pery, or symbolizing with Papists, will-worship, superstition, significant or symbolical ceremonies, making of new sacraments, and the like: he takes it for a certain sign that they dare not set their cause in the true light, and therefore endeavour, as much as they can, to perplex and darken it by such phrases as are beyond the understanding of the common people, whom they endeavour to frighten with such visors as men of sense and thought may well despise. For let them but once clearly and distinctly tell us what they mean by Popery, willworship, superstition, &c. and then shew that those things, in the notion they explain them, are contrary to some law of God, which they must produce; and lastly, that our church is guilty of these things, or any one of them, in that very same notion; and then they will take the right way to make it appear, that there is just ground for their separation from her. But since this never has, nor, as he thinks, can be done, he is of opinion, that neither a churchman, nor indeed any man that is impartial, can see any just reason for refusing any thing that is in itself lawful, and required by lawful authority, only because some men who are disaffected to our constitution, are pleased to give it a hard and odious name. For not the name, but the nature of a thing must always be our direction in the acceptance or refusal of it.

And here if we impartially, and without prejudice, do but consider the true nature of those constitutions of our church that are so much cried out

against (which must chiefly be gathered from the design and intention of the church itself in appointing them) it may well raise our wonder how it is possible for men of candour and ingenuity to frame any objection against the lawfulness of them. In all public transactions, whether sacred or civil, it has ever been found, if not absolutely necessary, yet highly expedient, to fix and determine some certain outward rites and observances; sometimes for the distinction of persons one from another, sometimes for the preservation of order and regularity, and sometimes as signs and tokens, or memorials of what is or ought to be the design of the person or persons that perform or are engaged in such a transaction. And where God himself has not fixed and determined these outward things (as in most cases he did in the Jewish church) either custom, or positive human authority has always been found more or less to have done it. Of this, in civil matters, the instances are notorious, as the difference of garments and robes for the distinction of sexes, qualities, and stations; the formalities observed in passing of laws, and electing and inaugurating of magistrates; signing, sealing and delivering of writings in token of the reality of intention in the parties who thereby bind and oblige themselves; and (to omit other instances) the giving of a twig and a sod in token of livery of seisin of land.. Then, as for things sacred, what Christian church is there upon earth that has not some rites or ceremonies, or outward observances, either by law or

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custom established among them for the ends abovementioned? Read but the first section of Mr. Durel's Book, entituled, A View of the Government and Public Worship of God in the reformed Churches beyond the Seas; and it abundant satisfaction in this point. own Dissenters, who endeavour to represent our rites and ceremonies with such a formidable aspect, have not with all their care been able to keep themselves free from some things of the like nature. Thus for example, their Directory for public worship plainly supposes an appointment of time and place for such worship, and expressly settles the method in which it is to be performed: in the celebration of the Lord's Supper it prescribes the posture of sitting, and in matrimony the ceremony of joining of hands; their solemn league and covenant (to which they swore) was ordered to be taken with hands lifted up: and though all Dissenters that own the lawfulness of taking an oath, do allow it to be an act of religious worship (that is to say, whereby we express the honour and reverence we have for God) yet I never could hear of any of them who made the least scruple of the ceremony of laying the hand upon the Holy Bible and kissing it, as a sign or token of the solemn calling of God to witness. And now, after all this, how strange is it that such great fault should be found with our church, and even a separation made from it, on account of such very things as these, no way unlawful in themselves, and appointed only and alto

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gether for the decent and laudable ends abovementioned! For it is notorious, that, we place no intrinsic holiness in a linen garment; only the church appoints a surplice to be worn by the minister that officiates, as a decent distinction between him and the people: our rubrick expressly declares, that by kneeling at the Holy Communion no adoration is intended either to the bread and wine, or to any corporeal presence of the natural flesh and blood of Christ. But that this order is meant for a signification of our humble and grateful acknowledgment of the benefits of Christ, &c. nor is the cross after baptism appointed for any other purpose but expressly as a token, or memorial to all persons baptized, that they be not ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, &c. It is not my design here to descend to the particulars of this. controversy: but our church, in the short discourse. of ceremonies before the book of Common Prayer, having expressly owned that her ceremonies have been devised by men, and therefore are not obtruded upon the people as of divine institution; that they are retained amongst us for a decent order in the church, and because they pertain to edificationand to stir up the dull mind of man to the remembrance of his duty to God; and therefore are not by any to be looked upon as new sacraments or instruments of conveying God's grace to us; and that the keeping or omitting of a ceremony in itself considered, is but a small thing; but the wilful and contemptuous transgression, and breaking of a

common order and discipline, is in this case, the offence before God. Our church, I say, having made this clear and full declaration of her meaning, he that shall yet condemn any of her rites or ceremonies as unlawful, must at the same time also condemn kneeling, lifting up the hands or eyes in prayer, joining of hands in marriage, kissing of the book in taking of an oath, and whatever else either law or custom has established, either here or any where else, in religious performances, for the same ends that our church has proposed in the appointing or retaining of all or any of such her con stitutions. But to return from this digression.

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Thirdly, it is in like manner, the settled judgment of our churchman, that wherever a church by law ful authority established, neither wants any thing that is necessary to salvation, nor requires any thing that is a hindrance of it; with such a church it is lawful for any Christian to join in communion. And consequently, that the communion of our church neither is, nor can be looked upon as unlaw. ful; except a man should be so absurd as to say, that it may be unlawful to do a thing, though no law of God or man has any way (whether expressly or by consequence) forbidden it.

Fourthly and lastly, and since it is beyond dispute the duty of every Christian to do whatsoever lawfully he may for the maintaining the peace and unity both of the church universal, and also of each and every part of it; it is also the opinion and judgment of our churchman, that wherever the com