51�Թ�

We found a widely diffused state of disconformity, held back in its practical consequences by collective fear, by economic ambitions and, above all, by the dearth of clear, constructive ideals .

Since names and their signification are entirely arbitrary, such propositions are not, strictly speaking, susceptible of truth or falsity, but only of conformity or disconformity to usage or convention; and all the proof they are capable of, is proof of usage; proof that the words have been employed by others in the acceptation in which the speaker or writer desires to use them.

Saith not the Bishop himself elsewhere of the Papists,563 “In the sacrament they kneel to the sign,” whereby he would prove a disconformity between their kneeling and ours; for we kneel, saith he, “by the sacrament to the thing signified.”

Verily, that people should be taught that the disconformity between the Papists and us is not so much in any external use of ceremonies, as in the substance of the service and object whereunto they are applied.

Bishop Lindsey635 by name will trade in the same way, and will have us to think that kneeling in the act of receiving the communion, and keeping of holidays, do not sort us with Papists; for that, as touching the former, there is a disconformity in the object, because they kneel to the sign, we to the thing signified.