^ In this commanr] the question is answered, which hath so disquieted tlie church in all ages, sc. Who shall prescribe the form of God's worship, sliall angels? shall men' shall the church? shall councils? The answer is, that when we have chosen Jehovah for our God, and rejected all false gods, according to his first law, lest our minds should invent him any service, he hath here prescribed laws
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are here, by a synecdoche, put for all false ways of worshipping God, as tlie best expositors tell us*. This inventing or making to our- selves, is that which makes it idolatry, Amos v. 26. Numb. xv. t59- Hence the molten calf became an idol to the Israelites, not because it was the object of tlieir worship ; for it is plain, it was Je- hovah, tlie true God, they intended to worship by it; appears from Exod. xxxii. 4, 5. " To-morrow is a feast to the Lord." And, as Dr. Willet observes, it had been impossible, that so good a man as Aaron, would have yielded to them, if they had intended to worship it as a god : But yet it being a way or manner of wor- shipping tlie true God, which was of their own devising, it became idolatry. And this worship of God, in ways of our own invention becomes idolatrous upon a double ground : (1.) As it is will wor- ship ; i. e. such worship as hath no other ground or warrant but the will of man -f-. Col. ii. 23. and so dethrones God, by setting up the will of the creature above his, and bestowing the peculiar honour, and inconmiunicable sovereignty and glory of the blessed God upon the creatures ; for the absolute sovereignty of God, which is his glory, 1 Tim. vi. 15. is manifested in two things es- pecially ; in his decrees, Rom. ix. 20. and in his laws, Isa. xxxiii. 22. James iv. 12. The Lord is our King, and Lawgiver; and there is one Lawgiver. Now, by prescribing any thing by ouir own authority in the worship of God, the commands of God are made void, Mat. xv. 6. his royal law is slighted, the throne of God invaded by the creatures, wiio will be a lawgiver too, which can no more be borne, than the heavens can bear two suns ; and God is hereby forgotten, as Hos. viii. 14. " Israel hath forgotten " his Maker, and build ed temples ;" i. e. by building [feinples] when God had appointed but one temple. This is, as Melanctoii observes. Cum Deo certare, all'md instituendo : To strive with God, by instituting something of our own. And Chrysostome notes, Horn. ii. in Rom. That it is a greater sin, in God's worship, to do what we should not, than to omit what we should : For (saith he) b?/ the one wg shew the difficidty of' the law ; hut by the other, we charge the lazo and lawgiver icith Jolly ; malce ourselves iviRer than God : in the one we shew our weakness, in not doing the will of' God ; but in the
himself for his own most divine and spiritual service. Ilollajid's Jourfold slate of man, pog. (mil)i) 51.
* St'c Ames. Medulla, lib. 2. p. 354. Plolland on the second command. Willet, Hexapla in loc.
f (It is true) that Cod loves indeed a willing worshipper, that is, one who cheerfully and willingly does whatever God has commanded him to do; but it is as true on the other hand, that he hates will-worship, that is, those services that are performed to him for immediate worship, when as they were not prescribed and commanded by him for that end ; because this, as it is expressed Psal. cvi. 59. " is to go a whoring with their own inventions." Davenant on the place.
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other ^ our impudence to control Jlie misdom of God. And it is, as Lactantius phrases it, lib. 3. cap. 13. Summamarj'ogantiam^sibi vin- dicxire quod Jminajia conditw non recipH : The highest arrogance, to challenge that to ourselves, which the condition of a creature is not capable of. And upon this account it is, that the indignation and wrath of God smoke so dreadfully against such usurpers, as in the sad story of Nadab and Abihu, you see, because God is a jealous God ; and jealousy is the rage of a man. Zelotes est, nolens habere consortium in amando, can endure no rival. This God looks upon as the greatest and most daring wickedness that a creature can lighily ccnnnit, Hos. ix. 15. All their wickedness is in Gilgal; \}n^ pro siimmo'] \. e. the height of their wickedness is there, be- cause there they Avorshipped him according to their own devices ; which was such an affront to the wisdom and sovereignty of God, that he could by no means bear it. This is called, a setting our threshold besides the Lord's threshold, Ezek. xhii. 8. and the nearer this comes to him, the more it provokes him. Therefore it is said in the same text, " There was a wall betwixt me and them ;'"* i. e. either it caused a wall of separation betwixt me and them, as it is generally expounded ; or else it notes, how God is provoked, by bringing their own inventions so near him : For in the Hebrew it is, ^* There was but a wall betwixt me and them." And hence it is evident that doctrinal, symbolical ceremonies, I mean such rites and ceremonies as are brought into the worship of God, with a spiritual signification, merely upon the authority of man, are idolatrous mixtures and additions, and such by which the Lord is dreadfully provoked. It is true, men pretend order and decency, and the power of the church in such cases : but, as learned Amesius ^vell notes *, '• Those things which j^ertain to order and decency, " are not so left to the will of man, tl^at they may, under that '^ name, obtrude what tliey please upon the churches." All the hberty that scripture, 1 Cor. xv. 46. gives us, is but this, to ob- serve and perform those things which God hath instituted, in an orderly and comely manner ; and not to innovate new thiwgs, what, and as many as we please. And then, (2.) It becomes idolatrous upon this ground also, because this daring impudence of men, in worshipping God in their own way, argues gross and carnal notions and conceptions of God. When we devise a carnal, pompous way of worship for him, it is an argument we have set up an idol god first in our imaginations, one hke ourselves, and utterly unlike the true God ; who is a most simple, pure, spiritual Being ; and, as such, will be worshipped, John iv. 24. But by devising
* Ilia igitur qncB perfhient ad ordinem ^ decorem, non ita relinqunnter hominum arMtrio^ %U possifU quod ipsis libel, sub illo nomine ecclesiis oblnidcre. Medulla, p. 345. "*
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