Five disputations of church-government and worship

1. It is a certain way to the Division of the Church: when men will lay its Unity or Peace on that which will not bear it, they are the most desperate disturbers and dividers of it. If one form of Prayer or Preaching had been necessary to the Churches Unity or Peace, Christ or his Apostles might as easily have composed it, as they did other necessaries. Nay experience tells us, that it is not held necessary by men themselves: For the Romanists use one or more forms: and the Grecians another, and the Ethiopians another▪ and so of other Churches. In the Bibliotheca Patrum how many Liturgies have they given us? And if no one of all these is necessary to all Churches, then not to any one Church, further then accidents, and mens impositions make it necessary. And no man should make that necessary, that is not some way necessary before. It is easy to know that either the Form as such, or somewhat in the Form, is like to be scrupled by some, even godly, able men: and so it will prove an engine of division. The Church hath been brought to that torn divided condition that it is in, by this arrogancy of domineering imposers, that must lay its Peace on their unnecessary devices: and will not let us have unity in Christ and his Institutions and peace upon his terms.

1. It is a certain way to the Division of the Church: when men will lay its Unity or Peace on that which will not bear it, they are the most desperate disturbers and dividers of it. If one form of Prayer or Preaching had been necessary to the Churches Unity or Peace, Christ or his Apostles might as easily have composed it, as they did other necessaries. Nay experience tells us, that it is not held necessary by men themselves: For the Romanists use one or more forms: and the Grecians another, and the Ethiopians another▪ and so of other Churches. In the Bibliotheca Patrum how many Liturgies have they given us? And if no one of all these is necessary to all Churches, then not to any one Church, further then accidents, and mens impositions make it necessary. And no man should make that necessary, that is not some way necessary before. It is easie to know that either the Form as such, or somewhat in the Form, is like to be scrupled by some, even godly, able men: and so it will prove an engine of division. The Church hath been brought to that torn divided condition that it is in, by this arrogancy of domineering imposers, that must lay its Peace on their unnecessary devices: and will not let us have unity in Christ and his Institutions and peace upon his terms.