only in good things to edification, and that we may not wink at absurd or
wicked things, nor at anything in God's worship which is not found in
Scripture. 2. I have showed(632) that Papists are but more and more
hardened in evil by this our conformity with them in ceremonies. 3. I have
showed also,(633) the superstition of the ceremonies, even as they are
retained by us, and that it is as impossible to purge the ceremonies from
superstition, as to purge superstition from itself.

There are others, who go about to sew a cloak of fig leaves, to hide their
conformity with Papists, and to find out some difference betwixt the
English ceremonies and those of the Papists; so say some, that by the sign
of the cross they are not ranked with Papists, because they use not the
material cross, which is the popish one, but the aerial only. But it is
known well enough that Papists do idolatrise the very aerial cross; for
Bellarmine holds,(634) _venerabile esse signum crucis, quod effingitur in
fronte, aere, &c._ And though they did not make an idol of it, yet
forasmuch as Papists put it to a religious use, and make it one of the
marks of Roman Catholics (as we have seen before), we may not be conformed
to them in the use of the same. The fathers of such a difference between
the popish cross and the English have not succeeded in this their way, yet
their posterity approve their sayings, and follow their footsteps. Bishop
Lindsey(635) by name will trade in the same way, and will have us to think
that kneeling in the act of receiving the communion, and keeping of
holidays, do not sort us with Papists; for that, as touching the former,
there is a disconformity in the object, because they kneel to the sign, we
to the thing signified. And as for the latter, the difference is in the
employing of the time, and in the exercise and worship for which the
cessation is commanded. What is his verdict, then, wherewith he sends us
away? Verily, that people should be taught that the disconformity between
the Papists and us is not so much in any external use of ceremonies, as in
the substance of the service and object whereunto they are applied. But,
good man, he seeks a knot in the bulrush; for, 1, There is no such
difference betwixt our ceremonies and those of the Papists, in respect of
the object and worship whereunto the same is applied, as he pretendeth;
for, as touching the exercise and worship whereunto holidays are applied,
Papists tell us,(636)