scandalous sinner may come to make this thanksgiving THus have we in all humble pursuance of his Majesties most gracious endeavours for the publick weal of this Church drawn up our thoughts and desires in this weighty affair which we most humbly offer to his Majesties Commissioners for their serious and grave confideration wherein we have not the least thoughts of depraving or reproaching the Book of Common-Prayer but a sincere desire to contribute our endeavours towards leading the distempers and as far as may be reconciling the minds of Brethren And in as much as his Majesty hath in his gracious Declaration ond Commission mentioned new Forms to be made and suited to the several parts of worship we have made a considerable progresse therein and shall by Gods assistance offer them to the reverend Commissioners with all convenient speed And if the Lord shall graciously please to give his blessing to these our endeavours we doubt not but that the peace of this Church will be shortly setled The hearts of Ministers and People comforted and composed and the great mercy of Unity and Stability to the immortal honour of our most dear Soveraign bestowed upon us and our posterity after us August 30. 1661. FINIS To the most Reverend ARCHBISHOP AND BISHOPS And the Reverend their Assistants Commissioned by his Majesty to treat about the Alteration of the Book of Common Prayer Most Reverend Father and Reverend Brethren WHen we received your Papers and were told that they conteined not onely an answer to our Exceptition against the present Liturgy But also severall Concessions wherein you seem willing to joyn with us in the Alteration and Reformation of it Our expectations were so far raised as that we promised our selves to find our Concessions so considerable as would have greatly conduced to the healing of our much to be lamented Divivisions the setling of the Nation in Peace and the satisfaction of tender Consciences according to his Majesties most gracious Declaration and his Royal Commission in pursuance thereof but having taken a survey of them we find our selves exceedingly disappointed and that they will fall far short of attaining those happy Ends for which this meeting was first designed as may appear both by the paucity of the Concessions and the inconsiderablenesse of them they being for the most part Verbal and Literal rather then Real and Substantial for in them you all allow not the laying aside of the reading of the Apocrypha for Lessons though it shut out some bundreds of Chapters of Holy Scripture and sometimes the Scripture it self is made to give way to the Apochryphal Chapters you plead against the addition of the Doxology unto the Lord's prayer you give no liberty to omit the too frequent repetition of Gloria Patria nor of the Lord's Prayer in the same publick Service nor do you yield the Psalmes be read in the new Translation nor the word Priest to be changed for Minister or Presbyter though both have been yielded unto in the Scottish Liturgy you grant not the omission of the Responsals no not in the Let any it self though the Petitions be so framed as the people make the prayer and not the Minister nor to read the Communion service in the Desk when there is no Communion but in the late Form instead thereof it is enjoyned to be done at the Table through there be no Rubrick in the Common Prayer book requiring it you plead for the bolinesse of Lent contrary to the statute you indulge not the omission of any one Ceremony you will force men to kneel at the Sacrament and yet not put in that excellent Rubr. in the v. and vj. of Edw. 6. which would much conduce to the satisfaction of many that scruple it And whereas divers Reverend Bishops and Doctours in a paper in Print before these unhappy Wars began yielded to the laying aside of the Crosse and the making many material alterations you after xx years sad calamities and divisions seem unwilling to grant what they of their own accord then offered you seem not to grant that the clause of the fourth commandement in the Common Prayer book the Lord blessed the seventh day should be altered according to the Hebr. Exod. 20. the Lord blessed the Sabbath day you will not change the word Sunday into the Lord 's day nor adde any thing to make a difference between Holidaies that are of Humane Institution and the Lord's day that is questionlesse of Apostolicall practise you will not alter Deadly Sin in the Letany into Heynous Sin though it hints to us that some sins are in their own nature Venial nor that Answer in the Catech. of two Sacraments onely generally necessary to salvation although it intimates that there are New Testament Sacraments though Two onely necessary to salvation you speak of singing David 's Psalmes allowed by Authority by way of contempt calling them Hopkins Psalmes and though singing of Psalmes be an Ordinance of God yet you call it one of our principal parts of VVorship as if it were disclaimed by you And are so far from countenancing the use of conceived prayer in the publick VVorship of God though we never intended thereby the excluding of set Forms as that you seem to dislike the use of it even in the Pulpit and heartily desire a total restaint of it in the Church you will not allow the omission of the Benedicite nor a Psalm to be read instead of it nor so much as abate the reading of the chapters out of the Old Testament and the Acts for the Epistles But rather then you will gratifie us therein you have found out a new device that the Minister shall say for the Epistle you will not so much as leave out in the Collect for Christmas day these words this day though at least it must be a great uncertainty and cannot be true stylo veteri novo In publick Baptism you are so far from giving a liberty to the parent to answer for his own child which seems most reasonable as that you force him to the use of sureties and cause them to answer in the name of the Infant that he doth believe and repent and forsake the devil and all his worke which doth much favour the Anabaptistical opinion for the necessity of an actual profession of Faith and Repentance in order to Baptism you will not leave the Minister in the visitation of the sick to use his judgment of discretion in absolving the sick person or in giving the Sacrament to him but enjoyn both of them though the person to his own judgment seem never so unfit neither do you allow the Minister to pronounce the absolution in a Declarative and conditional way but absolutely and conditionately And even in one of our concessions in which we suppose you intend to accommodate with us you rather widen then heal the breach for in your last Rubr. before the Catech you would have the words thus altered That Children being
their sins and to preach the wonderfull Mysteries of the Gospel to help men to search and understand the Scriptures and to search and to know their hearts and to know God in Christ and to hope for the glory that is to be revealed and fervently to pray for the successe of his endeavours and the blessings of the Gospel on the people and chearfully to praise God for his various benefits which cannot be well done without abilities A Physitians work is not to shew his parts ultimately but it is to do that for the cure of diseases which without parts he cannot do and in the exercise of his parts on which the issue much depends to save mens lives The ostentation of his good works is not the work of a good Christian and yet he must so let his light shine before men that they may see his good works and glorifie God And undeniable experience tells us that God ordinarily proportioneth the successe and blessing to the skill and holinesse and diligence of the Instruments and blesseth not the labours of ignorant ungodly Drones as he doth the labours of able faithfull Ministers And also that the readiest way to bring the Gospel into contempt into the world and cause all religion to dwindle away into formality first and then to barbarism and brutishnesse is to let in an ignorant idle vicious Ministry that will become the peoples scorn Yea this is the way to extirpate Christianity out of any Country in the world which is decaying a pace when men grow ignorant of the nature and reasons of it and unexperienced in its power and delightfull fruits and when the Teachers themselves grow unable to defend it And we must add that whatsoever can be expected duly to affect the heart must keep the intellect and all the faculties awake in diligent attention and exercise And in the use of a form which we have frequently heard and read the faculties are not so necessitated and urged to attention and serious exercise as they be when from our own understanding we are set about the natural work of representing to others what we discern and feel Mans mind is naturally sloathfull and will take its ease and remit its seriousnesse longer than it is urged by necessity or drawn out by delight when we know before-hand that we have no more to do but read a Prayer or Homilie we shall ordinarily be in danger of letting our mindes go another way and think of other matters and be senceless of the work in hand Though he is but an Hypocrite that is carried on by no greater motive than mans observation and approbation yet is it a help not to be depised when even a necessity of avoiding just shame with men shall necessarily awake our invention and all our faculties to the work and be a concurrent help with spiritual motives And common experience tells us that the best are apt to lose a great deal of their affection by the constant use of the same words or forms Let the same Sermon be preached an hundred times over and trie whether an hundred for one will not be much less moved by it than they were at first It is not only the common corruption of our nature but somewhat of innocent infirmity that is the cause of this And man must cease to be man or to be mortal before it will be otherwise so that the nature of the thing and the common experience of our own dispositions and of the effect on others assureth us that understanding serious Godliness is like to be extinguished if only forms be allowed in the Church on pretence of extinguishing errors and divisions And though we have concurred to offer you our more corrected Nepenthes yet must we before God and men protest against the dose of Opium which you here prescribe or wish for as that which plainly tendeth to cure the disease by the extinguishing of life and to unite us all in a dead Religion And when the Prayers that avail must be effectual and servent Jam. 5. 16. and God will be worshipped in spirit and truth and more regardeth the frame of the heart than the comeliness of expression we have no reason to be taken with any thing that pretends to help the tongue while we are sure it ordinarily hurts the heart And it is not the affirmations of any men in the world perswading us of the harmlesness of such a course that can so far un-man us as to make us dis-believe both our own experience and common observation of the effect on others Yet we confess that some forms have their laudable use to cure that error and vice that lieth on the other extreme And might we but sometimes have the liberty to interpose such words as are needful to call home and quicken attention and affection we should think that a convenient conjunction of both might be a well tempered means to the common constitutions of most But still we see the world will run into extreams what ever be said or done to hinder it It is but lately that we were put to it against one extreme to defend the lawfulness of a form of Liturgie now the other extreme it troubleth us that we are forced against you even such as you to defend the use of such Prayers of the Pastors of the Churches as are necessarily varied according to subjects and occasions while you would have no Prayer at all in the Church but such prescribed forms And why may we not add that whoever maketh the forms imposed on us if he use them is guilty as well as we of praying according to his private conceptions And that we never said it proved from Scripture that Christ appointed any to such an Office as to make Prayers for other Pastors and Churches to offer up to God and that this being none of the work of the Apostolick or common Ministerial Office in the Primitive Church is no work of any Office of Divine Institution To that part of the Proposal that the Prayers may consist of nothing doubtful or questioned by pious learned and orthodox persons they not determining who be those orthodox Persons we must either take all them for orthodox Persons who shall confidently affirm themselves to be such and then we say First The Demand is unreasonable for some such as call themselves orthodox have questioned the prime Article of our Creed even the Divinity of the Son of God and yet there is no reason we should part with our Creed for that Besides the Proposal requires impossiblity for there never was nor is nor can be such Prayers made as have not been nor will be questioned by some who call themselves pious learned and orthodox if by orthodox be meant those who adhere to Scripture and the Catholick Consent of Antiquity we do not yet know that any part of our Liturgy hath been questioned by such Reply And may we not thus mention orthodox Persons to men that profess they agree
is ancient So there wants not a Bign Bellarm. c. to tell us of S. James his Liturgy that mentions the Confessours the Deiparam the Anchorets c. which made Bellarm. himself say de Liturgia Jacobi sic sentio Eam aut non esse ejus aut multa à posterioribus eidem addita sunt And must we prove the Antiquity of Liturgies by this or try ours by it There wants not a Sainctetius a Bellarm. a Valentia a Peresius to predicate the Liturgy of S. Basil as bearing witnesse to transubstantiation for the sacrifice of the Masse for praying to Saints c. When yet the exceeding disagreement of Copies the difference of some forms from Basils ordinary forms the prayers for the most pious and faithful Emperours shew it unlikely to have been Basils many predicate Chrysostomes Masse or Liturgie as making for praying to the dead and for them the propitiatory Sacrifice of the Masse c. when in one edition Chrysostom is prayed to in it saith Cook in another Nicolaus and Alexius that lived 1080 is mentioned in another doctrines are contained as de Contaminata Maria c. clean contrary to Chrysostoms doctrine must we now conclude that all is ancient that is Orthodox when one Copy is scarce like another or can we try our Liturgies by such as this The shreds cited by you prove a Liturgie indeed such as we have used while the Common Prayer-book was not used where the Psalms the words of Baptism and the words of Consecration commemoration and delivery of the Lords Supper and many other were used in a constant form when other parts were used as the Minister found most meet so Sursum Corda was but a warning before or in the midst of devotion such as our Let us pray and will no more prove that the substance of prayer was not left to the Minister's present or prepared Conceptions than Ite missa est will prove it The Gloria patri Bellarm. himself saith according to the common opinion was formed in the council of Nice which was in the 4th Century And even then such a particular testimony against the Arrians might well stand with a body of unimposed prayers and rather shewes that in other things they were left at liberty If the Benedicite the Hymnes or other passages here mentioned will prove such a Liturgy as pleaseth you we pray you bear with our way of worship which hath more of Hymnes and other forms then these come to That these Liturgies had no original from generall Councils addes nothing with us to their Authority but sheweth that they had an arbitrary original and all set together shews that then they had many Liturgies in one Prince's Dominion and those alterable and not forced and that they took not one Liturgy to be any necessary means to the Churches unity or peace but bore with those that used various at discretion We well remember that Tertull tells the Heathens that Christians shewed by their conceived Hymnes that they were sober at their religious feasts it being their custome ut quisque de scripturis sanctis vel de proprio ingenio potest provocetur in medium Deo canere Apol. cap. 39. Note here 1. that though there be more need of forms for singing then for praying yet even in this the Christians in publick had then a liberty of doing it de proprio ingenio and by their own wit or parts 2. That those that did not de proprio ingenio did it de scripturis sanctis and that there is no mention of any other Liturgy from which they fetch so much as their Hymnes And the same Tertul. Apol. cap. 30. describing the Christians publick prayers saith sine monitore quia de pectore oramus we pray without a Monitor or promptor because we do it from the heart or from our own breast And before him Just Mart. Ap. 2. p. 77. saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But if all these words seem not plain enough to some it is no wonder when they rest not in the greater plainness of the holy Scriptures where prayer is so frequently mentioned as much of the imployment of believers and so many directions encouragements and exhortations given about it and yet no Liturgy or stinted forms except the Lords prayer is prescribed to them or once made mention of no man directed here to use such no man exhorted to get him a Prayer-book or to read or learn it or to beware that he adde or diminish not whereas the holy Scriptures that were then given to the Church men are exhorted to read and study and meditate in and discourse of and make it their continual delight and it 's a wonder that David that mentions it so oft in the 119. Psalm doth never mention the Liturgy or Common-Prayer-Book if they had any And that Solomon when he dedicated the house of Prayer without a Prayer-book would onely begge of God to hear what Prayers or what Supplication soever shall be made of any man or of all the people of Israel when every one shall know his own sore and his own grief and shall spread forth his hands in that house 2 Chron. 6. 29. and that he giveth no hint of any Liturgie or form so much as in those common Calamities and talkes of no other book then the knowledge of their own sores and their own griefs And in the Case of Psalmes or singing unto God where it is certain that they had a Liturgy or form as we have they are carefully collected preserved and delivered to us as a choise part of the holy Scripture And would it not have been so with the prayers or would they have been altogether unmentioned if they also had been there prescribed to and used by the Church as the Psalmes were Would Christ and his Apostles even where they were purposely giving rules for prayer and correcting its abuse as Matth. 6. 1 Cor. 14. c. have never mentioned any forms but the Lord's Prayer if they had appointed such or desired such to be imposed and observed These things are incredible to us when we most impartially consider them For our own parts as we think it uncharitable to forbid the use of Spectacles to them that have weak eyes or of Crutches to them that have weak Limbs and as uncharitable to undo all that will not use them whether they need them or not so we can think no better of them that will suffer none to use such forms that need them or that will suffer none to pray but in the words of other mens prescribing though they are at least as able as the prescribers And to conclude we humbly crave that ancient customes may not be used against themselves and us and that you will not innovate under the shelter of the name of Antiquity Let those things be freely used among us that were so used in the purest primitive times Let unity and peace be laid on nothing on which they laid them not let
THE GRAND DEBATE BETWEEN The most Reverend the BISHOPS AND The PRESBYTERIAN Divines Appointed by His Sacred MAJESTY AS COMMISSIONERS FOR The Review and Alteration OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER c. BEING An Exact Account of their whole Proceedings The most perfect Copy London Printed 1661. A Copy of His Majesties Commission CHARLES the second by the Grace of God King of England Scotland France Ireland Defender of the Faith c. To our Trusty and wel-beloved the most Reverend Father in God Accepted Arch-bishop of York The right reverend Fathers in God Gilbert Bishop of London John Bishop of Durham John Bishop of Rochester Humphrey Bishop of Sarum George Bishop of Worcester Robert Bishop of Lincoln Benjamin Bishop of Peterborough Brian Bishop of Chester Richard Bishop of Carlile John Bishop of Exeter Edward Bishop of Norwich to our trusty and wel-beloved the Reverend Anthony Tuckney D. D. John Conant D. D. William Spurstow D. D. John Wallis D. D. Thomas Manton D. D. Edmund Calamy B. D. Richard Baxter Clerke Arthur Juckson Tho. Case Samuel Clarke Matthew Newcomen Clerkes and to our trusty and wel-beloved Dr. Earle Dean of Westminster Peter Heylin D. D. Joh. Hacket D. D. Joh. Berwick D. D. Peter Gunning D. D. John Pearson D. D. Tho. Pierce D. D. Anthony Sparrow Herbert Thorndike D. D. Thomas Horton D. D. Thomas Jacomb D. D. William Bate John Rawlinson William Cooper Clerkes D. John Light foot D. John Collings D. Benjamin Woodbridg and VVilliam Drake Clerke Greeting Whereas by our Declaration of the 25 of October last concerning Ecclesiasticall affaires we did amongst other things express our esteem of the Liturgy of the Church of England contained in the Book of Common prayer and yet since we find exceptions made against several things therein we did by our said Declaration declare we would appoint an equal number of learned Divines of both perswasions to review the same we therefore in accomplishment of our said wil and intent and of our continued and constant care and study for the peace and unity of the Churches within our dominions for removal of all exceptions and differences and the occasions of such differences and exceptions from among our good subjects for or concerning the said Book of Common prayer or any thing therein contained doe by these our Letters patents require authorize constitute and appoint you the said c. to advise upon and review the said Book of Common prayer comparing the same with the most ancient Liturgies which have been used in the Church in the primitive and purest times And to that end to assemble and meet together from time to time and at such time within the space of foure Calendar moneths now next ensuing in the Masters lodging in the Savoy in the Strand in the County of Middlesex or in such other place or places as to you shall be thought fit and convenient to take into your serious and grave considerations the several directions and rules forms of prayer and things in the said Book of Common prayer contained and to advise consult upon and about the same and the several objections and exceptions which shall now be raised against the same and if occasion be to make such reasonable and necessary alterations corrections and amendments therein as by and between you the said Arch-bishop Bishops Doctors and Persons hereby required and authorized to meet and advise as aforesaid shall be agreed upon to be needfull and expedient for the giving satisfaction to tender consciences and the restoring and continuance of peace and unity in the Churches under our protection and Government but avoyding as much as may be all unnecessary abreviations of the Forms and Liturgy wherewith the people are altogether acquainted and have so long received in the Church of England And our will and pleasure is that when you the said Arch-bishop Bishops Doctours and persons authorized and appointed by these our Letters patents to meet advise and consult upon and about the premises as aforesaid shall have drawn your consultations to any resolution and determination which you shall agree upon as needfull or expedient to be done for the altering diminishing or inlarging the said Book of Common prayer or any part thereof that then forthwith you certifie and present to us in writing under your severall hands the matters and things whereupon you shall so determine for our approbation and to the end the same or so much thereof as shall be approved by us may be established and for as much as the said Archbishop Bishops have severall great Charges to attend which we would not dispense with or that the same should be neglected upon any great occasion whatsoever and some of them being of great age and infirmities may not be able constantly to attend the execution of the service and authority hereby given and required by us in the meeting and consultation aforesaid We will therefore and hereby require you the said Dr. Earles c. to supply the place and places of such of the Arch-bishop and Bishops other then the said Edward Bishop of Norwich as shall by age sickness infirmity or other occasion be hindred from attending the said meeting or consultation that is to say that one of you the said Dr. Earles c. shall from time to time supply the place of each one of them the said Arch-bishop and Bishops other then the said Edward Bishop of Norwich which shall happen to be hindred or to be absent from the said meetings or consultations and shall and may advise consult and determine and also certifie and execute all and singular the powers and authorities before mentioned in and about the premises as fully and absolutely as such Arch-bishop and Bishops which shal so happen to be absent should or might doe by vertue of these our Letters patents or any thing herein contained in case he or they were personally present And whereas in regard of the distance of some the infirmity of others the multitude of constant imployment and other incidental impediments some of you the said Edward Bishop of Norwich c. may be hindred from the constant attendance in the execution of the service aforesaid We therefore wil and doe hereby require and authorize you the said Thomas Horton c. to supply the place or places of such the Commissioners last before mentioned as shal by the means aforesaid or any other occasion be hindred from the said meeting and consultations that one of you the said Thomas Horton c. shal from time to time supply the places of each one of the said Commissioners last mentioned which shal happen to be hindered or absent from the said meeting and consultations and shal and may advise consult and determine and also certifie and execute all and singular the powers and authorities before mentioned in and about the premises as fully and absolutely as such of the said last mentioned Commissioners which shall so happen to be absent should
or might doe by vertue of these our Letters patents or any thing therein contained in case he or they were personally present In witness whereof we have caused these our Letters to be made patents witness our self at VVestminster the 25 day of March in the thirteenth year of our Reign Per ipsum Regem Barker THE EXCEPTIONS OF THE PRESBYTERIAN Brethren Against some passages in the present LITURGY ACknowledging with all humility and thankfulness His Majesties most Princely condescention and indulgence to very many of his Loyall subjects as well in his Majesties most gracious Declaration as particularly in this present Commission issued forth in pursuance thereof we doubt not but the Right Reverend Bishops and all the rest of His Majesties Commissioners intrusted in this work will in imitation of His Majesties most prudent and Christian Moderation and Clemency judge it their duty that we find to be the Apostles own practice in a speciall manner to be tender to the Churches peace to bear with the infirmities of the weak and not to please themselves nor to measure the Consciences of other men by the light and latitude of their own but seriously and readily to consider and advise of such Expedients as may most conduce to the healing of our breaches and uniting those that differ And albeit we have an high and honourable esteem of those Godly and Learned Bishops and others who were the first Compilers of the publick Liturgy and doe look upon it as an excellent and worthy Work for that time when the Church of England made her first step out of such a mist of Popish Ignorance and Superstition wherein it formerly was involved yet considering that all humane Works do gradually arrive at their maturity and perfection and this in particular being a Work of that nature hath already admitted several emendations since the first compiling thereof It cannot be thought any disparagement or derogation either to the Work it self or to the Compilers of it or to those who have hitherto used it if after more than one hundred years since its first composure such further emendations be now made therein as may be judged necessary for satisfying the scruples of a multitude of sober persons who cannot at all or very hardly comply with the use of it as now it is and may best suit with the present times after so long an enjoyment of the glorious light of the Gospel and so happy a Reformations especially considering that many godly and learned men have from the beginning all along desired the alteration of many things therein and very many of his Majesty's pious peaceable and loyal Subjects after so long a discontinuance of it are more averse from it than heretofore the satisfying of whom as far as may be will very much conduce to that Peace and Unity which is so much desired by all good men and so much endeavoured by His most Excellent Majesty And therefore in pursuance of this His Majesty's most gracious Commission for the satisfying of tender Consciences and the procuring of Peace and Unity amongst our selves we judge meet to propose I. That all the Prayers and other Materials of the Liturgy may consist of nothing doubtful or questioned amongst Pious Learned and Orthodox Persons inasmuch as the professed end of composing them is for the declaring of Unity and consent of all who joyn in the Publick Worship it being too evident that the limiting Church-Communion to things of doubtful disputation hath been in all Ages the ground of Schism and separation according to the saying of a Learned Man To load our Publick Forms with the private Fancies upon which we differ is the most Sovereign way to perpetuate Schism to the Worlds end Prayer Confession Thanksgiving reading of the Scriptures and administration of the Sacraments in the plainest and simplest manner were matter enough to furnish out a sufficient Liturgy though nothing either of private Opinion or of Church pomp of Garments or prescribed Gestures of Imagery of Musick of matter concerning the dead of many superfluities which creep into the Church under the name of Order and Decency did interpose it self To charge Churches or Litnrgies with things unnecessary was the first beginning of all Superstition and when scruple of Conscience began to be made or pretended then Schisme began to break in If the speciall Guides and Fathers of the Church would be a little sparing of incumbring Churches with Superfluities or not over-rigid either in reviving obsolete Customs or imposing new there would be far less cause of Schism or Superstition and all the Inconvenience likely to ensue would be but this they should in so doing yield a little to the imbecility of their Inferiours a thing which S. Paul would never have rrefused to doe mean while wheresoever false or suspected Opinions are made a piece of Church-Liturgy he that separates is not the Schismatick for it is alike unlawful to make profession of known or suspected falshood as to put in practice unlawful or suspected actions II. Further we humbly desire that it may be seriously considered that as our first Reformers out of their great wisdome did at that time so compose the Liturgy as to win upon the Papists and to draw them into their Church-Communion by varying as little as well they could from the Romish forms before in use so whether in the present constitution and state of things amongst us we should not according to the same rule of Prudence and Charity have our Liturgy so composed as to gain upon the judgement and affections of all those who in the substantials of the Protestant Religion are of the same perswasions with our selves In as much as a more firm union and consent of all such as well in Woship as in Doctrine would greatly strengthen the Protestant Interest against all those dangers and temptations which our intestine Divisions and Animosities do expose us unto from the common Adversary III. That the Repetitions and Responsals of the Clerk and People and the alternate Reading of the Psalms and Hymns with a confused murmure in the Congregation whereby what is read is less intelligible and therefore unedifying may be omitted the Minister being appointed for the People in all Publick Services appertaining unto God and the holy Scriptures both of the old and new Testament intimating the peoples part in publick Prayer to be only with silence and reverence to attend thereunto and to declare their consent in the close by saying Amon. IV. That in regard the Letany though otherwise containing in it many holy Petitions is so framed that the Petitions for a great part are uttered onely by the People which we think not to be so consonant to Scripture which makes the Minister the Mouth of the People to God in Prayer the particulars thereof may be composed into one solemn Prayer to be offered by the Minister unto God for the People V. That there may be nothing in the Liturgy which may seem to countenance
the observation of Lent as a Religious Fast the Example of Christ's fasting forty dayes and nights being no more imitable nor intended for the imitation of Christians than any other of his miraculous works were or than Moses his forty dayes Fast was for the Jewes and the Act of Parliament 5 Eliz. forbidding abstinence from flesh to be observed upon any other than a politick Consideration and punishing all those who by Preaching Teaching Writing or open Speech shall notifie that the forbearing of flesh is of any necessity for the saving of the soul or that it is the service of God otherwise than as other politick Laws are VI. That the Religious observation of Saints dayes appointed to be kept as holy dayes and the Vigils thereof without any foundations as we conceive in Scripture may be omitted that if any be retained they may be called Festival and not Holy dayes nor made equal with the Lords day nor have any peculiar Service appointed for them nor that the People be upon such days enforced wholly to abstain from work and that the names of all others not inserted in the Callendar which are not in the first and second Books of Edward the Sixth may be left out VII That the gift of Prayer being one special qualification for the Work of the Ministery bestowed by Christ in order to the edification of his Church and to be exercised for the profit and benefit thereof according to its various and emergent necessities It is desired that there may be no such Imposition of the Liturgy as that the exercise of that gift be thereby totally excluded in any part of publick worship and further that considering the great age of some Ministers and the infirmities of others and the variety of several services oft time occurring upon the same day whereby it may be inexpedient to require every Minister at all times to read the whole it may be left to the discretion of the Minister to omit it as occasion shall require which liberty we find to be allowed even in the first Common Prayer Book of Edward the Sixth VIII That in regard of the many defects which have been observed in that Version of the Scriptures which is used throughout the Liturgy many fold instances whereof may be produced as in the Epistle for the first Sunday after Epiphany taken out of Rom. 12. 1. Be you changed in your shape And the Epistle for the Sunday next before Easter taken out of Phil. 2. 5. Found in his apparel as a man As also the Epistle for the first Sunday in Lent taken out of the fourth of the Galatians Mount Sinai is Agar in Arabia and bordereth upon the City which is now called Jerusalem The Epistle for Saint Matthews day being taken out of the second Epistle of the Corinthians and the fourth We go not out of kind The Gospel for the second Sunday after Epiphany taken out of the second of John When men be drunk The Gospel for the third Sunday in Lent taken out of the eleventh of Luke One house doth fall upon another The Gospel for the Annunciation taken out of the first of Luke This is the sixth month which is called Barren and many other places we therefore desire instead thereof the Translation allowed of by Authority may alone be used IX That in as much as the Holy Scriptures are able to make us wise unto salvation to furnish us thoroughly unto all good works and contain in them all things necessary either in Doctrine to be believed or in Duty to be practised whereas divers Chapters of the Apocryphal Books appointed to be read are charged to be in both respects of dubious and uncertain credit It is therefore desired that nothing be read in the Church for Lessons but the Holy Scriptures in the Old and New Testament X. That the Minister be not required to rehearse any part of the Liturgy at the Communion Table save onely those parts which properly belong to the Lords Supper and that at such time onely when the Holy Supper is administrated XI That the word Minister and not Priest or Curate is used in the absolution and in divers other places It may thoroughout the whole Book be used instead of those two words and that instead of the word Sunday the word Lords day may be every where used XII Because singing of Psalms is a considerable part of Publick Worship we desire that the Version set forth and allowed to be sung in Churches may be amended or that we may have leave to make use of a purer Version XIII That all obsolete words in the Common Prayer and such whose use is changed from their first significancy as read who smote thee used in the Gospels for the Monday and Wednesday before Easter Then opened be their witts used in the Gospel for Easter Tuesday c. may be altered into other words generally received and better understood XIV That no portions of the Old Testament or the Acts of the Apostles be called Epistles or read as such XV. That whereas throughout the severall offices the Phrase is such as presumes all persons within the Communion of the Church to be regenerated converted and in an actuall state of grace which had Ecclesiasticall Discipline been truly and vigorously executed in the exclusion of scandalous and obstinate sinners might be better supposed But that there having been and still being a confessed want of that as in the Liturgy is acknowledged it cannot rationally be admitted in the utmost latitude of Charity we desire that this may be reformed XVI That whereas orderly connexion of Prayers and of particular Petitions and expressions together with a competent length of the formes used are tending much to edification and to gain the reverence of people to them There appears to us too great neglect of this Order and of other Just Laws of method particularly 1. The Collects are generally short many of them consisting but of one or two Sentences of petition and those generally usherd in with a repeated mention of the Name and Attributes of God and presently concluding with the Name and Merits of Christ whence are caused many unnecessary intercessions and abruptions which when many Petitions are to be offered at the same time are neither agreeable to scripturall example nor suted to the gravity and seriousness of that Holy Duty 2. The Prefaces of many Collects have not any clear and speciall respect to the following Petitions and particular petitions are put together which have not any due order or evident connexion one with another nor suitable with the occasions upon which they are used but seem to have fallen in rather casually than from any orderly codtinuance It is desired that instead of these various Collects there may be one Methodicall and entire form of Prayer composed out of many of them XVII That whereas the Puplick Liturgy of a Church should in reason comprehend the summe of all such sins as are ordinarily in Prayer by
the Church to be confessed and of such Petitions and Thanksgiving as are ordinarily by the Church to be put up to God and that Puplick Catechismes or Systemes of Doctrine should summarily comprehend all such Doctrines as are necessarily to be believed and these explicitely set down The present Liturgy as to all these seems very defective particularly 1. There is no preparatory Prayer in your addresses to God for assistance or acceptance yet many Collects in the midst of the Worship have little or nothing else 2. The Confession is very defective not clearly expressing Originall sin nor sufficiently enumerating Actuall sins with their aggrivations but consisting only of generals whereas Confession being the exercise of repentance ought to be more particular 3. There is also great defect as to such Forms of publick prayers and thanksgivings as are suitable to Gospel-worship 4. The whole body of the Common Prayer also consisteth very much of meer generals as to have our prayers heard to be kept from all evil and from all enemies and all adversities that we may do Gods will without any mention of the particulars wherein these generals exist 5. The Catechism is defective as to many necessary Doctrines of our religion some even of the Essentials of Christianity not mentioned except in the Creed and there not so explicite as ought to be in the Catechism XVIII Because this Liturgy containeth the imposition of divers Ceremonies which from the first Reformation have by sundry Learned and pious men been judged unwarrantable as 1. That publick Worship may not be celebrated by any Minister that dares not wear a Surplice 2. That none may Baptise or be Baptised without the transient Image of the Cross which hath at least the semblance of a Sacrament of humane institution being used as an engaging sign in our first and solemn Covenanting with Christ and the Duties whereunto we are really obliged by Baptism being more expresly affixed to that Aery fign than to the holy Sacrament 3. That none may receive the Lords Supper that dares not kneel in the act of receiving but the Minister must exclude all such from the Communion although such kneeling not only differs from the practice of Christ and of his Apostles but at least on the Lords daies is contrry to the practice of the Catholick Church for many hundred years after and forbid by the most venerable Councila that ever were in the Christian world All which Impositions are made yet more grievous by that subscription to their lawfulness which the Cannon exacts and by the heavy punishments upon the non observance of them which the Act for uniformity inflicts And it being doubtfull whether God hath given power unto men to institute in his worship such mysticall teaching signs which not being necessary in genere fall not under the rule of doing all things decently orderly and to edification and which once granted will upon the same reason open a door to the arbitrary Imposition of numerous Ceremonies of which St. Aug. complained in his dayes and the things in Controversie being in the Judgement of the Imposers confessed indifferent who dare not so much as pretend any real goodness in themselves otherwise than what is derived from their being imposed and consesequently the Imposition ceasing that will cease also and the Worship of God not become indecent without them whereas on the other hand in the Judgement of the Opposers they are by some held sinful and unlawful in themselves by others very inconvenient and unsuitable to the simplicity of Gospel-Worship and by all of them very grievous and burdensome and therefore not at all fit to put in balance with the peace of the Church which is more likely to be promoted by their removal than continuance considering also how tender our Lord and Saviour himself is of weak Brethren declaring it to be much better for a man to have a Milstone to be hanged about his neck and to be cast into the depth of the Sea than to offend one of his little ones and how the Apostle Paul who had as great a Legislative power in the Church as any under Christ held himself obliged by that common rule of Charity not to lay a stumbling block or an occasion of offence before a weak Brother chusing rather not to cat flesh while the world stands though in it self a thing lawful than offend his Brother for whom Christ dyed we cannot but desire that these Ceremonies may not be imposed on them who judge such impositions a violation of the Royalty of Christ and an Impeachment of his Laws as insufficient and are under the holy Law of that which is written Deut. 12. 32. VVhat thing soever I command you observe to do it thou shalt not adde thereto nor diminish from it but that there may be either a total abolishion of them or at least such a liberty that those who are unsatisfied concerning their lawfulness or expedency may not be compolled to the practice of them or subscription to them but may be permitted to enjoy their Ministerial Functions and Communion with the Church without them The rather because these Ceremonies have for above an hundred years been the fountain of manifold evils in this Church and Nation occasioning sad Divisions between Ministers and Ministers and also between Ministers and people exposing many orthodox pious and peaceable Ministers to the displeasure of their Rulers casting them upon the edge of the penal Statutes to the loss not only of their Livings and liberties but also of their opportunities for the service of Christ and his Church and forcing people either to worship God in such a manner as their own consciences condemn or doubt of or else to forsake our Assemblies as thousands have done and no better fruits than these can be lookt for from the retaining and imposing these Ceremonies unless we could presume that all his Majesties Subjects should have the same subtilty of Judgement to discern even to a Ceremony how farr the Power extends in the things of God which is not to be expected or should yeeld obedience to all the Impositions of men concerning them without enquiring into the will of God which is not to be desired We do therefore most earnestly intreat the Right Reverend Fathers and Brethren to whom these Papers are delivered as they tender the Glory of God the Honour of Religion the Peace of the Church the Service of His Majesty in the accomplishment of that happy Union which his Majesty hath so abundantly testified his desires of to joyn with us in importuning His most Excellent Majesty that His most gracious Indulgence as to these Ceremonies granted in His Royall Declaration may be comfirmed and continued to us and our posterities and extended to such as do not yet enjoy the benefit thereof XIX As to that Passage in His Majesties Commission wherein we are authorized and required to compare the Present Liturgy with the most ancient Liturgy which have been used in
minde them of their duty as they do us of ours telling us it is our duty to imitate the Apostles practise in a special manner to be tender of the Churches peace and to advise of such expedients as may conduce to the healing of breaches and uniting those that differ For preserving of the Churches peace we know no better nor more efficatious way than our set Liturgy there being no such way to keep us from Schism as to speak all the same thing according to the Apostle Reply If you look to the time past by our Duties we suppose you mean our Faults For it is not Duty when it 's past If you in these words respect only the time present and to come we Reply 1. The Liturgy we are assured will not be a less but a more probable means of Concord after the desired Reformation than before the defects and inconveniencies make it less fit to attain the end 2ly Whether the Apostle by speaking the same thing did mean either all using this Liturgy of ours or all using any one form of Liturgy as to the words may easily be determined This is of much later date unless you will denominate the whole form of the Lords Prayer and some little parts And those that affirm that the Apostles then had any other must undertake the task of proving it and excusing the Churches for losing and dis-using so precious a Relict which if preserved would have prevented all our strifes about these things And in the mean time they must satisfie our Arguments for the Negative As 1. If a Liturgy had been indited by the Apostles for the Churches being by universal Officers inspired by the Holy Ghost and so of universal use it would have been used and preserved by the Church as the Holy Scriptures were But so it was not Ergo no such Liturgy was indited by them for the Churches 2ly If a prescript form of words had been delivered them there would have been no such need of exhorting them to speak the same thing for the Liturgy would have held them close enough to that And if the meaning had been see that you use the same Liturgy some word or other to some of the Churches would have acquainted us with the existence of such a thing and some Reproofs we should have found of those that used various Liturgies or formed Liturgies of their own or used extemporary prayers and some express exhortations to use the same Liturgie or Forms But the holy Scripture is silent in all those matters It is apparent therefore that the Churches then had no Liturgy but took liberty of extemporate expressions and spoke in the things of God as men do in other matters with a natural plainess and seriousness suiting their expressions to the subjects and occasions And though Divisions began to disturb their Peace and holy Orders the Apostle instead of prescribing them a Form of Divine Services for their Unity and Concord do exhort them to use their Gifts and liberties aright and speake the same thing for matter avoiding Disagreements though they used not the same words 3. Just Martyr Tertull. and others sufficiently intimate to us that the Churches quickly after the Apostles did use the personal Abilities of their Pastors in prayer and give us no hint of any such Liturgy of Apostolical fabrication and imposition and therefore doubtlesse there was nothing for it could not have been so soon lost or neglected 4. It is ordinary with those of the contrary judgment to tell us that the extraordinary Gifts of the Primitive Christians were the reason why there were no prescribed forms in those times and that such Liturgies came in upon the ceasing of those Gifts And 1 Cor. 14. describeth a way of publick worshiping unlike to prescript forms of Liturgy So that the matter of Fact is proved and confessed And then how fairly the words of the Apostles exhorting them to speake the same thing are used to prove that he would have them use the same forms or Liturgy we shall not tell you by any provoking aggravations of such abuse of Scripture And indeed for all the miraculous Gifts of those times if prescript forms had been judged by the Apostles to be the fittest means for the Concord of the Churches it is most probable they would have prescribed such Considering 1. That the said miraculous Gifts were extraordinary and belonged not to all nor to any at all times and therefore could not suffice for the ordinary publick Worship 2. And those Gifts began even betimes to be abused and need the Apostles Canons for their regulation which he giveth them in that 1 Cor. 14. without a prescript Liturgy 3. Because even then divisions had made not only an entrance but an unhappy progress in the Churches to cure which the Apostle exhorts them oft to Unanimity and Concord without exhorting them to read the same or any Common-Prayer-book 4. Because that the Apostles knew that perillous times would come in which men would have itching ears and would have heaps of Teachers and would be self-willed and unruly and divisions and offences and heresies would encrease And Ergo as upon such fore-sight they indited the holy Scriptures to keep the Church in all generations from error and divisions in points of Doctrine so the same reason and care would have moved them to do the same to keep the Churches in unity in point of Worship if indeed they had taken prescribed forms to be needfull to such an unity they knew that after departure the Church would never have the like advantage infallible authorized and enabled for delivering the universal Laws of Christ And seeing in those parts of worship which are of stated use and still the same forms might have suited all ages as this age and all Countries as this Country in the substance there can no reason be given why the Apostles should leave this undone and not have performed it themselves if they had judged such forms to be necessary or the most desirable means of unity If they had prescribed them 1. The Church had been secured from error in them 2. Believers had been preserved from divisions about the lawfulnesse and fitnesse of them as receiving them from God 3. All Churches and Countries might had one Liturgy as they have one Scripture and so have all spoke the same things 4. All ages would have had the same without innovation in all the parts that require not alteration whereas now on the contrary 1. Our Liturgies being the writings of fallible men are lyable to error and we have cause to fear subscribing to them as having nothing contrary to the word of God 2. And matters of Humane institution have become the matter of scruple and contention 3. And the Churches have had great diversity of Liturgies 4. And one age hath been mending what they supposed they received from the former faulty and imperfect So that our own which you are so loath to Change hath
them not to have but we hope you speak not the publick sense As the Apostles desired as aforesaid that all would speak the same things without giving them that ever was proved a form of words to speak them in so might we propose to you that uncertain opinions be made no part of our Liturgie without putting all their words into their mouths in which their desires must be uttered Your heartie desire and the reason of it makes not only against extemporarie Prayer but all prepared or written forms or Liturgies that were indited only by one man and have not the consent antecedently of others And do you think this was the course of the Primitive times Basil thus used his private Conceptions at Caesarea and Greg. Thaumaturgus before him at Neocesarea and all Pastors in Justin Martyrs and Tertullians daies And how injurious is it to the publick Officers of Christ the Bishops and Pastors of the Churches to be called private men who are publick persons in the Church if they be not every single person is not a private person else Kings and Judges would be so And have you not better means to shut out private opinions than the forbidding Ministers praying in the Pulpit according to the varietie of subjects and occasions You have first the Examination of persons to be ordained and may see that they be able to speak sense and fit to mannage their proper works with judgement and discretion before you ordain them And some confidence may be put in a man in his proper calling and work to which he is admitted with so great care as we hope or desire you will admit them If you are necessitated to admit some few that are injudicious or unmeet we beseech you not only to restore the many hundred worthy men laid by to a capacity but that you will not so dishonour the whole Church as to suppose all such and to use all as such but restrain those that deserve restraint and not all others for their sakes And next you have a publick Rule the Holy Scripture for these men to pray by and if any of them be intollerably guiltie of weaknesses or rashness or other miscarriages the words being spoken in publick you have witnesse enow and sure there is power enough in Magistrates and Bishops to punish them and if they prove incorrigible to cast them out In all other professions these means are thought sufficient to regulate the Professors His Majestie thinks it enough to regulate his Judges that he may choose able men and fit to be trusted in their proper work and that they are responsible for all their maladministrations without prescribing them forms beyond which they may not speak any thing in their Charge Physitians being first tried and responsible for their doings are constantly trusted with the lives of high and low without tying them to give no counsel or medicine but by the prescript of a Book or determination of a Colledge And it is so undeniable that your reason makes more against Preaching and for only reading Homilies as that we must like it the worse if not fear what will become of Preaching also For 1. It is known that in Preaching a man hath far greater opportunity and liberty to vent a false or private opinion than in Prayer 2. It is known de eventu that it is much more ordinary And if you say that he speaks not the words of the Church but his own nor unto God but man and therefore it is less matter We answer it is as considerable if not much more from whom he speaks than to whom he speaks as the Minister of Christ in his stead and name 2 Cor. 5. 19 20. And it is as a higher so a more Reverend thing to speak in Gods name to the people than in the peoples name to God and to speak that which we call Gods word or truth or message than that which we call but our own desire We make God a lyer or corrupt in his words if we speak a falshood in his name we make but our selves lyers if we speak a falshood to him in our own names The former therefore is the more heynous and dreadfull abuse and more to be avoided or if but equally it shews the tendency of your reason for we will not say of your design as hoping you intend not to make us Russians We do therefore for the sake of the poor threatened Church beseech you that you will be pleased to repent of these desires and not to prosecute them considering that to avoid a lesser evil avoidable by safer means you will bring a far greater evil on the Churches and such as is like to strip these Nations of the glory in which they have excelled the rest of the world even a learned able holy Ministry and a people sincere and serious and understanding in the matters of their Salvation For 1. As it is well known that an ignorant man may read a Prayer and Homily as distinctly and laudably as a Learned Divine and so may do the work of a Minister if this be it so it is known that mans nature is so addicted to ease and sensual diversions as that multitudes will make no better preparations when they find that no more is necessary when they are as capable of their places and maintenance if they can but read and are forced upon no exercise of their parts which may detect and shame their ignorance but the same words are to be read by the ablest and ignorantest man it is certain that this will make multitudes idle in their Academical Studies and multitudes to spend their time idly all the year in the course of their Ministry and when they have no necessity that they are sensible of of diligent studies it will let loose their fleshly voluptuous inclinations and they will spend their time in sports and drinking and prating and idlenesse and this will be a Seminary of Lust or they will follow the world and drown themselves in Covetousnesse and Ambition and their hearts will be like their studies As its the way to have a holy able Ministry to engage them to holy studies to meditate on Gods Law day and night so it s the way to have an ignorant prophane and scandalous Ministry and consequently Enemies to serious Godlinesse in others to impose upon them but such a work as in ignorance and idlenesse they may perform as well as the judicious and the diligent If it be said that their parts may be tried and exercised some other way we answer where should a Ministers parts be exercised if not in the Pulpit or the Church and in Catechising in private Baptism and Communion and in the visitation of the sick their work also is such as a School-boy may do as well as they their ignorance having the same Cloak as in publick If it be said that a Ministers work is not to shew his parts we answer but his Ministerial work is to shew men
we dare not think a Parliament did intend to forbid that which Christ his Church hath commanded Nor does the Act determine any thing about Lent Fast but only provide for the maintenance of the Navy and of Fishing in order thereunto as is plain by the Act. Besides we conceive that we must not so interpret one Act as to contradict another being still in force and unrepealed Now the Act of 1 Eliz. confirmes the whole Liturgy and in that the religious keeping of Lent with a severe penalty upon all those who shall by open words speak any thing in derogation of any part thereof and therefore that other Act of 5 Elizab. must not be interpreted to forbid the religious keeping of Lent Reply If when the expresse words of a Statute are cited you can so easily put it off by saying it does not forbid it and you dare not think that a Parliament did intend to forbid that which Christ his Church hath commanded and you must not interpret it as contradicting that Act which confirms the Liturgy we must think that indeed we are no lesse regardful of the Laws of the Governours than you But first we understand not what Authority this is that you set against the King and Parliament as supposing they will not forbid what it commands You call it Christs Church we suppose you mean not Christ himself by his Apostles infallibly directed and inspired If it be the National Church of England they are the Kings Subjects and why may he not forbid a Ceremony which they command or why should they command it if he forbid it If it be any Foreign Church ther 's none hath power over us If it be any pretended head of the Church universal whether Pope or general Council having power to make Laws that bind the whole Church it is a thing so copiously disproved by Protestants against both the Italian and French Papists that we think it needlesse to confute it nor indeed dare imagine that you intend it We know not the refore what you mean But whatever you mean you seem to contradict the forecited Article of the Church of England that makes all humane Laws about Rites and Ceremonies of the Church to be unchangeable by each particular National Church And that it is not necessary that Ceremonies or Traditions be in all places one or utterly like we most earnestly beseech you be cautious how you obtrude upon us a Foreign Power under the name of Christs Church that may command Ceremonies which King and Parliament may not forbid whether it be one man or a thousand we fear it is against our Oathes of Allegiance and Supremacy for us do own any such Power And not presuming upon any immodest challenge we are ready in the defence of those Oathes and the Protestant Religion to prove against any in an equal conference that there is no such Power and for the Statute let the words themselves decide the Controversy which are these Be it Enacted that who soever shall by Preaching Teaching Writing or open speech notifie that any eating of Fish or forbearing of Flesh mentioned in this Statuie is of any necessity for the saving of the Soul of man or that it is the Service of God otherwise than as other Politick Laws are and be that than such persons are and shall be punished as the spreaders of false news are and ought to be And whereas you say the Act determines not any thing about Lent Fast it speaks against eating Flesh on any days now usually observed as Fish days and Lent is such and the senfe of the Act for the Lituigy may better be tryed by this which is plain than thus reduced to that which is more obscure The observation of Saints dayes is not as of Divine but Ecclesiastical Institution and therefore it is not necessary that they should have any other ground in Scripture than all other Institutions of the same nature so that they be agreeable to the Scriptare in the general end for the promoting piety and the observation of them was antient as appears by the Rituals and Liturgies and by the joynt consent of Antiquity and by the antient translation of the Bible as the Syriack and Ethiopick where the Lessons appointed for Holydayes are noted and set down the former of which was made near the Apostles times Besides our Saviour himself kept a Feast of the Churches Institution viz. the Feast of the Dedication S. Jo. 12. 22. The choice end of these dayes being not feasting but the exercise of Holy Duties they are fitter called Holydayes than Festivals and though they be all of like nature it doth not follow that they are equal The people may be dispensed with for their work after the Service as Authority pleaseth The other names are left in the Calender not that they should be so kept as Holydayes but they are useful for the preservation of their memories and for other reasons as for Leases Law-dayes c. Reply The antiquity of the Translations mentioned is far from being of determinate certainty we rather wish than hope that the Syriack could be proved to be made near the Apostles times But however the things being confessed of humane Institution and no Forreign Power having any Authority to command his Majesties Subjects and so the imposition being only by our own Governours we humbly crave that they may be left indifferent and the unity or peace of the Church or Liberty of the Ministers not laid upon them This makes the Liturgy void if every Minister may put in and leave out all at his discretion Repl. You mistake us we speak not of putting in and leaving out of the Liturgy but of having leave to intermix some exhortations or prayers besides to take off the deadnesse which will follow if there be nothing but the stinted Forms we would avoid both the extreme that would have no forms and the contrary extremes that would have nothing but forms But if we can have nothing but extremes there 's no remedy it s not our fault And this moderation and mixture which we move for is so far from making all the Liturgy void that it will do very much to make it attain its end and would heal much of the distemper which it occasioneth and consequently would do much to preserve the reputation of it As for instance it besides the Forms in the Liturgy the Minister might at Baptism the Lords Supper Marriage c. interpose some suitable exhortation or prayer upon special occasion when he finds it needful Should you deny this at the visitation of the Sick it would seem strange and why may it not be granted at other times It is a matter of far greater trouble to us that you would deny us and all Ministers the Liberty of using any other Prayers besides the Liturgy then that you impose these The gift or rather spirit of Prayer consists in the inward graces of the spirit not in ex
tempore expressions which any man of natural parts having a voluable tongue and audacity may attain to without any special gift Repl. All inward Graces of the spirit are not properly called the spirit of Prayer nor is the spirit of Prayer that gift of Prayer which we speak of Nor did we call it by the name of a special gift nor did we deny that ordinary men of natural parts and voluable tongues may attain it But yet we humbly conceive that as there is a gift of Preaching so also of Prayer which God bestows in the use of means diversified much according to mens natural parts their diligence as other acquired abilities are but also much depending on that grace that is indeed special which maketh men love and relish the holy subjects of such spiritual studies and the holy exercise of those Graces that are the soul of Prayer and consequently making men follow on such exercises with delight and diligence and therefore with success And also God is free in giving or denying his blessing to mans endeavours If you think there be no Gift of Preaching you will too dishonourably level the Ministry If Reading be all the Gift of Prayer or Preaching there needs no great understanding or learning to it Nor should Cobblers and Tinkers be so unfit men for Ministers as they are thought Nor would the reason be very apparent why a Woman might not speak by Preaching or praying in the Church But if there be any such Gift as is pretended it is to be subject to the Prophets and to the Order of the Church Repl. The Text speaks as Dr. Hammond well shews of a subjection to that Prophet himself who was the Speaker Inspiration excluded not the prudent exercise of Reason But it is a strange ordering that totally excludeth the thing ordered The Gift of Preaching as distinct from reading is to be orderly and with due subjection exercised But not to be on that pretence extinguished and cast out of the Church And indeed if you should command it you are not to be obeyed whatever we suffer And why then should the Gift of Prayer distinct from reading be cast out The mischiefs that come by Idle Impertinent Ridiculous sometimes Seditious Impious and Blasphemous expressions under pretence of the Gift to the dishonour of God and scorn of Religion being far greater than the pretended good of exercising the Gift It is fit that they who desire such liberty in publike devotions should first give the Church security that no private opinions should be put into their Prayers as is desired in the first Proposal and that nothing contrary to the Faith should be uttered before God or offered up to him in the Church Repl. The mischiefs which you pretend are Inconveniencies attending humane Imperfection which you would cure with a mischief Your Argument from the abuse against the use is a palpable Fallacy which cast out Phisicians in some Countries and rooted up Vines in others and condemneth the reading of the Scriptures in a known Tongue among the Papists If the Apostles that complained then so much of Divisions and preaching false Doctrines and in envy and strife c. had thought the way of Cure had been in sending Ministers about the world with a Prayer-book and Sermon-book and to have tied them only to read either one or both of these no doubt but they would have been so regardful of the Church as to have composed such a Prayer-book or Sermon-book themselves and not lest us to the uncertainties of an Authority not infallible nor to the Divisions that follow the Impositions of a questionable power or that which unquestionably is not Universal and therefore can procure no universal Concord If one man among you draw up a form of Prayer it is his single conception And why a man as learned and able may not be trusted to conceive a Prayer for the use of a single Congregation without the dangers mentioned by you as one man to conceive a Prayer for all the Churches in a Diocess or a Nation we know not These words That the mischief is greater than the pretended good seem to expresse an unjust Accusation of ordinary conceived prayer and a great undervaluing of the benefits If you would intimate that the Crimes expressed by you are ordinarily found in Ministers prayers we that hear so much more frequently than you must profess we have not found it so allowing men their different measures of Exactness as you have even in writing Nay to the praise of God we must say that multitudes of private men can ordinarily pray without any such Imperfection as should nauseate a sober person and with such seriousness and aptness of Expression as is greatly to the benefit and comfort of ourselves when we joyn with them And if such general Accusations may serve in a matter of publick and common fact there is no way for the Justification of the Innocent And that it is no such common guilt will seem more probable to them that consider that such conceived Prayers both prepared and extemperate have been ordinarily used in the Pulpits in England and Scotland before our dayes till now and there hath been power enough in the Bishops and others before the Wars to punish those that speak Ridiculously Seditiously Impiously or Blasphemously And yet so few are the Instances even when jealousie was most busy of Ministers punished or once accused of any such fault in Prayer as that we find it not easy to remember any considerable number of them There being great numbers punished for not reading the Book for playing on the Lords dayes or for preaching too oft and such like for one that was ever questioned for such kind of praying And the former shewed that it was not for want of will to be severe that they spared them as to the latter And if it be but few that are guilty of any intolerable faults of that nature in their Prayers we hope you will not go on to believe that the mischiefs that come by the failings of those few are far greater than the benefit of conceived prayer by all others We presume not to make our Experiences the measure of yours or of other mens You may tell us what doth most good or hurt to your selves and those that have so communicated their Experiences to you But we also may speak our own and theirs that have discovered them to us And we must seriously profess that we have found far more benefit to our selves and to our Congregations as far as our Conference and Converse with them and our observation of the effects alloweth us to discern by conceived Prayers than by the Common-Prayer-book We find that the benefit of conceived Prayer is to keep the mind in serious Employment and to awaken the affections and to make us fervent and importunate And the Inconvenience is that some weak men are apt as in Preaching and Conference so in Prayer to shew their
weaknesse by some unapt Expressions or disorder Which is an evil no way to be compared with the fore-mentioned good considering that it is but in the weak and that if that weaknesse be so great as to require it forms may be imposed on those few without imposing them on all for their sakes as we force not all to use Spectacles or Crutches because some are purblind or lame and considering that God heareth not Prayers for the Rhetorick and handsome Cadencies and neatnesse of Expression but will bear more with some Incuriosity of words which yet we plead not for than with an hypocritical formal heartlesse lip-service For he knoweth the meaning of the Spirit even in the groans which are not uttered in words And for the Common-Prayer our Observation telleth us that though some can use it judiciously seriously and we doubt not profitably yet as to the most of the vulgar it occasioneth a relaxing of their attention and intention and a lazie taking up with a Corps or Image of devotion even the service of the lips while the heart is little sensible of what is said And had we not known it we should have thought it incredible how utterly ignorant abundance are of the sence of the words which they hear and repeat themselves from day to day even about Christ himself and the Essentials of Christianity It is wonderful to us to observe that rational Creatures can so commonly seperate the words from all the sense and life so great a help or hinderance even to the understanding is the awakening or not awakening of the Affections about the things of God And we have already shewed you many unfit Expressions in the Common-Prayer-book especially in the Epistles and Gospels through the faultinesse of your Translations as Eph. 3. 15. Father of all that is called Father in Heaven and Earth And that Christ was found in his Apparel as a man That Mount Sinai is Agar in Arabia and bordereth upon the City now called Jerusalem Gal. 4. 25. This is the Sixth Month which is called Barren Luke 1. And when men be drunk John 2. with many such like which are parts of your publick worship And would you have us hence conclude that the mischiefs of such Expressions are worse than all the benefits of that worship And yet there is this difference in the Cases that weak rash Ministers were but here and there one But the Common-Prayer is the service of every Church and every day had we heard any in extemporary Prayer use such unmeet Expressions we should have thought him worthy of sharp reprehension yea though he had been of the younger or weaker sort Divers other unfit Expressions are mentioned in the Exceptions of the late Arch-Bishop of York and Primate of Ireland and others before spoken of And there is much in the prejudice or diseased Curiosity of some hearers to make words seem Idle Impertinent or Ridiculous which are not so and which perhaps they understand not some thought so of the inserting in the late Prayer-book the private opinion of the Souls departed praying for us and our praying for the benefit of their prayers As for the security which you call for though as is shewed you have given us none at all against such errors in your forms yet we have before shewed you that you have as much as among imperfect men can be expected The same that you have that Physitians shall not murther men and that Lawyers and Judges shall not undoe men and that your Pilate shall not cast away the ship you have the power in your hands of taking or refusing as they please or displease you and of judging them by a known Law for their proved miscarriages according to the quality of them and what would you have more To prevent which mischief the former Ages know no better way than to forbid any Prayers in publick but such as were prescribed by publick Authority Con. Carthag Can. 106. Milen Can. 12. Repl. To what you allege out of two Councils we answer 1. The Acts of more venerable Councils are not now at all observed as Nice 1. Can. ult c. nor many of these same which you cite 2. The Scripture and the constant practice of the more antient Church allowed what they forbid 3. Even these Canons shew that then the Churches thought not our Liturgy to be necessary to their Concord Nor indeed had then any such form imposed on all or many Churches to that end For the Can. of Counc Carth. we suppose you meant Council 3. Can. 23. mentioneth Prayers even at the Alter and alloweth any man to describe and use his own Prayers so he do but first cum instructionibus fratribus eas conferre Take advice about them with the abler Brethren If there had been a stated form before imposed on the Churches what room could there be for this course And even this much seems but a Caution made newly upon some late abuse of Prayer The same we may say de Concil Male Can. 12. If they were but a prudentioribus tractata vel comprobata in Synodo new Prayers might by any man at any time be brought in which sheweth they had no such stated publick Liturgy as is now pleaded for And even this seemeth occasioned by Pelagianisme which by this Caution they would keep out We hope your omission of our 8th desire for the use of the new Translation intimateth your grant that it shall be so But we marvel then that we find among your Concessions the alteration of no part but the Epistles and Gospels As they would have no Saints dayes observed by the Church so no Apocriphal Chapter read in the Church but upon such a reason as would exclude all Sermons as well as Apocripha viz. because the holy Scriptures contain in them all things necessary either in Doctrine to be believed or in duty to be practised if so why so many unnecessary Sermons why any more but reading of Scriptures If notwithstanding their sufficiency Sermons be necessary there is no reason why these Apocriphal Chapters should not be as useful most of them containing excellent discourses and rules of mortality it is heartily to be wished that Sermons were as good if their fear be that by this meanâ— those Books may come to be of equal esteem with the Canon they may be secured against that by the Title which the Church hath put upon them calling them Apocriphal and it is the Church's testimony which teacheth us this difference and to leave them out were to cross the practice of the Church in former Ages Repl. We hoped when our desires were delivered in writing they would have been better observed and understood We asked not that no Apocriphal Chapter may be read in the Church but that none may be read as Lessons for so the Chapters of holy Scripture there read are called in the Book and to read them in the same place under the same title without any sufficient
vary his request Gen. 18. But that 's not our case The Psalms and Prayers of David Solomon Hezekiah Asa Ezra Nehemiah Daniel and the other Prophets of Christ himself Joh. 17. are usually one continued speech and not like yours as we said before Why the repeated mention of the Name and Attributes of God should not be more pleasing to any godly person we cannot imagine or what burden it should seem when David magnified one Attribute of Gods mercy 26. times together Psal 36. Nor can we conceive why the Name and merits of Jesus with which all our Prayers should end should not be as sweet to us as to former Saints and Martyrs with which here they complain our Prayers do so frequently end since the Attributes of God are the ground of our hope of obtaining all our Petitions such Prefaces of Prayers as are taken from them though they have no special respect to the Petitions following are not to be termed unsuitable or said to have fallen rather casually than orderly Repl. As we took it to be no Controversy between us whether the mention of Gods Name is deservedly sweet to all his Servants So we thought it was none that this reverend Name is reverently to be used and not too lightly and therefore not with a causelesse frequency tossed in mens mouthes even in prayer itself and that tautologies and vain repetitions are not the better but the worse because Gods Name is made the matter of them It is not you that have expressed your offence as well as we against those weak Ministers that repeat too frequently the Name and Attributes of God in their extemporate Prayers And is it ill in them and is the same and much more well in the Common Prayer O have not the Faith or worship of our glorious God in respect of persons Let not that be called ridiculous idle impertinent or worse in one which is accounted commendable in others Do you think it were not a faulty crossing of the mind and method of Jesus Christ if you should make 6. Prayers of it he 6. Petitions of the Lords Prayer and set the Preface and Conclusion unto each as Our Father which art in Heaven hallowed be thy Name for thine is the Kingdome c. and so over all the rest Yet we know that the same words may be oft repeated as David doth Gods enduring mercy without such tautological vanity when it is not from emptinesse or neglect of order or affectation But in Psalms or Hymns where affections are to be elevated by such figurative elegancies and strains as are best beseeming Poetry or Rapture we are not against such repetitions But if we may according to the Common-Prayer-book begin and end and begin and seem to withdraw again and make a Prayer of every Petition or two and begin and end every such petition with Gods name and Christs merits as making up half the form or near nothing is an affected empty tossing of Gods name in Prayer if this be not We are perswaded if you should hear a man in a known extemporate prayer do thus it would seem strange and harsh even to your selves There are besides a preparative Exhortation several preparatory prayers 1. Despise not O Lord humble and contrite hearts Which is one of the sentences in the Preface And this That those things may please him which we do at this present at the end of the Absolution And again immediately after the Lords Prayer before the Psalmody O Lord open thou our Lips c. Repl. Despise not O Lord humble and contrite hearts is not prayer for assistance and acceptance in that Worship suited to the duty of a people addressing themselves to God But it is recited as a Scripture invitation to repentance and that those things may please him which we do at this present are no words of Prayer but part of an exhortation to the people and O Lord open thou our lips comes after the Exhortation Confession Absolution and Lords Prayer and ergo is not in the place of such an Address as we are speaking of What will not seem to justify what we have a mind to justify and to condemn that which we have a mind to condemn This which they call a defect others think they have reason to account the perfection of the Liturgy the Offices of which being intended for common and general services would cease to be such by descending to particulars as in confession of Sin while it is general all persons may and must joyn in it since in many things we offend all But if there be a particular enumeration of sins it cannot be so general a confession because it may happen that some or other may by Gods Grace have been preserved from some of those sins enumerated and therefore should by confessing themselves guilty tell God a Lye which needs a new Confession Repl. If general words be its perfection it s very culpable in tediousnesse and vain repetitions For what need you more than Lord be merciful to us sinners There 's together a general confession of Sin and a general Prayer for mercy which comprehend all the particulars of the peoples Sins and wants We gave you our reason which you answer not Confession is the exercise of Repentance and also the helper of it And it is noe true repentance which is not particular but only general If you say that you repent that you have sinned and know not where or do not repent of any particular sin you do not indeed repent for Sin is not existent but in the Individuals And if you ask for grace and know nor what grace or desire no particular graces indeed you desire not grace at all We know there is time and use for general Confessions and Requests But still as implying particulars as having gone before or following or at least it must be supposed that the people understand the particulars included and have inward confessions and desires of them Which cannot here be supposed when they are not all mentioned not can the people generally be supposed to have such quick and comprehensive minds nor is there leisure to exercise such particular repentance or desire while a general is named And we beseech you let Scripture be Judge whether the Confessions and Prayers of the Servants of God have not been particular As to your objection or reason we answer 1. There are general Prayers with the particular or without them 2 There are particular Confessions and Prayers proper to some few Christians and there are others common to all It is these that we expect and not the former 3. The Churches Prayers must be suited to the body of the Assembly though perhaps some one or few may be in a state not fit for such expressions What a lamentable Liturgy will you have if you have nothing in it but what every one in the Congregation may say as true of and suitable to themselves Then you must leave out all
the land of our Nativity as Maris told Julian He thank't God that had deprived him of his sight that he might not see the face of such a man Socrat. Hist l. 3. c. 10. So we shall take it as a little abatement of our affliction that we see not the Sins and Calamities of the people whose peace and welfare we so much desire Having taking this opportunity here to conclude this part with these Requests and Warnings we now proceed to the second part containing the particulars of our Exceptions and your Answers Concerning Morning and Evening Prayer Sect. 1. Rubr. 1. We think it fit that the Rubrick stand as it is and all to be left to the discretion of the Ordinary Reply We thought the end and use more considerable than custom and that the Ordinary himself should be under the rule of doing to edification Sect. 2. Rub. For the reasons given in our Answer to the 18th General whither you refer us we think it fit that the Rubrick continue as it is Reply We have given you reason enough against the imposition of the usual Ceremonies and would you draw forth those absolute ones to increase the burden Sect. 3. Lords Pr. Deliver us from evil These words For thine is the Kingdom c. are not in S. Luke nor in the antient Copies of St. Matth. never mentioned in the antient Comments nor used in the Latin Church and therefore questioned whether they be part of the Gospel there is no reason that they should be alwayes used Reply We shall not be so over-credulous as to believe you that these words are not in the antient Copies It is enough that we believe that some few antient Copies have them not but that the most even the generality except those few have them The judgement of our English Translators and almost all other Translators of Matth. and of the reverend B of Chester among your selves putting the Copy that hath it in his Bible as that which is most receiv'd and approved by the Church do shew on which side is the chief authority if the few copies that want it had been thought more arthentick and credible the Church of England and most other Churches would not have preferred the copies that have this doxology And why will you in this contradict the later judgement of the Church expressed in the translation allowed and imposed The Syriack Ethiopick and Persian translations also have it and if the Syriack be as antient as you your selves even now asserted then the antiquity of doxology is there evident and it is not altogether to be neglected which by Chemnitius and others is conjectured that Pauls words in Tim. 4. 18. were spoken as in reference to this Doxology And as Pareus and other Protestants conclude it is more probable the Latrines neglected than that the Greeks inserted of their own heads this sentence The Socinians and Arrians have as fair pretence for their exception a ainst 1 John 5 6 7. Masculus saith non cogitant vero similius esse ut Graecorum ecclesia magis quà m Latina quod ab Evangelistis Graece scriptum est integrum servârit nihilque de suo adjecerit Quid de Graeca ecclesia dico vidi ipse vetustissimum Evangelium secundum Matth. Codicem Chaldaeis Elementis Verbis conscriptum in quo Coronis ista perinde atque in Graecis legebatur Nec Chaldaei solum sed drabes Christiani paciformiter cum Graecis orant Exemplar Hebraeum à docto celebri D. Sebast Munstero vulgatum hanc ipsam Coronidem habet Cum ergo consentiunt hâc in re Hebraeorum Chaldaeorum Arabum Graecorum Ecolesiae contra omnes reliquas tantum tribuitur authoritatis ut quod sâ—la diversum legit ab Evangelitis traditum esse credatur quod vero reliquae omnes concorditer habent orant pro addititio peregrino habeatur And that Luke hath it not will no more prove that it was not a part of the Lords Prayer than all other omissions of one Evangelist will prove that such words are corruptions in the other that have them All set together give us the Gospel fully and from all we must gather it Sect. 4. Lords Prâ—often used It is used but twice in the morning and twice in the Evening Service and twice cannot be called often much lesse so often For the Letany Communion Baptism c. they are Offices distinct from morning and evening prayer and it is not sit that any of them should want the Lord Prayer Reply We may better say we are required to use it six times every morning than but twice for it is twice in the Common morning prayer and once in the Letany once in the Communion service once at Baptism which in great Parishes is usual every day and once to be used by the Preacher in the Pulpit And if you call these distinct offices that maketh not the Lords Prayer the seldomer used sure we are the Apostles thought it fit that many of their prayers should be without the Lords Prayer Sect. 5. Glor. Patri This Doxology being a solemn Confession of the blessed Trinity should not be thought a burden to any Christian Liturgy especially being so short as it is neither is the repetition of it to be thought a vain repetition more than His mercy endureth for ever so often repeated Psal 136. We cannot give God too much glory that being the end of our Creation and should be the end of all our Services Reply Though we cannot give God too much glory we may too often repeat a form of words wherein his name and glory is mentioned there is great difference between a Psalm of praise and the praise in our ordinary prayers more liberty of repetition may be taken in Psalms and be an Ornament and there is difference between that which is unusual in one Psalm of 150. and that which is our daily course of worship When you have well proved that Christs prohibition of battology extendeth not to this Matth. 6. we shall acquiesce Sect. 6. P. 15. Ru. 2. In such places where they do sing c. The Rubr. directs only such singing as is after the manner of distinct reading and we never heard of any inconvenience thereby and therefore conceive this Demand to be needlesse Reply It tempteth men to think they should read in a singing tone and to turn reading Scripture into Singing hath the inconvenience of turning the edifying simplicity and plainness of Gods service into such affected unnatural strains and tones as is used by the Mimical and Ludicious or such as feign themselves in raptures and the highest things such as words and modes that signifie Raptures are most loathsome when forced feigned and hypocritically affected and therefore not fit for Congregations that cannot be supposed to be in such Raptures this we apply also to the sententious mode of prayers Sect. 7. Benedicite This Hymn was used all the Church over Conc. Tolet. Can.
whoredom perjury oppression yea Infidelity or Atheism c. But suppose we cannot be infallibly certain that the man is damned because it is possible that he may repent though he never did express it will you therefore take him for a brother whose soul is taken to God in mercy You are not sure that an excommunicate person or an Heathen doth not truly repent after he is speechless But will you therefore say that all such die thus happily This is a most delusory Principle The Church judgeth not of things undiscovered Non esse non apparere are all one as to our Judgment we conclude not peremptorily because we pretend not here to infallibility As we are not sure that any man is truly penitent that we give the Sacrament to so we are not sure that any man dieth impenitently But yet we must use those as penitent that seem so to reason judging by ordinary means and so must we judge those as impenitent that have declared their sin and never declared their repentance It seems by you that you will form your Liturgy so as to say that every man is saved that you are not sure is damned though he shew you no repentance and so the Church shall say that all things are that are but possible if they conceit that Charity requireth it But if the living by this be kept from Conversion and flattered into Hell will they there call it Charity that brought them thither O lamentable Charity that smoothers mens way to Hell and keepeth them ignorant of their danger till they are past remedy millions are now suffering for such a sort of Charity Lay this to the formentioned propositions and the world will see that indeed we differ in greater things then Ceremonies and Forms of Prayer Churching Women IT is fit that the woman performing especial service of Thanksgiving should have a speciall place for it where she may be perspicuous to the whole Congregation and neer the Holy Table in regard of the Offering she is there to make They need not fear Popery in this since in the Church of Rome she is to kneel at the Church door Reply Those that are delivered from impenitency from sickness c. perform a special service of thanksgiving c. yet need not stand in a special place but if you will have all your Ceremonies Why must all others be forced to imitate you We mentioned not the Church of Rome The Psalm 121. is more fit and pertinent then those others named as 113 128. and therefore not to be changed Reply We have poposed to you what we think meetest in our last pages if you like your own better we pray you give us leave to think otherwise and to use what we propounded If the woman be such as is here mentioned she is to do her penance before she be Churched Reply That is if she be accused prosecuted and judged by the Bishop's Court to do penance first which happeneth not to one of a multitude and what shall the Minister do with all the rest All tends to take away the difference between the precious and the vile between those that fear God and that fear him not Offerings are required as well under the Gospel as the Law and amongst other times most fit it is that oblations should be when we come to give thanks for some special Blessing Psal 76. 10 11. Such is the deliverance in Child-bearing Reply Oblations should be free and not forced to some special use and not to ostentation This is needless since the Rubr. and Comm. require that no notorious person be admitted Reply We gladly accept so fair an interpretation as freeth the Book from self-contradiction and us from trouble but we think it would do no hurt but good to be more express The Concessions WE are willing that all the Epistles and Gospels be used according to the last Translation Reply We still beseech you that all the Psalms and other Scriptures in the Liturgy recited may for the same reason be used according to the last Translation That when any thing is read for an Epistle which is not in the Epistles the Superscription be for the Epistle Repl. We beseech you speak as the vulgar may understand you for the Epistle signifieth not plain enough to such that is indeed none of the Epistles That the Psalms be collated with the former Translation mentioned in Rubr. and Printed according to it Reply We understand not what Translation or Rubr. you mean That the words this day both in the Collects and Prefaces be used only upon the day itself and for the following dayes it be said as about this time Reply And yet there is no certainty Which was the day it self That a longer time be required for signification of the names of the Com. and the words of the Rubr. be changed into these at least some time the day before Reply Sometime the day before may be near or at night which will not allow any leisure at all to take notice of the proofs of peoples scandals or to help them in preparation That the power of keeping scandalous Sinners from the Communion may be expressed in the Rubr. according to the 26. and 27. Canons so the Minister be obliged to give an account of the same immediately after to the Ordinary Reply We were about returning you our very great thanks for granting us the benefit of the 26. Canon as that which exceedeth all the rest of your Concessious But we see you will not make us too much beholden to you and poor Christians that will not receive the Sacrament contrary to the example of Christ and his Apostles and the custom of the Catholick primitive Church and the Canons of general Councils must be also used as the notorious impenitent sinners But the Canon requireth us not to signifie the cause but upon complaint or being required by the ordinary That the whole Preface be prefixed to the Commandments Reply And why not the word Sabbath day be put for the seventh day in the end Must not such a falsification be amended That the second Exhortation be read some Sunday or Holy-day before the celebration of the Communion at the discretion of the Minister That the general Confession at the Communion be pronounced by one of the Ministers the people saying after him all kneeling humbly upon their knees That the manner of consecrating the Elements may be made more explicit and express and to that purpose those words be put into the Rub. then shall he put his hand upon the Bread break it then shall he put his hand unto the Cup. That if the Font be so placed as the Congregation cannot hear it may be referred to the Ordinary to place it more conveniently That those words yes they do perform them c. nay be altered thus because they promise them both by their Sureties c. That the words of the last Rubr before the Catechism may be thus altered that children being baptized have all things necessary for their salvation and dying before they commit any actual sins be undoubtedly saved though they be not Confirmed That to the Rubr. after Confirmation these words may be added Or be ready and desirous to be Confirmed That those words with my body I thee worship may be altered thus with my body I thee honour That those words til death us depart be thus altered till death us do part That the words sure and certain may be left out Reply For all the rest we thank you but have given our reasons against your sense expressed in Sect. 13. before and for satisfactoriness of the last And we must say in the conclusion That if these be all the abatements and amendments you will admit you sell your innocency and the Churche's peace for nothing FINIS Excep Excep Excep Rub. Excep Rub. Excep Rub. Excep Rub. Excep Rub. Excep Rub. Excep Rub. Excep 2. Exhor 3. Exhor Excep Rub. before the Confession Excep Rub. Excep Rub. Excep Prayer before that which is at the Consecration Excep Excep Rub. Excep Rub Excep Rub. Excep Excep Rub. Excep Excep Excep Except Excep Excep Excep Excep Excep Excep Excep Rub. Except Rub Except Except Excep Except Except Excep Rub. Excep Excep Excep Excep Rub. Next Rub. Excep Collect. Excep Rub. Lastrub Excep Rub. Rub. Excep Rub. Excep Rub. Excep Rub. Excep Excep Excep Rub. Excep Rub. Excep Ans Excep Rub. Excep The same Rubrick Excep Sect. 1. Sect. 2. Sect. 3. Sect 5. Sect. 6. Prop. u. 1. Sect. 5. Sect. 2. Sect. 3. Sect. 4. Sect. 2. N. 3 4. Socrat. 1. 6. cap. 8. Theodor. 1. 2. c. 24. 2 Chron. 7. 1 4. Ezra 3. 11. N. 5. Sect. 1. N. 6. N. 7. S. 1. S. 2. 4. 3. §. 4. §. 5. N. 9. N. 10. N. 11. N. 1â— N. 17. N. 16. §. 1. â—◠§ §. 3. N. 17. §. 1. Exc. 1. §. 2. Exc. 2. §. 3. §. 7. Exc. 3. §. 5. Exc. 4. §. 6. Exc. 5. N. 18. §. 1. §. 2. Cor. 11. 2. See Hooker li. 3. Sect. 4. 3. 4. See Hookli 4 Sect. 1. S. 3. R. 1. §. 4. Rul 2. §. 5. R. l. 3. Heb. 13. 17. Rom. 13. §. 6. Rul 4. §. 7. Rul 5. §. 8. Answ 1. 1. Cor. 14. §. 9. â— 2. §. 10. A. 3. Hooker l. 5. Sect. 6. 8. S. Aug. Ep. 23. Sect 6. pag. 24. Sect. 7. pag 24. Tit. 3. 5. Sect 8. Sect 1. p. 2. 26. An. 3. Sect. A. 2. Cor. Sect. 4 pag. 27. Sect. 5. Sect. 6. Sect. 7. pa. 28. Sect. 1. Rub. 1. Sect. 2. Rubr. Sect. 3. Ex. 1 Sect. 5. p. 30. Rub. Sect. 6. Ex. 1. Sect. 7. Ex. 2. Sect. 8. Marriage the Ring Sect. 1. p. 31. Sect. 2. pâ— 32. Ex. 1. Sect. 3. Se. 4. Col. Se. 5. p. 33. Rubr. 18. Sect. 1. Sect. 2. Sect. 3. p. 34 Exc. 1. Sect. 2. p. 2. Sect 3. p. 33. Sect. 1. p. 36. Exc. 1. Sect. 2. Exc. 2. Sect. 3. Exc. 3. Sect. 4. Exc. 4. Sect. 5. Exc. 5. Sect. 1. Sect. 2. Sect. 3. Sect. 4. Sect. 5. Sect 6. Sect. 7. Sect. 8. Sect. 9. Sect. 10. Sect. 11. Sect. 12. Sect. 13. Sect. 14. Sect. 15. Sect. 16. Sect. 17.