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OF

THE LAWS

OF

ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY.

BOOK V.

OF THEIR FOURTH ASSERTION, THAT TOUCHING THE SEVERAL PUBLIC DUTIES OF CHRISTIAN RELIGION, THERE IS AMONGST US MUCH SUPERSTITION RETAINED IN THEM; AND CONCERNING PERSONS, WHICH FOR PERFORMANCE OF THOSE DUTIES ARE INDUued WITH THE POWER OF ECCLESIASTICAL ORDER, OUR LAWS AND PROCEEDINGS ACCORDING THEREUNTO ARE MANY WAYS HEREIN

ALSO CORRUPT.

THE MATTER CONTAINED IN THIS FIFTH BOOK.

1. True Religion is the root of all true virtues, and the stay of all well-ordered Commonwealths.

2. The most extreme opposite to true Religion is affected Atheism.

3. Of Superstition, and the root thereof, either misguided zeal, or ignorant fear of

divine glory.

4. Of the redress of Superstition in God's Church, and concerning the question of this Book.

5. Four general propositions demanding that which may reasonably be granted concerning matters of outward form in the exercise of true Religion. And, fifthly, Of a rule not safe nor reasonable in these cases.

6. The first proposition, touching judgment, What things are convenient in the outward public ordering of Church-affairs.

7. The second proposition.

8. The third proposition.

9. The fourth proposition.

10. The rule of men's private spirits, not safe in these cases to be followed.

11. Places for the Public service of God.

12. The solemnity of erecting Churches condemned, the hallowing and dedicating of them scorned by the adversary.

13. Of the Names whereby we distinguish our Churches.

14. Of the Fashion of our Churches.

15. The Sumptuousness of Churches.

16. What holiness and virtue we ascribe to the Church more than other places.

17. Their pretence that would have Churches utterly razed.

18. Of public Teaching or Preaching, and the first kind thereof, Catechizing.

19. Of Preaching, by reading publicly the Books of Holy Scripture; and concerning supposed untruths in those translations of Scripture which we allow to be read; as also of the choice which we make in reading.

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20. Of Preaching by the public reading of other profitable instructions; and concerning Books Apocryphal.

21. Of Preaching by Sermons; and whether Sermons be the only ordinary way of teaching whereby men are brought to the saving knowledge of God's truth.

22. What they attribute to Sermons only, and what we to reading also.

23. Of Prayer.

24. Of public Prayer.

25. Of the Form of Common Prayer.

26. Of them which like not to have any set Form of Common Prayer.

27. Of them, who allowing a set Form of Prayer, yet allow not ours.

28. The Form of our Liturgy too near the Papists'; too far different from that of other reformed Churches, as they pretend.

29. Attire belonging to the service of God.

30. Of gesture in praying, and of different places chosen to that purpose.

31. Easiness of Praying after our Form.

32. The length of our Service.

33. Instead of such Prayers as the primitive Churches have used, and those that be reformed now use, we have (they say) divers short cuts or shreddings, rather wishes than Prayers.

34. Lessons intermingled with our Prayers.

35. The number of our Prayers for earthly things, and our oft rehearsing of the Lord's Prayer.

36. The people's saying after the Minister.

37. Our manner of reading the Psalms otherwise than the rest of the Scripture.

38. Of music with Psalms.

39. Of singing or saying Psalms and other parts of Common Prayer, wherein the people and the Minister answer one another by course.

40. Of Magnificat, Benedictus, and Nunc Dimittis.

41. Of the Litany.

42. Of Athanasius' Creed, and Gloria Patri.

43. Our want of particular thanksgiving.

44. In some things the matter of our Prayer, as they affirm, is unsound.

45. "When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven unto all believers."

46. Touching Prayer for deliverance from sudden death.

47. Prayer that those things which we for our unworthiness dare not ask, God for the worthiness of his Son would vouchsafe to grant.

48. Prayer to be evermore delivered from all adversity.

49. Prayer that all men may find mercy.

50. Of the name, the author, and the force of Sacraments, which force consisteth in this, that God hath ordained them as means to make us partakers of him in Christ, and of life through Christ.

51. That God is in Christ by the personal Incarnation of the Son, who is very God.

52. The misinterpretations which heresy hath made of the manner how God and man are united in one Christ.

53. That by the union of the one with the other nature in Christ, there groweth neither gain nor loss of essential properties to either.

54. What Christ hath obtained according to the flesh, by the union of his flesh with Deity.

55. Of the personal presence of Christ every where, and in what sense it may be granted he is every where present according to the flesh.

56. The union or mutual participation which is between Christ and the Church of Christ in this present world.

57. The Necessity of Sacraments unto the participation of Christ.

58. The substance of Baptism, the Rites or Solemnities thereunto belonging, and that the substance thereof being kept, other things in Baptism may give place to necessity.

59. The ground in Scripture whereupon a Necessity of outward Baptism hath been built.

60. What kind of Necessity in outward Baptism hath been gathered by the words of our Saviour Christ; and what the true necessity thereof indeed is. 61. What things in Baptism have been dispensed with by the Fathers respecting

Necessity.

62. Whether Baptism by Women be true Baptism, good and effectual to them that receive it.

63. Of interrogatories in Baptism, touching faith and the purpose of a Christian life. 64. Interrogatories proposed unto infants in Baptism, and answered, as in their names, by Godfathers.

65. Of the Cross in Baptism.

66. Of Confirmation after Baptism.

67. Of the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ.

68. Of Faults noted in the Form of administering that holy Sacrament.

69. Of Festival-days, and the natural causes of their convenient institution.

70. The manner of celebrating Festival-days.

71. Exceptions against our keeping of other Festival-days besides the Sabbath.

72. Of days appointed, as well for ordinary as for extraordinary Fasts in the Church of God.

73. The Celebration of Matrimony.

74. The Churching of Women.

75. The Rites of Burial.

76. Of the nature of that Ministry which serveth for performance of divine Duties in the Church of God, and how happiness, not eternal only, but also temporal, doth depend upon it.

77. Of Power given unto men, to execute that heavenly office; of the gift of the Holy Ghost in Ordination; and whether conveniently the power of Order may be sought or sued for.

78. Of Degrees whereby the power of Order is distinguished, and concerning the attire of Ministers.

79. Of Oblations, Foundations, Endowments, Tithes, all intended for perpetuity of Religion; which purpose being chiefly fulfilled by the Clergy's certain and sufficient maintenance, must needs by alienation of Church-livings be made frustrate.

80. Of Ordinations lawful without Title, and without any popular election precedent, but in no case without regard of due information what their quality is that enter into Holy Orders.

81. Of the Learning that should be in Ministers, their Residence, and the number of their Livings.

Reli

the root

true vir

stay of

ordered

mon

1. FEw there are of so weak capacity but public evils they True easily espy; fewer so patient, as not to complain when gion is the grievous inconveniences thereof work sensible smart. of all Howbeit to see wherein the harm which they feel con- tues, sisteth, the seeds from which it sprang, and the method of and the curing it, belongeth to a skill, the study whereof is so full all wellof toil, and the practice so beset with difficulties, that Comwary and respective men had rather seek quietly their wealths. own, and wish that the world may go well, so it be not long of them, than with pain and hazard make themselves advisers for the common good. We which thought it at the very first a sign of cold affection towards the Church of God, to prefer private ease before the labour of appeasing public disturbance, must now of necessity refer events to the gracious providence of Almighty God, and, in discharge of our duty towards him, proceed with the plain and unpartial defence of a common cause. Wherein our endeavour is, not so much to overthrow them with

Psal.

cxliv. 2.

whom we contend, as to yield them just and reasonable causes of those things, which, for want of due consideration heretofore, they misconceived; accusing Laws for men's oversights, imputing evils grown through personal defects unto that which is not evil, framing to some sores unwholesome plasters, and applying other some where no sore is. To make therefore our beginning that which to both parts is most acceptable, We agree, that pure and unstained Religion ought to be the highest of all cares appertaining to public Regiment; as well in regard of that aid and protection which they who faithfully serve God confess they receive at his merciful hands, as also for the force which Religion hath to qualify all sorts of men, and to make them in public affairs the more serviceable;* governors the apter to rule with conscience, inferiors for conscience' sake the willinger to obey. It is no peculiar conceit, but a matter of sound consequence, that all duties are by so much the better performed, by how much the men are more religious from whose abilities the same proceed. For if the course of politic affairs cannot in any good sort go forward without fit instruments, and that which fitteth them be their virtues,† let Polity acknowledge itself indebted to Religion; godliness being the chiefest top and well-spring of all true virtues, even as God is of all good things. So natural is the union of Religion with Justice, that we may boldly deem there is neither, where both are not. For how should they be unfeignedly just, whom Religion doth not cause to be such; or they religious, which are not found such by the proof of their just actions? If they which employ their labour and travail about the public administration of Justice, follow it only as a trade, with unquenchable and unconscionable thirst of gain, being 2 Chron. not in heart persuaded that Justice is God's own work, and themselves his agents in this business, the sentence of Right God's own verdict, and themselves his Priests to deliver it; formalities of Justice do but serve to smother Right, and that which was necessarily ordained for the

xix. 6,7.

*C. Th. lib. xvi. tit. 2. "Gaudere et gloriari ex fide semper volumus, scientes magis religionibus quam officiis et labore corporis vel sudore nostram Rempublicam contineri." † Ἔστι δ ̓ οὔθεν ἐν τοῖς πολιτικοῖς δυνατὸν πρᾶξαι ἄνευ τοῦ ποιόν τινα εἶναι, λέγω δὲ οἷον σπουδαῖον. Τὸ δὲ σπουδαῖον εἶναί ἐστι τὸ τὰς ἀρετὰς ἔχειν. Arist. Magn. Moral. lib. i. cap. 1.

† Αρχὴ δ' ἀριστὴ πάντων τῶν ὄντων Θεὸς, ἀρετῶν δ ̓ εὐσέβεια. Philo de Dec. Præcept.

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