CHAPTER II.
THAT THE CEREMONIES ARE UNLAWFUL BECAUSE THEY ARE MONUMENTS OF BY-PAST IDOLATRY, WHICH NOT BEING NECESSARY TO BE RETAINED, SHOULD BE UTTERLY ABOLISHED, BECAUSE OF THEIR IDOLATROUS ABUSES: ALL WHICH IS PARTICULARLY MADE GOOD OF KNEELING.
Sect. 1. I have here proved the ceremonies to be superstitious; now I will prove them to be idolatrous. These are different arguments; for every idolatry is superstition, but every superstition is not idolatry, as is rightly by some distinguished.[507] As for the idolatry of the controverted ceremonies, I will prove that they are thrice idolatrous: 1. Reductive, because they are monuments of by-past idolatry; 2.Participative, because they are badges of present idolatry; 3.Formaliter, because they are idols themselves.
First, then, they are idolatrous, because having been notoriously abused to idolatry heretofore, they are the detestable and accursed monuments, which give no small honour to the memory of that by-past idolatry which should lie buried in hell. Dr Burges[508] reckons for idolatrous all ceremonies devised and used in and to the honouring of an idol, whether properly or by interpretation such. “Of which sort (saith he) were all the ceremonies of the pagans, and not a few of the Papists.” If an opposite, writing against us, be forced to acknowledge this much, one may easily conjecture what enforcing reason we have to double out our point. The argument in hand I frame thus:—
All things and rites which have been notoriously abused to idolatry, if they be not such as either God or nature hath made to be of a necessary use, should be utterly abolished and purged away from divine worship, in such sort that they may not be accounted nor used by us as sacred things or rites pertaining to the same.
But the cross, surplice, kneeling in the act of receiving the communion, &c., are things and rites, &c., and are not such as either God or nature, &c.
Therefore they should be utterly abolished, &c.
Sect. 2. As for the proposition I shall first explain it and then prove it. I say, “all things and rites,” for they are alike forbidden, as I shall show. I say, “which have been notoriously abused to idolatry,” because if the abuse be not known, we are blameless for retaining the things and rites which have been abused. I say, “if they be not such as either God or nature hath made to be of a necessary use,” because if they be of a necessary use, either through God's institution, as the sacraments, or through nature's law, as the opening of our mouths to speak (for when I am to preach or pray publicly, nature makes it necessary that I open my mouth to speak audibly and articularly), then the abuse cannot take away the use. I say, “they may not be used by us as sacred things, rites pertaining to divine worship,” because without the compass of worship they may be used to a natural or civil purpose. If I could get no other meat to eat than the consecrated host, which Papists idolatrise in the circumgestation of it, I might lawfully eat it; and if I could get no other clothes to put on than the holy garments wherein a priest hath said mass, I might lawfully wear them. Things abused to idolatry are only then unlawful when they are used no otherwise than religiously, and as things sacred.
Sect. 3. The proposition thus explained is confirmed by these five proofs: 1. God's own precept,—“Ye shall defile also the covering of thy graven images of silver, and the ornaments of thy molten images of gold: thou shalt cast them away as a menstruous cloth, thou shalt say unto it, Get thee hence,” Isa. xxx. 22. The covering of the idol here spoken of, Gaspar Sanctus[509] rightly understandeth to be that, quo aut induebantur simulacra Gentilico ritu, aut bracteas quibus ligneae imagines integantur, aut quo homines idolis sacrificaturi amiciebantur; so that the least appurtenances of idols are to be avoided. When the apostle Jude[510] would have us to hate garments spotted with the flesh, his meaning is, detestandam essevel superficiem ipsam mali sive peccati, quam tunicae appellatione subinnuere videtur, as our own. Rolloke hath observed,[511] If the very covering of an idol be forbidden, what shall be thought of other things which are not only spotted, but irrecoverably polluted [pg 1-139] with idols? Many such precepts were given to Israel, as “Ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves,” Exod. xxxiv. 13. “The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire: thou shalt not desire the silver nor gold that is on them, nor take it unto thee, lest thou be snared therein; for it is an abomination to the Lord thy God,” Deut. vii. 25, 26. Read to the same purpose, Num. xxxiii. 52; Deut. vii. 5; xii. 2, 3.
Secondly, God hath not only by his precepts commanded us to abolish all the relics of idolatry, but by his promises also manifested unto us how acceptable service this should be to him. There is a command “That the Israelites should destroy the Canaanites,” Num. xxxiii. 52, evertantque res omnes idololatricas ipsorum cui mandato, saith Junius,[512] subjicitur sua promissio, namely, that the Lord would give them the promised land, and they should dispossess the inhabitants thereof, ver. 53; yea, there is a promise of remission and reconciliation to this work: “By this shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged, and this is all the fruit to take away his sin; when he maketh all the stones of the altar as chalk-stones that are beaten asunder, the groves and images shall not stand up.” Isa. xxvii. 9.