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3. The reason why these things were laid aside, you fay, is becaufe matters of Ceremony are of fo variable a Nature, that if they are decent in fome Times and Places, they are not fo in others. So then, as long, and as far as they prove to be Indecent, I hope you will confent to the putting of them away. But then who fhall be the Judges of the Decency? Thole that devise and fet them up, or find them to be for their Intereft, be fure will not call them Indecent Dulcis Odor lucri ex requalibet. But as for that which can prove its Decency from the nature of the thing, and that Spiritual Worship to which it is apply'd, fo as that without it the Worship would be rude and Indecent, and which is Decent too in the Effects of it, let that pafs for Decent; and when your Ceremonies have thus prov'd their Decency, we will own 'em for Pretty, Decent, Innocent things but till then we think they ought to be laid afidé with the Feasts of Love, and the Holy Kifs, and the Woman's Veil, and the putting off the Shoes, and the reft of the Old Trinkets.

4. You proceed ftill on your falfe Suppofition, That the Apostles did give temporary Rules for Parti cular Ceremonies, and that therefore their Succeffors ought to do the like; Whereas there is not one Rule to be found in all the New Testament, for the Enjoyning of any one Ceremony, besides thofe Sacred Sacramental ones of our Lord's own Appointment, and that of the Impofition of hands, for which we have no particular Precept, but only Apoftolical Practice; But many Precepts and Rules for the Abrogating of fuch as were then in ufe, and for the ridding of the Church of them, as faft as the Times would bear it. How idlely then do you talk, in afcribing Disorder and Confusion to the want of thofe Ceremonies, which the notorious Experience of so many Ages have found to be the greatest Causes and Occafions of Disorder and Confusion?

4. You are griev'd for my making no more account of your Argument from the Purity of your Ceremonies; and because I told you it brought to my mind Lot's pleading for Zoar, Is it not a Little one? And here you run out a Parallel between Lot's Cafe and Yours, beyond what I could have thought would have been for your Honour or Intereft. But, you fay, it was not faid to Lot, you that now defire a Little City, may presently demand a greater, and having obtain'd one, you may petition for another, and therefore none fhall be granted you; This, you fay, bad been futable to my way of reasoning, and to the Cafe in hand too. Thus you humbly ftate your Argument, as Precarious; and defpairing of its force or merits, you fall a beging as, Lot did for Little Zoar. How rightly doth the Apostle call them Beggarly Elements. 'Tis true, the fmallness of the Requeft is fometimes an Argument with Charity, but this is not a Cafe wherein Charity is concern'd, but Liberty and Property; He that begs a little piece of my Bread, or of my Silver, Charity obliges me to grant, when I think there is real need; but he that asks, tho' but a Foot of my Land, is justly deny'd, left by that he lay a Claim to more, to the wronging of my Pofterity. Now I know no need the Church hath of thefe Ceremonies, for which you feem to make fuch Supplications, nor is it in my Power to grant away the Liberty our Lord hath purchased and intrufted us with, and which is his Churches Inheritance. And befides it hath appear'd by long Experience, that where an Inch hath been granted in this kind, an Ell hath foon after been taken. I cannot but wonder to hear a Vind. p. 130. Man of your reputed Senfe, to fay, That this would cut out a way to the Diffolution of all Government. Are thefe Unneceffary Ceremonies, or the Imposing Power you plead for, the Bafis both of all Religion, and of all Government

in the World. What! would the World fhrink back again into its Old Chaos, or fomething worfe, were it not for thefe little Devices of yours? Are your Ceremonies indeed your God, that upholds all ? As for the Civil Government, how little is that interested in them? Yea, might it not be as well, and much better without these Make-bates ? And for Church-Government, how vile, and trifling a Thing do you make it, in faying that the lofs of a few Ceremonies is the way to diffolve it? Would not that Reverend and Learned Prelate, the prefent Bishop of Sarum, (who perhaps the more he deferves, the lefs he be valued by fome of you find other, better, more noble and necessary Work for Church-Government, would you but confult his Paftoral Care, than to trouble the World with these ufelefs Things, and to damn your Proteftant Bre-.. thren for Schifmaticks, for that they can't yield the required Obedience to 'em?

The rest of your Comment on this Head is fo impotently impertinent, that a Child may difcern the vanity of it. You fay, That according to my Doctrine, If Governours enjoyn a Day of Ibid. Fafting, (perhaps you mean fuch as Lent)

or of Thanksgiving, (fuch as Eafter) we must not comply with them, left they should impofe more. And if a Father requires fomething of his Children, with relation to their Apparel, they must not be obey'd, for fear of an Encroachment on their Liberty. And thefe, you fay, are fome of the Confequents of my Argument, you fhould have faid, these are the Vagaries of your own Brains. Because we cannot yield Obedience in things in their own Nature Unnecessary, and which in their use appear to us to be Superftitious, and highly offenfive to fo great a part of the Church, in which we live, Doth it therefore follow, that we may deny our Obedience in any of those things, that are by all acknowledged to be abfolutely, or

but

but occafionally, and relatively neceffary, and any part of the Duty which we owe to our Maker, or to our Superiours? Or did you ever find us defective in these things? And as for the Cafe you have mention'd between Fathers and Children; What's this to the matters of God's Worship? Or dare you fay, that Church-Governours have as Ab folute a Defpotick Power over the Worship of God, and the Confciences of Men, as Fathers have over the Bodies, or Veftments of their Children? This indeed is one strain above High Church.

5. You are angry with me for suggesting,that your Ceremonies are as Neft-Eggs to the rest of Popery; and that for the reception of Popery many have prepar'd their Nefts. To which I reply; How well they deferve to be call'd Neft-Eggs, appears from Matter of Fact; Were not these the very Eggs that were left and taken out of that Old Neft of Popery, when the Proteftant Reformation remov'd and brake the reft of them? Were not these very Ceremonies in that Church, and are they not, there ftill? And from that of Rome. were they taken into this of England. And tho' you fay, That the Expectation of Jome monstrous Productions for One hundred and fifty years together bath ftill been fruftrate; I could tell you to what this hath been owing: Not to your Principles, is clear; Nor to the Inclinations of the greater Part of what is call'd the Church of England, who have been ready and defirous enough of an Accommodation with Rome, would the Times have born it. 'Tis eafy enough to difcern what it is that we owe our Proteftancy to. Not to mention the Inftancès of fresher Memory, it openly enough appear'd in Arch-Bishop Laud's time, how near thefe Eggs were come to be hatcht into a Cokatrice of the old Breed, had not a Divine Providence feasonably prevented it: Nor are they yet grown fo addle, but that they are still as proliferous as ever. But what you fo invidiously,

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invidiously, fo unreafonably and untruly upbraid us with, and call a Servile Drudgery under the Jefuites, I have already reply'd to.

Vind. p. 133

Hence you proceed to tell us, in Vindication of your Ceremonies, That they are not only few in number, but otherwife fit to be us'd, which, you fay, may appear by the Rules according to which they are adapted, "you have reduc'd to Three Heads.

and which

1. You fay, 'Tis requifite that there be fome Conformity between them and the End, for which they are appointed; Nor is it always neceffary for those that usé them, to know the Reafonablness of their Inftitution. That the End for which your Ceremonies were Inftituted, or at least Retain'd in the Church of England, was in Complyance with the Papißs, hath been already prov'd, and how conform they are to that End, is evident enough: But as for the Reafonableness of it, that indeed is what paffes our understanding; but that, it feenis, is no great matter, it being to be fupply'd by a Blind Obedience : And as for the Reafons of their first Institution, perhaps it is understood no more by the Common People in the Church of England, than it is in the Church of Rome. And to illuftrate this your Dotrine, you give us an Inftance of that Common Formality of Kiffing the Book in taking an Oath, which few befides Quakers refufe, tho' they understand not the Original of that Ceremony, or how it came first into the World. But how Impertinent and Heterogene is this your Inftance to the Things in Question? This, of Kiffing the Book, is a Ceremony not properly Ecclefiaftical, but Civil, and therefore adminiftred by the Civil Magiftrate; but the Question is about those Ceremonies, that are annext to Church Worship, to which that of taking an Oath doth not belong. Neither is it difficult for a very Ordinary Capacity to comprehend the Senfe

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