A Defense of the Principles of Love, Part 2 · Exception 1
EXCEPT. I.
Page 1. T…e whole d…s…n of this Book being … 1 Untruth.make such as at this day are carefull to k… themselves Pure from al… defilements in False worship. Odi…us, it may well be affirmed i… was neither seasonable n…r h…nest—
Answ. THat's the fundamental Untruth which animateth all the r… when … had got a false apprehension of the design of the Book, you seem to expound the particular passages by that Key. That which you call, The whole design, is not any part of the design, but is expresly and vehemently oft disclaimed and protested against in the Book. And whoever readeth it without a Partial mind, will presently s… that the whole design of the Book is to deliver weak Christians from such mistakes and sins, as destroy their Love to other Christians, and cause the divisions among the Churches.
2. False worship is a word of various sens…:False Worship, what: seven senses of that word. Either it signifieth, 1. Idolatry, in worshipping a false God. 2. Or the Idolatrous worshipping of Images, as representations of the true God. 3. Or worshipping God by Doctrines and Prayers that consist o… falshoods. 4. Or devising Worship-Ordinances, and falsly saying they are the Ordinances of God. 5. Or making God a Worship which he forbiddeth, in the sub…an…e, and will not accept. 6. Or worshipping God in an inward sinful manner, through false principles and ends as hypocrites do. 7. Or in a sinful outward manner, through disorder, defectiveness, and unhandsome or unfit expre…ions.
O… these, I suppose you will not charge the Churches you separate from, as guilty of the first, second, fourth, or sixth, ▪which is out of the reach of humane judgment▪ For I suppose you to be sober. As for the third, through Gods great merciemercy, the Doctrine of England is so …ound, that the Independants and Presbyterians have still offered to subscribe to it in the 39 Articles: according to which (if there were any doubtfulness in) the phrases of their Prayers, ▪they▪ are to be interpreted. For the fifth, if you accuse them of it, you must prove it; which is not yet done (supposing that you take not Government for Worship…; nor can you do it. So that it must lie only on the seventh. And for that (if you will take the word ▪false-worship] in that sense) do not you also worship God falsly when you worship him sinfully? And are not your disorders and unmeet expressions sins, as well as theirs? Alas, how oft have I joyned in Prayer with honest men that have spoken confusedly, unhandsomly, and many waies more unaptly and disorderly than the Common Prayer is? How oft have I heard good old Mr. Simeon Ash say, that he hath heard many Ministers pray so unfitly, that he could heartily have wished that they had rather used the Common Prayer? When did any one of us pray without sin? How ordinarily do Anabaptists, Antinomians, Arminians, Separatists, &c. put their Opinions into their Prayers, and so make them false Prayers, and so false Worship? Nay, could you lay by partiality, and kn…w your self (a very hard thing) you would presently see that you who wrote these Exceptions, are liker to Worship God falsly than they that do it by the Liturgie, that is, in the third sense: Because the Doctrine of the Prayers in the Liturgie is sound▪ but if you account this Script of yours to be Worship (and why not writing as well as preaching) or if you put the same things into your Worship, which you put into your writings, (as is very usual with others) then it is false Worship indeed, as consisting of too many falshoods. If you pray to God to encline men against all that Communion which you write against, or lament such Communion as a sin, this is falser worship than any is in the Liturgick Prayers. And if you will call all those modes of worship false, which God in Scripture hath not commanded, what a false worshipper are you, that use a translation of Scripture, a Version and tunes of Psalms, a dividing the Scripture into Chapters and Verses, yea the Method and words of every Sermon and Prayer, or most, and abundance such like which God commanded not? God never bid you use the words of Prayer in the Liturgie; Nor did he ever bid you use those which you used last without it.
O Brother, if you knew your self, and judged impartially, you would see, that whatever you say against mens communicating with other mens tolerable failings, as false worship, may be as stronglie urged for avoiding communion in disordered prayers that are without book▪ and much more in the prayers of honest erroneous Separatists, Anabaptists, Antinomians, &c. which yet for my part I will not so easily avoid. I confess if my judgment were not more than yours against dividing from each other in the general, I should be one that should be as forward to disclaim Communion with many zealous Parties (now received by you) and that as false worshippers, as you are to disclaim Communion with others. I am sure you worship God falsly, that is, sinfully, every time that you worship him.
3. But, seeing my Book disswadeth you equally from unjust avoiding Communion with all sound and sober Christians; I ask you, whether all these several parties are false worshippers, save you alone? Did not the Presbyterians and Independants agree in worship, when you gathered Churches out of their Churches, and when thousands separated from all the Parish Churches almost then existent? Indeed the Anabaptists charged us also with false worship, but it was not truly. But the ordinary Divider… had not that pretense.
4. O how easie a thing is it, Brother, for a man, without any supernatural Grace, to reproach another mans Words in Worship, and then to abhor it and avoid it, and think▪ I am one that keep my self Pure from false Worship! But to keep our selves pure from pride, censoriousness, uncharitableness, contention, evil speaking, and sensual vices, is a harder work. Others can as easily (without mortification or humilitie) keep themselves pure from your false worship as you can do from theirs.