sufficient in all matters of this nature but from the confessions of those very sects that are likeliest to think otherwise that God is to be worshipped with the inner man as well as with the outward and that the services of the latter without the former are vain and ineffectual and therefore it concerns us if we should worship him in an acceptable successfull way to ingage the one in it as well as the other And thus I have given you the reasons of the former branch of the Doctrine shewing you wherefore the sons of men ought in these dayes of the Gospel to worship God in spirit not that I think it is so their duty to do it now as that it was not their duty to do it in the dayes of the Law or that he did not require it or expect it then or that many did not then do it but that he requires it and looks for it now in a peculiar way affording greater means to enable them to it now than he did then Paul in that famous Sermon of his to the Athenians saith Now God commandeth all men every where to repent not that he did not command them to do it before for he did it all along both by his Prophets and his Providences but that now he commanded them to do it in a more especial manner presenting to them greater incentives and laying before them stronger motives to do it And the like may be said in the present case I shall now proceed to the latter branch of the Doctrine and shew you wherefore the sons of men ought in these dayes of the Gospel to worship God in truth The reasons thereof are these 1. Because God himself hath ordained and appointed them to worship him in that way And were there nothing else this fingle reason were sufficient not only to warrant their doing of it but incite them to it For as he may justly challenge worship from us so he may justly prescribe what way he will be worshipped by us His Church is his Kingdom and it belongs to him to make laws for his own Kingdom and set dówn what way his subjects therein shall express their respect to him and serve him It is not for us to set down wayes of worship our selves but to observe the way that he in his word hath set down for us And the way that he therein hath set down for us is this that we do it in truth that is without the use of Ceremonies If you inquire after the part wherewith you are mainly to serve him he tells you You must do it in spirit and if you inquire after the external mode or dress he tells you You must do it in truth not in a gawdy pompous manner but in a way of holy simplicity and plainness This is the way that he hath appointed and he would have us in all cases how difficult and strange soever they be to look upon his appointment as a sufficient ground for us to proceed upon It was a difficult task that Joshuah was to undertake when he was to succeed Moses in the government and conduct of Israel and to lead them over Jordan among the Canaanites whom he was to dispossess and drive out before them yet God would have him to look upon his command as a sufficient ground for him to undertake the business Arise saith he go over Jordan thou and all thy people into the Land which I give unto them have not I commanded thee q. d. Though the difficulties thou art to encounter with be great and the dangers that lye before thee be many yet surely at my command thou maist venture upon the work why know for thy incouragement that I have commanded thee Nay the very Heathens had such apprehensions of God that they thought there was no neglecting of his commands but that they ought by all means to be observed and obeyed Whatsoever saith Artaxerxes is commanded by the God of Heaven let it be diligently done We may dispure of cases before God determine them but when he hath once passed sentence all disputings must cease Till his command come forth we are at liberty and may take which way we please but when that is once out then our liberty ceases and we must take that way only that he therein chalks out for us Then we must turn all our disputings and contests into silent submission and all our inquiries and opinions into cheerfull obedience If then God hath appointed us to worship him in truth as it plainly appears by the Text he hath then we ought without any disputing or drawing back to do it 2. That the Scriptures may be fulfilled The Scriptures are not only doctrinal but prophetical they do not only contain precepts of holy living but predictions of things to come to pass in after-times As God hath therein set down whatever he would have us to do so he hath there set down much of what he himself will do And amongst other things he hath declared he would do this is one that he would put his Church in the dayes of the New-Testament under a spiritual administration wherein he will not have her worship him as in times past in the use of shadows and ceremonies but in a more plain and simple manner even in truth Behold the dayes come saith the Lord that I will make a new Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah Upon our violation of the covenant of works God was pleased to grant forth a Covenant of grace promising therein pardon and salvation to the penitent and believing And this covenant he thought fit to have dispensed under a double administration that of Moses and that of Christ. The former he appointed to be carryed on in a way of types and figures agreeable to the state of the church in the Old Testament the latter in a way of spirituality and simplicity agreeable to the state of the Church in the New And this it is that the Prophet relates to in this place when he speaks of a new Covenant For we must not think that the Covenant Israel was under in the time of the Old Testament and the Covenant we are under now in the time of the New are two seral Covenants essentially and substantially different but one and the same Covenant passing under two distinct administrations the former of which was typical and ceremonious the latter plain and simple The covenant that they were under then and we are under now differ no more than one and the same person differs from himself in several habits or dresses Briefly the words of the Prophet imply as much as if he had said in the dayes of the New Testament when Jesus Christ the bridegroom of the Church shall come down from Heaven to her she shall put on new vestments go in a new garb and serve him in a new manner not in that ceremonious puerile dress she was in before but in a
by soliciting He deals with us as Jael with Sisera he invites us into his tent and there gives us milk to drink and covers us with a mantle and then takes his naile and strikes it through our temples For correcting therefore of this evil we must watch over the sensitive powers check their extravagant motions and bring them into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Whiles Babylon arrayes her self in purple and scarlet colour and decks her self with gold and pretious stones and holds a cup in her hand let us mortifie our earthly members and crucifie the flesh and then our condition will be far more secure than now it is Were our sensual powers mortified and spiritualiz'd and our wills resolute and peremptory in resisting Satans assaults all he could do would be fruitless and ineffectuall 3. Is prejudice or a precipitant preposterous judgement that men have against it They proceed not fairly and as they ought to do with this worshipping God in truth they allow it not a fair tryall that is first hear and then give judgement but they first give judgement and then will not endure to hear it They either upon no grounds at all or else such as are very light and unwarrantable take up a prejudice and disaffection to it and then they are hardly won to it nay they are hardly kept from persecuting it Though Abab confessed Micaiah was a Prophet of the Lord and one by whom they might enquire of him yet having taken up a prejudice against him he hates and persecutes him And so it is in this case though men if they will but look with Scripture-eyes cannot but see this worshipping God in truth is of divine institution yet many of them having someway or other taken up a prejudice against it they do not only refuse to close with it but hate and persecute it Now the grounds on which they proceed and build their prejudice are commonly such as these 1. They think worshipping God in truth is but a new kind of worship of small standing invented the other day destitute of that antiquity that ceremonious worship is attended with It hath been an usual thing for the enemies of the truth to charge it with Novelty The Jews charged the doctrine of Christ and the Athenians the doctrine of Paul with it And Camero tells us out of Symmachus that the heathens objected it against the primitive Christians accounting their religion as no better than a meer innovation and thereupon insulted over them But we must not look upon every thing new that every one takes to be so The Scriptures contain not only the ancient Canons but the ancient records of the Church and if we search them we shall find that though a ceremonious worship was in the Church for some ages yet it was not so from the beginning When we would know the ancientness of the priviledges of a Colledge or any other society we presently run ad fundationis tabulas to the records or writings wherein those priviledges are set down And so we are to do in this case If we would know the ancrentness of this worshipping God in truth we must go to the holy Scripture and there we shall find an account of it It will tell us it is ancienter than any kind of worship whatsoever Perhaps you think it is a new kind of worship invented by a company of precise persons addicted to singularity and novelty in these late times but herein you are much mistaken For it is not only the worship instituted by Christ himself and practised by the primitive Church but the worship that was used as you have heard before out of Eusebius by Melchisedeck Noah Enoch and other ancient Patriarchs that lived in the beginning of the world and served God acceptably without any of those ceremonies that so many in these dayes keep such a stir about We shall desire no more for the determining of the present controversie but that we may go back to the beginning and try our worship by the ancientest Churches both of the Old and New-Testament If we do not make it to appear that this kind of worship was used by both of them and that before any other we will never plead for it more 2. They alledge that they are unaccustomed to it They say it is such a kind of worship as neither they nor their fathers have been used to and this they look upon as matter of just exception Their fathers have served God in a ceremonious way and they hitherto have done so too and therefore think it is not fit now to change Though customes are never so bad yet when men have once used themselves to them they know not how to leave them According to that of the Prophet can the Ethiopian change his skin or the Leopard his spots then may ye do good that are accustomed to do evil It s a very hard thing for men to leave those wayes that they were born and brought up in and that they have been accustomed to This is it that hinders Jews from turning Christians Papists from turning Protestants and many Protestants from that purity they should and otherwise might attain to Amongst other articles that the Jews put in against Stephan and Paul this was one that they preached against their customes And this very thing the woman of Samaria urges to our Saviour Our Fathers saith she worshipped in this mountain And no doubt it was the common argument used by the Samaritans against the Jews By fathers she means not here immediate predecessors that had been a filly plea but those ancient patriarchs Abraham Isaac Jacob Joseph and others who as some think did at some time or other worship upon that hill the three first when they sojourned in the land of Canaan and the last when he went up out of Egypt to bury his fathers body in the Cave of Macpelah Now the Samaritans having this conceit in their heads thought notwithstanding all that God had done about his worship since the dayes of those Patriarchs that this was a sufficient proof that Garizim was the place of worship In like manner Symmachus tells us the faith of so many ages is to be kept and the Parents are to be followed of us that happily followed theirs And the Donatists used the same plea its hard say they for us to leave the tradition of our Parents Thus do many preferr the occasional acts of some good men and customes taken up therefrom before the express institution of God in his word For the correcting of which errour we must remember that God made not the practices or customes of men the rule of our proceedings he was so far from that that he every where declares against them and diswades us from them but the holy Scriptures and with them we must consult And therefore we must take our worship to them and measure it by them if it be according to them
more plain and grave habit even in truth And with this agrees that which God spake by a Prophet of a latter standing in every place saith he incense shall be offered to my name and a pure offering It s usual with the sacred pen-men as the Papists themselves who alledge this place for the Sacrifice of the Mass confess to speak of Gospel Ordinances and duties under legal terms and so this Prophet doth in this place By incense and offering he means not such as the ceremonial law required and as the Jews in the Old Testament in conformity thereunto used he well knew that such things upon the death of Christ the great Sacrifice were to be laid aside but he means somewhat of a more spiritual nature having analogy or agreement therewith as prayer thanksgiving and the like which are our Gospel incense and offering and which we are to tender to God in these dayes as they did their bloody Sacrifices and such like matters in those of this there is no doubt all the question is what is meant by this attribute 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pure and wherein the purity of Gospel incense and offering doth consist Some think pure denotes the spirituality of the service which is not to be celebrated as the Jews and Gentiles was modo corporuli by slaying of Beasts and such like work but in a spiritual manner by putting up of prayers giving of thanks singing of Psalms with other duties of that nature Others think it denotes conscientiam offerentis the good Conscience of the offerer not polluted with misapprehensions unbelief hypocrisrie as the Consciences of both Jews and Gentiles were but sound believing and upright Others restraining the words to the Sacrament of the Eucharist think it denotes rem significatam or the thing represented in it which is Jesus Christ who is a sacrifice not like one of the Jews corrupt and polluted but immaculate and perfect without spot or blemish But the first seems to be most probable and therefore is embraced not only by Justin Martyr and Tertullian among the ancients as the above mentioned Author confesses but likewise by the ablest and soundest modern writers A Lapide mentions it as the common opinion of the Protestants Calvin saith he and the hereticks who deny all sacrifice under the Gospel properly so called take offering mystically that is to say for the worship of God by faith hope charity prayer invocation praise and pious works especially those of mercy almes and conversion of souls And he confesses that Clarius and Vatablus were of the same mind The sense then of the Prophet we may take to be this that the Church of God in the dayes of the New-Testament is to worship him in a more pure spiritual inward manner then heretofore Though the worship she yielded to him in the time of the Old Testament was of Divine institution yet was it not so pure as this here foretold because it was attended with and wrapped up in so many outward ceremonies Her worship then was a mixt kind of worship partly consisting of outward ceremonies and partly of inward devotion but the Prophet here foretells that when the time of reformation should come she should serve him after another manner that she should then offer him a pure offering Calvin makes this place parallel with the Text looking upon it as a prophesie of the spirituality and simplicity of Gospel service which is not to be folded up as the legal was in rites and ceremonies but to be carryed on in a grave and plain manner To be short as our Saviour in the Text sets truth in opposition to ceremonies so doth the Prophet in this place set pure both of them holding forth this truth that God would have his Church in these days of the Gospel to worship him without the use of them Now if it be true that the Scriptures have foretold that God would put his Church in the dayes of the Gospel under a spiritual administration and have her to worship him in truth then we ought all to do it We must not only take notice of prophecies but so far as the keeping of our places and callings will permit contribute our assiftance towards the fulfilling of them God often joyns the accomplishment of his prophecies and the performance of our duty together so that the one is done in and with the other And thus it is in this case and therefore if we would see him accomplish the one we must betake our selves to the performance of the other We must not as many do get prophecies into our minds and then stand gazing to see what will be done but we must out of a true zeal to the name of God which is concerned therein do what we can to help them to the birth God foretells in the forementioned places that all shall know him and call upon him now we must not only wait to see these things accomplished but we must endeavour in the places wherein we are that they may be accomplished So he doth in like manner foretell that his people in the New-Testament shall worship him in truth that is without Ceremonies now we must not stand looking about us to see what others will do and do nothing our selves but we must put to our helping hand and do what we can towards the promoting and furtherance of the work 3. Because the time designed by God for our worshipping of him in truth is come As the time designed by him for his peoples worshipping him in the use of Ceremonies is expired so the time designed by him for their worshipping him in truth is come That he once allowed nay commanded them to worship him with ceremonies is granted but that administration was not to be perpetual but temporary it was not to continue alwayes but as some of the Jewish Rabbi's themselves confess to abide for a certain season and then to be laid aside But choose what they say Paul is very clear in it The Law saith he was our School master to bring us unto Christ that we might be justified by faith But after that faith is come we are no longer under a Schoolmaster By faith he means not actus animae or that grace whereby we are justified but tempus Evangelii or the dayes of the New-Testament in which there is no necessity of such Ceremonies as the Church before the coming of the Messias stood in need of The Ceremonial Law was no other than Evangelium velatum or Gospel with a mask or veil upon it directing to and pointing at Christ in all the parts of it Amongst all those rites that they used there was not one but it had its signification and there were very few of them but they did in some degree or other referr the Jews to Christ and Preach him to them We must not think that all those ceremonies God appointed them were empty ciphers signifying nothing that were to reproach both
as for other Ceremonies which are of latter date and humane institution let 's take heed likewise how we own them or have any thing to do with them I may say of the one sort and the other as Solomon did in another case Both of them are alike Abomination to the Lord. The former once were lawful but now are unlawful the latter never were lawful nor ever will be lawful and therefore as we desire to keep our selves pure let 's abstain from both of them and utterly renounce and disclaim them Now that I may the better hold forth to you the necessity of worshipping God in Truth and the unwarrantableness of worshipping him in the use of Ceremonies I shall offer to you these following Queries 1. Whether is there so much as one word or syllable in all the holy Scriptures for any such kind of Worship If you are Christians you take the Writings of the Prophets and Apostles for the Word of God and if you are Protestants you take them for a compleat and perfect Rule of Divine and Religious Worship The Holy Ghost hath there declared both to whom such kind of Worship belongs and the manner wherein it is to be performed If therefore you will act regularly and do nothing but what is just and warrantable shew us by what Prophet or Apostle he hath allowed you to worship in the use of Ceremonies In the old Testament he foretells the abolishing and ceasing of Them The Church of those times being afflicted with the burden of them prayes for support till the time of their ceasing should come Christ no sooner sets upon preaching but he invites People from them justifies them in the refusal of them and afterwards laying down his Life to redeem them from them he blots out the hand-writing of Ordinances that was against them takes it out of the way and nails it to his cross The Apostles Elders and Brethren at Jerusalem directed by the Holy Ghost who sat President amongst them decreed against them And as if all this were too little Paul who had once such esteem and Zeal for the Rites and Traditions of his Fathers speaks of them with words of greatest contempt and indignation calls them all to nought terms them carnal Ordinances Rudiments of the World beggarly Elements and the like Thus I have shewed you that both Prophets and Apostles speak much against Ceremonies do you now shew where they speak any thing for them 2. Whether if the holy Scriptures have nothing at all for them is it not apparent superstition to institute them or worship God in the use of them If Tertullian be not mistaken it is Those Ceremonies saith he are vain which are used without any Authority of Divine or Apostolical Command and are to be accounted superstitious and even therefore to be repressed because they make us in some sort like the Gentiles And if Zanchy Vrsin Viret with other Orthodox and learned writers on the second commandment are not mistaken it clearly falls within the compass of it Nay if the very descriptions that the schoolmen give of superstition may pass it stands justly chargeable with it Aquinas places it in the excess of religion as when a man gives divine worship either to him it belongs not to or in that way it ought not to be given And speaking of four kinds of superstition he places the first in the giving of worship to the true God modo tamen indebito but after an undue manner It consists not only in the worshipping of a strange deity but in the worshipping of the true Deity in a strange manner such as he hath not appointed He that adds institutions to his institutions nay so much as a ceremony to the ceremonies he hath appointed is guilty of it And therefore as the Athenians were guilty of it in their ignorant worshâ—pping of their unknown God so likewise were some both of the ancient Jews and Christians the former in their washing of hands before meat the latter in their abstaining from certain meats and observing of dayes And what a great sin it is to be guilty of it we may gather from Gods proceedings against Saul upon his miscarriage in the business of the Amallkites For the injury they offered to the Israelites when they came from Egypt the Lord appoints Saul to go and destroy them both man and woman infant and suckling ox and sheep camell and ass And he accordingly went against them and smote them but did not fully observe his commission for to say nothing of other things he spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen and of the fatlings and the lambs and all that was good And this he did if he himself say true and we do not find that Samuel charges him with falshood in it that he might sacrifice them to the Lord in Gilgal Saul then out of a superstitious humour would offer that to God which he would not have offered to him And what 's the issue of it why he is so incensed against him for it that he takes him and devests him of his royal ornaments deposes him from being King and casts him out of his favour for ever Saul committed several miscarriages before but God was not so displeased with any of them as he was with this We do not find that he ever smiled upon him or owned him after this time Now if it be superstition to do that in the worship of God that he hath not appointed and such a dangerous thing to be guilty of it you had best consider before you go any further whether you may either lawfully or safely use such Ceremonies in his worship as he hath not appointed but have been devised by men 3. Whether should you not imitate the primitive Church If ever the Church were worthy of imitation it was during her primitive state Then as Egesippus shews she was a pure and incorrupted Virgin So she continued for somewhat above an hundred years after our Saviours time so long she remained free from those superstitions and errours that after like a mighty flood brake in upon her Now during this space of her Virgin purity whether had she any of those Ceremonies that at this time are with so much heat contended for amongst us The learned Camero to mention no more is peremptory in the negative Besides saith he water in baptism bread and wine in the Lords Supper imposition of hands and anointing of the sick she had not any ceremonies at all Christians then contented themselves with the institutions of Christ and rejoiced in the liberty wherewith he had set them free without troubling themselves or others with the devising or imposing of any humane rites or ordinances 4. Whether ought you not to maintain your Christian liberty you think you ought to maintain your civil liberties and will venture at law all you have before you will let them go and ought you not to
strang Wives or the like and were censured and ejected as unclean by the Jews they could presently run to Samaria and there be received And this produced a woful and irreconcileable schism betwixt those two people insomuch that they lived in perpetual discord The hatred betwixt them was so great that they held it unlawful to eat or drink with one another Hence that saying of this Woman to our Saviour How is it that thou being a Jew askest drink of me which am a Woman of Samaria Nay such was the hatred of the Jews to the Samaritans that though they granted leave to all Nations in the World to become Proselytes to their religion yet would they not grant it to them Witness that solemn form of excommunication termed excommunicatio in secreto nominis tetragrammati said to be uttered against them by Ezra and Nehemiah They assembled the whole Congregation saith my Author into the Temple of the Lord and brought 300 Priests 300 Trumpets and 300 books of the Law with as many boyes And when they sounded their Trumpets and the Levites sang they cursed the Samaritans by all the sorts of excommunication in the mystery of the name Jehovah and in the Decalogue and with the curse both of the inferiour and superiour house of judgement that no Israelite should eat the bread of a Samaritan whence they say he who eateth bread of a Samaritan is as he who eateth Swines flesh and let no Samaritan be a proselyte in Israel neither let them have any part in the resurrection of the dead And as the Jews did thus prosecute their cause against the Samaritans with much heat and confidence so likewise did the Samaritans theirs against them Though they had the worse of it yet were they no less peremptory and stedfast in their way than the former being ready upon all occasions to maintain their opinion and dispute for it Witness the carriage of the Woman in this place she do's not barely propound the question to our Saviour and then wait to hear how he would determine it but stands up and reasons with him about it Our Fathers saith she worshipped in this Mountain and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to Worship Now our Saviour in answer to this great question and for the composing of this long difference of no less than 400 years continuance tells her that the time was approaching wherein the Worship of God should be confined neither to Garizim nor Jerusalem yet by the way lets her know there was a great deal of difference betwixt the Worship of the Samaritans and the Jews Ye Worship saith he ye know not what we know what we Worship There was no comparison betwixt the Worship of the Samaritans and the Jews The Jews might miss it in the manner of their Worship but the Samaritans did not only miss it in that but likewise in the object of it for they worshipped they knew not what But in opposition both to the Worship of the Samaritans and the Jews he tells her that the hour cometh and now is when the true Worshippers shall Worship the Father in spirit and in truth c. Which words imply as much as if he had said the question which thou now propoundest to me and hath been disputed so long with so much heat amongst you is now of small moment for God is about not only to alter the place but the manner of his Worship As he will not have his Worship limited either to Garizim or Jerusalem so neither will he have it limited to the mode either of the one place or the other but will be worshipped after another manner and the manner wherein he will be Worshipped is spiritual and simple they that Worship him must Worship him in spirit and in truth And thus I have with what brevity I could conveniently led you down to the words of the Text and given you an account of the author and occasion of them To make any Analysis or division of them is needless and therefore without any further stay I shall draw from them this point That it is the duty of the sons of men in these dayes of the Gospel to Worship God in spirit and in truth Though all Christians nay all Nations agree that there is a God and that he is to be Worshipped yet they do not agree about the manner of it Some will have him to be Worshipped one way and some another according as their light and principles lead them Some will have him to be Worshipped immediately others mediately or remotely Some with slaying of beasts and bloody sacrifices others in a spiritual and simple manner without any such adoe Some in the use of external rites and shadows others without them Now our Saviour who came from his Fathers bosome and most perfectly understood his will undertakes the determining of this controversie and shews after what manner he would have men to Worship him They that Worship saith he must Worship him in spirit and in truth The point lyes so visibly in the Text that I need not send you to other places of Scripture to shew you the truth of it and therefore I shall not spend time in that The Method I shall observe in prosecuting it is this 1. I shall shew what is meant by Worship 2. What by spirit 3. What by truth 4. The reasons of both branches that is to say wherefore we must worship God in spirit and wherefore in truth 5. I shall lay down one or two cautions And 6. come to the Vses all which I shall dispatch with plainness and brevity 1. I shall shew what is meant by Worship The word in the Original is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning the extraction and derivation whereof the Etymologists are not agreed Zanchy thinks it's derived of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a Dog and that it is a Metaphor taken from spaniels that use in subjection to their masters to couch upon the ground before them And that which renders it somewhat more probable is that the Hebrew Words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifie to worship do also signifie to fall down or lye prostrate as also that the Jews both in their civil and religious worship used to do so However others are against this derivation and assign another Rivet thinks it is derived of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to kiss and that which renders this more probable is that kissing hath been a very antient symbol of adoration Witness that of Job If my mouth saith he hath kissed my hand this were an iniquity to be punished by the judge for I should have denyed the God that is above A bare kissing the hand he cannot mean for that we may reckon amongst those actions that are indifferent neither good nor bad but he means such a kissing of the hand as was a ceremony belonging to idolatrous worship The Heathenish
his to devise and that blasphemous tongue of his to utter but far different from what the Holy-Ghost dictaed to the Prophets and Apostles As God would not have us to worship him with the body only so neither would he have us to worship him with the soul only but with soul and body both together He is maker and Lord both of the one and the other and therefore he expects to be worshipped with the one as well as with the other When he calls so much for our worshipping him in spirit he doth not thereby exclude or discharge us from worshipping him with the body he never intended any such thing He calls upon us indeed to worship him with the spirit principally but not only Thus the Saints of old acted and guided by the Holy Ghost ever understood him and therefore did not only imploy their spirits in worshipping him but their bodies also To instance in the duty of prayer therein they bowed their knees lifted up their eyes voice hands smote upon their breasts and the like thereby teaching us that when we imploy our selves in the worship of God we must not only ingage the soul but the body likewise And Amyrald who writes against such quodlibetick spirits tells us that there never was any Nation that thought it enough to serve God in thought only without making demonstrations of their devotion by gestures and external actions And though bodily exercise as it is single and divided from the spirit doth as the Apostle saith profit little yet when it joyns with it it profits much It assists the spirit elevates the heart inflames the affections excites to devotion and makes us far more lively in the service of God than otherwise we should be What difference is there commonly in the intention of mens affections betwixt their praying only inwardly in the spirit and outwardly with the voice what deadness and straitness do usually attend the one and what life and inlargement the other Hence we find that the ancient Christians when they set upon the service of God did on purpose take in the body to assist the soul and further their devotion in it Witness that of Augustin by words saith he and other signes we greatly excite our selves to increase holy desire And upon this and such like grounds Aquinas teaches that prayer though secret may be vocal or that in our closet-performances when we have no spectators but God and Angels we may use the voice Anatomists say there are certain strings that come from the heart to the tongue so that the agitation and motion of the tongue doth stir and shake the heart and thereby awaken and affect it rendring it more vigorous and lively in its present services If therefore when we are waiting upon God in secret we find our hearts dead and liveless we may make use of the tongue for the quickning of them and rendring them more fit for the enjoyment of communion with him and better carrying on of his service The truth is such is the indisposition of our hearts to good that they are apt like Eutichus to drop asleep in the service of God and therefore we have need of something to awaken them and if we find the voice will do it we may use it If we find them lively and in good frame and fit for the service we are about we may then spare it and pray as Hannah did in her heart but if otherwise we may and ought to use it This I speak of the duty of prayer and that prayer which is secret the use of the voice is also necessary when one prayes in the person of many as the Master in his family or the Minister in the Congregation Those that are to joyn with them are to know what Petitions they make and say Amen to them which they cannot do except they use the voice And as the voice is thus to be used in the worship of God so must other parts of the body as the occasion serves and the nature of the duty requires And this is the common Doctrine of Protestants and therefore it is an unworthy slander of Maldonate the Jesuite that the Calvinists interpret worshipping in spirit a worshipping with faith alone as if they were Solifidians and against all external services Now what shall be done to thee thou false tongue sharp arrows of the Almighty and coals of Juniper This is even as true as that the Devil ran away with Luther that Calvin dyed blaspheming that Beza recanted that Junius had a cloven foot Nay this is as true as that their St. Patrick caused the stoln Sheep to bleat in the belly of him that had eaten it that St. Lupus shut the Devil all night up in a Tanckard that St. Dunstan held him fast by the nose with a pair of Tongs that St. Dominick made him hold him the Candle till he burnt his fingers with abundance of such ridiculous childish fables which yet their deluded vulgar take to be as true as the Gospel it self Let any man that hath eyes but read Calvin himself on the Text and he shall find him speaking not only for faith and purity of heart but likewise for prayer giving of thanks and innocency of life Nay their own Cajetan hath spoken as much if not more upon this Text for internal worship than Calvin hath done In spirit that is saith he not in the Mount not in Jerusalem not in any place not with temporal worship not with the tongue but with inward worship consisting in spirit that is in the mind as it bears the office of the spirit and layes out it self in spiritual matters What if Calvin had said all this then the angry Jesuite would sure have opened his mouth indeed But we may not wonder that the Jesuites carry it thus towards us Their friend Jarrigius hath told us what kind of dealing we are to expect from them It is saith he speaking to one of them your ordinary custome according to the secret and mysterious rules of the society to impose things upon the pastors of the reformed Churches in your injurious and treacherous refutations and make the world believe they say what never came into their thoughts A Jesuites tongue then is no slander but no more of this 2. Though it be our duty in these dayes of the Gospel to worship God in truth or without the use of Ceremonies yet we do not understand this to the exclusion 1. Of such Ceremonies as are of divine institution When Christ abolished the Jewish and Samaritan Ceremonies he instead thereof instituted some of another nature that were to continue Of this sort are water in Baptism bread and wine in the Supper with the several actions pertaining to them That these are Ceremonies both Papists and Protestants as Chamier shews grant and that they are of divine institution none but infidels will deny And these ceremonies notwithstanding what hath been
himself in this place prescribes But to return where I was that Christ in Circumstantials hath left his Church some power is granted but she must take heed lest in the exercising of it she go beyond her limits As she must take heed of neglecting those conveniencies tha◠he does allow her so she must likewise take heed of transgressing her bounds and going too far and that both as to the nature and number of her constitutions As to the nature of them she must if she expect to be obeyed take heed of framing such things as are liable to just exception and imposing them on her members with rigour and severity Christ hath dealt tenderly with her and it may not become her to deal austerely and harshly with them As they on the one hand must remember to shew her filial respect beware of contemning her Authority and not but upon very weighty grounds reject what she recommends to them so she on the other hand must take heed of provoking them to wrath or shewing her self cruel remembring her Authority as some of her wisest Sons have told us is not coercive but directive not imperative but declarative And if it so fall out that some of them refuse to close with or obey any or all of her injunctions she must not presently interpret it a perverse obstinacy against her whiles they are known to be sound in all fundamentals of holy lives and peaceable spirits but fear of offending God whom above all as she her self hath taught them they must labour to please suspecting not only their affection and fidelity to her but the equity of her impositions on them considering her self to be fallible and liable to mistakes as whole multitudes of repealed Canons do abundantly shew And in reference to the number of her constitutions she must take heed of transgressing her bounds that way she must beware of breaking forth into an unbridled licentiousness as the Church of Rome hath done making her members groan and sigh under the multitude of her decrees and impositions As she must take care that those things she frames be requisite and necessary at least innocent and lawful so she must take care they be few in their number lest they become burdensome and take her members of higer and greater matters And when her constitutions are warrantable both in respect of the nature and number of them it is our duty to close with them and we should greatly offend if we should refuse to do it So long as her determinations in particular cases be consonant to the general Rules she is to walk by we must by no means deny our obedience But if she make such constitutions as are unwarrantable for the nature or number of them or both and impose them on us with rigour she must not think it much if we disobey her nay if according to the authority granted us and the trust reposed in us we stand up for our own liberty fit in Judgment upon her and plead with her And so much for the Cautions as also the doctrinal part of this Discourse 6. I am now in the last place in pursuance of the propounded Method to give you the Vses of the point And 1. May be for Information to teach us these two particulars 1. That the Catholick Church is invisible Amongst other points disputed betwixt us and the Papists this is one Whether the Catholick Church be invisible we say it is they say it is not Dr. Whitaker to mention no more hath learnedly and judiciously discussed this point and amongst other Texts which he urges for confutation of them this I am now upon is one His Argument runs thus If that only saith he be the true Catholick Church of Christ that does worship and serve God in spirit and in truth then the Catholick Church is invisible but the former is true and therefore so is the latter And indeed the consequence is evident for such as the worship is such is the Church If the Worship be invisible so is the Church If we see not who they are that worship God in spirit and in truth we neither see which is the true Church for that is 〈◊〉 Worship Christ hath appointed and does enable that Society which is his true Church to worship him with Were the Church a body meerly politick like other incorporated Societies the Papists might upon better grounds tell us it is as visible as the Commonwealth of the Venetians or the Kingdom of France or Spain but it is not so it is as the Apostle calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spiritual house standing on a spiritual foundation made up of spiritual materials and govern'd after a spiritual manner Or were it a body meerly Physical they might on better grounds plead for its Visibility but it is not so it is a mystical body and a spiritual body Now that which is spiritual is not the object of sense but faith which is the evidence of things not seen The Church therefore being thus spiritual is not visible to the Eye but credible if I may so speak to the Mind Hence that passage in the Creed I believe the holy Catholick Chruch intimating its certain there is an holy Catholick Church but withal that its invisible Indeed in respect of its accidental and external form it 's visible and as visible as other Societies but in respect of its essential and inward form which is that which gives it its being and is mainly to be looked after it 's altogether invisible To know who they be that profess as Church-Members is easie but to know who they be that believe worship and live as such is not so And thus much Bellarmine grants and what 's this but to grant us all we contend for and say as we do 2. That a ceremonious Worship in the days of the Gospel is utterly unlawful and unwarrantable contrary to the will of God the design of Christ and the nature of the dispensation he hath put his Church under This is Beza's inference To introduce saith he new Figures or any Shaddows into the Church we affirm out of the Word of God who does so expresly condemn all Will Worship and in times past prohibited the bringing of strange Fire to his Altar is wicked audaciousness If it belong to God to prescribe his own Worship and he hath been pleased in his word to do it therein telling us that he will be worshipped in spirit and in truth that is as you have heard with the inner man and in simplicity without the use of ceremonies then to introduce and set up a ceremonious Worship must needs be wicked audaciousness It is no less then an affronting his Majesty a contemning his Authority a resisting of his Will and so no doubt will be interpreted by him Had he only commanded us to worship him in general and left the specification or manner of it to us then we had been
inquire after them call them home from their accustomed wandrings and when we have them we must mind them of what we are going about and with all the art and skill we can urge them with the solemnness and importance of the business giving them no rest untill we have brought them into an awfull and holy frame and fitted them for the work of God And when we have ingaged them in the work that we may the better keep them to it we must set a guard upon them and carefully watch all the back doors and secret passages through which they use to steal away from us And when ever we see them begin to stir we must presently resist and restrain them accounting that which is done without them is vain and to no purpose As Masters stand over their idle and unfaithful Servants to keep them to their work so must we stand over our Souls to keep them stedfast and lively in the Duties we have in hand that so we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear because he is a consuming Fire 6. Their spiritual slothfulness and lothness to take pains with their Souls They are convinced that they ought to worship God in spirit and that such kind of Worship is the likeliest to please him but rather than they 'l be at the pains to bring themselves to it they 'l let it alone and worship him that way that is less difficult choose whether it please him or no. They find that to take their thoughts and affections off their usual objects gather them together engage them in the service of God and there keep them close to it is a business that requires some pains which rather than they 'l take they 'l come with their Bodies alone into his presence and present them to him leaving their Souls behind them as diligent in the pursuit of secular matters as ever Or if they do bring their Souls with them yet they do not keep them with them They have their company no longer than the Servants that attend on them they bring them to their seats and there leave them For the redressing of this Evil we must call to mind the equity and necessity of the Souls engaging and concurring with us in the service of God and consider that whatever we do without them signifies just nothing And hereupon we must exercise all the Authority we have over them use all the Interest we have in them follow them from place to place and not let them rest till we have prevailed with them to accompany us into his presence and joyn with us in the several duties we are to perform Having thus spoken of the several Impediments that concern the worshipping of God in spirit I shall now proceed to those that concern the worshipping him in truth and shall therewith conclude this present discourse 1. Is Satan who does all he can to keep men from worshipping God in that simple plain way that he hath appointed stirring them up to worship him in a ceremonious superstitious manner which he well knows will be so far from being acceptable to God or advantagious to them that it will rather draw down his wrath upon them He hath disobeyed God himself and would have them to do so too He is become an Enemy to God himself and would have them to be so likewise He hath undone himself and does all he can to bring them into the same condition When we were in happiness be never rested till he had got us out of it and now we are out of it he does all he can to keep us from it As it was he that perswaded our first Parents to eat of the forbidden fruit so it was he that perswaded David to number Israel Judas to betray Christ Ananias and Saphira to lie to the holy Ghost It was he that sowed the tares among the Wheat hindred Paul from going to the Thessalonians and it is he that works in the Children of Disobedience He does all he can to draw men to down-right Atheism but if he cannot bring them to that he labours to draw them to idolatry and superstition If he can he 'll keep them from worshipping God at all but if he cannot prevail with them to go so far he then labours to keep them from worshipping him after the right manner If he can he 'll keep them from doing so much as God requires but if he cannot perswade them to that he then labours to draw them to more If he can he 'll perswade them to deny the authority and truth of the Scriptures but if he cannot get them to that he 'll urge them to deny their sufficiency and perfection and hereby he makes way for the bringing in of humane Inventions Traditions Ceremonies and any thing that superstitious heads have a mind of Calvin lays it down as an undoubted truth That there is not any evil perpetrated by men to which they are not incited by Satan And he himself confesses that he goes to and fro in the earth and walks up and down in it And for what end does he this Not to take the air for he needs it not or if he did he might do it in a narrower compass nor to acquaint himself with the World for he knows it well enough already but he does it for another end and that is as the Apostle shews to seek out whom he may devour and herein he is so diligent and unwearied that he compasses Sea and Land to make one Proselyte And that he may the better carry on this his infernal design he observes the several Constitutions Dispositions and Interests of men and accordingly lays his baits for them One he sees inclined to Unbelief and Atheism and tempts him to that another to Profaneness and Debauchery and tempts him to that another to Idolatry and Superstition and tempts him to that The Jews were a People extreamly addicted to Idolatry and Superstition and he being aware of it lays hold on all opportunities and means to provoke them to it Hence we find that when Moses was dead and God appointed Michael the Archangel to take his Body and bury it in some secret place out of the way Satan stands up and resists him He well knew that if the Israelites had but known where the Body of so great a Prophet had sain they would with little ado have been drawn to worship it and therefore when he saw the Angel going to interr it and lay it out of the way he withstands him and disputes with him The one was not more forward to suppress and prevent an occasion of Idolatry than the other was to promote and further it The Book called Petoreth Mosche or The passage of Moses out of this Life describes this strife which was betwixt them Whether the Book be Apocryphal or no I leave to others to judge but the thing it self is not for the Apostle Jude mentions it The Scripture in
Cause acknowledging himself unworthy of such a favour To these were it needful I might add the Examples of multitudes more of blessed Saints who cheerfully hazarded all for Christ while they were on Earth and now are receiving their Reward with him in Heaven But the case is so well known that none except such who are strangers in Israel can be ignorant of it and therefore I shall forbear Now things being thus what shall we think of those that make temporal impunity and outward safety their very Rule aiming at it in all their Designs and framing all their Proceedings in a way of subserviency to it They will either continue in their present Religion or part with it either be of one way or another so they may but sleep in a whole skin and preserve themselves from trouble They will dishonour God venture their Souls or do any thing rather than expose themselves to danger If Providence call them to suffer for the Truth they 'l find out an hundred unheard-of impertinent silly distinctions but they 'l evade it When ever their Souls upon any Convictions begin to talk of Suffering they presently take them rebuke them saying as Peter to Christ Be it far from thee this shal not be unto thee Certainly such persons as these are an offence to Christ and savour not the things that be of God but the things that be of Men. And thus I have shewed you both the impediments that hinder men from worshipping God in Spirit and those likewise that hinder them from worshipping him in Truth Let us now see how far we are concerned in them how far they or any of them stand in our way and accordingly let us get them removed The worshipping of God in spirit and in truth is the Worship he would have this he will only accept of and this he will only reward and therefore let us be sure to worship him with this kind of Worship not suffering our selves by any endeavours or means whatsoever to be taken off it It is but a while and Jesus Christ who instituted this Worship will come again and vindicate it against all that oppose it It is but a while and he will come to his Temple whip out the Buyers and Sellers and purge it from the impurities and defilements that cleave unto it It is but a while and he will call all Nations down into the Valley of Decision and there he will plead with the Troublers of his Church and such as have muddied the Waters of his Sanctuary and polluted those Silver Streams with their sinful mixtures and then it will appear whether the outward ceremonious worshipping of God or the worshipping of him in spirit and in truth be the true Worship In the mean time le ts keep close to God study our duty and both cheerfully and constantly notwithstanding all the troubles we may thereby expose our selves to persist in the performance of it Though men frown upon us and threaten us with Censures Imprisonment Banishment Confiscation and all the evil humane might and cruelty can do us yet let 's not be moved but count our selves happy we have an opportunity to do or suffer any thing whereby we may testifie our respect to so good a cause Whose is all we have but Gods and for what end did he put it into our hands but that we should lay it out for him As therefore the primitive Christians sold their Lands and Houses brought the prices thereof and laid them down at the Apostles feet So let us bring our Estates Enjoyments Liberties Lives and all we have and lay it down at the feet of Christ being willing to sacrifice all so we may but further his opposed Interest and bear witness to his despised Truth Bucer in an Epistle to Calvin tells him That there were some that would willingly redeem to the Commonwealth the ancient liberty of worshipping Christ with their very lives True Grace and Christian Zeal are of an heroick nature ready to endure any thing for Christ his Worship and Truth If therefore we will evidence our Grace to be true and our Zeal to be Christian we must be willing to suffer It is a vanity to think of passing to Heaven without suffering the Saints have hitherto found the way thither paved with troubles and we may not think of finding it otherwise now Constantine the Great as piously as wittily told Acesius the Novatian that if he would not take up with Persecution and such like dealing he must provide him a Ladder and climb alone to Heaven Unless we will either be content without Heaven or find some other way to it than the Saints have yet found we must look for troubles They have been found in the way of Heaven hitherto and so they will be to the end of the World If then we will go the way of Heaven let 's make account to meet with them and prepare for them and when they fall upon us let us with all holy submission and Christian cheerfulness undergo them In a word whatever comes of it whether Prosperity or Adversity Liberty or Bonds Life or Death since God hath made it our Duty let us make it our Practise to worship him in Spirit and in Truth FINIS ERRATA In the Margent Page 18. for Judel read Tudel p. 27. f. abrogare r. abrogari p. 36. after fumus add In the Book P. 37. l. 30. for it r. in p 40. l. 1. for should r. would p. 63. l. 4. for tradtion r. tradition p. 64. l. 13. for call r. calls p. 67. l. 15. for higer r. higher Rev. 12. 7. Isa. 53. 10 11. Mat. 4. 25. Mat. 3. 7. Psal. 35. 12. Josh. 24. 1. Mat. 11. 25 Gen. 33. 18. Consentaneum vero cum eo loci habitarit etiam plures puteos fodisse In loc Joseph Antiq Judaic l. 11. c. 8. Graecol p. 382. Epiphan t. t. l. 1. haeres 14. p. 30. Ed. Paris Cunaeus de Rep. Hebr. l. 2. c. 16. p. mihi 208. 2 Kings 17. 25. Deut. 7. 3. Vid. Selden de Iure Nat. l. 2 c. 5. p. 177. Ed. Nov. Joh. 4. 9. Drusius de trib sectis l. 3. c. 11. p. 135. Doct. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 est more catellorum ad pedes alicujus tanquam domini totum se prosternere subjectionis gratiâ Vol. 2. de Secund. praecept p. 567. Gen. 17. 3. Ruth 2. â—â— Simplex 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ex 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 osculari significat amoâ—is aut hono is causâ Exerc. in Gen. 33. 3. Job 31. 27 28. Solent cultores solis luna hâc ceremoniâ c. in loc 1 Kings 19. 18. Hos. 13 2. Non persuadet vir doctus c. Exercit. in Gen. 41. 40. He means Drusius who thought otherwise Psal. 2. 12. Honor omnis qui à religione imperatur aut religione suadente exhibetur alicui dictur aliquando religiosus Amesius de Consc. l. 4. c. 1. p. 161. Gen. 18.