1. The Surplice

I. The Surplice.

The surplice with all the rest of that Popish wardrobe of superstitious garments, hoods, tippets, rochets, &c., for there is the same reason of them all, they are all Popish idols, and ancient ways of superstition. For if you look into the story of Jehu, you will find that the priests of Baal had their superstitious garments in those times (2 Kings 10:22), and he said to him that was over the [illegible], bring forth the vestments, for the worshippers of Baal. And among the Papists, the surplice as some have well observed, has been such a master idol, that it sanctifies as it were all their other idols; so that without this it is unlawful for them to officiate. The Lord indeed appointed holy garments for the priests under the law, but if the Lord had not appointed them, it had been a sinful and a foolish thing to use them, and therefore it is said of Gideon's ephod, which as it seems, was made in imitation of the high priest's garments, that Israel went a whoring after it, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his house (Judges 8:27). An ephod is nothing else but a garment made partly of linen, not unlike a surplice, but more rich and costly. Those garments of Aaron, are said to be for glory, and for beauty (Exodus 28:2), because they typified and shadowed out the beauty of Christ, our true high priest, in all those glorious graces of the Spirit of holiness in him. But when the sun arises, the shadows fly away, and therefore now that Christ the body is come, and that Sun of Righteousness arisen upon the world, those legal shadows are done away; and to retain them in these times of the New Testament does interpretatively deny that Christ is come in the flesh, and therefore there should be no difference between the garments of ministers in their holy ministrations, and the garments of other persons, or of themselves at other times, but they should go in their habit according to the grave and comely manner of those among whom they live. All the hint the Scripture gives concerning ministers' apparel, is only in that word [illegible] (1 Timothy 3:2), which implies, that they should be comely, but not the least hint of any different ceremonious garments to know them by, from other men. And therefore when this superstition began to spring among the French bishops, Caelestinus writes thus to them, discernendi a plebe vel caeteris sumus doctrina non veste, Conversatione non habitu, mentis puritate non cultu, we are to be distinguished from the common sort by doctrine, and not by garment, by conversation and not habit, by the purity of mind, and not apparel.

I dare appeal to any sober man's conscience, do you think that Jesus Christ wore a surplice, or that Paul or any of the twelve did preach in a surplice? This argument was alleged to one in [illegible], to which the man confessed, he thought they did not, but his reason was, because the Church had not then appointed them, to which the other replied, I will have as good an answer as this from a [illegible], to believe as the Church believes, the Church is bound to keep to the Word, and if she reject it, the Church plays the harlot. John the [illegible] had a several apparel (Matthew 3:4), as Elijah also had before him (2 Kings 1:8), but he had a special diet also, locusts and wild honey, and therefore by this argument ministers must have a several diet also from other men, as well as a distinct apparel. But John was an extraordinary person, and the Lord would have him and his ministry differenced from others, and the extraordinariness of his ministry set forth by these things, that the people might be the rather moved to enquire of his office whom they saw vary so much from the common custom of other men; neither did he wear gorgeous and costly apparel, but coarse and mean, and therefore it does no way suit the case in hand, unless the bishops will exchange their surplices for raiment of camel's hair, and their canonical girdles for a leathern girdle, &c. And it is of like weight to allege the angels appearing in white, of which the surplice, is but a ridiculous and as Doctor Ames fitly calls it an apish imitation, for by the same reason ministers should wear leather, because the angels are described with wings, to show their swiftness and readiness in execution of their office. The wearing of a white garment in old time was nothing else but a more comely apparel, such as black is now, with us: after times having betaken themselves to darker colors, as more grave and modest, and therefore that color would be light, and stage-like with us, which was grave and honorable with them.

Objection, better preach in a fool's coat, then not preach the Gospel.

Answ. If this saying be weighed in the ballance of the Sanctuary, it will be found to be more pleasing than solid, more plausible than weighty. For the rule is clear, we must not do evil, that good may come thereof (Romans 3:8), but it is an evil thing, and a sin to preach in a fool's coat, therefore we ought not to do it, no not for that good end to enjoy the liberty of our ministry. But how may that be proved that it is a sin? Why thus: to do any thing in the worship of God that is not decent is a sin, for the rule is express (1 Corinthians 14, last verse), let all things be done decently and in order, but to wear a fool's coat is not decent, but ridiculous; therefore it is a sin to do it in the worship of God, and much more to wear a surplice, which is fitly called a fool's coat indeed, being as bad, yes, worse. For a fool's coat is only a breach of the rule of decency, but a surplice is both ridiculous and superstitious too; it is both a breach of the rule of decency and of the second Commandment, and therefore it is worse than a fool's coat. But we are not to break the least command for the greatest good. And such ministers as are silenced upon this account, it is not they that do forsake their ministry, as is most unchristianly and reproachfully said by some, but they are forced from it, and are driven into corners by plain force and violence. For if men will not suffer us to preach but upon such hard conditions, that we must break rules, and sin against our consciences if we will preach, it is all one as if they should absolutely hinder, for we must not purchase the liberty of our ministry at such a dear price, though it be such a precious ordinance, and so great a mercy to enjoy it. A man had better never preach a sermon all his days than part with a good conscience for it.

And it is not only a few Puritans or Fanatics as they are now termed, that are so nice and so precise, as to dislike the wearing of a surplice. For those good men who have been over-borne by this objection, yet their undistressed judgements were against it. For they did conform to it with grief, and as their burden, and because their judgements were distressed by the persecutions of those times, between these two, either to conform, or not to preach. And in the Book of Martyrs you will meet with many remarkable testimonies of those faithful witnesses of Christ, who loved not their lives to the death, you will there find a great cloud of witnesses against these smaller things as some account them. Mr. Rogers the proto-martyr of all that blessed company that suffered in Queen Mary's time; he told them in a holy scorn, that he would not wear that foolish attire, unless the massing priests were made to wear upon their sleeve a [illegible] with a host upon it, that there might be a manifest difference between the popish priests and the ministers of the Gospel. Bucer also did refuse to wear a square cap, and gave this reason for it, because his head was round. Philpot in Queen Mary's time would not come to the Convocation in a long gown and tippet, as all the popish clergy did, for which they did threaten to turn him out of the Convocation. Hooper in King Edward's days did earnestly testify against them, upon which occasion Mr. Fox complains that notwithstanding the Reformation begun, they used to wear such garments and apparel as the popish bishops were wont to do, which he calls player-like apparel. And Ridley who was at that time a great stickler for it, God gave him repentance for it, when he was in prison, in so much that he wrote a letter to Hooper about it, wherein he bewails the former ignorance and rigor of his spirit, and confesses it was his own weakness and simplicity that jarred with Hooper's wisdom in that matter. And in another place there is mention made of one Blumfield a cruel persecutor, who did threaten a good man, one Symon Harlestone, to put him to the officers, because he did wear no surplice when he said service; and hereupon Mr. Fox who wrote the Book of Martyrs has these words: therefore it is pity such baits of popery are left to the enemies to take Christians in, God take them away, or else us from them, for God knows they be the cause of much blindness and strife among men. And Mr. Thomas Becon in his works printed at London, cum privilegio, 1562, expresses himself thus: therefore in my judgement it were meet and convenient that all such disguises of apparel were utterly taken away, for as much as it is but the vain invention of man, and has been greatly abused of the massing Papists. For what has the temple of God to do with idols, what concord is there between Christ and Belial, what have the vestments of a popish altar to do with the table of the Lord Christ? Moreover the Canons of 1571 forbid the gray amice or any other garment defiled with the like superstition, but this reason reaches the surplice, and therefore the equity of that canon excludes it, though the letter does not. Finally, the bishops are bound to the use of a pastoral staff by King Edward's book, to which the statute of Elizabeth refers, but in this they transgress themselves, and therefore with what conscience, yes, with what forehead can they smite their fellow servants for a lesser matter?