XXX. Having thus disputed whether the surplice be a fit garment to be used in the service of God, the next question whereinto we are drawn is, whether it be a thing allowable or no that the minister should say service in the chancel, or turn his face at any time from the people, or before service ended remove from the place where it was begun1. By them which trouble us with these doubts we would more willingly be resolved of a greater doubt; whether it be not a kind of taking God’s name in vain to debase religion with such frivolous disputes, a sin to bestow time and labour about them. Things of so mean regard and quality, although necessary to be ordered, are notwithstanding very unsavoury when they come to be disputed of: because disputation presupposeth some difficulty in the matter which is argued, whereas in things of this nature they must be either very simple or very froward who need to be taught by disputation what is meet.
When we make profession of our faith, we stand; when we acknowledge our sins, or seek unto God for favour, we fall down: because the gesture of constancy becometh us best in the one, in the other the behaviour of humility. Some parts of our liturgy consist in the reading of the word of God, and the proclaiming of his law, that the people may thereby learn what their duties are towards him; some consist in words of praise and thanksgiving, whereby we acknowledge unto God what his blessings are towards us; some are such as albeit they serve to singular good purpose even when there is no communion administered, nevertheless being devised at the first for that purpose are at the table of the Lord for that cause also commonly read; some are uttered as from the people, some as with them unto God, some as from God unto them, all as before his sight whom we fear, and whose presence to offend with any the least unseemliness we would be surely as loth as they who most reprehend or deride that we do2.
Now because the Gospels which are weekly read do all historically declare something which our Lord Jesus Christ himself either spake, did, or suffered, in his own person, it hath been the custom of Christian men then especially in token of the greater reverence to stand3, to utter certain words of acclamation4, and at the name of Jesus to bow5. Which harmless ceremonies as there is no man constrained to use; so we know no reason wherefore any man should yet imagine it an unsufferable evil. It sheweth a reverend regard to the Son of God above other messengers6, although speaking as from God also. And against infidels, Jews, Arians, who derogate from the honour of Jesus Christ, such ceremonies are most profitable7. As for any erroneous “estimation8,” advancing the Son “above the Father and the Holy Ghost,” seeing that the truth of his equality with them is a mystery so hard for the wits of mortal men to rise unto, of all heresies that which may give him superiority above them is least to be feared.
But to let go this as a matter scarce worth the speaking of, whereas if fault be in these things any where justly found, law hath referred the whole disposition and redress thereof to the ordinary of the place; they which elsewhere complain that disgrace and “injury9” is offered even to the meanest parish minister, when the magistrate appointeth him what to wear, and leaveth not so small a matter as that to his own discretion, being presumed a man discreet and trusted with the care of the people’s souls, do think the gravest prelates in the land no competent judges to discern and appoint where it is fit for the minister to stand, or which way convenient to look praying10. From their ordinary therefore they appeal to themselves, finding great fault that we neither reform the thing against the which they have so long sithence given sentence, nor yet make answer unto that they bring, which is that11 St. Luke declaring how Peter stood up “in the midst of the disciples,” did thereby deliver12 an “unchangeable” rule, that “whatsoever” is done in the church “ought to be done” in the midst of the church13, and therefore not baptism to be administered in one place, marriage solemnized in another, the supper of the Lord received in a third, in a fourth sermons, in a fifth prayers to be made; that the custom which we use is Levitical, absurd, and such as hindereth the understanding of the people; that if it be meet for the minister at some time to look towards the people, if the body of the church be a fit place for some part of divine service, it must needs follow that whensoever his face is turned any other way, or any thing done any other where, it hath absurdity. “All these reasons14” they say have been brought, and were hitherto never answered; besides a number of merriments and jests unanswered likewise, wherewith they have pleasantly moved much laughter at our manner of serving God. Such is their evil hap to play upon dull-spirited men. We are still persuaded that a bare denial is answer sufficient to things which mere fancy objecteth; and that the best apology to words of scorn and petulancy is Isaac’s apology to his brother Ismael, the apology which patience and silence maketh. Our answer therefore to their reasons is no; to their scoffs nothing.
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Footnotes
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T. C. lib. i. p. 134. [105. See hereafter, p. 141.] ↩
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T. C. lib. i. p. 203. [163.] ↩
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[1 Admon. p. 14. ed. 1617. “Now the people sit, and now they stand up: when the Old Testament is read, or the lessons, they make no reverence, but when the Gospel cometh then they all stand up, for why? they think that to be of greatest authority, and are ignorant that the Scriptures came from one Spirit.” To which their marginal note is, “Standing at the Gospel came from Anastasius the Pope, in anno 404.” But in the Apostolical Constitutions, which are quoted by S. Epiphanius, who died 403, we read, Ὅταν ἀναγινωσκόμενον ᾐ̑ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, πάντες οἱ πρεσβύτεροι, καὶ οἱ διάκονοι, καὶ πα̑ς ο λαὸς στηκέτωσαν μετὰ πολλη̑ς ἡσυχίας; Lib. ii. c. 57; see Cotelerius in loc. The Decretal Epistle of Anastasius, which the Admonitioners quote, is spurious. And were it genuine, it proves nothing against the antiquity of the practice which it recommends: being in fact an admonition that the clergy as well as others should stand “venerabiliter curvi” when the Gospels are read, “and give attentive hearing to the words of our Lord.” See Concil. ii. 1191.] ↩
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[The Liturgy under the name of S. Chrysostom, of which the probable date is the fourth century, (Palmer, Orig. Lit. i. 79,) directs that after the title of the Gospel has been given out, the people should respond, “Glory to Thee, O Lord, Glory to Thee.”] ↩
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[By Injunction, 1 Eliz. (ap. Collier, Eccl. Hist. t. ii. 433.) “The customary reverences in churches were ordered to be continued. For instance, when the name of Jesus was pronounced, all persons were to bow, or shew some other suitable mark of respect.” Adm. ap. Wh. Def. 739. “When Jesus is named, then of goeth the cap, and downe goeth the knee, wyth suche a scraping on the grounde, that they cannot heare a good while after, so that the word is hindred; but when other names of God are mentioned, they make no curtesie at all, as though the names of God were not equal; or as though all reverence ought to be given to the syllables.”] ↩
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Mark xii. 6. ↩
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[Whitg. Def. 742. “One reason that moved Christians in the beginning the rather to bow at the name of Jesus than at any other name of God, was because this name was most hated and most contemned of the wicked Jews and other persecutors of such as professed the name of Jesus.”] ↩
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T. C. lib. iii. p. 215. [and i. 163.] ↩
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T. C. lib. i. p. 74. [al. 54. “Whatsoever apparel it be, this commandment cannot be without some injury done to the minister. For seeing that the magistrate doth allow of him as of a wise, learned, and discreet man, and trusteth him with the government of his people in matters between God and them, it were somewhat hard not to trust him with the appointing of his own apparel.”] ↩
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T. C. lib. i. p. 134. [al. 105. “If it be further said that the book leaveth that to the discretion of the ordinary, and that he may reform it if there be any thing amiss: … … it is against reason that the commodity and edifying of the Church should depend upon one man … Besides … we see by experience … that if it were lawful to commit such authority unto one man, yet that it is not safe to do so.” lib. iii. 187. [“The sum of his” (Whitgift’s) “defence is, that the Bishop hath power to order it to the most edification: wherein how unlawful it is that he alone should have the order thereof, is before declared; and how dangerous it is, let the practice in that point be judge.”] ↩
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Acts i. 15. ↩
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T. C. lib. i. p. 134. [105. “There is a third fault, which likewise appeareth almost in the whole body of this service and liturgy of England; and that is that the profit which might have come by it unto the people is not reaped: whereof the cause is, for that he which readeth is in some places not heard and in the most places not understanded of the people, through the distance of place between the people and the minister, so that a great part of the people cannot of knowledge tell whether he hath cursed them or blessed them, whether he hath read in Latin or in English; all the which riseth upon the words of the book of service, which are that the minister should stand ‘in the accustomed place.’ For thereupon the minister in saying morning and evening prayer sitteth in the chancel with his back to the people, as though he had some secret talk with God, which the people might not hear. And hereupon it is likewise, that after morning prayer, for saying another number of prayers he climbeth up to the further end of the chancel, and runneth as far from the people as the wall will let him, as though there were some variance between the people and the minister, or as though he were afraid of some infection of plague. And indeed it reneweth the memory of the Levitical priesthood, which did withdraw himself from the people into the place called the holiest place, where he talked with God, and offered for the sins of the people.“Likewise for marriage he cometh back again into the body of the church, and for baptism unto the church door; what comeliness, what decency, what edifying is this? Decency, I say, in running and trudging from place to place: edifying, in standing in that place, and after that sort, where he can worst be heard and understanded. St. Luke sheweth that in the primitive Church both the prayers and preachings, and the whole exercise of religion, was done otherwise. For he sheweth how St. Peter sitting amongst the rest to the end he might be the better heard rose, and not that only, but that he stood in the midst of the people, that his voice might as much as might be come indifferently to all their ears, and so standing both prayed and preached. Now if it be said, for the chapters and litany there is commandment given, that they should be read in the body of the church: indeed it is true, and thereof is easily perceived this disorder, which is in saying the rest of the prayers partly in the hither end and partly in the further end of the chancel. For seeing that those are read in the body of the church, that the people may both hear and understand what is read; what should be the cause why the rest should be read farther off? unless it be that either those things are not to be heard of them, or at the least not so necessary for them to be heard as the other; which are recited in the body or midst of the church.”] ↩
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Lib. iii. p. 187. [T. C. iii. 187. “The place of St. Luke” (Acts i. 15.) “is an unchangeable rule to teach, that all that which is done in the church ought to be done where it may be best heard.”] ↩
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[T. C. iii. 186. “To all these reasons he answereth nothing worth the naming.”] ↩