M. Yes, and more than so, you read the Scripture which is all for holiness: The deeper is the guilt of Hypocrisy and Malignity in them that seek to root it out: Out of their own mouths will they be judged, and beaten with many stripes. Judge by these instances.
1. How Children are Baptized with God-fathers, and how Confirmed after, and Admitted to Communion, and forced to it, I showed before.
2. So many humane Institutions are imposed on Men as necessary to Communion, that he must be a Man of more Learning and Understanding than I have, or with all the study of my Life could obtain, who can discern them all to be Lawful: And he that calls any of them sinful is Excommunicate ipso jure.
3. It is certain that a great part of the Laity understand not the Creed, and those few that set themselves to seek for saving knowledge, attain so little in their secular course of Life, as that we must be glad if they understand all the Catechism, the Creed, Lords Prayer and Ten Commandments, and take such for extraordinarily wife: And yet if one of these think a Form, a Ceremony, a Lay Chancellors Discipline, &c. to be repugnant to the Word of God, and say it, he is Excommunicate.
⟨p. 183⟩4. By this it is absolutely necessary that the generality of men, even all England that know not more than I do, must blindly believe as the Canon and Priest bids them, barely on their Word, or else they must falsely pretend to believe them, or be all liable to Excommunication. And so an implicit Faith in the Canon-Makers and Bishops is become the necessary Religion of the Land. And then if the Bishops turn we must all turn with them.
5. By this means wilful ignorance is made necessary. For it is a dangerous thing (as I have found it) to study for knowledge in Gods Word, lest it should lead us to differ from something in the Canons, Liturgy or Bishops, and then we are liable to ruin. And so they that will be Church Members must take heed of studying Gods Word, or searching after Truth.
5. If for thinking and saying any of the Impositions are amiss, they be once Excommunicated, or but noted as Dissenters, they are rendered odious to the Church-Courts and Priests, and by them to the credulous Obsequious Herd;
M. Yes, and more than so, you read the Scripture which is all for holiness: The deeper is the guilt of Hypocrisie and Malignity in them that seek to root it out: Out of their own mouths will they be judged, and beaten with many stripes. Judge by these instances.
1. How Children are Baptized with God-fathers, and how Confirmed after, and Admitted to Communion, and forced to it, I shewed before.
2. So many humane Institutions are imposed on Men as necessary to Communion, that he must be a Man of more Learning and Understanding than I have, or with all the study of my Life could obtain, who can discern them all to be Lawful: And he that calls any of them sinful is Excommunicate ipso jure.
3. It is certain that a great part of the Laity understand not the Creed, and those few that set themselves to seek for saving knowledge, attain so little in their secular course of Life, as that we must be glad if they understand all the Catechism, the Creed, Lords Prayer and Ten Commandments, and take such for extraordinarily wife: And yet if one of these think a Form, a Ceremony, a Lay Chancellors Discipline, &c. to be repugnant to the Word of God, and say it, he is Excommunicate.
⟨p. 183⟩4. By this it is absolutely necessary that the generality of men, even all England that know not more than I do, must blindly believe as the Canon and Priest bids them, barely on their Word, or else they must falsly pretend to believe them, or be all liable to Excommunication. And so an implicite Faith in the Canon-Makers and Bishops is become the necessary Religion of the Land. And then if the Bishops turn we must all turn with them.
5. By this means wilful ignorance is made necessary. For it is a dangerous thing (as I have found it) to study for knowledge in Gods Word, lest it should lead us to differ from something in the Canons, Liturgy or Bishops, and then we are liable to ruin. And so they that will be Church Members must take heed of studying Gods Word, or searching after Truth.
5. If for thinking and saying any of the Impositions are amiss, they be once Excommunicated, or but noted as Dissenters, they are rendered odious to the Church-Courts and Priests, and by them to the credulous Obsequious Herd;
