dare boldly say yee cannot answer these demands and not yeeld your cause To which let mee adde in the next succeeding age those {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} which Eusebius tells us that Constantine made use of in his Court Our learned Christophorson renders it thus Constitutas cum universo Ecclesiae coetu preces reddebat so as notwithstanding your colourable proofe in your Defence of the frame of a prayer injoyned to the souldiers by that good Emperour it is cleare enough that in those times there was a set forme of Liturgie injoyned to the use of the Church Learned Morney an Author past exception shall attest with mee who in that elaborate and accurate Treatise of the Masse and the parts thereof dividing that divine Service according to the distribution of the Laodicean Synod which you would faine have eluded by a pretence of no prescription of formes into that of the Catechumeni that of the Penitents that of the Faithfull hath thus Hic jam mille fidelium locus cujus ab oratione generali exordium c. This then is the place of the service of the faithfull whose entrance was alwayes with a generall prayer for all the world for the state of the Church for the necessities both publicke and private The Grecians call this a Letanie or supplication c. Quae autem orationis illius forma fuerit ab incunabulis Ecclesiae ad hoc usque seculum custodita ex coaevis authoribus perspicuum What the forme of that prayer was which hath beene kept even from the cradle of the Church unto this very age it is apparent out of the Authors that lived in those times Thus that famous Lord Du Plessis who seconds his owne judgement by pregnant authorities from Chrysostome Ambrose Augustine to which out of the feare of tediousnesse I remit my Reader By all which it is I hope made evident enough that before ever Pelagius or Arrius infected the world prescribed formes of publick prayers were commonly used in the Christian Church It is indeed more then an implication which the Remonstrant drew from the Ancyran Synod The Presbyter that had once sacrificed was forbidden {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} to offer to preach to officiate in priestly administrations What is the Ministers imployment but the Word Sacraments and Prayers all three here inhibited and these last under the name of Liturgies And that these Anti-remonstrants may not delude the Reader with an opinion that any either mistake or fraud will follow upon the ambiguitie of the word it may please the Reader to take notice of what these carpers will not see a plaine expression in my translated words of Liturgies or Ministrations It is great pitie that the Remonstrant did not know so well as these deepe heads that {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} is a word of both various and generall use They needed not to send him to Zonaras or Balsamon for this parcell of Phylologie which he could have taught them nearer home out of Saint Paul himselfe and Saint Luke in whom they shall finde {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} applyed to Zacharias his sacrificing and {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} which our last translation turnes Vessels of the ministerie yea the very collection of Almes is Saint Pauls {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and Epaphroditus is his {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} What use then was there of this wast piece of Grammar-learning when the Remonstrant himselfe interpreted Liturgies by Ministrations I Extolled the due use of conceived prayer even this doth not please but invites suspicion rather well might I complaine of this sullennesse and morositie If the quarrels that you pickt with the both Originall and Confirmation of our Liturgie prove unjust you may well allow me to call your arguing about it no other then wrangling For the Originall I deduced it from ancient models not Roman but Christian you except at the termes of pretended opposition and still could fetch sparkes to fling in the face of him who by the suffrages of unquestionable Divines hath shewed the just sense of the true visibilitie of the Roman Church Truly brethren this is meerely to bark where you have no power at all to bite What faculty you have in flinging sparkes I know not but I am sure if you blow this coale hard the sparkes will flie in your eyes The question is
the Remonstrant would blush for intimating there is as much reason to conforme to their Liturgies as those of the reformed Churches I must tell you it is of your owne making neither did ever fall from my pen I doe blush indeed but it is to see your bold mis-takings and confident obtrusions of things never spoken never meant I doe not mention a conformitie to their Liturgies as equally good but onely aske Why wee should be tied to the formes of one Church more then another as those who are intire within our selves and equally free from obligations to any so as you shut up your first quaere with a mere cavill and the Reasons whereby you indevoured to back it are utterly reasonlesse YOur second quaere is to seek of so much as any good pretence of reason yea of sound authoritie Whether the first reformers of Religion did ever intend the use of a Liturgie further then to be an help in the want and to the weakenesse of the Ministers For first have they ever professed their whole and sole intentions or have they not If not how come you to know what they never expressed If they have why have you suppressed it Secondly it is obvious to every common understanding that there were other reasons besides this of framing set formes of publick Liturgies as The uniformitie of Divine services in every nationall Church the opportunitie of the better joyning together of all hearts in common devotions the better convenience of fixing the thoughts upon the matter of a fore-knowne expression So as this which you have so groundlesly intimated cannot be imagined to be the onely reason of prescribed Liturgies Tell me I beseech you what thinke you of our Saviours Epitome of a Liturgie the Lords Prayer for certainly it was no other a forme of prayer injoyned by divine authoritie Was that onely intended to be an helpe in the want and to the weakenesse of the Ministers Was it not prescribed for the help of the devotion of all disciples Your instances are if it might be poorer then your assertion The 23. Canon of the 4th Councell of Carthage ordaines Ut nemo Patrem nominet pro Filio c. In a care to prevent the dangerous mis-prisons of some ignorant Priests in Africk in mis-naming the sacred persons in the Trinitie it charged them not to mis-apply the termes Therefore all prescribed formes of prayer are onely intended to supply wants or weaknesses of Ministers A stout inference and irresistible The composers of the Liturgie for the French Church at Frankford tell us Hae formulae inserviunt tantùm rudioribus nullius libertati praescribitur These formes serve onely for the ignorant sort not prescribing to any mans libertie What meane you brethren to urge so improbable a proof First this was but a particular congregation and therefore of no use or validity for the practise of the whole Church Secondly these prayers which they set forth were onely for the private use of Christians for I hope you will not imagine that when they say rudioribus tantum inserviunt they serve onely for the more rude and ignorant sort of people that they herein meant to point out the Ministers so as your very allegation confutes your selves and seconds me Your following inforcement in this Paragraph failes of sense much more of reason and doth but begge what it cannot evince You tell mee of thousands who desire to worship God with devout hearts that cannot bee easily perswaded that these set formes though never so free from just exception will prove so great an helpe to their devotion I tell you of many more thousands then they and no lesse devoutly affected that blesse God to have found this happy and comfortable effect in the fore-set prayers of the Church Neither doth this plead at all against the use of present conception whether in praying or preaching or derogate any thing from that reverent and pious esteeme of conceived prayer which I have formerly professed Surely I doe from my sould honour both I gladly make use of both and praise God for them as the gracious exercises of Christian pietie and the effectuall furtherances of salvation there is place enough for them both they neede not justle each other And if experience had not made good this truth of mine to many the most eminent Divines of these later times eminent I meane not more for learning then strict pietie why would they in their prayers both after and especially before their Sermons have confined themselves to a set forme of their own making without the variation of any one clause as I can abundantly instance Certainly they wanted not that freedome of either spirit or tongue which is challenged by meaner persons but did purposely hold themselves to the usuall conceptions wherewith their thoughts and the peoples eares were best acquainted As for the difference which is pretended in the use of Liturgies in other reformed Churches which you say doe use Liturgies but doe not binde their Ministers to the use of them it will prove no better then a mere Logomachie In this point if wee bee understood wee shall not differ If as you explicate your selves in the sequele out of the Canons and Rubrick both of the Dutch and Genevian Churches you meane onely that the Ministers were not so tyed up to those prescribed formes that they might not at some times and upon some occasions make use of their owne conceptions you have herein no adversary Doubtlesse all Christian Divines have ever had that liberty in all the Churches that have professed the name of Christ neither ought it neither can it bee denyed to any either of theirs or ours All allegations to this sense might well have beene spared wee shall willingly concurre with you both in opinion and practise But if by this not binding to the use of a Liturgie you understand either an arbitrary power not in use in any Liturgie at all or an absolute release from any whatsoever usage of their publickly-prescribed formes and a wilfull rejection of them as either unfit or unlawfull because set and stinted none of your cited Authorities no practise of any well governed Church will countenance so strange a Paradoxe In this Calvin fights directly against you whiles hee orders Ut certa illa extet à quâ pastoribus discedere non liceat That there should bee a certaine forme from which it may not bee lawfull for Ministers to depart The contradiction whereunto alledged out of your namelesse Liturgie of Formulae pro arbitrio I leave to your owne reconciling As for the Lutheran Churches though they have more superfluitie then want yet why they should bee excluded out of the List of the Reformed I know no reason since if all Protestant Churches which is the usuall contradistinction from Popish come under that stile these are wont to challenge the deepest share in that denomination Neither is it out of any disrespect to the Churches reformed as your
orthodoxe Bishops the while Truly in all likelyhood at home quietly in their own Sees in their retired studies without notice of any plots without any intimation of dangers much more without intermedling in any secrets of State or close stratagems of disturbance So as it was not their love to peace and truth that could oppose what they never could reach to know Neither is it any fault of theirs that the deare and precious name of Episcopacie is exposed to base and vulgar obloquie Let those who will needs poure contempt upon the guiltlesse looke for a just revenge from him who hath said Touch not mine anointed and doe my Prophets no harme Still therefore must I take leave to crie Fie upon those my Brethren that dare to charge faction upon Episcopacie and withall to deplore the unhappy mis-cariages of any of our spirituall Fathers that shall be found guiltie of these wofull broyles What Cyprian would have done upon occasion of so high an indignitie offered by you to that holy function appeares sufficiently in his Epistle to Rogatianus though no instance can come home to the point For let me boldly say that since Christianitie lookt forth into the world there were never so high and base scornes put upon Episcopacie as there have been by shamelesse Libellers within the space of this one yeare in this Kingdome yea in this Citie God in his great mercie forgive the authors and make them sensible of the danger of his just vengeance SECT. II. VVHat a windie Section have you past wherein you confesse you have striven for words Things you say shall now follow Things well worthy to bee not more precious to the Remonstrant then to every well-minded Christian Leiturgie and Episcopacie Leiturgie leads the way We had need to begin with our prayers I challenged you for the instances of those many alterations you talked of in the present Leiturgie You answer me Truly Sir if we were able to produce no fuller evidence of this then you have done of your Iewish Leiturgie ever since Moses time we should blush indeed but if we can bring forth such instances c. Truly Brethren you could do little if ye could not crack and boast the greatest cowards can do this best Do not say what ye can do but do what ye say Put it upon this very issue For the Leiturgie ye say we can bring forth instances of such alterations as shall prove this present Leiturgie to be none of that which was confirmed by Parliamentary Acts Mark well Readers for certainly in plain English these men go about to mock you The question is of the present Leiturgie which is pretended to vary extremely much from that in Queen Elizabeths daies Now come our braving Vindicators and after all their brags labour to shew that this our present Leiturgie differs from that in the daies of Edward the sixt and spend one whole Page in the particular instances Is not this pains well bestowed think you have they not hit the bird in the eye utterly balking what they undertook they undertake what no man questioned and now before-hand crow and triumph in these cockle-shels of a famous conquest But ye lay this for your ground That the Leiturgie confirmed by our Parliamentary Acts is the same which was made and confirmed in the fifth and sixth of Edward the sixt With one alteration or addition of certain Lessons to be used on every Sunday in the yeer and the form of the Letany altered and corrected and two sentences onely added in the delivery of the Sacrament to the Communicant and none other or otherwise Thus sayes the Act. Now comes your rare sagacity and findes notwithstanding Queen Elizabeths Leiturgie varying from the former in many omissions in many additions in many alterations Wherein what do ye other then give the check to a whole Parliament they say flatly None other or otherwise you say The Book is so altered that the Leiturgie now in use is not the same that was established by Act of Parliament But be that as it may there lies not the question If Queen Elizabeths Book did so much differ from King Edwards What is that to us Say as you have undertaken what such huge difference there is betwixt King Iames his Book and Queen Elizabeths Now your loud vaunts end in flat silence neither can you instance in any thing save some two pettie Particles not worthie of mention that in the title of Confirmation the words For imposition of hands are added and in the Epistle for Palm-Sunday In is turned into At These are all besides those which I fore-specified which have so mis-altered the Leiturgie that it can no more be known to be it self then the strangely-disguised Dames which were mentioned in Doctor Halls reproof Now let the Reader say who is worthie to wear those Liveries of Blushes which in your Wardrobe of Wit you have been pleased to lay up for your friends But I have not yet said all If you say to these we should adde the late alterations in the use of the Leiturgie bringing in loud Musick uncouth and unedifying Anthems a pompous superstitious Altar-service we think any indifferent eye will say this is not the Leiturgie established by Parliament What mean you Brethren thus to delude the Reader are these things you mention any part of the Leiturgie are they prescribed by any law of the Church are they found in any Rubrick of the Communion-book Do not the allowed Forms of our publique Prayers in all Parochiall and some Cathedrall Churches in Chappels in houses stand intirely without these Why do you therefore bring in these things as essentiall to Leiturgie In the meet omission of some whereof no doubt some Bishops of England no lesse zealously conscionable though better tempered then your selves may be found to conspire with you As for the namelesse Bishop whom you cite you must pardon me if I did not understand either you or him for the words in your Defence run That the Service of the Church of England is not so dressed that if a Pope should come and see it he would claim it as his own Now you report them to be That the Service of the Church of England is now so drest c. so as you cannot blame me if I knew not the meaning or the man But by this your description of his preaching it as matter of humiliation to all the Bishops of this Kingdome in a day of solemne and nationall fasting I perceive it is the Reverend Bishop of Carlile whom you thus cited and whom you have herein not a little wronged I acquainted that worthy Prelate with the passage he disavows the words and defies the reporters vehemently protesting that he never spake either those words or that sense and to make it good delivered me the pretended clause transcribed out of his notes with his owne hand which I reserve by me no whit sounding that way but signifying onely a vehement dislike of some
prayer be good and holy why should I more refuse it as comming from a Papists mouth then I would make use of a vicious prayer comming from the best Protestant Where I said If the Divell confesse Christ to be the Sonne of God shall I disclaime the truth because it passed through a damned mouth You answer But you know Sir that Christ would not receive such a confession from the Divels mouth nor Paul neither Act. 16. True in respect of the person confessing not of the truth confessed As it came from an evill spirit our Saviour and St. Paul had reason to refuse it but neither of them would disclaime the matter of that truth which was so averred There is great difference betwixt the words of a foule spirit and a faulty man but if you will needs make a parallel it must be personall Christ would not allow a Divell to confesse him we will not allow a Popish sacrificer to usurpe our good prayers but if my Saviour would not dis-allow that I should make use of the good Confession of an evill spirit much lesse would hee dislike that I should make use of that good prayer which was once the expression of an evill man And yet these were not such being taken from the composures of holy men and ill places so as this is no other then to take up gold mis-laid in a channell which could not impure it you may well aske why it was laid there you have no reason to aske why a wise man should take it up Your question therefore What need wee go to the Roman Portuise for a prayer when wee can have one more free from jealousies in another place might have been moved to those Worthies which gathered this pile of devotion who would easily have answered you that your jealousie is causelesse whiles the prayers themselves are past exception but can with no colour of reason bee charged upon us who take holy prayers from good hands not needing to enquire whence they had them YOur second reason is as forcelesse as your first Our Liturgie was composed you say into this forme on purpose to bring the Papist to our Churches that failing there is no reason to retaine it The argument failes in every part First our Liturgie was thus composed on purpose that all Christians might have a form of holy devotion wherein they might safely and comfortably joyne together both publickly and privately in an acceptable service to their God and this end I am sure failes not in respect of the intention of the composers however it speed in the practise of the users of it Secondly there is no reason that where the issue of things faileth the good intention of the agent should bee held frustrate or his act void Our end in preaching the Gospel is to win soules to God if we prevaile not shall we surcease and condemne our errand as vaine But here I say the project sped for till the eleventh yeare of Queene Elizabeth there was no Recusant You tell me It was not the converting power of the Liturgie but the constraining power of the Law that effected this But brethren what constraining power was of any use where there was no Recusant Every constraint implies a reluctation here was none If then our Liturgie had no power of converting to our Churches yet it had no operation of averting from them What the Popes negotiations were with Queen Elizabeth at this time imports nothing I am sure I have those Manuscript Decisions of the Jesuitish Casuists which first determined it unlawfull to joyne with our assemblies till which our Liturgie had so good effect that those who differed from us in opinion were not separated in our devotion But how am I mistaken That which I boasted of as the praise is objected to mee as the reproach of our divine service What credit is this to our Church you say to have such a forme of publicke worship as Papists may without offence joyne with us in c. Or How shall that reclaime an erring soule that brings their bodies to Church and leaves their hearts still in errour I beseech you brethren what thinke you of the Lords Prayer Is that a perfect platforme of our devotion or is it not Tell me then what Christian is there in the world of what nation language sect soever except the Separatist onely will refuse to joyne with their fellow Christians in that forme of prayer And What credit is it to our Christian profession to have such a forme of publicke prayer as Papists Grecians Moscovites Armenians Jacobites Abassines may without offence joyne with us in I had thought you would have looked for the reclamation of erring soules by the power of preaching Here is no unteaching or confutation of errors no confirmations of either Doctrines or Uses in the formes of our prayers And if I should aske you how many you have reclaimed by your conceived prayers you would not I feare need to spend too much breath in the answer When I therefore impute the rare gaine of soules to the want or weaknesse in preaching you think to choak me by an exprobration of the fault of your Governors Let the Bishops see how they will cleare their soules of this sinne who having the sole power of admitting Ministers into the Church have admitted so many weake ones and have rejected so many faithfull able Preachers for not conforming to their beggerly rudiments Let those whose guiltinesse findes themselves galled with this crimination flie out in an angry answer but if there be those who have beene conscionably carefull not to admit them that are not competently {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} not to eject any peaceable and conscionable Divine for meere matter of ceremonie how injuriously have you fastened upon them other mens delinquences although it is not unpossible that men may be able Preachers and yet turbulent and there may bee ceremoniall rites neither theirs nor beggerly You are deceived brethren it is not our Liturgie that hath lost any too many have lost themselves by a mis-taught prejudice against our Liturgie as for the mis-catholick part tell me I pray you whether is it more likely that a staggering Papist will rather joyne with a Church that useth a Liturgie or one that hath none With a Church that allowes some of their wholesome prayers or that which rejects and defies all though never so holy because theirs And for our own surely if our acute Jesuits had no keener arguments then this you bring we should be in small feare to lose Proselytes For what weake Protestant could not easily replie The Church of Rome was ancient but yours is new that was orthodox this false The service was not yours but borrowed and usurped from better hands we make use of it as wee may in the right of Christianitie not in any relation to you and your errours So much for you and your Jesuit in the second reason YOur third Reason is