A01760:336
A dispute against the English-popish ceremonies, obtruded upon the Church of Scotland Wherein not…A dispute against the English-popish ceremonies, obtruded vpon the Church of Scotland Wherein not…
A dispute against the English-popish ceremonies, obtruded upon the Church of Scotland Wherein not only our own arguments [sic] against the same are strongly confirmed, but likewise the answers and defences of our opposites, such as Hooker, Morton ... Forbesse, &c. particularly confuted.A dispute against the English-popish ceremonies, obtruded vpon the Church of Scotland Wherein not only our ovvne argumemts [sic] against the same are strongly confirmed, but likewise the ansvveres and defences of our opposites, such as Hooker, Mortoune ... Forbesse, &c. particularly confuted.
Leiden: printed by W. Christiaens, 1637
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
2. If the holy days be observed by Formalists only for order and Sect. 11 policy, then they must say the Church hath power to change them. But this power they take from the Church, by saying that they are dedicated and consecrated to those holy uses, to which they are applied. Semel Deo dicatum non est ad usus humanos ulterius transferendum, saith one of the nPopes. And by the dedication of Churches, the founders surrender that right, which otherwise they might have in them, saith one of the oFormalists themselves. If then the Church hath dedicated holy days to the worship of God, then hath she denuded her self of all power to change them, or put them to another use: which were otherwise, if holy days were appointed to be kept, only for order and policy. Yea further, times and places which are applied to the worship of God, as circumstances only for outward order and policy, may be by a private Christian applied to an civill use, for in so doing he breaketh not the ordinance of the Church: for example, Material Churches are appointed to be the receptacles of Christian assemblies, and that only for such common commodity and decency, which hath place as well in civill as in holy meetings, and not for any holiness conceived, to be in them, more then in other houses. Now if I be standing in a Church-yard when it raineth, may not I go into the Church that I may be defended from the injury of the weather? If I must meet w•th certain men, for putting order to some of my worldly affairs, and it fall out that we can not conveniently meet in any part but in the Church, may we not there keep our tryst? A material Church ⟨p. 12⟩then, may serve for a civill use, the same way that it serveth to a holy use. And so for times appointed for ordinary preaching upon week days in great towns, may not I apply those times to a civill use, when I can not conveniently apply them to the use for which the Church appointeth them? I trust our Prelates shall say, I may, because they use to be otherwise employed than in Divine worship, during the times of weekly preaching. Now if holy days were commanded to be kept only for order and policy, they might be applied to another use, as well as those ordinary times of weekly meetings in great towns: whereas we are required of necessity to keep them holy.