. Why, the very phrase "contrary to the word of God" would take a month to define, and neither party agree at last. One party says:
The Church has power from God's word to order all matters of order so as shall appear to them to conduce to decency and edification: but ceremonies respect the orderly performance of divine service: ergo, the Church has power to ordain ceremonies: but the Cross in baptizing is a ceremony; ergo, the Church has power to prescribe the crossing in Baptism. What is rightfully ordered cannot be rightfully withstood:—but the crossing, &c., is rightfully ordered:—
ergo
, the crossing cannot be rightfully omitted.
To this, how easily would the other party reply;
- That a small number of Bishops could not be called the Church:
- That no one Church had power or pretence from God's word to prescribe concerning mere matters of outward decency and convenience to other Churches or assemblies of Christian people:
- That the blending an unnecessary and suspicious, if not superstitious, motion of the hand with a necessary and essential act doth in no wise respect order or propriety:
Lastly, that to forbid a man to obey a direct command of God because he will not join with it an admitted mere tradition of men, is contrary to common sense, no less than to God's word, expressly and by breach of charity, which is the great end and purpose of God's word. Besides; might not the Pope and his shavelings have made the same proposition to the Reformers in the reign of Edward VI., in respect to the greater part of the idle superfluities which were rejected by the Reformers, only as idle and superfluous, and for that reason contrary to the spirit of the Gospel, though few, if any, were in the direct teeth of a positive prohibition? Above all, an honest policy dictates that the end in view being fully determined, as here for instance, the preclusion of disturbance and indecorum in Christian assemblies, every addition to means, already adequate to the securing of that end, tends to frustrate the end, and is therefore evidently excluded from the prerogatives of the Church, (however that word may be interpreted) inasmuch as its power is confined to such ceremonies and regulations as conduce to order and general edification. In short it grieves me to think that the Heads of the most Apostolical Church in Christendom should have insisted on three or four trifles, the abolition of which could have given offence to none but such as from the baleful superstition that alone could attach importance to them effectually, it was charity to offend;-when all the rest of Baxter's objections might have been answered so triumphantly.