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 ...…

16. The Martyrs in Queen Maris days had a chief hand in composing our Liturgy, and rejoiced in it, and worshipped God according to it. And none that I read of separated for this from the rest as false Worshippers

16. The Martyrs in Queen Marys days had a chief hand in composing our Liturgie, and rejoyced in it, and worshipped God according to it. And none that I read of separated for this from the rest as false Worshippers

17. When before 1639. there were but about one or two Nonconformable Ministers for each County; if it had been unlawful to Communicate in the public Churches with the Liturgy, all England must have lived like Atheists without any Church Worship, for want of Ministers, except about thirty or forty. Yea, those few kept up no ⟨p. 4⟩usual Church Worship, except those of them that by connivance had small Chapels or peculiars. And of them most used much of the Liturgy.

17. When before 1639. there were but about one or two Nonconformable Ministers for each County; if it had been unlawful to Communicate in the publick Churches with the Liturgy, all England must have lived like Atheists without any Church Worship, for want of Ministers, except about thirty or fourty. Yea, those few kept up no ⟨p. 4⟩usual Church Worship, except those of them that by connivence had small Chappels or peculiars. And of them most used much of the Liturgy.

18. All the Congregations of the Nonconformists in England, that I have heard (save one now broken) not counting such as Quakers, &c.) have used, and do use, stinted, imposed forms of Worship to this day, and therefore judg it not unlawful, merely as forms, or as imposed. 1. Parents teach their Children a form of words in Catechisms, in Prayers, in giving Thanks for their Meat; and impose these on them. 2 Ministers impose on the Assemblies, their own method and words in Prayer, which are a form to the people; yea, and a form which they know not, till they hear it, and have no time to examine it, while it floweth from the Speaker. And their Sermons are imposed forms of Doctrine; (sometimes written also, and read). 3. Few men that retain any Sobriety in Religion, are against the Creed, to be used as a form of Confession of Faith. 4. The Independents drew up at the Savour, about 1658 or 1659. a form of Confession of their Faith and Discipline. 5. They attempted (Dr. Owen, Mr. Nigh, Dr. Goodwin, Mr. Sid. Sampson, Dr. Cheynell, and others), by appointment of a Committee of Parliament, to have drawn up a Catalogue of Fundamentals, to have been imposed for consent on all that should be tolerated in the Land in Church-Worship: they are yet to be seen in Print. (But Arch-bishop Usher being chosen for one, and refusing, and I being by his consent substituted in his room, broke that attempt; finding that their Fundamentals were lamentably composed, and that Christianity was not an unknown thing, and that Baptism, the Creed, Lords Prayer, and Decalogue, were a far better Catalogue of Fundamentals than theirs). 6. We all constantly use an English form of Translation of the Scripture, where all the English words, the division of Chapters and Verses, are mans invention, imposed on all. 7. We all use constantly forms of Confession, Prayer, Thanksgiving, and Praise in the singing of Psalms; where, when Davids and the Jews Psalms are used, the Translation, (or rather Paraphrase) the rhyme or meters, and the tune, are humane and imposed: And the Separatists themselves make no question; but other Psalms, (such as that of Ambrose, &c.) more suited to the State of the Gospel Church, may be fitly used, as Paul requireth, which must be composed by man, and imposed on the Churches, or never unanimously used.