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hood, and to appose us with riddles. We say to the Highest, Whom have we in heaven, but thee? and, for earth, yourself have granted we give too much to princes, which are Earthen Gods; and may come under Paul's wav réßacua. Either name our deity, or crave mercy for your wrong. Certainly, though you have not remorse, yet you shall have shame.

SECT. 44.

The Churches still retained in England.

Sep." You are far from doing to the Romish idols, as was done to the Egyptian idols, Mithra and Serapis; whose priests were expelled their ministry, and monuments exposed to utter scorn and desolation, their temples demolished and razed to the very foundation."

THE majesty of the Romish petty-gods, I truly told you, was, long ago, with Mithra and Serapis, exposed to the laughter of the vulgar.

You strain the comparison too far; yet we follow you.

Their priests were expelled: for, as your Doctor yieldeth, other actors came upon the same stage: others in religion, else it had been no change.

Their ministry and monuments exposed to utter scorn: their masses, their oblations, their adorations, their invocations, their anoilings, their exorcizings, their shrift, their absolutions, their images, rood-lofts, and whatsoever else of this kind.

But the temples of those old heathens were demolished and razed *. Here is the quarrel: ours stand still in their proud majesty :

Can you see no difference betwixt our Churches and their Temples? The very name itself, if at least you have understood it, Kirk or Church, which is nothing but an abbreviation of иupíun "the Lord's House," might have taught you, that ours were dedicated to God, and theirs to the Devil, in their false gods.

Augustin answers you, as directly, as if he were in my room. "The Gentiles," saith he t, "to their gods erected temples; we, not temples unto our martyrs as unto gods, but memorials as unto dead men, whose spirits with God are still living." These, then, if they were abused by Popish idolatry, is there no way, but Down with them, down with them to the ground?

Well fare the Donatists yet, your old friends: they but washed

*Socrat. Hist. Eccl. 1. v. 16, 17.-Bed. Hist. Eccl. 1. i. Cit. Gregor. Ep. Aug. suo c. 30. and Edilberto regi. c. 32. Contra sibi, &c. Sed et Hæreticorum templa vastata à Constantino. Euseb. 1. iii. c. 63.

+ August. de Civit. 1. viii. c. 27.

Hooker v. b. c. 13. Id. August. cont, Maximin. Arian. Nonne si templum &c.

the walls, that were polluted by the orthodox. By the same token, that Optatus asks them *, why they did not wash the books which ours touched, and the heavens which they looked upon; what, are the very stones sinful? what can be done with them? The very earth where they should lie on heaps would be unclean.

But not their pollution angers you more, than their proud majesty:

--

What house can be too good, for the Maker of All Things? As God is not affected with state, so is he not delighted in baseness. If the pomp of the Temple were ceremonial, yet it leaves this morality behind it, that God's House should be decent. And what if goodly? If we did put holiness in the stones, as you do uncleanness, it might be sin to be costly. Let me tell you, there may be as much pride in a clay wall, as in a carved. Proud majesty is better than proud baseness. The stone or clay will offend, in neither: we may, in both. If you love cottages, the Ancient Christians, with us, loved to have God's House stately; as appears by the example of that worthy Bishop of Alexandria, and that gracious Constantine, in whose days these sacred piles began to lift up their heads unto this envied height †. Take you your own choice: give us ours: let us neither repine nor scorn at each other.

SECT. 45.

The Founders and Furnitures of our Churches.

Sep." But your temples, especially your Cathedral and Mother Churches, stand still in their proud majesty, possessed by Archbishops and Lord Bishops; like the Flamins and Arch-Flamins amongst the Gentiles, from whom they were derived and furnished with all manner of pompous and superstitious monuments: as carved and painted Images, Massing Copes and Surplices, Chaunting and Organ-Music, and many other glorious ornaments of the Romish Harlot, by which her majesty is commended to and admired by the vulgar: so far are you, in these respects, from being gone, or fled, yea, or crept either, out of Babylon." ALL this while, I feared you had been in Popish idolatry: now, I find you in Heathenish.

These our churches are still possessed by their Flamins and Arch

Flamins :

I had thought none of our temples had been so ancient. Certainly, I find but one poor ruinous building, reported to have worne

*Optat. Milevit. an. 1. vi. Lavistis, proculdubio, pallas: Judicate quid de codicibus fecistis. Aut utrumque lavate, aut &c. Si quod tangit aspectus lavandum est, ut parietes &c. Videmus rectum, videmus et cælum, &c. hæc à vobis la vari non possunt.

† Athanas. Apol.—Euseb. de Vitâ Const.—Otho Frising. l. iv. c. 3.

out this long tyranny of time. For the most, you might have read their age and their founders, in open records.

But these were derived from those surely the churches, as much as the men :

It is true, the Flamins, and whatever other Heathen Priests, were put down; Christian Bishops were set up are these, therefore, derived from those? Christianity came in the room of Judaism: was it, therefore, derived from it? Before, you told us, that our Prelacy came from that Antichrist of Rome; now, from the Flamins of the Heathen: both no less, than either *. If you cannot be true, yet learn to be constant.

But what mean you to charge our churches with carved and painted images? It is well you write to those, that know them. Why did not you say we bow our knees to them, and offer incense? Perhaps, you have espied some old dusty statue in an obscure corner, covered over with cobwebs, with half a face, and that miserably blemished; or, perhaps, half a crucifix inverted in a church-window and these you surely noted for English Idols: no less dangerous glass you might have seen at Geneva; a Church, that hates idolatry, as much as you do us.

What more? Massing Copes, and Surplices:-Some Copes, if you will; more Surplices; no Massing. Search your books again, you shall find Albes in the Mass, no Surplices.

As for Organ-Music, you should not have fetched it from Rome, but from Jerusalem. In the Reformed Church at Middleburgh, you might have found this skirt of the Harlot: which yet you grant at least crept out of Babylon.

Sep.-"Now, if you be thus Babylonish where you repute yourselves most Sion-like, and thus confounded in your own evidence, what defence could you make in the things whereof an adversary would challenge you? If your light be darkness, how great is your darkness!"

JUDGE now, Christian Reader, of the weight of these grand exceptions and see, whether ten thousand such were able to make us no Church; and argue us, not only in Babylon, but to be Babylon itself.

Thus Babylonish we are to you, and thus Sion-like to God. Every True Church is God's Sion: every Church, that holds the foundation, is true; according to that golden rule; Eph. ii: 21: every building, that is coupled together in this Corner-Stone, groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord. No adversary, either man or devil, can confound us; either in our evidences, or their own

* Lumb. 1. iv. dist. 24. Isid. l. vii. Etymol. c. 12.Theophilus Episc. cùm cæteras statuas deorum confringeret, unam integram servari jussit, eámque in loco publico erexit, ut Gentiles, tempore progrediente, non inficiarentur se hujusmodi deos coluisse. Ammonius Grammaticus, hac de re valde discruciatus, dixit gravem plagam religioni Græcorum inflictam, q'iòd illa una statua non everteretur. Socrat, 1. v. c. 16.

challenges. We may be faulty; but we are true. And, if the darkness you find in us be light, how great is our light!

SECT. 46.

On what ground Separation or Ceremonies were objected. Sep.-" But, for that not the separation but the cause makes the schismatic; and, lest you should seem to speak evil of the thing you know not, and to condemn a cause unheard; you lay down, in the next place, the supposed cause of our Separation; against which you deal as insufficiently. And that, you pretend to be none other, than your consorting with the Papists in certain ceremonies: touching which, and our Separation in regard of them, thus you write.

M. H. If you have taken but the least knowledge of the grounds of our judgment and practice, how dare you thus abuse both us and the reader, as if the only or chief ground of our Separation were your Popish Ceremonies? But, if you go only by guess, having never so much as read over one treatise published in our defence, and yet stick not to pass this your censorious doom both upon us and it, I leave it to the reader to judge, whether you have been more lavish of your censure or credit. Most unjust is the censure of a cause unknown, though in itself never so blame-worthy; which, nevertheless, may be praise-worthy, for ought he knows that censures it.”

HE, that leaves the whole Church, in a gross and wilful error, is a Heretic: he, that leaves a particular Church, for appendances, is a Schismatic.

Such are you, both in the action and cause.

The act is yielded: the cause hath been, in part, scanned; shall be more.

This I vainly pretended to be our consorting in ceremonies with the Papists:

Behold here the ground of your loud challenge of my ignorance: ignorance of your judgment and practice: here is my abuse of you, of my reader.

in

And, how durst I?-Good words, M. R! What I have erred, I will confess! I have wronged you, indeed; but, in my charity. I knew the cause of Brownism, but I knew not you: for, to say genuously, I had heard and hoped, that your case had been less desperate. My intelligence was, that, in dislike of these ceremonies obtruded, and a hopelessness of future liberty, you and your fellows had made a Secession, rather than a Separation from our Church; to a place, where you might have scope to profess and opportunity to enjoy your own conceits: whence it was, that I termed you Ringleaders of the Late Separation, not followers of

the first; and made your plea against our Church, imperfection, not falsehood. I hoped you, as not ours; so not theirs: not ours, in place; so not quite theirs, in peevish opinion. I knew it to be no new thing, for men inclining to these fancies, to begin new Churches at Amsterdam, several from the rest: witness the letters of some, sometimes yours, cited by your own Pastor *. I knew the former Separation; and hated it: I hoped better of the latter Separation; and pitied it. My knowledge, both of M. Smith † whom you followed, and yourself, would not let me think of you, as you deserved. How durst I charge you with that, which, perhaps, you might disavow?

It was my charity, therefore, that made my accusations easy: it is your uncharitableness, that accuses them of ignorance. I knew why a Brownist is a true Schismatic: I knew not you were so true a Brownist.

But why then did I write ?-Taking your Separation at best, I knew how justly I might take occasion by it to dissuade from Separation; to others' good, though not to yours: now I know you better, or worse rather, I think you hear more. Forgive me my charity, and make the worst of my ignorance.

I knew that this Separation, which now I know yours, stands upon four grounds; as some beast upon four feet. First, God worshipped after a false manner: secondly, Profane multitude received: thirdly, Antichristian Ministry imposed: fourthly, subjection to Antichristian Government ‡. The Ceremonies are but as some one paw in every foot: yet, if we extend the word to the largest use, dividing all religion into ceremony and substance, I may yet and do aver, that your Separation is merely grounded upon Ceremonies.

SECT. 47.

Estimation of Ceremonies, and Subjection to the Prelates. Sep.-" And, touching the Ceremonies here spoken of, howsoever we have formerly refused them, submitting, as all others did and do, to the Prelates' spiritual jurisdiction; herein, through ignorance, straining at gnats and swallowing camels: yet are we verily persuaded of them, and so were before we separated, that they are but as leaves of that tree, and as badges of that Man of Sin, whereof the Pope is head, and the Prelates shoulders. And so we, for our parts, see no reason why any of the Bishops' sworn servants, as all the Ministers in the Church of England are canonically, should make nice to wear their lords' liveries.

Enquir. into M. White.

Which upon the Lord's Prayer, hath confuted some positions of that sect.
Bar. and Greenw. passim. Penr. Exam.

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