lators. Forasmuch,
then, as kneeling before the consecrated bread, the sign of the cross,
surplice, festival days, bishopping, bowing down to the altar,
administration of the sacraments in private places, &c., are the wares of
Rome, the baggage of Babylon, the trinkets of the whore, the badges of
Popery, the ensigns of Christ's enemies, and the very trophies of
antichrist,--we cannot conform, communicate and symbolise with the
idolatrous Papists in the use of the same, without making ourselves
idolaters by participation. Shall the chaste spouse of Christ take upon
her the ornaments of the whore? Shall the Israel of God symbolise with her
who is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt? Shall the Lord's redeemed
people wear the ensigns of their captivity? Shall the saints be seen with
the mark of the beast? Shall the Christian church be like the
antichristian, the holy like the profane, religion like superstition, the
temple of God like the synagogue of Satan? Our opposites are so far from
being moved with these things, that both in pulpits and private places
they used to plead for the ceremonies by this very argument, that we
should not run so far away from Papists, but come as near them as we can.
But for proof of that which we say, namely, that it is not lawful to
symbolise with idolaters (and by consequence with Papists), or to be like
them in their rites or ceremonies, we have more to allege than they can
answer.

_Sect._ 2. For, 1st, We have Scripture for us. "After the doings of the
land of Egypt, wherein you dwelt, shall ye not do and after the doings of
the land of Canaan, whither I bring ye, shall ye not do, neither shall ye
walk in their ordinances," Lev. xviii. 3. "Take heed to thyself that thou
be not snared by following them, &c., saying, How did these nations serve
their gods? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord
thy God," Deut. xii. 30. "Thou shalt not do after their works," Exod.
xxiii. 24. Yea, they were straitly forbidden to round the corners of their
heads, or to make any cuttings in the flesh for the dead, or to print any
mark upon them, or to make baldness upon their heads, or between their
eyes, forasmuch as God had chosen them to be a holy and a peculiar people,
and it behoved them not to be framed nor fashioned like the nations, Lev.
xix. 27, 28, and xxi. 5, and Deut. xiv. 1. And what else was meant by
those laws which forbade them to suffer their cattle to gender with a
diver