foul them is likewise threatned Am. iv 6. Teeth as well as Mills are called the Grinders Eccle. xii 3 4. It also describes the Disconsolateness of their Condition when they should want the common comfort of Light Exactly parallel to the Passage in Jer. xxv 10. where it is threatned that the sound of the Mill-stone and the light of the Candle should be taken away Next it is added And the Voice of the Bridegroom and of the Bride sholl be heard no more at all in thee The Adversary himself will not I believe conclude that the rejoycings in Marriage are therefore unlawful This is also another way of signifying a very dejected State in the Prophetical Poetick Stile So Jer. vii 34. xvi 9. xxv 10. Thus it was counted to have no share in those few Solemnities of Joy which were allowed in States not utterly ruin'd at least at Nuptial Festialties So clear it is that tho' we should grant that these things were to be understood of Antichrist yet they would not prove the Sinfulness of the things of which he was to be deprived but the Calamity of the Deprivation BUT our Author has an Observation XXIV Dr. Lightfoots Observation that the Temple Worship was wholly Ceremonious and the Synagogue VVorship wholly Moral is not true from the very learned Dr. Lightfoot which if it had been true would I confess weaken what I have said for Instrumental Musick Christ says that excellent Person abolish'd the Worship of the Temple as purely Ceremonious but he perpetuated the Worship of the Synagogue reading the Scriptures Praying Preaching and Singing of Psalms and Transplanted it into the Christian Church as purely Moral For I have already granted that Instrumental Musick was used not in the Worship of the Synagogues but of the Temple But there are no Words of Christ that I know of that could be so much as pretended for shewing what he designed concerning these two Worships in General and much less to shew that this was Christ's design concerning them We have seen withal that the Apostles did separate from the Synagogue worship tho' they never did so from that of the Temple This would rather imply the contrary to what that great Man has advanc'd if Arguments were allow'd to proceed universally on either side But as there is no Text so neither is there any Reason to pass this Judgment concerning both these kinds universally I know not why singing of Psalms should be counted Moral Especially according to our Adversaries Opinion which ascribes its efficacy for promoting Devotion not to its own Nature but to its divine Institution This must needs take away the antecedent Reason of its Institution So far it is from allowing it an Antecedent Reason that it must necessarily and universally oblige without any positive Sanction This is usually thought necessary according to the commonly received notion of a Law of Nature And on the contrary the use of Lots were taken by the Apostles from the use of the Temple Worship where it was usually made use of for determining which particular Priests of the whole 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were to perform the duty of the Week This could be used by the Jews no where but at Jerusalem because there was no other place where Priests could lawfully Officiate But by the Apostles it was made use of not only for choosing a new Apostle of their own order as in the Case of St. Mathias but also for determining the Persons that were to be invested with Ecclesiastical Sacerdotal Power And that very consequently because the exercise of the Evangelical Priesthood was not confin'd to one place as that of the Jewish Priesthood was to Jerusalem This was used so generally that from thence the name of Clerus came to be appropriated to the sacred Order in opposition to the Laity as I have often shewn elsewhere It is therefore a plain instance Diss. Cyp. 1. that the general way of Reasoning will not hold that any thing must be unlawful now on that alone account that it had been used in the Worship of the Temple I know no ground the Doctor could have for this Distinction but that he seems to have believed that the Temple worship was universally settled by a positive Law of God as having no antecedent reason why it should have obliged without such a positive Sanction and that the Synagogue worship having no positive Sanction in the Scriptures without which our Adversaries allow no proof of a positive Devine Sanction must therefore have received the Sanction it pretended to from the nature of the things themselves and therefore as immutable as those natures of things from which they thought it was deriv'd This is indeed so far suitable to our Adversaries Principles granted on popular receiv'd Prejudices that in things of this nature they allowed no humane Sanction to be of any force This precarious Supposition did naturaly put them upon finding a Divine original for all the old Establishment of the Worship of the Synagogue which because they could not pretend to find in the Scriptures they were oblig'd to derive from the Moral Law which was indeed suppos'd to derive its Authority from a divine Legislation But the Moral Law being founded as they thought on the Nature of the things they must therefore believe its Obligation as Eternal and Immutable as those Natures were supos'd to be So on the contrary because the written Law was written with a prospect on one fixed Place for their solemn Assemblies which fixation was made by a positive divine Sanction which was designedly to cease upon the Destruction of the Jewish Temple and the Dispersion of the Jewish Nation therefore they think the whole written Law relating to the Temple was to have an end with the Temple for the use of which it was contrived But neither way does the Argument proceed as our Adversaries are concerned for it The Synagogue Worship not being a thing expressly provided for in the old Testament where there is no mention of Synagogues in the latter Sense of the Word I should rather have taken for an Argument against the Reasonings of the Nonconformists from the Testimonies of the old Testament for the necessity of an express divine Command for every indifferent Circumstance of Divine-Worship when the whole kind of Synagogue-Worship cannot pretend to a divine Command in the Scriptures And without the Scriptures there can be no divine Command pretended by their Principles but what is Moral which must therefore be grounded on Eternal and Immutable Reasons which will not be so easily found for every particular of the Worship of the Synagogue as our Adversaries may fancy before they consider it Every atnecedent Reason will not do For inded no Law however positive can be thought prudent that has not an antecedent Reason that might move the Legislator to add his Sanction to it But if that had been alone sufficient to oblige the Subject there could have been no necessity of
the subsequent Law The reason therefore requisite for a moral Law musts be such as must hold necessarily and universally and so as to expose the Person who is not ruled by it not only to inconvenient Consequences and prejudicial to his Temporal concerns but so as to involve him in the guilt of sin with relation to God and the consequent indefinite Effects af the divine Displeasurs besides the natural Consequences of the Actions it self Such Reasons as these our Adversaries will not be so easily able to find for all the particulars of the Synagogue-Worship when they shall be pleased to consider it sedately I am sure the Worship of the Body and of the Mouth too may be without singing if they will allow no more natural conduciveness to Vocal Musick for raising the Imagination and the Affections than they do to that which is Instrumental The Reasons mentioned in the things Sung receive no more accession of strength by their being Sung Vocally than they would by being Sung Instrumentally I am apt to think the whole Synagogue-Worship was introduc'd after the Captivity perhaps instead of the Schools of the Prophets that is after that ordinary way of Educating Prophets in Schools had fail'd of which we find no more mention after the Captivity From that time forwards the failing of the ordinary use of Prophets is owned in the Scriptures Ps. lxxiv. 9. Nehem. vii 65. Contr. Apion and Josephus as well as in the less certain Testimonies of the Rabbins At least as to Colleges and Schools Whilst those ordinary Bodies of the Prophets were still in being the People seem to have made the same use of them as was afterwards made of the Synagogues for performing those parts of the Offices of their Religion with them which by the Law were allowed to be performed elsewhere than at Jerusalem 2. Kings iv 23. The new Moons and the Sabbaths are mentioned as ordinary occasions of having recourse to them If so the whole Synagogue way of Worship must have been settled by prudential Provisions which could alone take place upon the failing of the Spirit of Prophesy Especially if we will not allow any proof of Prophetick discoveries by those few Prophets which even then remain'd after the Prophetick Colleges were generally dissolved This our Adversaries are averse to on other occasions If they be true to themselves on this occasion also I do not foresee how it is possible for them to pretend any Divine Revelation for this way of Worship in the Synagogues from those few Prophets yet remaining whose Writing we have extant And how can they possibly prove a Revelation that is no where Written What then will become of their Negative Arguments from our present Scriptures Nor does their Argument hold on the other side that every particular of the Temple Worship must for that only Reason because it was so be unlawful now They might indeed infer that its confined use in the Temple must cease when the confinement of all sacerdotal Offices to that Temple was its self abrogated and repealed But they very well know our present Dispute is not whether Instrumental-Musick be to be confined now as it was formerly to that particular Temple They might say farther that the Obligation it then had from that Mosaical Sanction is expired when the Mosaical Sanction is it self repeal'd from whence that Obligation was deriv'd But neither is that our present Question whether the same Instrumental-Musick shall oblige us now on account of that Mosaic Imposition which even then was never intended for uncircumcis'd Gentiles such as we are now All that can be thence inferred by any regular Reasoning is that upon the Revocation of the Confinement of sacerdotal Worship to the Temple Instrumental-Musick returned to its own Nature as it was before either to remain as it was at first Indifferent or to receive or retain some other Sanction distinct from that But that it must be thenceforward unlawful is more than I think our Adversaries will ever be able to prove from this concession alone that it was formerly a part of the Worship of the Temple ANOTHER pretence the Adversary XXV Tho' Instrumental Musick had been a Shadow of the organical Worship of our Bodies under the Gospel that would not prove it inconsistent with it Yet that it was a Shadow of it cannot be easily proved has for proving Instrumental Musick abolish'd is because it was a shadow of something then to come of our Praising God with the Organs of our Bodies under the Gospel This would indeed hold if it so signified somewhat to come as to be guilty of false Signification when the thing signified was actually come to pass If this had been the Case that while Instrumental Musick was used it signified Bodily Worship only to come our Adversaries would do well to consider how it could have been used by the Jews even in the time of the Mosaick Law For it is certain that the Jews used the Worship of the Organs of their Bodies together with their Instrumental Musick not only of their Mouths as we do but also of their Feet in their Religious Dances If bodily Worship being used at the same time with it made a false signification inconsistent with the futurity which it is pretended to signifie now Why should it not do so then also If even then when it was was designed as a Prophetick Symbol of the Organical Worship of the Body that same Organical Worship of the Body might notwithstanding be used at the same time with it Why not now This was one would think sufficient to shew that it's signification of bodily Organical Worship was not so essential to it but that when that particular Reason should fail it might notwithstanding be continued on other Considerations which might give no pretence of false signification and inconsistency with the present Innovations of the Revelations peculiar to the Gospel This I have shewn to be the only true Reason of the abrogation of all the particulars of the old Mosaick Law as abrogation is understood by our Advarsaries not only to make things unobliging but unlawful also But how does our Adversary know that Instrumental Musick was a Type of our bodily organical Worship under the Gospel or of any other particular Practice now in use No other Reason is pretended but the general precarious presumption that all usages then practis'd that were not Moral must needs be so The Apostle does indeed acknowlege that of events they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of what we might expect in the like Cases 1. Cor x. 11. He also owns that the Law in general had a shadow of good things to come Heb. x. 1. But that every particular Imposition of the Law was a shadow of some particular Imposition that was to answer it under the Gospel I know no Text our Adversaries can pretend to that could inform them Many of the positive as well as the Moral Precepts of the Jewish Law were
to those which devided the Jews and Christians in the Apostolical Age They very well know that our present Dispute is wholly between Christians and has no relation to the Obligation of the Mosaick Law in any Sense It is very true that the Literal Sense of the Mosaick Law usually related to External Sensible Things and the Mystical to Things Insensible and Spiritual And the Mystical Sense being the Spiritual may give the occasion why our Adversaries fancy that the Mystical Sense should always relate to Spiritual Things But it is not being oppos'd to Sensible or Bodily but Literal shews plainly that the things concern'd in the Literal Sense are not consider'd in this Reasoning as Sensible and Corporeal And on the other side in the Reasonings of the New Testament the Evangelical Institutions even in this World are all suppos'd to belong to the Spiritual Sense of the old Law And for that very Reason it is inferr'd that they were principally regarded by God because the mystical Sense of the Law was more principally intended by him than the Literal The whole Evangelical Institution is in the same Reasoning suppos'd to be the Pattern shewed to Moses in the Mount in Imitation of which the Tabernacle was to be made And this in order to the proving that the Evangelical Institutions were to be Eternal because the Ideal Patterns of things were in the Platonick way of Reasoning suppos'd to be so This Eternity concern'd in this Dispute can only be meant of that which was to last as long as this World so the everlasting Hills Gen. xlix 26. And the everlasting Mountains Hab. iii. 6. And the Land of Canaan is said to be given for an everlasting Possession Gen. xvii 8. xlviii 4. For in this Sense the Everlastingness of the Gospel is oppos'd to the Duration of the Law which was even in this Life to give way to a more lasting Establishment But it is certain that those very Institutions of the Gospel which have succeeded the abrogated Institutions of the Law and which are therefore suppos'd to be Spiritual in this Sense as Spiritual is oppos'd to the Literal Sense of the Law are notwithstanding themselves Sensible and Corporeal So is Baptism which has succeeded in the Place of the abrogated Circumcision of the Letter So also is our Eucharistical Sacrifice which now answers the abrogated Bloody Sacrifices These therefore must be suppos'd to be Spiritual in this Sense of the Word notwithstanding their being Sensible and Corporeal Our Adversaries therefore do certainly mistake the meaning of this Reasoning when they hence gather that any Observations are contrary to the Spiritual Nature of the Gospel on that account alone because they are Sensible and Corporeal BUT tho' Sensible Assistances should XVII Pomp and Magnificence of the external Worship is not inconsistent with the Design of the Gospel not be inconsistent with the Nature of Evangelical Worship yet our Adversaries think at least that Pomp and Magnificence must needs be so One would think by the gradation that their Arguments on this Head were more cogent and convictive but it proves quite the contrary Not one Text can they pretend against the Pomp and Magnificence of the publick Worship of God rather all the appearance of Scripture Reasonings is against them The Worship of the Old Testament was manifestly very Magnificent nor can our Adversaries deny that it was so what have they therefore to say why it ought not to be so still Can they shew any Text of the New Testament against it as a thing that was to cease and to be no more practis'd I know of none they do pretend either in the same or in equivalent Terms Can they then pretend any thing inconsistent with it in the constitution of the Gospel or of the new Peculium These things I have shewn to be the true Originals of the abrogation of what was indeed abrogated in the old Mosaick Law The reasoning of the Old Test as well as the positive Precepts of it rather favour than contradict the Magnificence and Sumptuousness of the publick Solemnities of the divine Worship David would not offer Burnt Offerings unto the Lord his God of that which cost him nothing 2 Sam. xxiv 24. and Malachy makes mean Sacrifices to redound to the contempt of the Religion wherein they were used He makes them to be a polluting God's Altar and interprets the offering them as if the Offerers of them had said The Table of the Lord is contemptible Mal. i. 7. He Expostulates concerning them farther v. 8. Offer it now to thy Governour will he be pleased with thee or accept thy Person saith the Lord of Hosts Plainly intimating that God did as much expect expensive Sacrifices from those who were able to Offer them and had reason to do so as any of their Governours and would as much resent the contrary as an affront as Governours would mean Presents from such as were able to offer great ones The Reasoning is the very same in Is. xl 16. Lebanon is not sufficient to burn nor the Beasts thereof for a Burnt Offering Arguing for the Magnificence of the Offering from the greatness of the Person to whom it is made And I have already shewn how in the N. T. the Reason even of abrogated Precepts is owned as still obliging as a reason approv'd by God Much more in cases wherein our Adversaries can prove no abrogation such as is this of Instrumental Musick But the divine Authority of the N. T. does also plainly approve the same Reasoning It is a clear instance of it when our Saviour values the poor Widow's Mites as more than the Offerings of the Rich who had cast in greater Sums out of their greater abundance St Mar. xii 43. St. Luke xxi 3. This plainly shews That as God does graciously accept of mean things from those who are able to give no more so he does not excuse them from Magnificence whose Abilities may afford it Our Saviour reasons the same way in the case of the Woman who anointed his Feet with the Alabaster Box of very precious Ointment The same Objection was S. Mat. xxvi 7 c. S. Mark xiv 3. S. Luke vii 36. made then which is made by our Adversaries now that it might have been sold for much and given to the Poor Yet our Saviour commends the seasonableness of the Gift as will as the Gift it self and returns the Woman an honourable Memorial for it wherever his Gospel should be preach'd The Objection would indeed be greater then when the numbers of the Poor were greater and the Abilities of the Christians for Contribution were less than they are now Yet even so our Saviour did not approve of our Adversaries Reason He allow'd a liberality in shewing their respect to the Temple of his Body as a token of what he would also judge commendable if us'd to the material Temples that should afterwards be Consecrated to his Worship And in giveing a precedent for
Holiness Eph. iv 24. The Tabernacle of the Gospel which none can doubt to be Heaven it self the true Tabernacle Heb. viii 2. For the Archetypal Ideae were supposed only to have Truth in them according to the Platonists So Grace and Truth which came by Christ. is opposed to the Law given by Moses St. John i. 17. And being stedfast to the Gospel Commuion in opposition to the Communion of the Hereticks is said to be the abiding in the Truth All these Forms of Speech understood according to the Custom of that Age do plainly suppose that all the Heavenly Archetypes of the Law were Evangelical and uncapable of any revocation that shouldymake them unlawful under the Gospel and that all the positive Institutions of the Gospel were reckon'd on as Heavenly and therefore Harpers being mentioned in the Heavenly Jerusalem must needs be supposed to have place among those antient Customs that were not to be abrogated It is certain that Instrumental Musick could be it self no Shadow according to the Doctrine of the Gospel seeing the Evangelical Writers reckon it among the Heavenly Archetypes which were the Truth and the Body that answered those Shadows Nor is it any more difficult to prove Harps in Heaven which the Adversary insultingly requires than to prove a Circumcision there not made with Hands than it is to prove a Manna and a Bread there that is the Food of Angels This sure is an easier Account of that Idiome in the Style of the new Testament which my late excellent Friend Dr. More called Israelitismus than that insisted on by our Adversary He might have been pleased to remember two Israelitisms there mentioned the Mystical which by the Christians of that Age was believed to be perfectly the same with their own Constitution as consisting of a Body of Gentiles ingrafted upon the Apostles who were themselves Jews by Extraction and the Literal which was in some things contrary to the new Revelations of the Gospel and so far as it was so abrogated by them And it is certainly much more rational to Interpret them by the Israelitism they professed rather than by that which they opposed This was no other than the Native Language that was in course to be expected in their Circumstances But the Event of this way of Interpretation will be quite contrary to what the interest of our Adversaries Cause will require It will argue that the Israelitish Customs so alluded to were still receiv'd by the converted Christians and that they could be no part of those old Isarelitish Customs which were antiquated on account of their inconsistency with the Gospel This therefore will confirm what I said before that the Apostles still continued this Instrumental Musick in their capital residence at least whilst the quietness of their Circumstances in those troublesome times would allow them to do so BUT there are Odours also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 joiined XXVIII Incense might have been us'd by the Aposties after the destruction of the Temple with the Harpers Rev. v. 8. and the viii 3. 4. joined with the publick Prayers exactly as among the Jews This the Adversary makes an argument of that it must have been the old antiquated Judaism that was here alluded to not that which was approv'd by the Christans I suppose he may think himself the more secure here because even our Churches do not practice what here seems to have been practis'd by the Apostles But he might have remembred that there were also several other undoubted Apostolical Practices which have been since discontinued generally at least in the Reformation Such were those of the Ecclesiastical Deaconesses the Kiss of Charity and the Feasts of Love He I confess cannot account for this who makes all things either Sins or Duties thatare taken from Precedents of that Age and allows no mean between those two Extremes We can easily do so who believe that the Apostles themselves as well as other Ecclesiastical Governours took some things into the use of the Church from the civil Usages of their Age which as they were prudent then when they were in Civil use so they may as prudently be disused now when they have been so long antiquated as to their Civil use and the particular Exigencies of those times are now ceased which were the principal Considerations that then recommended them But I see no reason why our Adversaries should believe that the use of Incense was not continued even after the Destruction of the Temple in the principal residence of the Apostles It is to this Day practised by a far greater consent of the ancientest Churches Greek as well as Latin nor can we find any Original of it that can prove it later than the times of the Apostles themselves It appears in the first and ancientest Liturgies of both Tongues It is mention'd in those Canons which are therefore called Apostolical because they who first gathered them into a Body knew no Original of their Practice short Can. ap 2. gr of the Apostolical times It is St. Jerome's rule that the Immemorial Customs of each Church should be presum'd to have been Apostolical This Rule was probably followed by this Author Thus therefore there is reason to presume that this Custom might have descended from the Apostles themselves We have indeed an express mention of it in an Author considerably antienter than the Collect of these Canons that is of the ancient Hippolytus the Disciple of St. Irenaeus and a witness of Apostolical Traditions So he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ora. de consum Mund. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tertullian is the eldest Latin Christian Writer extant and he also mentions the cost the Christians were at in buying Frankincense Tert. Apol. c. 42. Thura plane non emimus Those are the Words of the Objectors not of Tertullian His own Answer follows Si Arabiae queruntur Scient Sabaei pluris carioris suas Merces Christianis Sepeliendis profligari quam Dijs fumigandis He mentions inded no other use of it but in Burials He elsewhere excludes it from Sacrifices where he tells us That the Oblation offered by the Chrstians was not Grana Thuris unius assis non Arabicae arboris Lachrymae c. c. 30. unless possibly he might intend some Emphasis in the Words unius assis as a reproof of their Niggardliness in it as Alexander the great is said to have reproved his Tutor Aristotle for his having obstructed his native Magnificence after his Conquering Arabia This might have been opposed to the greater Expensiveness of the Christians on Franckincense mentioned in the former Place But I am rather apt to think that the Case of the African Churches might be somewhat singular Tertullian mentions their being at first Converted by the Church of Rome Praesc c. 36. And as it should seem at a distance from the Apostles ib. c. 32. After the Church of Rome had taken a liberty of Innovating from the Practice of the Ephesian College of