tions, dispositions, motions, or desires, as should be in men, is (I
suppose) to signify unto men such benefits of saving grace, as God in
Christ is pleased to bestow on them. Who dare deny it?

_Sect._ 2. Bishop Lindsey's opinion touching the power of the church,(879)
whereof we dispute, is, that power is given unto her to "determine the
circumstances which are in the general necessary to be used in divine
worship, but not defined particularly in the word."

I know the church can determine nothing which is not of this kind and
quality. But the Prelate's meaning (as may be seen in that same epistle of
his) is, that whatsoever the church determineth, if it be such a
circumstance as is in the general necessary, but not particularly defined
in the word, then we cannot say that the church had no power to determine
and enjoin the same, nor be led by the judgment of our own consciences,
judging it not expedient, but that in this case we must take the church's
law to be the rule of our consciences. Now, by this ground which the
Prelate holdeth, the church may prescribe to the ministers of the gospel
the whole habit and apparel of the Levitical high-priest (which were to
Judaize). For apparel is a circumstance in the general necessary, yet it
is not particularly defined in the word. By this ground, the church may
determine that I should ever pray with my face to the east, preach
kneeling on my knees, sing the psalms lying on my back, and hear sermons
standing only upon one foot. For in all these actions a gesture is
necessary; but there is no gesture particularly defined in the word to
which we are adstricted in any of these exercises.

And further, because _uno absurdo dato, mille sequuntur_, by this ground
the Prelate must say, that the church hath power to ordain three or four
holidays every week (which ordinance, as he himself hath told us, could
not stand with charity, the inseparable companion of piety), for time is a
circumstance in the general necessary in divine worship, yet in his
judgment we are not bound by the word to any particular time for the
performance of the duties of God's worship.

By this ground we were to say, that Pope Innocent III. held him within the
bounds of ecclesiastical power, when in the great _Lateran_ council, anno
1215, he made a decree, that all the faithful of both sexes should once in
the year at least, to wit, upon Easter-day, receive the sacrament of the
eucharist. From whence it hath c