X. In the meanwhile sorry we are that any good and godly mind should be grieved1 with that which is done. But to remedy their grief lieth not so much in us as in themselves. They do not wish to be made glad with the hurt of the Church: and to remove all out of the Church whereat they shew themselves to be sorrowful, would be, as we are persuaded, hurtful if not pernicious thereunto. Till they be able to persuade the contrary, they must and will I doubt not find out some other good means to cheer up themselves. Amongst which means the example of Geneva may serve for one. Have not they the old popish custom of using godfathers and godmothers in Baptism? the old popish custom of administering the blessed sacrament of the holy Eucharist with wafer-cakes? These things the godly there can digest. Wherefore should not the godly here learn to do the like both in them and in the rest of the like nature? Some further mean peradventure it might be to assuage their grief, if so be they did consider the revenge they take on them which have been, as they interpret it, the workers of their continuance in so great grief so long. For if the maintenance of ceremonies be a corrosive to such as oppugn them, undoubtedly to such as maintain them it can be no great pleasure, when they behold how that which they reverence is oppugned. And therefore they that judge themselves martyrs when they are grieved, should think withal what they are whom2 they grieve3. For we are still to put them in mind that the cause doth make no difference; for that it must be presumed as good at the least on our part as on theirs, till it be in the end decided who have stood for truth and who for error. So that till then the most effectual medicine and withal the most sound to ease their grief, must not be (in our opinion) the taking away of those things whereat they are grieved, but the altering of that persuasion which they have concerning the same.
For this we therefore both pray and labour; the more because we are also persuaded, that it is but conceit in them to think, that those Romish ceremonies whereof we have hitherto spoken, are like leprous clothes, infectious unto the Church, or like soft and gentle poisons4, the venom whereof being insensibly pernicious, worketh death, and yet is never felt working. Thus they say: but because they say it only, and the world hath not as yet had so great experience of their art in curing the diseases of the Church, that the bare authority of their word should persuade in a cause so weighty, they may not think much if it be required at their hands to shew, first, by what means so deadly infection can grow from similitude between us and the church of Rome in these things indifferent: secondly, for that it were infinite if the Church should provide against every such evil as may come to pass, it is not sufficient that they shew possibility of dangerous event, unless there appear some likelihood also of the same to follow in us, except we prevent it. Nor is this enough, unless it be moreover made plain, that there is no good and sufficient way of prevention, but by evacuating clean, and by emptying the Church of every such rite and ceremony, as is presently called in question. Till this be done, their good affection towards the safety of the Church is acceptable, but the way they prescribe us to preserve it by must rest in suspense.
And lest hereat they take occasion to turn upon us the speech of the prophet Jeremy used against Babylon, “Behold we have done our endeavour to cure the diseases of Babylon, but she through her wilfulness doth rest uncured5;” let them consider into what straits the Church might drive itself in being guided by this their counsel. Their axiom is, that the sound believing Church of Jesus Christ may not be like heretical churches in any of those indifferent things, which men make choice of, and do not take by prescript appointment of the word of God. In the word of God the use of bread is prescribed, as a thing without which the Eucharist may not be celebrated; but as for the kind of bread it is not denied to be a thing indifferent. Being indifferent of itself, we are by this axiom of theirs to avoid the use of unleavened bread in that sacrament, because such bread the church of Rome being heretical useth. But doth not the selfsame axiom bar us even from leavened bread also, which the church of the Grecians useth; the opinions whereof are in a number of things the same for which we condemn the church of Rome, and in some things erroneous where the church of Rome is acknowledged to be sound; as namely, in the article about proceeding of the Holy Ghost? And lest here they should say that because the Greek church is farther off, and the church of Rome nearer, we are in that respect rather to use that which the church of Rome useth not: let them imagine a reformed church in the city of Venice, where a Greek church and a popish both are. And when both these are equally near let them consider what the third shall do. Without either leavened or unleavened bread, it can have no sacrament; the word of God doth tie it to neither; and their axiom doth exclude it from both. If this constrain them, as it must, to grant that their axiom is not to take any place save in those things only where the Church hath larger scope; it resteth that they search out some stronger reason than they have as yet alleged; otherwise they constrain not us to think that the Church is tied unto any such rule or axiom, no not then when she hath the widest field to walk in, and the greatest store of choice.
← That we are not to abolish our ceremonies, e · Contents · Their exception against such ceremonies as w →
Footnotes
-
T. C. l. iii. p. 180. [and i. 53.] “There be numbers which have Antichristianity in such detestation, that they cannot without grief of mind behold them.” And afterwards, “such godly brethren are not easily to be grieved, which they seem to be when they are thus martyred in their minds, for ceremonies which (to speak the best of them) are unprofitable.” ↩
-
[“when,” edd. 1594, 1604, 1617.] 1886. ↩
-
[See a letter of Archdeacon Barfoot to Archbishop Whitgift in Strype, Ann. iii. 1. 350. (1584.) “Truly, my lord, the conformable ministry is very much grieved thereat. And divers said plainly, that if they had thought this would have been the end, they would have joined with the other in their recusancy, rather than have offered themselves to such reproachful speeches, as were given out of them by some of that faction. For they told him, that there was a letter there in the country sent from Mr. Field of London, [a great Puritan,] to the ministers in those parts, recusants, exhorting them to stand stoutly to the cause; affirming the same not to be theirs, but the Lord’s; boldly assuring, that such as had subscribed had made a breach, as he was informed Field termed it. And therefore rashly judging of them, that they never would do good hereafter, and slanderously terming them by the name of branded menne. He assured his grace, there was great grief conceived hereat.” In a schedule of complaints from Suffolk Archdeaconry, 1586. “The communion was received by many sitting, and those that conformed to the Church called Timeservers.” Whitg. i. 497.] ↩
-
“Although the corruptions in them strike not straight to the heart, yet as gentle poisons they consume by little and little.” T. C. lib. iii. p. 171.] ↩
-
Jer. li. 9. ↩