For, 1. After the tribes were settled in the land of promise, synagogues were built, in the case of an urgent necessity, because all Israel could not come every Sabbath day to the reading and expounding of the law in the place which God had chosen that his [pg 1-234] name might dwell there. What hath that case to do with the addition of our unnecessary ceremonies?
2. If Formalists will make any advantage of the building of synagogues, they must prove that they were founded, not upon the extraordinary warrant of prophets, but upon that ordinary power which the church retaineth still. As for the love-feasts used in the primitive church, 1. They had no religious state in divine worship, but were used only as moral signs of mutual charity. The Rhemists[814] will have them to be called caenas dominicas. But what saith Cartwright against them? “We grant that there were such feasts used in times past, but they were called by the name of ἀγάπαι or love-feasts, not by the name of the Lord's supper; neither could one without sacrilege give so holy a name to a common feast, which never had ground out of the word, and which after, for just cause, was thrust out by the word of God.” 2. If it be thought that they were used as sacred signs of Christian charity because they were eaten in the church, I answer, the eating of them in the church is forbidden by the Apostle. “What! (saith he) have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God?” Aperte vetat (saith Pareus),[815] commessationes in ecclesia, quocunque fuco pingantur. Vocabant ἀγάπας charitates; sod nihil winus erant. Erant schismatum fomenta. Singulae enim sectae suas instituebant. And a little after: Aliquae ecclesiae obtemperasse videntur. Nam Justini temporibus Romana ecclesia ἀγάπας non habuit. Concerning the kiss of charity used in those times, 2 Cor. xiii. 22, we say in like manner that it was but a moral sign of that reconciliation, friendship and amity, which showed itself as well at holy assemblies as other meetings in that kind and courtesy, but with all chaste salutation, which was then in use.
Sect. 11. As for the veils wherewith the Apostle would have women covered whilst they were praying (that is, in their hearts following the public and common prayer), or prophesying (that is, singing, 1 Sam. x. 10; 1 Chron. xxv. 1), they are worthy to be covered with shame as with a garment who allege this example for sacred significant ceremonies of human institution. This [pg 1-235] covering was a moral sign for that comely and orderly distinction of men and women which civil decency required in all their meetings; wherefore that distinction of habits which they used for decency and comeliness in their common behaviour and conversation, the Apostle will have them, for the same decency and comeliness, still to retain in their holy assemblies. And further, the Apostle showeth that it is also a natural sign, and that nature itself teacheth it; therefore he urgeth it both by the inferiority or subjection of the woman, ver. 3, 8, 9 (for covering was then a sign of subjection), and by the long hair which nature gives to a woman, ver. 25; where he would have the artificial covering to be fashioned in imitation of the natural. What need we any more? Let us see nature's institution, or the Apostle's recommendation, for the controverted ceremonies (as we have seen them for women's veils), and we yield the argument.
Last of all, the sign of imposition of hands helpeth not the cause of our opposites, because it has the example of Christ and the apostles, and their disciples, which our ceremonies have not; yet we think not imposition of hands to be any sacred or mystical sign, but only a moral, for designation of a person: let them who think more highly or honourably of it look to their warrants.
Thus have I thought it enough to take a passing view of these objected instances, without marking narrowly all the impertinencies and falsehoods which here we find in the reasoning of our opposites. One word more, and so an end. Dr Burges would comprehend the significancy of sacred ecclesiastical ceremonies, for stirring men up to the remembrance of some mystery of piety or duty to God, under that edification which is required in things that concern order and decency by all divines.
Alas! what a sorry conceit is this? Divines, indeed, do rightly require that those alterable circumstances of divine worship which are left to the determination of the church be so ordered and disposed as they may be profitable to this edification. But this edification they speak of is no other than that which is common to all our actions and speeches. Are we not required to do all things unto edifying, yea, to speak as that our speech may be profitable unto edifying? Now, such significations as we have [pg 1-236] showed to be given to the ceremonies in question, as, namely, to certify a child of God's favour and goodwill towards him,—to betoken that at no time Christians should be ashamed of the ignominy of Christ,—to signify the pureness that ought to be in the minister of God,—to express the humble and grateful acknowledgments of the benefits of Christ, &c.,—belong not to that edification which divines require in things prescribed by the church concerning order and decency, except of every private and ordinary action, in the whole course of our conversation, we either deny that it should be done unto edifying, or else affirm that it is a sacred significant ceremony.
CHAPTER VI.
THAT THE LAWFULNESS OF THE CEREMONIES IS FALSELY GROUNDED UPON THE HOLY SCRIPTURE; WHERE SUCH PLACES AS ARE ALLEGED BY OUR OPPOSITES, EITHER FOR ALL THE CEREMONIES IN GENERAL, OR FOR ANY ONE OF THEM IN PARTICULAR, ARE VINDICATED FROM THEM.
Sect. 1. It remaineth now to examine the warrants which our opposites pretend for the lawfulness of the ceremonies. But I perceive they know not well what ground to take hold on. For instance whereof, Hooker defendeth the lawfulness of festival days by the law of nature.[816] Dr Downame groundeth the lawfulness of them on the law of God,[817] making the observation of the sabbaths of rest appointed by the church, such as the feasts of Christ's nativity, passion, &c., to be a duty commanded in the law of God, and the not observing of them to be a thing forbidden by the same law. But Bishop Lindsey proveth the lawfulness of those holidays[818] from the power of the church to make laws in such matters. “As for the Lord's day (saith he) which has succeeded to the Jewish Sabbath, albeit God hath commanded to sanctify it, yet neither is the whole public worship, nor any part of it appropriated to that time; but lawfully the same may be performed upon any other convenient day of the week, of the month, [pg 1-237] or of the year, as the church shall think expedient. Upon this ground Zanchius affirmed, Ecclesiæ Christi liberum esse quos velit præter dominicos dies sibi sanctificandos deligere. And by this warrant did the primitive church sanctify those five anniversary days of Christ's nativity,” &c.