V.65. Of the Cross in Baptism.

LXV. In baptism many things of very ancient continuance are now quite and clean abolished, for that the virtue and grace of this sacrament had been therewith overshadowed, as fruit with too great abundance of leaves. Notwithstanding to them which think it always imperfect reformation that doth but shear and not flay, our retaining certain of those former rites, especially the dangerous sign of the cross, hath seemed almost an impardonable oversight¹. “The cross,” they say, “sith it is but a mere invention of man, should not therefore at all have been added to the sacrament of baptism. To sign children’s foreheads with a cross, in token that hereafter they shall not be ashamed to make profession of the faith of Christ, is to bring into the Church a new word, whereas there ought to be no Doctor heard in the Church but our Saviour Christ. That reason which moved the Fathers to use, should move us not to use, the sign of the cross. They lived with heathens which had the cross of Christ in contempt, we with such as adore the cross, and therefore we ought to abandon it even as in like consideration Ezechias did of old the brazen serpent².”

These are the causes of displeasure conceived against the cross, a ceremony the use whereof hath been profitable although we observe it not as the ordinance of God but of man. ³For, saith Tertullian, “if of this and the like customs thou shouldest require some commandment to be shewed thee out of Scriptures, there is none found.” What reason there is to justify tradition, use or custom in this behalf, “either thou mayest of thyself perceive, or else learn of some other that doth.” Lest therefore the name of tradition should be offensive to any, considering how far by some it hath been and is abused, we mean by traditions⁴, ordinances made in the prime of Christian religion, established with that authority which Christ hath left to his Church for matters indifferent, and in that consideration requisite to be observed, till like authority see just and reasonable cause to alter them. So that traditions ecclesiastical are not rudely and in gross to be shaken off, because the inventors of them were men.

Such as say they allow no invention of man⁵ to be mingled with the outward administration of sacraments, and under that pretence condemn our using the sign of the cross, have belike some special dispensation themselves to violate their own rules. For neither can they indeed decently nor do they ever baptize any without manifest breach of this their profound axiom, that “men’s inventions should not be mingled with sacraments and institutions of God.” They seem to like very well in baptism the custom of godfathers, “because so generally all churches have received it⁶.” Which custom being of God no more instituted than the other, (howsoever they pretend the other hurtful and this profitable,) it followeth that even in their own opinion, if their words do shew their minds, there is no necessity of stripping sacraments out of all such attire of ceremonies as man’s wisdom hath at any time clothed them withal, and consequently that either they must reform their speech as over general, or else condemn their own practice as unlawful.

Ceremonies have more in weight than in sight, they work by commonness of use much, although in the several acts of their usage we scarcely discern any good they do. And because the use which they have for the most part is not perfectly understood, superstition is apt to impute unto them greater virtue than indeed they have. For prevention whereof when we use this ceremony we always plainly express the end whereunto it serveth, namely, for a sign of remembrance to put us in mind of our duty.

But by this mean they say⁷ we make it a great deal worse. For why? Seeing God hath no where commanded to draw two lines in token of the duty which we owe to Christ, our practice with this exposition publisheth a new gospel, and causeth another word to have place in the Church of Christ, where no voice ought to be heard but his.

By which good reason the authors of those grave Admonitions to the Parliament are well holpen up, which held that “sitting” at communions “betokeneth rest and full accomplishment of legal ceremonies in our Saviour Christ⁸.” For although it be the word of God that such ceremonies are expired, yet seeing it is not the word of God that men to signify so much should sit at the table of our Lord, these have their doom as well as others, “Guilty of a new-devised gospel in the Church of Christ⁹.”

Which strange imagination is begotten of a special dislike they have to hear that ceremonies now in use should be thought significant, whereas in truth such as are not significant must needs be vain. Ceremonies destitute of signification are no better than the idle gestures of men whose broken wits are not masters of that they do. For if we look but into secular and civil complements, what other cause can there possibly be given why to omit them where of course they are looked for, (for¹⁰ where they are not so due to use them, bringeth men’s secret intents oftentimes into great jealousy,) I would know I say what reason we are able to yield why things so light in their own nature should weigh in the opinions of men so much, saving only in regard of that which they use to signify or betoken?

Doth not our Lord Jesus Christ himself impute the omission of some courteous ceremonies even in domestical entertainment to a colder degree of loving affection, and take the contrary in better part, not so much respecting what was less done as what was signified less by the one than by the other? For to that very end he referreth in part those gracious expostulations¹¹, “Simon, seest thou this woman? Since I entered into thine house thou gavest me no water for my feet, but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head; thou gavest me no kiss, but this woman since the time I came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet; mine head with oil thou didst not anoint, but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment.”

Wherefore as the usual dumb ceremonies of common life are in request or dislike according to that they import, even so religion having likewise her silent rites, the chiefest rule whereby to judge of their quality is that which they mean or betoken. For if they signify good things, (as somewhat they must of necessity signify, because it is of their very nature to be signs of intimation, presenting both themselves unto outward sense and besides themselves some other thing to the understanding of beholders,) unless they be either greatly mischosen to signify the same, or else applied where that which they signify agreeth not, there is no cause of exception against them as against evil and unlawful ceremonies, much less of excepting against them only in that they are not without sense.

And if every religious ceremony which hath been invented of men to signify any thing that God himself alloweth were the publication of another gospel in the Church of Christ, seeing that no Christian church in the world is or can be without continual use of some ceremonies which men have instituted, and that to signify good things, (unless they be vain and frivolous ceremonies,) it would follow that the world hath no Christian church which doth not daily proclaim new gospels, a sequel the manifest absurdity whereof argueth the rawness of that supposal out of which it groweth.

Now the cause¹² why antiquity did the more in actions of common life honour the ceremony of the cross might be for that they lived with infidels. But that which they did in the sacrament of baptism was for the selfsame good of believers which is thereby intended still. The Cross is for us an admonition no less necessary than for them to glory in the service of Jesus Christ, and not to hang down our heads as men ashamed thereof, although it procure us reproach and obloquy at the hands of this wretched world.

Shame is a kind of fear to incur disgrace and ignominy. Now whereas some things are worthy of reproach, some things ignominious only through a false opinion which men have conceived of them, nature that generally feareth opprobrious reprehension must by reason and religion be taught what it should be ashamed of and what not¹³. But be we never so well instructed what our duty is in this behalf, without some present admonition at the very instant of practice, what we know is many times not called to mind till that be done whereupon our just confusion ensueth. To supply the absence of such as that way might do us good when they see us in danger of sliding, there are judicious and wise men which think we may greatly relieve ourselves by a bare imagined presence of some, whose authority we fear and would be loth to offend, if indeed they were present with us¹⁴. “Witnesses at hand are a bridle unto many offences. Let the mind have always some whom it feareth, some whose authority may keep even secret thoughts under awe. Take Cato, or if he be too harsh and rugged, choose some other of a softer mettle, whose gravity of life and speech thou lovest, his mind and countenance carry with thee, set him always before thine eyes either as a watch or as a pattern. That which is crooked we cannot straighten but by some such level.”

If men of so good experience and insight in the maims of our weak flesh, have thought these fancied remembrances available to awaken shamefacedness, that so the boldness of sin may be stayed ere it look abroad, surely the wisdom of the Church of Christ which hath to that use converted the ceremony of the cross in baptism it is no Christian man’s part to despise, especially seeing that by this mean where nature doth earnestly implore aid, religion yieldeth her that ready assistance than which there can be no help more forcible serving only to relieve memory, and to bring to our cogitation that which should most make ashamed of sin.

The mind while we are in this present life, whether it contemplate¹⁵, meditate, deliberate, or howsoever exercise itself, worketh nothing without continual recourse unto imagination, the only storehouse of wit and peculiar chair of memory. On this anvil it ceaseth not day and night to strike, by means whereof as the pulse declareth how the heart doth work, so the very thoughts¹⁶ and cogitations of man’s mind be they good or bad do no where sooner bewray themselves, than through the crevices of that wall wherewith nature hath compassed the cells and closets of fancy. In the forehead nothing more plain to be seen than the fear of contumely and disgrace. For which cause the Scripture (as with great probability it may be thought) describeth them¹⁷ marked of God in the forehead, whom his mercy hath undertaken to keep from final confusion and shame. Not that God doth set any corporal mark on his chosen, but to note that he giveth his elect security of preservation from reproach, the fear whereof doth use to shew itself in that part¹⁸. Shall I say, that the sign of the Cross (as we use it) is in some sort a mean to work our preservation from reproach¹⁹? Surely the mind which as yet hath not hardened itself in sin is seldom provoked thereunto in any gross and grievous manner, but nature’s secret suggestion objecteth against it ignominy as a bar. Which conceit being entered into that palace of man’s fancy, the gates whereof hath imprinted in them that holy sign which bringeth forthwith to mind whatsoever Christ hath wrought and we vowed against sin, it cometh hereby to pass that Christian men never want a most effectual though a silent teacher to avoid whatsoever may deservedly procure shame. So that in things which we should be ashamed of, we are by the Cross admonished faithfully of our duty at the very moment when admonition doth most need.

Other things there are which deserve honour and yet do purchase many times our disgrace in this present world, as of old the very truth of religion itself, till God by his own outstretched arm made the glory thereof to shine over all the earth. Whereupon St. Cyprian exhorting to martyrdom in times of heathenish persecution and cruelty, thought it not vain to allege unto them with other arguments the very ceremony of that Cross whereof we speak²⁰. Never let that hand offer sacrifice to idols which hath already received the Body of our Saviour Christ, and shall hereafter the crown of his glory; “Arm your foreheads” unto all boldness, that “the Sign of God” may be kept safe.

Again, when it pleased God that the fury of their enemies being bridled the Church had some little rest and quietness, (if so small a liberty but only to breathe between troubles may be termed quietness and rest,) to such as fell not away from Christ through former persecutions, he giveth due and deserved praise in the selfsame manner. “²¹You that were ready to endure imprisonment, and were resolute to suffer death; you that have courageously withstood the world, ye have made yourselves both a glorious spectacle for God to behold, and a worthy example for the rest of your brethren to follow. Those mouths which had sanctified themselves with food coming down from heaven loathed after Christ’s own Body and Blood to taste the poisoned and contagious scraps of idols; those foreheads which the sign of God had purified kept themselves to be crowned by him, the touch of the garlands of Satan they abhorred²².” Thus was the memory of that sign which they had in baptism a kind of bar or prevention to keep them even from apostasy, whereinto the frailty of flesh and blood overmuch fearing to endure shame, might peradventure the more easily otherwise have drawn them.

We have not now through the gracious goodness of Almighty God, those extreme conflicts which our fathers had with blasphemous contumelies every where offered to the name of Christ, by such as professed themselves infidels and unbelievers. Howbeit, unless we be strangers to the age wherein we live, or else in some partial respect dissemblers of that we hourly both hear and see, there is not the simplest of us but knoweth with what disdain and scorn Christ is honoured far and wide. Is there any burden in the world more heavy to bear than contempt? Is there any contempt that grieveth as theirs doth, whose quality no way making them less worthy than others are of reputation, only the service which they do to Christ in the daily exercise of religion treadeth them down? Doth any contumely which we sustain for religion’s sake pierce so deeply as that which would seem even of mere conscience religiously spiteful? When they that honour God are despised; when the chiefest service of honour that man can do unto him, is the cause why they are despised; when they which pretend to honour him and that with greatest sincerity, do with more than heathenish petulancy trample under foot almost whatsoever either we or the whole Church of God by the space of so many ages have been accustomed unto, for the comelier and better exercise of our religion according to the soundest rules that wisdom directed by the word of God, and by long experience confirmed, hath been able with common advice, with much deliberation and exceeding great diligence, to comprehend; when no man fighting under Christ’s banner can be always exempted from seeing or sustaining those indignities, the sting whereof not to feel, or feeling, not to be moved thereat, is a thing impossible to flesh and blood; if this be any object for patience to work on, the strictest bond that thereunto tieth us is our vowed obedience to Christ; the solemnest vow that we ever made to obey Christ and to suffer willingly all reproaches for his sake was made in baptism; and amongst other memorials to keep us mindful of that vow we cannot think that the sign which our new baptized foreheads did there receive is either unfit or unforcible, the reasons hitherto alleged being weighed with indifferent balance.

It is not (you will say) the cross in our foreheads, but in our hearts the faith of Christ that armeth us with patience, constancy, and courage. Which as we grant to be most true, so neither dare we despise no not the meanest helps that serve though it be but in the very lowest degree of furtherance towards the highest services that God doth require at our hands. And if any man deny that such ceremonies are available at the least as memorials of duty, or do think that himself hath no need to be so put in mind what our duties are, it is but reasonable that in the one the public experience of the world overweigh some few men’s persuasion, and in the other the rare perfection of a few condescend unto common imbecility.

Seeing therefore that to fear shame which doth worthily follow sin, and to bear undeserved reproach constantly is the general duty of all men professing Christianity; seeing also that our weakness while we are in this present world doth need towards spiritual duties the help even of corporal furtherances, and that by reason of natural intercourse between the highest and the lowest powers of man’s mind in all actions, his fancy or imagination carrying in it that special note of remembrance, than which there is nothing more forcible where either too weak or too strong a conceit of infamy and disgrace might do great harm, standeth always ready to put forth a kind of necessary helping hand; we are in that respect to acknowledge the good and profitable use of this ceremony²³, and not to think it superfluous that Christ hath his mark applied²⁴ unto that part where bashfulness appeareth, in token that they which are Christians should be at no time ashamed of his ignominy.

But to prevent some inconveniences which might ensue if the over ordinary use thereof (as it fareth with such rites when they are too common) should cause it to be of less observation or regard where it most availeth, we neither omit it in that place, nor altogether make it so vulgar as the custom heretofore hath been: although to condemn the whole Church of God when it most flourished in zeal and piety, to mark that age with the brand of error and superstition only because they had this ceremony more in use than we now think needful, boldly to affirm that this their practice grew so soon through a fearful malediction of God upon the ceremony of the cross, as if we knew that his purpose was thereby to make it manifest in all men’s eyes how execrable those things are in his sight which have proceeded from human invention, is as we take it a censure of greater zeal than knowledge. Men whose judgments in these cases are grown more moderate, although they retain not as we do the use of this ceremony, perceive notwithstanding very well such censures to be out of square, and do therefore not only acquit the Fathers from superstition therein²⁵, but also think it sufficient to answer in excuse of themselves, “This ceremony which was but a thing indifferent even of old we judge not at this day a matter necessary for all Christian men to observe²⁶.”

As for their last upshot of all towards this mark, they are of opinion that if the ancient Christians to deliver the Cross of Christ from contempt did well and with good consideration use often the sign of the cross, in testimony of their faith and profession before infidels which upbraided them with Christ’s sufferings, now that we live with such as contrariwise adore the sign of the cross, (because contrary diseases should always have contrary remedies,) we ought to take away all use thereof. In which conceit they both ways greatly seduce themselves, first for that they imagine the Fathers to have had no use of the cross but with reference unto infidels, which mispersuasion we have before discovered at large; and secondly by reason that they think there is not any other way besides universal extirpation to reform superstitious abuses of the cross. Wherein because there are that stand very much upon the example of Ezechias²⁷, as if his breaking to pieces that serpent of brass²⁸ whereunto the children of Israel had burnt incense, did enforce the utter abolition of this ceremony, the fact of that virtuous prince is by so much the more attentively to be considered.

Our lives in this world are partly guided by rules, and partly directed by examples. To conclude out of general rules and axioms by discourse of wit our duties in every particular action, is both troublesome and many times so full of difficulty that it maketh deliberations hard and tedious to the wisest men. Whereupon we naturally all incline to observe examples, to mark what others have done before us, and in favour of our own ease rather to follow them than to enter into new consultation, if in regard of their virtue and wisdom we may but probably think they have waded without error. So that the willingness of men to be led by example of others both discovereth and helpeth the imbecility of our judgment. Because it doth the one, therefore insolent and proud wits would always seem to be their own guides; and because it doth the other, we see how hardly the vulgar sort is drawn unto any thing for which there are not as well examples as reasons alleged. Reasons proving that which is more particular by things more general and farther from sense are with the simpler sort of men less trusted, for that they doubt of their own judgment in those things; but of examples which prove unto them one doubtful particular by another more familiarly and sensibly known, they easily perceive in themselves some better ability to judge. The force of examples therefore is great, when in matter of action being doubtful what to do we are informed what others have commendably done whose deliberations were like.

But whosoever doth persuade by example must as well respect the fitness as the goodness of that he allegeth. To Ezechias God himself in this fact giveth testimony of well doing. So that nothing is here questionable but only whether the example alleged be pertinent, pregnant, and strong.

The serpent spoken of was first erected for the extraordinary and miraculous cure of the Israelites in the desert. This use having presently an end when the cause for which God ordained it was once removed, the thing itself they notwithstanding kept for a monument of God’s mercy, as in like consideration they did the pot of manna, the rod of Aaron, and the sword which David took from Goliah. In process of time they made of a monument of divine power a plain idol, they burnt incense before it contrary to the law of God, and did it the services of honour due unto God only. Which gross and grievous abuse continued till Ezechias restoring the purity of sound religion, destroyed utterly that which had been so long and so generally a snare unto them.

It is not amiss which the canon law hereupon concludeth, namely²⁹ that “if our predecessors have done some things which at that time might be without fault, and afterward be turned to error and superstition, we are taught by Ezechias breaking the brazen serpent that posterity may destroy them without any delay and with great authority.” But may it be simply and without exception hereby gathered, that posterity “is bound to destroy” whatsoever hath been either at the first invented, or but afterwards turned to like superstition and error? No, it cannot be.

The serpent therefore and the sign of the cross, although seeming equal in this point, that superstition hath abused both, yet being herein also unequal, that neither they have been both subject to the like degree of abuse, nor were in hardness of redress alike, it may be that even as the one for abuse was religiously taken away, so now, when religion hath taken away abuse from the other, we should by utter abolition thereof deserve hardly his commendation whose example there is offered us no such necessary cause to follow.

For by the words of Ezechias in terming the serpent but “a lump of brass³⁰,” to shew that the best thing in it now was the metal or matter whereof it consisted, we may probably conjecture, that the people whose error is therein controlled had the selfsame opinion of it which the heathens had of idols; they thought that the power of Deity was with it, and when they saw it dissolved haply they might to comfort themselves imagine as Olympius the sophister did beholding the dissipation of idols³¹, “Shapes and counterfeits they were, fashioned of matter subject unto corruption, therefore to grind them to dust was easy, but those celestial powers which dwelt and resided in them are ascended into heaven.”

Some difference there is between these opinions of palpable idolatry and that which the schools in speculation have bolted out concerning the cross. Notwithstanding forasmuch as the church of Rome hath hitherto practised and doth profess the same adoration to the sign of the cross and neither less nor other than is due unto Christ himself, howsoever they varnish and qualify their sentence, pretending that the cross, which to outward sense presenteth visibly itself alone, is not by them apprehended alone, but hath in their secret surmise or conceit a reference to the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that the honour which they jointly do to both respecteth principally his person, and the cross but only for his person’s sake, the people not accustomed to trouble their wits with so nice and subtle differences in the exercise of religion are apparently no less ensnared by adoring the cross, than the Jews by burning incense to the brazen serpent.

It is by Thomas ingenuously granted³², that because unto reasonable creatures a kind of reverence is due for the excellency which is in them and whereby they resemble God, therefore if reasonable creatures, angels or men, should receive at our hands holy and divine honour as the sign of the cross doth at theirs, to pretend that we honour not them alone but we honour God with them would not serve the turn, neither would this be able to prevent the error of men, or cause them always to respect God in their adorations, and not to finish their intents in the object next before them. But unto this he addeth, that no such error can grow by adoring in that sort a dead image, which every man knoweth to be void of excellency in itself, and therefore will easily conceive that the honour done unto it hath an higher reference.

Howbeit, seeing that we have by over-true experience been taught how often, especially in these cases, the light even of common understanding faileth, surely their usual adoration of the cross is not hereby freed. For in actions of this kind we are more to respect what the greatest part of men is commonly prone to conceive, than what some few men’s wits may devise in construction of their own particular meanings. Plain it is, that a false opinion of some personal divine excellency to be in those things which either nature or art hath framed causeth always religious adoration. And as plain that the like adoration applied unto things sensible argueth to vulgar capacities, yea leaveth imprinted in them the very same opinion of Deity from whence all idolatrous worship groweth. Yea the meaner and baser a thing worshipped is in itself, the more they incline to think that every man which doth adore it, knoweth there is in it or with it a presence of divine power.

Be it therefore true that crosses purposely framed or used for receipt of divine honour be even as scandalous as the brazen serpent itself, where they are in such sort adored. Should we hereupon think ourselves in the sight of God and in conscience charged to abolish utterly the very ceremony of the cross, neither meant at the first, nor now converted unto any such offensive purpose? Did the Jews which could never be persuaded to admit in the city of Jerusalem³³ that image of Cæsar which the Romans were accustomed³⁴ to adore, make any scruple of Cæsar’s image in the coin which they knew very well that men were not wont to worship³⁵? Between the cross which superstition honoureth as Christ, and that ceremony of the cross which serveth only for a sign of remembrance, there is as plain and as great a difference as between those brazen images which Salomon made to bear up the cistern of the temple³⁶, and (sith both were of like shape but of unlike use) that which the Israelites in the wilderness did adore³⁷; or between the altars which Josias destroyed because they were instruments of mere idolatry³⁸, and that which the tribe of Reuben with others erected near to the river Jordan³⁹, for which also they grew at the first into some dislike, and were by the rest of their brethren suspected yea hardly charged with open breach of the law of God, accused of backwardness in religion, upbraided bitterly with the fact of Peor, and the odious example of Achan, as if the building of their altar in that place had given manifest shew of no better than intended apostasy, till by a true declaration made in their own defence it appeared that such as misliked misunderstood their enterprise, inasmuch as they had no intent to build any altar for sacrifice, which God would have no where offered saving in Jerusalem only, but to a far other end and purpose, which being opened satisfied all parts, and so delivered them from causeless blame.

In this particular suppose the worst, imagine that the immaterial ceremony of the Cross had been the subject of as gross pollution as any heathenish or profane idol. If we think the example of Ezechias a proof that things which error and superstition hath abused may in no consideration be tolerated, although we presently find them not subject to so vile abuse, the plain example of Ezechias proveth the contrary. The temples and idols which under Salomon had been of very purpose framed for the honour of foreign gods⁴⁰ Ezechias destroyed not, because they stood as forlorn things and did now no harm, although formerly they had done harm. Josias⁴¹ for some inconvenience afterwards razed them up. Yet to both there is one commendation given even from God himself, that touching matter of religion they walked in the steps of David and did no way displease God⁴².

Perhaps it seemeth that by force and virtue of this example although in bare detestation and hatred of idolatry all things which have been at any time worshipped are not necessarily to be taken out of the world, nevertheless for remedy and prevention of so great offences wisdom should judge it the safest course to remove altogether from the eyes of men that which may put them in mind of evil.

Some kinds of evil no doubt there are very quick in working on those affections that most easily take fire, which evils should in that respect no oftener than need requireth be brought in presence of weak minds. But neither is the Cross any such evil, nor yet the brazen serpent itself so strongly poisoned, that our eyes, ears, and thoughts ought to shun them both, for fear of some deadly harm to ensue the only representation thereof by gesture, shape, sound, or such like significant means. And for mine own part I most assuredly persuade myself, that had Ezechias (till the days of whose most virtuous reign they ceased not continually to burn incense to the brazen serpent) had he found the serpent, though sometimes adored, yet at that time recovered from the evil of so gross abuse, and reduced to the same that was before in the time of David, at which time they esteemed it only as a memorial, sign, or monument of God’s miraculous goodness towards them, even as we in no other sort esteem the ceremony of the Cross, the due consideration of an use so harmless common to both might no less have wrought their equal preservation, than different occasions have procured, notwithstanding the one’s extinguishment, the other’s lawful continuance.

In all persuasions which ground themselves upon example, we are not so much to respect what is done, as the causes and secret inducements leading thereunto. The question being therefore whether this ceremony supposed to have been sometimes scandalous and offensive ought for that cause to be now removed; there is no reason we should forthwith yield ourselves to be carried away with examples, no not of them whose acts the highest judgment approveth for having reformed in that manner any public evil: but before we either attempt any thing or resolve, the state and condition as well of our own affairs as theirs whose example presseth us, is advisedly to be examined; because some things are of their own nature scandalous, and cannot choose but breed offence, as those sinks of execrable filth which Josias did overwhelm⁴³; some things albeit not by nature and of themselves, are notwithstanding so generally turned to evil by reason of an evil corrupt habit grown and through long continuance incurably settled in the minds of the greatest part, that no redress can be well hoped for without removal of that wherein they have ruined themselves, which plainly was the state of the Jewish people, and the cause why Ezechias did with such sudden indignation destroy what he saw worshipped; finally some things are as the sign of the Cross though subject either almost or altogether to as great abuse, yet curable with more facility and ease. And to speak as the truth is, our very nature doth hardly yield to destroy that which may be fruitfully kept, and without any great difficulty clean scoured from the rust of evil which by some accident hath grown into it. Wherefore to that which they build in this question upon the example of Ezechias let this suffice.

When heathens despised Christian religion, because of the sufferings of Jesus Christ, the Fathers to testify how little such contumelies and contempts prevailed with them chose rather the sign of the Cross than any other outward mark, whereby the world might most easily discern always what they were. On the contrary side now, whereas they which do all profess the Christian religion are divided amongst themselves, and the fault of the one part is that in zeal to the sufferings of Christ they admire too much and over-superstitiously adore the visible sign of his Cross, if you ask what we that mislike them should do, we are here advised to cure one contrary by another. Which art or method is not yet so current as they imagine.

For if, as their practice for the most part sheweth, it be their meaning that the scope and drift of reformation when things are faulty should be to settle the Church in the contrary, it standeth them upon to beware of this rule, because seeing vices have not only virtues but other vices also in nature opposite unto them, it may be dangerous in these cases to seek but that which we find contrary to present evils. For in sores and sicknesses of the mind we are not simply to measure good by distance from evil, because one vice may in some respect be more opposite to another than either of them to that virtue which holdeth the mean between them both. Liberality and covetousness, the one a virtue and the other a vice, are not so contrary as the vices of covetousness and prodigality; religion and superstition have more affiance, though the one be light and the other darkness, than superstition and profaneness which both are vicious extremities. By means whereof it cometh also to pass that the mean which is virtue seemeth in the eyes of each extreme an extremity; the liberal hearted man is by the opinion of the prodigal miserable, and by the judgment of the miserable lavish; impiety for the most part upbraideth religion as superstitious, which superstition often accuseth as impious, both so conceiving thereof because it doth seem more to participate each extreme, than one extreme doth another, and is by consequent less contrary to either of them, than they mutually between themselves. Now if he that seeketh to reform covetousness or superstition should but labour to induce the contrary, it were but to draw men out of lime into coaldust. So that their course which will remedy the superstitious abuse of things profitable in the Church is not still to abolish utterly the use thereof, because not using at all is most opposite to ill using, but rather if it may be to bring them back to a right perfect and religious usage, which albeit less contrary to the present sore is notwithstanding the better and by many degrees the sounder way of recovery.

And unto this effect that very precedent itself which they propose may be best followed. For as the Fathers when the Cross of Christ was in utter contempt did not superstitiously adore the same, but rather declare that they so esteemed it as was meet: in like manner where we find the Cross to have that honour which is due to Christ, is it not as lawful for us to retain it in that estimation which it ought to have and in that use which it had of old without offence, as by taking it clean away to seem followers of their example which cure wilfully by abscission that which they might both preserve and heal?

Touching therefore the sign and ceremony of the Cross, we no way find ourselves bound to relinquish it, neither because the first inventors thereof were but mortal men, nor lest the sense and signification we give unto it should burden us as authors of a new gospel in the house of God, nor in respect of some cause which the Fathers had more than we have to use the same, nor finally for any such offence or scandal as heretofore it hath been subject unto by error now reformed in the minds of men.

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Footnotes

1. [Adm. ap. Whitg. Def. 607. “Crossing and such like pieces of Popery, which the Church of God in the Apostles’ time never knew, and therefore not to be used.” Id. ibid. 617. “They do superstitiously and wickedly institute a new Sacrament, which is proper to Christ only, marking the child in the forehead with a cross, in token that he shall not be ashamed to confess the Faith of Christ.”] ↩

2. [Abridged from T. C. i. 135, 136. al. 170, 171. Beza, Epist. 12. Tract. Theol. iii. 220. “Signi crucis ut olim aliquis fuerit usus, eam tamen esse et quidem adhuc adeo recentem superstitionem maxime execrabilem, certum est, ut rectissime fecisse arbitremur, qui semel istum ritum ex ecclesiis expulerunt; cujus etiam non videmus quæ sit utilitas.” Comp. Str. Grind. 512.] ↩

3. Tertull. de Coron. Militis, [c. 4. “Ad omnem progressum atque promotum, ad omnem aditum et exitum, ad vestitum, ad calceatum, ad lavacra, ad mensas, ad lumina, ad cubilia, ad sedilia, quæcunque nos conversatio exercet, frontem crucis signaculo terimus. Harum et aliarum ejusmodi disciplinarum si legem expostules scripturarum, nullam invenies: traditio tibi prætendetur auctrix, consuetudo confirmatrix, et fides observatrix. Rationem traditioni, consuetudini, fidei, patrocinaturam aut ipse perspicies aut ab aliquo qui perspexerit disces.”] ↩

4. “Traditiones non scriptas si doctrinam respiciant cum doctrina scripta convenire debere dicimus. Quod ad rituales et ecclesiasticas attinet, ordinis et ædificationis ecclesiarum in his semper habenda ratio est; inutiles autem et noxias, nempe ineptas et superstitiosas, patronis suis relinquamus.” Goulart. Genev. Annot. in Ep. Cypr. 74. ↩

5. T. C. lib. i. p. 171. [136.] “They should not have been so bold as to have brought it into the holy Sacrament of Baptism, and so mingle the ceremonies and inventions of men with the sacraments and institutions of God.” ↩

6. T. C. lib. i. p. 170. [137.] ↩

7. T. C. lib. i. p. 171. [136.] “The profitable signification of the cross maketh the thing a great deal worse, and bringeth in a new word into the Church, whereas there ought to be no Doctor heard in the Church but only our Saviour Christ. For although it be the word of God that we should not be ashamed of the cross of Christ, yet it is not the word of God that we should be kept in remembrance of that by two lines drawn across one over another in the child’s forehead.” [In i. 80. al. 59, the same argument is employed against the surplice. “Although the Church have authority to make ceremonies, (so they be according to the rules before recited…) I could for all that never yet learn that it hath power to give new significations, as it were to institute new sacraments… And therefore although the surplice have a black spot when it is whitest, yet is it not so black as you make it with your white significations: nor the cause so evil, as you defend it.” Id. iii. 227. “Although the ceremony of crossing were convenient, yet to raise a doctrine of it is unlawful: forasmuch as it is not enough to teach the truth unless it be truely taught, and that is only out of the word of God. Now let him shew a word of God, that two lines laid crosswise signifieth that we should not be ashamed of the passion or cross of Christ.”] ↩

8. [See hereafter, c. lxviii. 3. They had omitted this opinion in their second edition. Whitg. Answ. 303.] ↩

9. [So Whitgift, Answ. 244. “It (crossing) may be left, and hath been used in the primitive Church, and may be so still, without either superstition or wickedness. Neither doth it any more make a sacrament, because it is in token that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confess Christ crucified, than your sitting doth at the communion in token of rest, that is a full finishing through Christ of the ceremonial law.” See also Def. 618, and T. C. iii. 227.] ↩

10. [The original edition has “looked for, or,” but in the list of errata at the end “for” is directed to be substituted instead of “or.” The present editor has ventured to insert the marks of a parenthesis.] ↩

11. Luke vii. 44-46. ↩

12. T. C. lib. i. p. 170. [136.] “It is known to all that have read the ecclesiastical stories that the heathen did object to Christians in times past in reproach that the God which they believed of was hanged upon a cross. And they thought good to testify that they were not ashamed therefore of the Son of God, by the often using of the sign of the cross. Which carefulness and good mind to keep amongst them an open profession of Christ crucified, although it be to be commended, yet is not this means so. For they might otherwise have kept it and with less danger than by this use of crossing. And as it was brought in upon no good ground, so the Lord left a mark of his curse of it, and whereby it might be perceived to come out of the forge of man’s brain, in that it began forthwith while it was yet in the swaddling clouts to be superstitiously abused. The Christians had such a superstition in it that they would do nothing without crossing. But if it were granted that upon this consideration which I have before mentioned, the ancient Christians did well, yet it followeth not that we should so do. For we live not amongst those nations which do cast us in the teeth or reproach us with the cross of Christ. Now that we live amongst papists that do not contemn the cross of Christ, but which esteem more of the wooden cross than of the true cross which is his sufferings, we ought now to do clean contrariwise to the old Christians, and abolish all use of these crosses. For contrary diseases must have contrary remedies. If therefore the old Christians to deliver the cross of Christ from contempt did often use the cross, the Christians now to take away the superstitious estimation of it ought to take away the use of it.” ↩

13. Ephes. v. 12; Rom. vi. 21. ↩

14. Sen. Epist. lib. i. Ep. 11. [“Magna pars peccatorum tollitur, si peccaturis testis adsistat. Aliquem habeat animus, quem vereatur, cujus auctoritate etiam secretum suum sanctius faciat… . . Elige itaque Catonem: si hic videtur tibi nimis rigidus, elige remissioris animi virum, Lælium; elige eum, cujus tibi placuit et vita et oratio, et ipsius animum ante te ferens et vultus, illum semper tibi ostende, vel custodem vel exemplum … . Nisi ad regulam, prava non corriges.”] ↩

15. Τὸ νοει̑ν ἢ ϕαντασία τις ἢ οὐκ ἄνευ ϕαντασίας. Arist. de Anim. lib. i. cap. 1. [§ 18.] Ἡ μὲν αἰσθητικὴ ϕαντασία καὶ ἐν τοι̑ς ἀλόγοις ζώοις ὑπάρχει· ἡ δὲ βουλευτικὴ ἐν τοι̑ς λογιστικοι̑ς. lib. iii. cap. 11. [§ 13.] Τὰ μὲν οὐ̑ν εἴδη τὸ νοητικὸν ἐν τοι̑ς ϕαντάσμασι νοει̑, καὶ ὡς ἐν ἐκείνοις ὥρισται αὐτῳ̑ τὸ διωκτὸν καὶ ϕευκτὸν, καὶ ἐκτὸς τη̑ς αἰσθήσεως ὂν, ὅταν ἐπὶ τω̑ν ϕαντασμάτων ᾐ̑, κινει̑ται. lib. iii. cap. 8. [§ 8.] ↩

16. “Frons hominis tristitiæ, hilaritatis, clementiæ, severitatis index est.” Plin. lib. xi. [c. 37.] ↩

17. Ezek. ix. 4; Apoc. vii. 3; ix. 4. ↩

18. Ἐρυθραίνονται γὰρ οἱ αἰσχυνόμενοι. Arist. Eth. iv. c. 9. ↩

19. “Caro signatur ut et anima muniatur.” Tertull. de Resur. Carn. [c. 8.] ↩

20. Cypr. Epist. 56. [al. 58. c. 6. = 9.] ad Thibaritanos, [t. ii. 125. “Accipiamus quoque ad tegumentum capitis galeam salutarem, ut muniantur aures, ne audiant edicta feralia; muniantur oculi, ne videant detestanda simulacra; muniatur frons ut signum Dei incolume servetur; muniatur os, ut Dominum suum Christum victrix lingua fateatur. Armemus et dextram gladio spiritali, ut sacrificia funesta fortiter respuat, et eucharistiæ memor, quæ Domini corpus accepit, ipsum complectatur, postea a Domino sumtura præmium cælestium coronarum.”] ↩

21. Cypr. de Laps. [c. 2. t. i. 121. “Parati ad patientiam carceris, armati ad tolerantiam mortis, repugnastis fortiter sæculo, spectaculum gloriosum præbuistis Deo, secuturis fratribus fuistis exemplo… . . Sanctificata ora cælestibus cibis, post corpus et sanguinem Domini, profana contagia et idolorum reliquias respuerunt… Frons cum signo Dei pura diaboli coronam ferre non potuit, coronæ se Domini reservavit.”] ↩

22. “Erant enim supplices coronarii” (?“coronati” . . Oehler. v. nott.) Tertull. lib. de Coron. Mil. [c. 7.] In the service of idols, the doors of their temples, the sacrifices, the altars, the priests and the supplicants that were present wore garlands. ↩

23. Ἔστω δὲ ἀγαθὸν καὶ τὸ ϕυλακτικὸν τω̑ν τοιούτων καὶ ᾠ̑ ἀκολουθει̑ τὰ τοιαυ̑τα καὶ τὰ κωλυτικὰ τω̑ν ἐναντίων καὶ τὰ ϕθαρτικά. Arist. Rhet. lib. i. cap. 6. ↩

24. “Ozias Rex lepræ varietate in fronte maculatus est, ea parte corporis notatus offenso Domino, ubi signantur qui Dominum promerentur.” Cypr. de Unit. Eccles. cap. 16. [(c. 18.) i. 116.] ↩

25. Goulart. Annot. in Cypr. lib. ad Demetr. cap. 19. “Quamvis veteres Christiani externo signo crucis usi sunt, id tamen fuit sine superstitione, et doctrina de Christi merito ab errore qui postea irrepsit pios servavit immunes.” ↩

26. Idem, Annot. in Cypr. Epist. 56. cap. 7. ↩

27. 2 Kings xviii. 3, 4. ↩

28. [T. C. i. 60. al. 81. “If there were no harm in it,” (the apparel,) and that it were also profitable, yet forasmuch as it is not commanded of God expressly, but a thing (as you say) indifferent, and notwithstanding is cause of so many incommodities, and so abused … it ought to be sufficient reason to abolish them: seeing that the brazen serpent, which was instituted of the Lord himself, and contained a profitable remembrance of the wonderful benefit of God towards his people, was beaten to powder, when as it began to be an occasion of falling to the children of Israel.” Whitg. Def. 294. Do you think that any man doth worship the apparel, as the Israelites did worship the serpent?” T. C. iii. 261. “Although no man worship the apparel by falling down before it, yet he may have a damnable opinion of it, and as hard to be pulled out as the other.”] ↩

29. [Decr. 1.] Dist. 63. (§ 28.) cap. Quia. [“Quia Sancta.” Corp. Jur. Can. 75. “Per hoc magna auctoritas ista est habenda in Ecclesia, ut si nonnulli ex prædecessoribus et majoribus nostris fecerunt aliqua, quæ illo tempore potuerunt esse sine culpa, et postea vertuntur in errorem et superstitionem, sine tarditate aliqua, et cum magna auctoritate, a posteris destruantur.”] ↩

30. [Grot. in loc. “Q.d. Æs est, præterea nihil.”] ↩

31. Sozom. lib. vii. cap. 15. [Ὀλύμπιός τις ἐν ϕιλοσόϕου σχήματι συνὼν αὐτοι̑ς, καὶ πείθων χρη̑ναι μὴ ἀμελει̑ν τω̑ν πατρίων, ἀλλ’ εἰ δέοι ὑπὲρ αὐτω̑ν θνήσκειν· καθαιρουμένων δὲ τω̑ν ξοάνων, ἀθυμου̑ντας ὁρω̑ν, συνεβούλευε μὴ ἐξίστασθαι τη̑ς θρησκείας, ὕλην ϕθαρτὴν καὶ ἰνδάλματα λέγων εἰ̑ναι τὰ ἀγάλματα, καὶ διὰ του̑το ἀϕανισμὸν ὑπομένειν· δυνάμεις δέ τινας ἐνοικη̑σαι αὐτοι̑ς, καὶ εἰς οὐρανὸν ἀποπτη̑ναι. This happened at Alexandria in the reign of Valentinian and Theodosius.] ↩

32. Tho. p. iii. q. 25. art. 3. Resp. ad tert. [t. xii. 98. “Creaturæ rationali debetur reverentia propter seipsam; et ideo si creaturæ rationali, in qua est imago Dei, exhiberetur adoratio latriæ, posset esse erroris occasio, ut scil. motus adorantis sisteret in homine, in quantum est res quædam, et non referretur in Deum cujus est imago: quod non potest contingere de imagine sculpta, vel picta in materia sensibili.”] ↩

33. Joseph. Antiq. lib. xvii. cap. 8. [c. 6. § 2. ed. Huds.] et lib. xviii. cap. 3. [§ 1.] et de Bell. lib. ii. cap. 9. ↩

34. Their eagles, their ensigns, and the images of their princes, they carried with them in all their armies, and had always a kind of chapel wherein they placed and adored them as their gods. Dio, lib. xl. [c. 6. p. 128. D. ed. Leunclav. ὁ ἀετὸς ὠνομασμένος (ἔστι δὲ νεὼς μικρὸς, καὶ ἐν αὐτῳ̑ ἀετὸς χρυσου̑ς ἐνίδρυται· καθίσταταί τε ἐν πα̑σι τοι̑ς ἐκ του̑ καταλόγου στρατοπέδοις.)] Herodian lib. iv. [c. 8. ἐσέπεσεν εἰς τὸ στρατόπεδον, ἔς τε τὸν νεὼν ἔνθα τὰ σημει̑α καὶ τὰ ἀγάλματα του̑ στρατοπέδου προσκυνει̑ται.] ↩

35. Matt. xxii. 20. ↩

36. 2 Chron. iv. 3. ↩

37. Exod. xxxii. 4. ↩

38. 2 Chron. xxxiv. 7. ↩

39. Josh. xxii. 10. ↩

40. 1 Kings xi. 7. ↩

41. 2 Kings xxiii. 13. ↩

42. 2 Kings xviii. 3, 6; xxii. 2. ↩

43. 2 Kings xxiii. 7. ↩