PROPOSITION XI.
Concerning Worship.
What the true Worship is, that is acceptable to God.All true and acceptable Worship to God is offered in the inward and immediate Moving and Drawing of his own Spirit, which is neither limited to Places, Times, nor Persons. For though we are to worship him always, and continually to fear before him; How to be performed.yet as to the outward Signification thereof, in Prayers, Praises, or Preachings, we ought not to do it in our own Will, where and when we will; but where and when we are moved thereunto by the Stirring and secret Inspiration of the Spirit of God in our Hearts; which God heareth and accepteth of, and is never wanting to move as thereunto, when Need is; of which he himself is the alone proper Judge. All other Worship then, both Praises, Prayers or Preachings, which Man sets about in his own Will, and at his own Appointment, which he can both begin and end at his Pleasure, do or leave undone as himself seeth meet, whether they be a prescribed Form, as a Liturgy, &c. or Prayers conceived extempore by the natural Strength and Faculty of the Mind, they are all but Superstition, Will-worship, and abominable Idolatry in the Sight of God, which are now to be denied and rejected, and separated from, in this Day of his spiritual Arising: Superstition and Will-worship, Idolatry.However it might have pleased him (who winked at the Times of Ignorance, with a Respect to the Simplicity and Integrity of some, and of his own innocent Seed, which lay as it were buried in the Hearts of Men under that Mass of Superstition) to blow upon the dead and dry Bones, and to raise some Breathings of his own, and answer them; and that until the Day should more clearly dawn and break forth.
§. I.
§. II.
§. III.
1. Will-worship doth limit the Spirit of God.But the Limitation we condemn is, that whereas the Spirit of God should be the immediate Actor, Mover, Persuader and Influencer of Man in the particular Acts of Worship, when the Saints are met together, this Spirit is limited in its Operations, by setting up a particular Man or Men to preach and pray in Man’s Will; and all the rest are excluded from so much as believing that they are to wait for God’s Spirit to move them in such Things: And so they neglecting that in themselves which should quicken them, and not waiting to feel the pure Breathings of God’s Spirit, so as to obey them, are led merely to depend upon the Preacher, and hear what he will say.
2. True Teaching of the Word of God.Secondly, In that these peculiar Men come not thither to meet with the Lord, and to wait for the inward Motions and Operations of his Spirit; and so to pray as they feel the Spirit to breathe through them, and in them; and to preach, as they find themselves actuated and moved by God’s Spirit, and as he gives Utterance, so as to speak a Word in Season to refresh weary Souls, and as the present Condition and State of the People’s Hearts require; suffering God by his Spirit both to prepare People’s Hearts, and also give the Preacher to speak what may be fit and seasonable for them: But he (viz. the Preacher) hath hammered together in his Closet, according to his own Will, by his human Wisdom and Literature, and by stealing the Words of Truth from the Letter of the Scriptures, and patching together other Men’s Writings and Observations, so much as will hold him speaking an Hour, while the Glass runs; Priests preach by Hap-hazard their studied Sermons.and without waiting or feeling the inward Influence of the Spirit of God, he declaims that by Hap-hazard, whether it be fit or seasonable for the People’s Condition, or not; and when he has ended his Sermon, he saith his Prayer also in his own Will; and so there is an End of the Business. Which customary Worship, as it is no Ways acceptable to God, so how unfruitful it is, and unprofitable to those that are found in it, the present Condition of the Nations doth sufficiently declare. It appears then, that we are not against set Times for Worship, as Arnoldus against this Proposition, Sect. 45. no less impertinently allegeth; offering needlesly to prove that which is not denied: Only these Times being appointed for outward Conveniency, we may not therefore think with the Papists, that these Days are holy, and lead People into a superstitious Observation of them; being persuaded that all Days are alike holy in the Sight of God. Whether Days are holy.And although it be not my present Purpose to make a long Digression concerning the Debates among Protestants about the first Day of the Week, commonly called the Lord’s Day, yet forasmuch as it comes fitly in here, I shall briefly signify our Sense thereof.