ART. XXXIV. ARTICLE XXXIV. Of the Traditions of the Church. It is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all Places one, or utterly like; for at all times they have been diverse, and may be changed according to the diversity of Countries and Men's Manners, so that nothing be ordained against God's Word. Whosoever through his private Judgment, willingly and purposely doth openly break the Traditions and Ceremonies of the Church, which be not repugnant to the Word of God, and be ordained and approved by common Authority, ought to be rebuked openly (that others may fear to do the like) as one that offendeth against the common Order of the Church, and hurteth the Authority of the Magistrate, and woundeth the Consciences of weak Brethren. Every particular or national Church hath Authority to ordain, change, and abolish Ceremonies or Rites of the Church, ordained only by men's Authority; so that all things be done to edifying. THIS Article consists of two branches: the first is, that the church hath power to appoint such rites and ceremonies as are not contrary to the word of God; and that private persons are bound to conform themselves to their orders. The second is, that it is not necessary that the whole church should meet to determine such matters; the power of doing that being in every national church, which is fully empowered to take care of itself; and no rule made in such matters is to be held unalterable, but may be changed upon occasion. As to the first, it hath been already considered, when the first words of the twentieth Article were explained. There the authority of the church in matters indifferent was stated and proved. It remains now only to prove, that private persons are bound to conform themselves to such ceremonies, especially when they are also enacted by the civil authority. It is to be considered, that the Christian religion was chiefly designed to raise and purify the nature of man, and to make human society perfect: now brotherly love and charity does this more than any one virtue whatsoever: it raises a man to the likeness of God; it gives him a divine and heavenly temper within himself, and creates the tenderest union and firmest happiness possible among all the societies of men: our Saviour has so enlarged the obligation to it, as to make it, by the extent he has given it, a great and new command- John xiii. ment,' by which all the world may be able to know and 34, 35. distinguish his followers from the rest of mankind: and as all xv. 12, 17. ART. the apostles insist much upon this in every one of their XXXIV. Epistles, not excepting the shortest of them; so St. John, 1 John iii. who writ last of them, has dwelt more fully upon it than upon 11, 23. iv. 21. John xvi. any other duty whatsoever. Our Saviour did particularly intend that his followers should be associated into one body, and joined together, in order to their keeping up and inflaming their mutual love; and therefore he delivered his prayer to them all in the plural, to shew that he intended that they should use it in a body: he appointed baptism as the way of receiving men into this body, and the eucharist as a joint memorial that the body was to keep up that of his death. For this end he appointed pastors to teach and keep his followers in a body: and in his last and longest prayer to the Father, he repeats this, that they might be one; that 11, 21, 22, they might be kept in one (body), and made perfect in one,' in five several expressions; which shews both how necessary a part of his religion he meant this should be, and likewise intimates to us the danger that he foresaw, of his followers departing from it; which made him intercede so earnestly for it. One expression that he has of this union, shews how entire and tender he intended that it should be; for he prayed that the union might be such as that between the Father 1 Cor. xii. and himself was. The apostles use the figure of a body frequently, to express this union; than which nothing can be imagined that is more firmly knit together, and in which all the parts do more tenderly sympathise with one another. 23. 12-26. Upon all these considerations we may very certainly gather, that the dissolving this union, the dislocating this body, and the doing any thing that may extinguish the love and charity by which Christians are to be made so happy in themselves, and so useful to one another, and by which the body of Christians grows much the firmer and stronger, and shines more in the world; that, I say, the doing this upon slight grounds, must be a sin of a very high nature. Nothing can be a just reason either to carry men to it, or to justify them in it, but the imposing on them unlawful terms of communion; for in that case it is certain, that we must obey God rather than man; that we must seek truth and peace' together; and that the rule of 'keeping a good conscience in all things,' Acts xxiv. is laid thus, to do it first towards God, and then towards man.' So that a schism that is occasioned by any church's imposing unlawful terms of communion, lies at their door who impose them, and the guilt is wholly theirs.* But without such a necessity, it is certainly, both in its own nature, and in its consequences, one of the greatest of sins, to create needless disturbances in the church, and to give occasion to all that alienation of mind, all those rash censures, and unjust judgments, that do arise from such divisions. This receives a 16. • See note, page 100. very great aggravation, if the civil authority has concurred by ART. a law to enjoin the observance of such indifferent things; for XXXIV. to all their lawful commands we owe an obedience, not only for fear, but for conscience sake;' since the authority of the Rom.xiii.5. magistrate is chiefly to be employed in such matters. As to things that are either commanded or forbidden of God, the magistrate has only the execution of these in his hands; so that in those, his laws are only the sanctions and penalties of the laws of God. The subject matter of his authority is about things which are of their own nature indifferent; but that may be made fit and proper means for the maintaining of order, union, and decency, in the society: and therefore such laws as are made by him in those things, do certainly bind the conscience, and oblige the subjects to obedience. Disobedience does also give scandal to the weak. Scandal is a block or trap laid in the way of another, by which he is made to stumble and fall. So this figure of giving scandal, or the laying a stumbling-block in our brother's way, is applied to our doing of such actions as may prove the occasions of sin to others. Every man, according to the influence that his example or authority may have over others, who do too easily and implicitly follow him, becomes thereby the more capable of giving them scandal: that is, of drawing them after him to commit many sins : and since men are under fetters, according to the persuasions that they have of things, he who thinks a thing sinful, does sin if he does it, as long as he is under that apprehension; because he deliberately ventures on that Rom. xiv. which he thinks offends God; even while he doubts of it,' or makes a distinction between meats, (for the word rendered doubts, signifies also the making a difference,) he is damned' (that is, self-condemned, as acting against his own sense of things) if he does it. Another man, that has larger thoughts and clearer ideas, may see that there is no sin in an action, about which others may be still in doubt, and so upon his own account he may certainly do it: but if he has reason to believe that his doing that may draw others, who have not such clear notions, to do it after his example, they being still in doubt as to the lawfulness of it, then he gives scandal, that is, he lays a stumbling-block in their way, if he does it, unless he lies under an obligation from some of the laws of God, or of the society to which he belongs, to do it. In that case he is bound to obey; and he must not then consider the consequences of his actions; of which he is only bound to take care, when he is left to himself, and is at full liberty to do, or not to do, as he pleases. This explains the notion of scandal, as it is used in the Epistles for there being several doubts raised at that time, concerning the lawfulness or obligation of observing the Mosaical law, and concerning the lawfulness of eating meats offered to idols, no general decision was made, that went 23. ART. through that matter; the apostles having only decreed, that XXXIV. the Mosaical law was not to be imposed on the Gentiles; but 13. not having condemned such as might of their own accord have observed some parts of that law, scruples arose about this; and so here they gave great caution against the laying Rom. xiv. a stumbling-block in the way of their brethren. But it is visible from this, that the fear of giving scandal does only take place where matters are free, and may be done or not done. But when laws are made, and an order is settled, the fear of giving scandal lies all on the side of obedience; for a man of weight and authority, when he does not obey, gives scruples and jealousies to others, who will be apt to collect from his practice that the thing is unlawful: he who does not conform himself to settled orders gives occasion to others, who see and observe him, to imitate him in it; and thus he lays a scandal or stumbling-block in their way; and all the sins which they commit through their excessive respect to him, and imitation of him, are in a very high degree to be put to his account, who gave them such occasion of falling. The second branch of this Article is against the unalterableness of laws made in matters indifferent; and it asserts the right of every national church to take care of itself. That the laws of any one age of the church cannot bind another, is very evident from this, that all legislature is still entire in the hands of those who have it. The laws of God do bind all men at all times; but the laws of the church, as well as the laws of every state, are only provisions made upon the present state of things, from the fitness or unfitness that appears to be in them for the great ends of religion, or for the good of mankind. All these things are subject to alteration, therefore the power of the church is in every age entire, and is as great as it was in any one age since the days in which she was under the conduct of men immediately inspired. So there can be no unalterable laws in matters indifferent. In this there neither is nor can be any controversy. An obstinate adhering to things, only because they are ancient, when all the ends for which they were at first introduced do cease, is the limiting the church in a point in which she ought still to preserve her liberty: she ought still to pursue those great rules in all her orders, of doing all things to edification, with decency, and for peace. The only question that can be made in this matter is, whether such general laws as have been made by greater bodies, by general councils for instance, or by those synods whose canons were received into the body of the canons of the catholic church; whether these, I say, may be altered by national churches; or whether the body of Christians is so to be reckoned one body, that all the parts of it are bound to submit, in matters indifferent, to the decrees of the body in general? It is certain, that all the parts of the catholic church ought to hold a communion one with another, and mutual commerce and correspondence ART. together but this difference is to be observed between the XXXIV. Christian and the Jewish religion, that the one was tied to one nation, and to one place, whereas the Christian religion is universal, to be spread to all nations, among people of different climates and languages, and of different customs and tempers and therefore, since the power in indifferent matters is given the church only in order to edification, every nation must be the proper judge of that within itself. The Roman empire, though a great body, yet was all under one government; and therefore all the councils that were held while that empire stood, are to be considered only as national synods, under one civil policy. The Christians of Persia, India, or Ethiopia, were not subject to the canons made by them, but were at full liberty to make rules and canons for themselves. And in the primitive times we see a vast diversity in their rules and rituals. They were so far from imposing general rules on all, that they left the churches at full liberty: even the council of Nice made very few rules: that of Constantinople and Ephesus made fewer: and though the abuses that were growing in the fifth century gave occasion to the council of Chalcedon to make more canons, yet the number of these is but small: so that the tyranny of subjecting particular churches to laws that might be inconvenient for them, was not then brought into the church. The corruptions that did afterwards overspread the church, together with the papal usurpations, and the new canon law that the popes brought in, which was totally different from the old one, had worn out the remembrance of all the ancient canons; so it is not to be wondered at, if they were not much regarded at the Reformation. They were quite out of practice, and were then scarce known. And as for the subordination of churches and sees, together with the privileges and exemptions of them, these did all flow from the divisions of the Roman empire into dioceses and provinces, out of which the dignity and the dependences of their cities did arise. But now that the Roman empire is gone, and that all the laws which they made are at an end, with the authority that made them; it is a vain thing to pretend to keep up the ancient dignities of sees; since the foundation upon which that was built is sunk and gone. Every empire, kingdom, or state, is an entire body within itself. The magistrate has that authority over all his subjects, that he may keep them all at home, and hinder them from entering into any consultations or combinations but such as shall be under his direction: he may require the pastors of the church under him to consult together about the best methods for carrying on the ends of religion; but neither he nor they can be bound to stay for the concurrence of other churches. In the way of managing this, every body of men has somewhat peculiar to itself: and |