s." If an opposite,
writing against us, be forced to acknowledge this much, one may easily
conjecture what enforcing reason we have to double out our point. The
argument in hand I frame thus:--

All things and rites which have been notoriously abused to idolatry, if
they be not such as either God or nature hath made to be of a necessary
use, should be utterly abolished and purged away from divine worship, in
such sort that they may not be accounted nor used by us as sacred things
or rites pertaining to the same.

But the cross, surplice, kneeling in the act of receiving the communion,
&c., are things and rites, &c., and are not such as either God or nature,
&c.

Therefore they should be utterly abolished, &c.

_Sect._ 2. As for the proposition I shall first explain it and then prove
it. I say, "all things and rites," for they are alike forbidden, as I
shall show. I say, "which have been notoriously abused to idolatry,"
because if the abuse be not known, we are blameless for retaining the
things and rites which have been abused. I say, "if they be not such as
either God or nature hath made to be of a necessary use," because if they
be of a necessary use, either through God's institution, as the
sacraments, or through nature's law, as the opening of our mouths to speak
(for when I am to preach or pray publicly, nature makes it necessary that
I open my mouth to speak audibly and articularly), then the abuse cannot
take away the use. I say, "they may not be used by us as sacred things,
rites pertaining to divine worship," because without the compass of
worship they may be used to a natural or civil purpose. If I could get no
other meat to eat than the consecrated host, which Papists idolatrise in
the circumgestation of it, I might lawfully eat it; and if I could get no
other clothes to put on than the holy garments wherein a priest hath said
mass, I might lawfully wear them. Things abused to idolatry are only then
unlawful when they are used no otherwise than religiously, and as things
sacred.

_Sect._ 3. The proposition thus explained is confirmed by these five
proofs: 1. God's own precept,--"Ye shall defile also the covering of thy
graven images of silver, and the ornaments of thy molten images of gold:
thou shalt cast them away as a menstruous cloth, thou shalt say unto it,
Get thee hence," Isa. xxx. 22. The covering of the idol here spoken of,
Gaspar Sanctus(509) rightly understandeth to be that, _quo aut induebant