The Cure of Church Divisions, Directions · Direction 33 – Direction 34
DIRECT. XXXIII.
When you are sure that other mens way of worship is sinful, yet make it not any other or greater sin, than indeed it is: and speak not evil of that much in it, which is Good; And accuse not God to be a hater or rejecter of all mens service which is mixed with infirmities.
AS St. Iames saith, 3. 2. In many things we …ffend all; but he that …ffendeth not with his tongue is the perfect man. So we may here say in the same sense, In many particulars of our prayers and other worship we all offend God: But he that bridleth not his tongue from the reproaching of his brothers different way of worship, may prove the greatest Offendor of all. It would move a charitable understanding hearer to grief and pity, to read and hear one party call all prayer by habit, no better than crudities, whinings, bold talking to God and nonsence; and whatsoever bitter scorn can speak: And to read and hear many on the other extreme, to call the Liturgy, no less than Idolatry! I desire the Reader to peruse a judicious Treatise of Mr. Tombes in answer to one of this language: As much as he and I have written against each others opinion about Infant Baptisme, our concenting admonition to you should so much the rather be accepted in this.
And what pitiful arguments have they to prove this charge of Idolatry? False worship of the true God is idolatry as well as worshipping a false God: But such is the Liturgy: Ergo—
This is all that these rash preachers must trouble the Church, and seduce men into a hating factious zeal with. But what mean these men by false worship? Do they mean worship contrary to Gods word? That is, which is sinful? And do they mean All such sinful worship or some only? If they mean all such sinful worship, than these words of theirs are Idolatry; For they are part of their preaching, which is part of Gods worship, in their own sense: And it is false doctrine, and tendeth to mens perdition. And so they and all false Teachers should be idolaters. By this they would turn all sins in worship into one: It is all Idolatry. Is not every confused prayer sinful, which hath unmeet expressions and disordered, and hath wandering thoughts and dull affections? Is there any of these Love-killers that dare say they pray without sin? And must we not separate from them then as Idolaters? Yea and every man from himself; that is, He must give over praying because its all Idolatry?
But perhaps they will say; This sin is but in the manner and not in the matter.
Answ. Very good; It seems then that sin in the manner of worship is not Idolatry. And how prove you that the faults of the Liturgy are not as far from the Matter of the worship, as your own are? Will you find some words which you can call false in the matter? Suppose it were so? When an Antinomian, an Anabaptist, a Separatist, or any one that erreth doth drop some of his errours in his prayers, (as I think none will deny that they use to do) must we needs believe that his prayer is Idolatry therefore, as being false worship? And is it unlawful to joyn with such? Then we shall have more separation than you yet plead for, or practise your selves. No two men in the world must joyn together if all sinful worship, or worship false sometime in the very matter doth necessitate a separation: At least where no one knoweth before hand what another will say with his tongue, when I know that every man hath some false opinion in his mind.
But where did these men learn to call their brethrens worship false any more than their own, upon the account that God hath not commanded the manner of it; when he hath neither commanded us to use a form, nor to forbear it; but by general precepts of doing all to edification; duplicate page duplicate page If one man preach in one method and another in another; One by written Notes to help his memory, and another without, one by his own gifts only, and another by the help of others; which of these is the false prophet, the false worshipper or Idolater? Hath God said you shall use Notes in preaching? No more hath he said, you shall preach without Notes: yet hath he commanded both, to severall persons where edification variously requireth it… Is he an Idolater that useth Meeters, Tunes, Versions, Translations, Directories, P…lpits, Cups, Table Cloaths, Fonts, Basins, &c. which God commandeth not. O Lord pity thy poor Church, whose Pastors themselves are so peevish in their ignorance, and tempt other men by their follies, to …stifie all their severities against them and others.
But what Text of Scripture is it that ever told these men that all false worship is Idolatry? what text do they name, but such as if they did it on purpose, to shew their boldness in adding to Gods Word? The second Commandment is the chief which they insist on. But what ever Expositions they may forge, there is no such word nor sense in the Commandment. We all hold that as the gross direct Idolatry, is the worshipping of a false God, against the first Commandment; so to make any such false representation of the true God, by words or deeds, as maketh him like an Idol, and contradicteth his nature, and so to worship him, this is also a secondary kind of Idolatry: Because God is none such as they represent him, and therefore it is not God indeed, but an Idol which they worship. And because God is not like to any thing corporeal in heaven or earth; therefore he that maketh an image of any thing in Heaven or earth as like to God, or to represent him, he maketh an idol of God by blasphemy. To what will you liken me, that … should be like unto it, saith the Holy one? This is the idolatry forbidden in the Second Commandment: It is not all false worship, but one sort of false worship, which is idolatry: what else that Commandment forbiddeth, is neither called Idolatry, nor can so be proved.
It is an odious sound, to hear an ignorant, rash, self-conceited person, especially a Preacher, to cry out, Idolatry, Idolatry, against his brethrens prayers to God, because they have something in them to be amended▪ while perhaps his own prayers have so much false doctrine in them, or false fire of carnal passions and uncharitableness, as maketh it a much harder question, whether it be lawful to joyn with such as he is, while he abhorreth so much to joyn with others. All that know me know that it is not my own case and interest, that I fit this reprehension to. It is twenty times harder to me to remember a Form of words, than to express what is in my mind without them. But we must not fit our opinions of all our brethrens prayers, to our own temperament.
DIRECT. XXXIV.
Think not that all is unlawful to be obeyed, which is unlawfully commanded.
MAny a Ruler sinneth in his Commands, when it is no sin but a duty of the inferior to obey them. He that hath but a bad end, or bad circumstances may sin in commanding: As if a Magistrate command Religious Duties in meer Policy for his own Advantage, or if he enforce a lawful Command with unlawful Penalties: And yet it will be the Subjects Duty to obey. Yea, as to the matter it self, it may be unlawful for a Ruler to command a thing that will do no good, (because it is a vain Command, and maketh men spend that time in vain:) and yet it may be the Subjects Duty to do it.
If the Magistrate choose an inconvenient place for publike worship, or an unfit hour, or if the Pastor choose a less fit translation, meeter or tune, or other circumstances of worship, it may be their sin to do so, and yet the peoples duty to obey them. If a Father bid his Child but carry a straw from one place to another, it is his fault so to imploy his time in vain; but the Child is not faulty in obeying. Indeed if the thing commanded be such as is simply evil, and forbidden us by God, in all cases whatsoever, than no ones commands can make it lawful. But if it be a thing that is only inconvenient, or unlawful by some lesser accident, then the command of authority may preponderate as a more weighty accident. If it be lawful to give a Thief my purse, to save my life, which is not lawful for him to demand or take; Then sure it is lawful to obey a King, a Parent, a Master o… a Pastor, in things not evil in themselves, though they unlawfully command them. I say not that we must do so in all things which are evil but by accident: For some accidents may make it so great an evil, as no mans command can preponderate and make it lawful: But in some cases it is so, though not in all.
Therefore remember that you do not prove it sinful in you to do such things, by proving it a sin in the imposer, unless you have some better reason, and can shew a Law of God forbidding you.