world who judge a diligent observation of divine institutions to be a thing of any great importance. By some they are neglected; by some corrupted with additions of their own; and by some they are exalted above their proper place and use, and turned into an occasion of neglecting more important duties....Our utmost care and diligence in the consideration of the mind of God, is required in all that we do about his worship. There is nothing wherein men, for the most part, are more careless. Some suppose it belongs unto their own wisdom to order things in the worship of God, as it seems most meet unto them; some think they are no farther concerned in these things, than only to follow the traditions of their fathers. This, unto the community of Christians, is the only rule of divine worship. To suppose that it is their duty to enquire into the way and manner of the worship of God, the grounds and reasons of what they practise therein, is most remote from them....It were no hard thing to demonstrate, that the principal way and means whereby God expects that we should give glory unto him in this world, is by a due observation of the divine worship that he hath appointed. For herein do we in an especial manner, ascribe unto him the glory of his sovereignty, of his wisdom, of his grace, and holiness; when in his worship we bow down to his authority alone; when we see such an impress of divine wisdom on all his institutions, as to judge all other ways folly in comparison of them; when we have experience of the grace represented and exhibited in them, then do we glorify God aright. And without these things, whatever we pretend, we honour him not in the solemnities of our worship." -Turrettinus: "The appointment of God, is the highest law, the supreme necessity."t- -Mr. Archibald Hall: "As we live under the gospel dispen * On Heb. i. 6; ix. 1; viii. 5. + Institut. Theol. loc. xix. quæst. xiv. tom. iii. p. 441. sation, all our worship must be regulated by gospel institution, that it may be performed according to the appointment of Christ, as king of the church." The same author, when speaking of baptism, says: "This ordinance should be observed with an honest simplicity, and kept pure and entire, as Christ hath appointed it. The rule given us in the word of God is our directory, and we do well to take heed to it in this duty, as much as in every other. How grand and awful is that weighty preface to the institution of Christian baptism! (Matt. xxvii. 18, 19.) Who is the daring insolent worm, that will presume to dispute the authority, or change the ordinances of him who is given to be head over all things to the church?....The solemnity of this ordinance is complete, and all the great purposes of its institution are secured by the authority and blessing of Christ, who is a rock, whose work is perfect, and all his commandments are sure. His laws are not subject to any of those imperfections, which are attendants of the best contrived systems among men, and frequently need explanations, amendments, and corrections. It is most dangerous and presumptuous, to add any ceremony, or to join any service, on any pretence, unto heaven's appointment. This is the most criminal rashness; and, if it is not disputing the authority of Christ directly, it is mingling the authority of men with the authority of Him who has a name above every name.... When divine authority is interposed to point out the will of God concerning any service, which is enjoined for standing use among the saints, such a service ought to be observed without any regard to the manners and usages of mankind; because both the substance and the manner of it are the institution of Christ."* Reflect. V. Concerning the circumstances of positive institutions, our Pædobaptist brethren speak as follow. Mr. Vincent Alsop: "Under the Mosaical law * Gospel Worship, vol i. p. 32, 325, 326; vol. ii. p. 434. God commanded that they should offer to him the daily burnt-offering; and, in this case, the colour of the beast (provided it was otherwise rightly qualified) was a mere circumstance: such as God laid no stress upon, and that man had proved himself a superstitious busy-body, that should curiously adhere to any one colour. But, for the heifer whose ashes were to make the water of separation, there the colour was no circumstance, but made by God's command a substantial part of the service. To be red, was as much as to be a heifer: for when circumstances have once passed the royal assent, and are stamped with the divine seal, they be come substantials in instituted worship....We ought not to judge that God has little regard to any of his commands, because the matter of them, abstracted from his authority, is little for we must not conceive that Christ sets little by baptism, because the element is plain, fair water; or little by that other sacrament, because the materials thereof are common bread and wine....For though the things in themselves be small, yet his authority is great....Though the things be small, yet God can bless them to great purposes, (2 Kings v. 11.).... Nor are we to judge that God lays little stress upon his institutes, because he does not immediately avenge the contempt and neglect of them upon the violaters. (Eccles. viii. 11; Matt. v. 29; 1 Cor. xi. 30.)....As we must not think that God appreciates whatever men set a high value upon, so neither are we to judge that he disesteems any thing because it is grown out of fashion, and thereby exposed to contempt by the atheistical wits of mercenary writers.... If any of Christ's institutions seem necessary to be broken, it will be first necessary to decry them as poor, low, inconsiderable circumstances; and then to fill the people's heads with a noise and din, that Christ lays little stress on them; and in order hereto call them the circumstantials, the accidentals, the minutes, the punctilioes, and, if need be, the petty Johns of religion, that conscience may not kick at the contemning of them....It would be injurious to conclude that God has very little respect to his own institutions, because he may suspend their exercise pro hic & nunc, rather than the duties imperated by a moral precept, Mint, anise, and cummin, are inconsiderable things, compared with the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith; and yet our Saviour tells them, (Matt. xxiii. 23,) 'These ought ye to have done, and not to have left the other undone'. ...God is the sovereign and absolute legislator, who may suspend, rescind, alter his own laws at pleasure; and yet he has laid such a stress upon the meanest of them, that no man may, nor any man, but the man of sin, dares presume to dispense with them, much less to dispense against them....Positives may be altered, changed, or abolished, by the legislator, when and how far he pleases; but this will never prove that he lays little stress upon them whilst they are not changed, not abolished: nor will it prove that man may chop and change, barter and truck one of God's least circumstantials, because the Lawgiver himself may do it. He that may alter one, may, for aught I know, alter them all, seeing they all bear the same image and supercription of divine authority....If God was so rigorous in his animadversions, so punctual in his prescriptions, when his institutions were so numerous, his prescriptions so multiform; what will he be when he has prescribed us so few, and those so easy and useful to the observer? If we cannot be punctual in the observation of a very few positives of so plain signification, how should we have repined had we been charged with a numerous retinue of types and carnal rudiments! If Christ's yoke be accounted heavy, how should we have sunk under the Mosaical pædagogy !"* Mr. Payne: "It is from the institution of the sacra* Sober Enquiry, p. 289–304. ment [of the Lord's supper,] that we know what belongs. to the substance of it, and is essential to it, and what is only circumstantial and accidental. I own, there were several things, even at the institution of it by Christ, which were only circumstantials; as, the place, the time when, the number of persons to whom, the posture in which he gave it; for all these are plainly, and in their own nature, circumstantial matters; so that nobody can think it necessary or essential to the sacrament, that it be celebrated in an upper room, at night after supper, only with twelve persons, and those sitting or lying upon beds, as the Jews used to do at meals; for the same thing which Christ bids them to do, may be done, the same sacramental action performed in another place, at another time, with fewer or more persons, and those otherwise postured or situated; but it cannot be the same sacrament or same action, if bread be not blessed and eaten, if wine be not blessed and drunken, as they were both then blessed by Christ, and eaten and drunk by his apostles. The doing of these is not a circumstance, but the very thing itself, and the very substance and essence of the sacrament; for without these we do not what Christ did; whereas we may do the very same thing which he did, without any of those circumstances with which he did it . The command of Christ, Do this, does not in the least extend to these [circumstances,] but only to the sacramental action of blessing bread and eating it; blessing wine and drinking it, in remembrance of Christ: for that was the thing which Christ did, and which he commanded them to do....He that does not plainly see those to be circumstances [before mentioned,] and cannot easily distinguish them from the thing itself which Christ did, and commanded to be done, must not know what it is to eat and drink, unless it be with his own family, in such a room of his own house, and at such an hour of the day it is certainly as easy to know what |