_Direct._ X. Worship not God in a manner that is contrary to the true nature, and order, and operations of a rational soul. I mean not to the corrupted nature of man, but to nature as rational in itself considered. As, 1. Let not your mere will and inclination overrule your understandings; and say not as blind lovers do, I love this, but I know not why; or children that eat unwholesome meat, because they love it.[25] 2. Let not passion overtop your reason: worship God with such a zeal as is according to knowledge. 3. Let not your tongues lead your hearts, much less overgo them: words may indeed reflect upon the heart, and warm it more; but that is but the secondary use: the first is to be the expressions of the heart: you must not speak without or against your hearts, (that is, falsely,) that by so speaking you may better your hearts (and make the words true, that at first were not true); unless it be when your words are but reading recitations or narratives, and not spoken of yourselves. The heart was made to lead the tongue, and the tongue to express it, and not to lead it. Therefore speak not to God either the words of a parrot, which you do not understand, or the words of a liar or hypocrite, which express not the meaning, or desires, or feeling of your hearts: but first understand and feel what you should speak, and then speak that which you understand and feel.
_Quest._ How then can a prayer be lawful that is read or heard from a book?
_Answ._ There is in reading the eye, and in hearing the ear, that is first to affect the heart, and then the tongue is to perform its office. And though it be sudden, yet the passage to the heart is first, and the passage from the heart is last: and the soul is quick, and can quickly thus both receive and be affected and express itself. And the case is the same in this, whether it be from a book, or from the words of another without book: for the soul must do the same, as quickly, in joining with another that speaketh before us, without a book as with it.
[Sidenote: How far the Scripture is the law or rule of worship and discipline, and how far not.]
_Direct._ XI. Understand well how far Christ hath given a law and a rule for worship to his church in the holy Scriptures, and so far see that you take it as a perfect rule, and swerve not from it by adding or diminishing. This is a matter of great importance by reason of the danger of erring on either side. 1. If you think that the Scripture containeth not any law or rule of worship at all, or not so much as indeed it doth, you will deny a principal part of the office of Christ, as the King and Teacher of the church, and will accuse his laws of insufficiency, and be tempted to worship him with a human kind of worship, and to think yourselves at liberty to worship him according to your own imaginations, or change his worship according to the fashion of the age or the country where you are. And on the other side, if you think that the Scripture is a law and rule of worship, more particular than Christ intended it, you will involve yourselves and others in endless scruples and controversies, and find fault with that which is lawful and a duty, because you find it not particularly in the Scripture: and therefore it is exceeding needful to understand how far it is intended to be herein our law and rule, and how far not: to handle this fully would be a digression, but I shall briefly answer it.
1. No doubt but Christ is the only universal Head and Lawgiver to his church.[26] And that legislation is the first and principal part of government: and therefore if he had made no laws for his church, he were not the full governor of it. And therefore he that arrogateth this power to himself to be lawgiver to the church universal (as such) doth usurp the kingly office of Christ, and committeth treason against his government; (unless he can prove that Christ hath delegated to him this chief part of his government, which none can do;) there being no universal lawgiver to the church but Christ, (whether pope or council,) no law that is made by any mere man can be universally obligatory. Therefore seeing the making of all universal laws doth belong only to Christ, we may be sure that he hath perfectly done it; and hath left nothing out of his laws that was fit to be there, nor nothing at liberty that was fit to be determined and commanded. Therefore whatsoever is of equal use or consideration to the universal church, as it is to any one part of it, and to all times as it is to any time of the church, should not be made a law by man to any part of the church, if Christ have not made it a law to the whole: because else they accuse him of being defective in his laws, and because all his subjects are equally dependent on him as their King and Judge. And no man must step into his throne pretending to amend his work which he hath done amiss, or to make up any wants which the chief Lawgiver should have made up.