‘APOSTASY FROM EVANGELICAL WORSHIP. “Zin
disciples. That watchfulness over one another with love, care, and
_ tenderness, those mutual admonitions, exhortations, and consolations,
which the gospel so frequently and diligently prescribes unto us, are
not only neglected, but so far despised that the very naming of
such duties is made a matter of scorn, as a pretence of hypocritical preciseness; and no better entertainment have many other of the commands of Christ among the generality of them that are called
- Christians. So do many, on all accounts, openly profess in their
walkings and conversation that they see no cogent reason why they should comply with him in his commands; and it is not easily to be conceived how they can cast a greater dishonour or contempt upon him. -
2. By continuing in the outward profession of Christianity, they do most falsely represent Christ and the gospel unto the world, and thereby, what lies in them, “ put him to an open shame;” for, pre- tending to yield obedience unto him, and to place their hope for life and blessedness in him by the gospel, they profess withal that he isa person that will approve of such ways as they walk in, and his gos- pel a doctrine that gives countenance unto all manner of licentious- ness in sin. Who would judge otherwise who had no knowledge of him or it but by the representation that is made of them in the profligate conversation of such apostates? But this argument I have
elsewhere insisted on.
CHAPTER XI. Apostasy from evangelical worship.
THIRDLY, That which was proposed to be considered in the last place is that apostasy which is in the world from the purity of the worship of the gospel as appointed by Jesus Christ; and herein principally did consist that great defection foretold by our apostle, 2 Thess. ii, 3-12, which is also prophesied of in the Revelation, and did accordingly come to pass. But because I have insisted on this subject on many other occasions, and some things relating thereunto are under differ- ence and debate among such as are capable of the warning given
concerning the apostasy that is in the world, I shall wholly waive the
consideration of particulars about which any such differences may be, and only mention such things as the generality of Christians, at least of Protestants, cannot but acknowledge.
I shall take it for granted at present, that our Lord Jesus Christ
_ did institute and appoint a solemn worship of God, to be continued
inviolably and unalterably unto the end of the world. And the
218 THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF APOSTASY.
principal end of his appointing, continuing, or preserving any church on the earth, is the celebration of this worship; for herein alone con- sisteth that public revenue of glory which God requires from believers in this world. All other duties of the gospel may be performed by men in their single capacities, if there were no such thing as a church on the earth. And those churches do exceedingly mistake their duty, and every end of their being, which make it not their principal business to take care of the due celebration of that worship which the Lord Christ hath appointed. He was faithful in the whole house of God, as was Moses, Heb. iii. 5, 6; and if the life, being, hap- piness, and welfare, of the church of Israel, consisted in and depended on their remembrance of the law of Moses, which “God commanded unto him in Horeb, with the statutes and judgments,” Mal. iv. 4, because he was faithful in the house of God as a servant, certainly the being and well-being of the Christian church consist in and depend upon that observing and doing of all whatsoever He hath commanded in the worship of God (as Matt, xxviii. 20) who is faith- ful as a son in and over the whole house of God.
Besides, it is acknowledged by all,—and we shall, God willing, show the manner of it in our exposition of the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews,—that the Lord Christ, in and by the gospel, hath altered and abolished all that solemn worship, all those ordi- nances and institutions, which God himself had set up under the old testament, to continue unto the time of reformation; and hereby he rendered it absolutely unlawful for any one to serve God accord- ing unto those institutions. Hereunto God signally set his public seal of approbation in the sight of the world; for no sooner had the Lord Christ, by the promulgation of the gospel, taken away all their authority and obligatory power, so as that his disciples ought not to make use of them any longer, but God immediately, by severe and unparalleled judgments, destroyed the seat and place of them, so that those who would yet never could regularly make use of them unto this day. And shall we think that the Lord Jesus Christ thus took
away and abolished the old solemn worship of the church, and sub-
stituted none in the room of it? or that he took away that which
was erected by the wisdom of God, though but for a season, and left
the church, as to its main duty and principal end in this world, unto the inventions and imaginations of men? One of these must be supposed, if it be denied that he hath established a solemn worship of God, to continue unalterably unto the end of the world; and both of them are highly blasphemous. Again, let any, in faith and obe- dience unto him, practise and attend unto all those parts of divine worship which he hath appointed, and I am persuaded no man will have the confidence to say that there is this or that wanting to ren-