The Reformed Samaritan: OR, THE WORSHIP OF GOD By the Measures of Spirit and Truth.  
Preached for a VISITATION-SERMON at the Convention of the Clergy, by the Reverend Archdeacon of Coventry, in Coventry; April the Sixth, 1676.  
To which is Annexed, A Review of a short Discourse Printed in 1649. about the Necessity and Expediency of Worshipping God by set Forms.  
By JOHN ALLINGTON Vicar Of Leamington-Hastang.  
LONDON: Printed by J. C. for Thomas Basset, at the George near St. Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet. 1678.   

To the Honourable CHARLES LEIGH Esq. [Now] at Leighton-Buzzard, Be Health, Honour, Happiness.  
SIR,  
OF that Gentile who built them a Synagogue, the Jews gave this Eulogy; That he was worthy, and that he loved their Nation. That yourself came a worthy person into the World, your paternal Dignity will avouch; and that you are one who not only love your Nation, but the Religion of it, I shall only in proportion to the Synagogue say, You have lately at your own Cost beautisied the better part of the House of God, not doubting but Beauty in Place, as well as in a Person, may be a great attractive; endeavouring to woe the People to worship their God in the Beauty of Holiness. Having thus done, and hearing the following Sermon, you did more than desire that it might be made public; and merely therefore, because it had for subject only the Worship of God; which as distinct from Service, hath not been in your hearing so plainly explicated, as you candidly concéived it is. Now, [honour Sir] to gratify you, and at your instigation to promote the Worship of God, in the capacities of such who are not sinely learned, I have delivered my Endeavours, and your Desires to the world. My Intention is good, the Acceptance dubious: but shall I please God and please you in so doing, I have my end.  
There is annexed to the Sermon; [what many years hath lain in the posture it now appears] which for the Brevity, Easiness, and Time it was writ in, was much importuned. Thousands [since the Glory of our Worship broke forth that dismal Cloud, which many years it stood eclipsed in] I say, thousands have now courted it as the rising Sun; but by their mincing and mangling, and neglect of it, declare they receive it only as an expedient to hold a Living: Whereas when that was writ, a Living was lost for the using of it, and the Author suspended by an imperious Beggar [Tam ab Officio quam à Beneficio] for reading the Common-prayer without Book. The sum is, that to worship God by a set Form, is the stablest and most certain advance of his Glory; and the securing of the holy Duty from all impertinencies. A Discourse not unfit to accompany and wait upon a Sermon precisely about Worship; which shall suffice at this time to trouble both your honourable Self, and the willing Reader.  
From my Study at Leamington, Novemb. 20. 1677. Yours, Most willing to Honour, Love, and Pray for you. John Allington.   

THE REFORMED SAMARITAN.  JOHN 4. 23. The hour cometh and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth. 
TO traverse the Coherence from the sixth to this present Verse, would spend too much time, and therefore, being intelligentibus loquor, I shall observe as introductory to my Text, only three things.  

1. One concerning the Woman; a Samaritan.  
2. The place; Jerusalem and Gerasin.  
3. The Worship itself.   
First, The observable in the Woman, it was a religious piece of Hypocrisy: For, when our blessed Master convinced her of being a close Adulteress; then 
Vers. 18.  she begins to speak godlily, and to turn her discourse (as Factious Saints use) to a religious Controversy: Our Fathers (saith she) worshipped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where we ought to worship.  
Our Saviour puts her in mind of living in Adultery, and she puts our Saviour upon the decision of a Question: our Saviour tells her of her living with one that was not her Husband; and she tells our Saviour that the Jews did not worship where they should. Our Saviour tells her of an undoubted fault; and she makes scruple of a disputable Ceremony. And in this she seems to be the Emblem of too too many, yea of too too many even at this very day: For have not we those, who make huge scruple about what they understand not, and yet none at all of indisputable and known sins? I have heard of one, who made an huge scruple of kneeling to ask Blessing to a Mother, who made none of lying with another Woman's Husband! I have heard of some, who make an huge scruple of any Recreation upon the Lord's day, who upon all the days of the Week have made none at all of Rebellion, Schism, Sedition, Heresy, which (witness the Apostle 
* Gal. 5. 20. ) are more undoubted wickednesses! Yea, we have heard and seen too too many boggle at a Surplice, who made nothing of Plundering, Killing, and Cutting of Throats! Too too many scrupling a Gesture at the Sacrament, who made none (after their own mode) to receive it with Hatred, Malice, and all uncharitableness. And what is this, but just as did the Samaritan Woman, to wave common and crying sins with religious controversies? yea, what are all such scruples, but merely Religion in Hypocrisy?  
Secondly, The next observable it is about the place, from Vers. 21. where it is written, Neither in this mountain, nor yet in Jerusalem shall ye worship; and it shall be only this. These words are not (as some mistake them) an inhibition of set places, as if God under the Gospel would have no Churches, no Temples, no holy places. But this is a gracious enlargement, and an holy Liberty given to devout Christians, in any place to erect a Temple, and in every Country, Town, or City, to build an House of Prayer.  
In those days the Samaritans they held themselves bound to Gerasin; and the Jews (we all know) were confined and bound to go up to Jerusalem for to worship: but by the coming of Christ and his Gospel, so are Christians enlarged, that wheresoever we shall dedicate Houses to his Worship, there will he be worshipped, there will he receive our Vows, our Prayers, our Praises.  
Nor doth worshipping in spirit and truth in the least oppose this: For, if worshipping in spirit and in truth were an opposition to material places, than we might not pray in our Closets, nor in our Chambers, nor in our Houses, nor in Groves, nor in Fields, nor indeed upon God's Earth; for these are all material as well as Churches. Nay I might add, not in our Bodies, for even they are materials also.  
By Worshipping then in spirit and truth, there is no rejection of material places; no, neither of Jerusalem nor Gerasin, in order to Evangelical worship: For where Story telleth us, Eruptions of Fire would not permit the re-edifying of a Temple, even there at this day the Christians have a Temple, and do worship.  
Thirdly therefore (to come directly to the Text) our last introductory Observation is about Worship itself; and to glance at the high expedient of Uniformity therein.  
2 Kings 17. you may read what these Samaritans were; to wit, a people planted in Samaria, in room of those Ten Tribes which were carried to Assyria. Now this people by necessity, and out of a fear of extirpation by Lions, sent for a Priest of the Lord to put them in a right way of worship. He came; but as it is written, they would not be ruled; they would not be ordered by him: for 
* 2 Kings 19 33.  they feared the Lord, and served their own gods.  
Now it seems to me very observable, that those who would not be ruled by the Priest of God; those who would serve gods of their own, they could never agree what gods to have, nor what Religion to set up: Every one is singular, every one for his own invention, for his own gods.  
Vers. 30. the men of Babylon, they set up Succoth-Benoth: the men of Cuth, they set up Nergal; the men of Hamath, they set up Ashima: But the Avites they would none of these; and therefore they set up gods of their own, Nibhaz, and Tartack: yea, the Sepharvaims they will none of them; for they set up Adrammelech, and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.  
And is it not proportionably so, even at this day? Those who will have no Churches, nor no Temples, but their own Bodies; in them they will have no worship, but only what their private spirits, and their own Fanatic conceptions shall set on foot: So that the Samaritans never set up more gods than they do Idols! Things they call Religion, Ordinances, Worship; when indeed they really are Self-conceit, Spiritual Pride, superstitious Abominations. Even so too too many among us, they will not worship the living God, unless they may have the humour of their own Inventions, that is, do it their own way. So that as the Samaritans worshipped they knew not what; even so do these, and all fanatics, worship they know not how: The ready way to make confusion (as it daily did) to cover the whole Face of our Land again. For, if the men of Babylon may set up Succoth-Benoth, why may not the men of Cuth set up Nergal? And if they may set up Nergal, why may not the men of Hamath set up Ashima? If every Sect, and every different Party, may follow their own Inventions, and follow their own gods, or their own worship: I than cannot see any reason in the world, why the Missal, as well as the Directory; and the Anabaptist, as well as the Presbyterian, should not have their Way.  
It is very, very lately since we in this Land might have said, There was no King in Israel. And yet even then, look what there followeth was not permitted to the Sons of the Church: For, whereas it is written, Judg. 17. 6. Every man did that which was right in his own eyes; sure I am, what was right, not only in our Eyes, but in the Eyes of the whole Church, was not then permitted. The plea of a tender Conscience, it could then have no hearing: For, besides Indictment upon Indictment, myself knows the man who under pain of Imprisonment, and Banishment, was forbid to use one Collect of our public Prayers: So that Usurpation and the true Worship, seem like the Ark and Dagon, they could by no means stand together. Schism and Sedition are Twins, contemporary to all Ages; and therefore that the peace of God and his Church may be among us, no one greater expedient can be found than an Uniformity in public and divine Worship.  
Nor is this extravagant, or beside the Text: for, the Jews, whilst yet they had but one God, had but one Temple; and in that Temple an Uniformity of Worship: whilst they all worshipped God one and the same way, so long, Psal. 122. 3. Jerusalem was a City at unity within itself; yea, and as it seems by the Prophet, therefore at unity within itself: For he no sooner gave this high commendation, but straight followeth, For thither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the Name of the Lord. But when once Jeroboam had set up his Calves, when the Tribes professing the same God, set up divers and different ways of worship: when the Samaritan had a Temple in Gerasin, and the Lord another at Jerusalem: when once they rend the Church, and made a breach in public Worship; Judah and Israel, Samaritan and Jew, could never be reconciled; from age to age, the Schismatical disturbed and persecuted the Church of God. It is observable, from Jeroboams Calves, to the return from Captivity, there is numbered nigh 500 years; and yet in all this time the Schismatics kept their stomaches, and left their malice as a successive Inheritance. For when it was so that good King Cyrus sent home his Captives; when he gave both leave and assistance to rebuild their Temple; the Samaritans as afraid of the good old way 
Ezr. 4. 4.  of unity and uniformity in Worship, they did even all they could to suppress the work.  
Yea, more than 400 years after that, at the Feast of unleavened bread, when the Priests did open the Gates about Midnight, Samaritani quidam, certain Samaritans entered into Jerusalem, and went and spread men's Bones amidst the Porches, and over all the Temple, 
Antiq. c. 3. initio cap.  as Josephus, Lib. 18.  
Now see the peevishness of Schismatics; all must conform to them, or they to none: For, look what they themselves approved not, that they would not the right Worshippers of God should do; because they liked not the Festival, because they would have no holidays, because they themselves scrupled the keeping of the Feast of unleavened bread: therefore they profane the Temple, and do all they can to keep others from their bounden duty. The Schismatical party could never be won, never appeased: after once there was Calves in Bethel, and a Temple at Gerasin, the Jew and Samaritan could never be at unity.  
The Church of God (blessed be God) is not at this day confined to a People, nor to a Temple: Christians may 
* 1 TI●…. 2. 8.  in every place lift up pure hands and worship God. But that we may so do in the unity of Spirit, and in the bond of peace, the premises to me evince, there can be no greater expedient than Uniformity: For the point here expressly spoken of, and to, it is public Worship; and almost all the heats and animosities of Christendom they arise about public Worship.  

1 Cor. 1. 10.  I beseech you (therefore) brethren (as St. Paul) by the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing. For if the same confession of Faith be to the Glory of God and Christian Religion, why not the same public confession of sins, the same public oblations of Praise and Thanksgiving? If to have one Mind and one Tongue, be commendable, and highly desirable in the Christian Church; why not one Form of Prayer, why not one public Worship? For, that it is as expedient in our public devotions, as in our public professions, to speak the same thing; considerable it is, that as we have the Apostolical Creed for the one, so we have the Lords Prayer for the other: Christ having given unto us as well a Common-prayer, as a common Faith; and indeed no Congregation in the world can confidently say, we know how we worship, but such only as have set Forms: against which, and the appendencies thereupon, That there is nothing at all in these (too too much abused) words, we will now pass to a peculiar and strict survey of them.  
The hour cometh and now is, when the true worshippers pers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.  
In which words, for Methods sake, thus.  
First, The time here spoken of: The hour cometh and now is.  
Secondly, The Subject spoken on, and that is the Worship of God: The true worshippers of God shall worship.  

Thirdly, The Mode or manner how: 
Spirit,  The Father in 
Truth.    

2 Pet. 2. 8.  First of the Time, The hour cometh and now is.  
He to whom a thousand years are but as one day, He, to admonish our mortality, speaks of the whole term and state of the Gospel, as but an hour; The hour cometh and now is; and yet this Hour extends from his coming in the Flesh, to his coming in the Clouds: and therefore if we strictly and grammatically look upon the words, being it is not only said, the hour cometh, but also Now is; this Nunc est, this Now is, it must be taken Inchoatiuè, that is, Now commencing, or now beginning. For as a man at first turning of the Glass may say, now is the hour in which such or such things shall be done; which perchance shall not begin, or be done, till the middle, or latter end of the hour: Even so whereas our Saviour 
v. 21.  saith, The hour is coming and now is, wherein neither in that mountain, nor yet in Jerusalem they should worship; this Now was not instantly, and from that very period of time to take place, but within the compass of the hour: for these words are observed to have been spoken even the very first year of his preaching, and as 
v. 54.  appears in this Chapter, before his second Miracle. So that neither was Jerusalem or Gerasin laid aside so soon: yea, before the Temple was destroyed, and before they forbore to go up to Jerusalem to worship, it was nigh forty years after this saying. Peter and John went up into the Temple at the hour of prayer 
* Acts 3. 1. : the Aethiopian Eunuch 
* Acts 8. 27. , yea St. Paul himself after this went up even to Jerusalem for to worship. So that by this approaching Hour, and by the Now in my Text, 
Acts 24. 11.  we are to understand the state of the Gospel, after the term and dissolution of that Legal way; so that (to be brief here) both we and our Forefathers for many bypast Ages, may take up the Text and say, The hour is come, and now is, when; which is the  
Second considerable, the true worshippers shall worship.  
In the whole Book of God, there is no one Duty to which there are more invitations; of which more holy Examples; against violating which, more severe Judgements, than this general Duty, the Worship of God: And yet at this day, as if God had laid aside his Honour, those who ought to be the true Worshippers, they despise, neglect, and lay aside his worship, as if that of the Psalmist, O worship the Lord in the 
Psal. 96. 9  beauty of holiness; or that, Exalt ye the Lord our 
Psal. 99 5.  God, and worship at his footstool; As if these, and very very many of the like, were all but airy and empty sounds. If there be no Sermon, too too many (who by profession ought to be Worshippers) they are come to that, they think it not worth the while to go up to the House of God to worship.  
Sure I am, in the days of Nehemiah it was not so; Worshipping then had as full a regard as Hearing: As much of the solemn day as was spent in Reading, even so much and no less was spent in Worshipping: For, 
* Neh. 9 3.  you shall find, They read in the book of the law of the Lord their God one fourth part of the day, and another fourth part they confessed and worshipped the Lord their God. The equal Sisters had an equal portion; they spent full as much time in worshipping as in reading. Nay, if we survey the Law of God itself, you shall find that God so far valued his Worship, that he took not a weekly, but a daily order for it: For, whereas we read  
Acts 15. 21. Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogue every sabbath. Whereas care was taken for that but once a Week; we find God commanded the Priests to worship publicly twice a Day: For,  
Exod. 29. 38. Thou shalt offer upon the altar two lambs of the first year, day by day, continually, the one lamb in the morning, the other at the evening. This was God's public, and this was his daily worship. Now if the state of the Gospel be such, that our Righteousness must exceed the Righteousness of the Scribes 
Matth. 5. 20.  and pharisees; why should not also our Devotion do it? If that people who had lesser obligation were bound to a daily worship; certainly then it must be a failing or a sin in us Christians, to despise, vilify, and neglect God's daily Worship: For the hour is come, and now is, wherein we Christians are bound to worship: for the state of Christianity, even by Christ himself, is thus described; The true worshippers shall worship, and worship the Father too: whence it is as clear as Noonday, under the state of the Gospel we must be worshippers.  
Amongst Christians, there are many who press and speak much of Gospel- graces, Gospel- liberties, Gospel- privileges, and Gospel- ordinances; but for Gospel-worship not a Syllable! And yet our Saviour in the Text pronounceth Christians only shall prove the true worshippers.  
Now the better to understand what is here meant by Worship: Consider we must, there are in God two things of distinct Consideration as to us. 

1. His Person.  
2. His Precepts.    
To his Person, we owe all Worship, and Honour, and Glory.  
To his Precepts, all Regard, Service, and Obedience.  
Now the Question here propounded by the Samaritan, is not about Obedience, Regard, or Service; for there was no dispute, but both in Gerasin and Jerusalem God was to be served, and God was to be obeyed: but the Question only is, where he was to be Worshipped? Yea,  
To come more close and stricter to the point, the Question is, not about inward, but about outward; not about private, but only about publickworship: For, as for the inward worship of the Soul; as for private Devotion and spiritual Duties, this was never confined either to Jerusalem by the Jew, nor ever by a Samaritan determined unto Gerasin: Daniel prayed in his Chamber; Jeremy prayed in the Dungeon; Job prayed in the Dunghill; David prayed on his Bed: And it was in all ages lawful thus to worship God in any place.  
The scruple then here propounded, as it is not about service, so neither is it about private or inward worship; but it is about the outward, and about the publickworship of God; that is, where Sacrifice was to be made; where his public Homage was to be paid; whether Gerasin or Jerusalem was the place of public worship. Our blessed Master upon the point, he rejecteth both, saying, The hour cometh and now is, when (to use the words of Malachi) From the rising of the 
Mal. 1. 11.  sun to the going down of the same, my Name shall be great among the Gentiles, and in every place shall incense (that is, an holy Worship) be offered unto my Name. So that, whereas of old, Sacrifice, and that only in the Temple, and that Temple at Jerusalem was God's highest acknowledgement, and outward Worship; he telleth the Samaritan, that hereafter the worship of God would be in a clear other mode, neither confined to place, nor expressed by Sacrifice; so that indeed Evangelical worship is the proper subject here to be enquired on, to wit,  
What is that public Worship which the true Worshippers should use under the state and condition of the Gospel? which from the legal, I shall show you, differs both in the Object, and in the Expression: for, Veri Adoratores, the true Worshippers they shall worship the Father, and him they shall worship in spirit and in truth.  
First, they shall worship the Father.  
God in all ages and states of the Church hath had his worship; but under sundry Methods, and divers Notions: for though he himself, and his self only, was the sole object of divine Worship; yet in several ages he hath been pleased to be worshipped under several Apellatives, Names, or Attributes: For,  
Exod. 6. 3. I appeared unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by the Name of God Almighty; but by my Name Jehovah was I not known unto them. To Moses (it seems) God was known by a Name by which he was not known to Abraham; and to Abraham (probably) by a Name by which he was not known to Adam: So that it is conceived, Adam and his posterity, they worshipped God under the notion of a Creator: Abraham, as God Almighty: Moses, by his Name Jehovah. 
Epist. 136.  Yea, St. Jerom hath taken pains to number up, and to explicate ten Names, by which under the Old Testament the people of God did worship God; and yet among them all, no mention of this in my Text, no approach to God under the notion of a Father.  
Albeit then we may (as the Jew did) worship and approach unto God as the high God, as the God of all Spirits; as the God of vengeance; as the Lord God of Sabbaoth: yet we have through the mercies of God a far nigher and a dearer Relative; for we cry Abba Father, Veri Adoratores; Cospel-worshippers they shall worship the Father.  
Now, if it be a Gospel-priviledge, and that Privilege upon Scripture-account, a choice favour, to worship and approach the living God under the Relation of a Father; then we who have the enjoyment of this favour, we who are the only true worshippers of God, we have not only a more comfortable object; but we have a singular and extraordinary, and a most affectionate motive for to worship: For we are to worship a Father.  
Now, if the Jew whose state was servile; if they who had only Attributes of power and terror to draw them to their God; if they went from their own home even as far as Jerusalem to worship; if their fear carried them to the holy Temple: are not we very unkindly and ungracious Children, who so little love, value, or honour the House of our Father, that albeit in the same Town, we will not go up to worship? Had the Worship of God been a performance of mean and slight account, the Aethiopian Eunuch he would never have made so long a Journey, as from his Country to 
Miles 964, From Saba to Jerusalem.  Jerusalem to worship. St. Paul, then, a Christian (though he was oft told by the way that Troubles and Bonds abode him at Jerusalem) yet, for all the Now in my 
Acts 8. 27. His whole Journey 1928 M.  Text was begun, and notwithstanding Bonds and Troubles abode him there, up to Jerusalem he would, and did; and that upon this very account, even to Worship. 
Acts 24. 11.   
Whereas then, as a great grace and privilege of the Gospel, the Worship of God is brought even from Jerusalem to our own Doors; changed from a costly to a cheap worship; from Bullocks, Goats and Lambs, to Prayer and Praises: and whereas to this better worship we are now invited, not by an Appellative of Terror; but by Allurements of Love. Being, it is said, the true Worshippers, that is, the Worshippers under the Gospel, shall worship the Father. If Faith and Obedience, because the Gospel exacts them, be Duty, than the Worship of God, which is equally required, must needs be Duty too. And what can be more express than this, from our Saviour's own mouth, Veri Adoratores adorabunt Patrem. The true Worshippers shall worship the Father; which, that as we ought, we may do, we will pass to the last Considerable in my Text.  
Third, The manner how. In spirit and in truth. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  
Spiritu ac veritate [as Beza,] with spirit and truth, (for he leaves out the In.) And indeed there are 
Erasmus.  more of the Learned beside him, who taking this for an Hebraism, conceive they ought to be so read, and 
Matth. 3. 11.  indeed so read the like: For whereas it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, I indeed Baptism you (in Aqua) we English it, not in, but with Water.  

* Rom. 15. 6.  And, whereas it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: we read it right enough, With one mind and one mouth glorify 
Rom. 1. 9  God. And whereas St. Paul saith, God is my witness, whom I serve in Spiritu meo; we read it, not in, but with my Spirit. And therefore whereas it is said in the Text, The true worshippers shall worship, in spiritu & veritate; we may very well read it thus, The true Worshippers shall worship the Father with spirit and with truth.  
And therefore those who think by these two words, In Spiritu, in Spirit [for they never mind in Truth] to void and destroy all outward Worship, they may be deceived and mistaken in the very letter of the Text, which being it may be as (if not more) justly read, with the Spirit, as in the Spirit, the bottom of their Building it totters, if not down. And therefore for the better both Explication and Application of these words, I shall reduce all that followeth into these four Propositions.  
Spirit and Truth are not here opposed to outward bodily Worship, nor to any outward expression of Grace or Virtue.  
A public Worship in Spirit, without Truth (the outward expression of it) cannot be.  
The Christian practice of worshipping God by Adoration and Liturgies, demonstrates that they held that way the way of worshipping in Spirit and in Truth.  
Lastly, Being Christians are the only true Worshippers, I shall briefly show, how much it concerns us to give all due regard and respect to the outward and public worship of God under the state of the Gospel.  
First, Spirit and Truth are not here opposed, either to outward bodily worship, or to any outward express of any Grace or Virtue.  
And this to a wary ear hath already been concluded by the premises: For, being I have showed unto you, how the Question between the Samaritan and our Saviour, was about two Worships; one false, and the other gross; one Idolatrous, and the other Legal; one by the Jew to the true God, the other by the Samaritan to they knew not what: To these two Worships, our blessed Lord and Master in the Text opposeth these two, Spirit and Truth.  
To the Gross, Legal, and Jewish way of worship, to that he opposeth the Spirit. To the False, Idolatrous, and Samaritan way, to that he opposeth the Truth. So that to worship in Spirit and in Truth, is no more according to the Letter than only thus.  
The hour is coming, and now is, when the Law shall give way to the Gospel; Moses to Christ; the Jewish worship, which was then by Bullocks, Goats, and Lambs, to a spiritual worship, which shall require no such Sacrifice, no such Oblations. And in order to the Samaritan thus: The time is coming and Now is, when ye shall be better informed in the word of Truth; when ye shall know what to worship; and than you shall find neither Gerasin to be the place, nor what ye now worship to be the Object; For the true worshippers they shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. So that by spirit and truth, there is nothing stands here excluded, but either worshipping the wrong object, as did the Samaritan; or the right Object the wrong way, as the Jews do, even to this very day.  
Hugely then are they mistaken, who conceit, to worship in spirit is a discharge to bodily or outward worship; when the opposition and the discharge it only is against Mosaic and Samaritan, against Legal and against Idolatrous worship. Yea, so far was our Saviour in those words from excluding bodily and outward worship, that those who know any thing of the Greek, know he here useth a word so proper to bodily and outward expression, that the spirit alone cannot do it. The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which signifieth an outward prostration, and a lowly humbling of the Body; so that the true Worshippers of the Father, when in a godly sear, and with a religious reverence they bow down, and humble their Bodies before him, they then do what the Text requires; they do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. They do worship in spirit, yea, and in truth too. And,  
As the Spirit is not opposed to bodily worship; so neither is it to any outward and exterior evidence, or express of any Grace or Virtue: For to forbid Grace or Virtue to show forth itself, were, to take splendour from Light, and to restrain the exercise of all inward Piety's.  
Indeed, if we closely consider of the Mosaic and outward worship of the Jews, to wit, Sacrifice, Oblations, Incense, and the like; these were not accounted the visible expressions of any inward Grace: Nor were these the outward Acts of any interior Piety; but those were the shadows of things to come, and the representative Types of what was substantially to be verified when the Gospel came; and therefore no wonder if spirit and truth both stand opposed to these: But bodily expressions, and outward Gestures, Signs and Ceremonies under the Gospel, these are the outward Evidences of inward Graces, the outward Manifestations of inward Piety's: As, devoutly to frequent Christian Churches, and to be present at the public Worship, it is an outward expression of an inward Grace, to wit, of Christian Religion; for hereby we declare ourselves such, who profess to worship the Father, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent. To profess with the Mouth, it is an outward expression of an inward Faith: To confess our sin, is an outward expression of an inward penitence: To humble ourselves lowly upon our Knees, an outward express of an inward Reverence: To receive the Sacrament, an outward express of an inward Piety. So that if Spirit and Truth stood opposed to these, there could be no visible Religion, nor no outward godliness in the world: And this properly leads to the  
Second Proposition, which is to show, A public worship in spirit, without truth, the outward expression, cannot be.  
Now that I say, a public Worship, it is no more than my Text requireth: For the whole difference between our Saviour and the Samaritan, it was not (you have seen) about inward or private, but merely about outward and about public worship; for Gerasin and Jerusalem they were the seat of public worship.  
Whereas then our Saviour, speaking to the point of public worship, plainly averréth, that even that, shall be in spirit and in truth; it even hence inevitably followeth, that Spirit and Truth cannot here stand opposed to Visible, Bodily, and exterior worship: For, if there must be under the Gospel a public Worship, and that worship must be in spirit and in truth; Outward, Visible, and Bodily expressions they cannot here be inhibited; for they must be the publishers of all religious and all interior worship. For,  
1 Cor. 2. 11. No man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of a man which is in him. Suppose a man to have within him all the graces of the Gospel; no man can know this so long as they only are within him: for the inward or reserved things of man knoweth no man, save the spirit of a man which is within him. If then the graces of the Gospel was either given to edisie others, or to glorify God; both these require they be not kept within; and therefore Spirit without Truth, or inward conceptions without outward expressions, they will never do the work of God.  
By worship then in Spirit and Truth, we must here understand a complete Worship; that is, the worship of the whole Man; Spirit and Truth, that is both. For, as the outward without the inward, is mere Hypocrisy; even so the Spirit without Truth, the Mind without the Members, will make but an halting and an halving Sacrifice. Yea, in public, to worship in Spirit without manifestations of that Spirit, it is both a scandalous, and an incredible worship: For, as we cannot reasonably believe that man is sober in spirit, whose Body reels, vomits, and staggers before our Eyes; and as we cannot reasonably believe him honest at Heart, who we see deceitful in Weights and Measures; nor him charitably minded, who we hear reviling, cursing, and defaming his Neighbour: So neither can any man reasonably believe that that man is devout in Spirit, who is rude in Body; that that man is full of fear within, who is full of sauciness without; that that man doth Reverence in Spirit, who hath nothing of Reverence in the outward gesture: So that Spirit and Truth seem to me like the outward Expression to the inward Meaning: for if the outward Expression be not answerable to the inward Meaning; if we think one thing, and say another, (though we say better than we think) there is no sincerity nor truth in what we say. Even so here, if we pretend in Spirit to have in us the dreadful apprehension of our God, when in outward appearance we show nothing less; if this be to worship in Spirit; it is not, it cannot be in Truth: For the signs of Fellowship, of Familiarity, and of Boldness, they can no more be the true expressions of the inward apprehension of Majesty, Terror, and an infinite Distance, than can Vomiting be of Sobriety; outward Cheating of inward Honesty; Railing and Wronging of inward Charity. For they, who know any thing of Truth, cannot but know, that Truth (in general) is nothing else but an outward Conformity to the inward Apprehension, a real Evidence, and Interpreter of the inward meaning: And therefore, wheresoever the outward conformity is not answerable to the inward conception; and the outward Demeanour is not proportionable to the Spirit that acts within, let people pretend what height and holiness of Spirit can be imagined, Spirit and Truth are never evidenced in God's Worship, or (which is all one) to God's honour and glory, unless the outward Demeanour be proportioned to the inward Spirit, and the Spirit within be really conformed to his Greatness.  
1 Cor. 14. St. Paul speaking of a Christian convert, whose Spirit was touched with the Greatness, Goodness, and the Glory of his God, tells us, so active and powerful was the inspired Spirit, that it enforced a manifestation of the truth of it: for, 
* Vers. 26.  Falling down on his face he worshipped God.  
Now, without peradventure, had those who pretend to have the most holy and best spirits, such a feeling and real sense of the Goodness, Greatness, and the Glory of God, as had the Convert: Even they, as well as he, would fall upon their Faces; or at least in God's public Worship, give some more probable and better evidence that they fear God, and that they are before him but as Dust and Ashes: for if the spiritual man is the greatest discerner; if he is most sensible of what a God he serves; certainly then (either there is no truth in him, or) he is the most devout, and the humblest worshipper in the world.  
Amongst us men, in case God should sensibly reveal 
Exod. 3 4.  himself, and manifest himself to the Eye, as in the Bush to Moses; or in the habit of the Captain of an Host 
Josh. 5. 14.  to Joshua; or in Thundering and Lightning upon mount Sinai: In such a case as this, I believe very few, if any, but would say we were bound to worship; and in pursuance of that worship, to humble our Bodies, to fall upon our Faces, and even ontwardly to use the utmost reverence that we could.  
And here I have a special Appeal to those who (themselves confessing are in the religious attendance of their God) put on their Hata! To them I appeal, whether if the Great God, even now, should at this instant break in upon them, and show himself [as I have already said] as terrible as upon mount Sinai; or in a flaming Bush; or but as he did to Joshua with a Sword in his Hand: I desire such to consider, whether such an Apparition, or such a Manifestation, would not, not only move, but hasten them to throw off their Hats, to fall upon their Knees; yea, prostrate on their Faces. Now than if it be so, I beseech you let us calmly consider, what is the solemn, real, and serious bottom or motive, for which we ought to give unto our God all Glory, Honour, Reverence, and Worship. Is it Visibility, or is it Sight? If so, then none are bound to Reverence, Worship, Kneel, or fall down before him, but those only who see him with their Eyes, and behold him as a thing sensible; whereas God himself hath told us, Exod. 33. 21. There shall no man see me and live.  
The ground, then, Foundation and Motive to glorify and worship God, it is not in Sense, but in Faith; it is not the seeing, but the believing, the Glory, Majesty, Dominion, Power, and Greatness of our God, that should move Christians to fear, adore, and worship: And therefore, if we believe God to be in Heaven as glorious as the Angels see him, as terrible as the Damned find him, or as dreadful as he appeared upon Mount Sinai: If we believe him to be a God mighty in Power, glorious in Majesty, and that God who is to be feared above all Gods: In the Name of that God (I beseech you) let us but manifest that Faith, and my Text is done; for so to do, doubtless is to worship the Father both in Spirit and in truth.  
Matth. 18. 20. Where two or three are gathered together in my Name, there am I in the midst of them. Our Saviour did not say, there you shall behold or see me; yet he positively said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, There am I  
Now, being God will be worshipped where he is not seen, let us but so pray, so praise, so sing, so worship where he is [though not seen] as if we did see him we believe we ought; there would never be any further dispute or demur about outward Worship: For the Spirit of God, and Truth, are in such a perfect union, that he who worships in Spirit, that is, in the due Faith, and fear of God, he will be devout, he will be humble, he will by a meet demeanour, and outward deportment, show the reality and truth of such a Spirit; for such cannot but conclude the truth. No public Worship can or aught to be in Spirit only.  
Thirdly, The Christian practice of worshipping God by Adoration and Liturgies, demonstrates that they held that way the way of worshipping God in spirit and in truth.  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Adoratio, or, as we render it, Worship, it is taken either in Abstracto, or in Concreto, as the School; that is, either for an Act of itself, or as in Conjunction with some other Christian-duty. Matth. 4. When the Devil made his last assault upon our Saviour, he did require neither Prayer, nor Praise, nor Sacrifice, nor Oblation; only thus said, Vers. 9 All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. He only required an outward act of Worship abstracted from all Duty. Whence it appears to me, that Adoration or Worship abstractly considered, when it only imports God's Majesty, and our Distance, even thus, and no more, it is of great account with God Almighty; or else the subtle Devil would never have attempted by a single act of Adoration to have robbed the World of a Redeemer, by thus doing to make the Saviour of Mankind a Sinner.  
But, by Worship in the Text, we are not to understand Worship in the Abstract, but as going along with other Duties, such as make up Christian Worship. Now that it may appear that unless the Christian Church (for of Schismatical and Fanatic spirits, unless by pity, we are to take no notice) by a Worship in Spirit and Truth, and by worshipping the Father, understood worshipping in a Form (for Father implies a Form) and by public Liturgies; let us a little survey their Piety and their Prayers. First, Our blessed Lord and Master, who gave this rule, he himself exemplified what he gave for the exact Pattern, and the very Basis of all Gospel-worship, is, Pater Noster, Our Father. The Apostolical 
Matth. 6.  Symbol, the Canon and Square of all the Professions of our Faith, it begins, Credo in Deum Patrem, I believe in God the Father. Confession of sins, as the words were by our Saviour put into the mouth of the penitent Prodigal, it is an address unto the Father; I will go to my Father, etc. And Father, I have sinned 
Luke 15. 18.  against heaven and against thee. The Sacrament of Initiation, or first admittance into the mystical Communion, it is confined to this rule; In the Name of the 
Matth. 28. 19  Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Yea, when the Church in humble thankfulness returneth Praise and Glory unto God for all his benefits, it is done (as becomes true Worshippers) by worshipping the Father, and by saying, Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, etc.  
And as for the Church of England, is not every Collect a most exact Gospel-worship? Almighty and most merciful Father, begins our Confession. Almighty God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, begins our Absolution. Then the Prayer of the Son unto his Father: And the Close of every Collect is, through Jesus Christ; which is still an implication of the Father: So that according to this rule, the true Worshippers shall worship the Father. Who can be truer Worshippers than that Church, all whose public Prayers are Addresses and Acts of worship to the Father? And as for Spirit and Truth, had it been inconsistent with public and outward Worship, or with Form, then St. Paul would 
1 Tim. 2.  never have writ to Timothy, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Prayers should be not only said, but made for Kings and all that are in Authority.  
St. James the Brother of our Lord, he had scornfully and ignominiously been termed Jacobus Liturgus, James the Liturgist, had set Forms been inconsistent with Spirit and truth. Justine Martyr he would never have spoken of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, of Common-prayers, nor Ignatius before him of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, of one Prayer, had it been a stinting of the good Spirit to have a Liturgy, or a Common-prayer. Yea, there would have been no Churches to have worshipped God in, no public Assemblies to have worshipped there, nor indeed no use at all of our Bodies in order to God's glory, if Spirit and Truth concluded against outward worship.  
Whatsoever then the ancient Churches understood by Spirit and Truth, they did not understand an opposition either to bodily or to outward worship: For, that which is held the best Interpreter of Scripture, to wit, Praxis Ecclesiae, the Church-Practice, you see it doth evince the contrary; for they had Churches; they had known and set Forms for public worship. Yea, Beza himself in his smaller Notes, thus: Quae ad Ordinent spectant, ut precum formulae disposuit Apostolus; Those Decencies which appertain to Order, as Forms of Prayer, the Apostle himself prepared and disposed.  
By Spirit and Truth then, we may very well here understand a worshipping of the Father, according to those measures which the Spirit, Light, and Grace of the Gospel prescribeth and alloweth to us. By Truth, we may understand such outward expressions and manifestations as are proportionable to such a Spirit, to such Light, to such Grace: for so by their unanimous and constant practice, the primitive and best Churches understood it.  
Lastly therefore, give me leave in a word to show how much it concerns us to give all due regard and respect to the outward and public Worship of God under the state of the Gospel.  
The Servants of God under the Gospel, they are styled by our Saviour Veri Adoratores, the true Worshippers (not the unsatiable Hearers.) Now it seems strange to me, that Christians should emphatically be called the true Worshippers, and yet many make no account at all of Evangelical Worship; as if God did not as much regard the honour done unto his Person, as he doth the bare hearing and listening to his Word: Or as if Pray continually, and Continue in prayer, sounded not as much duty, as doth Be instant in season and out of season.  
By Evangelical Worship I understand Prayers, Supplications, and giving of Thanks, confession of Sin, profession of Faith, making and performing of Vows, oblation of Praise, singing of Hymns and Psalms, reception of Sacraments, Adoration either with or without these. So that the Father is then worshipped in Spirit and in Truth, when there is a reverential address, or a religious performance of all or any of these before him; so that we cannot come under the honourable Appellative in the Text, Veri Adoratores, true Worshippers, unless we outwardly and publicly even thus assemble for to worship. Esay 66. 23. the Evangelical Prophet, speaking of Gospel-days, thus writes: All flesh shall come to worship before me, saith the Lord.  
To worship, is (not to clap on our Hats and sit on our Seats to hear a Sermon, but) to perform some act of honour, some humble office, some such religious Duty, the reverence whereof may show forth our distance, and the Father's glory; the performance whereof may move all who see it say, These men are in the presence, and before their God: These men know what they worship: These men have the Fear and Apprehension of a glorious Majesty before their eyes.  
For, being the great design of God in all his works is the setting forth of his own Glory, Worship it is the very immediate tendency to that great end: For, they that worship, it is their actual employment to set forth his praise, and to magnify him under some glorious Attribute or other: So that indeed between Hearing and Worshipping there is as much difference, as between Hearing and Doing: For Hearing being but a disposition to Doing, Worship is the very practice; Doing, and actual Advance of God's honour; and therefore a Duty not to be laid aside, nor so coolly frequented and performed as by too too many. He who in the second Commandment said, Thou shalt not bow down to them or worship them: He who forbids Sacrisice, and Prayers, and Praises, yea, the very bowing of the Body to false Gods, doth not in so doing imply less than a reservation of this Worship to himself: And therefore to him who is the everliving God, and the everlasting Father, to him we must ascribe and give the Glory, the Honour, and the Worship that evangelically is due unto him: for the true Worshippers are in all duty bound to worship the Father, and to worship him in Spirit and Truth.  
Hos. 6. 6. I desired mercy and not sacrisice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings. Under the Law, we all know the ordinary and outward Worship it was Sacrifice, and Burnt-offerings; and yet mercy and the knowledge of God, Spiritual and Evangelical acts were even then most acceptable; and even then upon this very account you shall find both David and the people going up to worship.  
Psal. 122. 1. I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord. Now, what did the people go into the House of the Lord for? or for what did David so rejoice to go up with them? was it think you to hear a Sermon? No; but it was to worship; or, as it is v. 4. To give thanks unto the Name of the Lord. And,  
Psal. 42. 4. What is it the Prophet David there so sadly remembreth, and in bitterness poureth forth his Soul for the want of it, but only this; I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God. What to do? only to hear? No; but to worship, and to give praise to God: For it followeth; I went up with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holiday. He was a great Worshipper, and delighted to go up with them who went to worship. And it seems to me worth observation, and to our present purpose, that from the beginning of the world, all along in Scripture, we never read of any erection raised to God, but the first and prime intention of it was Worship. For,  
The first holy erections we read of, they were Altars; and those we know were for Sacrisice, which was then Worship. The second we read of, was the Tabernacle; and at the Door of this Moses and Aaron they went up to worship. Thirdly, we read of a glorious Temple built by Solomon; of a second built by Zerubbabel; a third by Herod, all devoted and built for Worship. Yea, saith God by his Prophet, My house 
Esay 56▪  shall be called the house of prayer to all nations: and what is that but the house of Evangelical worship? And indeed we find to that very use the blessed Apostles 
Acts 3. 1.  did put the Temple; Peter and John they went up to the Temple at the hour of prayer. Yea, the very first Houses that the holy Christians after them built, they were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Oratories, or Houses of Prayer. And indeed what is Heaven itself, and the glorious presence of our God, but a place of worship? Rev. 4. 10. The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power; for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.  

1 Cor. 13.  Yea, if that Argument of St. Paul, upon which he prefers Charity before Faith and Hope, be concluding; if Charity, because it abideth when Faith and Hope shall be no more, is therefore the more excellent gift; certainly then, since we find Worship where Preaching shall not be; since we find Worship the employment of Angels, and the everlasting exercise of beatified Saints and Souls; to worship God must needs be a duty of no mean concern, specially if we consider how we are taught to pray, Thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven: for the will of God there is an incessant, and an everlasting worship.  
Now certainly either we mind not what we pray, believe not we are to do as well as to say our Prayers; or else we could not conceive ourselves bound to worship upon Earth even him, who is incessantly worshipped in the Heavens.  
And being I have showed unto you how all holy places that were ever erected, either by Commandment from God, or by the instinct or motion of the Spirit of God, were all chiefly designed for worship; that is, for offering up unto God either Sacrifice, or Prayers, Praises, Confession of Sins, Professions of Faith, Hymns, Psalms, and spiritual Songs; therefore such places, they ought to be frequented by us, and that purely upon the account of these performances, that is, upon the account of Worship: For,  
He that enters into this House of Prayer, and devoutly, as did the Publican, shall smite his Breast, and say no more than God be merciful to me a sinner; he doth God more honour than is done by the rude and ordinary hearing of a Sermon. He who shall humbly fall upon his Knees, and sincerely offer up unto the Father the Prayer of his own Son, those two Knees do God more honour than a thousand Hats upon a thousand Heads. Yea, being it is the charge of our blessed Lord and Master, Let your light so shine before men, that they may 
Mat. 5. 16.  see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven; It is impossible any example should be visible, unless the Reverence be sensible, and the outward Expressions such as may move others to fall down and worship; that is, reverendly to confess, to praise, to bless, and to glorify our Father which is in Heaven. It is an old saying and a true, Occultae Musicae nullum encomium, Of concealed Music there is no praise: For, let an Artist have in him the sense and habit of Music never so well, be he able in his Spirit to lodge the comprehensions of all Harmony; yet unless he either sing or play, unless he either by Voice or Instrument discover this hidden skill, he can neither give delight to the Hearer, or get any praise or respect unto himself. Even so it is in Religion and holy Duties; let men have in Spirit the habits of Faith, Hope, Charity, and all Graces whatsoever; all this, whilst but in the Spirit, it only is Occulta Musica, undiscerned Piety, invisible goodness, nothing at all either edifying others, or advancing God's glory. So that whether it be Conversation or Worship; Spirit without Truth, inward Religion without outward Evidence, Faith within, without Works without; they may be Arguments of a Fanatic, by no means of an holy Spirit. So that I shall conclude this whole Discourse with that of our Saviour, Matth. 19 6. Whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. Whether it be in our converse with God or Men; whether it be in God's Service, or in God's Worship; whether what we do hath respect to the Person of God, or to the Commands of God; Spirit and Truth, whom God hath joined together, they must never be put asunder.  
What Graces soever we have in the Spirit, the truth of their being there must be evidenced by our outward carriage; what Reverence, what Fear, what Awe, and what Esteem soever the Spirit hath of the Majesty, Presence, and Greatness of our God, that must be verified, seen, and proved by our outward Worship. For,  
If God in Heaven will not that Angels and Spirits worship within themselves (and as some take the Notion) in Spirit only: If to him all the Angels cry aloud, the Heavens and all the powers therein: If to him Cherubin and Seraphin continually do cry, Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Sabbaoth, Heaven and Earth are full of the Majesty 
Rev. 5. 11▪  of thy Glory: If to him Ten thousand times ten thousand were heard saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing; certainly then all the Earth should worship him, magnify his Name, confess before him, and confess him before men; we should all sing, and praise, and laud, and do every thing, and nothing but such things in time of his holy Worship, as may speak the Glory, the Goodness, the Holiness, the Greatness, and the Majesty of the God we worship. And thus to do, is to do my Text; thus to do, is to worship in Spirit and in Truth. And so I have done with these words, The hour cometh and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth. Tibi soli Domine debetur Latria, tibi omnis honos, adoratio, cultus, nunc, & in aeternum,  
Amen.  
FINIS.   

A REVIEW OF A BRIEF APOLOGY FOR SUCH SEQUESTERED CLERGY, Who choose rather to suffer Sequestration, Than to lay aside The LITURGY, And receive The DIRECTORY.  
Written in a Letter to Mr. STEPHEN MARTIAL; whose Answer is here Printed, never before extant; and how obtained.  
TOGETHER WITH A brief Persuasive to the only use of Set FORMS in Private FAMILIES.  
By John Allington, Vicar of Leamington-Hastang.  
Quod ad formulam Precum & Rituum Ecclesiasticorum valdè probo, ut Certa illa sit, à quâ Pastoribus discedere in Functione suâ non liceat; tam ut consulatur quorundam simplicitati. & imperitiae, quam ut certius ita constet omnium inter se Ecclesiarum Consensus.  
Johannes Calvinus Protectori Angliae, 1 Edw. 6th.  
LONDON: Printed for Thomas Basset, at the George near St. Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet. 1678.   

To the Honourable, And his much honoured Neighbour, CHARLES LEIGH Esq; At Burdingbury.  
SIR,  
THe justice of your Birth forceth me to preface you by that [which I conceive] is least honourable in you, Your native Nobility. For, morally to speak, look what is necessary is scarce laudable. 
— Quae non fecimus ipse,  
Vix ea Nostra voco.  An adventitious is no acquired Honour: And if Poetry may pass for Heraldry, 
Nobilitas sola est atque unica Virtus.  There is no real Nobility which hath not more of Virtue than Blood in it. And this seems patronised by a great Fountain of Honour, even our blessed Lord and Master, who allowed the Jews to be the Seed, but not the Sons of Abraham: for he plainly tells them, it was Works and Imitation, not a Line or Descent, that made Children unto Abraham.  
The witty Atheist who in his Dialogues brings in Galatea and Doris discoursing of the love of Polyphemus, tells her, she should not look upon his Deformity, or mind his having but one Eye, and that in his Forehead; for he was the Son of Neptune. But the nice Nymph replied smartly, An verò credis genus illi quicquam profuturum ad formam? Thinkest thou that a Descent can make beautiful? or because begot by a God, deformities are comely? Now truly as descent cannot make that lovely and amiable that is not so; so neither can descent make that honourable that is not so: For though I perfectly abhor to think that 
Hoc proprium est sanctorum, quod Rebus creatis pro suo jure utuntur. Beza in Hebr. 2. p. 8.  Dominium fundatur in Gratiâ, That Right or Propriety is founded in Grace, of that only Saints have right to their Goods, or only the godly party a just title to Riches and secular Dominion; yet may I distinguish between real and secular Honour. I conceive such to empty themselves of all real Repute, and divest themselves of all due Honour, who by doing unworthy things make themselves vile, unclean, and that which stands in direct opposition to what is truly honourable: So that a man may as well argue, deformed and ugly Polyphemus was therefore beautiful, because Neptune was his Father; as a Vicious person therefore truly and really honourable, because a person of true honour got him.  
To you [my honourable Neighbour] I therefore make my Address, because you have Honour of your own, intrinsical Honour, such which you merit to be honoured and regarded for, Religion, Sobriety, Temperance, and the rare Grace of these times, Conjugal Chastity; no man rejoicing more with the Wife of his Youth, and [as the holy Pen expresseth it] ravished always with her love.  
To you [worthy Sir] I have made bold to give the Patronage of what here followeth; which being a brief Assertion of a necessity of publicly worshipping God by a set Form, I therefore make yours, because beside that personal Piety which your God alone is witness to, your prudence in your Family hath wisely chosen constantly to use only that Form which we rightly call Common-prayer. And indeed many, very many reasons may be given to confirm your choice, and persuade your imitation.  
First, By the Law of the Land Open Prayer, such which is for others to come to hear, is only the Service of the Church, our Common-prayer: So that if Law be a rule, and the regular man be the laudable person; he is most so who conforms to Law, and regulates himself and Family by it.  
Secondly, An unknown Worship, it is a proportionable folly to an unknown God: For, as St. Paul told the Athenians it was superstitious and unlawful for them to worship they knew not what, [though that unknown was thought to be the true God:] Even so as unlawful it may seem [or else let Latin Prayers pass] to worship a known God we know not how; which he who joins issue in a conceived or unknown Prayer must needs do: For the Worship must be over, before he can judge of it.  
Thirdly, To offer the Blind, Lame, or Sick to God for Sacrifice, God himself hath declared Evil. But whosoever shall bare his Head, fall upon his Knees, and be ready to join in the Oblation of he knows not what; he is in a present disposition to offer up to his God [for aught he knows] the Blind, the Lame, the Sick, that is, such crude and unhallowed, both Petitions and Expressions, as are unworthy the Almighty; yea, unfit to be presented to a Governor.  
Fourthly, To offer that to our God which would not please our Governor, God abhors. Now what man amongst us will be content that a Petition be drawn and proffered in his Name to a man of Power, and he never see it, nor hear it read, till 'tis read and offered to the Governor? And shall we think it meet with less consideration to offer up our Prayers to God, than Petitions to one like unto ourselves?  
Fifthly, Every considering man will find, to the completing of a public Prayer, there must be a concurrence of these six Acts. 1. Hearing. 2. Understanding. 3. Consideration. 4. Judgement. 5. Oblation. And Lastly, Devotion. Now, whether these can be better managed when a man knoweth what to pray, or where a man must warily listen what [through distance, or for not acquaintance with the Voice] he oft cannot understand, or understanding cannot so instantly consider and judge of, as to deem it a meet oblation for his God: Whether, I say, these acts can better be discharged [and Praestantissima quaeque Deo] upon a transient than a set Form, let every man so judge, as he will answer it to his God.  
Sixthly, Men of different Principles can never conscionably join in conceived or conceited Prayer. For, he who holds Original Sin in Infants, as such, no bar to Salvation, he cannot abide that men in Prayer should say they are damned before born, and came into the world Brands of Hell-fire! Or such who hold Sacraments have no effect but in the Elect only, these cannot join in a preparative Prayer; but either they must have a Congregation of Elect only, or they must rashly say they know not what, and pray for such grace for some present, which they pretend to know God will never give. And indeed, upon what but upon this, are built all the sorry Objections against the Liturgy?  
Seventhly, Conceived Prayer, or, as they call it, praying by the Spirit, is for the most part a great cheat, being the main Product of a ready Tongue and a strong Memory, in which is treasured up for all occasions Scripture-Phrases, Collections, Notes, and such Expressions as are most taking and popular. For, that the Holy Spirit will put words into the mouth of any man, as he did once into Balaam's Ass, suddenly and irresistibly; or that by the Spirit of Prayer is meant a capacity to speak in the Vocative Case an Hour or two, is not yet proved to a serious and a sober Christian.  

Zech. 12. 10.  That place of Zechary, I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and supplications; it will by no means do them this service. For [Authority I hope undeniable to conceivers] the Assembly-Annotations tells us, And I will pour; This Prophecy had its accomplishment partly upon our Saviour's coming, and yet shall more fully upon the last conversion of the Jews: So that by them the present Church seems not the subject of this promise. Indeed they say the house of David typically represents the Church of Christ and the Children of God. But then by the Spirit of Grace and Supplications, they by no means mean the gift of Prayer, or a power of a sudden to say what they list in the Vocative Case. For by the spirit of Grace, they only mean an help from God to make Prayer in Believers holy and acceptable, and that is far from long and indigested Rhapsodies. And as for that upon which fanatics lay the great stress, the Spirit of Supplications; The Comment declines it wholly, and rather sides with those who render the Original by Compassion or Lamentation. So that this is a pitiful Bottom to cozen and cheat the people on, with, or to an expectation of such a surprise of Spirit as shall make them pray what they list, and as long. And indeed both the learned in the Hebrew Tongue, and the Context bear against it: for albeit some conceive, as the vulgar Latin renders it, Prayer or Supplications may; yet as Cornelius à Lapide [whom I therefore quote, because he hath prepared the Collection for me] upon the place observes, the Septuagint, the Chaldee, Pagnine, the Tigurine Version, and Hierom [by what some Humorists call the Spirit of Prayer] they rather render Compassion, Commiseration; a Mind tender and propense to pity and compassion. And indeed if we consider the very next words, and by them measure the prime end of this promise, we shall find the genuine and proper meaning of the Text must needs be thus:  
I will pour upon the house of David and the Inhabitants of Jerusalem a Spirit so tempered with Grace and Tenderness, that they shall be sensibly touched and affected when they shall look upon him whom they have pierced, and shall mourn for him, as one who mourneth for his only Son. Enough to evince the Septuagint, the Chaldee, and the rest, rather to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, The Spirit of Commiseration, Pity, and Compassion, than as the vulgar Latin [which, but to serve an interest, the godly Party abhors to follow] Spiritus precum, the Spirit of Prayers: Yea, in former 
Tyndal Rps. Bible, Geneva.  and elder English Versions it is read thus, The Spirit of Grace and Compassion; and perchance had been so still, had not this pretended gift of praying sprung out not many years before the last Translation.  
But since men have had an itch to magnify their own gifts, and, as did the Scribes and Pharisees, by long prayer to get into and deceive the people, set Forms of Prayer hath been mightily depressed; as if those Prayers were unworthy a Parlour, that did decore a Church. But,  
If we shall look back to the days of Edward the sixth, and Queen Marry, we shall find both at home and abroad, both in private and in public, the Church-Prayers were venerable and of great use.  
In the days of Edward the sixth, one Thomas Cottesford put out the Church-prayers in the Singular Number, that they might be fitted for a Closet and a personal Devotion, and accommodated to every day of the Week Morning and Evening: And he was held a very good man in his days, and [as I have been told] of the Puritan way.  
In the days of Queen Mary, Dr. Taylor, Parson of Hadleigh in Suffolk, [as in his Life appears] when his Wife came in an Evening to visit him, his Evening-prayer was the Litany; and whilst he lay in Prison, his daily Prayers were the Service-book of Edward the sixth; and that Book he gave to his Wife as a pious Legacy. So that it was then no strange thing to use the Common-prayer in a private house; nor was that arrogancy of Spirit in holy Breasts, as to think no Prayer comparable to those of their own conceiving.  
I may take God to witness [honourable Sir] I can say with a perfect Heart as Moses once did [Numb. 11. 26.] Would God all the Lords people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them. But to hear ignorant, rash, cunning and catching people, calling their own, God's Spirit, and their crafty effusions, the Breath of God and his Dictates; This my soul abhors; an indignation to this, was a great motive to the following Letter. I conceived a necessity upon me then to assert a set Form, when an abundance of what was then called Prayer, savoured more of Diurnals, Designs, News, and Villainies, than of godliness, or purity of the Gospel. Yea, the Spirits of too too many of my own calling are not yet to be trusted to speak what they list in Prayer, some yet taking occasion rather to instil their present dislikes, than to promote a sincere and pure Devotion.  
Now being it is so, that men of different Principles can never conscionably join in a controverted Prayer, there seems to me even hence, a great necessity that Prayer should be set and known; that Prayer should be with such prudence and care composed; that nothing be in any of public cognizance which hath any thing of private Interest and Design in it.  
In the Offices of the Church of Rome, and in factious Prayers, we see and hear too much of this.  
Upon Ash-wednesday thus prayeth the Roman party: Omnipotent and eternal God, spare the Penitent, and be propitious to the Supplicant— Et mittere digneris Sanctum Angelum tuum de Coelis, qui Benedicat & Sanctificet hos Cineres— And vouchsafe to send down thine holy Angel from Heaven, that he may bless and sanctify these Ashes. Will you see to what end? It followeth— Vt sint Remedium salutare Omnibus Nomen Sanctum tuum implorantibus, & semetipsos pro Conscientia Delictorum suorum accusantibus, ante Conspectum Divinae Clementiae facinora deplorantibus, vel serenissimam pietatem tuam suppliciter obnixeque flagitantibus—  
That they may be an wholesome Remedy to all who humbly call upon thy holy Name; and out of conscience of their own demerits accuse themselves, deploring their heinous sins in the sight of thy Divine Clemency, or humbly and earnestly begging thy most serene Piety.  
Et praesta per invocationem sanctissimi Nominis tui, ut quicumque eos super se asperserint pro Redemptione peccatorum suorum, Corporis sanitatem, & Animae tutelam percipiant, per Christum Dominum nostrum.  
And grant that by the invocation of thy most holy Name, whosoever shall sprinkle these upon themselves, for the Redemption of their sins, may receive the health of Body, and protection of Soul, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  
Now this Collect having that in it which the Principles of our Church allow not; for as much as we are wholly ignorant of any capacity in Ashes of being blessed and sanctified; or of any promise made, that upon prayer for such a Sanctification God will send an Angel from Heaven on such an errand; we not believing that Ashes are ordained to be an wholesome remedy to all who humbly call upon God's holy Name, or that in order to remission of sin we may sprinkle them upon our Heads; or if we should, that thence should issue (no not upon Christ's account) health to our Bodies, or protection to our Souls: we [I say] disbelieving all this, cannot join in such Petitions, neither give our presence or Amen to such a Prayer. And many, very many such extravagances are in the Roman Breviary and Missal.  
Now if Protestants generally opine it is not lawful knowingly to be present when Petitions against their Judgement and Conscience are to be offered up in Prayer and preferred to God; certainly then, it is at least very dangerous for any Christian to frequent conceived and unknown Prayers: For as bad, or worse than any is in the Roman Liturgy, have done, and may come from men so praying. And this probably was a main reason that the Independants dropped off from the Presbyterians, and the Quakers both; for neither having common principles, neither could conscientiously endure to pray together. And indeed to an unknown Prayer a discreet man may very well say, he therefore will not be present at it. I profess, it is a grand desire of my Heart, that as there is but one Shepherd, so there might be one Fold. I should rejoice at nothing more, than an universal Communion, a Catholic Peace among Christians; and perchance wise men will find no one better expedient, than an uniformity of Worship, by such a Form of Prayer, to which all sincere and sober Christians might say Amen.  
Now a Form nigher to such an one, wiser than myself have not seen any, than our present Liturgy: For let all the Exceptions to which the Roman Breviary and Missal are liable; and [could they be numbered] let all the insipid Excursions, Vagaries, Impertinences, and Follies of Extemporary and conceived Prayer be reckoned up; The Liturgy of the Church of England is not in any proportion [for Exceptions] to be compared with either; our Compilers aiming as Christians more at Unity, than at any discernible design whatsoever.  
But the Porch begins to be too big for the Building: and therefore, my most honourable Neighbour, I thus contract.  
In Privacies, as Closets, let the devout proceed a God's Name, to pour out their Souls by such expressions as may best heat Devotion, and best fix the Spirit: For words that most affect the Heart, and best suit to private grievances and personal want, are the best expedients there: For indeed only the Spirit of man knoweth what the Spirit would.  
But when the religious Master in his Parlour shall call in his Family to public Duty, than the Prayer, be it what it may, it would be set; and that were it only therefore, that the weak and more ignorant might surely learn it, it being a very laudable and good thing, to minister Words as well as Grace unto the hearer; and also for this reason further to secure the stranger, who upon this account can make but one hazard of his discretion; for than he shall be able to discern whether or no it be meet for him any more to join in such a Form. But if any worthy and devout person would that all who lodge under his Roof, or come ordinarily to his Table should join with him at his hours of Prayer [without some trespass upon prudence and civility] he can neither desire nor require it; unless he shall use a known and a public Form, and to choose the Common-prayer. For then, shall the Strangers be, Children of one and the same Mother the Church of England; it would be an unhandsome refusal in them, not to join in prayer for a blessing from God the Father in the words of our Catholic and holy Mother. Which Blessing may God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, confirm to you and yours, and upon all the honourable Family, is the unfeigned desire of  
From Leamington-Hastang, 1666. Honourable Sir, Your Neighbour professing himself most ready to Love, Honour, and Serve you, John Allington.   

TO THE READER.  
THough this little Treatise now appears under a second Impression, it is the Author's First: For the Father being in those days Proscriptus, the Child might very proportionably be Expositivus. When the Father durst not show his Head, the Child durst not tell his Name.  
Nor was it written with any intention of a public View; so that indeed by that shift, it bear's a fairer Front than he who writ it durst have put upon it: for amongst the honourable Army of Confessors, Divines sequestered upon our Church-account, he held himself too too unworthy to write their Apology: All his design was to give the reasons of his own Sufferings, and to show that he conceived he had just cause to prefer the Liturgy to his peace.  
Now for as much as these Reasons were given in such a time, when if they had not been Reasons, the Pressures and Indigenoes' attending them would easily have discovered, at their Request whom I much honour, I have reviewed the thing, and find that what is Truth and Reason, it will still be so, change the state and condition of Seculars how they please: So that look what in the days of Trial they then did, no other in these better days do they seem to me. And what to me, that also they appear to some so candidly judicious, that upon their account, and (as they conceive) for the good of others, they again show themselves; not so much because strong, but because short and plain, and ad Captum vulgi, and to their capacity who most need them; it being thought by some, that what was writ and published when the Liturgy (like Christianity in the days of St. Paul) was every where much spoken against; that will be much sooner heeded than what hath been published, since our Form of Worship hath been like the rising Sun, either for the Beauty or Necessity of it, received at most hands: For to receive it now may be gain, but to retain it then had more of godliness. But as the Apostle of the Gospel, the same may I say of the Liturgy; whether in pretence or truth it is now used, I do therein rejoice, and will rejoice; for I know this may turn to the salvation of many, by the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ; which being the spirit of Wisdom and Holiness, will much more certainly accompany a well-digested Form, than a sudden Rhapsody, in as much as Consideration and Prudence approach nigher to Holiness and Wisdom, than rashness, basty and inconsiderate Effusions.  
One pretending to pray in my sequestered Pulpit, is said to say, [O Lord get up upon thine Horse, and make haste into Ireland, or thou wilt lose more honour there than ever thou got'st in England.] He certainly had less of the spirit of Prayer, than he who shall devoutly read the meanest of our Collects. And it is very well known, if it were worth the while to shovel up such Dunghills, we might present the World with an huge heap of such unsavoury Profanations; and therefore except the madness of the people, and the upholding of their Credits who have thus dishonoured God, I cannot imagine what should hinder as universal joy, that Forms are established, and Ministers confined to pray with the Spirit and with the Understanding also: For if St. Paul did wisely well when he preferred five Words spoken with the understanding, before ten thousand in an unknown Tongue, certainly it is as proportionably true to say, A Prayer of five Lines deliberately made, understandingly penned, and devoutly offered, is to be preferred before an whole hour of that which neither Speaker nor Hearer can give any tolerable repetition or account of.  
Some whom I have lately treated with are come to this, Truly they like the Prayers, and wish there were no worse made: but the Imposition, that Christians should be under penalties compelled to be present at these Prayers, that they like not. Now for their sakes who make this Objection, I must needs (and especially to them) remember, that when the Lords and Commons, acting both without and against their King, were doing (as the godly Ministers and Party then hoped) their work; then, even they (now Enemies to Imposition) were by them styled Custodes & vindices utriusque Tabulae. Not only Gods Ministers, but God's Avengers. Then it was lawful for their Magistrates in matters of Religion and Worship to Impose; and if not obeyed, to Dispose, even of all men had.  
Thus thought the Worthy that I have to deal with; for Mr. Martial 
March 26. 1645.  in a Sermon upon Psal. 102. v. 16, 17. thus; Those in Authority in things of this life, may command and act ad Modum imperii [by way of imposing] in matters of Religion, And a little after: As Josiah put to death those that followed Baal, so may the Parliament those that will not return to the Lord, and leave Antichristianism.  
In the year 1647, I have the testimony of many persons of Quality (than Prisoners in the Tower) who after an hundred Solicitations but to have Bread out of their own Estates, received from a Chairman this Answer; He would famish them into the taking of the Covenant and Negative Oath.  
In the Articles for which I loft my Livelihood, a grand Charge is, the refusal of the Directory. Now, if it were lawful for usurping Powers to oblige, under the severity of undoing, to be present at no man knew what; at such Prayers as could neither be considered on, nor reviewed: Certainly then à Fortiori, it is much more lawful for a legal and undoubted Authority to exact our presence at a Form, which may be both seen, and read, and examined before men approach to make or give consent to the oblation of it. And indeed (not to make a business of this pretence) it is undoubtedly clear, that no party in Authority but did impose and did exact a Conformity to their Imposition.  
Witness the Protestation, the Covenant, and the Engagement! All Forms, Humane Forms; and such as have neither Command nor Example in the Book of God: Yea, they were Forms Contradictory and gainsaying each the other: And yet whosoever refused any one of them, he was proceeded against as disaffected to the present Government, and by consequent unworthy to enjoy his own Bread. Nor do I believe there can be found so great a difference between a Vow in Form and a Prayer in Form, that it shall be lawful for Usurpers to impose the one, and unlawful for the legal and loyal Magistrate to impose the other. So that refusal of the Common-prayer merely upon the account of Imposition, it seems to carry a greater measure of stomach than Conscience in it.  
And thus thought Mr. Calvin, or else he would never have writ to the Protector in the first of Edw. the sixth (as in the Title-page) That he exceedingly approved a set Form both of Prayer and Ecclesiastical Rituals, and would have it such, as no Pastor might recede from. And for proof of it, in England, I shall only relate what happened some nine years after, and may be read in the 1531 Page of the old and unpurged Edition of The Book of Martyrs, of John Careless a Coventry-Confessor; who to Dr. Martin thus:  
The second Edition [speaking of the Common-prayer of Edw. 6.] is good and godly, and in all points agreeing to the Word of God. And then infra: I will add thus much more, That the same Book which is so consonant and agreeable to God's Word, being set forth by common Authority, both the King's Majesty that is dead, and the whole Parliament-house, ought not to be despised of me, or of any other private man, under pain of God's curse and high displeasure, and Damnation except they repent.  

In a Letter of his.  April 25, 1556. See here one ready to go to the Stake [being, as himself writeth, proclaimed Heretic at Paul 's Cross] makes such a conscience of obeying the Authoritative Imposition of the Common-prayer-book, that he professeth, Nor he himself, [and will these Exceptors say he had not the Spirit of God?] nor any private man might not under the pain of God's curse despise it; pronouncing Damnation to all despisers if they repent not.  
In the Stirs of Frank-ford reprinted 
* Pag 180.  you shall find the Exiles of Frank-ford were so far from thinking it a pressure to a tender Conscience to impose a Discipline, that they made it a condition without which no reception into their Congregation, That not only Ministers, (as with us) but Men of all sorts, yea, and Women too, were to subscribe unto it. Nor is it ever to be dreamed there should ever be such a thing as Subordination, (or as they love to speak) Ruling Elders, without Impositions: Or that any wise man should impose, who hath not a coercive Power. So that either every particular Christian must be a Church, or there must be an obeying of them that have the rule over us, and a Communicating in such Prayers as 
Rom. 13. 17.  we ourselves made not.  
As for that fond Objection, (giving, but not granting of it) That set Forms stint the Spirit; I conceive the result of that Dispute amounts only to this. Whether it is meeter every private Minister, or a consultation of many Fathers should do it? For both equally do it. For, if the Prayer which they call conceived Prayer be indeed so; forasmuch as no Conception is imaginable without Form, by consequence this conceived is a form Prayer. And if so, than the Spirit in the Speaker is confined pro tempore to that Form.  
If it be not conceived nor considered, then 'tis rash, indigested; a present unfit for a Ruler, much more for a God. However, be it what it will, it circumscribes the Auditors, and binds up their attention to the present speaking.  
In a word, being the Nation hath sadly found, that both God hath been highly dishonoured, and the Souls of men truly religious mightily grieved at the Follies, Rebellions, Impertinencies, and prodigious Failings of private spirits, even under pretence of Prayer; there is a grand necessity of stinting, restraining, and limiting such spirits; toward which there is no more excellent expedient than a Form of Prayer; nor any Form (that I ever yet saw) beyond our own; concerning which I shall add this only.  
Sir Edward Cook in his famous Reports, reports, how in the 33 year of Queen Elizabeth, Mr. Cawdry sometime Parson of South-Lussenham, (in the little County of Rutland) was deprived as the Jury than gave in, For that he had preached against the Book of Common-prayer, and refused to celebrate Divine Service according to the same.  
Now (of the same little County) the Writer hereof May the 5th 1646. was at the Committee for plundered Ministers in Westminster Sequestered. March 17th, 1653, at the General Session's at● Oakham 
* 
A Precedent without a Precedent: or the Form of the Indictment.  
The Jurors for the Lord-Protector of England, upon their Oaths do present, that Edward Freeman of Ayston in the County of Rutland Gent. and Dorothy his Wife, the 25 of December, and the first of January 1653. and divers other Sabboth-days, and several days commonly called the holidays of Saints, and Friday called Good-Friday, and suchlike days as Ash-wednesday, and Sundays in Lent, Easter-day, and Whit-sundays, do usually travel from Ayston aforesaid to Wardly in the same County, to hear Mr. John Allington Clerk to read the most part of the Book of Common-prayer, and to receive the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper according to the Form of the said Book; and also do present the said J. A. Clerk, for reading the said Book of Common-prayer, or most part of it, at every such Assembly; and for administering the Lord's Supper to Popish and Prelatical persons of other Countries, Cringing, Bowing, and Kneeling to the Altar and Sacrament then administered, contrary to Ordinance of Parliament in that case provided. And did also say, he would be torn in pieces by wild Horses before he would give over bowing at naming Jesus.   Indicted. And upon the 28th of November, 1655, actually deprived by Major-General Butler, for Officiating or Celebrating Divine Service by the same. To the abiding of which Sequestration, Indictment, or Deprivation, whether (notwithstanding Mr. Stephen Marshall's following Answer) the Reasons here following in the Letter were persuasive, shall now be left to the censure of the patient and the prudent Reader.  
Isaac Massey.   

A BRIEF APOLOGY FOR THE Sequestered Clergy.  
Wherein (among other things) this Case of Conscience is judiciously handled:  
Whether any Minister of the Church of England may (to avoid Sequestration) omit the public use of the Liturgy, and submit to the Directory.  
In a Letter from a sequestered Divine to Mr. STEPHEN MARTIAL.  
Querelam Ecclesiae quisque Catholicus facit suam.  
Printed in the Year 1649.   

In Nomine Crucifixi, secundum illud primae ad Corinth. cap. secundo, verse. secundo.  
Reverend Sir,  
THis Address may seem very strange; and yet if you shall consider the occasion, it will appear that I could not prudently do other; for you being accounted a Light in that very House in which I stand eclipsed, I could not imagine by any other mean than your splendour, how to obtain the dissipation of this Cloud.  
Sir, so it is, that that worshipful and worthy Knight Sir John Trever is one to whom I owe very much; for it was his Letter and his Influence that first guided and planted me to and in the School of the Prophets: It was respect to him that gained me a Tutor; and it is now my respect to him, which gains you this trouble.  
For, when about the beginning of Michaelmas-term I was at London, meeting him in the Palace-yard, I thanked him for a late courtesy: his reply was, I had disabled myself from the capacity of a courtesy. I took leave to answer, it was my Conscience and the tenderness thereof that hath thus straightened me. He told me again in words (as I conceive) to these equivalent, that I was more biased by Conceit than Conscience, and guided rather by Will than Judgement.  
I have so little left, that I can demonstrate to the world I have not made gain my godliness; and I shall now desire to make it as evident unto you, that 'tis not Fancy, but Scruple, and Scruple only, for which myself, and in me a Wife and five Children very deeply suffer; so that I here with all respect implore your assistance, either to satisfy my weakness and set me right, or (which perchance may be the shorter work) be pleased to satisfy him whom I do so highly honour, that you conceive my grounds and reasons are such as may conclude me a rational and conscientious, though weak Brother.  
The misdemeanours (for so they are called) for which my conviction (bearing date May 5, 1646.) testifieth I am sequestered, they are these: 1. Adoration or worshipping God by bowing of my Body Eastward, or towards the holy Table. 2. For the exterior acknowledgement of the Deity of my Saviour, when summoned to it by his blessed Name Jesus. 3. For deserting my Cure two whole years. 4. For officiating by the Common-prayer-book, with refusal of the Directory: To which is added a general surmise of Malignancy against the Parliament.  
First, as of least concernment, I shall give you this brief account of the third charge, to which I negatively answer: I never at all did desert my Cure: For, being, as Justinian, derélictum dicitur quod Dominus eâ ment abjecit, ut id in numero rerum suarum esse nolit, that only is deserted which is thrown off with a mind to be no more possessed; I cannot possibly be said to have deserted my Cure, when by Petition upon Petition, by Letter upon Letter, and all the ways I could imagine, I implored my quiet at home, or to have leave to know why; and our Committee never would or did give way to either: so that what is here called desertion, is no more than what those words of Scripture will well warrant, When you are persecuted in one City, fly unto another.  
Secondly, Every absenting more than two years, in these days of trial, hath not been accounted sequestrable; and therefore under favour I suppose, though this by way of cumulation is put in, this is not the gravamen; for there is not in the Conviction any charge for flying to, or being in any forbidden Quarters.  
Lastly, I was so far from deserting my Cure, that I kept at my proper cost (though sequestered) a Curate all my absence; one who kept my people freer from distractions and aversions from the ways of the Church of England, than since they have been. But haec obiter; that which my conviction declares me to suffer for, it is a pretence of superstition, expressed by bowing to the East, to the Altar, and at the Name of Jesus. 2. For not laying aside and relinquishing the Liturgy.  
Now I beseech you with patience peruse this my Defence, in which I shall endeavour to clear first my acts of commission from being superstitious: And then 2, give my reasons why I take it to be a sin of omission to renounce the Liturgy.  
First, bowing to the East, and to the Altar, are not only false accusations, but false in such a degree, that (without my confession) are impossible to be proved: for being the intention only can specificate the term, it is not in the power of any man living to say to what I bow, or to what I kneel; for I am confident yourself bends your Knees toward many a thing to which you abhor to do it.  
Bow at his Footstool; that is, at the Ark and Mercy-seat; for there he hath made a promise of his presence. The words say not, Bow to the Ark, but to God at the Ark. Thus Mr. Perkins; 
Reform Catholic 707.  and thus and no otherwise did your Christian-brother bow either toward the East, or toward the holy Table. Now as the Jews (in Mr. Perkins charitable Divinity) did not bow to the Ark, but to God at the Ark; even so, when occasionally your Christian brother bowed at the holy Table, it was not to the Table or to the Altar, but to his God he made his Adoration, and that for the same reason which Mr. Perkins useth; for there he hath made a promise of his presence: There hath he enabled us (vi promissi) to say, This is my Body, this is my Blood.  
Now that it is an act of superstition to worship God by bowing of the Body, is a scruple in which I cannot be satisfied: For, as Mr. Perkins, so think I— The Worship of the Body is called 
Pag. 855. Ibid.  Adoration, which stands in bowing of the Knee, bending or prostrating of the Body, the lifting up of the Hands of Eyes— A duty which the same reverend Author proveth to be, as himself speaketh, altogether necessary, and that for three irrefragable reasons. 1. Because Love must not be conceived in the mind only, but also testified in the actions of the body. 2. Christ redeemed both, and therefore must be glorified with both. And lastly, Christ being an head to the whole man, for this cause not only Soul, but Body also must stand in subjection to Christ. Many others might be added, but it seems to me vain to add a Beam unto the Sun. Now if to worship by bowing of the Knee, prostrating the Body, and lifting up of Hands or Eyes be a duty lawful, yea altogether necessary, no matter which way soever it be done, still it is, as Mr. Perkins fully, an act, not of Superstition, but Adoration. For as it was no superstition in the Jew to worship God by bowing before the Ark or Westward; so superstition it is not to worship God by bowing before his holy Table; that is, in the phrase of antiquity, Eastward.  
And here, for their sakes who are weak, but willing to be wise, I shall make a not impertinent digression, to show how it is a pure popular error, to say that mere position can make an Altar; or that ranging a Table at the East-end turns it to an Altar.  
Scripture will furnish us with Altars in open Fields, nigh no 
1 Kings 18. 32.  Wall. The old Altar repaired by Elijah was so far from leaning to a Wall, that it was circumvironed with Water, surrounded with a Ditch or Trench. In the Temple of Solomon an Altar may be found standing [as the contentious would have it] in medio, in the middle. And sure I am, the most considerable Altar that the world ever saw, the Cross! upon which was crucified the precious Substance of all Types, it had no such Dimensions as unhappy Christians have wrangled about: For it stood without the Gate; yea, a Cross it stood, and yet was a most real Altar. So that it is not Posture, but the Oblation; not the Situation, but the Sacrifice which makes an Altar. I read, the very Altar on which [the supreme Lord of Superstitions] the Pope in person sayeth Mass, it stands in medio, in the Body of the Quire. And doubtless, might popish Priests have liberty to say Mass, they would not stand upon a position North or South. So that Altarwise hath more of scare, than any real fear in it.  
As for bowing to the East, or to the Altar, I am able to produce a Letter writ by me five or six years ago, ex Diametro against it, and am still ready to ratify that Doctrine.  
The second act of Superstition, it is bowing at the Name of Jesus: and to clear that, I shall thus argue. No act directly tending and intended for the advance of the glory of Jesus, can be superstitious; but to bow at the Name of Jesus in the sense of the Church of England, is an act both tending and intended for the advance of his glory, and therefore cannot be superstitious. For the proof of the minor Proposition, I appeal to the 18 Canon of the Church of England, where the end and intention of that gesture is clearly thus.  
When in time of Divine Service the Lord Jesus shall be mentioned, due and lowly Reverence shall be done by all persons present, as it hath been accustomed; testifying by these outward Ceremonies and gestures [observe what] their inward humility, Christian resolution, and due acknowledgement, that the Lord Jesus Christ, the true and eternal Son of God, is the only Saviour of the world.  
Now upon this ground I thus argue: For as much as both Words and Gestures have their individuation and specification merely by use, Law or Custom; what this gesture of bowing at the Name of Jesus is to signify and import in the Church of England, this the Representative part thereof having clearly manifested, we are to take it in that sense and in that signification, in which and for which it cometh from them proposed and commended to us.  
For as in Languages we receive and use words in and according to that power and meaning which the first Authors and contrivers delivered them unto posterity; even so, that I might ever avoid the being contentious, look what spiritual and internal duties my Mother the Church of England professed to express and signify by such and such exterior gestures, such I conceived they did import, and in such sense and signification I did use and communicate them unto others.  
Whereas then (as the Canon clearly) the due and lowly Reverence exacted at the Name of Jesus, is only to testify our inward humility, Christian resolution, and due acknowledgement, that the Lord Jesus Christ is the true and eternal Son of God; This being the known and declared end and meaning of this Gesture, bowing at the Name of Jesus can no more in my weak apprehension be accounted Superstition, than is inward humility, Christian resolution, or the due acknowledgement of the Lord Jesus Christ to be the true and eternal Son of God: for being Actus exterior & interior eandem constituunt virtutem; being the outward expression and the inward meaning do make but one complete act; if the inward be virtuous, the outward cannot be vicious; if the inward be religious, the outward cannot be superstitious: So that since bowing at the Name of Jesus is by the Church and use of England determined to signify an expression of inward humility, Christian resolution, and a due acknowledgement of the Deity of the Son of God; I cannot yet imagine how, to him who so understandeth and so useth it, bowing at the Name of Jesus can be counted superstitious.  
Nor doth only the Canon of the Church of England, but even the Canon of holy Scripture warrant me sufficiently that superstitious it cannot be; for Dato sed non concesso, suppose it no duty of that known Text, yet there is congruity enough to avoid the Superstition of it: for if by those Knees the Apostle meaneth the spiritual and inward Knees of the Heart, then, as he, without thought of Superstition, expressed that inward duty by bodily incurvation, why may not I or any other (by his example) express my inward profession of the Deity, as he, by a corporal expression, by bowing at his Name? But my intention is not to write a Volume, or indeed to say aught more than may conclude my design mentioned, to prove that I have not been, nor yet am scrupulous without cause, nor a sufferer without reason.  
Now my first scruple is, whether a Minister may with a good Conscience renounce or leave off any Act, Rite, or Gesture, under the brand and notion of Superstitious, which he believes is not so?  
I dare not do it, for these Reasons:  
1. I should belly mine own Soul, in calling good evil, and evil good.  
2. I should confirm a scandal laid upon many godly Orthodox Divines, that they in thus doing have been superstitious.  
3. I should do an irreparable violation to those holy Gestures which I do verily believe are advancers of God's glory.  
4. I dare not omit that as superstitious, which I believe not to be so, for fear in so doing, to this undetermined notion, I might add such Latitude, that under the colour of Superstition, even Religion itself may be violated. In a word, for my particular, whether I look upon Adoration in abstracto, as the mere expression of that subjection and distance which Dust and Ashes oweth to his Maker; or whether I look upon it in concreto, as joined with some other duty, as saying our Prayers, receiving the Sacrament, or profession of our Saviour's Deity; in neither respect (it seemeth to me) more guilty of Superstition, or troubling the Waters, than was the Lamb in the Fable when the Wolf charged him: So that if by some greater Light, or Latitude of understanding, your clearer judgement shall discern otherwise, I shall with all respect and thanks yield up my Soul to further illumination; which till it shall please God to give me, I dare not in cool blood call an honest woman Whore; or what I conceive religious superstitious, for more than yet I am, or hope for to be worth. And this may suffice for the first scruple, viz. That my judgement concluding otherwise, I dare not acknowledge or relinquish Adoration under the notion of superstitious innovation.  
The second thing I have to do, is to give my reasons wherefore I conceived it a sin of omission to lay aside, much more to renounce the Liturgy: And that I may do it methodically,  
First, I shall give my Reasons why I dare not countenance the worshipping of God without a Form. Secondly, why I dare not in specie omit this Form.  
First, I dare not countenance the worshipping of God without a Form: for, being the Scripture chargeth not only to hold the Faith, but to hold fast the very form of sound words, I conceive a set Form of Prayer a necessary expedient to this end: for being experience both ancient and modern hath taught us this sad truth, that Errors, Heresies, and Innovations in Doctrine are instilled and infused by the conceived Prayers of such who are either Authors or Abettors of such Opinions, therefore (and especially in these times) I dare not but endeavour a set Form: A set Form seeming now as necessary, as an Antidote in time of pestilence.  
Secondly, to worship without a prepared and set Form (it seems to me) to serve the living God with less care than Pagans did their Idols. For witness Plato, a Law there was, whatever 
Lib. 7. de leg.  Prayers or Hymns the Poets composed to the gods, they should first show them their Priests. And Alexander ab Alexandro testifieth 
Lib. 4. c. 17  the Gentiles read their Prayers out of a Book before their Sacrifice; and that for this reason, Ne quid preposterè dicatur, etc. or for fear some thing rashly or preposterously might pass the Lips; as if stolen from that of Solomon, Be not rash with thy mouth, 
Eccles. 5.  and let not thine heart be hasty. An Argument to me, that even an Heart may be overhasty; and therefore my weakness desires a set Form.  
Thirdly, The serving and worshipping God by a set Form seems to be approved by God in all ages, before the Law, under the Law, under the Gospel. Before the Law we read thus: Then 
Gen. 4. 26. joan. Drusius in difficilioribus Genes●os.  began men to call upon the Name of the Lord, Eo tempore ritus certos colendi Deum institutos fuisse quos observarent filii Dei. From that time forward, say Expositors, certain Rites or set Forms were taken up for the public worship of God; yea, forsitan propter Idolatriam insurgentem, perchance for the prevention of encroaching 
Barradius, Tom. 4. l. 10. c. 12.  of Idolatry, saith a learned Neoterick: therefore was Enoch sedulous to prescribe and deliver a set Form. But whether Enoch were or no, sure we are God Almighty under the Law, to prevent Idolatry, had his set Rites; and in particular to the point in hand, a prescribed and set Form of Prayer: On this wise shall ye 
Numb. 6. 23.  bless the children of Israel, saying, (as it followeth) The Lord bless thee and keep thee, etc.  
Under the Gospel both St. John the forerunner, and our blessed Lord and Master the substance, both we know taught to pray; and it is strange teaching without a Form; as the corner and first Stone in the building, the Lord left us a Prayer; and this Prayer proved the basis and fundamental of all future Liturgies: This, through the devotion and piety of the Church, increased and grew into a Form; and in this I suppose M. Beza may be my advocate, 
In 1 Cor. 11. ver. ultim.  who tells me and all the world, Quae ad ordinem spectant, ut precum formulae disposuit Apostolus: Those things which appertain to order, as do forms of Prayer, the Apostle himself appointed and disposed. So that set Forms in the judgement of M. Beza are Apostolical. The English Translation reads it thus: Such things as appertain to Order and Form of Prayers, and other such like, the Apostle took order for, in the Congregation, according to the consideration of times, places, persons, 1 Cor. 11. 39  
Yea, after the great Reformer Martin Luther had a while tried what it was to want a set Form, himself professeth (lib. de Formula Missae) coactus sum, I am constrained, observe by what, and to what; constrained he was alios Canon's, aliamque Missandi Formulam prescribere, to prescribe fresh Canons, and another form of Mass: And if you please to observe by what he was constrained, his words are, Propter leves & fastidiosoes spiritus qui sola Novitate gaudent, atque statim ut Novitas desiit, nauseantes. By reason of light and humorous spirits, who only delight in Novelty, nauseating what themselves liked when it ceaseth to be new. A humour which the first Zeal of our times did not digest; and therefore, whether I appeal to Beza, or the more eminent Luther, still a set Form. A set Form, according to Beza's note, because Apostolical. A set Form, according to Luther, because woeful and extavagant experience demonstrated the necessity of it. No curb for fastidious and rambling spirits, but a set Form.  
Fourthly, The want of set Form prevents that which I am bound for to endeavour, the conversion and communion of the adverse party: for either I must persuade them to worship God according to my discretion, and rely upon the implicit faith of my prudence, or else I must produce a Form in which I desire their communion, and to which I must endeavour their conversion. Now I believe all those who renounce an implicit faith in the whole Church, or in the Representative of it; all such (I say) at least will abhor so far to resign themselves unto a private Minister, as to worship God all days of their lives according to his mutable dictate. I am sure the Papists will say this is worse than what we call Popish servitude: for they are bound only to believe and serve God as the Church orders; but where all is left to the will of the Minister, people are bound to worship and serve God as his private spirit leads them; and I wish I could not feelingly say (even from follies vented in my own Pulpit) what an Ignis fatuus that is.  
Lastly, To avoid prolixity, for my own particular, should I renounce a set Form, I must needs profess myself guilty either of Superstitious Innovation, or (which in materia Religionis is bad enough) popular insinuation.  
First, That to worship God without a Form is Innovation, this the whole Christian world will attest unto me; the Eastern and Western Churches, Wittenberg where Luther, Geneva where Calvin, Scotland where Knox flourished; and to innovate and act against a Catholic Custom of Christendom, of the whole Christian world, may breed a scruple in a wise, much more in a weak Christian.  
Secondly, As Innovation, so it would seem to me unavoidable superstition, and that whether Superstition be positively or negatively considered: for Superstition being positively considered, being the issue of misgrounded Zeal, this superstition is active in the production of superstitious performances, whereof this is one, to conceive that God will be pleased with no prayer from me, unless of my own conception, nor no devotion unless it be of our own invention: this, I say, is the superstitious issue of a misguided zeal. Again, as misguided zeal is the Mother of superstitious performances, even so ignorant fear is the motive and cause of superstitious forbearances, as when one vainly fears, and in that fear refrains such an act, as displeasing, which indeed is rather pleasing to Almighty God: Touch not, taste not, bandle not, these are negative superstitions, issues of ignorant fear: And so far as I can conceive, scrupulously to reject or lay aside set Forms as superstitious, is out of ignorant fear really and actually to commit (pardon the phrase) a negative superstition.  
Thirdly, Again, should I not superstitiously (which as drawing nigher Religion, is more honest of the two) lay aside a set Form, I cannot imagine any other principle but popular insinuation to move me to it; and to make that a motive in Religion, scarce appears to me religious. Omnia ponenda post Religionem nostra Civitas duxit. If the Pagans had so much Divinity as to say, it was a 
Val. Max. lib. 1. cap. de Religio.  Law in their City, that all things whatsoever must give way unto Religion, certainly it behoveth me, who am a Christian, in matter and point of Religion, to look upon nothing through a carnal or secular Perspective. Now to me (and with me runs the whole current of Antiquity) set Forms of Prayer and Worship, they are the most religious and assured means either to preserve or advance Religion. The scruple than is, whether any of my judgement and persuasion may for any popular or secular end in the world (and for that end merely) lay aside a better, and assume in God's worship a worse way? whether this be not having a Male in my Flock, to offer unto God a Female, judge you.  

Printed 1628.  That blessed speech of Sir Benj. Ruddierd to Mr. Rym; He that thinks to save any thing by his Religion but his Soul, will be a terrible loser in the end, It is worthy to be written in letters of gold, yea worthy to be engraven in the Heart of every Parliament-man that sits: it is indeed a saying that hath so far prevailed on me, that I begin extremely to question the truth of that vulgar opinion, that the Worship and Government of the Church of Christ are so left as to be accommodated to the proportionable exigences of States and Kingdoms. For my particular, I conceive, the glory of God attended, municipal Laws ought rather to stoop, than they to strain; for Religion is so tender a Virgin, that she may not admit the least prostitution; and I am sure a conscientious breast feareth to rumple her very ornaments.  
Whereas then to worship God without a set Form seems to me destructive of the form of sound words, which charily must be preserved, a worship more careless than what Pagans used, an Innovation which takes away the very ground and basis of conversion and communion with an adverse party; whereas it would be in me either Superstition or Popularity to desert a set Form; I must crave leave to follow these Dictates till I have better premises given me, from which I may conclude otherwise. And so I shall desire your patience to accompany me to my last endeavour, which is to show, that I cannot with a good conscience renounce, or as yet lay aside this our individual Liturgy, and that for these reasons:  
1. It maketh our Religion to be ill spoken of by the greatest part of Christendom, and so preventeth the conversion of Papists, who accuse us of unsetledness and changes; yea, it furnisheth them with an unanswerable exception, viz. That we have these many years convicted, punished, and imprisoned them for what ourselves now so far distaste, that at Sessions we give a charge against it, traduce it under the brand of the old Mumpsimus, and indict it, and punish one another for it; this I profess my weakness cannot satisfy.  
2. If better it were a Millstone were hanged about my Neck, than that I should be a scandal to my weak Brother, the omission of the Liturgy being at this time a scandal not only to the weak, but to the strong, being the cries and tears of both require it; how should I dare to look my God in the Face, when I shall wilfully become scandalous both to the learned and unlearned, both to the strong and to the weak Christian? yea, of this, sad experience hath made me very confident, such a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, such a stumbling-block as is this, the suppression of the Liturgy, was never since Queen Mary's days amongst us; for the want of this hath hindered thousands from their accustomed piety and devotion; the weak, because they have no other; the strong, because they have no better way: and whatever prevents piety cannot but be rather scandalum datum, than acceptum, a real and true scandal; so that till a better Form be actually established in lieu of this, my Conscience tells me I may not leave it.  
3. What by Oath and Subscription I am bound unto, that without relaxation from the same authority to whom I swore, and before whom I subscribed, I may not relinquish. But I have sworn to my Diocesan, and subscribed to maintain the service of God, not only in genere, but in specie, according to the particular form and way of the Church of England. And therefore, to say no more, as an honest man, I am bound to make that good which I have sworn, subscribed, and negatively promised to maintain.  
4. It is against my Oath of Supremacy to acknowledge a power Ecclesiastical Independent upon the only Supreme; and this cannot (in my apprehension) be avoided, if the King forbidding I receive the Directory, and the King commanding to use it, I reject the Liturgy.  
5. Beneficium supponit Officium. The duty which every Parochial Minister is bound unto, is a daily recital of his Office; for being Parishes are of humane institution, founded and endowed by the piety and liberality of devout Patrons, look what they conditioned for, (so far as just and pious) that I conceive I am bound unto. Forasmuch then as in the Church of England, prayer, daily prayer, yea (and ever since the Reformation) this very form of prayer is the condition of our admittance, though preaching be multiplied, I cannot conscionably omit that, without which, yea, and for which I had Institution and Induction to my Living; so that in my weak judgement it is a very considerable scruple, whether what is given for a public and daily duty, may conscionably be taken by him who doth it but once a week, much less by him who doth it not at all?  
All Ages will argue for a diurnal and daily Devotion: The Jews had daily their Morning and their Evening Sacrifices; and to shame us to the doing of it, I shall only add what Cornelius à Lapide borroweth from Plato, Lib. 10, de legibus, thus: Graecos omnes aequè ac Barbaros, Sole tam Oriente quam▪ Occidente adorare Deum— & ideircò Clemens secundo Libro Constitutionum, cap. 24. acriter redarguit Christianos tardius Templa adeuntes, cum Gentiles & Judaei suas Synagogas dilucul'o frequentant. For whereas the Angel of the Lord said unto the Disciples newly out of Prison, Acts 5. 20. Go, stand and ' speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life; The reason is thus given— Scientes Judaeos de More dilucul'o ad Orationem venturos in Templum. Knowing that the Jews did customarily repair early to prayers in the Temple.  
Lastly, It is very considerable to me, whether those words in my Protestation (The true reformed Protestant Religion expressed in the Doctrine of the Church of England, against all Popery and popish Innovations) do not bind me, so far as lawfully I may, with life, power, and estate, to maintain either this, or some other set Form, and that for these reasons:  
First, This word or notion, Religion, necessarily includes all the actual muniments thereof, be it what Religion it may be: for if, as 
Lib. 83. quaest. 31. Inst t. l. 4. c. 14. p. 19  Austin out of Cicero, Religio est virtus quae superiores cujusdam naturae, quam divinam, vocant cultum caeremoniámque adfert, Religion be a virtue which obligeth as well to Ceremony as to Worship: And if, as Mr. Calvin, in professione religionis homines non posse caeremoniis career, Men cannot profess Religion without Ceremony, be it what Religion it may be: Then (so far as my capacity reacheth) I cannot vow, promise, and profess to maintain and defend a Religion, but under this notion and term Religion, I bind myself to defend and maintain whatever congruously is requisite in the defence and support of it. For as he that is bound to maintain a House, must preserve the Thatch as well as the Grunsel; and as he who is bound to maintain a Close, must have a care of the Hedge (though it be but a dead one) as well as the Crop: even so, when I did promise, vow, and protest to defend and maintain the true Religion, in which I was baptised and bred, I know not how I could hope to make good this, unless the necessary muniments, whereof the Liturgy is a main one, were preserved in it. And that in this I was not singular, I may appeal unto a Vote afterward annexed to the Protestation, in which it is declared, that several persons had raised the same doubt; an Argument that the Deduction was very obvious, and very natural. Now forasmuch as I had vowed before I saw the limitation, after the Vow I durst not inquire; a Vow and an Oath (as I conceive) in this dissenting: an Oath, it must be taken in the sense of the giver; a Vow, because voluntary, in the sense of the taker only: so I took it, and the obligation is still upon me.  
Secondly, Whereas Religion in the Protestation hath this restrictive difference, Reform; and not only so, but so reform as in the Church of England, against all Popery and popish Innovations; I cannot see how I could protest to maintain a Religion so reform, but that I must necessarily imply that service which the first Reformers, and all succeeding Parliaments have made the Characteristical note, and formal difference betwixt us and them; and this (we all know) hath been the Liturgy: for from his denying Communion in this, the Papist was called Recusant, and by his joining with us in this, he was said and held as reconciled to our Church.  
Thirdly, In case the Protestation had run thus: I promise, vow, and protest to maintain the true Religion established in the Church of Rome against (as they call them) heretical Innovations; would any man believe the Missal were here excluded, which is the very formality of their professions? Or in case it had run thus: I promise, vow, and protest, to maintain that reformed Religion, whose character and distinctive formality is the Directory; would any doubt I vowed to maintain the Directory? and can hope to perform my Vow, can I hope to maintain the Religion of the Church of England, and lay aside that which is the practical character of my profession?  
Fourthly, If this notion, Reformed Religion of the Church of England, includes not Liturgy, than they are not sufferers for the true Reformed Religion of England, who suffer merely for the Liturgy; but they who so suffer, cannot imagine else what they suffer for.  
Fifthly, It is very probable to me, the compilers and chief managers of this Protestation, by Religion mainly meant the Form of God's Worship: for in the first nineteen humble Propositions, the eighth runs thus: That your Majesty will be pleased to consent, that such a Reformation be made of the Church-government and Liturgy, as both Houses of Parliament shall advise— To the people in the same year, the Lords and Commons declare thus, April 9, 1642. they intent a due and necessary Reformation of the Government and Liturgy of the Church. A plain and evident demonstration to my capacity, that both Lords and Commons did then declare, this notion or term Religion, it includes both Church-government and Liturgy; otherwise what ever is of late attempted or done concerning these, cannot be said to be a religious, but a politic Reformation.  
Lastly, How could I promise, vow, and protest to defend and maintain a Religion which is said to be true, and actually reform, unless there be some Form actually in being, which my judgement and my Conscience must look upon? for to swear the maintenance of a Religion or Worship, or Discipline not fixed, and digested into a Form, seems to me like that formidable et caetera, to swear and vow to maintain I know not what; and upon this ground thousands there are who have stumbled at the very Threshold of the Covenant, not daring to swear to defend a Reformation, where they cannot come to see the Form.  
Nor is this new, or without example, and that from such as profess themselves of the Reformed Party: For the Bohemians, professing themselves to tread in the steps of their Reverend Martyr John Huss, disavow for ever Communion with the Waldenses; and that for two Reasons; whereof (if my Author deceive me not) the first is, Quod Nulla publica extare voluerint Doctrinae & Fidei suae Testimonia; because they had no public Form or Testimony to declare what their Faith and Doctrine was: vid. quintum Evangelium, pag. 42. praef. Bohemi ad Confessionem Wittenberg 1578.  
Whereas then beside Statute-subscription, and those many obligations contracted under Episcopacy, I conceive even by the Protestation, and from the very sense of the House that made it, Liturgy is a very considerable ingredient in the compound of Religion, and this present Liturgy in this the reformed Religion of the Church of England; As then in Music, though there are many rare and exquisite voluntaries, yet solemn and set Music is not therefore to be rejected: even so though there are and may be in the Church of England such, who can express as readily as conceive, and conceive as devoutly as can be imagined; yet for all that, this is no Supersedeas or bar against studied, penned, and set Forms of Prayer. And more than this, as I read, was heard, and ordered to be printed by the honourable House of Commons in a Sermon called, Babylon's downfall, in these words: Cursed shall he be that removeth the ancient Landmark, etc. What is the ancient Landmark of England, but our Laws and Religion? (which contains as well facienda as credenda, and hath as well the Liturgy as the Articles and Homilies for her boundaries) and therefore if any man shall remove this Landmark, cursed shall he be of the Lord, and let all the people say Amen. Certainly they who said Amen to this imprecation, and those who ordered there should be an impression of it, they were then no visible Enemies to Liturgy, no not this Liturgy. All then that I shall now trouble you withal, shall be a slight proposal of this one scruple.  
Whether a Minister is not as much bound to suffer in defence of the spiritual Muniments of Religion, as any Subject for the temporal Muniments and Privileges of State or Kingdom.  
For Christian Religion, or the Muniments thereof, I am apt to think with Tertullian, the Sword is no good advocate, Lex nova non 
As Grotius citys him de jure belli.  se vindicat ultore gladio; the foolishness of preaching, not the arm of flesh, must and did establish these: And therefore I propose the scruple only in point of suffering; for if we look unto the Author and Finisher of our Faith, I conceive with St. Peter, that by his example we are called upon to suffer, and in this case to suffer only.  
Now in these times of loss and suffering, I have oft considered with myself for what, either as Subject, or as Christian, especially as a Christian Minister, I stand bound to suffer.  
Now whilst I look upon myself as a Subject, having nothing at all before me but some secular or temporal advantage; my next consideration is, what secular or temporal commodity is dearest to me: for I suppose no man will lose Gold to save Chaff, nor expose his Darling to preserve his Vassal. Now forasmuch as all temporal or secular goods are reducible to these three heads, jucundum, utile, honestum, either pleasant, profitable, or honest; that which of these three is dearest, that which of these is absolutely the best, that (I conceive, though I suffer the loss of the other two) I am bound to preserve.  
Job 2. Skin for skin, and all that a man hath, will he give for his life, Though the Devil spoke it, both God and man approve it. Skin for Skin, whatever is pleasant, or whatever is profitable, a man will rather suffer in, than in his life; for of all things pleasant or profitable, Life is the dearest. Now albeit among things pleasant or profitable, Life is the Jewel; yet bonum honestum, that good which doth consist in honour or honesty, this, it is oft even dearer than life itself: So that for defence of reputation and a good name, for the advance and benefit of posterity, for the vindication of a friend, for the preservation of a trust; for these and such like, there is many an one who will dare to die: but merely for what is pleasant or what is profitable, I think no man living: So that indeed 'tis only bonum honestum, it is only for what is honest, or what is honourable, a man as a man, a man as rational, is bound to suffer.  
Now if it be so, that honour and honesty hath so strong an influence upon a reasonable soul, that Reason will pérswade even the natural man to prefer honour and honesty before life; if property, liberty, and the Laws of the Land are so dear to Subjects, that even for them thousands have laid down their lives; my great and grand scruple is, whether bonum religiosum, whether a religious good, whether that which I verily believe tends to the good of Religion, ought not to me, a Christian, and a Minister, to be full as dear as any bonum honestum, as any honest or mere secular good to me, or any subject in the world: And (I profess to you upon the faith of a Christian) be it sound, or be it weak, this is the principal ground and motive of all my losses; and to support me I have these Reasons.  
1 Cor. 9 If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things? Between spiritual and carnal things the Apostle seems to make so despicable a difference, that the one is not to be compared with the other: carnal things, secular and worldly interests, they are not considerable, if compared with things spiritual. A clear argument to me, that no spiritual or religious performance ought to give way to any carnal end. And such I conceive are all the muniments of Christian Religion, such in particular a blameless Liturgy.  
According to this rule, the Royal Master and glorious Triumpher over savage cruelties, imputes all his sufferings to the score of Christ, saying, I shall be more than Conqueror through Christ 
Illis Med. upon death.  enabling me, for whom I have hitherto suffered, as he is the Author of Truth, Order, and Peace, for all which I have been forced to contend against Error, Faction, and Confusion. A plain evidence that Christ may be suffered for in the preservation of Order, as well as in the vindication of Truth.  
Secondly, It is a rule amongst Casuists: That man that suffers either for doing this, or forbearing that in relation unto Christ and his glory, that person is a sufferer in the cause of Christ; as he that will not lie, upon this ground, because dishonourable to the Christian Profession, if he should be persecuted because he will not lie, such an one, though not in materia fidei, yet because his restraint is for Christ and his glory, he were persecuted for Christ his sake.  
Whereas then in my poor judgement I am convinced there is no means generally more expedient for the advance of the glory of Christ and the preservation of the Faith, than a well-composed and set Form of Liturgy; whatever I shall suffer for not rejecting this, I shall confidently lay upon the score of my Saviour: forasmuch as I therefore only by suffering endeavour the defence of this, because I do verily believe Liturgy is the advance of his glory: So that if a temporal good (whose reward and encouragement cannot be but temporal) can move a man to suffer, much more a spiritual, whose reward (through the mercy of a gracious accepter) may prove eternal. For he who will not see a Cup of cold Water given for his sake lost, neither will he forget the least of sufferings which relate to his glory.  
Thirdly, In suffering for spiritual muniments, and for that only which relates to Christ only, and his glory, there is no interest but God Almighty's considered or concerned: But in suffering for temporal, though public good, we have private ends and personal advantages of our own; so that it must be much more acceptable to God Almighty to suffer for spiritual, that is, his interest, than for secular, that is, our own.  
Fourthly, If that Citizen be held an unworthy member, who will not spend his Purse and pains for the privilege of his Corporation: And if that Country-clown be held no good Townsman, who will not stiffly maintain the Modus Decimandi, the Custom of his Town; certainly then that Minister hath a very low and poor estimate of that Liturgy which he subscribed unto, a very unworthy esteem of the Catholic custom of the reformed Church of Christ, that will, without suffering, betray his trust; making less account of what Martyrs sealed with their Blood, than will a Citizen or a Countryman of a trifling Privilege or Custom.  
Fifthly, Considering and enquiring after the elder times, when such was the purity of intention, that nothing but Christ's glory was attended; I cannot find that any thing in Religion was moulded unto State-ends.  
Si Ecclesiasticum negotium sit, nullam Communionem habento civiles Magistratus cum eâ disceptatione, sed Religiosissimi Episcopi secundum sacros Canones negotio fine imponentem, in Authentica Can. 123.  
Not to the civil Magistrate, but to the religious Bishops, Justinian (no less than an Emperor) attributes and decrees the decision and determination of Ecclesiastical affairs. And certainly if there be any Ecclesiastical Government, as the Law speaks— Cui jurisdictio data est, ea quoque concessa esse intelliguntur sine quibus jurisdictio expleri non poluit. To whom jurisdiction is committed, all that must be granted, without which he cannot exercise jurisdiction; and that must needs be a directive and a coactive power.  
Now impossible (it seems to me) that those who have, (be they Prelates, be they Presbyters, or be they of what name or title soever our next new light shall call them) I say, it seems to me impossible, that those who have this spiritual power should ever discharge their trust unless they resolve to suffer, and to suffer precisely for the muniments and defence of the Church of Christ, and the power of him committed to them; for the impartial and thorough executing of this charge cannot but displease great ones; and Flesh and Blood is a bitter adversary: so that indeed it will evidently appear, the decay of Discipline, Liturgy, and all the Muniments of the Church, they have therefore suffered, because those who should have suffered for them would not. And I beseech God this sin be not laid to our charge: for my own particular, I beseech God give me grace to say heartily as did some of the Martyrs, Though I cannot dispute, I can suffer for him.  
Sixthly, For me to omit any act, gesture, or form of Worship, which I believe or feel to be an advance to Piety, merely from secular or private Interest; this, in my judgement, is to prefer a carnal thing before a spiritual, and to endeavour rather to please man than my God. And indeed I could here with a great deal of truth and sadness relate unto you, the serious and sharp complaints of such Ministers, who profess their Souls long after the Liturgy, grieved at Heart, and (as they pretend) troubled at Soul, because they dare not use what they conceive much the better way. A lamentable condition is the Church in, when Ministers worship God with reluctancy, and, only to save their stakes, comply and do as the State would have them.  
Lastly, Forasmuch as the muniments of Religion are preservers of the dearest thing imaginable, God's glory, and our Souls welfare, I do not know what I should suffer in defence of, if not of these.  
I lately reading (as it fell proper to the day) the fifth of Esay, when I came to those dreadful words: I will take away thy hedge, and it shall be eaten up, break down the wall, and it shall be trodden down, it made my Heart even ache to think how applicable this methodical destruction is to our ungrateful Vineyard; I will take away the hedge, I will break down the wall. Take the Hedge and the Wall away, cut up the Fence, and the Vineyard will soon be waste; the Government, the Discipline, the Liturgy, which as a Hedge or a Wall ever since our Reformation preserved the Vineyard; since I see it hath pleased God to suffer this Hedge and the Wall to be trodden down, I can but fear confusion and desolation to be the sequel. For since the worldly wise man verily believes, where the Fence is wanting, spoil and waste inevitably followeth; and therefore his main care is to tend it: Even so, where the muniments of any Profession or Religion are slighted and taken away; where Liturgy, (this thirteen hundred years without controversy held the Hedge and mound of Faith, and God's Worship in a national Church) where (I say) this is pulled down and taken away, there is imminent and evident fear, a gap is opened to let in whatever will come; be it the beast of the field, be it the little Foxes, be it the wild Boar of the Forest, come what will, there is no muniment, no provision, no fence against it; so that in my poor conceptions, the Hedge, the Fence, the Muniment of the Church, they are matters of such necessary consequence, that Ministers, I conceive, had better lay themselves and all their Fortunes in the Gap, than for want of fence to suffer the destroyer to come in.  
Indeed I have been told by some who wish very well unto me, that humane inventions, and things merely circumstantial, ought not to be thus stood upon: I thank them heartily for their affection, and bless them for their good will; but our judgements yet must differ. For if no suffering for humane invention, if life itself may not be exposed to hazard in defence of humane constitutions, certainly than no fight for the Laws of the Land, nor no taking up arms for Privilege of Parliament, for these sure are humane and political institutions; and as these are necessary for the preservation of a State, even some such are also necessary for the preservation of a Church; and of such, Churchmen cannot be too chary.  
Again, whereas Liturgy in genere, or ours in specie is counted but a circumstantial business, I believe I may find out such circumstantials in a Christian Church, as will hazard the whole if they perish.  

Chron. Chario. Diocles.  In the tenth Persecution under the Tyranny of Dioclesian, a Decree passed, ut Templa & libri delerentur; that Christians should deliver up their Books, and destroy (or at least permit the destruction of) their Churches. Books and Churches, I conceive, are but circumstantials to Religion; for the world was more than 2400 years old before there was any Scripture in it; yea, the Christian Church it was from the birth of Christ more than 90 years before the Canon of the New Testament was completed; yea, after the 
Matth. 41.  Death and Resurrection of our Saviour there is (supposing his 
Luke 51.  passion at 31) ten years numbered before any Gospel at all was 
Mark 61.  committed unto writing, twice ten before the second, thrice ten before 
John 98.  the third, and more than three twenties before the last: a plain argument that Books and Writings are but circumstantial to Religion; for one may live and die a very good Christian, and know never a Letter on the Book.  
Suppose now the Pope and Popery should so far prevail, as to have power, under the notion of Books heretical, (for so they will not stick to call our Bibles) to call in, and under pain of death to deliver up our Bible's even to the fire, could any conscientious Protestant satisfy his Soul with this poor evasion, Alas the Bible is but circumstantial, the Doctrine and Religion of it I can preserve though the Bible be gone! Without all peradventure it is most true, a learned and well-grounded Christian, he may preserve the faith, he may deliver and hold fast the form of sound words, though among Turks, where a Bible is not to be looked upon: and yet for my particular I should scarce look upon that man as a Christian, who to save his Purse, yea his Body, should deliver up his Bible to the fire.  
In the Roman Martyrology there is a commemoration made of 
jan. 2.  many holy Martyrs, who despising the sacrilegious Edict of Dioclesian 7. [Quo tradi sacros codices jubebantur, potius corpora carnificibus quam sancta dare canibus maluerint] chose rather to deliver their Bodies to the Executioner, than holy things to Dogs, or holy Books unto the fire. And truly I should rather honour these as Martyrs, than those for good Christians, who under pretence of things circumstantial, should deliver those to save themselves; so highly (I conceive) God would be dishonoured in the betraying of so great a preserver and muniment of his honour.  
Again, as Books, even so (to some much more clearly) Churches, Oratories, Temples, they are mere circumstantials. Now suppose the Independent and Congregational Brotherhood should so far overpower, as to command the demolition (as they call them) of our Steeple-houses, the destruction and levelling of our Churches, I would very fain know whether in point of conscience I were not rather bound to suffer, than in any measure to appear willing to so high a Sacrilege? I who am Flesh and Blood as well as other men, could find pretty evasions and glosses to fool my Soul withal: I could say (as I hear) is not a Sermon as well in a Parlour as in a Church? Did not Christ preach in a Ship, Paul pray upon the Sands, and shall I suffer in defence of so unnecessary a trifle as an heap of Stones, a popish Relic, a sorry Meetinghouse? For my particular, I am afraid many things are daily called circumstantial, not with consideration whether so or no; but because these are the things in question, these the points which I must either dissemble, desert, or suffer for, I pray let me, as a close to this, present you with the example of one, who though a Bishop, was ever reverenced as a Saint, and a good man; I mean that great Doctor St. Ambrose, who being once tempted 
Epist. 33.  and provoked even in this very point, and that by no less than the Emperor, to deliver up his Church, though it pleased the Emperor in a fair way to send Earls and Tribunes to him, ut Basilicae fieret matura traditio, that there might be a seasonable deliverance of that Royal Palace, (for so his piety terms the Church) yet you shall find this reverend Pastor so far from deeming this a circumstantial trifle, that he offers his Goods, his Body, his Life, in lieu of it.  
Ea quae Divina Imperatoriae potestati non subjecta; The things of God are not subject to Imperial power, was the peremptory position of this Bishop; and then proceeds— Si patrimonium petitur, invadite; si corpus, occurram: vultis in vincula rapere, vultis in mortem? voluptati est mihi. If you, who are sent, demand my patrimony, invade it, take it! if my Body, here it is; if to bonds or death you desire to carry me, it shall be a pleasure to me; pro altaribus gratiùs immolabor, I will gladly be a Sacrifice to preserve my Altar. He would rather die the death, than suffer an Arrian Minister to officiate in his Church: yea, as it is in the same Epistle, cum propositum esset ut Ecclesiae vasa jam traderemus— when the Emperor's Officers demanded a present delivery of the Church-Vessels, the conscientious Bishop was so far from holding these such circumstantials as not to be stood upon, that he plainly tells the Emperor, it was neither lawful for him to deliver, or the Emperor to demand them.  

In Sermone ad plebem intra Basilieam, Ep. 33.  Trade Basilicam, deliver the Church, is as much as to say, (as the same Father to his Flock) speak a word against God, and die; nay not only so, Nec solùm dic adversus Deum, etiam fac adversus Deum: It is not only to speak, but to do against God, which in his judgement deserved no less than death. Thus zealous of a circumstantial, and of exterior muniments, was that holy Bishop: to betray a Church, yea a vessel of a Church, it was in his Divinity a sin against the Deity, an act against him for whose Glory and Service they were preserved.  
In these sad times of trial, I conceive one main end of God's Judgements (especially upon his Clergy) is to discern who those are who have hitherto merely related to him for their Bellies, and who for his glory mainly; who have been spiritual, and who carnal professors of the Ministry: For those who served him chiefly for their Bellies and carnal ends, to them the invasion of nothing is considerable, in which their interest and their ends are not involved; but such who with purity of intention have mainly studied and sought the advance of God's Service, to them, as to St. Ambrose, the muniments of Religion, the abridgement or abatement of any thing that was adjuvant to this end, is more considerable than all their secular interest, or personal advantages of this world; insomuch as I can knowingly say it for some, Threescore pound a year, and our old way, will be preferred before 300 in a worse Model. It is to me a consideration not unworthy my Pen, to see how the judgement of God hath followed such who have measured and stuck to his interests, merely as they moved with their own. In the 21 year of Henry the eighth, in a 
P. 118. in Bridewell.  Parliament which began the third of November, the Commons sent up to the House of Lords a Bill against the exaction of unconscionable Mortuaries; to which Bill it is observed the spiritual Lords made a fair Face, and were well content a reasonable Order should pass against them: But this was (saith my Author) because it touched them little; for when within two days after a Bill concerning Probates of Testaments (in which there had been incredible extortion) was sent up to the Lords, than the Bishops in general (saith the Historian) frowned and grunted, for that touched their profit: then said the Bishop of Rochester, Now with the Commons is nothing but down with the Church. When the Bishops personal profits were touched upon, then (as if the very Church were falling) Fisher crieth out, The Commons lack faith, the Commons think of nothing but down with the Church. Yea, in the progress of this Reformation, are not Bishops found conniving and abetting the demolishing of religious Houses? and was not this probably with an eye to the preservation of their own? as if they said, Let Monasteries go, so long as Bishoprics be preserved. Well, they are dead and gone; but hath not vengeance followed upon Episcopacy? Are there not now amongst us who cry, Down with Bishops, sell their Lands, and think this no Sacrilege, provided that Parsonages may be augmented, and Tithes supported? Well, Bishops are preached down, and their honours laid in the dust; but doth not vengeance hasten after the promoters of it? Do not the Presbyters find that there are who conceive they have less right to Tithes than Bishops to their Lands? Are there not who are as industrious to deprive them, as they have been (for their own ends) to deprive their God? An evident argument, that Just and righteous art thou O God in all thy ways. An argument that makes me verily believe, those who for private interest, and merely either for praise or profit, throw off the Liturgy, forbear their duties, and betray the muniments of Religion and the Church of Christ; God will in his due time reward such into their own Bosoms, blasting that private Interest for which they have betrayed his.  
Whereas then I must profess before God and the world, I can apprehend no motive or inducement so prevalent as to persuade me that the Liturgy of the Church of England is any way a hinderer of God's holy Worship, or an obstacle to the solid and sufficient ministration of the Word; but on the contrary, consonant to God's holy Word, agreeable to Orthodox antiquity, and an approved promoter of God's glory in the Church I live in: being (I say) to consent to the abolition of Liturgy, I find in my Soul no moving motive, but either the hope of more, or the holding of what I have: I dare not (finding within me nothing but carnal interest) put a specious show of Religion upon it, and tell the world that I lay aside the truly divine Service of the Church, because Prelate's overvalued it, the ignorant doted of it, the Papists nosed with it, and an idle and unedifying Ministry maintained by it.  
These, I profess, to me are neither true nor weighty considerations; for if I should now (as I am) forbear or lay it aside, it is not any, or all these, but only in mine own defence, only for mine own ends I should do it: Now whether any man may saluâ conscientiâ prefer what he conceives in God's service a worse way, merely for the boot of private Interest, I leave it to your prudent consideration; concluding with that of Chrysost. Qui hominem timet, 
Hom 84. in Matth.  ab co ipso quem timet deridebitur; sin vero Deum, hominibus quoque venerabilis erit. He who in God's cause prefers man, he shall be scorned of him he fears; but he who fearing God despiseth man, shall be had in reverence even of those men: The patient abiding of the meek shall not always be forgotten.  
And here I had thought to have put a period both to your trouble and my own; but I must needs crave leave that you would thus far be an advocate both for me, and all in my condition, as to procure a belief that such who are constant to their Faith and Principles, according to the established and old way of England, may be held, if weak, yet conscientious Christians; for it is none of the least pressures of the Cross upon us, that we of all men are thought to have no foundation; whereas we in our judgements believe verily, if what we hold and suffer for be not that very Religion which the Divines of England unanimously subscribed, and professed to ratify, there is not any in England that is above seven years old; and to innovate in Religion hath (I am sure) by the Sages of this present Parliament, been so severely looked upon, that I should be very loath to be such a capital offender.  
All that my soul longeth after, is but to obtain the same liberty which all different parties (but such as hold to their rule and Conformity) daily have, a free exercise of my Conscience in that way of Worship, in which both Church and State visibly held and professed communion till very lately; a way of worship in the days of Queen Mary justified against the Papist; a way of 
See the Supplication of the men of Norfolk and Suff. in the Book of Martyrs 728. Abridg, pag. 413.  worship in the days of Queen Elizabeth so highly protested against the Puritan, that Stow in his Chronicle hath recorded, at Bury Assizes, 1538. Hacket and Coppinger were hanged for spreading Books seditiously penned by one Robert Brown against the Common-prayer-book.  
Now, reverend Sir, till some better judgement shall unfold the mystery, it must be my wonder, that that very Form which this very Parliament passed under the notion of Divine Service, should on a sudden become such an abomination, that any way of Worship, but it, is permitted; any body of Professors conscientious, but such as use this; all other Ways being held, if not religious, yet tolerable. This I can assure you is no mean scandal and riddle to such as are very intelligent and very conscientious Christians.  

Decemb. 31, 1646.  Indeed a Declaration passed, and by the House of Commons was ordered, not only to be printed, but by special order to be published by the care of Knights and Burgesses, against all such persons as should take upon them to preach of expound, not being ordained here, or in some Reformed Church.  
But whereas in October last a Petition against this Declaration was exhibited, and with thanks received by both Houses; whereas notwithstanding that Declaration, such as have no act of Ministerial Ordination passed upon them, do daily, unchecked, preach and expound in Churches and public places:  
I humbly desire you so to qualify my conscientious constancy to the most Christian form of the Church of England, that to persevere in it be no more held contumacy against the Ordinance, than was that Petition against the Declaration; so shall I be bound to give you more thanks than were the Houses to give them.  
In a word, I beseech you (good Sir) by that conscientious subscription in which we both visibly agreed; by that Canonical obedience which we both deliberately swore; by that Doctrine which at our Inductions in the face of our Congregations, and the presence of Almighty God, we did profess to ratify; by that solemn Protestation which since this Parliament began we both took; by these, and by all those duties, in which (I suppose without scruple) we did both within seven years' last past practice and communicate;  
Be pleased to look with some charitable respect upon one who now only is what generally all the Divines of England very lately professed, at least pretended for to be; one I am who fear to change, left (as a deflowered Virgin, that having lost the chaste Veil of her strict modesty, then lieth open to all proffers) I should find myself tractable to all changes: and how various they may yet prove, God knows.  
Blessed be God, for Religion, whether in Doctrine, Discipline, Government, or Form of Worship, I am very well; might I enjoy my peace within this pale, I should bless God, and the contrivers of it; or might there be a Reformation, and not abolition, I should yet hope to live in a Ministerial way: But however let me live (I beseech you) in your esteem, either as a conscientious Brother, or as your Convert; Arguments may pierce deeper than Afflictions; the one (blessed be God) I have born with a tolerable patience, and the other I am ready to receive with a proportionable meekness.  
Sir, the total of my desire and endeavour is, that either as a Divine you would satisfy my Scruples, or as a Christian satisfy my friend; and for either of these I shall subscibe myself,  
December 22, 1647. Your thankful Brother in the Lord, John Allington.   

THE ANSWER OF Mr. STEPHEN MARSHAL Of FINCHFIELD, A Grandee in the late Assembly, which could not be importuned till after the printing of the Letter.  
Responsa prudentum had of old an Equipage even with Law itself; and since there hath been no recourse to Oracles, no Vrim nor Thummin to give certain Answers; the greatest Appeal left to doubting Man in point of difficulty or scruple, it is to consult the Prudent.  
Now that Mr. Marshal thought himself, and was also thought to be, an Oracle in his time, I shall only set down such Answers as except an Oracle who would dare to give? For, when he was consulted about that sad War, which the Land cannot yet forget, 
 The Oracle thus: The Cause is a right cause, the Cause of God.  

In his Letter to a Friend in the City, p. 36.  In the same year, è Tripod, in a Sermon preached to the two Houses, Earl of Essex, Mayor and aldermans: All Christendom, except the Malignants in England, do now see that the Question in England is, Whether Christ or Antichrist shall be Lord and King? 
Jan. 18. 1643.  And then because Oracles are in point of War mainly consulted about the success, 
 The Oracle thus: Believe, this Cause must prosper; though we were all dead, our Armies overthrown, and even our Parliament dissolved, the Cause must prevail. In his Sermon upon Mich. 7. 1, 2.  
And as we may conceive he would not thus have spoken, but that he believed himself possessed, inspired, and fitted to be an Oracle; even so that he was taken so to be, I shall now call to witness his eminent Employments. Who was held fit to be an Oracle to the Army but Mr. Stephen Martial? who so fit to give Answers 
History of Independency, part 1. pag. 52.  in Scotland as Mr. Martial? who to satisfy his conscientious Majesty as Mr. Martial? And when the City was in great Fears and straits, when they wanted an Oracle indeed, through whom spoke the Army, but by Mr. Martial? He by Letters answered them, The Army had nothing but good thoughts toward the City. Upon the Answers received by this Oracle, 50000 l. was lent, the City-Gates set open, and the Tower delivered; yea, I find it written, 
* 53.  As Moneys are decried and enhanced by the King's Authority, so is every man's Religion cried up or down by Martial 's Authority, and Stamp: So that Delphos itself was the inferior Oracle.  
Whereas then, when the preceding Letter was written, I stood (as appears) in great need of an Answer; to whom could I in prudence have gone better, than to this so eminent an Oracle? He! who without fear or difficulty could give Answers to the greatest affairs and concerns both of Church and State. He who was (quasi gentium Apostolus) the Ecumenical Oracle to Scots and English. He who professeth himself acquainted with the Minds of all Christendom, yea and the Mind of God too! Here sure, or nowhere, was I to expect an Answer; this, or no Pope Stephen, was infallible.  
Whereas then my humble Address was, Eminenti, to so great an Eminence, I doubt not but now the Reader as well as the Writer may expect, either a full, or a fair, a civil, or a charitable Answer.  
In the Letter there is (I think) a modest and Hypothetical Request, either to salve my Repute with the Worshipful Knight I writ about, or to make me his Convert: his Charity might have done the one, if his Judgement could not do the other. But I could not importwe either, till at length I met him at Cambridge, 
Dr. Hill.  (that very day the Usurper of Trinity kept his Divinity-Act) in the School-yard: I desired to speak with him, told him my Name, excused my boldness that (being unknown) I troubled him with a Letter. At this he began to open, and said, And printed it when you had done. To which I solemnly and truly protested, Who printed it I knew not, nor of the printing of it, till a Neighbour showed it me; adding, Sir, I am now for London, and intent to wait upon that worthy Person in whose house you was then Couchant; I humbly desire to know whether you have done me the favour to satisfy him that you found me a conscientious though a weak Brother.  
Et jam parturiunt montes.  
His Answer was, You may go look. Had he bid me go look how and what he subscribed when he was Ordained and Instituted, it had been somewhat; for the Form of his Subscription was:  
I Stephen Martial, do willingly and ex Animo subscribe to the three Articles above mentioned, and to all things that are contained in them.  
Whereof the second is the Book of Common-prayer— That he himself will use the Form in the said Book prescribed in public Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, and none other.  
Or had he bid me go look what he himself did (after the Renouncing of his Subscription) when he married his Daughter by the Common-prayer, this had been something: but indefinitely to bid me go look, was next door to say to a Dog, Get you out.  
And here I cannot forbear with honour to remember Learned and Civil Mr. Jeremiah Whittaker, to whom when I addressed myself upon the same scruple, I had of him in his house a very kind reception: and when in discourse I told him how I had negatively subscribed to use in public Administrations the Common-prayer, and no other, He told me I was surely deceived, and desired me to meet him at the Dean of Westminster's (where the Assembly than sat) next Morning; which I did, and brought with me a Book of Canons; but the good man anticipated the showing of them; telling me, that indeed the Subscription was as I said; and that I had called to his remembrance a sin, which but for me he should never have asked pardon for! A fitter man to deal with a tender Conscience than Mr. Martial.  
He did go look indeed; but it was into his own Breast, and there he found he had sinned against his Subscription; which ingenuous Confession I wish may do him more honour than a Monument.  
Vtilitas facit esse Deos, quâ nempe Remotâ  
Templa ruunt, nec erunt Arae, nec Jupiter ullus.  
It was partly said by the Poet, Profit makes Gods: Temples, Altars, and Jupiter himself, were no further valued than men got by them. Trucly, I do heartily wish, that even among us, none did drive on Religion as a Trade, subscribing and avowing the Liturgy with as changeable Consciences as they did the Covenant and the Engagement, valuing nor one or other, but as a present Expedient; which truly makes me call to mind what a Reverend' Bishop of the Church of Ireland observed here in England, viz. The greatest danger that ever the Common-prayer-book had, was the indifferency and the indevotion of them that used it but as a common Blessing; and they who thought it fit for the meanest of the Clergy to read Prayers, and for themselves only to preach. This doubtless did, and ever will depress the honour of the Liturgy; for mobile Vulgus, she moving people can never value what they see is by the Priest but superficially professed.  
When Augustus Caesar and Mark Anthony were at variance, there is a known Story of a poor man, who not being able to prognosticate which should return the Conqueror, made two Crows equally ready: one could say, Ave Caesar victor Imperator; and the other, Ave victor Imperator Antoni: One prepared to salute Augustus, and the other Anthony. All a matter to the poor man who was chief, so he got by it. Now as Crows, even so Oracles, they have been taught to speak for advantage, many of them being like unto Wind-instruments, which sound no longer than they are puffed up. Now of my Crow-like Oracle, the Author of the History of Independency thus: Mr. Marshal when he saw Independency prevail, secretly turned his Coat the wrong side outward— could not tell whether C. should import Charles or Cromwell! And this my unlucky Letter bears date that very year; so that my Oracle, being at a loss shall be pardoned, and have no more said either to him or of him for this so dobious and unexpected Answer in a case of Conscience: 
 You may go look.  
Anno [ut sertur] Mirabili Responsum Mirabile, 1666.  
FINIS.