(2.) That we rest on the veracity of Ohrist for the working of the grace and accomplishment of the mercy represented in them and sacramentally exhibited by them; for they will not profit them by whom the promises of Christ, virtually contained in them and ac- companying of them, are not mixed with faith, and we cannot believe the promise unless we submit to the authority of Christ in the ap- pointment of that whereunto it is annexed.
(3.) That we understand in some measure the mystical relation
=
APOSTASY FROM EVANGELICAL WORSHIP. 29%
that is between the outward symbols of the ordinance and the Lord Christ himself, with his grace represented thereby, wherein the na- ture, use, and end of the institutions are contained. : And all these are necessary to keep up any delight in them, or a conscientious use of them. Where, therefore, all these are wanting,
—as apparently they are in those concerning whom we treat, bemg
none of them either understood, owned, or acknowledged by them, —whereas they have neither spiritual light into the internal nature
of these things, nor spiritual gifts for their administration unto edifi-
cation, following the conduct of their own principles, they could do no otherwise but reject them, and therein fell off from the worship
of the gospel, and thereby do reflect dishonour upon the Son of God,
the author and Lord of all these institutions.
II. There is another way whereby men may, and many men do fall away, and have for many ages fallen away, from the gospel with respect unto its worship, and that is, by rejecting its simplicity and pure institutions, substituting a superstitious, yea, idolatrous worship of their own in the room thereof, 2 Cor. xi. 8: for whereas there are various degrees of declension from the purity of gospel worship, ac- cording as men forsake any part of it, or make any additions of their own unto it, yet at present I shall mention them only by whom it is wholly perverted,—that is, those of the church of Rome; for as they have added unto it rites and institutions of their own in great
- number, partly superstitious and partly idolatrous, so there is no one
ordinance or institution of Christ which they have not corrupted, the most of them so far as utterly to destroy their nature and use. Whereas, therefore, the Lord Jesus Christ doth in the ordinances of gospel worship and the due celebration of them represent his own religion and authority unto the church, to remove them out of the way, and to introduce another fabric of them of another constitution, is to represent Antichrist unto the church, and not Christ, and thereby to “ put Christ to an open shame.” The ways and means whereby this apostasy was effected, by the craft of Satan and the carnal interest of men, in a long tract of time, I shall not here de- clare; it shall suffice at present to observe, that as men grew carnal, having lost the spirit, life, and power of the gospel, and so far as they did so, they found it necessary to introduce a carnal, visible, pomp- ous worship, suited unto that inward principle and light whereby they were acted. And as the people in the wilderness, being carnal in their hearts, and accustomed unto carnal ways of worship, upon the absence of Moses in the mount, cried out unto Aaron, “ Make us gods, which shall go before us” (that is, gods visibly present), “ for as for this Moses, we wot not what is become of him,” whereupon they made a calf; so these men, finding the whole fabric of Mosaical
22 THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF APOSTASY.
institutions, consisting in outward images and representations of things, taken away, and themselves left as it were without any present gods to guide them,—that is, such visible representations of the presence of God as their carnal hearts and minds might delight in, —they provided all those calves whereof their present worship doth consist. And because there were many in those days when this de- sign was first set on foot who were truly spiritual and holy, worship- ping God in spirit and in truth, this idolatrous worship could not be introduced and preserved but by insensible degrees and in a long tract of time, throughout the whole whereof the “mystery of ini- quity” wrought effectually unto the same certain end. Those, in the meantime, who worshipped God in truth, were either imposed on by a show of humility and devotion in the degrees of apostasy which were added in their days, or else complained of what they could not remedy.
And if these brief considerations of the nature of the present apos- tasy that is in the world from the power of Christian religion, in all the principal concerns of it, with the causes and occasions thereof, do excite or provoke any one who hath more leisure and ability for this work unto a more diligent and useful inquiry into them, it will be an ample reward unto my endeavours.
CHAPTER XII.
Inferences from the foregoing discourses—The present danger of all sorts of per- sons, in the prevalency of apostasy from the truth and decays in the practice of evangelical holiness.
THE last part of this discourse is designed for cautions unto those who yet stand, or think they stand, with respect unto that general defection from the gospel whose causes and occasions we have thus far inquired into. And thereunto some directions may be added, to be used as preventives of its contagion.