A Weapon-Salve for the Churchs Wounds, Religious treatise 1 · Part 1 · Chapter 5
CHAP. V.
The third thing dictated by the Law of Nature, is the solemnity of all things to be performed in this Society; which lies in the gravity of all Rites and Ceremonies, in the composed temper of mind. Gods worship rationall. His spirit destroyes not the use of reason. The Enthusiastick Spirit discovered. The circumstantiating of fit time and place for Worship. The seventh day, on what account so much spoken of by Heathens The Romans Holy dayes. Cessation of labour upon them. The solemnity of Ceremonies used. foreign, Silence in Devotions. Exclusion of unfit persons. Solemnity of discipline: Excommunication among the Iews by the sound of a Trumpet, amongst Christians by a Bell.
THe next thing in reference to religious Societies which§ 1. Nature dictates, is, That all things, either pertaining to the immediate worship of God, or belonging to the Government of that Society, be performed with the greatest solemnity and decency that may be. Which dictate ariseth from the nature of the things themselves; which being most grave and serious, do require the greatest gravity and seriousnesse in the doing of them. And therefore any Ceremonies, Actions, or Gestures, which tend to the discomposing mens Spirits, are upon that account to be exploded out of any religious Societies, as being so directly repugnant to the Nature, design, and performance of religious duties. Wherefore that is the standing Rule of all instituted Ceremonies, by the Law of Nature in the Worship of God, that they be such as tend immediately to the advancing the serenity, tranquillity, and composure of their minds who observe them; and not such which in their own nature, or by continuall custome of the users of them, do either rarifie mens spirits too much into a superficiall lightnesse and vanity of spirit; or el…e sink them too much below the command of reason, into the power of unruly passions. A clear and composed spirit, is only fit for converse with things of so high a Nature. That Region which is nearest Heaven, is the freest from clouds and vapours, as well as those dancing Meteors, which hover about in a light uncertain motion. It strangely unbecomes the Majesty of religious worship to have any thing vulgar, triviall, much more ridiculous in it. The Worship of God is foreign, a rationallRom. 13. 1. worship, as well in regard of that real on which should moderate and govern the manner of service, as in regard of those faculties which should be most …mployed in it; or the foundation which the service hath upon the dictates of mens naturall reason.
And as Nature tells us, there should be nothing too light or§. 2. superficiall, so neither any thing whereby men are carried beyond the bounds of their own reason: For what men do at such a time, is not their own proper act, but is more properly to be ascribed to the power, strength, and excess of a Melancholy fancy, or else to a higher Enthusiasticall spirit, which then actuates and informs their sancies: And therefore it hath been well observed, as a Characteristicall difference between the true Propheticall spirit, and the false and counterfeit; that the one leaves men in the free use of their reason and faculties; the other alienates them by Panick fears, tremblings, and consternations both of body and mind. To which purpose many evidences are brought by a late learned Mr. Smiths dis. 6. of Prophecy, chap. 4.Writer, in his Discourse of Prophecy out of the Heathen and Christian Authors. These latter discovering the vanity of the Montanisticall spirit by this one observation: which besides the Authors there cited, (viz. Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom. …. Eccl. hist. l. 5. 17▪ praes. in I…. Nahum. Habak. Ch…ys. in 1. Cor. Hom. 29. Epiph. haeres. 48. Ezek. 4. 14.Miltiades in Eusebius, Ierom and Chrysostome) may appear from Epiphanius, who largely and excellently discourseth on this Subject, when he discovers the folly of Montanus and his followers: And gives this reason why they could be no true Prophets; for those that were so, had foreign. A great consistency of sense, reason, and discourse; and instanceth in Isaiah and Ezekiel: for saith he, foreign. A true Prophet had alwayes the free use of his reason and faculties, and spake from the spirit of God with consistency and coherence of Discourse. But it was quite otherwise with the M…ntanists, foreign foreign. They were alwayes trembling both in body and mind; used no consequence of reason in discourse; their words had no proper sense, but were all dark, intricate and obscure. An exact description of a late prevailing Sect among us, who have their names from those consternations they were wont to fall into, and whose language carries as much obscurity with it, as any of the followers of Montanus could wrap up theirs into. Only, instead of Montanus his Paraclete, they tell us of a Light within, whose office is much of the same nature with the other; And one of the great errours of Montanus was, the adhering to Enthusiasms and revelations beyond and beside the written Word; which is the Helena of our late Opinionists, because it gives a liberty for venting any conceptions of their own brains, under the pretence and disguise of a Light within. But we see hence, how far such tremblings and consternations of body and mind are from a true, sober, Prophetick spirit: and how those Christians who lived in the time when the Spirit of Prophe…y had not yet left the Church of Christ (as appears by Origen, Tertullian, and others:)Orig. c. Celsum, lib. 2. p. 62. l. 3. p. 124. Tertull. de an. c. 9. yet they alwayes looked upon any violent extasie, or fury, as an evidence of a false Prophet. And therefore Tertullian, when grown a Proselyte of Montanus, endeavours strongly to remove that apprehension of the exstaticall fury of Montanus, and Prisca, and Maximilla, granting, if it were true, that it was a mark of a false and counterfeit prophetical spirit. The true Prophets I grant of old, were by the strength of the impression of their visions upon their Animal spirits, sometimes thrown into a fit of trembling; but then it was not continually so, and when it was, it might be rather a prefent astonishment from so strange and unwonted sight (as isDan. 10. 11. Habak 3. 16. Procop. Gaz. in 1 Reg. 1…. Ed. Meursii. common in such cases) or else from the strong apprehension they had of the dismall judgements God threatned to the people▪ but however, it never took from them the free use of their reason and faculties, which were alwayes conversant about the matters reveased unto them. But as Proo…pius Gaz… … observes of the false Prophets, foreign, they were acted like mad m… ▪ Which he takes notice of upon occassion o… Sa… prophe…ying when the evil spirit came upon him; and interprets with the Jewish Writers, of a madnesse rather then true Prophecy. Such as that of Cassandra when she is brought in by Lycophron,
foreignLycop…r. Alex. p. 2.
foreign
Utt'ring a strange confused noise,
Much like unto black Sphinx's voice.
foreign, saith Tz…tzes, that is foreign, which is fully described by Lucan, of one pretending Enthusiasm:
—sub pectore ficta qui…to
Verba refert, nullo confus a murmure voci…,
Instinctam sacro mentem testata furore.
And soon after,
—non rupta trementi
Verba sono, nec vox antri complere capacis
Sufficiens spatium—
Whereby he discovers her, not to be a true Enthusiast, because she used not such a strange confused voice and tremblings as they did who were their proper Enthusiasts, as the Sybils and the Pythian prophetess. By this we see, that these Earthquakes of violent passions are caused by the Prince of the ayr, and not by the gentle breathings of the Divine Spirit: That these convulsions of mens spirits, are not the consequents of the inhabitation of the good Spirit, but of the violent intrusion of the evil one: That that temper of mind is most suitable to Religion, which is as well free from the bleaknesse and turbulency of passion, as the saint gleams of Lightnesse and Vanity.
But a further solemnity then this is required by the dictates of Nature too, which lyes in the circumstantiating of time and place, and a dedication of both to the end of Worship. That these are very consonant to natural Reason, appears by the universall consent of all Nations agreeing: in any form of the Worship of a Deity: who have all had their set-times, and fixed places to perform this Worship in. I shall not insist as some have done, that the Seventh day hath been particularly and solemnly observed for the worship of God by the consent of Nations: Although there be many probable arguments and plausible testimonies brought for a peculiarity of honour to, if not service on, the Seventh-day, out of Iosephus, Ioseph. c. App. l. 2. Euseb. Praep. l. 13. cap. 12. Tertul. Apol. c. 16. c. Notion. l. 1. c. 13. Lamprid. vit. Alex. Sever. Seneca ep. 95. Tibullus. eleg. 3. l. 1. Lucian. Pseudol. p. 893. ed. Paris.Aristobulus, Iudaeus (and by him from Linus, Hesiod, Homer) Clemens Alexandrinus, Tertullian, Lampridius, Seneca, Tibullus, and many others. From which Testimonies, it appears that some kind of reverence and honour was given to the Seventh-day; but whether that day was the seventh of the week, or the seventh of the month; (which was consecrated among the Greeks to Apollo, upon which the foreign and foreign, and the seventh of every month were observed in honour of him;) whether the title of foreign did belong to the seventh as one of the foreign or foreign, Festivall or inauspicious dayes (for it was common to both)? Whether observed by any publike religious custome, or by some private superstition, are things too large to inquire into, too difficult now to determine, and not necessary for my present purpose; It being sufficient in order to that, if they had any set times at all for worship, which shews how solemn the worship of God ought to be. And this is not denyed by any; it being so necessary a consectary from the duty of Worship that there must be a time for performance of it. And not only in generall that there must be some time, but a sufficient proportion of time to be consecrated to the publike exercise of piety, both from the consideration of mans obligation to divine service from his nature, from the weight and concernment of the things that time is imployed in, and the inward sense of immortality upon the soul of man. But then what this proportion of time must exactly be, I see not how meer natural light could determine it, but it would rather suggest it to be highly reasonable to wait for and expect such a determination from the supream Rector and Governour of the world. It being far more fit for the Master to prescribe unto the servant what proportion of service he expects from him, then that the servant should both divide and choose his own time, and the proportion of service which he owes to his Master. Nay it being so much more reasonable for us to wait for Gods order, then for a servant for his Masters, as Gods power and Dominion over the creature is greater then that of a Master over his servant; as it is the voyce and sense of nature that Gods commands cannot otherwise be but just, holy, reasonable and good: which may be otherwise from men; as the acceptance of our persons with God, lies not barely in the work done; but in the doing it out of obedience to the commands of God; which is otherwise with men▪ as, God can give strength to perform what he commands, which man cannot: which things considered make it evident to be highly reasonable that God himself should prescribe the proportion of time, and not mans nature. But when God hath thus determined it, nature cannot but assent to that particular determination, that in consideration of the works of God, it is most reasonable that rather one day in a week, then one in a month, should be dedicated to Gods service; that the seventh day of the week upon Gods resting on that day and sanctifying it, should be the precise day, unlesse some reason equivalent to that of the first institution, and approved by God for that end, be the ground of its alteration to another of the seven, which is the reason of the change under the Gospel.
As an evidence of the solemnity of times for worship, the§. 4. Romans as well as other Nations had their several feriae; their dayes set apart for the honour of their Gods. In which Macrobius tells us the Priests held them polluted, si indictis conceptisque Macrob. Saturnal. l. 1. c. 16.opus aliquod fieret; praetereâ regem sacrorum flamines que non licebat videre feriis opus fieri, & ideò per praeconem denuntiabatur nè quid tale ageretur, & praecepti negligens multabatur. If any work were done upon those dayes of Rest, the day was polluted; and the person punished, unlesse it were as Umbro there affirms, in order to the honour of their Gods, or for necessaries of life. To which purpose Scaevola answered him that asked, what work must be done upon the Feria: Quod pratermissum noceret, What would be spoiled by letting alone; as taking an Ox out of a ditch, strengthening a beam like to fall and ruine men; and thence Maro allowed it lawfull to wash sheep if it were to cure, and not only to cleanse them.
Balautumque gregem fluvio mersare salubri.
By which last word, Macrobius saith it was only lawfull to do it for healing them, and not in order to gain. Servius informsServius Honor. in Virgil. Georgic. 1. us likewise that the Priests when they went to sacrifice, sent their servants before to bid all Tradesmen leave working, nè pro negotio suo & ipsorum oculos & Deorum ceremonias attaminent; Feria enim operae Deorum creditae sunt; Lest by following their work they both offend them and the Gods too: For these Holy-dayes are devoted to the service of the Gods. Festus saith that upon their dies religiosi, nisi quod necesse est, Festus V. religios.nefas habetur facere; nothing but works of pure necessity were to be done, But by dies religiosi, probably he means the dies atr… & nefasti; their ominous unlucky dayes, as they accounted them. But however, Macrobius distinguisheth the dayes among the Romans into Dies festi, profesti, & intercisi. The Festi were dedicated to the Gods, the Profesti to their own works, the Intercisi were divided between both, at some hours of which it was lawfull to follow their civill employments, at others not. Nam cum hostiacaeditur, fari nefas est; inter caesa & porrecta, fari licet; rursus cum adoletur, non licet. While the sacrifice was killing no Courts of Judicature were opened (in which the Praetor might fari tria verba solemnia, Do, dico; addico, thence called dies fasti) but between the killing the sacrifice and offering up the entrails (called Porrecta from porricere, which was verbum sacrificale pervetustum, saith Turnebus, Advers. l. 24. c. 13.an old word belonging to sacrificing, exta Di…s cum dabant, porricere dicebant, Varro) then it was lawfull to open the Courts; but again when the sacrifice was offered, it was not. By which we see as from the light of Nature, that what dayes and times, whether weekly, monthly or Anniversary, were designedDe Re Rust. l. 1. c 29. and appointed as dies Festi, for the service of God, were to be spent wholly in order to that end, and not to give some part to God, and take others to themselves: as they were wont to do in their sacrifices, to offer up some part to the Gods, and feast upon the rest themselves, as Athenaeus tells us that Conon and Alcibiades offered such Hecatombs to the Gods, that they entertained the people upon the remaindersDei…nos. l. 1. of them. And from hence we may see how far short of natural light their Religion falls, who make no scruple of spending a great part of the dayes devoted to Gods worship in following either their imployments or recreations: Which latter seem more directly to impugne the end of such time appointed then the other, in as much as recreations tend more to the ratifying mens spirits; and evaporating them into lightnesse and vanity, and so discomposing them for the duties of spirituall worship, then mens serious and lawfull callings do. But further, we observe, among the Romans severall sorts of dayes appointed for publike worship. Macrobius reckons upSaturn. l. 1. c. 16. four sorts of them, Stative, Conceptivae, Imperativae, & Nundinae. Stativae, were the set festivall dayes observed every year by the whole people, and marked for that end in their Fasti. Such were the Agonalia, Carmentalia, Lupercalia, which are marked with red Letters in the Fasti consulares, orDe jure Nat. apud Heb. l. 3. cap. 15. De Idolol. c. 14. the Calendarium Romanum, by Ios. Scaliger call'd Calendarium Colotianum, which may be seen at large in Mr. Selden: besides which, their other anniversary festivals are there set down: which Tertullian saith, being all put together, Pentecostem implere non poterunt, make not up the number of fifty; and so not so many as our Lords Dayes in a year are. Conceptivae, were such festivals as were annually observed, but the dayes of the keeping them were every year determined by the Magistrates of the Priests, as Latinae, Sementivae, Paganalia, Compitalia. Imperativa, were such as the Consuls or Praetors did command at their own pleasure. Such were their solemn supplications in times of trouble, and their dayes of Triumph and Thanksgiving for Victories. The Nundinae were those which returned every ninth day, and therefore the Letter by which they observed the return of the ninth day, was H. as among us Christians G. which because it notes the return of the Lords Dayes, we call the Dominical Letter. These Nundinae were the days when the Country people brought in their wares into the City to be sold, which were anciently observed as festival dayes, sacred to Iupiter, but by the Lex Hortensia were made Dies fasti, for determining the Controversies that might arise among the people in their dealings; as the Court of Pyepowder was instituted among us upon the same account. So much for the solemnity of time used in the service of God.
Another evidence of the solemnity of Wo…ship, was the extraordinary§. 5. care of the Heathens in preparing themselves for it, by cleansing and purifying themselves with water, for whichHom. Iliad. Apoll. Argon. l. 1. Casaub. ad Th…o. foreign. Saub de sacri. cap. 12. Paus. l. 2. Matth. 27. 24. Casaub. ad Bar. exer. 16. s. 75. …aro…. ad An. Christi 34 M…ntacutius Orig. Eccles. 10. 1. l. 2. p. 388. Vossius Harm. Evang. l. …. cap. 5. V. M…yerum de P… patu, Rom. l. 1. c. 32. 5 De Croy. Conf. 1. c. 33. Ov…d. Fast. lib. 2. purpose they had their foreign for cleansing their hands, and their foreign and foreign standing at the porch of their Temples for their whole bodies, which custome was generally observed by the Heathens, as is very obvious in the severall Writers of their Customs in sacrificing; besides which they observed likewise this washing with water, by way of lustration and expiation of their faults, as Triclinius the Sholiast on Sophocles tells us, it was an antient custome when men had murthered others, foreign, to wash their hands in expiation of their guilt; as Orestes did in Pausanias after the killing his mother, and some think Pilate in the Gospel did so for the same end; but his was only to declare his innocency, and not to expiate his sin, as is observed by many upon that place. But however, from hence we may take notice of the Spring and Fountain of the Popes Holy-water: which was consecrated by Numa long before Alexander 1. to whom Polydore Virgil and others attribute the first use of it in the Christian Church: And as the use of it, and the manner of sprinkling it is the same among the Papists, as it was among the Heathen; so likewise the end of it: witness the old Rime,
Hac aqua benedicta, deleat mihi mea delicta.
Which may be sufficiently answered with the Ce…sure of a Heathen;
Ah nimiùm faciles qui tristia crimina caedi…
Tolli flùmineâ posse putatis aquâ!
Too easie souls who think the spots of blood
Can be wash'd out with every watry flood.
But from this I pass to the solemnity in their Worship it self, evidenced by the generall silence commanded in it; which appears by Horace's Favete, linguis, Ovids Ore favent populi nunc cum venit aurea pompa; Virgils fida silentia sacris; Festus's V. Brisson. de sormulis lib. 1. p. 8.Linguam pascito, i. e. coerceto; The Egyptians setting Harpocrates his Image in the entrance to their Temples, and the Romans placing the Statue of Angerona on the Altar of Volupia. The Greeks had their foreign which did foreign, as Iulius Pollux tells us, which Plautus calls facere O …omist. c. lib. …. c. 12.audientiam, to command silence: much as the Deacons afterwards did in the Primitive Church, who were wont to command silence by their Orarium, and were thence call'd foreign among the Christians (for though foreign, as applyed to the Bishop and Presbyters, did signifie foreign and foreign, to preach; yet as it was applyed to the Deacons, it implyedV. Leon. 5. Allatium de Marthece, vet. Eccles. p. 45, &c. only their commanding silence in order to the prayers of the Catechumeni, call'd foreign, as Aristenus observes on Concil. Carthag. can. 106. But this by the way.) The formula used by the Greeks in commanding silence was, foreign to which Aristonicus the Fidler alluded when in the Market place of Mylassa, a Town in Caria, he saw many Temples, and but few Citizens, he cryed out foreign instead of foreign Athenaeus Deipnos. l. 8. c. 8.But I passe these things over, as being commonly known, only observing from them the solemnity of their publick devotions; which is further seen in their solemn excluding unfit persons from partaking with them in their sacrifices. Of which Virgil, Ovid, Statius, Silius Italicus, and others among theV. Apud Briss. de sormulis, l. 1. & apud Seld. de Syned. lib. 1. cap. 10. Romans speak; and the Lictor in some Sacrifices stood up, saith Festus, and cryed aloud, Hostis, mulier, vinctus, exesto, i. e. extra esto: and to keep unfit persons the better ff, the Flamines had a Commentaculum, a kind of Rod in their hands. Among the Greeks the old form continued from Orpheus or Onomacritus his Orphaica, foreign. and those that sacrifice, asked foreign, the other answered foreign. FromSuidas in foreign. all these things laid together, we see the great solemnity used by them in their worship, which considered in its self, was not the product of superstition, but a dictate of the Law of Nature. And it seems most naturall to the acts of discipline, that they should be performed in the most publick solemn manner, and not in any private C…andestine way: which being so done, oft times lose the designed effect of them, in making men sensible and ashamed of those miscarriages which made them deserve so sharp and severe a censure. Thence among the Jews, their solemn sentence of the greater excommunication was pronounced by the sound of a Trumpet; and so they say Meroz was excommunicated with 400. Trumpets:Ioh. Coch. Excerpt. Gen Saubed. cap 1. p. 146. Vostius in Pir…e Elicsest p 2. 6. Selden de Syned. l. 1. cap. 7. and the same number they report was used in excommunicating Iesus of Nazareth, which was usually done by the Magistrate, or the Rector of the University: as they tell us a story of a man coming to buy flesh at Pombeditha (which was one of the three Universities of the remaining Jews in Chaldea after the return from Captivity, the other were Sora and Neharda) but offering some opprobrious language to R. Iehuda then Governour of the University, he makes no more to do, but prolatus tubis hominem excommunicavit, brings out his Trumpets and excommunicates him. And as the use of Bells, since their invention, did supply the former use of Trumpets in calling the Congregation together (which I suppose was the account of using Trumpets in excommunicating from the Congregation) so it seems the Bells were sometimes used to ring men out of, as well as into the Church; thence the solemn Monkish curse, cursing men with Bell, Book and Candle, which can have no other sense but from this practice. So much shall suffice to shew the soundation which the solemnity of Worship, and the acts belonging to it, have in the dictates of Nature manifested by the voyce and consent of Nations, for herein vox Populi is vox Naturae, as at other times it is Vox Dei.