Chapter 50

THE FIFTH ARGUMENT AGAINST THE LAWFULNESS OF THE CEREMONIES TAKEN FROM THE MYSTICAL AND SIGNIFICANT NATURE OF THEM.

_Sect._ 1. That mystical significations are placed in the controverted ceremonies, and that they are ordained to be sacred signs of spiritual mysteries, to teach Christians their duties, and to express such holy and heavenly affections, dispositions, motions and desires, as are and should be in them,—it is confessed and avouched by our opposites. Saravia holdeth,(784) that by the sign of the cross we profess ourselves to be Christians; Bishop Mortoune calleth(785) the cross a sign of constant profession of Christianity; Hooker calleth(786) it “Christ’s mark applied unto that part where bashfulness appeareth, in token that they which are Christians should be at no time ashamed of his ignominy;” Dr Burges(787) maintaineth the using of the surplice to signify the pureness that ought to be in the minister of God; Paybody(788) will have kneeling at the Lord’s supper to be a signification of the humble and grateful acknowledging of the benefits of Christ. The prayer which the English service book appointeth bishops to use after the confirming of children by the imposition of hands, avoucheth that ceremony of confirmation for a sign whereby those children are certified of God’s favour and good-will towards them. In the general, our opposites defend(789) that the church hath power to ordain such ceremonies, as by admonishing men of their duty, and by expressing such spiritual and heavenly affections, dispositions, motions, or desires, as should be in men, do thereby stir them up to greater fervour and devotion.

_Sect._ 2. But against the lawfulness of such mystical and significant ceremonies, thus we dispute: First, A chief part of the nature of sacraments is given unto those ceremonies when they are in this manner appointed to teach by their signification. This reason being alleged by the _Abridgement of the Lincoln ministers_, Paybody answereth,(790) that it is not a bare signification that makes a thing participate of the sacrament’s nature, but such a signification as is sacramental, both in what is signified and how. _Ans._ 1. This is but to beg the question; for what other thing is alleged by us, but that a sacramental signification is placed in those ceremonies we speak of? 2. What calls he a sacramental signification, if a mystical resemblance and representation of some spiritual grace which God hath promised in his word be not it? and that such a signification as this is placed in the ceremonies, I have already made it plain, from the testimonies of our opposites. This, sure, makes those ceremonies so to encroach upon the confines and precincts of the nature and quality of sacraments, that they usurp something more than any rites which are not appointed by God himself can rightly do. And if they be not sacraments, yet, saith Hooker,(791) they are as sacraments. But in Augustine’s dialect, they are not only as sacraments, but they themselves are sacraments. _Signa_ (saith the father) _cum ad res divinas pertinent, sacramenta appellantur_; which testimony doth so master Dr Burges, that he breaketh out into this witless answer,(792) That the meaning of Augustine was to show that the name of sacraments belongeth properly to divine things, and not to all signs of holy things. I take he would have said, “belongeth properly to the signs of divine things.”

And here, beside that which Ames hath said against him, I add these two things: 1. That this distinction cannot be conceived which the Doctor maketh betwixt the signs of divine things and the signs of holy things. 2. That his other distinction can as little be conceived, which importeth that the name of sacraments belongeth to divine things properly, and to all signs of holy things improperly.

Lastly, If we call to mind that which hath been evinced before, namely, that the ceremonies are not only thought to be mystically significant for setting forth and expressing certain spiritual graces, but also operative and available to the begetting of those graces in us, if not by the work wrought, at least by the work of the worker; for example, that the sign of the cross is not only thought by our opposites to signify that at no time we should be ashamed of the ignominy of Christ, but is also esteemed(793) to be a means to work our preservation from shame, and a most effectual teacher to avoid that which may deservedly procure shame; and that bishopping is not only thought to be a sign for certifying young children of God’s favour and good-will towards them, but also an exhibitive sign,(794) whereby they receive strength against sin and tentation, and are assisted in all virtue.

If these things, I say, we call to mind, it will be more manifest that the ceremonies are given out for sacred signs of the very same nature that sacraments are of. For the sacraments are called by divines commemorative, representative and exhibitive signs; and such signs are also the ceremonies we have spoken of, in the opinion of Formalists.

_Sect._ 3. Mystical and significant ceremonies (to proceed to a second reason), ordained by men, can be no other than mere delusions, and serve only to feed men’s minds with vain conceits. For to what other purpose do _signa instituta_ serve, if it be not in the power of him who gives them institution to give or to work that which is signified by them?

Now, it is not in the power of prelates, nor of any man living, to give us these graces, or to work them in us, which they will have to be signified by their mystical and symbolical ceremonies. Wherefore Beza saith(795) well of such human rites as are thought to be significant: _Quum nulla res signis illis subsit, propterea quod unius Dei est promittere, et suis promissionibus sigillum suum opponere; consequitur omnia illa commenta, inanes esse larvas, __ et vana opinione miseros homines illis propositis signis deludi._ Dr Fulk thinks(796) he hath alleged enough against the significative and commemorative use of the sign of the cross, when he hath said that it is not ordained of Christ, nor taught by his apostles; from which sort of reasoning it followeth, that all significant signs which are not ordained of Christ, nor taught by his apostles, must be vain, false, and superstitious.

_Sect._ 4. Thirdly, To introduce significant sacred ceremonies into the New Testament other than the holy sacraments of God’s own institution, were to reduce Judaism, and to impose upon us again the yoke of a ceremonial law, which Christ hath taken off.

Upon this ground doth Amandus Polanus reprehend the popish clergy,(797) for that they would be distinguished from laics by their priestly apparel in their holy actions, especially in the mass: _Illa vestium sacerdotalium distinctio et varietas, erat in veteri Testamento typica; veritate autem exhibita, quid amplius typos requirunt?_

Upon this ground also doth Perkins(798) condemn all human significant ceremonies. “Ceremonies (saith he) are either of figure and signification, or of order. The first are abrogated at the coming of Christ,” &c.

Upon the same ground doth Chemnitius condemn them,(799) _Quod vero praetenditur_, &c. “But, whereas (saith he) it is pretended that by those rites of men’s addition, many things are probably signified, admonished and taught,—hereto it may be answered, that figures do properly belong to the Old Testament, but those things which Christ would have to be taught in the New Testament, he would have them delivered and propounded, not by shadows, but by the light of the word; and we have a promise of the efficacy of the word, but not of figures invented by men.”

Upon the same ground Junius(800) findeth fault with ceremonies used for signification: _Istis elementis mundi (ut vocantur Col. ii.) Dominus et servator noluit nec docuit, ecclesiam suam informari_.

Lastly, We will consider the purpose of Christ whilst he said to the Pharisees,(801) “The law and the prophets were until John: from that time the kingdom of God is preached.” He had in the parable of the unjust steward, and in the application of the same, spoken somewhat contemptibly of riches, which, when the Pharisees heard, they derided him, and that for this pretended reason (as is evident from the answer which is returned unto them), because the law promises the world’s goods as rewards and blessings to the people of God, that by the temporal things which are set forth for types and shadows of eternal things, they might be instructed, helped, and led, as it were by the hand, to the contemplation, desire and expectation, of those heavenly and eternal things which are not seen. Now Christ did not only rip up the hypocrisy of their hearts, ver. 15, but also gave a formal answer to their pretended reason, by showing how the law is by him perfected, ver. 16, yet not destroyed, ver. 17. Then will we observe how he teacheth that the law and the prophets are perfected, and so our point shall be plain. “The law and the prophets were until John,” _i.e._, they did typify and prophesy concerning the things of the kingdom until John; for before that time the faithful only saw those things afar off, and by types, shadows, and figures, and the rudiments of the world, were taught to know them. “But from that time the kingdom of God is preached,” _i.e._, the people of God are no longer to be instructed concerning the things of the kingdom of God by outward signs, or visible shadows and figures, but only by the plain word of the gospel; for now the kingdom of God ἐυαγγελιζεται is not typified as before, but plainly preached, as a thing exhibited to us, and present with us. Thus we see that to us, in the days of the gospel, the word only is appointed to teach the things belonging to the kingdom of God.

_Sect._ 5. If any man reply, that though after the coming of Christ we are liberate from the Jewish and typical significant ceremonies, yet ought we to embrace those ceremonies wherein the church of the New Testament placeth some spiritual signification:

I answer, 1. That which hath been said in this argument holdeth good against significant ceremonies in general. Otherwise, when we read of the abrogation of the ceremonial law, we should only understand the abrogation of those particular ordinances which Moses delivered to the Jews concerning the ceremonies that were to endure to the coming of Christ, and so, notwithstanding all this, the church should still have power to set up new ceremonial laws instead of the old, even which and how many she listeth.

2. What can be answered to that which the _Abridgement_ propoundeth(802) touching this matter? “It is much less lawful (say those ministers) for man to bring significant ceremonies into God’s worship now than it was under the law. For God hath abrogated his own (not only such as prefigured Christ, but such also as served by their signification to teach moral duties), so as now (without great sin) none of them can be continued in the church, no, not for signification.” Whereupon they infer: “If those ceremonies which God himself ordained to teach his church by their signification may not now be used, much less may those which man hath devised.”

_Sect._ 6. Fourthly, Sacred significant ceremonies devised by man are to be reckoned among those images forbidden in the second commandment. Polanus saith,(803) that _omnis figura illicita_ is forbidden in the second commandment. The Professors(804) of Leyden call it _imaginem quamlibet, sive mente conceptam, sive manu effictam_.

I have showed elsewhere,(805) that both in the writings of the fathers, and of Formalists themselves, sacraments get the name of images; and why, then, are not all significant and holy ceremonies to be accounted images? Now, the second commandment forbiddeth images made by the lust of man (that I may use Dr Burges’s phrase(806)), therefore it forbiddeth also all religious similitudes, which are homogeneal unto them. This is the inference of the _Abridgement_, whereat Paybody starteth,(807) and replieth, that the gestures which the people of God used in circumcision and baptism, the rending of the garment used in humiliation and prayer, Ezra ix. 5; 2 Kings xxii. 19, Jer. xxxvi. 24, lifting up the hands, kneeling with the knees, uncovering the head in the sacrament, standing and sitting at the sacrament, were, and are, significant in worshipping, yet are not forbidden by the second commandment.

_Ans._ There are three sorts of signs here to be distinguished. 1. Natural signs: so smoke is a sign of fire, and the dawning of the day a sign of the rising of the sun. 2. Customable signs; and so the uncovering of the head, which of old was a sign of preeminence, hath, through custom, become a sign of subjection. 3. Voluntary signs, which are called _signa instituta_; these are either sacred or civil. To appoint sacred signs of heavenly mysteries or spiritual graces is God’s own peculiar, and of this kind are the holy sacraments. Civil signs for civil and moral uses may be, and are, commendably appointed by men, both in church and commonwealth; and thus the tolling of a bell is a sign given for assembling, and hath the same signification both in ecclesiastical and secular assemblings. Now, besides the sacred signs of God’s own institution, we know that natural signs have also place in divine worship; thus kneeling in time of prayer signifieth the submission of our hearts and minds, the lifting up of our eyes and hands signifieth the elevation of our affections; the rending of the garments signified the rending of the heart by sorrow; standing with a religious suspect to that which is before us signifieth veneration or reverence; sitting at table signifieth familiarity and fellowship. “For which of you (saith our Master), Luke xvii. 7, having a servant ploughing, or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat?” All these signs have their significations from nature. And if it be said that howbeit sitting at our common tables be a sign natural to signify familiarity amongst us, yet nature hath not given such a signification to sitting at the Lord’s table,—I answer, that sitting is a natural sign of familiarity, at what table soever it be used. At the heavenly table in the kingdom of glory, familiarity is expressed and signified by sitting: “Many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham,” &c., Matt. xviii. 11. Much more, then, at the spiritual table in the kingdom of grace.

The difference betwixt other common tables and the Lord’s table can infer no more, but that with great humility we ought to address ourselves unto it; yet still we are to make use of our familiarity with Christ _ut tanquam in eodem toro accumbentes_, as saith Chrysostom.(808) Wherefore we do not there so look to Christ in his princely throne and glorious majesty, exalted far above all principalities and powers, as to forget that he is our loving and kind banqueter, who hath admitted us to that familiar fellowship with him which is signified by our sitting at his table.

Secondly, Customable signs have likewise place in divine service; for so a man coming into one of our churches in time of public worship, if he see the hearers covered, he knows by this customable sign that sermon is begun.

Thirdly, Civil or moral signs instituted by men for that common order and decency which is respect both in civil and sacred actions, have also place in the acts of God’s worship. Thus a bason and a laver set before a pulpit are signs of baptism to be ministered; but common decency teacheth us to make the same use of a bason and a laver in civility which a minister maketh of them in the action of baptising. All our question is about sacred mystical signs. Every sign of this kind which is not ordained of God we refer to the imagery forbidden in the second commandment; so that in the tossing of this argument Paybody is twice naught, neither hath he said aught for evincing the lawfulness of sacred significant ceremonies ordained of men, which we impugn.

_Sect._ 7. Fifthly, The significancy and teaching office of mystical ceremonies invented by men, must be drawn under those doctrines of men condemned in the gospel. Wherefore was it that the divers washings of the Pharisees were rejected by Christ as a vain worship? Was it not because they were appointed for doctrines? “In vain (saith he) do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men,” Mark vii. 7.

The divers washings commanded in the law were fore-signifying to the people, and for teaching them what true and inward holiness God required of them. Now, the Pharisees, when they multiplied their washings of hands, of cups and pots, brazen vessels and tables, had the same respect of significancy before their eyes. _Neque enim alio spectabant_ (that I may use the words of a Formalist(809)) _quam ut se sanctitatis __ studiosos hoc externu ritu probarent_. Neither have we any warrant to think that they had another respect than this. But the error was in their addition to the law, and in that they made their own ceremonial washings, which were only the commandments of men, to serve for doctrines, instructions and significations. For those washings, as they were significant, and taught what holiness or cleanness should be among the people of God, they are called by the name of worship; and as they were such significant ceremonies as were only commanded by men, they are reckoned for vain worship.

And further, I demand why are the Colossians, Col. ii. 20-22, rebuked for subjecting themselves to those ordinances,—“Touch not, taste not, handle not?” We see that those ordinances were not bare commandments, but commandments under the colour of doctrines, to wit, as law commanded a difference of meats, for signifying that holiness which God would have his people formed unto; so these false teachers would have the same to be signified and taught by that difference of meats and abstinence which they of themselves, and without the commandment of God, had ordained.

Moreover, if we consider how that the word of God is given unto us “for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works,” 2 Tim. iii. 16, 17, it cannot but be evident how superfluously, how superstitiously, the office of sacred teaching and mystical signification is given to dumb and lifeless ceremonies ordained of men, and, consequently, how justly they are taxed as vain worship. We hold, therefore, with the worthiest of our divines,(810) _nullam doctrinam, nullum sacram signum debere inter pios admitti, nisi a Deo profecta esse constet_.

_Sect._ 8. To these reasons which I have put in order against men’s significant ceremonies, I will add a pretty history before I go further.

When the Superior of the Abbey of St. Andrews(811) was disputing with John Knox about the lawfulness of the ceremonies devised by the church, to decore the sacraments and other service of God, Knox answered: “The church ought to do nothing but in faith, and ought not to go before, but is bound to follow the voice of the true Pastor.” The Superior replied, that “every one of the ceremonies hath a godly signification, and therefore they both proceed from faith, and are done in faith.” Knox replieth: “It is not enough that man invent a ceremony, and then give it a signification according to his pleasure; for so might the ceremonies of the Gentiles, and this day the ceremonies of Mahomet be maintained. But if that anything proceed from faith it must have the word of God for the assurance,” &c. The Superior answereth: “Will ye bind us so strait that we may do nothing without the express word of God? What, and I ask drink? think ye that I sin? and yet I have not God’s word for me.”

Knox here telleth him, first, that if he should either eat or drink without the assurance of God’s word, he sinned; “for saith not the Apostle, speaking even of meat and drink, that the creatures are sanctified unto men by the word and prayer? The word is this: all things are clean to the clean: Now let me hear thus much of your ceremonies, and I shall give you the argument?”

But secondly, He tells him that he compared indiscreetly together profane things with holy; and that the question was not of meat and drink, wherein the kingdom of God consisteth not, but of matters of religion, and that we may not take the same freedom in the using of Christ’s sacraments that we may do in eating and drinking, because Moses commanded, “All that the Lord thy God commanded thee to do, that do thou to the Lord thy God; add nothing to it, diminish nothing from it.” The Superior now saith that he was dry, and thereupon desireth the grey friar Arbugkill to follow the argument; but he was so pressed with the same that he was confounded in himself, and the Superior ashamed of him:—

Dicite Io Pæan, et Io bis dicite Pæan.

_Sect._ 9. As for the examples alleged by our opposites out of Scripture for justifying their significant ceremonies, they have been our propugners of evangelical simplicity so often and so fully answered, that here I need do no more but point at them. Of the days of Purim and feast of dedication I am to speak afterward. In the meanwhile, our opposites cannot, by these examples, strengthen themselves in this present argument, except they could prove that the feast of dedication was lawfully instituted, and that the days of Purim were appointed for a religious festivity, and that upon no such extraordinary warrant as the church hath not ever and always. The rite which Abraham commanded his servant to use when he sware to him, namely, the putting of his hand under his thigh, Gen. xxiv. 2, maketh them as little help; for it was but a moral sign of that civil subjection, reverence and fidelity which inferiors owe unto superiors, according to the judgment of Calvin, Junius, Pareus, and Tremellius, all upon that place. That altar which was built by the Reubenites, Gadites, and half tribe of Manasseh, Josh. xxii., had (as some think) not a religious, but a moral use, and was not a sacred, but a civil sign, to witness that those two tribes and the half were of the stock and lineage of Israel; which, if it were once called in question, then their fear (deducing the connection of causes and consequents) led them in the end to forecast this issue: “In time to come your children might speak unto our children, saying, What have you to do with the Lord God of Israel? for the Lord hath made Jordan a border betwixt us and you,” &c. Therefore, to prevent all apparent occasions of such doleful events, they erected the pattern of the Lord’s altar, _ut vinculum sit fraternæ conjunctionis._(812)

And besides all this, there is nothing which can urge us to say that the two tribes and the half did commendably in the erecting of this altar.(813) Calvin finds two faults in their proceeding. 1. In that they attempted such a notable and important innovation without advising with their brethren of the other tribes, and especially without inquiring the will of God by the high priest. 2. Whereas the law of God commanded only to make one altar, forasmuch as God would be worshipped only in one place, they did inordinately, scandalously, and with appearance of evil, erect another altar; for every one who should look upon it could not but presently think that they had forsaken the law, and were setting up a strange and degenerate rite. Whether also that altar which they set up for a pattern of the Lord’s altar, was one of the images forbidden in the second commandment, I leave it to the judicious reader to ruminate upon. But if one would gather from ver. 33, that the priest, and the princes, and the children of Israel, did allow of that which the two tribes and the half had done, because it is said, “The thing pleased the children of Israel, and the children of Israel blessed God, and did not intend to go up against them in battle:”

I answer, the Hebrew text hath it thus: “And the word was good in the eyes of the children of Israel,” &c.; that is, the children of Israel blessed God for the word which Phinehas and the ten princes brought to them, because thereby they understood that the two tribes and the half had not turned away from following the Lord, nor made them an altar for burnt-offerings or sacrifice; which was enough to make them (the nine tribes and a half) desist from their purpose of going up to war against their brethren, to shed their blood. Again, when Phinehas and the ten princes say to the Reubenites, Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh, This day we perceive that the Lord is among us, “because ye have not committed this trespass against the Lord,” they do not exempt them from all prevarication; only they say _signanter_, “this trespass,” to wit, of turning away from the Lord, and building an altar for sacrifice, whereof they were accused. Thus we see that no approbation of that which the two tribes and the half did, in erecting the altar, can be drawn from the text.

_Sect._ 10. But to proceed, our opposites allege for another example against us, a new altar built by Solomon, 1 Kings viii. 64. In which place there is no such thing to be found as a new altar built by Solomon; but only that he sanctified the pavement of the inner court, that the whole court might be as an altar, necessity so requiring, because the brazen altar of the Lord was not able to contain so many sacrifices as then were offered. The building of synagogues can make as little against us.

For, 1. After the tribes were settled in the land of promise, synagogues were built, in the case of an urgent necessity, because all Israel could not come every Sabbath day to the reading and expounding of the law in the place which God had chosen that his name might dwell there. What hath that case to do with the addition of our unnecessary ceremonies?

2. If Formalists will make any advantage of the building of synagogues, they must prove that they were founded, not upon the extraordinary warrant of prophets, but upon that ordinary power which the church retaineth still. As for the love-feasts used in the primitive church, 1. They had no religious state in divine worship, but were used only as moral signs of mutual charity. The Rhemists(814) will have them to be called _caenas dominicas_. But what saith Cartwright against them? “We grant that there were such feasts used in times past, but they were called by the name of ἀγάπαι or love-feasts, not by the name of the Lord’s supper; neither could one without sacrilege give so holy a name to a common feast, which never had ground out of the word, and which after, for just cause, was thrust out by the word of God.” 2. If it be thought that they were used as sacred signs of Christian charity because they were eaten in the church, I answer, the eating of them in the church is forbidden by the Apostle. “What! (saith he) have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God?” _Aperte vetat_ (saith Pareus),(815) _commessationes in ecclesia, quocunque fuco pingantur. Vocabant ἀγάπας charitates; sod nihil winus erant. Erant schismatum fomenta. Singulae enim sectae suas instituebant._ And a little after: _Aliquae ecclesiae obtemperasse videntur. Nam Justini temporibus Romana ecclesia ἀγάπας non habuit._ Concerning the kiss of charity used in those times, 2 Cor. xiii. 22, we say in like manner that it was but a moral sign of that reconciliation, friendship and amity, which showed itself as well at holy assemblies as other meetings in that kind and courtesy, but with all chaste salutation, which was then in use.

_Sect._ 11. As for the veils wherewith the Apostle would have women covered whilst they were praying (that is, in their hearts following the public and common prayer), or prophesying (that is, singing, 1 Sam. x. 10; 1 Chron. xxv. 1), they are worthy to be covered with shame as with a garment who allege this example for sacred significant ceremonies of human institution. This covering was a moral sign for that comely and orderly distinction of men and women which civil decency required in all their meetings; wherefore that distinction of habits which they used for decency and comeliness in their common behaviour and conversation, the Apostle will have them, for the same decency and comeliness, still to retain in their holy assemblies. And further, the Apostle showeth that it is also a natural sign, and that nature itself teacheth it; therefore he urgeth it both by the inferiority or subjection of the woman, ver. 3, 8, 9 (for covering was then a sign of subjection), and by the long hair which nature gives to a woman, ver. 25; where he would have the artificial covering to be fashioned in imitation of the natural. What need we any more? Let us see nature’s institution, or the Apostle’s recommendation, for the controverted ceremonies (as we have seen them for women’s veils), and we yield the argument.

Last of all, the sign of imposition of hands helpeth not the cause of our opposites, because it has the example of Christ and the apostles, and their disciples, which our ceremonies have not; yet we think not imposition of hands to be any sacred or mystical sign, but only a moral, for designation of a person: let them who think more highly or honourably of it look to their warrants.

Thus have I thought it enough to take a passing view of these objected instances, without marking narrowly all the impertinencies and falsehoods which here we find in the reasoning of our opposites. One word more, and so an end. Dr Burges would comprehend the significancy of sacred ecclesiastical ceremonies, for stirring men up to the remembrance of some mystery of piety or duty to God, under that edification which is required in things that concern order and decency by all divines.

Alas! what a sorry conceit is this? Divines, indeed, do rightly require that those alterable circumstances of divine worship which are left to the determination of the church be so ordered and disposed as they may be profitable to this edification. But this edification they speak of is no other than that which is common to all our actions and speeches. Are we not required to do all things unto edifying, yea, to speak as that our speech may be profitable unto edifying? Now, such significations as we have showed to be given to the ceremonies in question, as, namely, to certify a child of God’s favour and goodwill towards him,—to betoken that at no time Christians should be ashamed of the ignominy of Christ,—to signify the pureness that ought to be in the minister of God,—to express the humble and grateful acknowledgments of the benefits of Christ, &c.,—belong not to that edification which divines require in things prescribed by the church concerning order and decency, except of every private and ordinary action, in the whole course of our conversation, we either deny that it should be done unto edifying, or else affirm that it is a sacred significant ceremony.