Catholic communion defended against both extremes, and unnecessary division confuted in five parts ...…Catholick communion defended against both extreams, and unnecessary division confuted in five parts ...…

2. The word [Worship], as I said before, is Equivocal, as signifying only the Things made necessary to the honouring of God directly by Divine Command: or the subordinate Acts, Modes, Circumstances, left to Humane Choice. In the former sense, the Order, Words, and Forms in the Liturgy, and in all our usual Devotions, are Accidents, and not Parts. In the later sense, they are Parts: But whether this later sense of Worship be apt, is but a strife about a word.

But you say, they are natural and occasional. Ans. Dark words! 1. I think the Translations, Metre, Tunes, Notes, your Words and Method, Table, Cups, Cloth, Temples, &c. are rather Artificial than Natural; Art and not Nature made them what they are. If you mean that Nature commandeth them, then God by the Law of Nature commandeth them: and what greater Authority can they have? But yet that is not so, Nature doth not determine us to this or that, but leave all to apt and prudent Choice. And so he doth as to the form or words of Prayer.

If by [Occasional] you mean such as must be mutably fitted to just Occasions; there is no doubt of it: And while the Occasion is constant, so may the Accidents. But sure while they are such; yea, and relatively appropriated or separated to worship (as Buildings, Utensils, and Maintenance may be) they belong to that Worship which they are no parts of