84 OF THE PACIFICATION OF THE CHURCH. 



pause for holy meditation, before they proceeded to 

 the rest of the service : which pause was thought fit 

 to be filled rather with some grave sound, than with 

 a still silence ; which was the reason of the playing 

 upon the organs after the Scriptures read : all which 

 was decent and tending to edification. But then 

 the curiosity of division and reports, and other 

 figures of music, have no affinity with the reason 

 able service of God, but were added in the more 

 pompous times. 



For the cap and surplice, since they be things in 

 their nature indifferent, and yet by some held super 

 stitious ; and that the question is between science 

 and conscience, it seemeth to fall within the com 

 pass of the apostle s rule, which is, &quot; that the 

 stronger do descend and yield to the weaker.&quot; Only 

 the difference is, that it will be materially said, that 

 the rule holdeth between private man and private 

 man ; but not between the conscience of a private 

 man, and the order of a Church. But yet since the 

 question at this time is of a toleration, not by con 

 nivance, which may encourage disobedience, but by 

 law, which may give a liberty ; it is good again to be 

 advised whether it fall not within the equity of the 

 former rule : the rather, because the silencing of 

 ministers by this occasion is, in this scarcity of good 

 preachers, a punishment that lighteth upon the 

 people as well as upon the party. And for the sub 

 scription, it seemeth to me in the nature of a confes 

 sion, and therefore more proper to bind in the unity 



