that God must be worshipped; yet that cannot tell us how God will be worshipped. Natural reason can tell us what is our obligation, because it can discourse of our nature and production, our relation and minority; but natural reason cannot tell us by what instances God will be pleased with us, or prevailed with to do us new benefits; because no natural reason can inform us of the will of God, till himself hath declared that will. Natural reason tells us we are to obey God; but natural reason cannot tell us in what positive commandments God will be obeyed, till he declares what he will command us to do and observe. So though by nature we are taught, that we must worship God; yet by what significations of duty, and by what actions of religion this is to be done, depends upon such a cause as nothing but itself can manifest and publish. 29. And this is apparent in the religion of the old world, the religion of sacrifices and consumptive oblations; which it is certain themselves did not choose by natural reason, but they were taught and enjoined by God: for that it is no part of a natural religion to kill beasts, and offer to God wine and fat, is evident by the nature of the things themselves, the cause of their institution, and the matter of fact, that is, the evidence that they came in by positive constitution. For 'blood' was anciently the 'sanction' of laws and covenants, 'Sanctio à sanguine' say the grammarians; because the sanction of establishment of laws was it which bound the life of man to the law, and therefore when the law was broken, the life or the blood was forfeited; but then as in covenants, in which sometimes the wilder people did drink blood, the gentler and more civil did drink wine, the blood of the grape; so in the forfeiture of laws they also gave the blood of beasts in exchange for their own. Now that this was less than what was due is certain, and therefore it must suppose remission and grace, a favourable and a gracious acceptation; which because it is voluntary and arbitrary in God, less than his due, and more than our merit, no natural reason can teach us to appease God with sacrifices. It is indeed agreeable to reason that blood should be poured forth, when the life is to be paid, because the blood is the life; but that one life should redeem another, that the blood of a beast should be taken in exchange for the life of a man, that no reason naturally can teach us. "Ego vero destinavi cum vobis in altari ad expiationem faciendam pro animis vestris : nam sanguis est, qui pro anima expiationem facit," said God by Moses : "The life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul." According to which are those words of St. Paul, "Without shedding of blood there is no remission;" meaning, that in the law, all expiation of sins was by sacrifices, to which Christ by the sacrifice of himself put a period. But all this religion of sacrifices, was, I say, by God's appointment; "Ego vero destinavi," so said God; "I have designed or decreed it :" but that this was no part of a law of nature, or of prime essential reason, appears in this, 1. Because God confined it among the Jews to the family of Aaron, and that only in the land of their own inheritance, the land of promise; which could no more be done in a natural religion than the sun can be confined to a village-chapel. 2. Because God did express oftentimes that he took no delight in sacrifices of beasts; as appears in Psalm xl. 1. li. and Isa. i. Jer. vii. Hosea, vi. Micah, vi.-3. Because he tells us, in opposition to sacrifices and external rites, what that is which is the natural and essential religion in which he does delight; the "sacrifice of prayer and thanksgiving, a broken and a contrite heart;" that we should walk in the way he hath appointed;' that we should do justice and judgment, and walk humbly with our God:'he desires mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings.' 4. Because Gabriel the archangel foretold that the Messias should make the daily sacrifice to cease. 5. Because for above sixteen hundred years God hath suffered that nation, to whom he gave the law of sacrifices, to be without temple, or priest, or altar, and therefore without sacrifice. 30. But then if we inquire why God gave the law of sacrifices, and was so long pleased with it; the reasons are evident and confessed. 1. Sacrifices were types of that great oblation which was made upon the altar of the cross. 2. It was an expiation which was next in kind to the real forfeiture of our own lives: it was blood for blood, a life for life, a less for a greater; it was that which might make us confess God's severity against sin, though not feel it; it was • Dan. ix. enough to make us hate the sin, but not to sink under it; it was sufficient for a fine, but so as to preserve the stake; it was a manuduction to the great sacrifice, but suppletory of the great loss and forfeiture; it was enough to glorify God, and by it to save ourselves; it was insufficient in itself, but accepted in the great sacrifice; it was enough in shadow, when the substance was so certainly to succeed. 3. It was given the Jews ὅπως πιεζόμενοι, καὶ ὑπὸ κλοιοῦ ἀγχόμενοι, τῆς πολυθέου πλάνης ἐκστῶσι, as the author of the Apostolical Constitution affirms, that " being laden with the expense of sacrifices to one God, they might not be greedy upon the same terms to run after many:" and therefore the same author affirms," before their golden calf, and other idolatries, sacrifices were not commanded to the Jews, but persuaded only;" recommended, and left unto their liberty. By which we are at last brought to this truth; that it was taught by God to Adam, and by him taught to his posterity, that they should in their several manners worship God by giving to him something of all that he had given us; and therefore something of our time, and something of our goods: and as that was to be spent in praises and celebration of his name, so these were to be given in consumptive offerings; but the manner and the measure were left to choice, and taught by superadded reasons and positive laws: and in this sense are those words to be understood, which above I cited out of Justin Martyr and St. Chrysostom. To this purpose Aquinas cites the gloss upon the second of the Colossians, saying, "Ante tempus legis justos per interiorem instinctum instructos fuisse de modo colendi Deum, quos alii sequebantur; postmodum vero exterioribus præceptis circa hoc homines fuisse instructos, quæ præterire pestiferum est:" "Before the law, the righteous had a certain instinct by which they were taught how to worship God, to wit, in the actions of internal religion; but afterward they were instructed by outward precepts." That is, the natural religion consisting in prayers and praises, in submitting our understandings and subjecting our wills, in these things the wise patriarchs were instructed by right reason and the natural duty of men to God: but as for all external religions, in these things they had a teacher and a guide; of these things they were to do nothing of their own S heads. In whatsoever is from within, there can be no willworship, for all that the soul can do, is God's right; and no act of faith or hope in God, no charity, no degree of charity, or confidence, or desire to please him, can be superstitious. But because in outward actions there may be indecent expressions or unapt ministries, or instances not relative to a law of God or a counsel evangelical, there may be irregularity and obliquity, or direct excess, or imprudent expressions, therefore they needed masters and teachers, but their great teacher was God. "Deum docuisse Adam cultum divinum, quo ejus benevolentiam recuperaret, quam per peccatum transgressionis amiserat; ipsumque docuisse filios suos dare Deo decimas et primitias," said Hugo de S. Victore: "God taught Adam how to worship him, and by what means to recover his favour, from which he by transgression fell:" the same is affirmed by St. Athanasius', but that which he adds, that "Adam taught his children to give firstfruits and tenths," I know not upon what authority he affirms it. Indeed Josephus seems to say something against it; 'O tò δὲ ταύτῃ μᾶλλον ἥδεται τῇ θυσίᾳ τοῖς αὐτομάτοις καὶ κατὰ φύγεγόσιν τιμώμενος, ἀλλ ̓ οὐ τοῖς κατ ̓ ἐπίνοιαν ἀνθρώπου πλεονέκτου κατὰ βίαν πεφυκόσι, “ God is not pleased so much in oblation of such things which the greediness and violence of man forces from the earth, such as are corn and fruits; but is more pleased with that which comes of itself naturally and easily, such as are cattle and sheep." And therefore he supposes God rejected Cain and accepted Abel, because Cain brought fruits which were procured by labour and tillage; but Abel offered sheep, which came by the easy methods and pleasing ministries of nature. It is certain Josephus said not true, and had no warrant for his affirmative: but that which his discourse does morally intimate, is very right,—that the things of man's invention please not God; but that which comes from him, we must give him again, and serve him by what he hath given us, and our religion must be of such things as come to us from God: it must be obedience or compliance; it must be something of mere love, or something of love mingled with obedience: it is certain it was so in the instance of Abel. σιν In Epist. de Perfidia Eusebii; et libro super illad, Omnia mihi tradita sunt. 31. And this appears in those words of St. Paul', "By faith Abel offered sacrifice:" it was not therefore done by choice of his own head; but by the obedience of faith,' which supposes revelation and the command or declaration of the will of God. And, concerning this, in the traditions and writings of the easterlings, we find this story: "In the beginning of mankind, when Eve, for the peopling of the world, was by God so blessed in the production of children, that she always had twins before the birth of Seth, and the twins were ever male and female, that they might interchangeably marry, 'ne gens sit unius ætatis populus virorum,' 'lest mankind should expire in one generation;' Adam being taught by God did not allow the twins to marry, οὓς ἡ μὲν φύσις ἅμα τῇ γενέσει διήρτησε καὶ διέζευξε, “whom nature herself by their divided birth had separated and divided ;' but appointed that Cain should marry the twin-sister of Abel, and Abel should marry Azron the twin-sister of Cain: but Cain thought his own twin-sister the more beautiful, and resolved to marry her. Adam therefore wished them to inquire of God by sacrifice; which they did: and because Cain's sacrifice was rejected, and his hopes made void, and his desire not consented to, he killed his brother Abel; whose twin-sister after fell to the portion of Seth, who had none of his own."-Upon this occasion sacrifices were first offered. Now whether God taught the religion of it first to Adam, or immediately to Cain and Abel, yet it is certain from the Apostle (upon whom we may rely, though upon the tradition of the easterlings we may not) that Abel did his religion from the principle of faith; and therefore that manner of worshipping God did not consist only in manners, but in supernatural mystery; that is, all external forms of worshipping are no parts of moral duty, but depend upon divine institution and divine acceptance and although any external rite that is founded upon a natural rule of virtue, may be accepted into religion, when that virtue is a law; yet nothing must be presented to God but what himself hath chosen some way or other. "Superstitio est quando traditioni humanæ religionis nomen applicatur," said the gloss: "When any tradition or invention of man is called religion, the proper name of it is superstition;" that is, when any thing is brought into religion and |