II.

sanctificare, quos etiam vetus atque Apostolica, puriorque Ec- CHAP. clesia sanctificare solita fuit: i. e. "Though the Church hath liberty to make choice of what days besides the Lord's day she will celebrate, yet is it more decent, laudable, and profitable to sanctify those which the elder Apostolic and purer Church was wont to solemnize." Now what those days were in Zanchy's judgment he soon after deciphers by the festivals of Easter, Pentecost, Ascension, Good Friday, Christ's Nativity. But to turn the keen edge of this great man's testimony, two places are cited from him which some would persuade are of a contrary import; and fit it is we should, before we leave him, see the peace kept between Zanchy and himself. "It is more agreeable with the first institution and Apostolical writings, that only one day in a week be kept holy," saith Zanchy, and so I: for what do these words exhibit but barely this, that in the Apostles' time there is no constat of any other Christian festival observed than the weekly only, which I conceive few will deny. Again: "They have not done ill who have abolished all but the Lord's day." This is granted too: for festivals, being of an adiaphorous and indifferent quality, far be it from me to impute sin to them who abrogate them; I speak of magistrates empowered with the supreme authority; but though I allow they have not done ill in the abolishing, yet do I conceive they had done better in retaining them. So that I cannot discern any material interfering betwixt Zanchy quoted pro and con, but that he is reconcileable enough both to himself and to the doctrine of the forecited Confessions, and all speaking home as to the advantage of our Church's liberty in appointing days, and of her prudential piety in selecting these. But the best reformed Churches have laid these holy days aside, and it is fit we conform to them. Answer: if the Churches here intended be, as the contrivers of it administer cause of conjecture, those of Geneva, France, Scotland, Belgia, it will raise a new question, whether they may properly be called the best reformed Churches? a question fit to be stated before they be propounded as exemplary to us. To which end very proper it is that it be demonstrated to us that the avenues, the entries, the mode and way of their reformation

P Ibid. Th. 1.

II.

CHAP. was agreeable to principles of Christianity, that the work proceeded in a regular, sober, and orderly manner, was not carried on by tumult, sedition, and rebellion. For this hath been controverted, and no satisfaction given adequate, or which hath made even with all scruples. Again, omitting how, and to examine what they did, we say there are several parcels of that new structure which they cry up for so rare a beauty, whose symmetry and proportion in the sense of many learned and judicious men, holds no conformity to the rules of Christianity. They have, it is feared in an odd humour of singularity, abandoned the most excellent order of bishops, an order of fifteen hundred years' standing, before the new-fangled discipline; wherein if they have done well, the consequence must infallibly be that all those blessed martyrs, confessors, fathers, and other holy men of former ages, did abuse the Church in preserving such a prelacy, and that God's providence was supinely negligent and fast asleep to permit His Church all along so many centuries to be so misgoverned. To proceed, they have not only laid aside these holy days above specified, but even the Lord's day itself, which our great adversaries themselves repute to be of divine institution. True it is they make it a day of public assembling, but not for sacred concernments alone; no, for civil also, having their markets kept upon those days. Till these obstacles be removed, we hold it not just that they pretend to the title of "the best reformed Churches." Only one objection more I must not fastidiously slight: to which, though a clarissimo ingenio occupata sunt meliora, "it hath been the exercise of a more learned pen," I shall endeavour an

answer.

The objection is this; many of these festivals had their rise 61 and growth from Christians' conformity to the heathenish feasts and customs, which is not agreeable to Gospel principles. Answer: no proof being produced out of ancient monuments to strengthen this assertion, it is as easily repelled as offered. There is indeed reference made to Gregory the Great, but that epistle, being the seventy-first of his ninth book, speaks short. The question is matter of fact, whether actually the Christian came in place of pagan fes9 Hieronym. Epist.

tivals? of this Gregory affords not a syllable: all he says is CHAP. only this; that Augustine the monk, who was his emissary into England, desired his resolution what should be done with the pagan temples, as also with their festivals; Gregory's direction in this case was this, that the temples he should convert into churches, and the pagan festivals into Christian holy days. How far Augustine pursued his master's order there is no constat : suppose it acted what was commanded, then I say, first, the same objection lieth against our Churches also which they have urged against our festivals; secondly, this is enough to confute that miserable mistake that Christmas day took its rise from the paganish saturnals, when certain it is that day was in observation hundreds of years before St. Gregory; and for other festivals, they must rather be then supposed translated than instituted, considering that Gildas, speaking of the peace restored to the Church after the Dioclesian persecution, gives this account of the Christians' doings: Renovant ecclesias ad solum usque destructas, basilicas sanctorum martyrum fundant, dies festos celebrant: "They repair the churches demolished to the ground, they rear up monuments for the blessed martyrs, they celebrate holy days." This Gildas delivers, who was near a century of years Gregory's ancient. And if holy days were celebrated then, they could not take rise from this act of Augustine three hundred years after. Lastly, if the Christian festivals were removed and translated to a coincidence with those of the heathens, neither was either the direction or execution to blame. St. Paul, in order to the Jews' conversion, made himself a Jew to them; upon this very score he circumcised Timothy, and shaved his own head at Cenchrea; why might not Paul's act be a leading case to all posterity? why might not Gregory and Augustine shew his act for their warrant; believe it, if they could by this compliance cheat the heathens of their idolatry, and cozen them to the saving of their souls, it was for ought I see a pious fraud. If Gregory be thought to have adventured too far in his direction, hear a protestant of eminent note and account amongst us: learned Zanchy, speaking of the Jewish feasts of pasch, pentecost, tabernacles, jubilee, &c.", Quis prohibet, quin Ecclesia sicut diem Zanchi in 4. præcept. Qu. 2. Th. 1.

Anno 300.

CHAP. septimum transtulit in Dominicum, sic etiam illos reliquos dies II. festos in alios transferre potuerit? "Who can hinder, but as

the Church did translate the seventh day into the Lord's day, so she may also change those festivals into others?" Now if Zanchy be in the right as to the Jewish festivals, what just cause can be shewed why the festivals of the heathen, situated under the same parallel of legality, may not also be converted into Christian holy days.

THE ORDER WHERE MORNING AND EVENING PRAYER SHALL BE USED

The Common Prayer.

And here is to be noted, that the minister at the time of the Communion, and at all other times in his ministration shall use (D) such ornaments in the church as were in use by authority of parliament in the second year of the reign of King Edward VI., according to the act of parliament set in