that is thus evil or idolatrous especially if it be thus in the judgement of your Consciences cannot be excused from being a great sin against God That a Conjunction in an evil meanes of worship especially against Conscience is an eminent crime in those that are ingaged to the Confession of Jesus Me thinks I should not need to adde more in proof considering what hath been already premised But be sure of this that as the vitiating of the Substantials of worship is a far greater sin than is the vitiating of one or more Circumstantials So you greaten your sin by a countenance of and concurrence to an evil means more than to an evil mode of worship Oh! how jealous is our holy God of his holy Worship that doth strictly inhibit any action towards approbation or appearance of any false or evil means of worship Exodus 34.13,14 1 Corinthians 10.20,21,22 You countenance a sin negatively when you do not according to your place discountenance it when you do not what in you lies regularly to reprove and reform it 1 Sam. 3.13 Ezekiel 33.6.8 1 Cor. 5.1,2 c. Doth your company give check hereto What do you to discourage it Will your recourse thereto think you restrain others or rebuâ—e it Let Conscience speak and be heard in it You countenance a sin positively not onely when you devise or put it on when you defend or plead for it when you delight or have pleasure in it But when you do that which in reason subserves to the protecting of it or hath a real open appearance of compliance to it Which is a countenance by example and this is an effectual exhortation Thus the Apostle condemns their communication in the meats offered to idols in the idols Temples as that which not onely stumbled the infirm but strengthned the Idolaters and had the semblance of an idolatrous compliance 1 Cor. 8.7.10 10.20 c And if Christians might not sit at meat in the idols Temple much less might they be seen there at their idolatrous transactions unless for reproof of such idolatry Remember the Command in such a Case You may not pollute your selves or Gods holy name and service You must keep your selves pure and not walk in the Statutes of your fathers nor observe their judgements nor defile your selves with their idols You must not onely keep your selves from idols but must flee from idolatry and not so much as furnish what may any way minister to it but take good heed to your selves lest ye corrupt your selves and that your hearts be not deceived And whether this be to flee from idolatry to fall in with an idolatrous service or to take heed of temptations thereunto when you throw your selves upon them and even tempt the tempter Judge ye 1 Joh. 5.21 1 Cor. 10.7 Isa 65 11. Deut 4.15,16 11.16 Ezek. 18,19 to 39. Before I conclude what concerns this Question give me leave to offer these four things to your Consideration 1. Though it should be allowed you that the external modes of some parts of Divine worship are left free and undetermined of God which yet cannot be said of all nor must be acknowledged as to any in an universal latitude God having limited us so far at least that it be not vain ignorant profane irreverent Exod 20.7 Yet all the external means of worship are plainly enough limited and determined by the revealed will of God who is the onely object and original of divine worship So that neither you nor any may take from or add unto them nor turn aside either to the right or left hand from them Deut 4.2 5.32,33 12.32 Josh 1.7 This is the substance of the Second Commandment 2. The Second Commandment which concerns instituted worship is of all the Commandments most strongly fortified against humane inventions and innovations that they break not in upon it and is most severely fenced by divine jealousie and indignation which burns very hot against the breakers of it Exod. 20.4,5,6 and is not quenched but upon an holy reformation and regulation by it Ezek. 16.26,27 Deut. 32.18,19,20 Hos 2.2,3,4 1 Cor. 10.22 3. God expects your strictest care and caution as concerns his visible worship that you seek him not after your own hearts or your own eyes by mingling your own sinful imaginations and that you do not serve him after the Doctrines and Commandments of men by making use of their sinful inventions and traditions Numb 15.39 Jer. 3.17 Psal 106.39 Col. 2.18.20 to 23. Let me add 4. That he will not endure your correspondence with the sin of others in corrupting his worship either by walking in their courses or obeying their commands or embracing their counsels herein or by any undue connivance at or toleration of these Corruptions against the duties of your places and callings Mic 6 16. Hos 5.11 Dan 3.18 Deut. 13.6,7,8 Rev. 2.14,15,20 Quest May we not be lawfully present at an evil and idolatrous Worship without such witnessing against it when the Civil Magistrate commands our religious attendance upon it Answ First Though Christianity bindes us to the best obedience unto the Civil Magistrates whether supreme or subordinate and that upon the best account for Conscience sake towards God and because they bear the impression of his authority as well as of his allowance and are ministers of his for our good Rom. 13 1-8 1 Pet. 2.13 to 18 Yet as they hold their Authority and Sovereignty under him for his glory and our good So the active subjection we owe to them is in and under him to whom they and we are subordinated and subjected They in requiring obedience from us and we in rendring obedience to them So that their acts of Superiority must not interfere either with piety justice or charity and our acts of subjection must not impugn either godliness or honesty Psa 82. throughout 1 Pet. 2 13,14 2 Sam. 23.3 1 Tim. 2.2 Though God hath vested the Christian Magistrates as he did the Jewish with a care and charge in and about his worship that it be duly administred and attended and that all abuses in and corruptions of it may be either prevented or reformed Yet may they not either add to abstract from or alter in any essential or integral part of his Worship but are as well limited by the Word of God herein in point of Government on their part as their Subjects are in point of Obedience on their part and may no more turn aside from the Commandment either to the right hand or to the left than may the meanest of their Vassals or Subjects Deuteron 17.18,19,20 Answ Second As the Civil Magistrates then may not without great sin abuse their Authority committed to them of God for corrupting his Worship or commanding their Subjects to wait upon it so intrinsecally corrupted as being that which neither consists with their intrustments as Ministers of God or with their engagements or the ends of Magistracy for Gods glory and the peoples good
1 Kings 16.25,26.30 c. 2 Kings 17.21,22 So the Civil Magistrates authority puts no obligation upon their subjects to obey these sinful commands or observe these sinful corruptions of or in the Worship of God In that 1 This act of attendance hereupon is sinful as hath been proved and no Law doth or can induce an obligation to that which is sinful and unlawful Nor can it indeed be called a Law in such a Case unless equivocally and in improper speech 2 In that their authority being subordinate is precluded in this by a superior authority of God himself Gods command bindes us from this attendance and therefore mans command cannot binde us to it Gods command doth induce the first and supreme obligation and cannot therefore be superseded by the command of man which at most infers but a secondary and subordinate obligation In short He that will say mens law binds him to that worship which Gods law binds him from doth therein subordinate God to men and at once blasphemously dethrones him and deifies them Answ Third Hence as the Civil Magistrates contract guilt to themselves by commanding an evil worship so their commands thereof are too narrow a Covering for mens evil in closing with or conforming to it It will be no Apologie at Gods Barre our Magistrates bid us to attend it when we hereby break the Law of God who is higher than the highest to bend our selves to the lusts of man whose breath is in his nostrils and do provoke Heaven to please a worm on earth Israel sinned a great sin in conforming to the idolatrous worship of Jeroboam and suffered therefore the greatest of sufferings in being removed out of Gods sight because they willingly followed the Commandment Hosea 5.11,12 2 Kings 17.21,22,23 Let them instance not onely the Samplar of the lives but the Statute Lawes of their Governors upon this Case in the sixth chapter of Micah Yet God is so far from accepting this Plea that he aggravateth their provocation by it In that the Statutes of Omri are kept and all the works of the house of Ahab and ye walk in their counsels that I should make thee a desolation c. Verse 15 16. Doth the supreme Magistrate command those Three Worthies Daniel 3. to the worship of the Idol which he had erected They yet choose rather to burn than bow And commiting their concerns into the hands of God with an holy courage and humble confidence they stick not to tell him to the very face Be it known unto thee O King we will not serve thy Gods nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up Daniel 3.11 to 25. Again as humane Laws will not warrant our observance of a false worship So nor our omission of the true Worship which God hath instituted For then mans Law may loosen us from Gods and the inferior power disoblige us from the Superior Is Daniel precluded prayer to God by a politick Statute He will not obey that Law nor omit his work but opens his window toward Hierusalem though the Den of Lyons be the issue of his devotions to the Lord Dan. 6 10 c. Are Peter John and the other Apostles prohibited preaching They dare not break the command of God for preaching by obeying the command of man in forbearing to preach and press it home upon the consciences of their adversaries Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God judge ye Acts 4.19 5.29 Quest What if our hearts mean time abide with God and adhere firmly to his true worship may we not then bodily attend such an evil and idolatrous worship Answ 1 This is a rotten covert As if the Soul could be wholly distant from while your Bodies are delivered up unto such an evil and idolatrous worship Hath not your understanding the direction of and your will the dominion in and over all bodily actions If these had not pre-assented and consented how came you thither You came thither you were not carried thither 2 'T is against a ruled Case The Apostle argues the Case with h s Corinthians whether they might set at meat in the idols temple and there eat of the meats offered to the idols their hearts abiding firm with God and they not applying themselves to the worship of those idols The Apostle resolves it in the negative And 1. he chides them for it as an act inconsistent either with charity to souls whom they did hereby imbolden to sin 1 Cor. 8.10 or with communion with our Savior whom they did hereby incense to jealousie 1 Cor. 10.20,21,22 2. He calls them from it by many cogent and pressing Arguments 2 Corin. 6.14 ad finem 3. This is a robbing of Christ While you reserve onely your souls for our Savior and render over your bodies to an idol-service Whereas your bodies as well as your souls are his both by right of purchase on his part and by a proper act of self-resignation on your part if you are indeed Christians 1 Cor. 6 19,20 Rom. 12.1 If you plead Naamans example 2 Kings 5 18. you must put into the consideration therewith that the words will as well bear another translation which refers to the time past and they are so rendred in other Scriptures as is instanced by our English Annotators Thus In this thing the Lord pardon thy servant that when my Master went Psal 51 52. 54. in the title into the house of Rimmon to worship there and he leaned 2 Sam 1.6 on my hand and I bowed down or worshipped Exod. 33 10. in the house of Rimmon when I bowed down or worshipped in the house of Rimmon the Lord pardon thy servant in this thing If we thus render the words they afford not the least pretence for this practice but an argument rather is prompted against it Naaman imploring pardon for his past idolatry if you follow the present Translation Yet 1 it cannot be conceived that he did fully and deliberately intend a compliance to or conjunction in this idol-service he having in the words immediately preceding assured the Prophet that he would henceforth offer neither burnt-offering nor sacrifice unto other Gods but unto the LORD ver 17. Besides in the words immediately subjoyned he hath this happy dismission from the Prophet Go in peace ver 19. who cannot be interpreted to seal such a foul intention with so fair a valediction I know some who adhere to this Translation of the words apprehend that the words import no more than the intending of homage and observance to his Master not to the Idol But this I forbear and shall further adde no more but this 2. That if in compliance to this Translation his words should be extended to a conclusive purpose and resolution of being present at the adoration of this idol yet you cannot vindicate it being thus understood from being a very great sin For you may observe he begs pardon for it at least twice