ome to pass, that the common people in the
church of Rome receive the sacrament only upon Easter. Now, the time of
receiving the sacrament is a circumstance in the general necessary, for a
time it must have, but it is not particularly defined in the word. It is
left indefinite, 1 Cor. xi. 26, yet the church hath no power to determine
Easter-day, either as the only time, or as the fittest time, for all the
faithful of both sexes to receive the eucharist. What if faithful men and
women cannot have time to prepare themselves as becometh, being avocated
and distracted by the no less necessary than honest adoes of their
particular callings?

What if they cannot have the sacrament upon that day administered
according to our Lord's institution? What if they see Papists confirming
themselves in their Easter superstition by our unnecessary practice? Shall
they swallow these and such-like soul-destroying camels, and all for
straining out the gnat of communicating precisely upon Easter-day? But
since time is a necessary circumstance, and no time is particularly
defined, the Bishop must say more also, that the church may determine
Easter-day for the only day whereupon we may receive the Lord's supper.

Last of all, if the church have power to determine all circumstances in
the general necessary, but not particularly defined in the word, what
could be said against that ancient order of solemn baptizing only at the
holidays of Easter and Pentecost (whereby it came to pass that very many
died unbaptized, as Socrates writeth(880))? Or, what shall be said against
Tertullian's opinion,(881) which alloweth lay men, yea, women, to baptize.
May the church's determination make all this good, forasmuch as these
circumstances of the time when, and the persons by whom, baptism should be
ministered, are in the general necessary, but not particularly defined in
the word? _Ite leves nugae._

_Sect._ 3. Camero,(882) as learned a Formalist as any of the former,
expresseth his judgment copiously touching our present question. He saith,
that there are two sorts of things which the church commandeth, to wit,
either such as belong to faith and manners, or such as conduce to faith
and manners; that both are in God's word prescribed _exserte_, plainly,
but not one way, because such things that pertain unto faith and manners,
are in the word of God particularly commanded, whereas those things which
conduce to faith and manners are but generally commended