ng in
Baptism. What is rightfully ordered cannot be rightfully withstood:--but
the crossing, &c., is rightfully ordered:--'ergo', the crossing cannot
be rightfully omitted.

To this, how easily would the other party reply;

1. That a small number of Bishops could not be called the Church:

2. That no one Church had power or pretence from God's word to prescribe
concerning mere matters of outward decency and convenience to other
Churches or assemblies of Christian people:

3. That the blending an unnecessary and suspicious, if not
superstitious, motion of the hand with a necessary and essential act
doth in no wise respect order or propriety:

Lastly, that to forbid a man to obey a direct command of God because he
will not join with it an admitted mere tradition of men, is contrary to
common sense, no less than to God's word, expressly and by breach of
charity, which is the great end and purpose of God's word. Besides;
might not the Pope and his shavelings have made the same proposition to
the Reformers in the reign of Edward VI., in respect to the greater part
of the idle superfluities which were rejected by the Reformers, only as
idle and superfluous, and for that reason contrary to the spirit of the
Gospel, though few, if any, were in the direct teeth of a positive
prohibition? Above all, an honest policy dictates that the end in view
being fully determined, as here for instance, the preclusion of
disturbance and indecorum in Christian assemblies, every addition to
means, already adequate to the securing of that end, tends to frustrate
the end, and is therefore evidently excluded from the prerogatives of
the Church, (however that word may be interpreted) inasmuch as its power
is confined to such ceremonies and regulations as conduce to order and
general edification. In short it grieves me to think that the Heads of
the most Apostolical Church in Christendom should have insisted on three
or four trifles, the abolition of which could have given offence to none
but such as from the baleful superstition that alone could attach
importance to them effectually, it was charity to offend;-when all the
rest of Baxter's objections might have been answered so triumphantly.

Ib. p. 343.

Answer to the foresaid paper.

8. That none may be a preacher, that dare not subscribe that there is
nothing in the Common Prayer Book, the Book of Ordination, and the 39
Articles, that is contrary to the word of God.