it will not recompense the trouble, and will turn into superstition, and will more minister to evil than to good, and is not properly the matter of an ecclesiastical law, and the bishop hath no power to make a law in this matter: it is not for God, and it is not for religion, but for vanity, or empire, or superstition.

13. This only I am to add in order to the determination of our conscience in the practice of this inquiry, that if there be a law made by the civil power for the keeping Lent, then it is for civil regards, and the law is not for superstition, but therefore to be observed, as other civil laws are, with the same equity and measures of obedience; of which I am to give further accounts in the chapter of interpretation and diminution of human laws. But if it be still an ecclesiastical law, indicted and suggested by the spiritual power, and only corroborated by the civil power, and for them efformed into a law, then it obliges the conscience no otherwise, than it did, and ought to do, in the hands of the spiritual power; that is, only when the law is for good, and not for evil,-with Christian liberty, and not a snare, when it is fit to be persuaded, and ought to be complied with, then and there it may be indicted, and is to be obeyed accordingly.

RULE XX.

Ecclesiastical Laws must ever promote the Service of God and the Good of Souls; but must never put a Snare or Stumbling-block to Consciences.

1. THE holy primitives, in their laws and actions, ever kept that saying of the Apostle in their eye and in their heart, Πάντα πρὸς οἰκοδομὴν γενέσθω, "Every word, every action, must be” πρὸς οἰκοδομὴν τῆς χρείας, "for the use of edifying." Let all things be done for edification: and therefore much more must laws, which have a permanent causality and influence upon the actions of the church; for therefore, they are either a permanent good or evil.

2. When the churches had hope of converting the Jews by gentleness and compliance in some outward rites, the * 1 Cor. xiv. 26. Ephes. iv. 29.

church made laws of combination and analogy, of continuation and correspondence in some observances. Thust the apostles, at the council of Jerusalem, indicted the abstinence from blood, as being infinitely offensive to the Jews, and apt to estrange their hearts from the whole religion of them that ate it. And therefore the law was made, that it might cement the stones of the spiritual building, and the Jews and Gentiles might make the two walls of the church. But when the Jews refused to come in', and excepting the remnant only (of which St. Paul speaks) which were saved, the rest grew to hate the Lord of life, then the church considered, that to use their liberty would be for the edification of the church of the gentiles; and then they remembered that "Moses had given the Jews flesh, but forbade them blood, but Christ gave us both flesh and blood, and forbade neither;" and therefore they returned to that use of it, that was most for charity and liberty, instruction and edification. Upon the same account, though the church was kind to the Jews, yet they would take care not to offend any of her children by retaining words, that might abuse them into a good opinion of their religion; and therefore, at first, they abstained from the name of priest, and temple, as is to be observed in Justin Martyr, Ignatius, and Minutius. At the first the Christians kept the Jewish sabbath; but in the council of Laodicea" it was forbidden; and in the seventieth canon of that collection, which goes under the name of the apostles, which was pub. lished much about the same time, the Christians are forbidden neque jejunia cum Judæis exercere, nec festos dies agere, nec quæ in ipsorum celebritatibus xenia mittuntur, accipere ;" "to keep the Jewish fasts, or feasts, or to receive their presents," viz. of unleavened cakes, which, upon those days, they usually sent abroad. And the reason of the prohibition is, lest Judaism should be valued, and lest Christians be scandalized at such compliance, as Zonaras and Balsamo note upon that canon of the Laodicean council, but is more fully discoursed by Constantine upon the keeping of Easter, as Eusebius" reports in his life.

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3. To this end all laws and canons must be made; not only for that reason, because the end of the commandment is charity,' and of all ecclesiastical government is the build

ing up the church in love o;' but because the church hath no power to make laws which are not for edification: and this the Apostle testifies twice? in one epistle, using the same words; that the power and "authority which the Lord had given to him, was for edification, not for destruction." And this is not only so to be understood, that if the church makes laws, which are notfor edification, she does amiss; but that she obliges not, her laws are null, and do not bind the conscience. For it is otherwise here than in civil laws: right or wrong, the civil constitutions bind the body or the soul; but because the verification of the laws of the church is in the hands of God, and he only materially and effectively punishes the rebellious against this government, it is certain he will do only according to the merit of the cause, and not verify a power which he hath forbidden. But in the civil courts, there is a punishment that is exterminating or afflictive, which can punish them, whom God will finally absolve. Therefore it is, that, when the church does any thing beyond her commission, she does no way oblige the conscience, neither actively nor passively: the church punishes no man temporally, and God will not either temporally or externally afflict those, who do not obey there, where he hath given no man power to command. And this is greatly to be observed in all the cases of conscience concerning ecclesiastical laws. If we understand, where the spiritual power can command, where she can exhort and ought to prevail, we have found out all the measures of our obedience. But if she goes beyond her commission, she hurts none but herself; for she hath nothing to do with bodies, and our souls are in safe hands. And the case is much alike, in case the spiritual law be bound by the civil power: for the king, when he makes laws of religion, is tied up to the evangelical measures; and if he prevaricates, he does indeed tie us to a passive obedience, but the conscience is no otherwise bound; and he is to govern Christ's church by the same measures, with which the apostles did; and the bishops their successors did, and ought to do, before the civil power was Christian. For he hath no more power over consciences than they had; and therefore he ought not, by the afflictions of the body, to invade the soul: but if he does, ἔχει δύναμιν, ἀλλὰ μὴ ἐξουσίαν, "he hath power" over

bodies, "but no authority" over the conscience. This being considered, the rule hath effect in the following particulars.

4. This rule is to be understood positively and affirmatively; that is, the church in all her constitutions must take care, that the church be edified and built up in some grace or other: but not so, that whatsoever is for edification, she hath power to command. The measures and limits of her legislative power I have already described; it must be within those circles: and though other things without them may be useful, and fit for instruction, or to promote the interest of a virtue; yet Christ hath left them at liberty, and his church hath no power to bind beyond his commission. They can exhort and persuade, and, by consent, they can prescribe; but to the making of a law there is something else required, besides that it be apt to edify or to instruct. For (besides that it must be of something placed in her power) it must edify, and not destroy; it must build up, and not pull down; that is, it must build with all hands, and not pull down with one.

5. I instance in the institution of significant ceremonies, that is, such which are not matters of order and decency, but merely for signification and the representment of some truth or mystery. Those which are prudently chosen, are in their own nature apt to instruct. Thus the use of pictures in the Greek and in the Lutheran churches is so far useful, that it can convey a story, and a great and a good example to the people that come thither, and so far they may be for edification. But because these can also, and do too often, degenerate into abuse and invade religion, -to make a law of these is not safe; and when that law does prevail to any evil, that it is not easily by any other means cured, it does not prevail upon the conscience: and indeed to make a law for the use of them, is not directly within the commission of the ecclesiastical power.

6. But there is also more in it than thus. For although significant ceremonies can be for edification to the church in some degree, and in some persons; yet it is to be considered, whether the introducing of such things does not destroy the church, not only in her Christian liberty, but in the simplicity and purity and spirituality of her religion, by insensibly changing it into a ceremonial and external ser vice. To the ceremonial law of the Jews nothing was to be added, and from it nothing was to be subtracted; and in Christianity we have less reason to add any thing of ceremony, excepting the circumstances and advantages of the very ministry, as time and place, and vessels and ornaments and necessary appendages. But when we speak of rituals or ceremonies, that is, exterior actions or things besides the institution or command of Christ, either we intend them as a part of the divine service, and then they are unlawful and intolerable; or if only for signification, that is so little a thing, of so inconsiderable use in the fulness and clarity of the revelations evangelical, that besides that it keeps Christians still in the state of infancy and minority, and supposes them always learning, and never coming to the knowledge of the truth," it ought not to stand against any danger or offence, that can, by them, be brought to any wise and good Christians.

7. In some ages of the primitive church, and in some churches, they gave to persons to be baptized milk and honey or a little wine (as we read in Tertullian and St. Jerome *), to signify that those catechumens were babes in Christ; and in a rebus to recommend to them that saying of St. Peter, "As new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word." Now besides that this was not usual, to give hieroglyphics where they had plain precepts, and to give signs of things that were present and perceived, it was of very little use, so that all churches that I know of, have laid it aside. It was also a custom anciently, when they brought the bread and wine to the altar or communion-table, to present milk along with it; and this also did signify nutrition by the body and blood of Christ. But the council of Bracara forbade it upon this reason, " quia evidens exemplum evangelicæ veritatis illud offerri non sinit," "because Christ did no such thing, and commanded no such thing;" and therefore nothing is to be added to those ceremonies, which Christ left. And indeed if the church might add things or rituals of signification, then the walls might be covered with the figures of doves, sheep, lambs, serpents, birds, and the communion-table with bread, wine, herbs, tapers, pigeons, raisins, honey, milk, and

Lib. 1. contr. Marcion.

• Dial. adv. Luciferianos. t Cap. 1.