to speak the same thing considerable it is that as we have the Apostolical Creed for the one so we have the Lords Prayer for the other Christ having given unto us as well a Common-prayer as a common Faith and indeed no Congregation in the world can confidently say we know how we worship but such onely as have set Forms against which and the appendencies thereupon That there is nothing at all in these too too much abused words we will now pass to a peculiar and strict survey of them The hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers pers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth In which words for Methods sake thus First The time here spoken of The hour cometh and now is Secondly The Subject spoken on and that is the Worship of God The true worshippers of God shall worship Thirdly The Mode or manner how Spirit The Father in Truth First of the Time The hour cometh and now is He to whom a thousand years are but as one day He to admonish our mortality speaks of the whole term and state of the Gospel as but an hour The hour cometh and now is and yet this Hour extends from his coming in the Flesh to his coming in the Clouds and therefore if we strictly and grammatically look upon the words being it is not onely said the hour cometh but also Now is this Nunc est this Now is it must be taken Inchoativè that is Now commencing or now beginning For as a man at first turning of the Glass may say now is the hour in which such or such things shall be done which perchance shall not begin or be done till the middle or latter end of the hour Even so whereas our Saviour saith The hour is coming and now is wherein neither in that mountain nor yet in Jerusalem they should worship this Now was not instantly and from that very period of time to take place but within the compass of the hour for these words are observed to have been spoken even the very first year of his preaching and as appears in this Chapter before his second Miracle So that neither was Jerusalem or Gerasin laid aside so soon yea before the Temple was destroy'd and before they forbare to go up to Jerusalem to worship it was nigh fourty years after this saying Peter and John went up into the Temple at the hour of prayer the Aethiopian Eunuch yea St. Paul himself after this went up even to Jerusalem for to worship So that by this approaching Hour and by the Now in my Text we are to understand the state of the Gospel after the term and dissolution of that Legal way so that to be brief here both we and our Fore-fathers for many by-past Ages may take up the Text and say The hour is come and now is when which is the Second considerable the true worshippers shall worship In the whole Book of God there is no one Duty to which there are more invitations of which more holy Examples against violating which more severe Judgements than this general Duty the Worship of God And yet at this day as if God had laid aside his Honour those who ought to be the true Worshippers they despise neglect and lay aside his worship as if that of the Psalmist O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness or that Exalt ye the Lord our God and worship at his foot-stool As if these and very very many of the like were all but airy and empty sounds If there be no Sermon too too many who by profession ought to be Worshippers they are come to that they think it not worth the while to go up to the House of God to worship Sure I am in the days of Nehemiah it was not so Worshipping then had as full a regard as Hearing As much of the solemn day as was spent in Reading even so much and no less was spent in Worshipping For you shall finde They read in the book of the law of the Lord their God one fourth part of the day and another fourth part they confessed and worshipped the Lord their God The equal Sisters had an equal portion they spent full as much time in worshipping as in reading Nay if we survey the Law of God it self you shall finde that God so far valued his Worship that he took not a weekly but a daily order for it For whereas we read Acts 15. 21. Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him being read in the synagogue every sabbath Whereas care was taken for that but once a Week we finde God commanded the Priests to worship publickly twice a Day For Exod. 29. 38. Thou shalt offer upon the altar two lambs of the first year day by day continually the one lamb in the morning the other at the evening This was God's publick and this was his daily worship Now if the state of the Gospel be such that our Righteousness must exceed the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharises why should not also our Devotion do it If that people who had lesser obligation were bound to a daily worship certainly then it must be a failing or a sin in us Christians to despise vilisie and neglect God's daily Worship For the hour is come and now is wherein we Christians are bound to worship for the state of Christianity even by Christ himself is thus described The true worshippers shall worship and worship the Father too whence it is as clear as Noon-day under the state of the Gospel we must be worshippers Amongst Christians there are many who press and speak much of Gospel graces Gospel liberties Gospel priviledges and Gospel ordinances but for Gospel-worship not a Syllable And yet our Saviour in the Text pronounceth Christians onely shall prove the true worshippers Now the better to understand what is here meant by Worship Consider we must there are in God two things of distinct Consideration as to us 1. His Person 2. His Precepts To his Person we owe all Worship and Honour and Glory To his Precepts all Regard Service and Obedience Now the Question here propounded by the Samaritan is not about Obedience Regard or Service for there was no dispute but both in Gerasin and Jerusalem God was to be served and God was to be obey'd but the Question onely is where he was to be Worshipped Yea To come more close and stricter to the point the Question is not about inward but about outward not about private but onely about publickworship For as for the inward worship of the Soul as for private Devotion and spiritual Duties this was never confined either to Jerusalem by the Jew nor ever by a Samaritan determined unto Gerasin Daniel prayed in his Chamber Jeremy prayed in the Dungeon Job pray'd in the Dunghil David prayed on his Bed And it was in all ages lawful thus to worship God in any place The scruple
then here propounded as it is not about service so neither is it about private or inward worship but it is about the outward and about the publickworship of God that is where Sacrifice was to be made where his publick Homage was to be paid whether Gerasin or Jerusalem was the place of publick worship Our blessed Master upon the point he rejecteth both saying The hour cometh and now is when to use the words of Malachi From the rising of the sun to the going down of the same my Name shall be great among the Gentiles and in every place shall incense that is an holy Worship be offered unto my Name So that whereas of old Sacrifice and that onely in the Temple and that Temple at Jerusalem was God's highest acknowledgment and outward Worship he telleth the Samaritan that hereafter the worship of God would be in a clear other mode neither confined to place nor exprest by Sacrifice so that indeed Evangelical worship is the proper subject here to be enquired on to wit What is that publick Worship which the true Worshippers should use under the state and condition of the Gospel which from the legal I shall shew you differs both in the Object and in the Expression for Veri Adoratores the true Worshippers they shall worship the Father and him they shall worship in spirit and in truth First they shall worship the Father God in all ages and states of the Church hath had his worship but under sundry Methods and divers Notions for though he himself and his self onely was the sole object of divine Worship yet in several ages he hath been pleased to be worshipped under several Apellatives Names or Attributes For Exod. 6. 3. I appeared unto Abraham Isaac and Jacob by the Name of God Almighty but by my Name Jehovah was I not known unto them To Moses it seems God was known by a Name by which he was not known to Abraham and to Abraham probably by a Name by which he was not known to Adam So that it is conceived Adam and his posterity they worshipped God under the notion of a Creator Abraham as God Almighty Moses by his Name Jehovah Yea St. Jerom hath taken pains to number up and to explicate ten Names by which under the Old Testament the people of God did worship God and yet among them all no mention of this in my Text no approach to God under the notion of a Father Albeit then we may as the Jew did worship and approach unto God as the high God as the God of all Spirits as the God of vengeance as the Lord God of Sabbaoth yet we have through the mercies of God a far nigher and a dearer Relative for we cry Abba Father Veri Adoratores cospel-Cospel-worshippers they shall worship the Father Now if it be a Gospel-priviledge and that Priviledge upon Scripture-account a choice favour to worship and approach the living God under the Relation of a Father then we who have the enjoyment of this favour we who are the onely true worshippers of God we have not onely a more comfortable object but we have a singular and extraordinary and a most affectionate motive for to worship For we are to worship a Father Now if the Jew whose state was servile if they who had onely Attributes of power and terrour to draw them to their God if they went from their own home even as far as Jerusalem to worship if their fear carried them to the holy Temple are not we very unkindly and ungracious Children who so little love value or honour the House of our Father that albeit in the same Town we will not go up to worship Had the Worship of God been a performance of mean and slight account the Aethiopian Eunuch he would never have made so long a Journey as from his Country to Jerusalem to worship St. Paul then a Christian though he was oft told by the way that Troubles and Bonds abode him at Jerusalem yet for all the Now in my Text was begun and notwithstanding Bonds and Troubles abode him there up to Jerusalem he would and did and that upon this very account even to Worship Whereas then as a great grace and priviledge of the Gospel the Worship of God is brought even from Jerusalem to our own Doors changed from a costly to a cheap worship from Bullocks Goats and Lambs to Prayer and Praises and whereas to this better worship we are now invited not by an Appellative of Terrour but by Allurements of Love Being it is said the true Worshippers that is the Worshippers under the Gospel shall worship the Father If Faith and Obedience because the Gospel exacts them be Duty then the Worship of God which is equally required must needs be Duty too And what can be more express than this from our Saviour's own mouth Veri Adoratores adorabunt Patrem The true Worshippers shall worship the Father which that as we ought we may do we will pass to the last Considerable in my Text. Third The manner how In spirit and in truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Spiritu ac veritate as Beza with spirit and truth for he leaves out the In. And indeed there are more of the Learned beside him who taking this for an Hebraism conceive they ought to be so read and indeed so read the like For whereas it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I indeed Baptise you in Aqua we English it not in but with Water And whereas it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we read it right enough With one minde and one mouth glorisie God And whereas St. Paul saith God is my witness whom I serve in Spiritu meo we read it not in but with my Spirit And therefore whereas it is said in the Text The true worshippers shall worship in spiritu veritate we may very well read it thus The true Worshippers shall worship the Father with spirit and with truth And therefore those who think by these two words In Spiritu in Spirit for they never minde in Truth to void and destroy all outward Worship they may be deceived and mistaken in the very letter of the Text which being it may be as if not more justly read with the Spirit as in the Spirit the bottom of their Building it totters if not down And therefore for the better both Explication and Application of these words I shall reduce all that followeth into these four Propositions Spirit and Truth are not here opposed to outward bodily Worship nor to any outward expression of Grace or Virtue A publick Worship in Spirit without Truth the outward expression of it cannot be The Christian practice of worshipping God by Adoration and Liturgies demonstrates that they held that way the way of worshipping in Spirit and in Truth Lastly Being Christians are the onely true Worshippers I shall briefly shew how much it concerns us to give all due regard and
respect to the outward and publick worship of God under the state of the Gospel First Spirit and Truth are not here opposed either to outward bodily worship or to any outward express of any Grace or Virtue And this to a wary ear hath already been concluded by the premises For being I have shew'd unto you how the Question between the Samaritan and our Saviour was about two Worships one false and the other gross one Idolatrous and the other Legal one by the Jew to the true God the other by the Samaritan to they knew not what To these two Worships our blessed Lord and Master in the Text opposeth these two Spirit and Truth To the Gross Legal and Jewish way of worship to that he opposeth the Spirit To the False Idolatrous and Samaritan way to that he opposeth the Truth So that to worship in Spirit and in Truth is no more according to the Letter than onely thus The hour is coming and now is when the Law shall give way to the Gospel Moses to Christ the Jewish worship which was then by Bullocks Goats and Lambs to a spiritual worship which shall require no such Sacrifice no such Oblations And in order to the Samaritan thus The time is coming and Now is when ye shall be better informed in the word of Truth when ye shall know what to worship and then you shall finde neither Gerasin to be the place nor what ye now worship to be the Object For the true worshippers they shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth So that by spirit and truth there is nothing stands here excluded but either worshipping the wrong object as did the Samaritan or the right Object the wrong way as the Jews do even to this very day Hugely then are they mistaken who conceit to worship in spirit is a discharge to bodily or outward worship when the opposition and the discharge it onely is against Mosaick and Samaritan against Legal and against Idolatrous worship Yea so far was our Saviour in those words from excluding bodily and outward worship that those who know any thing of the Greek know he here useth a word so proper to bodily and outward expression that the spirit alone cannot do it The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth an outward prostration and a lowly humbling of the Body so that the true Worshippers of the Father when in a godly sear and with a religious reverence they bow down and humble their Bodies before him they then do what the Text requires they do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They do worship in spirit yea and in truth too And As the Spirit is not opposed to bodily worship so neither is it to any outward and exteriour evidence or express of any Grace or Virtue For to forbid Grace or Virtue to shew forth it self were to take splendour from Light and to restrain the exercise of all inward Pieties Indeed if we closely consider of the Mosaick and outward worship of the Jews to wit Sacrifice Oblations Incense and the like these were not accounted the visible expressions of any inward Grace Nor were these the outward Acts of any interiour Piety but those were the shadows of things to come and the representative Types of what was substantially to be verified when the Gospel came and therefore no wonder if spirit and truth both stand opposed to these But bodily expressions and outward Gestures Signes and Ceremonies under the Gospel these are the outward Evidences of inward Graces the outward Manifestations of inward Pieties As devoutly to frequent Christian Churches and to be present at the publick Worship it is an outward expression of an inward Grace to wit of Christian Religion for hereby we declare our selves such who profess to worship the Father and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent To profess with the Mouth it is an outward expression of an inward Faith To confess our sin is an outward expression of an inward penitence To humble our selves lowly upon our Knees an outward express of an inward Reverence To receive the Sacrament an outward express of an inward Piety So that if Spirit and Truth stood opposed to these there could be no visible Religion nor no outward godliness in the world And this properly leads to the Second Proposition which is to shew A publick worship in spirit without truth the outward expression cannot be Now that I say a publick Worship it is no more than my Text requireth For the whole difference between our Saviour and the Samaritan it was not you have seen about inward or private but meerly about outward and about publick worship for Gerasin and Jerusalem they were the seat of publick worship Whereas then our Saviour speaking to the point of publick worship plainly averréth that even that shall be in spirit and in truth it even hence inevitably followeth that Spirit and Truth cannot here stand opposed to Visible Bodily and exteriour worship For if there must be under the Gospel a publick Worship and that worship must be in spirit and in truth Outward Visible and Bodily expressions they cannot here be inhibited for they must be the publishers of all religious and all interiour worship For 1 Cor. 2. 11. No man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of a man which is in him Suppose a man to have within him all the graces of the Gospel no man can know this so long as they onely are within him for the inward or reserved things of man knoweth no man save the spirit of a man which is within him If then the graces of the Gospel was either given to edisie others or to glorisie God both these require they be not kept within and therefore Spirit without Truth or inward conceptions without outward expressions they will never do the work of God By worship then in Spirit and Truth we must here understand a compleat Worship that is the worship of the whole Man Spirit and Truth that is both For as the outward without the inward is meer Hypocrisie even so the Spirit without Truth the Minde without the Members will make but an halting and an halving Sacrifice Yea in publique to worship in Spirit without manifestations of that Spirit it is both a scandalous and an incredible worship For as we cannot reasonably believe that man is sober in spirit whose Body reels vomits and staggers before our Eyes and as we cannot reasonably believe him honest at Heart who we see deceitful in Weights and Measures nor him charitably minded who we hear reviling cursing and defaming his Neighbour So neither can any man reasonably believe that that man is devout in Spirit who is rude in Body that that man is full of fear within who is full of sauciness without that that man doth Reverence in Spirit who hath nothing of Reverence in the outward gesture So that Spirit and Truth seem to me like the outward Expression to the inward Meaning for if the
Seraphin continually do cry Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabbaoth Heaven and Earth are full of the Majesty of thy Glory If to him Ten thousand times ten thousand were heard saying with a loud voice Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing certainly then all the Earth should worship him magnifie his Name confess before him and confess him before men we should all sing and praise and laud and do every thing and nothing but such things in time of his holy Worship as may speak the Glory the Goodness the Holiness the Greatness and the Majesty of the God we worship And thus to do is to do my Text thus to do is to worship in Spirit and in Truth And so I have done with these words The hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth Tibi soli Domine debetur Latria tibi omnis honos adoratio cultus nunc in aeternum Amen FINIS A REVIEW OF A BRIEF APOLOGY FOR SUCH SEQUESTER'D CLERGY Who choose rather to suffer Sequestration Than to lay aside The LITURGY And receive The DIRECTORY Written in a Letter to Mr. STEPHEN MARSHALL whose Answer is here Printed never before extant and how obtained TOGETHER WITH A brief Perswasive to the onely use of Set FORMS in Private FAMILIES By John Allington Vicar of Leamington-Hastang Quod ad formulam Precum Rituum Ecclesiasticorum valdè probo ut Certa illa sit à quâ Pastoribus discedere in Functione suâ non liceat tam ut consulatur quorundam simplicitati imperitiae quà m ut certius ita constet omnium inter se Ecclesiarum Consensus Johannes Calvinus Protectori Angliae 1 Edw. 6th LONDON Printed for Thomas Basset at the George near St. Dunstans Church in Fleet-street 1678. To the Honourable And his much honoured Neighbour CHARLES LEIGH Esq At Burdingbury SIR THe justice of your Birth forceth me to preface you by that which I conceive is least honourable in you Your native Nobility For morally to speak look what is necessary is scarce laudible Quae non fecimus ipse Vix ea Nostra voco An adventitious is no acquired Honour And if Poetry may pass for Heraldry Nobilitas sola est atque unica Virtus There is no real Nobility which hath not more of Virtue than Blood in it And this seems patroniz'd by a great Fountain of Honour even our blessed Lord and Master who allowed the Jews to be the Seed but not the Sons of Abraham for he plainly tells them it was Works and Imitation not a Line or Descent that made Children unto Abraham The witty Atheist who in his Dialogues brings in Galatea and Doris discoursing of the love of Polyphemus tells her she should not look upon his Deformity or minde his having but one Eye and that in his Forehead for he was the Son of Neptune But the nice Nymph replied smartly An verò credis genus illi quicquam profuturum ad formam Thinkest thou that a Descent can make beautiful or because begot by a God deformities are comely Now truely as descent cannot make that lovely and amiable that is not so so neither can descent make that honourable that is not so For though I perfectly abhor to think that Dominium fundatur in Gratiâ That Right or Propriety is founded in Grace of that onely Saints have right to their Goods or onely the godly party a just title to Riches and secular Dominion yet may I distinguish between real and secular Honour I conceive such to empty themselves of all real Repute and divest themselves of all due Honour who by doing unworthy things make themselves vile unclean and that which stands in direct opposition to what is truely honourable So that a man may as well argue deformed and ugly Polyphemus was therefore beautiful because Neptune was his Father as a Vitious person therefore truely and really honourable because a person of true honour got him To you my honourable Neighbour I therefore make my Address because you have Honour of your own Intrinsecal Honour such which you merit to be honoured and regarded for Religion Sobriety Temperance and the rare Grace of these times Conjugal Chastity no man rejoycing more with the Wife of his Youth and as the holy Pen expresseth it ravished always with her love To you worthy Sir I have made bold to give the Patronage of what here followeth which being a brief Assertion of a necessity of publickly worshipping God by a set Form I therefore make yours because beside that personal Piety which your God alone is witness to your prudence in your Family hath wisely chosen constantly to use onely that Form which we rightly call Common-prayer And indeed many very many reasons may be given to confirm your choice and perswade your imitation First By the Law of the Land Open Prayer such which is for others to come to hear is onely the Service of the Church our Common-prayer So that if Law be a rule and the regular man be the laudible person he is most so who conforms to Law and regulates himself and Family by it Secondly An unknown Worship it is a proportionable folly to an unknown God For as St. Paul told the Athenians it was superstitious and unlawful for them to worship they knew not what though that unknown was thought to be the true God Even so as unlawful it may seem or else let Latine Prayers pass to worship a known God we know not how which he who joyns issue in a conceived or unknown Prayer must needs do For the Worship must be over before he can judge of it Thirdly To offer the Blinde Lame or Sick to God for Sacrifice God himself hath declared Evil. But whosoever shall bare his Head fall upon his Knees and be ready to joyn in the Oblation of he knows not what he is in a present disposition to offer up to his God for ought he knows the Blinde the Lame the Sick that is such crude and unhallowed both Petitions and Expressions as are unworthy the Almighty yea unfit to be presented to a Governour Fourthly To offer that to our God which would not please our Governour God abhors Now what man amongst us will be content that a Petition be drawn and proffered in his Name to a man of Power and he never see it nor hear it read till 't is read and offered to the Governour And shall we think it meet with less consideration to offer up our Prayers to God than Petitions to one like unto our selves Fifthly Every considering man will finde to the compleating of a publick Prayer there must be a concurrence of these six Acts. 1. Hearing 2. Understanding 3. Consideration 4. Judgement 5. Oblation And Lastly Devotion Now whether these can be better managed when a man knoweth what to pray or where a man must warily listen what through
we are to take no notice by a Worship in Spirit and Truth and by worshipping the Father understood worshipping in a Form for Father implies a Form and by publick Liturgies let us a little survey their Piety and their Prayers First Our blessed Lord and Master who gave this rule he himself exemplified what he gave for the exact Pattern and the very Basis of all Gospel-worship is Pater Noster Our Father The Apostolical Symbol the Canon and Square of all the Professions of our Faith it begins Credo in Deum Patrem I believe in God the Father Confession of sins as the words were by our Saviour put into the mouth of the penitent Prodigal it is an address unto the Father I will go to my Father c. And Father I have sinned against heaven and against thee The Sacrament of Initiation or first admittance into the mystical Communion it is confined to this rule In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Yea when the Church in humble thankfulness returneth Praise and Glory unto God for all his benefits it is done as becomes true Worshippers by worshipping the Father and by saying Glory be to the Father and to the Son c. And as for the Church of England is not every Collect a most exact Gospel-worship Almighty and most merciful Father begins our Confession Almighty God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ begins our Absolution Then the Prayer of the Son unto his Father And the Close of every Collect is through Jesus Christ which is still an implication of the Father So that according to this rule the true Worshippers shall worship the Father Who can be truer Worshippers than that Church all whose publick Prayers are Addresses and Acts of worship to the Father And as for Spirit and Truth had it been inconsistent with publick and outward Worship or with Form then St. Paul would never have writ to Timothy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Prayers should be not onely said but made for Kings and all that are in Authority St. James the Brother of our Lord he had scornfully and ignominiously been termed Jacobus Liturgus James the Liturgist had set Forms been inconsistent with Spirit and truth Justine Martyr he would never have spoken of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Common-prayers nor Ignatius before him of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one Prayer had it been a stinting of the good Spirit to have a Liturgy or a Common-prayer Yea there would have been no Churches to have worshipped God in no publick Assemblies to have worshipped there nor indeed no use at all of our Bodies in order to God's glory if Spirit and Truth concluded against outward worship Whatsoever then the antient Churches understood by Spirit and Truth they did not understand an opposition either to bodily or to outward worship For that which is held the best Interpreter of Scripture to wit Praxis Ecclesiae the Church-Practice you see it doth evince the contrary for they had Churches they had known and set Forms for publick worship Yea Beza himself in his smaller Notes thus Quae ad Ordinent spectant ut precum formulae disposuit Apostolus Those Decencies which appertain to Order as Forms of Prayer the Apostle himself prepared and disposed By Spirit and Truth then we may very well here understand a worshipping of the Father according to those measures which the Spirit Light and Grace of the Gospel prescribeth and alloweth to us By Truth we may understand such outward expressions and manifestations as are proportionable to such a Spirit to such Light to such Grace for so by their unanimous and constant practice the primitive and best Churches understood it Lastly therefore give me leave in a word to shew how much it concerns us to give all due regard and respect to the outward and publick Worship of God under the state of the Gospel The Servants of God under the Gospel they are stiled by our Saviour Veri Adoratores the true Worshippers not the unsatiable Hearers Now it seems strange to me that Christians should emphatically be called the true Worshippers and yet many make no account at all of Evangelical Worship as if God did not as much regard the honour done unto his Person as he doth the bare hearing and listening to his Word Or as if Pray continually and Continue in prayer sounded not as much duty as doth Be instant in season and out of season By Evangelical Worship I understand Prayers Supplications and giving of Thanks confession of Sin profession of Faith making and performing of Vows oblation of Praise singing of Hymns and Psalms reception of Sacraments Adoration either with or without these So that the Father is then worshipped in Spirit and in Truth when there is a reverential address or a religious performance of all or any of these before him so that we cannot come under the honourable Appellative in the Text Veri Adoratores true Worshippers unless we outwardly and publickly even thus assemble for to worship Esay 66. 23. the Evangelical Prophet speaking of Gospel-days thus writes All flesh shall come to worship before me saith the Lord. To worship is not to clap on our Hats and sit on our Seats to hear a Sermon but to perform some act of honour some humble office some such religious Duty the reverence whereof may shew forth our distance and the Father's glory the performance whereof may move all who see it say These men are in the presence and before their God These men know what they worship These men have the Fear and Apprehension of a glorious Majesty before their eyes For being the great designe of God in all his works is the setting forth of his own Glory Worship it is the very immediate tendency to that great end For they that worship it is their actual employment to set forth his praise and to magnifie him under some glorious Attribute or other So that indeed between Hearing and Worshipping there is as much difference as between Hearing and Doing For Hearing being but a disposition to Doing Worship is the very practice Doing and actual Advance of God's honour and therefore a Duty not to be laid aside nor so coolly frequented and performed as by too too many He who in the second Commandment said Thou shalt not bow down to them or worship them He who forbids Sacrisice and Prayers and Praises yea the very bowing of the Body to false Gods doth not in so doing imply less than a reservation of this Worship to himself And therefore to him who is the everliving God and the everlasting Father to him we must ascribe and give the Glory the Honour and the Worship that evangelically is due unto him for the true Worshippers are in all duty bound to worship the Father and to worship him in Spirit and Truth Hos 6. 6. I desired mercy and not sacrisice and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings
distance or for not acquaintance with the Voice he oft cannot understand or understanding cannot so instantly consider and judge of as to deem it a meet oblation for his God Whether I say these acts can better be discharged and Praestantissima quaeque Deo upon a transient than a set Form let every man so judge as he will answer it to his God Sixthly Men of different Principles can never conscionably joyn in conceived or conceited Prayer For he who holds Original Sin in Infants as such no bar to Salvation he cannot abide that men in Prayer should say they are damned before born and came into the world Brands of Hell-fire Or such who hold Sacraments have no effect but in the Elect onely these cannot joyn in a preparative Prayer but either they must have a Congregation of Elect onely or they must rashly say they know not what and pray for such grace for some present which they pretend to know God will never give And indeed upon what but upon this are built all the sorry Objections against the Liturgy Seventhly Conceived Prayer or as they call it praying by the Spirit is for the most part a great cheat being the main Product of a ready Tongue and a strong Memory in which is treasured up for all occasions Scripture-Phrases Collections Notes and such Expressions as are most taking and popular For that the Holy Spirit will put words into the mouth of any man as he did once into Balaam's Ass suddainly and irresistibly or that by the Spirit of Prayer is meant a capacity to speak in the Vocative Case an Hour or two is not yet proved to a serious and a sober Christian That place of Zechary I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplications it will by no means do them this service For Authority I hope undeniable to conceivers the Assembly-Annotations tells us And I will pour This Prophecy had its accomplishment partly upon our Saviour's coming and yet shall more fully upon the last conversion of the Jews So that by them the present Church seems not the subject of this promise Indeed they say the house of David typically represents the Church of Christ and the Children of God But then by the Spirit of Grace and Supplications they by no means mean the gift of Prayer or a power of a sudden to say what they list in the Vocative Case For by the spirit of Grace they onely mean an help from God to make Prayer in Believers holy and acceptable and that is far from long and indigested Rapsodies And as for that upon which Fanaticks lay the great stress the Spirit of Supplications The Comment declines it wholly and rather sides with those who render the Original by Compassion or Lamentation So that this is a pitiful Bottom to cozen and cheat the people on with or to an expectation of such a surprize of Spirit as shall make them pray what they list and as long And indeed both the learned in the Hebrew Tongue and the Context bear against it for albeit some conceive as the vulgar Latine renders it Prayer or Supplications may yet as Cornelius à Lapide whom I therefore quote because he hath prepared the Collection for me upon the place observes the Septuagint the Chaldee Pagnine the Tigurine Version and Hierom by what some Humorists call the Spirit of Prayer they rather render Compassion Commiseration a Minde tender and propense to pity and compassion And indeed if we consider the very next words and by them measure the prime end of this promise we shall finde the genuine and proper meaning of the Text must needs be thus I will pour upon the house of David and the Inhabitants of Jerusalem a Spirit so tempered with Grace and Tenderness that they shall be sensibly touched and affected when they shall look upon him whom they have pierced and shall mourn for him as one who mourneth for his onely Son Enough to evince the Septuagint the Chaldee and the rest rather to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Spirit of Commiseration Pity and Compassion than as the vulgar Latine which but to serve an interest the godly Party abhors to follow Spiritus precum the Spirit of Prayers Yea in former and elder English Versions it is read thus The Spirit of Grace and Compassion and perchance had been so still had not this pretended gift of praying sprung out not many years before the last Translation But since men have had an itch to magnifie their own gifts and as did the Scribes and Pharisees by long prayer to get into and deceive the people set Forms of Prayer hath been mightily deprest as if those Prayers were unworthy a Parlour that did decore a Church But If we shall look back to the days of Edward the sixth and Queen Mary we shall finde both at home and abroad both in private and in publick the Church-Prayers were venerable and of great use In the days of Edward the sixth one Thomas Cottesford put out the Church-prayers in the Singular Number that they might be fitted for a Closet and a personal Devotion and accommodated to every day of the Week Morning and Evening And he was held a very good man in his days and as I have been told of the Puritan way In the days of Queen Mary Dr. Taylor Parson of Hadleigh in Suffolk as in his Life appears when his Wife came in an Evening to visit him his Evening-prayer was the Letany and whilst he lay in Prison his daily Prayers were the Service-book of Edward the sixth and that Book he gave to his Wife as a pious Legacy So that it was then no strange thing to use the Common-prayer in a private house nor was that arrogancy of Spirit in holy Breasts as to think no Prayer comparable to those of their own conceiving I may take God to witness honourable Sir I can say with a perfect Heart as Moses once did Numb 11. 26. Would God all the Lords people were prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them But to hear ignorant rash cunning and catching people calling their own God's Spirit and their crafty effusions the Breath of God and his Dictates This my soul abhors an indignation to this was a great motive to the following Letter I conceived a necessity upon me then to assert a set Form when an abundance of what was then called Prayer savoured more of Diurnals Designes News and Villanies than of godliness or purity of the Gospel Yea the Spirits of too too many of my own calling are not yet to be trusted to speak what they list in Prayer some yet taking occasion rather to instil their present dislikes than to promote a sincere and pure Devotion Now being it is so that men of different Principles can never conscionably joyn in a controverted Prayer there seems to me even hence a great necessity that Prayer should be set and
known that Prayer should be with such prudence and care composed that nothing be in any of publick cognizance which hath any thing of private Interest and Designe in it In the Offices of the Church of Rome and in factious Prayers we see and hear too much of this Upon Ash-wednesday thus prayeth the Roman party Omnipotent and eternal God spare the Penitent and be propitious to the Supplicant Et mittere digneris Sanctum Angelum tuum de Coelis qui Benedicat Sanctificet hos Cineres And vouchsafe to send down thine holy Angel from Heaven that he may bless and sanctifie these Ashes Will you see to what end It followeth Vt sint Remedium salutare Omnibus Nomen Sanctum tuum implorantibus semetipsos pro Conscientia Delictorum suorum accusantibus ante Conspectum Divinae Clementiae facinora deplorantibus vel serenissimam pietatem tuam suppliciter obnixeque flagitantibus That they may be an wholsom Remedy to all who humbly call upon thy holy Name and out of conscience of their own demerits accuse themselves deploring their heinous sins in the sight of thy Divine Clemency or humbly and earnestly begging thy most serene Piety Et praesta per invocationem sanctissimi Nominis tui ut quicumque eos super se asperserint pro Redemptione peccatorum suorum Corporis sanitatem Animae tutelam percipiant per Christum Dominum nostrum And grant that by the invocation of thy most holy Name whosoever shall sprinkle these upon themselves for the Redemption of their sins may receive the health of Body and protection of Soul through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now this Collect having that in it which the Principles of our Church allow not for as much as we are wholly ignorant of any capacity in Ashes of being blessed and sanctified or of any promise made that upon prayer for such a Sanctification God will send an Angel from Heaven on such an errand we not believing that Ashes are ordained to be an wholesom remedy to all who humbly call upon God's holy Name or that in order to remission of sin we may sprinkle them upon our Heads or if we should that thence should issue no not upon Christs account health to our Bodies or protection to our Souls we I say disbelieving all this cannot joyn in such Petitions neither give our presence or Amen to such a Prayer And many very many such extravagances are in the Roman Breviary and Missal Now if Protestants generally opine it is not lawful knowingly to be present when Petitions against their Judgement and Conscience are to be offered up in Prayer and prefer'd to God certainly then it is at least very dangerous for any Christian to frequent conceived and unknown Prayers For as bad or worse than any is in the Roman Liturgie have done and may come from men so praying And this probably was a main reason that the Independants dropt off from the Presbyterians and the Quakers both for neither having common principles neither could conscientiously endure to pray together And indeed to an unknown Prayer a discreet man may very well say he therefore will not be present at it I profess it is a grand desire of my Heart that as there is but one Shepherd so there might be one Fold I should rejoyce at nothing more than an universal Communion a Catholick Peace among Christians and perchance wise men will finde no one better expedient than an uniformity of Worship by such a Form of Prayer to which all sincere and sober Christians might say Amen Now a Form nigher to such an one wiser than my self have not seen any than our present Liturgie For let all the Exceptions to which the Roman Breviary and Missal are lyable and could they be numbred let all the insipid Excursions Vagaries Impertinences and Follies of Extemporary and conceived Prayer be reckoned up The Liturgie of the Church of England is not in any proportion for Exceptions to be compared with either our Compilers aiming as Christians more at Unity than at any discernable designe whatsoever But the Porch begins to be too big for the Building and therefore my most honourable Neighbour I thus contract In Privacies as Closets let the devout proceed a Gods Name to pour out their Souls by such expressions as may best heat Devotion and best fix the Spirit For words that most affect the Heart and best sute to private grievances and personal wantings are the best expedients there For indeed onely the Spirit of man knoweth what the Spirit would But when the religious Master in his Parlour shall call in his Family to publick Duty then the Prayer be it what it may it would be set and that were it onely therefore that the weak and more ignorant might surely learn it it being a very laudable and good thing to minister Words as well as Grace unto the hearer and also for this reason further to secure the stranger who upon this account can make but one hazard of his discretion for then he shall be able to discern whether or no it be meet for him any more to joyn in such a Form But if any worthy and devout person would that all who lodge under his Roof or come ordinarily to his Table should joyn with him at his hours of Prayer without some trespass upon prudence and civility he can neither desire nor require it unless he shall use a known and a publick Form and to chuse the Common-prayer For then shall the Strangers be Children of one and the same Mother the Church of England it would be an unhandsome refusal in them not to joyn in prayer for a blessing from God the Father in the words of our Catholick and holy Mother Which Blessing may God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost confirm to you and yours and upon all the honourable Family is the unfeigned desire of From Leamington-Hastang 1666. Honourable Sir Your Neighbour professing himself most ready to Love Honour and Serve you John Allington TO THE READER THough this little Treatise now appears under a second Impression it is the Author's First For the Father being in those days Proscriptus the Child might very proportionably be Expositivus When the Father durst not shew his Head the Childe durst not tell his Name Nor was it written with any intention of a publick View so that indeed by that shift it bear 's a fairer Front than he who writ it durst have put upon it for amongst the honourable Army of Confessors Divines sequestred upon our Church-account he held himself too too unworthy to write their Apology All his designe was to give the reasons of his own Sufferings and to shew that he conceived he had just cause to prefer the Liturgie to his peace Now for as much as these Reasons were given in such a time when if they had not been Reasons the Pressures and Indigenoes attending them would easily have discovered at their Request whom I much
not the Spirit of God nor any private man might not under the pain of God's curse despise it pronouncing Damnation to all despisers if they repent not In the Stirs of Frank-ford reprinted you shall finde the Exiles of Frank-ford were so far from thinking it a pressure to a tender Conscience to impose a Discipline that they made it a condition without which no reception into their Congregation That not onely Ministers as with us but Men of all sorts yea and Women too were to subscribe unto it Nor is it ever to be dream'd there should ever be such a thing as Subordination or as they love to speak Ruling Elders without Impositions Or that any wise man should impose who hath not a coercive Power So that either every particular Christian must be a Church or there must be an obeying of them that have the rule over us and a Communicating in such Prayers as we our selves made not As for that fond Objection giving but not granting of it That set Forms stint the Spirit I conceive the result of that Dispute amounts onely to this Whether it is meeter every private Minister or a consultation of many Fathers should do it For both equally do it For if the Prayer which they call conceived Prayer be indeed so forasmuch as no Conception is imaginable without Form by consequence this conceived is a formed Prayer And if so then the Spirit in the Speaker is confined pro tempore to that Form If it be not conceived nor considered then 't is rash indigested a present unfit for a Ruler much more for a God However be it what it will it circumscribes the Auditors and bindes up their attention to the present speaking In a word being the Nation hath sadly found that both God hath been highly dishonoured and the Souls of men truely religious mightily grieved at the Follies Rebellions Impertinencies and prodigious Failings of private spirits even under pretence of Prayer there is a grand necessity of stinting restraining and limiting such spirits toward which there is no more excellent expedient than a Form of Prayer nor any Form that I ever yet saw beyond our own concerning which I shall adde this onely Sir Edward Cook in his famous Reports reports how in the 33 year of Queen Elizabeth Mr. Cawdry sometime Parson of South-Lussenham in the little County of Rutland was deprived as the Jury then gave in For that he had preached against the Book of Common-prayer and refused to celebrate Divine Service according to the same Now of the same little County the Writer hereof May the 5th 1646. was at the Committee for plundered Ministers in Westminster Sequestred March 17th 1653 at the General Sessions at◠Oakham Indicted And upon the 28th of November 1655 actually deprived by Major-General Butler for Officiating or Celebrating Divine Service by the same To the abiding of which Sequestration Indictment or Deprivation whether notwithstanding Mr. Stephen Marshall's following Answer the Reasons here following in the Letter were perswasive shall now be left to the censure of the patient and the prudent Reader Isaac Massey A BRIEF APOLOGY FOR THE Sequestred Clergy Wherein among other things this Case of Conscience is judiciously handled Whether any Minister of the Church of England may to avoid Sequestration omit the publick use of the Liturgy and submit to the Directory In a Letter from a sequestred Divine to Mr. STEPHEN MARSHALL Querelam Ecclesiae quisque Catholicus facit suam Printed in the Year 1649. In Nomine Crucifixi secundum illud primae ad Corinth cap. secundo vers secundo Reverend Sir THis Address may seem very strange and yet if you shall consider the occasion it will appear that I could not prudently do other for you being accounted a Light in that very House in which I stand eclipsed I could not imagine by any other mean than your splendour how to obtain the dissipation of this Cloud Sir so it is that that worshipful and worthy Knight Sir John Trever is one to whom I owe very much for it was his Letter and his Influence that first guided and planted me to and in the School of the Prophets It was respect to him that gained me a Tutor and it is now my respect to him which gains you this trouble For when about the beginning of Michaelmas-term I was at London meeting him in the Palace-yard I thanked him for a late courtesie his reply was I had disabled my self from the capacity of a courtesie I took leave to answer it was my Conscience and the tenderness thereof that hath thus streightned me He told me again in words as I conceive to these equivalent that I was more byassed by Conceit than Conscience and guided rather by Will than Judgement I have so little left that I can demonstrate to the world I have not made gain my godliness and I shall now desire to make it as evident unto you that 't is not Fancy but Scruple and Scruple onely for which my self and in me a Wife and five Children very deeply suffer so that I here with all respect implore your assistance either to satisfie my weakness and set me right or which perchance may be the shorter work be pleased to satisfie him whom I do so highly honour that you conceive my grounds and reasons are such as may conclude me a rational and conscientious though weak Brother The misdemeanours for so they are called for which my conviction bearing date May 5 1646. testifieth I am sequestred they are these 1. Adoration or worshipping God by bowing of my Body Eastward or towards the holy Table 2. For the exteriour acknowledgement of the Deity of my Saviour when summoned to it by his blessed Name Jesus 3. For deserting my Cure two whole years 4. For officiating by the Common-prayer-book with refusal of the Directory To which is added a general surmise of Malignancy against the Parliament First as of least concernment I shall give you this brief account of the third charge to which I negatively answer I never at all did desert my Cure For being as Justinian derélictum dicitur quod Dominus eâ mente abjecit ut id in numero rerum suarum esse nolit that onely is deserted which is thrown off with a minde to be no more possest I cannot possibly be said to have deserted my Cure when by Petition upon Petition by Letter upon Letter and all the ways I could imagine I implor'd my quiet at home or to have leave to know why and our Committee never would or did give way to either so that what is here called desertion is no more than what those words of Scripture will well warrant When you are persecuted in one City fly unto another Secondly Every absenting more than two years in these days of trial hath not been accounted sequestrable and therefore under favour I suppose though this by way of cumulation is put in this is not the gravamen for there is
all the world Quae ad ordinem spectant ut precum formulae disposuit Apostolus Those things which appertain to order as do forms of Prayer the Apostle himself appointed and disposed So that set Forms in the judgement of M. Beza are Apostolical The English Translation reads it thus Such things as appertain to Order and Form of Prayers and other such like the Apostle took order for in the Congregation according to the consideration of times places persons 1 Cor. 11. 39. Yea after the great Reformer Martin Luther had a while tried what it was to want a set Form himself professeth lib. de Formula Missae coactus sum I am constrained observe by what and to what constrained he was alios Canones aliamque Missandi Formulam prescribere to prescribe fresh Canons and another form of Mass And if you please to observe by what he was constrained his words are Propter leves fastidiosos spiritus qui sola Novitate gaudent atque statim ut Novitas desiit nauseantes By reason of light and humorous spirits who onely delight in Novelty nauseating what themselves liked when it ceaseth to be new A humour which the first Zeal of our times did not digest and therefore whether I appeal to Beza or the more eminent Luther still a set Form A set Form according to Beza's note because Apostolical A set Form according to Luther because woful and extavagant experience demonstrated the necessity of it No curb for fastidious and rambling spirits but a set Form Fourthly The want of set Form prevents that which I am bound for to endeavour the conversion and communion of the adverse party for either I must perswade them to worship God according to my discretion and rely upon the implicite faith of my prudence or else I must produce a Form in which I desire their communion and to which I must endeavour their conversion Now I believe all those who renounce an implicite faith in the whole Church or in the Representative of it all such I say at least will abhor so far to resigne themselves unto a private Minister as to worship God all days of their lives according to his mutable dictate I am sure the Papists will say this is worse than what we call Popish servitude for they are bound onely to believe and serve God as the Church orders but where all is left to the will of the Minister people are bound to worship and serve God as his private spirit leads them and I wish I could not feelingly say even from follies vented in my own Pulpit what an Ignis fatuus that is Lastly To avoid prolixity for my own particular should I renounce a set Form I must needs profess my self guilty either of Superstitious Innovation or which in materia Religionis is bad enough popular insinuation First That to worship God without a Form is Innovation this the whole Christian world will attest unto me the Eastern and Western Churches Wittemberg where Luther Geneva where Calvin Scotland where Knox flourished and to innovate and act against a Catholick Custom of Christendom of the whole Christian world may breed a scruple in a wise much more in a weak Christian Secondly As Innovation so it would seem to me unavoidable superstition and that whether Superstition be positively or negatively considered for Superstition being positively considered being the issue of misgrounded Zeal this superstition is active in the production of superstitious performances whereof this is one to conceive that God will be pleased with no prayer from me unless of my own conception nor no devotion unless it be of our own invention this I say is the superstitious issue of a misguided zeal Again as misguided zeal is the Mother of superstitious performances even so ignorant fear is the motive and cause of superstitious forbearances as when one vainly fears and in that fear refrains such an act as displeasing which indeed is rather pleasing to Almighty God Touch not taste not bandle not these are negative superstitions issues of ignorant fear And so far as I can conceive scrupulously to reject or lay aside set Forms as superstitious is out of ignorant fear really and actually to commit pardon the phrase a negative superstition Thirdly Again should I not superstitiously which as drawing nigher Religion is more honest of the two lay aside a set Form I cannot imagine any other principle but popular insinuation to move me to it and to make that a motive in Religion scarce appears to me religious Omnia ponenda post Religionem nostra Civitas duxit If the Pagans had so much Divinity as to say it was a Law in their City that all things whatsoever must give way unto Religion certainly it behoveth me who am a Christian in matter and point of Religion to look upon nothing through a carnal or secular Perspective Now to me and with me runs the whole current of Antiquity set Forms of Prayer and Worship they are the most religious and assured means either to preserve or advance Religion The scruple then is whether any of my judgement and perswasion may for any popular or secular end in the world and for that end merely lay aside a better and assume in God's worship a worse way whether this be not having a Male in my Flock to offer unto God a Female judge you That blessed speech of Sir Benj. Ruddierd to Mr. Rym He that thinks to save any thing by his Religion but his Soul will be a terrible loser in the end It is worthy to be written in letters of gold yea worthy to be engraven in the Heart of every Parliament-man that sits it is indeed a saying that hath so far prevailed on me that I begin extremely to question the truth of that vulgar opinion that the Worship and Government of the Church of Christ are so left as to be accommodated to the proportionable exigences of States and Kingdoms For my particular I conceive the glory of God attended municipal Laws ought rather to stoop than they to strain for Religion is so tender a Virgin that she may not admit the least prostitution and I am sure a conscientious breast feareth to rumple her very ornaments Whereas then to worship God without a set Form seems to me destructive of the form of sound words which charily must be preserved a worship more careless than what Pagans used an Innovation which takes away the very ground and basis of conversion and communion with an adverse party whereas it would be in me either Superstition or Popularity to desert a set Form I must crave leave to follow these Dictates till I have better premises given me from which I may conclude otherwise And so I shall desire your patience to accompany me to my last endeavour which is to shew that I cannot with a good conscience renounce or as yet lay aside this our individual Liturgy and that for these reasons 1. It maketh our Religion to be