4. Our opposites should do well to assail our argument of scandal before they propound any other argument against us; for so long as they make it not evident that the scandal of the ceremonies, which we object, is an active or faulty scandal, so long they cannot object the scandal of non-conformity to us; because if the scandal (which is to be avoided) be in their practising of the ceremonies, it cannot be in our refusing of them.
5. We know many are grieved and displeased with our non-conformity, yet that every one who is grieved is not by and by scandalised, the Bishop of Winchester teacheth as well as we. “Many times (saith he[432]) men are grieved with that which is for their good, and earnestly set on that which is not expedient for them.” But, in good earnest, what do they mean who say they are scandalised, or made worse by our non-conformity? for neither do we make them condemn our lawful deed as unlawful, nor yet do we animate them by our example to do that which, in their consciences, they judge unlawful. They themselves acknowledge that sitting is as lawful as kneeling; that the [pg 1-115] not-observing of the five holidays is as lawful as the observing of them; that the not-bishoping of children is as lawful as the bishoping of them. Do they not acknowledge the indifferency of the things themselves? Do they not permit many of their people either to kneel or to sit at the communion? Have not many of themselves taken the communion sitting in some places? Have not our Conformists in Scotland hitherto commonly omitted bishoping of children, and the ministration of the sacraments in private places? As for ourselves we make our meaning plain when we object the scandal of conformity; for many ignorant and superstitious persons are, by the ceremonies, confirmed (expertus loquor) in their error and superstition; so that now they even settle themselves upon the old dregs of popish superstition and formality, from which they were not well purged. Others are made to practise the ceremonies with a doubting and disallowing conscience, and to say with Naaman, “In this the Lord be merciful unto us if we err:” with my own ears have I heard some say so. And even those who have not practised the ceremonies, for that they cannot see the lawfulness of them, yet are animated by the example of practising Conformists to do these things which, in their consciences, they condemn as unlawful (which were to sin damnably), and if they do them not, then is there no small doubting and disquietness, trouble, and trepidation, harboured in their consciences. And thus, one way or other, some weakening or deterioration cometh to us by the means of the ceremonies; and if any of our opposites dare think that none of us can be so weak as to stumble or take any harm in this kind, because of the ceremonies, we take God himself to witness, who shall make manifest the counsels of the heart, that we speak the truth, and lie not.
Finally, Let that be considered which divines observe to be the perpetual condition of the church,[433] namely, that as in any other family there are found some great, some small, some strong, some weak, some wholesome, some sickly, so still is there found such an inequality in the house of God, which is the church,—and that because some are sooner, some are later called, some endued with more gifts of God, and some with fewer.[434]