nd particularly he teacheth, that a minister may not
lawfully omit to administer the sacraments in private places, and without
the presence of the congregation, to such as through sickness cannot come
to the public assemblies; which he calleth, _eis necessaria ministrare_.
To say the truth, the ministration of the sacraments in private places
importeth a necessity in the matter itself, for which cause the divines of
Geneva resolved(464) that in _Ecclesiis publice institutis_, baptism might
not be administered in private places, but only publicly in the
congregation of the faithful, _partim ne sacramenta, &c._, "partly (say
they) lest the sacraments, being separate from the preaching of the word,
should be again transformed in certain magical ceremonies, as in Popery it
was; partly that the gross superstition of the absolute necessity of
external baptism may be rooted out of the minds of men." Sure, the
defenders of private baptism place too great necessity in that sacrament.
Hooker plainly insinuates(465) the absolute necessity of outward baptism,
at least in wish or desire, which is the distinction of the schoolmen, and
followed by the modern Papists to cloak their superstition. But whatsoever
show it hath, it was rightly impugned in the Council of Trent(466) by
Marianarus, who alleged against it that the angel said to Cornelius his
prayers were acceptable to God, before ever he knew of the sacrament of
baptism; so that, having no knowledge of it, he could not be said to have
received it, no not in vow or wish; and that many holy martyrs were
converted in the heat of persecution, by seeing the constancy of others,
and presently taken and put to death, of whom one cannot say, but by
divination, that they knew the sacraments, and made a vow.

_Sect._ 7. 7th. I will now apply this argument, taken from superstition,
particularly to holidays. _Superstitiosum esse docemus_, saith Beza,(467)
_arbitrari unum aliquem diem altero sanctiorem_. Now I will show that
Formalists observe holidays, as mystical and holier than other days,
howbeit Bishop Lindsey thinks good to dissemble and deny it.(468) "Times
(saith he) are appointed by our church for morning and evening prayers in
great towns; hours for preaching on Tuesday, Thursday, &c.; hours for
weekly exercises of prophecying, which are holy in respect of the use
whereunto they are appointed; and such are the five days which we esteem
not to be holy, for any mystic signification wh