The Kingdom of God Among Men, Tract 1 · Chapter 3
CHAP. III.
The due ordering of Gospel Worship.
FOrasmuch as divine Worship, is the first and nearest act of Piety, and aims immediately at the glorifying of Gods name, and the keeping of the soul devoted to him, the due ordering thereof must needs be one of the highest concernments of true religion. Whereupon such an order thereof must needs be most desirable, as hath most tendency to exalt the honour of Gods name, and to advance the souls pure devotion. And doubtless that hath most tendency thereunto, which is most according to the nature and will of God. Notwithstanding the fetches of mens wit in commending their will-worship, God best knows, what service will please him best, and do us most good. It becomes us, neither to contemn Gods authority in the neglect of his institutions, nor to controle his wisdom in the addition of vain inventions. And this will bring us into the way of a reasonable service, most acceptable to God and profitable to our selves.
In the fulness of time our Lord Christ, being to establish a more perfect way, than what had been before, lays this foundation, God is a Spirit and they that worship him, must Worship him in Spirit and truth. Accordingly he antiquated the old legal form, great in outward furniture and visible spendor, but comparatively small in substance and inward power; and instituted an other of a far different strain, wherein the rituals and externals are few and plain, but their substance and inward power is great and mighty. And when he abrogated former things, which for their time had the stamp of divine authority, because they suited not with the Gospel state, and were in a comparative sense called, carnal ordinances that were not good; doubtless it was not his mind and will, that men should erect new frames of their own devising after the similitude of those old things, that are passed away. To worship God in the Spirit after the simplicity that is in Christ, according to the Gospel dispensation, as it is most agreeable to the nature of the divine Majesty, which is Worshipped, and best fitted to glorifie him as God indeed; so it is also most efficacious to make the Worshippers more knowing in religion, more holy and heavenly in Spirit and conversation, and every way more perfect in things pertaining to life and godliness.
Irreverence, rudeness, sordidness, or any kind of negligence in the outward service of God, is not here commended under the simplicity and Spirituality of Gospel worship. Due regard must be had to all those matters of decency, the neglect whereof would render the Service undecent; such as are convenient places of assembling commonly called Churches, comely furniture and convenient utensils therein, a grave habit not of special sanctity, but of civil decency for a Minister, all which should not be vile and beggarly but gracefull and seemly; likewise a well composed countenance and reverent gesture, is requisite in all that present themselves before the Lord. Sitting or lolling or covering the head, or having the hat halfway on in prayer, is among us unseemly, except natural infirmity call for indulgence herein: but laughing, talking, gazing about in our attendance on religious exercises, is no better than profaneness; and to come into the congregation walking with our hats on our heads, is by custom taken for irreverence and incivility, and therefore to be avoided as offensive. All matters of necessary decency, are in their generals of the Law of nature, and in the particulars to be ordered by human prudence.
All natural expressions of devotion, as kneeling, and lifting up of the hands and eyes in prayer, are allowed by all sorts. We call them natural because nature it self teacheth to use them, without any positive institution divine or human; and a rational man by the meer light of nature is directed to use them, yet not without some government and discretion. For herein nature it self is subject to some variety, and is in part determined and limited by the custom of several ages and countries, as for instance, in the prostration of the body in the act of adoration, in the wearing of Sackcloth, and renting of clothes in time of great humiliation, which in former ages were sutable, and that according to nature, but not now adays in regard of the variation of custom. And I suppose that in this sense St. Paul speaks against wearing of long hair as contrary to nature.
But there hath been much controversie about such Ceremonies as contribute nothing to the aforesaid necessary decency, and are no natural nor civil and customary expressions of reverence and devotion, but are of human institution and of a mystical and meerly instituted signification, and made visible stated signs of Gods honour, and the immediate expressions of our observance of him, and obligation to him, and by some supposed to be not meer circumstances, but parts of divine Worship; and yet more especially if they be designed in their use, for that significancy and moral efficacy that belongs to Sacraments, and made no less then the Symbals of our Christianity. It lies not on me to determine on either side in this controversie; nevertheless it is easie to apprehend this, that it can be no danger nor dammage to be sparing in those things, which being at least doubtfull and unnecessary, have turned to endless strife and scandal between those that own the same doctrine of Faith, and the same Church Communion. Likewise it can do no hurt to reformed Christianity, not to insist on that latitude in devised rites of worship, that will acquit the greatest part of the Ceremonies used in the Church of Rome, from the charge of Superstition, and which makes way for the oppressing of the Churches, and the sinking of religion under a luggage of unprofitable institutions.
To make any thing necessary and commanded of God, which he hath not commanded, and to damn any thing as forbidden by him, which he hath left indifferent, and to dread left God should not be pleased, unless we do somethings which we need not do, and lest he should be displeased, when we do somethings not forbidden, is no doubt the crime of Superstition; but it is not the whole extent of that sin. For it is no less Superstition to feign God to be pleased with mens vain inventions, yea though they be not injoyned or observed as divine precepts; and this also is, to teach for Doctrines the commandments of men. And who are the greater controlers of Gods wisdom, and usurpers upon his authority? They that fear to do what God hath allowed, supposing it to be forbidden, or they that presume to add their own inventions for the bettering of his service, and make the omission thereof as criminal, as the neglect of divine ordinances? Doubtless it is a more tolerable Superstition to be over solicitous and scrupulous, about the commandments of God, than to be over-confident and vehement in the unwarrantable or questionable traditions of men.
Human devices multiplyed in Gods worship, ingender to much vanity and superstition in the zealous observers of them, and are apt to extinguish the inward life of Godliness, as rank weeds choak the corn; and they are commonly made a Cloak to real ungodliness. And if some of them were first introduced with pious intention, yet they are commonly maintained and multiplied to serve a carnal Interest. And they are the more easily entertained and observed, because it is easie to the flesh to buy out the inward Service of God and the subjection of the inward man, by superficial bodily exercise. But the depretiating of these devices, serves to pluck off the mask of hypocrisie, made up of meer formalities, and to invigorate the life and spirit of true Religion.
To be the Ministration of the Spirit, is the excelling glory of the Gospel Ministration, wherewith a grave and sober decency and comely ornament doth well accord; but excessive gaudiness, pompous and theatrical shews, various gesticulations, and affected postures, are vanities too much detracting from its dignity and spiritual Majesty.