Mixture of Scholastical Divinity with Practical Part 2, Excerpt and reply 13 – Excerpt and reply 15
Dr. Hammond. sect. 19.
My conclusion designed in that Section was the justifying of Uniformity of Ceremonies in the service of God, and one of the grounds to support that, the decency of those ceremonies, wherein all should joyn, and that decency ruled, and judged of by the custom of the place in which such and such a ceremony was an usual indication, and expression of that reverence, which being due from all inferiours to their superiours is much more due from all Christians to God.
Jeanes.
1. … ceremonies have two acceptions. 1. They are taken largely for all circumstances of order, decency; as also for all meere indicant signs of reverence, and these for distinction sake may be called circumstantial ceremonies: but these are not the ceremonies in question; for the Non-conformists acknowledge these law full, and so also Uniformity in them; but yet of these ceremonies, custome is neither the onelyonly or principal rule, as shall be manifested when I come unto the examination of your Answer unto my Objections against this your dictate.
In … second place, humane ceremonies are taken strictly, onelyonly for such as are …, symbolical, and sacramental, and unto such neither … nor reverence … us.
Not, first, the Apostles decency; because in the omission of them there is no undecency.
Not, secondly, that reverence which is due unto God in his worship, … in the omission of them there is no irreverence committed; you may think my notion of reverence to be too narrow; but 'tis the utmost I can grant you; and indeed 'tis all that Scripture and Reason call for: reverence and irreverence are … opposed, and between privative opposites, in a capable subject, there is no medium, either of abnegation or participation, and therefore when there is no irreverence in the external worship of God, that worship is reverently administred: now that … is unreverently administred when the Crosse is omitted, or that … Prayers and Preaching are unreverent, when the Surplice is left off, may perhaps be very affectionately averred by you and others, but I do not hope to live so long as to receive from you, or any man living, for it, so much as the shadow of an argument.
In the first place then you see that reverence bindeth not to humane, religious, mystical ceremonies.
…, in a second place, it bindeth to lay them quite aside, because Gods Ordinances are treated very irreverently, when mens inventions are joyned with them, when men set their … … thresholds, and their posts by his posts, Ezek. 43. 8. that is, when humane inventions are added unto Gods precepts.
Yea, but you may perhaps say our Ceremonies are joyned with Gods Ordinances onelyonly as adjuncts, or annexaries, not as parts of Gods worship.
But unto this I reply in the words of Ames unto Morton, all external ceremonies, whose proper use is the honouring of God, are external worship, as all divinity sheweth. Reply unto gen. Def. pag 19.
Thirdly, the pretence of reverence in Gods worship, hath … been an inlet unto many superstitious practises; this Ames sheweth in his Reply unto … particular Defence, &c pag. 69. Out of such … as this, saith he, all superstition hath crept into the Sacrament. For expression of reverence, some would not touch the bread with their hands, or the cup either, but have both bread and wine put into their mouthes. … more agreeably to … fashion (urged by the …) where meat is taken with silver forks, … of hands, devised a silver … to suck up the wine through. Some would not have … …. men … of the wine … all: And many for meere reverence (as they say) will neither touch wine nor …, abstaining altogether from the …. All these usages might have been, and may be …, and yet custome cannot legitimate them and make them decent. I shall conclude all that I have to say unto … two last Sections with a remarkable passage in Parker his Treatise of the …, part. 1. pag. 112. The second office of the Crosse is to procure reverence to …, … … esse communis ablutio: Which is the office of the Salt, the Taper, and the rest of Popish signs, which how cut we …, but with this Ax that beheadeth the … as wel. Non …, &c. We must not think but that the Baptism of Christ, and of the Apostles was performed with reverence enough, when these … were wanting; neither must we take upon us to be wiser than they. To procure right reverence to the Sacrament, is to lay open the institution by the Preaching of the Word, and then to deliver it in that simplicity in wh ch we have received it. To adde signs over and above is … to honour it, but to … it. Indeed the … had been more honourably …, if … had been sent home again as it came into the land and hand of the …. … thought they could not honour it sufficiently, unlesse they set a budget by it of certain new devised signs to wait upon it, which did defile it. David … this budget, and did wel: Howbeit, … Cart he thinketh cannot well be spared, for which the Lord made a breach in Israel, untill he drave him to confess that he was not sought in due order, as long as one Ceremony of the Philistines did remain. The Lord shew mercy to our Church, otherwise he will shew, that our … of the Popish budget, in banishing the salt, the oyl, the …, with the rest, will not be judged sufficient, unless we cease also with a … of theirs to cart Baptisme, which should be born up to reverence no other way than by the shoulders of the Levites, I mean the labours of those Preachers which now (…) lye in the dust, because they wil not defile their hands by touching of this Philistim … for to uphold it.
Dr. Hammond. sect. 20, 21.
In these it is certain, custome is the rule and the onelyonly rule of …: Neither nature nor Gods Law obliges all mankind to this, or that expression …. … nations have their several manners of doing …; onelyonly nature tels us, that the most reverent manner of treating is best becomming God, and that it cannot be decent, to treat … in that manner as we would not doe … … beside, and Gods … … about the offering of polluted bread … his …, and of sacrificing the lame and the sick, Mal. 1. 8. is a confirmation of that; Offer it now, saith God, unto thy …, will he be pleased with thee?
21. Apply this to a particular case, to a Nation, where 'tis customary to address to Kings kneeling, and … the … will … exactly (but not where that is not custome) Among such I may say, Did ever any man that had his limbs and health offer a … to his Prince in the gesture of sitting, or lying along upon a table? and if he did not, then I …, I suppose, regularly conclude from custome, the only rule of … in … matters, that according to Gods arguing it cannot be decently done in his service, … is the tendring our petitions or requests to that infinite Majesty. And so … in other things.
Jeanes.
Your … of the indications and expressions of that reverence of which custome is the only rule, by instancing in kneeling in prayer, when wee tender our petitions or requests to the infinite majesty of God, is very impertinent; for it is very evident, that … is not the only … of it, because it is sufficiently warranted both by Scripture and the light of Nature.
Unto all this I shall adde a distinction of reverence; it may be taken sometimes largely, and so it comprehends …: sometimes strictly, & so it is distinguished … …; for reverence, is due unto the Ordinances of God, …, and worship onelyonly unto God: … … be a … and subordinate rule of the signs of reverence, taken strictly, whereupon by custome, uncovering of the … is a general or common gesture of reverence, to be used with discretion in all … exercises; but now as for the indications and expressions of adoration, I do think the Scripture a … rule of them, where, I do not exclude the law and light of nature, for materially considered, it is a part of Scripture.
Dr. Hammond. sect. 22.
This I did not apply to the Crosse in Baptism; and the Ministers using of the …, as being not … to that place. Another … was set … for those, and proceeded to sect. 18. the Crosse expresly named, and the … implyed under the title of other Ceremonies, of which it may there be seen, what my … was, not what is here deem'd incambent on me to prove, that the … of them infers …, but that standing on … …, whereon they are known to stand, Conscience duly instructed, cannot think it …, or tending to … to cast them … out of this Church, or the whole Liturgie for their sakes.
Jeanes.
What you said, was applyable unto the Crosse in Baptisme, and the Ministers using of the Surplice for your conclusion was, the more then lawfulnesse of prescription of ceremonies in a Church, and of Uniformity therein; and here sect. 19 you acknowledge that your cnclusion, designed in that Section, was the justifying of Uniformity of Ceremonies in the service of God: now I had reason to think that you speak of humane, religious, mystical ceremonies, because such onelyonly were opposed by the Non-conformists, and such the Crosse and Surplice were, …, though not exclusively.
2. If your design be to justifie doctrinal ceremonies from the Apostles command of decency, then 'tis incumbent on you to prove that the omission of such ceremonies doth … undecency; for if it doth not infer undecency, then therin there is no transgression of the Apostles precept, and if the Apostles precept be not transgressed by the omission of them, the Assembly had no cause, upon that account, to repent of their casting such ceremonies out of the Church of God.