Sect. 5. Thus having failed by those rocks of offence, I direct my course straight to the dissecting of the true limits, within which the church's power of enacting laws about things pertaining to the worship of God is bounded and confined, and which it may not overleap nor transgress.
Three conditions I find necessarily requisite in such a thing as the church hath power to prescribe by her laws:
1st. It must be only a circumstance of divine worship; no substantial part of it; no sacred significant and efficacious ceremony. For the order and decency left to the definition of the church, as concerning the particulars of it, comprehendeth no more but mere circumstances. Bishop Lindsey[883] doth but unskilfully confound things different when he talketh of “the ceremonies and circumstances left to the determination of the church.” Now, by his leave, though circumstances be left to the determination of the church, yet ceremonies, if we speak properly, are not.
Bishop Andrews avoucheth[884] that ceremonies pertain to the church only, and to the service of God, not to civil solemnities. But so much, I trust, he would not have said of circumstances which have place in all moral actions, and that to the same end and purpose for which they serve in religious actions, namely, for beautifying them with that decent demeanour which the very light and law of natural reason requireth as a thing beseeming all human actions. For the church of Christ being a society of men and women, must either observe order and decency in all the circumstances of their holy actions, time, place, person, form, &c., or also be deformed with that disorder and confusion which common reason and civility abhorreth. Ceremonies, therefore, which are sacred observances, and serve only to a religious and holy use, and which may not, without sacrilege, be applied to another use, must be sorted with things of another nature than circumstances. Ceremonioe, “ceremonies [pg 1-262] (saith Dr Field[885]) are so named, as Livy thinketh, from a town called Cære, in the which the Romans did hide their sacred things when the Gauls invaded Rome. Others think that ceremonies are so named a carendo, of abstaining from certain things, as the Jews abstained from swine's flesh, and sundry other things forbidden by God as unclean. Ceremonies are outward acts of religion,” &c. Quapropter etiam, saith Junius,[886] ritus et ceremonias inter se distincimus, quia in jure politico sunt imperati et solennes ritus; ceremonioe vero non nisi sacroe observationes in cultu divino appellantur. Ceremonia, saith Bellarmine,[887] proprie et simpliciter sic vocata, est externa actio quoe non aliunde est bona et laudabilis, nisi quia fit ad Deum colendum. From which words Amesius[888] concludeth against him, that he, and others with him, do absurdly confound order, decency, and the like, which have the same use and praise in civil things which they have in the worship of God, with religious and sacred ceremonies. Yet Dr Burges[889] rejecteth this distinction betwixt circumstances and ceremonies, as a mere nicety or fiction. And would you know his reason? “For that (saith he) all circumstances (I mean extrinsical) which incur not the substance of the action, when they are once designed or observed purposely in reference to such a matter, of whose substance they are not, they are then ceremonies.” If this be not a nicety or fiction, I know not what is. For what means he here by a matter? An action sure, or else a nicety. Well, then, we shall have now a world of ceremonies. When I appoint to meet with another man at Berwick, upon the 10th day of May, because the place and the day are purposely designed in reference to such a matter, of whose substance they are not, namely, to my meeting with the other man, for talking of our business, therefore the town of Berwick, and the 10th day of May, must be accounted ceremonies. To me it is nice, that the Doctor made it not nice, to let such a nicety fall from his pen.
When I put on my shoos in reference to walking, or wash my hands in reference to eating, am I using ceremonies all the while? [pg 1-263] The Doctor could not choose but say so, forasmuch as these circumstances are purposely designed and observed in reference to such matters, of whose substance they are not.
Sect. 6. 2d. That which the church may lawfully prescribe by her laws and ordinances, as a thing left to her determination, must be one of such things as were not determinable by Scripture, on that reason which Camero hath given us, namely, because individua are infinita. We mean not in any wise to circumscribe the infinite power and wisdom of God, only we speak upon supposition of the bounds and limits which God did set to his written word, within which he would have it contained, and over which he thought fit that it should not exceed. The case being thus put, as it is, we say truly of those several and changeable circumstances which are left to the determination of the church, that, being almost infinite, they were not particularly determinable in Scripture; for the particular definition of those occurring circumstances which were to be rightly ordered in the works of God's service to the end of the world, and that ever according to the exigency of every present occasion and different case, should have filled the whole world with books. But as for other things pertaining to God's worship, which are not to be reckoned among the circumstances of it, they being in number neither many, nor in change various, were most easily and conveniently determinable in Scripture. Now, since God would have his word (which is our rule in the works of his service) not to be delivered by tradition, but to be written and sealed unto us, that by this means, for obviating Satanical subtility, and succouring human imbecility, we might have a more certain way for conservation of true religion, and for the instauration of it when it faileth among men,—how can we but assure ourselves that every such acceptable thing pertaining any way to religion, which was particularly and conveniently determinable in Scripture, is indeed determined in it; and consequently, that no such thing as is not a mere alterable circumstance is left to the determination of the church?
Sect. 7. 3d. If the church prescribe anything lawfully, so that she prescribe no more than she hath power given her to prescribe, her ordinance must be accompanied with some good reason and warrant given for the satisfaction of tender consciences. This [pg 1-264] condition is, alas! too seldom looked unto by law-makers, of whom one fitly complaineth thus:—
Lex quamvis ratio Ciceroni summa vocetur, Et bene laudetur lex que ratione probatur, Invenies inter legistas raro logistas: Moris et exempli leges sunt juraque templi.
But this fashion we leave to them who will have all their anomalies taken for analogies. It becometh not the spouse of Christ, endued with the spirit of meekness, to command anything imperiously, and without a reason given.
Ecclesioe enim est docere primum, tuin proescribere, saith Camero.[890] And again: Non enim dominatur cleris, nec agit cum iis quos Christus redemit, ac si non possent capere quod sit religiosum, quid minus.