ck down that which they did set up,
take heed lest your speech do touch the Holy Ghost, who saith that
Hezekiah (in breaking down the brazen serpent) did keep God's commandments
which he commanded Moses," 2 Kings xviii. 6; and yet withal saith, "That
he brake in pieces the serpent of brass which Moses had made," 2 Kings
xviii. 4. 2. There are some of the ceremonies which the fathers used not,
as the surplice (which we have seen before(642)) and kneeling in the act
of receiving the eucharist (as we shall see afterwards(643)). 3. Yielding
by concession, not by confession, that all the ceremonies about which
there is controversy now among us, were of old used by the fathers; yet
that which these Formalists say, is (as Parker showeth(644)) even as if a
servant should be covered before his master, not as covering is a late
sign of pre-eminence, but as it was of old, a sign of subjection; or as if
one should preach that the prelates are _tyranni_ to their brethren,
_fures_ to the church, _sophistae_ to the truth, and excuse himself thus:
I use these words, as of old they signified a ruler, a servant, a student
of wisdom. All men know that words and actions must be interpreted, used
and received, according to their modern use, and not as they have been of
old.

CHAPTER IV.

THAT THE CEREMONIES ARE IDOLS AMONG THE FORMALISTS THEMSELVES; AND THAT
KNEELING IN THE LORD'S SUPPER BEFORE THE BREAD AND WINE, IN THE ACT OF
RECEIVING THEM, IS FORMALLY IDOLATRY.

_Sect._ 1. My fourth argument against the lawfulness of the ceremonies
followeth, by which I am to evince that they are not only idolatrous
_reductive_, because monuments of by-past, and _participative_, because
badges of present idolatry, but that likewise they make Formalists
themselves to be formally, and in respect of their own using of them,
idolaters, consideration not had of the by-past or present abusing of them
by others. This I will make good: first, of all the ceremonies in general;
then, of kneeling in particular. And I wish our opposites here look to
themselves, for this argument proveth to them the box of Pandora, and
containeth that which undoeth them, though this much be not seen before
the opening.

First, then, the ceremonies are idols to Formalists. It had been good to
have remembered that which Ainsworth noteth,(645) that idolothites and
monuments of idolatry should be destroyed, lest themselves at length
become idol