therefore are of no authority in the Church of God nor to be any otherwise approved or made use of then other humane writings IV. The Authority of the holy Scripture for which it ought to be believed and obeyed dependeth not upon the Testimony of any man or Church but wholly upon God who is Truth it self the Author thereof and therefore it is to be received because it is the Word of God V. We may be moved and induced by the Testimony of the Church to an high and reverent esteem of the holy Scripture And the heavenliness of the Matter the efficacy of the Doctrine the Maiesty of the Style the consent of all the parts the scope of the whole which is to give all glory to God the full discovery it makes of the only way of Mans Salvation the many other incomparable excellencies and the intire perfection thereof are Arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence it self to be the Word of God Yet notwithstanding our full perswasion and assurance of the infallible Truth and Divine Authority thereof is from the inward work of the holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts VI The whole Counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own Glory mans Salvation Faith and Life is either expresly set down in Scripture or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture unto which nothing at any time is to be added whether by new Revelations of the Spirit or Traditions of men Nevertheless we acknowledge the inward illumination of the spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word And that there are some circumstances concerning the Worship of God and Government of the Church common to humane actions and Societies which are to be ordered by the Light of Nature and Christian prudence according to the general Rules of the Word which are always to be observed VII All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves nor alike clear unto all yet those things which are necessary to be known believed and observed for Salvation are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other that not only the learned but the unlearned in a due use of the ordinary means may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them VIII The Old Testament in Hebrew which was the Native Language of the people of God of old and the New Testament in Greek which at the time of writing of it was most generally known to the Nations being immediately inspired by God and by his singular care and providence kept pure in all Ages are therefore Authentical so as in all Controversies of Religion the Church is finally to appeal unto them But because these Original Tongues are not known to all the people of God who have right unto and interest in the Scriptures and are commanded in the fear of God to read and search them therefore they are to be translated into the Vulgar language of every Nation unto which they come that the Word of God dwelling plentifully in all they may worship him in an acceptable manner and through patience and comfort of the Scriptures may have hope IX The infallible Rule of Interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture it self And therefore when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture which is not manifold but one it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly X. The Supreme Judge by which all controversies of Religion are to be determined and all Decrees of Councils Opinions of ancient Writers Doctrines of men and private Spirits are to be examined and in whose Sentence we are to rest can be no other but the holy Scripture delivered by the Spirit into which Scripture so delivered our Faith is finally resolved CHAP. II. Of God and of the Holy Trinity THere is but one onely living and true God who is infinite in Being and Perfection a most pure Spirit invisible without body parts or passions immutable immense eternal incomprehensible almighty most wise most holy most free most absolute working all things according to the Counsel of his own immutable and most righteous Will for his own Glory most loving gracious merciful long-suffering abundant in goodness and truth forgiving iniquity transgression and sin the rewarder of them that diligently seek him and withal most just and terrible in his Judgments hating all sin and who will by no means clear the guilty II. God hath all Life Glory Goodness Blessedness in and of himself and is alone in and unto himself All-sufficient not standing in need of any Creatures which he hath made nor deriving any glory from them but onely manifesting his own glory in by unto and upon them He is the alone Fountain of all Being of whom through whom and to whom are all things and hath most Soveraign dominion over them to do by them for them or upon them whatsoever himself pleaseth In his sight all things are open and manifest his Knowledge is infinite infallible and independent upon the creature so as nothing is to him contingent or uncertain He is most holy in all his Counsels in all his Works and in all his Commands To him is due from Angels and Men and every other Creature whatsoever Worship Service or Obedience as Creatures they owe unto the Creator and whatever he is further pleased to require of them III. In the Unity of the God-head there be three Persons of one Substance Power and Eternity God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost The Father is of none neither begotten nor proceeding The Son is eternally begotten of the Father The Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son Which Doctrine of the Trinity is the foundation of all our Communion with God and comfortable Dependence upon him CHAP. III. Of Gods Eternal Decree GOD from all eternity did by the most wise and holy Counsel of his own Will freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to passe Yet so as thereby neither is God the Author of sin nor is violence offered to the will of the Creatures nor is the liberty or contingency of second Causes taken away but rather established II. Although God knowes whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed Conditions yet hath he not decreed any thing because he foresaw it as future or as that which would come to passe upon such Conditions III. By the Decree of God for the manifestation of his Glory some Men and Angels are predestinated unto everlasting Life and others fore-ordained to everlasting Death IV. These Angels and Men thus predestinated and fore-ordained are particularly and unchangeably designed and their number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished V. Those of mankind that are predestinated unto Life God before the foundation of the world was laid according to his eternal and immutable purpose and the
upright towards those that are planted in his house And that as the Faith was but once for all and intentionally first delivered unto the Saints so the Saints when not abiding scattered but gathered under their respective Pastors according to Gods heart into an house and Churches unto the living God such together are as Paul forespake it the most steady and firm pillar and seat of Truth that God hath anywhere appointed to himself on earth where his truth is best conserved and publiquely held forth there being in such Assemblies weekly a rich dwelling of the Word amongst them that is a daily open house kept by the means of those good Housholders their Teachers and other Instructers respectively appropriated to them whom Christ in the vertue of his Ascension continues to give as gifts to his people himself dwelling amongst them to the end that by this as the most sure standing permanent means the Saints might be perfected till we all even all the Saints in present and future ages do come by this constant and daily Ordinance of his unto the unity of the Faith and Knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulnesse of Christ which though growing on by parts and piecemeal will yet appear compleat when that great and general Assembly shall be gathered then when this world is ended and these dispensations have had their fulness and period and so that from henceforth such a provision being made for us we be no more children tossed too and fro and carried about with every wind of Doctrine And finally this doth give a fresh and recent demonstration that the great Apostle and High-priest of our profession is indeed ascended into heaven and continues there with power and care faithfull as a son over his own house whose house are we if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoycing of the hope firm unto the end and shews that he will as he hath promised be with his own Institutions to the end of the world It is true that many sad miscarriages divisions breaches fallings off from holy Ordinances of God have along this time of tentation especially in the beginning of it been found in some of our Churches and no wonder if what hath been said be fully considered Many reasons might further be given hereof that would be a sufficient Apology without the help of a retortion upon other Churches that promised themselves peace how that more destroying ruptures have befallen them and that in a wider sphere and compasse which though it should not justifie us yet may serve to stop others mouths Let Rome glory of the peace in and obedience of her Children against the Reformed Churches for their divisions that occurred especially in the first rearing of them whilest we all know the causes of their dull stupid peace to have been carnal interests worldly correspondencies and coalitions strengthened by gratifications of all sorts of men by that Religion the principles of blind Devotion Traditional Faith Ecclesiastical Tyranny by which she keeps her Children in bondage to this day We are also certain that the very same prejudices that from hence they would cast upon the Reformed if they were just do lye as fâ—lly against those pure Churches raised up by the Apostles themselves in those first tâ—mes for as we have heard of their patience sufferings consolations and the transcending gifts powred out and graces shining in them so we have heard complaints of their divisions too of the forsakings of their Assemblies as the custom or manner of SOME was which later were in that respect felones de se and needed no other delivering up to Satan as their punishment then what they executed upon themselves We read of the shipwrack also of Faith and a good Conscience and overthrowings of the faith of SOME and still but of some not all nor the most which is one piece of an Apologie the Apostle again and again inserts to future ages and through mercy we have the same to make And truly we take the confidence professedly to say that these tentations common to the purest Churches of Saints separated from the mixture of the world though they grieve us for who is offended and we burn not yet they do not at all stumble us as to the truth of our way had they been many more We say it again these stumble us no more as to that point then it doth offend us against the power of Religion it self to have seen and to see daily in particular persons called out and separated from the world by an effectual work of conversion that they for a while do suffer under disquietments vexations turmoils unsettlements of spirit that they are tossed with tempests and horrid tentations such as they had not in their former estate whilst they walked according to the course of this world For Peter hath sufficiently instructed us whose businesse it is to raise such storms even the Devil's and also whose designe it is that after they have suffered a while thereby they shall be setled perfected stablished that have so suffered even the God of all Grace And look what course of dispensation God holds to Saints personally he doth the like to bodyes of Saints in Churches and the Devil the same for his part too And that consolatory Maxim of the Apostle God shall tread down Satan under your feet shortly which Paul utteteth concerning the Church of Rome shews how both God and Satan have this very hand therein for he speaks that very thing in reference unto their divisions as the coherence clearly manifests and so you have both designs exprest at once Yea we are not a little induced to think that the divisions breaches c. of those pâ—imitive Churches would not have been so frequent among the people themselves and not the Elders onely had not the freedom liberties and rights of the Members the Brethren we mean been stated and exercised in those Churches the same which we maintain and contend for to be in ours Yea which perhaps may seem more strange to many had not those Churches been constituted of members inlightned further then with notional and traditional knowledge by a new and more powerfull light of the Holy Ghost wherein they had been made partakers of the holy Ghost and the heavenly gift and their hearts had tasted the good Word of God and the Powers of the world to come and of such Members at lowest there had not fallen out those kindes of divisions among them For Experience hath shewn that the common sort of meer Doctrinal Professors such as the most are now a days whose highest elevation is but freedom from moral scandal joyned with devotion to Christ through meer Education such as in many Turks is found towards Mahomet that these finding and feeling themselves not much concerned in the active part of Religion so they may have the honour especially upon a Reformation of
A DECLARATION OF THE FAITH and ORDER Owned and practised in the Congregational Churches IN ENGLAND Agreed upon and consented unto By their ELDERS and MESSENGERS IN Their Meeting at the SAVOY Octob. 12. 1658. LONDON Printed for D. L. And are to be sold in Paul's Church-yard Fleet-Street and Westminster-Hall 1659. A Preface COnfession of the Faith that is in us when justly called for is so indispensable a due all owe to the Glery of the Soveraign GOD that it is ranked among the Duties of the first Commandment such as Prayer is and therefore by Paul yoaked with Faith it self as necessary to salvation With the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation Our Lord Christ himself when he was accused of his Doctrine considered simply as a matter of fact by Preaching refused to answer because as such it lay upon evidence matter of testimony of others unto whom therefore he refers himself But when both the High-Priest and Pilate expostulate his Faith and what he held himself to be he without any demur at all chearfully makes Declarat on That he was the Son of GOD so to the High-Priest And that he was a King and born to be a King thus to Pilate Though upon the uttering of it his life lay at the stake Which holy Profession of his is celebrated for our example 1 Tim. 6. 13. Confessions when made by a company of Professors of Christianity joyntly meeting to that end the most genuine and natural use of such Confessions is That under the same form of words they express the substance of the same common salvation or unity of their faith whereby speaking the same things they shew themselves perfectly joyned in the same mind and in the same judgment 1 Cor. 1. 10. And accordingly such a transaction is to be looked upon but as a meet or fit medium or means whereby to express that their common faith and salvation and no way to be made use of as an imposition upon any What ever is of force or constraint in matters of this nature causeth them to degenerate from the name and nature of Confessions and turns them from being Confessions of Faith into Exactions and Impositions of Faith And such common Confessions of the Orthodox Faith made in simplicity of heart by any such Body of Christians with concord among themselves ought to be entertained by all others that love the truth as it is in Jesus with an answerable rejoycing For if the unanimous opinions and assertions but in some few points of Religion and that when by two Churches namely that of Jerusalem and the Messengers of Antioch met assisted by some of the Apostles were by the Believers of those times received with so much joy as it is said They rejoyced for the consolation much more this is to be done when the whole substance of Faith and form of wholesome words shall be declared by the Messengers of a multitude of Churches though wanting those advantages of Counsel and Authority of the Apostles which that Assembly had Which acceptation is then more specially due when these shall to choose utter and declare their Faith in the same substance for matter yea words for the most part that other Churâ—hes and Assembliâ—s reputed the most Orthodox have done before them For upon such a correspondency all may see that actually accomplished which the Apostle did but exhort unto and pray for in those two more eminent Churches of the Corinthians and the Romans and so in them for all the Christians of his time that both Jew and Gentile that is men of different perswasions as they were might glorifie GOD with one mind and with one mouth And truly the very turning of the Gentiles to the owning of the same Faith in the substance of it with the Christian Jew though differing in greater points then we do from our Brethren is presently after dignified by the Apostle with this style That it is the Confession of Jesus Christ himself not as the Object onely but as the Author and Maker thereof I will confess to thee saith Christ to God among the Gentiles So that in all such accords Christ is the great and first Confessor and we and all our Faith uttered 〈◊〉 Us are but the Epistles as Paul and Confessions as Isaiah there of their Lord and ours He but expressing what is written in his heart through their hearts and mouthes to the glory of God the Father And shall not we all rejoyce herein when as Christ himself is said to do it upon this occasion as it there also follows I will sing unto thy Name Further as the soundness and wholesomness of the matter gives the vigor and life to such Confessions so the inward freeness willingness and readiness of the Spirits of the Confessors do contribute the beauty and loveliness thereunto As it is in Prayer to God so in Confessions made to men If two or three met do agree it renders both 〈…〉 the more acceptable The Spirit of Christ is in himself too free great and generous a Spirit to suffer himself to be used by any humane arm to whip men into belief he driveâ— not but gently leads into all truth and perswades men to dwell in the tents of lâ—kâ— precious Faith which would lose of its preciousness and value if that sparkle of freeness shâ—ne not in it The Character of His People iâ— to be a willing people in the day of his power not Mans in the beauties of holiness which are the Assemblings of the Saints one glâ—â—y of which Assemblings in that fiâ—st Châ—rch iâ— said to have been They met with one accord which is there in the Psalm prophesied of in the instance of that first Church for all other that should succeed And as this great Spirit is in himself free when and how for and in whom to work so where and when he doth work he carrieth it with the same freedom and is said to be a free Spirit as he both is and works in us And where this Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty Now as to this Confession of ours besides that a conspicuous conjunction of the particulars mentioned hath appeared therein There are also four remarkable Attendants thereon which added might perhaps in the eyes of sober and indifferent Spirits give the whole of this Transaction a room and rank amongst other many good and memorable things of this Age at least all set together do cast as clear a gleam and manifestation of God's Power and Presence as hath appeared in any such kind of Confessions made by so numerous a company these later years The first is the Temper or distemper rather of the Times during which these Churches have been gathering and which they have run through All do out of a general sense complain that the times have been perillous or difficult times as the Apostle fore told and that in respect to danger from seducing spirits
more perillous then the hottest seasons of persecution We have saâ—led through an Aestuation Fluxes and Refluxes of great varieties of Spirits Doctrines Opinions and Occurrences and especially in the matter of Opinions which have been accompanied in their several seasons with powerful perswasions and temptations to seduce those of our way It is known men have taken the freedom notwithstanding what Authority hath interposed to the contrary to vent and vend â—heir own vain and accursed imaginations contrary to the great and fixed Truths of the Gospel insomuch as take the whole Round and Circle of Delusiâ—ns the Devil hath in this small time ran it will be found that every Truth of greater or lesser weight hath by one or other hand at one time or another been questioned and called to the Bar amongst us yea and impleaded under the pretext which hath some degree of Justice in it that all should not be bound up to the Traditions of former times nor take Religion upon trust Whence it hath come to pass that many of the soundest Professors were put upon a new search and d squisition of such Truths as they had taken for granted and yet had lived upon the comfort of to the end they might be able to convince others and est blish their own hearts against that darkness and unbelief that is ready to close with error or at least tâ— doubt of the truth when error is speciouslâ— presented And hereupon we do professedly account it one of the greatest advantages gained out of the Temptations of these Times yea the honour of the Saints and Ministers of these Nations That after they had sweetly been exercised in and had improved practical and experimental Truths this should be the r forther Lot to examine and discuss and indeed anew to learn over every Doctrinal Truth both out of the Scriptures and also with a fresh taste thereof in their own hearts which is no other then what the Apostle exhorts to Try all things bold fast that which is good Conversion unto God at first what is it else then a savory and affâ—ctâ—onate application and the bringâ—ng home to the heart with spiritual light and life all truths that are necessary to salvation together with other lesser Truths All which we had afore conversion taken in but notionally from common Education and Tradition Now that after this first gust those who have bin thus converted should be put upon a new probation and search out of the Scriptures not onely of all principles explicitely ingredients to Conversion unto which the Apostle referreth the Galatians when they had diverted from them but of all other superstructures as well as fundamentals and together therewith anew to experiment the power and sweetness of all these in their own souls What is this but tryed Faith indeed and equivalent to a new conversion unto the truth An Anchor that is proved to be sure and stedfast that will certainly hold in all contrary storms This was the eminent seal and commendation which those holy Apostles that lived and wrote last Peter John and Jude in their Epistles did set and give to the Christians of the latter part of those primitive times And besides it is clear and evident by all the other Epistles from first to last that it cost the Apostles as much and far more care and pains to preserve them they had converted in the truth then they had taken to turn them thereunto at first And it is in it self as great a work and instance of the power of God that keeps yea guards us through faith unto salvation Secondly let this be added or superadded rather to give full weight and measure even to running over that we have all along this season held forth though quarrelled with for it by our brethren this great principle of these times That amongst all Christian States and Churches there ought to be vouchsafed a forbearance and mutual indulgence unto Saints of all perswasions that keep unto and hold fast the necessary foundations of faith and holiness in all other matters extrafundamental whether of Faith or Order This to have been our constant principle we are not ashamed to confess to the whole Christian world Wherein yet we desire we may be understood not as if in the abstract we stood indifferent to falshood or truth or were careless whether faith or error in any Truths but fundamental did obtain or not so we had our liberty in our petty and smaller differences or as if to make sure of that we had cut out this wide cloake for it No we profess that the whole and every particle of that Faith delivered to the Saints the substance of which we have according to our light here professed is as to the propagation and furtherance of it by all Gospel-means as precious to us as our lives or what can be supposed dear to us and in our sphere we have endeavored to promote them accordingly But yet withall we have and do contend and if we had all the power which any or all of our brethren of differing opinions have desired to have over us or others we should freely grant it unto them all we have and do contend for this That in the concrete the persons of all such gracious Saints they and their errors as they are in them when they are but such errors as do and may stand with communion with Christ though they should not repent of them as not being convinced of them to the end of their days that those with their errors that are purely spiritual and intrench and overthrow not civil societies as concrete with their persons should for Christs sake be born withall by all Christians in the world and they notwithstanding be permitted to enjoy all Ordinances and spiritual Priviledges according to their light as freely as any other of their brethren that pretend to the greatest Orthodoxity as having as equal and as fair a right in and unto Christ and all the holy things of Christ that any other can challenge to themselves And this doth afford a full and invincible testimony on our behalf in that whiles we have so earnestly contended for this just liberty of Saints in all the Churches of Christ we our selves have no need of it that is as to the matter of the profession of Faith which we have maintained together with others and of this this subsequent Confession of Faith gives sufficient evidence So as we have the confidence in Christ to utter in the words of those two great Apostles That we have stood fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free in the behalf of others rather then our selves and having been free have not made use of our liberty for a cloak of error or maliciousness in our selves And yet loe whereas from the beginning of the rearing of these Churches that of the Apostle hath been by some prophecyed of us and applyed to us That whiles we promised unto others liberty we our selves
would become servants of corruption and be brought in bondage to all sorts of fancies and imaginations yet the whole world may now see after the experience of many years ran-through and it is manifest by this Confession that the great and gracious God hath not only kept us in that common unity of the Faith and Knowledge of the Son of God which the whoâ—e Community of Saints have and shall in their Generations come unto but also in the same Truths both small and great that are built thereupon that any other of the best and more pure Reformed Churches in their best times which were their first times have arrived unto This Confession withall holding forth a professed opposition unto the common errors and heresies of these times These two considerations have been taken from the seasons we have gone through Thirdly let the space of time it self or dayes wherein from first to last the whole of this Confession was framed and consented to by the whole of us be duly considered by sober and ingenuous spirits the whole of days in which we had meetings about it set aside the two Lords days and the first days meeting in which we considered and debated what to pitch upon were but 11 dayes part of which also was spent by some of us in Prayer others in consulting and in the end all agreeing We mention this small circumstance but to this end which still adds unto the former That it gives demonstration not of our freeness and willingness onely but of our readiness and preparedness unto so great a work which otherwise and in other Assemblies hath ordinarily taken up long and great debates as in such a variety of matters of such concernment may well be supposed to fall out And this is no other then what the Apostle Peter exhorts unto Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason or account of the hope that is in you The Apostle Paul saith of the spiritual Truths of the Gospel That God hath prepared them for those that love him The inward and innate constitution of the new Creature being in it self such as is suted to all those Truths as congenial thereunto But although there be this mutual adaptness between these two yet such is the mixture of ignorance darkness and unbelief carnal reason pre-occupation of judgment interest of parties wantonness in opinion proud adhering to our own perswasions and perverse oppositions and avâ—rsness to agree with others and a multitude of such like distempers common to believing man All which are not onely mixed with but at times especially in such times as have passed over our heads are ready to overcloud our judgments and to cause our eyes to be double and sometimes prevail as well as lusts and do byass our wills and affections And such is their mixture that although there may be existent an habitual preparedness in mens spirits yet not always a present readiness to be found specially not in such a various multitude of men to make a solemn and deliberate profession of all truths it being as great a work to find the spirits of the just perhaps the best of Saints ready for every truth as to be prepared to every good work It is therefore to be looked at as a great and special work of the holy Ghost that so numerous a company of Ministers and other principal brethren should so readily speedily and joyntly give up themselves unto such a whole Body of Truths that are after godliness This argues they had not their faith to seek but as is said of Ezra that they were ready Scribes and as Christ instructed unto the Kingdom of Heaven being as the good housholders of so many families of Christ bâ—nging forth of their store and treasury New and Old It shews these truths had been familiar to them and they acquainted with them as with their daily food and provision as Christs allusion there insinuates In a word that so they had preached and that so their people had beleived as the Apostle speaks upon one like particular occasion And the Apostle Paul considers in cases of this nature the suddenness oâ—length of the time either one way or the other whether it were in mens forsaking or learning of the truth Thus the suddenness in the Galatians caâ—e in leaving the truth he makes a wonder of it I marvel that you are SO SOON that is in so short a time removed from the true Gospel unto another Again on the contrary in the Hebrews he aggravates their backwards ess That when for the time you ought to be Teachers you had need that one teach you the very first principles of the Oracles of God The Parallel contrary to both these having fallen our in this transaction may have some ingredient and weight with ingenuous spirits in its kind according to the proportion is put upon either of these forementioned in their adverse kind and obtain the like special observation This accord of ours hath fallen out without having held any correspondency together or prepared consultation by which we might come to be advised of one anothers mindes We alledge not this as a matter of commendation in us no we acknowledge it to have been a great neglect And accordingly one of the first proposals for union amongst us was That there might be a constant correspondence held among the Churches for counsel and mutual edification so for time to come to prevent the like omission We confess that from the first every or at least the generality of our Churches have been in a manner like so many Ships though holding forth the same general colours lancht singly and sailing apart and alone in the vast Ocean of these tumultuating times and they exposed to every wind of Doctrine under no other conduct then the Word and Spirit and their particular Elders and principal Brethren without Associations among our selves or so much as holding out common lights to others whereby to know where we were But yet whilest we thus confess to our own shame this neglect let all acknowledge that God hath ordered it for his high and greater glory in that his singular care and power should have so warcht over each of these as that all should be found to have steered their course by the same Chart and to have been bound for one and the same Port and that upon this general search now made that the same holy and blessed Truths of all sorts which are currant and warrantable amongst all the other Churches of Christ in the world should be found to be our Lading The whole and every of these things when put together do cause us whatever men of prejudiced and opposite spirits may find out to slight them with a holy admiration to say That this is no other then the Lords doing and which we with thansgiving do take from his hand as a speciall token upon us for good and doth shew that God is faithfull and
everlasting damnation as also in their free access to God and their yielding obedience unto him not out of slavish fear but a child-like-love and willing mind All which were common also to Believers under the Law for the substance of them but under the New Testament the liberty of Christians is further inlarged in their freedom from the yoake of the Ceremonial Law the whole Legal administration of the Covenant of Grace to which the Jewish Church was subjected and in greater boldness of access to the Throne of Grace and in fuller communications of the free Spirit of God then Believers under the Law did ordinarily partake of II. God alone is Lord of the Conscience and hath left it free from the Doctrines and Commandments of men which are in any thing contrary to his Word or not contained in it so that to believe such Doctrines or to obey such Commands out of conscience is to betray true Liberty of Conscience and the requiring of an implicit faith and an absolute and blind obedience is to destroy Liberty of Conscience and Reason also III. They who upon pretence of Christian Liberty do practise any sin or cherish any lust as they do thereby pervert the main design of the Grace of the Gospel to their own destruction so they wholly destroy the end of Christian Liberty which is that being delivered out of the hands of our enemies we might serve the Lord without fear in holinesse and righteousnesse before him all the dayes of our life CHAP. XXII Of Religious Worship and the Sabhath-day THe light of Nature sheweth that there is a God who hath Lordship and Soveraignty over all is just good and doth good unto all and is therefore to be feared loved praised called upon trusted in and served with all the heart and all the soul and with all the might But the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by himself and so limited by his own revealed will that he may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men or the suggestions of Satan under any visible representations or any other way prescribed in the holy Scripture II. Religious Worship is to be given to God the Father Son and holy Ghost and to him alone not to Angels Saints or any other Creatures and since the Fall not without a Mediatour nor in the mediation of any other but of Christ alone III. Prayer with thanksgiving being one special part of natural worship is by God required of all men but that it may be accepted it is to be made in the name of the Son by the help of the Spirit according to his will with understanding reverence humility fervency faith love and perseverance and when with others in a known tongue IV. Prayer is to be made for things lawful and for all sorts of men living or that shall live hereafter but not for the dead nor for those of whom it may be known that they have sinned the sin unto death V. The reading of the Scriptures Preaching and hearing the word of God singing of Psalms as also the administration of Baptism and the Lords Supper are all parts of religious Worship of God to be performed in obedience unto God with understanding faith reverence and godly fear Solemn Humiliations with Fastings and Thanksgiving upon special occasions are in their several times and seasons to be used in a holy and religious manner VI Neither Prayer nor any other part of religious Worship is now under the Gospel either tyed unto or made more acceptable by any place in which it is performed or towards which it is directed but God is to be worshipped every where in spirit and in truth as in private families daily and in secret each one by himself so more solemnly in the publique assemblies which are not carelesly nor wilfully to be neglected or forsaken when God by his Word or Providence calleth thereunto VII As it is of the Law of Nature that in general a proportion of time by Gods appointment be set apart for the worship of God so by his Word in a positive moral and perpetual commandment binding all men in all ages he hath particularly appointed one day in seaven for a Sabbath to be kept holy unto him which from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ was the last day of the week and from the resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week which in Scripture is called the Lords day and is to be continued to the end of the World as the Christian Sabbath the observation of the last day of the week being abolished VIII This Sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord when men after a due preparing of their hearts and ordering their common affaires before hand do not only observe an holy rest all the day from their own works words and thoughts about their worldly imployments and recreations but also are taken up the whole time in the publique and private exercisesof his Worship and in the duties of Necessity and Mercy CHAP. XXIII Of lawful Oaths and Vows A Lawful Oath is a part of Religious Worship wherein the person swearing in truth righteousness and judgment solemnly calleth God to witness what he afferteth or promiseth and to judge him according to the truth or falshood of what he sweareth II. The name of God onely is that by which men ought to swear and therein it is to be used with all holy fear and reverence Therefore to swear vainly or rashly by that glorious or dreadful Name or to sweat at all by any other thing is sinful and to be abhorred Yet as in matters of weight and moment an Oath is warranted by the Word of God under the New Testament as well as under the Old so a lawful Oath being imposed by lawful authority in such matters ought to be taken III. Whosoever taketh an Oath warranted by the Word of God ought duly to consider the weightiness of so solemn an act and therein to avouch nothing but what he is fully perswaded is the truth neither may any man bind himself by Oath to any thing but what is good and just and what he believeth so to be and what he is able and resolved to perform Yet it is a sin to refuse an Oath touching any thing that is good and just being lawfully imposed by Authority IV. An Oath is to be taken in the plain and common sense of the words without equivocation or mental reservation It cannot oblige to sin but in any thing not sinful being taken it binds to performance although to a mans own hurt nor is it to be violated although made to Hereticks or Infidels V. A Vow which is not to be made to any Creature but God alone is of the like nature with a promissory Oath and ought to be made with the like religious care and to be performed with the like faithfulness VI Popish monastical Vows of perpetual single life professed poverty