XIX. Of preaching by reading publicly the books of Holy Scripture; and concerning supposed untruths in those Translations of Scripture which we allow to be read; as also of the choice which we make in reading. XX. Of preaching by the public reading of other profitable instructions; and concerning books Apocryphal. XXI. Of preaching by Sermons, and whether Sermons be the only ordinary way of teaching whereby men are brought to the saving knowledge of God's truth. XXII. What they attribute to Sermons only, and what we to reading also. XXIII. Of Prayer. XXIV. Of public Prayer. XXV. Of the form of Common Prayer. XXVI. Of them which like not to have any set form of Common Prayer. XXVII. Of them who allowing a set form of prayer yet allow not ours. XXVIII. The form of our Liturgy too near the papists', too far different from that of other reformed Churches, as they pretend. XXIX. Attire belonging to the service of God. XXX. Of gesture in praying, and of different places chosen to that purpose. XXXI. Easiness of praying after our form. XXXII. The length of our service. XXXIII. Instead of such prayers as the primitive Churches have used, and those that the reformed now use, we have (they say) divers short cuts or shreddings, rather wishes than prayers. XXXIV. Lessons intermingled with our prayers. XXXV. The number of our prayers for earthly things, and our oft rehearsing of the Lord's Prayer. XXXVI. The people's saying after the minister. XXXVII. Our manner of reading the Psalms otherwise than the rest of the Scripture. XXXVIII. Of Music with Psalms. XXXIX. Of singing or saying Psalms, and other parts of Common Prayer wherein the people and the minister answer one another by course. XL. Of Magnificat, Benedictus, and Nunc Dimittis. XLI. Of the Litany. XLII. Of Athanasius's Creed, and Gloria Patri. XLIII. Our want of particular thanksgiving. XLIV. In some things the matter of our prayer, as they affirm, is unsound. XLV. "When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, thou didst 66 open the Kingdom of Heaven unto all believers." XLVI. Touching prayer for deliverance from sudden death. XLVII. Prayer that those things which we for our unworthiness dare not L. Of the name, the author, and the force of Sacraments, which force consisteth in this, that God hath ordained them as means to make us partakers of him in Christ, and of life through Christ. LI. That God is in Christ by the personal incarnation of the Son, who is very God. LII. The misinterpretations which heresy hath made of the manner how God and man are united in one Christ. LIII. That by the union of the one with the other nature in Christ, there groweth neither gain nor loss of essential properties to either. LIV. What Christ hath obtained according to the flesh, by the union of his flesh with Deity. LV. Of the personal presence of Christ every where, and in what sense it LVII. The necessity of Sacraments unto the participation of Christ. LIX. The ground in Scripture whereupon a necessity of outward Baptism hath been built. LX. What kind of necessity in outward Baptism hath been gathered by the words of our Saviour Christ; and what the true necessity thereof indeed is. LXI. What things in Baptism have been dispensed with by the fathers respecting necessity. LXII. Whether baptism by Women be true Baptism, good and effectual to them that receive it. LXIII. Of Interrogatories in Baptism touching faith and the purpose of a Christian life. LXIV. Interrogatories proposed unto infants in Baptism, and answered as in their names by godfathers. LXV. Of the Cross in Baptisin. LXVI. Of Confirmation after Baptism. LXVII. Of the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ. LXVIII. Of faults noted in the form of administering that holy Sacrament. LXIX. Of Festival Days, and the natural causes of their convenient institution. LXX. The manner of celebrating festival days. LXXI. Exceptions against our keeping of other festival days besides the Sabbath. LXXII. Of days appointed as well for ordinary as for extraordinary Fasts in the Church of God. LXXIII. The celebration of Matrimony. LXXIV. The Churching of Women. LXXV. The rites of Burial. LXXVI. Of the nature of that Ministry which serveth for performance of divine duties in the Church of God, and how happiness not eternal only but also temporal doth depend upon it. 426 The Defence of the Church a Trial of Constancy. LXXVII. Of power given unto men to execute that heavenly office, of the gift of the Holy Ghost in Ordination; and whether conveniently the power of order may be sought or sued for. LXXVIII. Of Degrees whereby the power of Order is distinguished, and concerning the Attire of ministers. LXXIX. Of Oblations, Foundations, Endowments, Tithes, all intended for perpetuity of religion; which purpose being chiefly fulfilled by the clergy's certain and sufficient maintenance, must needs by alienation of church livings be made frustrate. LXXX. Of Ordination lawful without Title, and without any popular Election precedent, but in no case without regard of due information what their quality is that enter into holy orders. LXXXI. Of the Learning that should be in ministers, their Residence, and the Number of their Livings. Ch. i. 1, 2. True religion all true vir stay of all common wealths. BOOK V. I. EW there are of so weak capacity, but public evils they easily espy; fewer so patient, as not to complain, when is the root of the grievous inconveniences thereof work sensible smart. tues, and the Howbeit to see wherein the harm which they feel consisteth, well-ordered the seeds from which it sprang, and the method of curing it, belongeth to a skill, the study whereof is so full of toil, and the practice so beset with difficulties, that wary and respective men had rather seek quietly their own, and wish that the world may go well, so it be not long of them, than with pain and hazard make themselves advisers for the common good. We which thought it at the very first a sign of cold affection towards the Church of God, to prefer private ease before the labour of appeasing public disturbance, must now of necessity refer events to the gracious providence of Almighty God, and, in discharge of our duty towards him, proceed with the plain and unpartial defence of a common cause. Wherein our en deavour is not so much to overthrow them with whom we contend, as to yield them just and reasonable causes of those things, which, for want of due consideration heretofore, they misconceived, accusing laws for men's oversights, imputing evils, grown through personal defects unto that which is not evil, framing unto some sores unwholesome plaisters, and applying other some where no sore is. [2.] To make therefore our beginning that which to both parts is most acceptable, We agree that pure and unstained religion ought to be the highest of all cares appertaining to Religion the Root of every Virtue. 427 Ch. i. 2. public regiment: as well in regard of that aid and protection* BOOK V. which they who faithfully serve God confess they receive at his merciful hands; as also for the force which religion hath to qualify all sorts of men, and to make them in public affairs the more serviceable†, governors the apter to rule with conscience, inferiors for conscience' sake the willinger to obey. It is no peculiar conceit, but a matter of sound consequence, that all duties are by so much the better performed, by how much the men are more religious from whose abilities the same proceed. For if the course of politic affairs cannot in any good sort go forward without fit instruments, and that which fitteth them be their virtues, let Polity acknowledge itself indebted to Religion; godliness being the§ chiefest top and wellspring of all true virtues, even as God is of all good things. So natural is the union of Religion with Justice, that we may boldly deem there is neither, where both are not. For how should they be unfeignedly just, whom religion doth not cause to be such; or they religious, which are not found such by the proof of their just actions? If they, which employ their labour and travel about the public administration of justice, follow it only as a trade, with unquenchable and unconscionable thirst of gain, being not in heart persuaded that || justice is God's own work, and themselves his agents in this business, the sentence of right God's own verdict, and themselves his priests to deliver it; formalities of justice do but serve to smother right, and that, which was necessarily ordained for the common good, is through shameful abuse made the cause of common misery. The same piety, which maketh them that are in authority desirous to please and resemble God by justice, inflameth every way men of action with zeal to do good (as far as their 66 *Ps. cxliv. 2. † Cod. Theod. lib. xvi. tit. 2. "Gaudere et gloriari ex fide semper " volumus, scientes magis religioni"bus quam officiis et labore corpo“ ris vel sudore nostram Rempubli"cam contineri." [t. vi. p. 44. ed. Gothofred.] †. Εστι δ' οὐθὲν ἐν τοῖς πολιτικοῖς δυνατὸν πρᾶξαι ἄνευ τοῦ ποιόν τινα εἶναι, λέγω δὲ οἷον σπουδαῖον. Τὸ δὲ § ̓Αρχὴ δ' ἀριστὴ πάντων τῶν ὄντ 2 Chron. xix. 6. Ch. i. 2. 428 Religion the Root of Justice, Prudence, Fortitude. BOOK V. place will permit) unto all. For that, they know, is most noble and divine. Whereby if no natural nor casual inability cross their desires, they always delighting to inure themselves with actions most beneficial to others, cannot but gather great experience, and through experience the more wisdom; because conscience, and the fear of swerving from that which is right, maketh them diligent observers of circumstances, the loose regard whereof is the nurse of vulgar folly, no less than Solomon's attention thereunto was of natural furtherances the most effectual to make him eminent above others. For he gave good heed, and pierced every thing to the very ground, and by that means became the author of many parables+. Concerning fortitude; sith evils great and unexpected (the true touchstone of constant minds) do cause oftentimes even them to think upon divine power with fearfullest suspicions, which have been otherwise the most secure despisers thereof how should we look for any constant resolution of mind in such cases, saving only where unfeigned affection to Godward hath bred the most assured confidence to be assisted by his hand? For proof whereof, let but the acts of the ancient "Jews be indifferently weighed; from whose magnanimity, in causes of most extreme hazard, those strange and unwonted resolutions have grown, which for all circumstances no people under the roof of heaven did ever hitherto match. And that which did always animate them was their mere religion. Without which, if so be it were possible that all other ornaments of mind might be had in their full perfection, nevertheless the mind that should possess them divorced from piety could be but a spectacle of commiseration; even as that body is, which adorned with sundry other admirable beauties, wanteth eyesight, the chiefest grace that nature hath in that kind to bestow. They which commend so much the felicity of that innocent world, wherein it is said that men of their own accord did embrace fidelity and honesty, not for fear of the magistrate, or because revenge was before their eyes, if at any time they should do otherwise, but that which held the people in awe * ̓Αγαπητὸν μὲν γὰρ καὶ ἑνὶ μόνῳ, κάλλιον δὲ καὶ θειότερον ἔθνει καὶ πόMeow. Arist. Ethic. lib. i. cap. 2. + [Eccles. xii. 9, 10.] |
