worship the Father in spirit and in truth for the Father seeketh such to worship him God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth In which description of Gospel-Worship there are three things included 1. That we must worship God under the notion of a pure and infinite Spirit 2. under the character of a Father 3. With the Mind and Spirit But he has found little here to except against only two or three Fanatical Principles which shall be briefly considered The first God being a Spirit must not be sought for in Houses of Wood and Stone because he must be worshipped in Spirit as a Spirit it should be which differ greatly he must not be worshipped by any material or sensible Representations by material Images and Pictures those words except your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of Scribes and Pharisees you shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven cuts off every thing that is external in Religion Here he has jumbled things together of a different nature I shall begin with the last first because it concerns what I have already accounted for That the Christian Religion admits of no external nor ceremonial Righteousness the great design of the Gospel being to make us truly good that we may be partakers of the Divine Nature There is nothing our Lord does more severely condemn than an external and Pharasaical Righteousness Except your Righteousness exceed the Righteousness c. Now this not these words meerly but this rejecting an external Righteousness cuts off every thing that is external in Religion at a blow because it cuts off all hopes and reliances on an external Righteousness and I believe men will not be fond of such Superstitions when they know they will do them no good Now what is the fault of this do not these Principles remit all Christians to the silent Meetings of Quakers exclude singing of Psalms that is because it excludes an external Righteousness it excludes all external Acts of Worship Well rhymed Father Brains and Stairs Since God will be worshipped as a Spirit he will now confine his peculiar Presence to no place as he formerly did to the Temple at Ierusalem for though for typical reasons he had a typical and symbolical presence under the Iewish dispensation yet this was not so agreeable to his nature who is a Spirit and will now be worshipped as a Spirit and therefore must not now be sought for in Houses of Wood and Stone This says he excludes the use of Churches rather than Barns That is because God does not confine his presence to one place because he has no symbolical presence therefore there must be no places set apart from common uses for Religious Worship Thus God will be worshipped as a Spirit and therefore not by Images or material Representations which are so unlike a Spirit that is says he not by such material Representations as singing of Psalms Well guess't for a Jesuite The second Fanatical Principle is this God and Christ are not present in the Assemblies of Christians by a figurative and symbolical Presence There is no symbolical Presence of God under the Gospel Though God fills all Places it is a great absurdity to talk of more symbolical Presences than one for a symbolical Presence confines the unlimited Presence of God to a certain place in order to certain ends as to receive the Worship that is paid to him and to answer the Prayers that are made to him now to have more than one such Presence as this is like having more Gods than one To which he answers to say nothing of the absurdity of this Discourse which makes that Christian an Adorer of two Gods who by Faith adoring God in Heaven and in his own Soul worships him in both places Truly he had better have said nothing than nothing to the purpose for is God symbolically present in Heaven or in the Souls of Men in Heaven he is really present in the Souls of Men he is present by his Grace and Spirit but in neither by Symbols and Figures of his Presence as he was present in the Temple But he has a terrible Argument to come Doth not this destroy the very essence of your Sacrament the Bread and Wine in the Lord's Supper which you own to be a symbolical Presence of Christ but no Place nor Object of Worship And yet though we grant the Eucharist is a Symbol and Figure of Christ's Body and Blood it is no Symbol of Christ's bodily and personal Presence unless it be a Symbol of Christ's bodily Presence on the Cross for it is a Symbol only of Christ's broken Body and of his Blood shed for us and the intention of it is not to represent Christ bodily present with us but to be a Memorial of him in his bodily absence and therefore it is no symbolical Presence of Christ for the Figures and Symbols of his Body and Blood if they be a symbolical Presence must be the Symbols of his bodily Presence His third Fanatical Principle is this If God be better worshipped before an Image than without one then the Worship of God is more confined to that place where the Image is I cannot see how to avoid this whereas there is no appropriate place of Worship under the Gospel and 't is the same case tho' the Image be not appropriated to any place but carried about with us for still the Image makes the Place of Worship Most of these are my words but he has transplaced them so as to lose the Argument The force of the Argument is this If the Worship of God must not be confined to any Place or symbolical Presence then he must not be worshipped by an Image for an Image is a representative Presence of God or of the Saints and Men go to Images as to Divine Presences to Worship so that where-ever the Image is which is a symbolical Presence whether fixt in a Church or carried from one place to another it makes it a peculiar place of Worship as having a symbolical Presence So that the whole force of the Argument lies upon an Image being a symbolical Presence And this he tells us is an Argument for all Dissenters against a Liturgy or Set-Form of Prayer I suppose he means the Book of the Liturgy or Forms of Prayer for if God be better worshipped by a Set-Form of Prayer than without it then the Worship of God is more confined to that place where that Set-Form of Prayer that Set-Liturgy is used and 't is the same tho' no set place be appointed for that Set-Form of Prayer The Parallel is exact It is so indeed if he can prove the Common-Prayer-Book to be a symbolical Presence of God as an Image is but till then it is ridiculous At the conclusion of this Section I observed that to worship God in Spirit is to worship him with our Mind and Spirit And from hence I shewed the
extirpate all Idolatry To this purpose he has more perfectly instructed us in the Nature of God. To this end he confines all Religious Worship to God alone Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve It is his answer to the Devil when he tempted him to fall down and worship him but he gives such an answer as excludes all Creatures not only good but bad Spirits from any share in Religious Worship For he does not deny to worship him meerly because he was the Devil but because we must worship none but God. Which is as good a reason against the Worship of the most glorious Angels as of the Devil himself This he calls a Misrepresentation and to make it so first very sillily misrepresents my words and says that I charge the Church of Rome that she doth not pay to God alone that degree of Worship which the tempting Devil demanded of Christ. But I say not one word there about the Church of Rome tho' the application was obvious and he made it for me but then I do not blame them that they do not pay that degree of Worship to God which the Devil demanded of Christ which was but an inferior degree of Worship and therefore not proper for the Supreme Deity but that they pay any degree how inferior soever of Religious Worship to Saints and Angels or any other Being besides God for that is the import of our Saviour's Answer to the Devil and answers the pretence of the Church of Rome that she does not give latria or that Soveraign Worship which is due to the Supreme God but only dulia or an Inferior Worship to Saints and Angels whereas our Saviour's Argument proves that no degree of Worship is to be given to any but God. He says farther p. 64. That Christ by refusing himself all Worship to God's Enemy the Devil teaches us to pay none at all to God's Saints and Angels is an inference that no one but Dr. Sherlock was ever able to make Then it seems I have the honour of inventing a good Argument which this Jesuite dares not attempt to answer let him shew me if he can that to Worship none but God excludes only the Worship of the Devil not of Saints and Angels As a farther proof of this I add Our Saviour denies to Worship him though the Devil made no terms with him about the kind or degrees of Worship He does not require him to offer Sacrifice to him which is the only Act of Worship the Church of Rome appropriates to the Supreme God but only to bow down before him as an expression of Devotion This he calls a Misrepresentation that Sacrifice is the only Act of Worship which the Church of Rome appropriates to the Supreme God which is the first time this was called a Misrepresentation and yet he himself owns p. 64. that Sacrifice is indeed the only exterior Worship inseparable from latria and therefore never to be offered to any but God. And is not this what I said did I deny that the Church of Rome paid any other Worship to God but Sacrifice but I say and so says our Jesuite that there is no other external Act of Worship so peculiar to God that it can be given to no other being but only Sacrifice and therefore since the Devil did not demand of Christ to sacrifice to him he did not demand of him that degree of Worship which alone the Church of Rome thinks peculiar and appropriate to God and yet Christ tells us of all other Acts of Worship which the Church of Rome thinks may be separated from latria and therefore given to Creatures Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve I added that to prevent the Worship of Inferior Daemons who were worshipped as Mediators to the Supreme God God advances his own Son to be the Universal Mediator and the Supreme and Soveraign Lord of the World that all Mankind should make their Addresses and Supplications to him and offer up their Prayers only in his Name that in him they should find acceptance and in no other Name Hence he concludes that I charge the Church of Rome though I did not mention her that they offer not their Prayers only in the Name of Christ that in him they may find acceptance And this he calls a Misrepresentation and I will venture to be a Misrepresenter for once and charge them with it for if they pray to God in the Name and Merits of Saints and the blessed Virgin if they pray to them to intercede for them with God as appears in all their Offices then they do not pray only in the Name of Christ nor expect to be accepted only for his sake I summed up this Argument thus Now this being so apparently one end of Christ's coming into the World to suppress the Idolatry of Creature-Worship and to confine all Religious Worship to one Supreme Being in opposition to the many Gods of the Heathens and to teach us to make our Applications to this One God by One Mediator this he says is another Misrepresentation that they make not their Applications to One God by One Mediator which is true if by One he means only One for they have Many in opposition to the Worship of inferior Deities can any man imagine that the Worship of Saints and Angels and the Virgin Mary can be any part of the Christian Religion which is not a direct Proof against the Worship of Saints and Angels but an Argument from what is likely fit and congruous and consistent with our Saviour's design to root out all remains and all appearances of Idolatry which makes it improbable and incongruous to the utmost degree that Christ should permit the Worship of Saints and the Virgin Mary as it is practised in the Church of Rome with Temples and Altars and Images with Solemn Prayers and Vows and Solemn Processions which has so much the external appearance of that Idolatrous Worship which the Heathens paid to their Gods that there is no visible distinction between them And if Christ intended to root out Idolatry it is highly improbable that he would allow so much of the external pomp and shew of it if it were no more Those who think this may be may believe the Worship of Saints and Angels to be a Gospel-Doctrine notwithstanding this Argument but such Arguments as these are thought by most men to have some weight in them as for instance That a Man who is very curious to preserve his Wives Chastity will not suffer her to receive all Amorous Addresses and Courtships from Strangers no not from his dearest Friends That a Prince who is so jealous of any Rivals and Partners as to make it Treason to usurp the meanest of the insignia Majestatis will not suffer the greatest Favourite to wear the Imperial Crown nor to sit on his Throne and receive the Addresses and Homage of his Subjects upon the
recites but what he has to say to it he does not tell us I there shewed at large that God does not want Entreaties to do good though his Wisdom and Justice may require a Sacrifice and a High-Priest to make atonement for sin To prevent that obvious Objection that God commands us to Pray for one another on Earth I observed that this is not by way of Interest and Merit as the Church of Rome pretends the Saints in Heaven Pray for us but by Humble Supplications which I shewed was very reconcilable with the Wisdom and Goodness of God from those excellent ends it serves in this World this he calls a Misrepresentation p. 68. but I pray why do not they Pray to God in the Name and Merits of the Saints are not all their Offices full of such Prayers do they think the Saints in Heaven Pray only as humble Supplicants when the very reason the Council of Trent gives why they should fly to their Aid and Succors is that they Reign with Christ do they not as he adds take the Virgin Mary Angels and Saints for Mediators to incline God to be good to peculiar persons which he calls another Misrepresentation why then do they Pray so frequently and devoutly to them why do they tell of so many miraculous Deliverances wrought by the Virgin Mary in favour of her Clients and of other Saints in favour of their Devotoes English Protestants know these things too well to be imposed on at this time of day by the bawling and confidence of an ignorant Jesuite 2. I observed That it is not less injurious to the Love of our Saviour to fly to the Prayers and Aids of Saints and the Virgin Mary as if Christ either wants interest with God or wants kindness to us and either will not intercede for us at all or will not do it unless he be prevailed with by the Intercession of Saints or the Entreaties or Commands of his Mother And having shewed what assurance we have of the Love and Compassion of our Saviour I added This one would have thought should have given the greatest security to sinners of his readiness to help them But it seems Christ is not merciful and pitiful enough his Virgin Mother has softer and tenderer Passions and such an interest in him or authority over him in the right of a Mother as some of them have not without blasphemy represented it that she can have any thing of him and thus they suppose the other Saints to be much more pitiful than Christ is and to have interest enough to protect their Supplicants or else it is not imaginable why they should need or desire any other Advocates This he calls another Misrepresentation and makes me â—ay that the Church of Rome professes to believe all this but I say no such thing but only this is the natural interpretation of their seeking other Advocates and Mediators besides Christ when he can give a better account of this Practice I will acknowledge I was mistaken in my Argument but am no Misrepresenter for to Argue ill and to Misrepresent are two things as the Representer himself I suppose has learnt by this time SECT III. An Answer to the Thirty Misrepresentations and Calumnies and some Fanatical Principles said to be offered in the Third and Fourth Sections HEre our Jesuite foams and rages and I will make him rage a little more before I have done with him For bad Spirits are apt to rage most the more they feel the power of Exorcism and then there is no way to make them quiet but to cast them out The third Section of the Preservative concerned the Nature of Christian Worship what Christ has reformed in the Worship of God and what Worship he has prescribed 1. As for the first I said that Christ has taken away every thing that was meerly external in Religion not external Acts nor the necessary external Circumstances of Worship but such exernal Rites as either by the Institution of God or Superstition of Men were made Acts of Religion to render us more acceptable to God. This I shewed was agreeable to the nature of Christian Religion which has none of those ends to serve for which these external Rites were instituted by God under the Jewish Law or invented by Men. For 1. There is no Expiation or Satisfaction for Sins under the Gospel but only the Blood of Christ and therefore there is no place now for any Expiatory Rites and Ceremonies 2. The Gospel makes no difference between Legal Cleanness and Uncleanness and therefore distinctions of Meats and External Washings and Purifications are now out of date 3. Nor is there any Symbolical Presence of God under the Gospel which puts an end to the Legal Holiness of Places and Things 4. Nor are Material and Inanimate Things made the Receptacles of Divine Graces and Vertues to convey them to us meerly by Contact and External Applications like some Amulets or Charms to wear in our Pockets or hang about our Necks 5. The Christian Religion admits of no External or Ceremonial Righteousness Now this cuts off every thing which is External in Religion at a blow because it cuts off all hopes and relyances on an External Righteousness 6. Hence it appears that the Christian Religion can admit nothing that is External but only some Faederal Rites such as the two Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper are And such Rites as these are necessary in all instituted Religions which depend upon free and voluntaâ—â—â—â—venants For since Mankind has by sin forfeited their natural rigâ—t to God's favour they can challenge nothing from him now but by Promise and Covenant and since such Covenants require a mutual stipulation on both sides they must be transacted by some visible and sensible Rites whereby God obliges himself to us and we to him This he calls a Fanatical Principle but why I know not And says that this is destroyed by my former Principle of taking away all Rites that are Acts of Religion This is a severe Man who will not allow me to make one Exâ—eption from a General Rule which no man yet was ever denied especially when I give such a peculiar reason for the Exception as is applicable to nothing else that an instituted Religion is and must be founded on a Covenant that a Covenant must be transacted by visible and sensible Rites for there cannot be a visible Covenant nor a visible Church founded on this Covenant without visible and sensible Rites And this I suppose he will think a sufficient Answer to what he says That on this Principle I ought to teach that the mutual stipulation betwixt God and us must be made by his interior Graces and our interior Worship because God must be worshipped as a meer Spirit That God must be worshipped as a meer Spirit and therefore without any external Acts of Worship I never said much less did I assign it as my reason here against a meer external
Worship that God must be worshipped as a meer Spirit but that the nature of the Christian Religion will not admit of such an external Worship And yet if he can tell me how this Stipulation or Covenant can be made betwixt God and us by interior Graces without some visible covenanting Rite how the Christian Church which is a visible Society distinguished from the rest of the World by a visible Covenant can be thus visibly incorporated by interior invisible Graces I will confess then that there had been no need had Christ so pleased of any visible Sacraments He adds upon whatever account that interior Covenant but we speak of an external visible Covenant which requires visible Pledges and Seals requires a visible sensible Mark and our actual Communion with Christ another all the Communications of God's Graces to us all our return of Worship and Adoration will equally admit of sensible Signs and Rites Let us apply this then to those Instances I gave of this external Worship and see whether there be the same reason for that as there is for some visible signs of a visible Covenant The same reason and necessity for instance of some external Rites to expiate sin now the Gospel declares there is no expiation of sin but the Blood of Christ that there is of Gospel-Sacraments to apply the expiation of Christ's Death to us The same necessity of external Washings and Purifications distinction of Meats c. Now the Gospel has put an end to all legal Uncleanness as there is of Baptism to wash away our Sins or of the Lord's Supper to strengthen and refresh our Souls by a Spiritual feeding on the Body and Blood of Christ the same external holiness of Places to sanctifie our Worship now God has declared that he has no symbolical Presence on Earth the same necessity of material and inanimate receptacles and conveyances of Divine Graces and Vertues the same necessity of an external and ceremonial Righteousness which is such a contradiction to the whole design of the Gospel as there is of the Gospel-Sacraments to receive us into Covenant and to convey the Blessings of the Covenant to us As for external Acts and Circumstances of Worship and Adoration I allowed the necessity of them under the Gospel but these are very different things from external religious Rites and if he knows no reason why the conveyances of Grace should rather be confined to the two Gospel-Sacraments then to Holy Water or Agnus Dei's or the Reliques of Saints or such other Popish Inventions I will tell him one because the Spirit of Grace is the Spirit of Christ and derives his influences only to the mystical body of Christ all our Graces are the immediate influxes of the Divine Spirit and nothing can intitle us to the Graces of the Spirit but being Members of Christ's Body and there are no visible Sacraments of Union to Christ but Baptism and the Lord's Supper and therefore no visible Rites of conveying the Graces of the Divine Spirit to us but these Again As our Spiritual Life consists in our Union to Christ so this Union makes us New Creatures for he that is in Christ is a New Creature Now there are but two things necessary to a New Creature a new birth and a constant supply of nourishment for its increase and growth Baptism is our Regeneration or New Birth whereby we are incorporated into Christ's Mystical Body and receive the first Communications of a Divine Life from the Holy Spirit the Lord's Supper is the constant Food and Nourishment of our Souls wherein we receive fresh supplies of Grace as our Natural Bodies do new Spirits from the Meat we eat Now let any man tell me what more is necessary to a New Creature than to be born and to be nourished by fresh supplies of Grace till it grow up to a perfect man in Christ Jesus all this is done for us by Baptism and the Lord's Supper and if all Divine Grace must be derived to us from our Union to Christ as the Members of his Body nothing can be more congruous than that the Sacraments of our Union to Christ should be the only visible and external Rites of conveying all supernatural Grace to us so that unless Holy Water and Relicks c. be new Sacraments of our Union to Christ they can be no Gospel conveyances of Grace and by the way whoever well considers this will think it little less than a demonstration that there can be but two Gospel Sacraments because there are no other visible Rites of uniting us to Christ and consequently of conveying supernatural Grace to us which is the Notion of a Sacrament But to proceed I came to apply this Discourse to Popish Worship to see how consistent it is with that Reformation Christ had made of the Worship of God under the Gospel And I observed in general that whoever only considers the vast number of Rites and Ceremonies in the Church of Rome must conclude it as Ritual and Ceremonial a Religion as Judaism itself the Ceremonies are as many more obscure unintelligible and useless more severe and intolerable than the Iewish Yoke itself which St. Peter tells the Iews neither they nor their Fathers were able to bear The first part he has nothing to say to and by his silence confesses it to be true and that is proof enough that it is no Christian Worship But he will by no means allow that they are as severe and as intolerable as the Iewish Yoke this he calls a Mis-representation and looks about to see what it should be that is so intolerable he suspects I mean their Fasts in Lent or on Fridays and Saturdays but he is much mistaken I know all these are very easie and gentle things in the Church of Rome or that Prayer and Almsdeeds may be these terrible things And here he comes pretty near the matter for I look upon it very intolerable to say over so many Prayers and Masses every day without understanding one word they say which is the daily Task of many thousand Priests who understand no more what they say than the People do To part with their real Estates many times to the great damage of their Families out of a blind Devotion to deliver their Souls from the imaginary Flames of Purgatory which they call Almsdeeds to whip and macerate their Bodies if they be so blindly devout with severe Fasts for men may fast severely in the Church of Rome if they please with long Watchings hard Lodging tedious and expensive Pilgrimages not to cure but to expiate their sins He says If the Ceremonies used in the Liturgy he should have said in their Mass-Book and Rituals and Breviaries be a burden surely the Clergy or Religious must feel the weight of it yet I am sure not one ever owned it Is he sure of this Has he confessed all the Nuns and Monks but if they have not owned it Have they never felt it neither Will