Section 1: General Argument against the Ceremonies

SECT. I. General Argument against the Ceremonies.

First for general arguments, waving many other things, my text leads me to insist chiefly upon this, that they are idols against the Second Commandment: they are not directly and immediately against the First, for they are used as means whereby to honor and worship God, the Father, Son, and Spirit, but there may be a false worship offered up to the true God, and that the ceremonies are such, that they are idols against the Second Commandment, these reasons do evince.

1. Because they are means of worship which the Lord never appointed, and which never came into his heart. There is no stamp of God upon them, no stamp of institution, but God will say of them at the great day, who required these things at your hands. They are means of worship of a high nature, for they have a great part of the nature of sacraments in them, for the patrons of them say, they are neither dead nor dumb, but mystical and significant, and appointed on purpose to stir up the dull mind of man to the remembrance of his duty towards God, by some special and notable signification, whereby he may be edified, they are the words of the preface to the Common Prayer Book. So that as the sacraments have two parts, an outward sign, and the inward grace signified thereby, so have the ceremonies. The surplice signifies the whiteness of purity and innocency that should be in ministers; the sign of the cross signifies that they must not be ashamed of the cross of Christ, and so all the rest have some pretended spiritual signification annexed to them. Yes, they are not only pretended to be significative, but affective also, to edify, to stir up a dull and dead heart, etc., which brings to mind that strange answer in the Catechism of the Common Prayer, to that question: how many sacraments there be — they answer, two only, as generally necessary to salvation, namely, Baptism and the Lord's Supper; implying, that there be other sacraments also, though not so necessary, which must either relate to the seven popish sacraments, or else to these English popish ceremonies. But they are such sacraments as Christ is not the author of, sacraments of man's making, for the greatest patrons and promoters of them do not pretend a divine institution for them, but only the authority of the church. But if the Second Commandment was given to the church, as I hope they will not deny, you shall not make any graven image, or form of worship to yourself, they are a manifest breach of that commandment.

2. Because there is greater weight laid upon them than upon greater things, therefore they are idols. As when the Pharisees did prefer mint and cummin before the great things of the law; and the traditions of the elders, which is in the language of these times, the ceremonies and canons of the church, before the commandments of God (Matthew 23:23 and Matthew 15) — did they not idolize their own traditions? And that the ceremonies are idols upon this account is manifest, because the neglect of them is more severely punished than many great sins against the law of God, which as it has been long since objected to them, so the truth of it is so apparent, that some of their own writers have the confidence to deny it. Doctor Burges, instead of denying it, confesses and bewails the violent urging and pressing of conformity. And at a metropolitical visitation in Lancashire in the time of the bishops, when complaint was made to Cousins the visitor against a godly minister, that he had never worn a surplice in all his life, the visitor swore it had been better for him to have got seven bastards, and so proceeded accordingly to silence him, which yet was an orderly and canonical way of proceeding. And very just and moderate, for it is enacted in the canons of 1603 that whoever shall but declare his difference in judgment from the prelates in these things, shall be excommunicated ipso facto. But I need not insist here, for these nations have had plentiful and woeful experience of it, and it is known to all the world, that these wretched ceremonies have been the principal engines and instruments of persecution in the hand of Satan to stop the mouths of God's faithful messengers, and to oppress the witnesses, and obstruct the work of Christ.

3. They are idols, because monuments of former idolatry. As the brazen serpent here — might not Hezekiah have prohibited the burning of incense to it, but retained the thing itself, and have pleaded, though it was an idol, yet it is none now, as our formalists use to plead for these old popish ceremonies? No, for God will cut off the remnants of Baal from this place, the very relics of Popery (Zephaniah 1:4). Although some of these things have formerly been of use in the worship of God by his own appointment, as the brazen serpent was, and lights, oil, musical instruments, holy garments for the priests under the Levitical law, yet now the stamp of institution being taken off, and having been the idols of the papists, they are Nehushtans, base things.

4. It is a symbolizing with idolaters, among whom these abominations are continued to this day. But this is frequently and severely forbidden in the Scripture: after the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein you dwelt, shall you not do, and after the doings of the land of Canaan where I bring you, shall you not do, neither shall you walk in their ordinances (Leviticus 18:3). Take heed to yourself, that you be not snared by following them, saying, how did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. You shall not do so to the Lord your God; where observe that he speaks of the manner of worship, presupposing the true object, for every abomination to the Lord which he hates have they done to their gods (Deuteronomy 12:30, 31). Abijah therefore justly reproves the ten tribes for it, you have made you priests after the manner of the nations of other lands (2 Chronicles 23:9). And therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight, because they went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the Lord had charged them, that they should not do like them (2 Kings 17:15). And shall we then do like the papists? There is the same reason as to this matter of popish idolatries, as there is of heathenish. The Lord will have his people to have no communication with Rome at all, whatever our popish prelates may pretend for union and reconciliation with her. The Lord has said, if any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, that man shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God (Revelation 14:9, 10).

The argument does not depend upon this hypothesis, neither does the question turn upon this hinge, whether Popery be the worst or grossest kind of idolatry, but whether it be idolatry at all. For we must not communicate, nor symbolize with any kind of idolaters whatever. Neither is it fit to excuse and extenuate the idolatry of the Papists, as the Bishops usually do in their pleadings for the ceremonies. For though it may seem in some respects not so bad as the heathenish, yet in other respects it is worse, and I find that our divines generally do so judge of it; as Parker, and Ames have showed at large, and among our divines in this point (says Ames) we may reckon Doctor Jackson himself, who has a chapter of the identity, or equivalency of superstition in Rome, heathen, and Rome Christians. And evident it is that the Scripture speaks of the Popish idolatry as the very quintessence of all Paganism. Hence Rome is styled Sodom, Egypt, Babylon, as being indeed the very sea that receives into her channel all the filthiness of all the Pagans that were before. Hence the Scripture calls the Papists Gentiles (Revelation 11:4): the outward court, the visible Church is given to the Gentiles, that is to those heathenish idolaters the Papists, who did tread down the holy city forty and two months. Neither is there Canaanite, Moabite, or any other to whom the Papists are not equal. And as they are in equipage with former Pagans, so likewise with all modern aliens. The Turk himself being not excepted, who is loosed from the east, to punish them (Revelation 9:13, 14, 15), and is not half so much aimed at in the book of God's counsels, which the Lamb has unsealed to John, as they are aimed at. Thus the learned Parker, *plus metuendus & cavendus est inimicus* says Cyprian *cum latenter obrepit, ea est Diaboli astutia ut sub ipso Christiani nominis Titulo fallat incautos*. Therefore what though the Papists call themselves Christians, and what though they have some good things among them? So have the Turks too. It is not denied, that the Papists have some truths and ordinances among them, but the argument is concerning their idolatries and superstitions, not concerning the ordinances of Christ usurped by them; but concerning the idols and superstitions invented and committed by them in the worship of God. We must not conform ourselves thereto, but say to their idols, get you hence. Judge in your consciences, is it fit for the spouse of Christ to wear the trinkets and ornaments of the great Whore? It is a dishonor to Christ, and a hardening to the Papists in their idolatrous and sinful ways, so to comply with them. But this may suffice for general grounds and arguments against the ceremonies, let us bring them now to a more particular trial.