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liberty or authority to make a change; but it is to be con cluded to be a law of Christ, which the apostles did convey, with an intent to oblige all Christendom: not only because the apostles could not, in things indifferent, oblige or make a law to succeeding ages, for they had no authority, and could not govern churches after they were dead,--and it was against the laws of Christ, that the commandments of men should be taught for doctrines, and it is against Christian liberty, that a lasting necessity should, by man, be put upon any thing, and the succeeding churches would be straitened in the liberty which Christ had given them, and in which they were bound to stand fast;-not only all this, but this was a ministry of grace, the bishops were for ever appointed to give a gift by the laying on of hands:' and therefore here was an appointment by Christ, and by Christ's Spirit; for there is not in the world a greater presumption, than that any should think to convey a gift of God, unless by God he be appointed to do it. Here then could be no variety, and no liberty: this canon apostolical is of eternal obligation, and the churches cannot otherwise be continued.

11. But then in the appendages and annexes of this, the apostles did do their ministries; they did invocate the Holy Spirit upon those which were to be ordained: but in these they had no commandment what form to use. Imposition of hands and prayer were the necessary and appointed minis-. try: for in these things the churches did not vary, but took them from the apostles as the appointed liturgy: but with, what form of words, and with the tradition of what instruments, is left to the choice and economy of every church.

RULE XIII.

In the Rules which the Apostles gave to their Churches in Things indifferent, the Church hath a Liberty; but it is not used but for great Reason and great Necessity, and for the Edification of the People committed to their Charge.

1. THE reasons of this rule are these two. First, because it is a great regard to the honoured names of the apostles, the pillars and foundations of the church, that there be not an

easy change made of what they, in wisdom, had determined to be the measures of order and decency. But this is to be understood in such things, which change not, and whose nature, although it be not of moral obligation, yet the reason that bound it first may be perpetual, and such which cannot be succeeded to, and cannot be excelled. Thus the keeping of the Lord's day, besides all the other reasons derived from the nature of the thing, yet even for this alone, because it derived from the apostles, is to remain so for ever: becausé the reason being at first competent, for which they kept their assemblies, and gave that day to religion, and the same reason remaining for ever, and another cannot come in place of it, and a greater there cannot be, although the churches are not in conscience directly bound, yet collaterally and indirectly they are. For it would be a plain contempt of the persons and wisdom of the apostles, besides the disrespect to the mystery itself, to change the Sunday festival into any other day; for since there can be no reason for so doing, and a greater blessing than Christ's resurrection we are not to expect, and a greater reason for the keeping of a day than a thanksgiving for the greatest blessing there cannot be (except a divine commandment), the only reason, why any church should change it, must relate to the apostles; and therefore, be no less a contempt of their persons, and a lessening of their eminence, and could not be less than an intolerable scandal.

2. The other reason is, because the apostles even in things where they had no divine commandment, yet had the Spirit of God, the spirit of wisdom and government; and therefore where evidently there is not an inconvenience, or a uselessness, or an unreasonableness by reason of the change of times and circumstances, the churches are on the surer side, when they follow the practice and precedents of the apostles, and have the confidences of a reasonable hope, that such appointments are pleasing to Christ, since it is not unlikely, that they were derived from the Spirit of Christ. But in these cases the practices and canons apostolical must be evident and proved: for since in these particulars of lesser concernment, we do but presume and conjecture that the apostles were taught by the Spirit immediately; if it be but

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a conjecture that the apostles did teach or practise it, we have two lame feet, and cannot tread securely.

3. I shall give one instance in this particular, but it will be of great use, not only for the verification of this explication of the rule, but in order to conscience, because it is in some churches tied with strait cords, and pretended to be very necessary, and of great obligation upon this stock, because it was appointed by the apostles: and it is the observation of Lent and the weekly fasting-days.

Of the Lent Fast, and the weekly Fasting-days.

4. The fast of Lent, of all that are not, pretends the most fairly to have been an apostolical tradition; and if it could proveso, it would with much probability pretend to have been imposed with a perpetual obligation.

5. Of the first we have many testimonies from the ancient fathers. So St. Jerome : "Nos quadragesimam secundum traditionem apostolorum toto anno, tempore nobis congruo, jejunamus." - So St. Leo : "Quod ergo in omni tempore unumquemque convenit facere Christianum, id nunc solicitius est et devotius exequendum, ut apostolica institutio quadraginta dierum jejuniis impleatur." And again": "A sanctis apostolis per doctrinam Spiritus Sancti majora sunt instituta jejunia, ut per commune consortium crucis Christi, nos etiam aliquid in eo, quod propter nos gessit, ageremus." To these agrees Isidorus Hispalensis*: "Quadragesima in universo orbe institutione apostolica observatur circa confinium Dominicæ passionis." To which Doro, theus, a Greek abbot, does consent, save only that he says more; for he affirms that the apostles did consecrate the seven Quadragesimal weeks of fasting. So that here we have four ancient authors give testimony, that the Lent fast was a tradition or an appointment apostolical.

6. Now if it come from the apostles by way of precedent or authority, the thing itself hath, in its nature or appendage, some advantages, by which with much reasonableness we may believe it was intended to bind all ages of the catholic church. Because the usefulness of it will be as much now as ever it was; and it being a specification of the duty

of fasting, which will never be out of season, and having always the same common cause, that is, the precedent of Moses and Elias, and the example of our blessed Saviour himself, the duty not being relative to time or place, and the reason of the institution being of perpetual regard, and the usefulness very great, and the thing pious and holy, and add to these, all churches ancient and modern having received it till now of late, it will be very like a duty incumbent upon all churches and all ages to observe this fast, which the apostles with so much reason did prescribe.

7. And in pursuance of this we find some excellent persons in the ancient churches saying expressly, that this institution is warranted to us from Christ. So St. Austin": "The Carême or Lent fast hath an authority of a fast both in the Old Testament from the fast of Moses and Elias, and out of the gospel (because so many days the Lord fasted), demonstrating that the gospel does not differ from the law:" and again; "By that number of forty, in which Moses and Elias and our Lord himself did fast, was signified unto us that we must abstain from secular delights." The same thing also is affirmed by St. Jerome': "Moses and Elias, in their forty days' hunger, were filled with the conversation of God: and our Lord himself fasted so many days in the wilderness that he might leave to us the solemn days of fasting;" or, as he says in another places, "Hæreditatem nobis jejunii derelinquens, ad esum corporis sui sub hoc numero animas nostras præparat;" "Leaving to us the inheritance of fasting, under this number he prepares our souls for the eating of his body."-So Isidore: "The first is the fast of Lent, which began from the fast of Moses and Elias and of our blessed Lord, who fasted so many days."

8. Now although these fathers intend not to say, that our Lord did command this fast, but gave us a precedent and an example to imitate as well as we can; he was the occasion why the church took that time, and performed that severity: yet the example of our blessed Lord cannot be neglected without sin: "Non enim, fratres, leve peccatum est indictam Quadragesimam à Domino non jejunare, et jejunia consecrata ventris voracitate dissolvere," &c. said the author of the twenty-fifth sermon in the works of St. Ambrose; "It is not a light sin not to keep the Lenten fast which was indicted by our Lord, and with the greediness of the belly to dissolve these consecrated fasting-days. For what does he deserve, that breaks the fast which Christ indicted? If therefore thou wilt be a Christian, thou must do as Christ did. He that had no sin, fasted forty days: and wilt not thou who hast sinned, keep the Lent fast; he I say, that had no sin, yet fasted for our sins: Think therefore in thy conscience, what a kind of Christian thou art, when, Christ fasting for thee, thou wilt eat thy dinner." This author, whoever he was (for it was not St. Ambrose), supposed that the example of Christ was a sufficient indiction of the Quadragesimal fast. But it is to be observed, that it is not unusual with ancient writers to affirm a thing to be by divine right, if there be in Scripture but an authentic precedent and example of it. Thus when the canond law affirms, that the churches and churchmen are free from secular exactions, not only by human but also by divine right: which saying, because to our ears it must needs seem extremely harsh, the gloss upon the place does soften it, by referring it to the fact of Joseph to the Egyptian priests, and of Artaxerxes to the Israelites. So that it is not intended that things of this nature be divine precepts properly so called; but such which the church for decent regard takes up in imitation of so great examples: and indeed they are such, which when the church hath upon such accounts taken them up, cannot be omitted without sin, if they be omitted without cause: for then they have authority when they are commanded by our superiors. But the example of our blessed Lord, in such extraordinaries as these, is but a very weak argument to introduce an institution, ordinary and perpetual, troublesome and ensnaring. But of this that we may be rid at once, I will set down the judgment of St. Austin and of St. Chrysostomf: "In what shall we imitate the ways of Christ? Shall it be in that magnificence in which God was in the flesh? Or does he exhort us to this, or exact of us to do miracles such as he did? He did not say, Ye shall not be my disciples unless ye walk upon