Five Disputations of Church Government, Chapter 3 – Chapter 4
CHAP. III. Prop. 2. In such unlawfull impositions (as aforementioned) it is an aggravation of the sin, if Governors pretend that their Ceremonies are Divine.
§. 1. I shall be brief in the rest, having been so long on the former. The reason of this Proposition is clear: because 1. As is aforesaid, such pretenders do falsly accuse the Lord, and corrupt his word, and add to it their own inventions: contrary to those severe prohibitions, Deut. 12.32. Rev. 22.18.
§. 2. 2. Because it shews that man to be a false Prophet, or false teacher, that will say, Thus saith the Lord, when God hath not spoken it: and that will take the name of God in vain, affixing it to a lye. And as many judgements are threatned to such, so people are commanded not to hear them.
§. 3. 3. It tendeth to the destruction of all Divine faith and obedience: while the fixions of men are pretended to be doctrines or Laws of God, it tendeth to confound things Divine and Humane; and so to bring the people to a loss, that they shall not know what is the will of God, and what the will of men.
§. 4. Let men therefore take heed how they affirm their Ceremonies to be Divine: as the Papists do, that feign them to be of Apostolical Tradition. Some presume to tell the world, that it is God by Apostolical Tradition that hath instituted Christmas day, or other such Holy daies, (besides the Lords day,) or that hath instituted the Cross in Baptism, or the fast of Lent, yea and some of their common prayers; abundance of humane inventions are thus audaciously fathered on God, which is enough to make people the more cautelous in receiving them: and I am sure makes it a more hainous sin in the imposers. We justly take it to be an odious thing of Hereticks and Papists, to affix the names of Clemens, Dionysius, Ambrose, Austin, and other holy ancient writers, to their forgeries, and corrupt writings: And how much greater is their sin, that dare affix the name of God himself to their Ceremonious inventions or traditions?
§. 5. Such persons forsake the doctrine of the common prayer-book, where the Ceremonies are confessed to be humane inventions. The foresaid Preface [of Ceremonies, &c.] begins thus: [Of such Ceremonies as be used in the Church, and have had their beginning by the Institution of man; some at the first were of Godly intent and purpose devised, and yet at length turned to vanity and surperstition: some entred into the Church by indiscreet devotion, and such a Zeal as was without knowledge: and because they were winked at in the beginning, they grew daily to more and more abuses; which not only for their unprofitableness, but also because they have much blinded the people, and obscured the Glory of God, are worthy to be cut away, and clean rejected. Other there be, which although they have been devised by man, yet it is thought good to reserve them still—] so that you see here is no pretence to a Divine institution, or Apostolical Tradition, but all is the devices of man.
§. 6. And after it is there said [that the Ceremonies which remain are retained for a Discipline and order, which upon just causes may be altered and changed, and therefore are not to be esteemed equal with Gods Laws.] And I hope the justness of the cause by this time is apparent.
CHAP. IV. Prop. 3. & 4. If things unlawfull are commanded as indifferent, or things indifferent as Necessary, they are sinfully imposed, and the more, because of such pretenses.
§. 1. THE calling things Indifferent, that are unlawfull, will not make them Indifferent. If men will invent and introduce new Sacraments, and when they have done, say [we intend them not for Sacraments or necessary things, but as indifferent accidents of other Duties,] this will not make them things indifferent: For it is not the altering of a name that maketh it another thing.
§. 2. If things Indifferent be imposed as Necessary, they become a sin to the Imposer, and oft-times to the Practiser. For 1. It is a falsification, when the thing is pretended to be Necessary that is not: And untruths in Laws, are far from being commendable. 2. It tends to deceive mens understandings, to esteem things Necessary that are not. 3. It tends to draw men to vain endeavours: while they use those things as Necessary (Duties or Means) that indeed are none, they lose their labour by the mistake. 4. It tendeth to corrupt mens Affections, by breeding in them a false kind of zeal for the things that they mistake to be so necessary.
§. 3. Yea worse; it tends to engage men in parties and devisions, and persecutions against dissenters: or at least, to destroy their charity, and make them have contemptuous thoughts of their brethren, and perhaps censorious bitter words; when all is false, and founded in their mistakes. For who will not think hardlier of him that differeth from him, or opposeth him in a Necessary point (or that he takes for such) then in a thing Indifferent? the greater the matter, the greater will be your distaste.
§. 4. Yea more, it will make men Impenitent in such sins. For if once they think their ceremonies to be Necessary, they will think it no sin, but a service of God, to vilifie them that are against them, as schismaticks, and singular, and proud, and humorous, and what not?
§. 5. As therefore it is a haynous sin of the Papists, to impose their ceremonies, on pain of damnation (if they were the judges, wo to others,) so is it no small aggravation of their sin, that pretend a Necessity (of Duty or Means) of any their Ceremonies, when there is none such. Multitudes take the keeping of Christmas day, and such other, the Kneeling in receiving the Lords Supper, &c. to be things of themselves necessary, so that a Governour should sin that should alter or dispence with them, or the persons sin that do not use them. What, say they, shall we not keep a Day for Christs Nativity? shall we be so unreverent as not to kneel when we receive, &c? And thus they alter the things to themselves, by feigning them to be in themselves Necessary, which are not so.
§. 6. Yet doth not every such mistake of another, no not of the imposers, make that a sin to me which was indifferent. Otherwise all my Liberty were in the power of another mans conceits: and he might make all my meat, drink, cloaths, time, place, gesture, &c. in specie, to be unlawfull, by commanding them as necessary, or under some unsound notion: But this is not so.
§. 7. But in such cases, though they cannot so destroy our liberties, yet may they make it our duties sometime to forbear that which else we need not to forbear, lest our practice make others take it as a Necessary thing; and sometime though we must obey or do the action, yet may it become our duty, to signifie (in a convenient way) that we disclaim the conceit of a Necessity.