Ratio disciplinae fratrum Nov-Anglorum. A faithful account of the discipline professed and practised; in…

§. 5. We are not Insensible, That in the Fourth and Fifth Ages of the Primitive Christianity, it was counted an heinous Crime, to publish the Prayers and Rites used in the Sacraments; Yea, they counted it a sort of Sacrilege, and worthy, Prolixiori Anathemate. Nor did they think, as Basil intimates, That they could be called Mysteries, if they were Exposed unto common and vulgar Notice. None of the ΑΜΥΗΤΟΙ might be present at these Devotions; They secluded the Catechumens from them; They declined all Recital of them in their Sermons to a Promiscuous Auditory, cutting off with such an Aposiopesis, as, nerunt Fideles. To write them, was reckoned unlawful, They were Mysteria Chartis non Committenda; They were ΑΡΡΗΤΑ, and ΑΓΡΑΦΑ, Nevertheless, ⟨p. 95⟩I would now pass on, boldly and freely to describe the ΕΣΩΤΕΡΙΚΑ, the most Sacred, and most Secret, of the Transactions in the Churches of New-England; Believing that the Christians of old in their great Reservations, too much accommodated themselves unto the Pagans; among whom (as Justin tells us) Mysteria enunciasse, was a grievous Crime; and some tell us of those who died for it.

§. 5. We are not Insensible, That in the Fourth and Fifth Ages of the Primitive Christianity, it was counted an heinous Crime, to publish the Prayers and Rites used in the Sacraments; Yea, they counted it a sort of Sacriledge, and worthy, Prolixiori Anathemate. Nor did they think, as Basil intimates, That they could be called Mysteries, if they were Exposed unto common and vulgar Notice. None of the ΑΜΥΗΤΟΙ might be present at these Devotions; They secluded the Catechumens from them; They declined all Recital of them in their Sermons to a Promiscuous Auditory, cutting off with such an Aposiopesis, as, nerunt Fideles. To write them, was reckoned unlawful, They were Mysteria Chartis non Committenda; They were ΑΡΡΗΤΑ, and ΑΓΡΑΦΑ, Nevertheless, ⟨p. 95⟩I would now pass on, boldly and freely to describe the ΕΣΩΤΕΡΙΚΑ, the most Sacred, and most Secret, of the Transactions in the Churches of New-England; Believing that the Christians of old in their great Reservations, too much accommodated themselves unto the Pagans; among whom (as Justin tells us) Mysteria enunciasse, was a grievous Crime; and some tell us of those who died for it.