yet the time of Morning and Evening Sacrifices were the usual hours of prayer observed by pious and devout men who sent up their prayers together with the Sacrifice Thus Ezra tells us at the Evening Sacrifice I fell upon my knees and spread out my hands unto the Lord my God and to this the Psalmist alludes Let my Prayer be set before thee as incense and the lifting up of my hands as the Evening Sacrifice For since the fall of man we cannot expect that God should hear our prayers for our own sakes we can make no atonement and expiation for our own sins nor offer him any just compensation for them and therefore under the Law God appointed Expiatory Sacrifices to be offered by the Priests who were Gods Ministers and now under the Gospel God has sent his own Son into the World to be both our Priest and our Sacrifice the acceptation of our prayers depends upon the power of his Intercession and the power of his Intercession upon the merit of his blood for with his own blood he entred once into the holy place having obtained eternal redemption for us We must now go to God in his Name and plead the Merits of his blood if we expect a gracious answer to our Prayers Now for this end was the Lords Supper instituted to be a Remembrance of Christ or of the Sacrifice of the Cross to shew forth the Lords death till he come which as it respects God is to put him in remembrance of Christ's death and to plead the Vertue and Merit of it for our pardon and acceptance It is a visible prayer to God to remember the sufferings of his Son and to be propitious to his Church his body and every member of it which he has purchased with his own blood And therefore the ancient Church constantly at this holy Supper offered up their prayers to God in vertue of the Sacrifice of Christ there represented for the whole Church and all ranks and conditions of men For this reason the Lords Supper was called a Commemorative Sacrifice because we therein offer up to God the Remembrance of Christ's Sacrifice and therefore in the ancient Church the Altar or the place where they consecrated the Elements was the place also where they offered up their prayers to signifie that they offered their prayers only in vertue of the Sacrifice of Christ and that the very remembrance of this Sacrifice in the Lords Supper by vertue of its Institution did render their prayers prevalent and acceptable to God and therefore in the very first account we have of the exercise of Christian Worship we find breaking bread and prayers joyned together The efficacy of our prayers depends on the merit of Christ's Sacrifice and the way Christ hath appointed to give our prayers an interest in his Sacrifice is to offer them in the holy Supper with the Sacramental remembrance of his Death and Passion 2. If we consider the Lords Supper as it respects Christ himself and is a Remembrance of him so it contains all that peculiar Worship which the Christian Church payes him as a thankful acknowledgement of his great love in dying for them as will appear if we consider what it is to do this in Remembrance of him For 1. This signifies to keep this Feast as a publick and solemn Commemoration of our Lord we ought to remember our Saviour and think of him as often as we can but this holy Feast is a publick celebration of his fame and memory we must not only think of our Saviour as we do of an absent Friend who is very dear to us but we must remember him as some Nations do their publick Patrons and Benefactors with solemn and festival joyes The Lords Supper is a Feast instituted in honour of our Saviour wherein the whole Church must call to mind his noble acts and shew forth his praises and perpetuate the memory of them from one generation to another We must call to mind his great and astonishing love and recount all his victories and triumphs over Sin and Death and Hell and him who had the power of death that is the Devil We must sing praises to the Lamb of God who was slain and is worthy to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing This is the proper work of a Religious Feast to call to mind the works of God and ascribe unto him the glory due unto his Name This is the true reason of all Religious Festivals The Seventh Day Sabbath was originally instituted in honour of the great Maker of all things who finished the Creation of the World in six dayes and rested on the seventh and was changed to the first day of the Week in remembrance of the work of our Redemption and the Resurrection of our Saviour from the dead The Feast of the Passeover was for a memorial of that deliverance the children of Israel had from the destroying Angel who smote all the first-born of the Egyptians but spared their houses which was but an obscure type of our greater deliverance by Christ of which the Lords Supper is instituted as a perpetual memorial All these holy Feasts were for a remembrance that is to call to mind the wonderful works of God to praise his great name and by a contemplation of his wisdom goodness and power in making and governing the world to inflame our souls with love and joy and wonder till our thoughts and passions grow too big and vehement to be suppressed in our own breasts but break forth into publick songs of praise and thanksgiving And thus we must remember our Saviour in this holy Feast by making publick thankful and joyful acknowledgements of his great and mysterious love and all the mighty things he hath done for the redemption of mankind When our Saviour says Do this in remembrance of me he requires us to keep this Feast with the publick expressions of that love and honour which we bare to his memory as a testimony of our thankfulness to him for all that he hath done and suffered for us as a profession of our faith and hope and trust and affiance in a Crucified Jesus that we own him for our Lord and Saviour and are not ashamed of his Cross nor afraid of any sufferings for his sake 2. The Lords Supper is the peculiar worship of Christ considered as a God incarnate the word was made flesh and dwelt among us the eternal son of God the uncreated wisdom of the Father came down from Heaven and cloathed himself with flesh and blood and became man as we are that he might be capable to dwell among us without that terrour and astonishment which his unvailed glory carries with it which is too bright and dazling for mortal eyes to gaze on and that when he had lived here a poor despised afflicted life in the condition of a Minister and a Servant he might die as a Sacrifice
God or not when they think to please God by the bare external performance of them for whatever is external in Religion cannot be acceptable to God for it self In Christ Iesus neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but a new Creature and Faith which worketh by Love and Obedience to the Commandments of God And to hope to please God with any thing else is to hope to flatter him and to compound with him for the breach of his Laws and the want of an inward vital Principle of Religion by external Hypocrisies and Superstitions But on the other hand we may be sure 1. That no Man can be guilty of Superstition who hopes to please God and obtain his Favour only by an Universal Righteousness and Holiness of Heart and Life Such a Man is truly Religious who endeavours to conform his Mind to the Divine Nature and Image and to frame his Conversation by the eternal Laws of Goodness he neither fears nor flatters the Deity as the Superstitious Man does but is the Son and the Friend of God and the external Expressions and Exercises of his Religion are fitted to the great ends of an Universal Holiness 2. That cannot be the matter of Superstition which is not made or judged an acceptable part of Divine Worship for Superstition can be only in such things wherein we hope to please God and this effectually justifies the Church of England from the charge of Superstition with respect to the External Rites of Worship which she declares to be no parts nor acts of Worship but such Circumstances and Ceremonies as make the external performance of the Acts of Worship decent and solemn and are useful to Edification to help Men to worship God better not to please God by such external Rites The third Accusation of the Worship of the Church of England is Idolatry a terrible and yet a ridiculous Charge But Idolatry is an odious Name and that is enough if there be those who are bold enough to say it they will be sure to find some of their Proselytes ignorant enough to believe it It is but calling the Common-Prayer Book and Ceremonies Idols and then they are plainly forbid in the Second Commandment But is there indeed no difference between worshipping God in a sober and pious form of words and worshipping a Graven Image No difference between wearing a Surplice and falling down to a Stock or Stone No difference between signing Children with the sign of the Cross and dedicating them to an Idol or false God Whither does a blind Zeal transport these Men I am sure this is much more like Blasphemy than any thing in our Worship is like Idolatry but such an Argument as this does not deserve to be answered nor such Men deserve to be reasoned with those who can abuse themselves and others with such formidable Nothings stand more in need of Physick than a sober Confutation 4. Another Accusation of the Worship of the Church of England is That it is Popery And so indeed it is as much Popery as it is Superstition and Idolatry And thus our Religious Princes and Godly Bishops are well rewarded for reforming Religion with infinite pains and labour and to their utmost peril It cost many Martyrs their Lives and would have made the Crown to shake had it not been secure by an Omnipotent Hand and All-seeing Providence and all this it seems for nothing for we are not got out of Babylon yet That Command still lies against the Church of England as our Ancestors believed it did against the Church of Rome Come out from among them and be ye separate saith the Lord and touch no unclean thing and I will receive you It is somewhat strange that God should suffer our Reformers who were so sincere and honest who spared no pains and feared no danger to purge the House of God to retain so much of the old Leaven as makes it unsafe for all good Christians to partake in such Worship And it is strange that the Papists should be such mortal Enemies to the Church of England which is so near a Kin to Rome and look so kindly upon our new Thorough-Reformers But I would desire these Men to tell me what Point of Popery is still retained in the Doctrine Government or Discipline of our Church O say they that is quickly done The very Office of Bishops is a Relique of Popery And if this be so then the whole Christian Church from the very first institution of it has been popishly affected for if we will allow the Apostles to have had an Episcopal Power and Authority we find no Christian Church without Bishops till the Reformation that is for 1500 Years and I confess I never thought Popery could have pleaded such Antiquity and early prescription That Supream and Soveraign Power which the Bishop of Rome challenges over all other Bishops and Secular Princes nay that uncontroulable Authority he challenges over the Laws of God and Institutions of our Saviour to change and alter them by his infallible Decrees when he pleases his absolute Power to forgive Sins and to dispose of Heaven and Hell is no doubt the Perfection of that Apostacy which was foretold should happen in the latter days and if our Bishops challenge any such Power to themselves I will own them to be Antichristian and Popish But we may see what admirable Reformers those are like to make who know not how to distinguish between an Apostolical Office and Antichristian Usurpations But the Common-Prayer Book is Popish I beseech you wherein as it is a Form of Prayer Then our Saviour taught Men Popery for he taught his Disciples to pray by a Form and the whole Book of Psalms must be ranck Popery which consists only of Forms of Prayer and Thanksgiving composed for the use of the Temple But is there any Remains of Popish Worship in our Liturgy are there any Prayers to Saints or Angels or the Virgin Mary Are our Prayers concealed from us in an unknown Tongue Do we not understand what we say what Petitions we put up to God Do you find the Sacrifice of the Mass or any Reliques of it in our Liturgy Thanks be to God for our Reforming Bishops and Martyrs who purged our Worship from all these Abominations But the Common-Prayer Book is taken out of the Mass-Book and therefore it is but Popery still This I will in part grant but deny the Consequence for every thing in the Mass-Book was not Popery unless you will say that the Creed Ten Commandments and Lord's Prayer are parts of Popery The plain case is this You must consider the Church of Rome as a true Church corrupted and degenerated from its Primitive Institutions for we must acknowledg that the Church of Rome was not inferior in all Gifts and Graces to the most eminent Churches in the World in the Apostles days and several Ages after And therefore no wonder if in its greatest degeneracy it retained some small
Communion very nauseous and unpleasant to honest minds or very dangerous As to name some of the hardest 1. The case of a vicious and scandalous Minister who like Eli's Sons makes the Sacrifices of God to be abhorred I am in great hope that the number of these men is not great though one were too much and yet it is not to be expected that in so great a body of men there should be none Let the enemies of God and of Religion triumph in this and encrease their numbers while we silently lament it But when this is the case I think every good man should apply himself to his Superiours and endeavour to remove him if this cannot be done or is too long delayed he must learn to distinguish between the man and his Office a bad man but yet a legal Minister and though he be unworthy of so holy a Profession yet the efficacy of his Ministry does not depend upon his personal qualifications but on the Institution of Christ. The lewdness of Eli's Sons though it gave great offence and scandal to the Israelites yet it did not make them forsake the Altar of God The Scribes and Pharisees in our Saviours dayes were a vile sort of people but yet he does not command his Disciples to withdraw from their Communion but not to follow their examples The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses seat all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe that observe and do but do not after their works for they say and do not And upon these principles St. Austin disputes against the Donatists and will not allow the personal miscarriages of Ministers to be a just cause of Separation and yet if in such cases a serious Christian with prudence and modesty and with as little noise and scandal as may be preserving the Communion of the Church should joyn in Communion with a neighbouring Minister I should not see much reason to blame him for it is no Schism while he continues in the Communion of the Church and only forsakes the Communion of his Parish Minister upon too just an offence 2. The case of an ignorant Minister and I hope this case is not very frequent neither at least not such gross ignorance as shall make a man utterly uncapable of such a function and yet it cannot be expected that all the Parishes in England should be supplyed with Learned Preachers when there are so many Livings that will hardly find bread for a Family But we must consider that our Church has made excellent provision in this case has taken care that the instruction of her Children shall not wholly depend upon the personal abilities of the Minister Our Liturgy is the same whatever the Ministers abilities be which contains a very excellent form of Worship and Administration of Sacraments the Catechism which he is bound to teach the Children contains the substance of Christian Religion in few and plain words and the Homilies which are appointed to be read are very useful and pious Sermons upon most of the material heads of Religion that though the Minister be no great Scholar if he be but honest and diligent in observing the Rules and Directions of the Church his people cannot want sufficient Instructions And this one instance shews the great necessity and advantage of publick Liturgies and Homilies which secures the decent performance of Religious Worship and the instruction of the people in sound and wholsome doctrine notwithstanding the personal defects and inabilities of the Minister what case such poor Parishes were in when these provisions were cryed down as Popish and Antichristian I cannot guess 3. The case of an erroneous and heretical Minister who mixes poison with his doctrine and corrupts the plainness and simplicity of the Christian Religion and can any Christian who is bound to take care of his soul think it his duty to expose himself to the perpetual danger and temptation of erroneous doctrines In answer to which consider 1. That people are very ill Judges of errors and heresie the most antient and most useful doctrines of Christianity have sometimes been thought so and when we have so many men intent and zealous to seduce our people it is an easie matter to whisper the danger of being infected by a corrupt and heretical doctrine Some think every thing heresie but Antinomianism to perswade men to a good life to tell them that there are certain conditions annexed to the Gospel Covenant without the performance of which we shall not be saved that not an idle and notional but an active and working faith justifies that we are saved by Christ not as a Proxy who has done all for us but as a Priest and Sacrifice and Mediator who has expiated our sins by his death and sealed the Covenant of Grace in his blood and now powerfully intercedes for us with his Father and sends his Spirit into the World to be a principle of a new life in us these and such like doctrines are by some men reproached with the name of heresie and upon their authority believed to be so by others and yet if men must withdraw their Communion for the sake of such heresies as these they must forsake the most useful Preachers and most Orthodox Churches and therefore 2. The charge of heresie must be very plain and notorious before it can justifie our breach of Communion If men deny any plain Article of the Christian Faith it is dangerous to intrust the care of our souls with them for they are at best but Wolves in Sheeps cloathing but to suspect men of heresie when there is no evidence of it is it self a very great fault and difference of judgement and opinion about some less matters in Religion which we are alwayes like to differ about while we see in part and know only in part may exercise mutual forbearance but will not excuse men from the guilt of such causless Separations 3. Where the presumptions are very strong we must appeal to Church Governours to detect his errors and heresies if he have any and to secure the flock from such apparent danger Private Reformations usually prove more fatal than the mischiefs which they are designed to remedy and what I said in the case of an ignorant Minister is very applicable to this the publick Prayers and administration of Sacraments and Catechism cannot be corrupted by the greatest Heretick if he observe his Rule and this secures the purity of Worship and wholsome instructions and as for his Sermons it only concerns men to be wary what doctrines they receive from him to take nothing upon trust but to search the Scriptures whether such things be so Such a course as this will maintain good order in the Church without any danger to our faith 4. When the bounds of Parishes and the number of people is too large for Parochial Communion This has often been made a pretence to justifie separate Meetings because the number of people is much greater in many Parishes
Remains of its antient Piety and Devotion which was buried in the midst of Rubbish and Idolatrous Superstitions Consider then what the proper work of a Reformer must be to pull up Root and Branch to pull up the Wheat with the Tares This would be not to reform a corrupt Church but to make a new one This would be to cut off the sound with the rotten Members and is like pulling down a well constituted Government to correct Abuses I pray God preserve us from such Reformers as these In a Word if these Men who accuse the Church of England of Popery can shew any thing practised among us which is peculiar to Popery which cannot be justified by the Precepts and Examples of Scripture and the first and purest Churches I will heartily joyn with them in calling for a Reformation In the mean time I would desire them to consider that they do Popery too much Reputation by giving up the Church of England to it and make the name of Popery a less formidable thing when it is thus indifferently applied to a corrupt and to a reformed Church I wish with all my Soul they were half so free from Popish Principles and Practices in matters of Civil Government as the Church of England is from a Popish Worship PART II. Concerning those Disorders and Miscarriages which some men are guilty of in Church-Communion CHAP. I. Concerning those who ordinarily forsake the Communion of their Parish Churches HAving discours'd thus largely of those who wholly separate themselves from Christian Communion who either communicate with no Church or forsake the Communion of the Church of England I now proceed to correct those Miscarriages which some who profess themselves of our Communion are too notoriously guilty of And I shall first begin with those who ordinarily forsake the Communion of their Parish Churches This has been an old and inveterate evil of long use and practice especially in this great and populous City and it may be thought a daring and fruitless attempt to oppose it however I have this satisfaction that no man can reasonably suspect that I serve any other interest by this but the interest of Peace and Order and the better edification of the Christian Church which must reasonably engage all men the more impartially to consider what I shall now offer which shall be comprized under these two General Heads First Our Obligations to Parochial Communion 2. An Answer to some Objections against it First Our Obligations to Parochial Communion which will appear in these particulars 1. That Parochial Communion is in it self an excellent Institution for the more regular Instruction and Government of the Christian Church We do not indeed pretend that the division of an Episcopal Church into several Parishes with their distinct Pastors set over them is in a strict sense of Divine Institution for Christ and his Apostles did not by an express Law determine the Bounds and Extent of Bishopricks much less of Parochial Communions nor indeed was it possible to do it in those dayes when the greatest number of people were either Iews or Heathens Nor was there any need of this it being at last an acknowledged Principle among Dissenters themselves and those of the greatest note That the directive Light of Nature is sufficient to guide us in such things as these the times and seasons of Church Assemblies the order and decency wherein all things are to be transacted in them the bounding of them as to the number of their members and places of habitation so as to answer the ends of their institution And therefore if this Parochial Communion be of great use to the edification of Christians it not only justifies the Wisdom of the Church in the first Institution of it but severely condemns those who break and violate so useful an Institution The whole Christian Church is but one Body and Society of Christians united to Christ who is the Head of this Body and therefore were it possible should all worship their common Father and Saviour together but since the number of Christians and their great distance from each other will not admit this they are divided into less Societies for the more convenient Administration of holy Offices and the exercise of Christian Discipline and Government How can any thing in a Christian Nation be more useful for all the ends of Church Society than the distribution of Christians into Parochial Communions To enjoy the liberty of publick Assemblies near our own dwellings without being forced to seek for it at a distance would have been thought a great priviledge in former Ages like the Heavenly Manna falling round about the Tents of the true Israelites To have a fixed Pastor who is particularly entrusted with the care of your Souls to whom you may at all times freely resort and disclose your spiritual wants whose neighbourhood and conversation may contract a particular friendship and familiarity and beget a mutual confidence and endearment is quite a different thing from some publick and general exhortations and the reason why men do not more value the benefit and advantage of a Parochial Guide is because generally they make so little use of him This is the truest emblem of Catholick Unity when we hold personal Communion with those Christians who are our neighbours and so in the nearest disposition for it for our obligation to Christian Communion extends it self to all Christian Societies which live in the Communion of the Church and to pick up a Church for constant and Ordinary Communion here and there from stragling members who live in remote and distant places is to make a Schismatical difference between Christians as if all Christians were not of the same body nor fit for personal Communion and though forsaking our Parish Churches for other Churches in the same Communion be not so formal a Schism yet it has some tendency that way it being a forsaking the Communion of our neighbour Christians and Parochial Guide There is no other Rule that I know of for personal Communion but cohabitation or dwelling together in the same neighbourhood for then we communicate with the Catholick Church when we communicate with that part of it wherein we live but when without just cause we ordinarily forsake the Communion of Parochial Assemblies we disturb the most convenient Order of Church-Communion and make a Rent and Schism in the Church as total Separation makes a Schism from the Church Neighbour Christians have the most frequent occasions of conversing with each other and therefore many great ends of Christian Communion are best attained among them they may exhort and reprove one another and provoke unto love and good works they may watch over one anothers souls and when they observe each others miscarriages which they cannot avoid observing when they live so near and converse so often together they may apply such timely remedies as may help up those who fall or prevent the fall of those who trip and stumble and