Moreover, if we consider how that the word of God is given unto us “for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works,” 2 Tim. iii. 16, 17, it cannot but be evident how superfluously, how superstitiously, the office of sacred teaching and mystical signification is given to dumb and lifeless ceremonies ordained of men, and, consequently, how justly they are taxed as vain worship. We hold, therefore, with the worthiest of our divines,[810] nullam doctrinam, nullum sacram signum debere inter pios admitti, nisi a Deo profecta esse constet.
Sect. 8. To these reasons which I have put in order against men's significant ceremonies, I will add a pretty history before I go further.
When the Superior of the Abbey of St. Andrews[811] was disputing with John Knox about the lawfulness of the ceremonies devised by the church, to decore the sacraments [pg 1-231] and other service of God, Knox answered: “The church ought to do nothing but in faith, and ought not to go before, but is bound to follow the voice of the true Pastor.” The Superior replied, that “every one of the ceremonies hath a godly signification, and therefore they both proceed from faith, and are done in faith.” Knox replieth: “It is not enough that man invent a ceremony, and then give it a signification according to his pleasure; for so might the ceremonies of the Gentiles, and this day the ceremonies of Mahomet be maintained. But if that anything proceed from faith it must have the word of God for the assurance,” &c. The Superior answereth: “Will ye bind us so strait that we may do nothing without the express word of God? What, and I ask drink? think ye that I sin? and yet I have not God's word for me.”
Knox here telleth him, first, that if he should either eat or drink without the assurance of God's word, he sinned; “for saith not the Apostle, speaking even of meat and drink, that the creatures are sanctified unto men by the word and prayer? The word is this: all things are clean to the clean: Now let me hear thus much of your ceremonies, and I shall give you the argument?”
But secondly, He tells him that he compared indiscreetly together profane things with holy; and that the question was not of meat and drink, wherein the kingdom of God consisteth not, but of matters of religion, and that we may not take the same freedom in the using of Christ's sacraments that we may do in eating and drinking, because Moses commanded, “All that the Lord thy God commanded thee to do, that do thou to the Lord thy God; add nothing to it, diminish nothing from it.” The Superior now saith that he was dry, and thereupon desireth the grey friar Arbugkill to follow the argument; but he was so pressed with the same that he was confounded in himself, and the Superior ashamed of him:—
Dicite Io Pæan, et Io bis dicite Pæan.
Sect. 9. As for the examples alleged by our opposites out of Scripture for justifying their significant ceremonies, they have been our propugners of evangelical simplicity so often and so fully answered, that here I need do no more but point at them. Of [pg 1-232] the days of Purim and feast of dedication I am to speak afterward. In the meanwhile, our opposites cannot, by these examples, strengthen themselves in this present argument, except they could prove that the feast of dedication was lawfully instituted, and that the days of Purim were appointed for a religious festivity, and that upon no such extraordinary warrant as the church hath not ever and always. The rite which Abraham commanded his servant to use when he sware to him, namely, the putting of his hand under his thigh, Gen. xxiv. 2, maketh them as little help; for it was but a moral sign of that civil subjection, reverence and fidelity which inferiors owe unto superiors, according to the judgment of Calvin, Junius, Pareus, and Tremellius, all upon that place. That altar which was built by the Reubenites, Gadites, and half tribe of Manasseh, Josh. xxii., had (as some think) not a religious, but a moral use, and was not a sacred, but a civil sign, to witness that those two tribes and the half were of the stock and lineage of Israel; which, if it were once called in question, then their fear (deducing the connection of causes and consequents) led them in the end to forecast this issue: “In time to come your children might speak unto our children, saying, What have you to do with the Lord God of Israel? for the Lord hath made Jordan a border betwixt us and you,” &c. Therefore, to prevent all apparent occasions of such doleful events, they erected the pattern of the Lord's altar, ut vinculum sit fraternæ conjunctionis.[812]
And besides all this, there is nothing which can urge us to say that the two tribes and the half did commendably in the erecting of this altar.[813] Calvin finds two faults in their proceeding. 1. In that they attempted such a notable and important innovation without advising with their brethren of the other tribes, and especially without inquiring the will of God by the high priest. 2. Whereas the law of God commanded only to make one altar, forasmuch as God would be worshipped only in one place, they did inordinately, scandalously, and with appearance of evil, erect another altar; for every one who should look upon it could not but presently think that they had forsaken the law, and were setting up a strange [pg 1-233] and degenerate rite. Whether also that altar which they set up for a pattern of the Lord's altar, was one of the images forbidden in the second commandment, I leave it to the judicious reader to ruminate upon. But if one would gather from ver. 33, that the priest, and the princes, and the children of Israel, did allow of that which the two tribes and the half had done, because it is said, “The thing pleased the children of Israel, and the children of Israel blessed God, and did not intend to go up against them in battle:”
I answer, the Hebrew text hath it thus: “And the word was good in the eyes of the children of Israel,” &c.; that is, the children of Israel blessed God for the word which Phinehas and the ten princes brought to them, because thereby they understood that the two tribes and the half had not turned away from following the Lord, nor made them an altar for burnt-offerings or sacrifice; which was enough to make them (the nine tribes and a half) desist from their purpose of going up to war against their brethren, to shed their blood. Again, when Phinehas and the ten princes say to the Reubenites, Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh, This day we perceive that the Lord is among us, “because ye have not committed this trespass against the Lord,” they do not exempt them from all prevarication; only they say signanter, “this trespass,” to wit, of turning away from the Lord, and building an altar for sacrifice, whereof they were accused. Thus we see that no approbation of that which the two tribes and the half did, in erecting the altar, can be drawn from the text.
Sect. 10. But to proceed, our opposites allege for another example against us, a new altar built by Solomon, 1 Kings viii. 64. In which place there is no such thing to be found as a new altar built by Solomon; but only that he sanctified the pavement of the inner court, that the whole court might be as an altar, necessity so requiring, because the brazen altar of the Lord was not able to contain so many sacrifices as then were offered. The building of synagogues can make as little against us.