"Whoever heard of commanded and allowed worship?"

Status
Not open for further replies.

NaphtaliPress

Administrator
Staff member
“How absurd a tenet is this, which holds that there is some particular worship of God allowed, and not commanded? What new light is this which makes all our divines [i.e. theologians] to have been in the mist, who have acknowledged no worship of God, but that which God has commanded? Whoever heard of commanded and allowed worship?”George Gillespie, A Dispute Against the English Popish Ceremonies (2013), 238; see context 238-241, below; sorry but the italics and Greek in the footnotes have dropped out in the cut and paste. I provided the Greek in a png.

{cf. Westminster Confession of Faith 21.1: "the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by Himself, and so limited by His own revealed will, that He may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation, or any other way not prescribed in the holy Scripture (Deut. 12:32: Matt. 15:9....)

Deuteronomy 12:32: "What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it."

Matthew 15:9: "But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."

Acts 17:25; Matthew 4:9 (see also Deut. 4:15-20) Exodus 20:4-6.}

Well, I see our opposites sometimes warrant the lawfulness of the ceremonies from the law of God, sometimes from the law of man, and sometimes from the law of nature; but I will prove that the lawfulness of those ceremonies we speak of can neither be grounded upon the Law of God, nor the law of man, nor the law of nature, and by consequence that they are not lawful at all; so that, besides the answering of what our opposites allege for the lawfulness of them, we shall have a new argument to prove them unlawful.

§2. I begin with the Law of God. And, first, let us see what is alleged from Scripture for the ceremonies in general; then, after, let us look over particulars. There is one place which they will have in mythology to stand for the head of Medusa,[1] and it they still object to us for all their ceremonies: even that of the apostle, “Let all things be done decently and in order” (1 Cor. 14:40). What they have drawn out of this place, Dr. Burges has refined in this manner. He distinguishes between præceptum [a thing commanded] and probatum [a thing approved]; and will have the controverted ceremonies to be allowed of God, though not commanded. And if we would learn how these ceremonies are allowed of God, he gives us to understand, that it is by commanding the general kind to which these particulars do belong.[2] If we ask what is this general kind commanded of God, to which these ceremonies do belong? he resolves us, that it is order and decency:[3] And if further we demand, how such ceremonies as are instituted and used to stir up men, in respect of their signification, unto the devout remembrance of their duties to God, are in such an institution and use, matters of mere order? as a magisterial dictator of quodlibets [as-you-wishes],[4] he tells us that they are matters of mere order, sensu largo, in a large sense.[5] But lastly, if we doubt where he reads of any worship commanded in the general, and not commanded, but only allowed in the particular, he informs us, that in the free-will offerings, when a man was left at liberty to offer a bullock, goat, or sheep at his pleasure, if he chose a bullock to offer, that sacrifice, in that particular, was not commanded, but only allowed.[6]

What should I do, but be surdus contra absurdum [deaf against the discordant]? Nevertheless, lest this jolly fellow think himself more jolly than he is, I Answer: 1. How absurd a tenet is this, which holds that there is some particular worship of God allowed, and not commanded? What new light is this which makes all our divines to have been in the mist, who have acknowledged no worship of God, but that which God has commanded? Whoever heard of commanded and allowed worship? As for the instances of the free-will offerings, Ames has answered sufficiently, that though the particulars were not, nor could not be, determined by a distinct rule in general, yet they were determined by the circumstances, as our divines are wont to answer the papists about their vows, councils, supererogations: *Not By A General Law, But By Concurrence Of Circumstances. So Deut. 16:10, Moses shows that the freest offerings were to be according as God had blessed them; from whence it follows, it had been sin for any Israelite whom God had plentifully blessed, to offer a pair of pigeons, instead of a bullock or two, upon his own mere pleasure. Where that proportion was observed, the choice of a goat before a sheep, or a sheep before a goat, was no formal worship.[7]

§3. 2. How will Dr. Burges make it appear that the English ceremonies do belong to that order and decency which is commanded? Bellarmine would have all the ceremonies of the church of Rome comprehended under order and decency, and therefore warrants them by that precept of the apostle, “let all things be done decently and in order.”[8] The one shall as soon prove his point as the other, and that shall be never.

For (1) The apostle only commands that each action and ceremony of God’s worship be decently and orderly performed, but gives us no leave to excogitate [contrive] or devise new ceremonies, which have not been instituted before. He has spoken in that chapter of assembling in the church, prophesying and preaching, praying and praising there.

Now let all these things, and every other action of God’s worship, ceremonies and all, be done decently and in order. Licit ergo Paulus, etc. Albeit therefore, says John Bastwick, Paul has committed to the church the judging both of decency and order, yet has he not granted any liberty of such mystical ceremonies as by their more inward signification do teach the duty of piety; for since the whole liberty of the church, in the matter of divine worship, is exercised only in order and decency, it follows that they do impudently scorn both God and the Scriptures, who do extend this liberty to greater things, and such as are placed above us. Most certain it is, that Christ, the doctor of the church, has, by His own written and sealed Word, abundantly expounded unto us the will of God. Neither is there further need of any ceremonies, which by a secret virtue may instruct us: neither is it less evident that order consists not in the institution or use of new things, but only in the right placing of things which have been instituted before.[9] Decency (Balduin says) is opposed to levity, and order to confusion. Yet this order chiefly has regard to the rites of the church in sacred duties in which there ought to be no scandal, no confusion. [10]

Then, in his judgment, order is not to the rites of the church a general kind, but only a concomitant circumstance; neither are the rites of the church comprehended under order as particulars under the general kind to which they belong; but order belongs to the rites of the church as an adjunct to the subject. And, I pray, must not the rites of the church be managed with decency and order? If so, then must our opposites either say that order is managed with order, which is to speak nonsense, or else, that the rites of the church are not comprehended under order. But if not, then it follows that the rites of the church are to be managed with levity, confusion, and scandal; for every action that is not done in decency and in order must needs be done scandalously and confusedly.

(2) Order and decency, whether taken largo or stricto sensu [in a large or narrow sense], always signify such a thing as ought to be in all human actions, as well civil as sacred; for will any man say, that the civil actions of men are not to be done decently and in order? The directions of order and decency[11] are not (we see) propria religionis [proper to religion], but as Balduin shows out of Gregory Nazianzen, order is in all other things as well as in the church.[12] Wherefore sacred significant ceremonies shall never be warranted by the precept of order and decency, which have no less in civility than in religion.



[1] . [In Greek Mythology all who gazed upon Medusa were turned to stone. In other words, the defenders of the English popish ceremonies used this one objection to turn away all arguments against them.]


[2]. Of the Lawfulness of Kneeling, p. 3, 11.


[3]. Ibid., p. 4.


[4] . Ibid., p. 14. [The 1637 edition places the footnote here at quodlibets, and there is no footnote for the latter half of the sentence regarding taking matters of order sensu largo. On page 14 Burges states that adoration and veneration do not differ in the words but only by the “intendments of men in using them” (Burges, 14), or as they wish, which seems to be what drew Gillespie’s criticism, if the number is correct.]


[5] . [Cf. Burges, page 8. Chapter Five. What is meant by Matters of meere Order? “But Order is sometimes so largely taken, as to comprehend the disposition and manner of handling any ordinance of God . . .” (page 8). “But Order, in a large sense, admitteth all such things unprescribed as belong to the Churches service . . .” (9).]


[6]. Ibid., p. 6, 7.


[7]. Fresh Suite, p. 153 [(1633). *The phrase is plain italics in Ames; Roman small caps, 1637.].


[8] . De Effect. Sacr., lib. 2, cap. 31. [Cf. “Controversiarum de Sacramentis. Liber Secundus. De Effectu, Numero Et Cæremoniis Sacramentorum,” in Opera Omnia (1870) 3.500.]


[9] . In Præfat. Elench. Relig. Papistic. [Elenchus Papisticæ Religionis In Quo Probatur Neque Apostolicam, Neque Catholicam, in my opinion Neque Romanam Este, Præfatio (Amsterdam: 1634) {B 2}. “Licet ergo Paulus & --
epc-240-greek.png

--³Ïóhǝł/nhj & ŝ/ciÙ* [i.e. eujschmovnw~ & tavxin] judicium Ecclesiæ mandaverit, mysticarum tamen libertatem cæremoniarum & quæ penitiori sua significatione pietatis officia docent, minimè concessit. Cum enim omnis Ecclesiæ libertas in negotio divini cultus, ordine tantum & decoro occupetur, consequens est & Deo simul & Scripturis impudenter illudi ab illis qui libertatem hanc ad res majores & supra nos collocatas extendant. Hoc quippe certe probatum est, Christum Ecclesiæ Doctorem scriptis & signatis tabulis abunde nobis exposuisse divinam voluntatem, nec ullis insuper egere cæremoniis quæ secreta nos virtute erudiant: nec minus illud in consesso suerit; ordinem quippe non in institutione, vel usu rerum novarum, sed in recta tantum rerum antea institutarum collocatione versari: . . . .” The supplied Greek is not how the original expands. Bastwick’s Greek as typical for the period, contained the incunabula ligatures and abbreviations, but also possibly some errors. *Renaissance Greek with Ligatures (RGreekL2) copyright © Vernon Eugene Kooy.].


[10] . De Cas. Consc., lib. 4, cap. 11. [Decorum opponitur levitati, ordo confusioni.”] Spectat autem hic ordo potissimum ad ritus ecclesiæ in officiis sacris in quibus nullum debet esse scandalum, nulla confusio. [Cf. Friedrich Balduin, “De Casibus Conscientia,” in Tractatus luculentus (1654), page 845.]


[11]. Ames, Bell. Enerv., tom. 1, lib. 3, cap. 7. [Cf. Bellarminus Enervatus (1629), 226.]


[12] . Ubi supra. [Cf. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 32 (alias 26), De moderatione in disputationibus servanda, PG 36, 182, VIII, English trans., “On Moderation in Theological Argument,” Fathers of the Greek Church, vol. 107, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Select Orations, Oration 32.8 (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003) 196–197.]​
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top