And Nadab and Abihu the sons of Aaron took either of them his Censer and put fire therein and put Incense thereon and offered strange fire before the Lord WHICH HE COMMANDED THEM NOT. And there went out Fire from the Lord and devoured them and they dyed before the Lord. Lev. 10.1 2. In this high-provoking act of the Sons of Aaron for which the severe jealousie of God brake out immediatly upon them in a consuming fire there was no disobedience to any Command I mean unto any particular or express Command of God he had no where forbad them at least explicitly or directly to offer ordinary or common fire which is termed strange fire because the Commandment of God knew it not in their Priestly Ministrations nor is any disobedience in this kind charged on them by the holy Ghost nor so much as mentioned as any cause of that terrible execution which was suddenly done by the immediate hand of God himself upon them their only crime and guilt was that they offered strange fire before the Lord WHICH HE COMMANDED THEM NOT they presumed to worship God otherwise than he had appointed or commanded The sin of Uzzah in putting forth his hand to stay the Ark for which he likewise suffered the same measure from the provoked jealousie of God being by him struck dead in the place was of like nature and consideration For neither did he therein transgress any express Command of God for he had no where commanded that none but the Levites should touch or meddle with the Ark only he had commanded that the Levites should wait upon the Tabernacle with what appertained to it So that the provocation in his sin also only was his intermedling with the holy things of God relating to his Worship without his Command And thus David upon the ground that we maintain namely that all Worship uncommanded or unappointed by God is unlawful and displeasing unto him or which is the same that his order and appointment are requisit to legitimate any Worship or holy Service proved it to have been unlawful for any other to carry the Ark of God but the Levites only None saith he 1 Chron. 15.2 ought to carry the Ark of God but the Levites for them hath the Lord chosen to carry the Ark of God and to minister unto him for ever It was unlawful for all other persons the Levites excepted to carry the Ark of God not because he had prohibited them by the letter or direct import of any Law to carry it but because he had not chosen or appointed them as he had the Levites Again Secondly Of the same or like import with the texts already cited are all those also in which God stigmatizeth the Worship which men performed unto him with this character of his hatred that it was of their own chusing or devising after the imagination of their own heart c. In all such places as these which are not a few he asserteth unto himself the appointment of his own Worship as belonging prerogative-wise unto himself and wherein he will not indure any creature to have part and fellowship with him For otherwise as we reasoned before no Worship were reprovable simply upon this score that it is of mens own chusing or devising We shall not stand to argue any of these places as we did most of the other the inference or result now mentioned from the general tenour of them all is pregnant and convincing enough And if it be an hateful brand upon any form of Worship to be of humane extraction or to call any man or any numbers of men Father how much more hateful and provoking in the fight of God must it needs be to attempt to bind any such spurious and base worship upon the generous and heaven-born consciences of the sons and daughters of God or indeed upon the consciences of any men with the hard cords of Imprisonments Confiscations Banishments or what other Cruelties Satan shall please to suggest unto men for the promoting of his worship and service in the world under the delusive pretence of the Worship and Service of God But places of the late mentioned character are these with their fellows And it shall be unto you for a fringe that ye may look upon it and remember all the Commandments of the Lord and do them and that ye seek not AFTER YOUR OWN HEART AND YOUR OWN EYES after which ye use to go a whoring Numb 15.39 Take heed unto your selves that your heart be not deceived and ye turn aside and serve other Gods and worship them and then the Lords Wrath be kindled against you c. Deut. 11.16 17. And it cometh to pass whâ—n he heareth the words of this Curse that he blesseth himself in his heart saving I shall have peace though I walk IN THE IMAGINATION OF MINE OWN HEART That is in such a way of worshipping God as I conceive to be pleasing to him as appears by the mention of God's Jealousie in the words following to add drunkenness to thirst The Lord will not spare him but the Anger of the Lord and his Jealousie shall smoke against that man c. Deut. 29.19 20. So he Jeroboam offered upon the Altar which he had made in Bethel the fifteenth day of the eighth month even in the month VVHICH HE HAD DEVISED OF HIS OWN HEART c. 1 King 12.33 He that burneth Incense is as if he blessed an Idol yea they have CHOSEN THEIR OWN VVAYES and their soul delighteth in their abominations Isa 66.3 From whence it is very observable and maketh with an high hand for our present purpose 1. That it is incident to men to chuse wayes and methods of their own i. e. of their own devising for the worshipping of God in stead of and before the wayes prescribed by himself for that purpose 2. That these ways of mens own devising and choosing are their abominations that is ways for which they must answer to God as for things that are abominable in his sight or at least may be yea and sometimes are such 3. And lastly that notwithstanding such ways be their abominations yet they are wont animitùs deperire to love and delight in them with their whole soul and to be enflamed with zeal over them as the Scripture testifies in many places and our own experience in the importune and bloody Promoters of the Service-Book doth confirm as if God himself loved and delighted in them as much as they There are many more texts and passages of like notion with those now cited and which offer the right hand of fellowship unto the Doctrine which hath been made good by them but those already mentioned I judge abundantly sufficient for the eviction of this Truth That all worship of humane device or contrivement is of an unpleasing resentment with God and will be cast as dung in the faces of those that shall offer it unto him of how sweet a savour soever it may be unto
dreggs of the Cup of his fury then adventure upon Worship of a humane Original and Generation But I leave you to the conscientious perusal of the ensuing Discourse which is full fraught with cogent Arguments for the Authority of Jesus Corist and against the frothy Impositions of defiling Inventions in the Worship of God The Lord grant that the living Words of this Dead Saint may be blessed to the purpose by him intended to the awakening of some who are now snoreing in the Lap of the * Nah. 3.4 well-favoured Harlot and to the establishment of others in the present Truth C. W. Common-Prayer-Book Devotions Episcopal Delusions OR The second Death of the Service-Book THE Liturgy or Common-Prayer commonly used in our Parish Churches relateth unto the conscience of him that useth it and of him that desireth to be understandingly satisfied about the lawfulness or unlawfulness of the use of it both in the matter and form or substance but especially in the injunction or imposition of it by men I shall at present not say much unto it in the former relation only in case the imposition were taken off and Ministers and People left at full liberty the one whether they would read it the other whether they would attend upon it or no these amongst many other particulars would be very considerable 1. Whether God under the New Testament or since Christ ascended on high to give gifts unto men ever commanded or required or spake a word of such a thing or whether ever it came into his mind or heart Jer. 7.31 19.5 to be worshipped by his Saints in their Publick Assemblies by a stinted form of Liturgy and Prayers not to be altered or varied from from generation to generation upon any imergencies of Providence whatsoever unless the Powers and Potentates of the Earth shall interpose with their Swords and Scepters to command it and consequently whether they who draw near unto him in this Worship have not as much cause to fear the breaking-out of his Jealousie upon them as Nadab and Abihu had for offering strange fire before the Lord which he commanded them not Levit. 10.1 and whether the patience and long-suffering of God exercised towards persons offending in this kind in these dayes be not to lead them to repentance Rom. 2.4 2. Whether in case it were or upon good grounds could be supposed that it may be pleasing enough unto God to be worshipped by his Saints in their holy Assemblies with set forms of Liturgies and Prayers being left free and not imposed namely if they be for matter and form irreprovable or such as they may be it could notwithstanding reasonably be supposed withall that Worship according to any model or draught of Liturgy or Prayers whatsoever would be thus pleasing unto him More particularly whether a Worship conform to the image of such a Liturgy as we shall now characterize or describe in part would be in any degree pleasing unto him as viz. 1. which shall be a rhapsody medley or confused heap of a multitude of ingredients heterogeneal and of opposit natures Mollia cum duris sine pondere habentia pondus Things soft and hard things weighty and things light as the Poet describes the constirution of the old Chaos no more meet to be moulded together into the same body of an Evangelical Worship than God under the Law judged an Ox or an Ass to be yoked together for service in the same plough as for instance Canonicals and Apocriphals the heavenly sayings of Christ and the fabulous reports of Tobit the Psalms of David and the Song of S. Ambrose Magnificat and Quicunque vult passages and expressions some grave and serious solid and distinct others ludicrous and light barbarous obscure and truthless 2. Wherein the Prayer-devotion prescribed is or shall be ordered with that strange unsutableness to the simplicity of the Gospel that 1. the Lord's Prayer which was delivered by him with a special intent to prevent battologies or vain repetitions in prayer Mat. 6.7 8 9. compared is it self injoyned to be repeated over and over and over and I know not how often without any reason given or easie to be taken for any one of these repetitions in their respective places this disposition of it can be resolved into no other reason or cause but the meer phansy and will of the Contriver who by it seems to have been acted by the spirit of this superstition condemned by Christ Mat. 6.7 that men shall be heard for their much speaking or for the tale and number of their prayers only said over and repeated Besides this Prayer is ordered to be at the same time audibly pronounced by all the Congregation and Minister together in some of the said places Again 2. the great body of this Prayer-devotion is so ill handled not to mention the unsound constitution in several veins and parts of it that it is divided in sunder and some parts of it severed from others in several places by Psalms and Songs by Chapters and broken pieces of Chapters under the false titles of Epistles and Gospels whereof they are but small snips or shreds by Creeds or Confessions of Faith thrust in between and besides it is in some places chopped or minced into small pieces or particles and a distribution of them made some to the Minister and some to the People as if the People were to be the mouth of the Minister unto God as well as he theirs in the publick Assemblies yea when Minister and People are acting their parts in these strains of Prayer interchangeably assigned unto them there is such a bandying and tossing of devotions to and again from one to the other in a gingling and mymmical manner that it much resembles the jolly scene of a set of Ale-inspired Companions chanting their drunken Catches upon a bench 3. Where this great body of praying-devotion is compounded and made up of many lesser bodies of prayers the greatest part of which are more intire and distinct bodies in this kind than the main body or bulk rather made up of them all being closed and sealed up respectively with so many Amens Which is a method or manner of praying no where recommended unto us in the Scriptures by the Holy Ghost 4. Where there are appropriate devotions as Prayers under the Apocryphal name of Collects Epistles Gospels select Chapters c. for several dayes forced by the unjust hand of humane powers out of that allowance of six dayes in the week which God himself was pleased to make unto men to provide themselves by their honest labour of things needful for this present life and dedicated by men to the honour and service of certain Saints long since dead and so these days though but of humane consecration are here made equal in all points with the Lord's days themselves 5. Where the Service prescribed and enjoyned under the specious pretext of being Divine consisting of short pieces or Sentences of Scriptures of
be with men a lyar Rom. 3.4 So when there is any inconsistency or contest between any of the Laws of God and the Laws of men the case is soon decided as concerning the equity or binding force of either Let the Law of God be just and holy and good and even upon this account also challenge with authority obedience from men but the Law of men unjust unholy and evil and so a nullity and of no authority at all to require subjection to it Thus Peter with other Apostles in the presence of the high Priest and a great Council with him was very positive and definitive in the case We ought rather to obey God then men Act. 5.29 not long before being with John brought as guilty persons before another full Council he judged the equity of the case so notorious and broad on Gods side that he feared not to make the Council it self his Arbitrators although they were Parties and his Adversaries Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you or to obey you according to the former translation more or rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 than God judge ye Act. 4.19 So those three Servants of God lately mentioned being commanded by King Nebuchadnezzar to worship the Golden Image which he had set up and in case of refusal terribly threatned to be presently cast into the midst of a fiery Furnace declared unto him That they were not careful to answer him in the matter Dan. 3.16 the contrariety between the Kings Command and the Command of God was so manifest that they required no time to consider of an answer or what to do in the case but immediately resolved to keep fast and close to the Command of God though in so doing they must and did disobey the Commandment of the King Therefore if it be the Prerogative of God to appoint and command his own Worship that Law or humane Constitution which attempteth to divest him of it and to communicate it unto any Creature one or more or never so many is indeed no Law but an Usurper of the name and title of a Law wanting the Spirit Life and Soul of a Law which stand in an equitable force to bind to the observation of it But no equity bindeth any man to give away the glory of God to another So then not to submit to any form of Divine Worship devised and imposed by men is to do the will of God and consequently not to transgress or disobey any Law of man Now for the demonstration and proof of that Assertion or Ground formerly mentioned out of which the five Conclusions lately argued grow as naturally as so many Boughs or Arms of a Tree out of the Trunk or Body of it Let us first hear weigh and consider diligently and impartially whether the Scriptures do not speak to the heart of it and whether God himself doth not here claim such a Prerogative as therein is asserted unto him Secondly We shall consult some of the Maximes of Nature and Principles of Reason about the truth of it For the first I intend not to insist upon all places which offer themselves willingly enough to serve in the present warfare this would carry us far beyond the bounds of our intended brevity but shall argue only some few of those which speak more plainly to our purpose First Where God reproveth rejecteth or condemneth any Worship Form or manner of Worship upon this account That He commanded it not especially when there are other things in it one or more very hateful and highly reproveable he plainly declareth and asserteth it as his Prerogative to appoint and command all Worship Else why should he make this the emphatical character of such a Worship which his Soul abhorreth That He commanded it not especially when this Worship is as was now said otherwise and in it self abominable If men had any authority to appoint or command a Worship this were no reasonable or just exception against any Worship whatsoever That God commanded it not but if it be justly reproveable it must be for some intrinsecal evil either in the matter or in the form of it or in both But passages of the import now specified the Scripture affordeth many And they have built the high Places of Tophet which is in the Valley of the sons of Hinnom to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire VVHICH I COMMANDED THEM NOT Jer. 7.31 So again They have built also the high-places of Baal to burn their sons with fire unto Baal VVHICH I COMMANDED NOT nor spake it neither came it into my mind Jer. 19.5 In both these places it is observable that though the man-devised worship mentioned was in it self abominable full of unnatural and barbarous cruelty and besides performed to the honour of a most filthy and abominable Idol yet God in reproving it taketh no notice of either of these abominations but insists only upon this that HE COMMANDED IT NOT as being the greatest abomination of all and which comparatively justified all the rest Again And they built the high-places of Baal VVHICH I COMMANDED THEM NOT neither came it into my mind that they should do this abomination Jer. 32.35 By comparing this expreshon in all these passages VVHICH I COMMANDED THEM NOT with the express Command of God Lev. 18.21 Thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass thorow the fire unto Molech it plainly appears that in the case of Worship for God not to command and expresly to forbid are of one and the same consideration Even as in a Conveyance of Lands whatsoever is not expressed is no more conveyed than what is excepted Yea and it is very observable from the said passages that God intending to put the sharpest accent upon the breach of his Law in the matter of Worship which doubtless he doth intend in reproving and condemning it He doth not place it in matter of simple disobedience unto such his Law this being found in every sin I mean disobedience unto his Law 1 Joh. 3.4 but rather in the presumption of men to attempt any thing in that kind without besides or beyond his Command Several other passages there are besides those mentioned of like character with them If there be found among you man or woman that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the Lord thy God in transgressing his Covenant and hath gone and served other gods and worshipped them either the Sun or Moon or any of the Host of Heaven which I HAVE NOT COMMANDED c. Deut. 17.2 3. Thy People which thou broughtest out of Egypt have corrupted themselves they are quickly turned aside out of the way WHICH I COMMANDED THEM c. Deut. 9.12 implying that in the Worship of God of which he here speaketh to turn aside out of the Way WHICH HE HATH COMMANDED is to corrupt a man's self that is to dispose or prepare himself for ruine and destruction unto what way soever he shall betake himself otherwise