I shall now propose a few reasons, and they are these —
1. Because God loveth to be the appointer of his own services, and can best prescribe the way of his own worship. Now God's way is a revealed way ; he hath written his counsel in his word ; therefore, if we do otherwise than is written, we offend, because then we appoint our own service, and so are derogatory to God's wisdom, as if he knew not the best way to be worshipped. The very heathens had some glimmerings of this light, that every deity must appoint his own worship ; and therefore all their rights and ceremonies were such as they feigned were revealed unto them by some god or another. Detur enim vcnia antiquitati, &c., saith Livy — You must give leave to all men to feign the inspiration of their laws by some god or another. But, brethren, to come to divinity, God loveth to appoint his own service, to meet with a double corruption in us — pride and laziness.
[1.] Pride. We would fain be avre^ovaioi, lords of our own actions, and have religion in our own power. And therefore, if men were left alone to themselves, you should see how religion would turn into rites, and all duties into a ceremony ; the purity and power of the ordinances would be lost in a pompous sense-pleasing outside. Every man, saith Luther, is born with a pope in his belly. Natural pride would carve out such religion wherein we were most likely to merit.
[2.] But now, again, to meet with our laziness. An heart so dis- posed likes the outward part of the duty, but careth not for the soul of it ; we had rather give the fruit of our bodies for the sin of our souls than be humbled for it : ' Therefore he hath showed thee, 0 man, what is good, and what he doth require,' Micah vi. 6-8. His service is written service to prevent this corruption. Nay, in the time of the law,
350 SERMONS ON THE SACRAMENTS.
when sacrifices and obedience were chiefly corporal, God set a stint to supererogating and the madness of our nature ; he descendeth to the very utensils of his house, that men might not serve him after their own devices. God would have but one altar and tabernacle ; it had almost stirred up a controversy in Israel to build another, Josh. xxii. 10. If God should trust to our finding, and his service should be measured in our ephah, not weighed in the balance of the sanctuary, what with pride, what with laziness, he would have but a sorry service of it. Naturally we are rather for the paint than the power of religion.
2. God's word is the only rule and judge of our actions. Therefore, seeing God will appoint his own service, as we derogate from God in the first reason, as if he were not wise enough to appoint, so we derogate from the appointment in his word, as if that were not suffi- cient. The apostle, when he sets the Corinthians right in the receiving of the sacrament, he goeth to the word : 1 Cor. xi. 23, ' For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you.' You see he referreth you to the institution Brethren, God's appointment is written ; if you do otherwise than is written, you derogate from his appointment. It is not custom, it is not tradition, but the written word of God. People are much swayed with that, as if that were the rule of obedience ; but then they may safely do otherwise than is written. God would have us take nothing upon trust, but go to what is written. Custom otherwise will become master of our faith, and easily entail upon us coldness and formalit3^ If there were not a standard to measure services by, we should see the ordinances quickly lose both power and purity. Their power ; for they would be used but for fashion's sake. Their purity ; for then the ordinances would not speak a pure language, but like those mongrel children that came of Jewish parents and Ammonitish mothers, Neh. xiii. 24, half in the speech of Ashdod, and half in the Jews' language. There would be a miserable gallimaufrey of God's ordinances and man's devices, a linsey-woolsey religion. Thus without heed hath a cross slipt into baptism, and many fooleries into the Lord's supper. No matter for the ancientness of these things ; we must look to what is written. Let others pretend antiquity ; our antiquity must be the scripture. It was excellently spoken of him that said, We must not heed what others say who were before us, but what Christ did who was before all. And as sweetly, holy Ignatius, iixol apx^ia earlv Irjaov<i 6 Xpiaro^ — Jesus Christ is my antiquity. Christ must be our antiquity. Ancientness is no warrant for us. An old custom may be an unwritten one ; for there is veiustas erroris, as well as antiquitas veritatis — error may be mouldy, as well as truth be hoary. The cross in baptism I believe is ancient, yet there is no ground for it in the scripture. As our Saviour saith of the matter of divorce : Mat, xix. 8, _ ' From the begiuniug it was not so.' And none plead custom for their prac- tice in the ordinance but those that have very little of the power of religion in them.