XXII. ART. we ought to come to God by the interceffion of the faints: that all our prayers to them are to be understood to amount to no more than a defire to them, to intercede for us; and finally, that the offering of facrifice is an act of worship, that can indeed be made only to God, but that all other acts of devotion and refpect may be given to the faints and the fublimeft degrees of them may be offered to the blessed Virgin, as the mother of Christ, in a peculiar rank by herself. For they range the order of worship into Latria, that is due only to God; Hyperdulia, that belongs to the bleffed Virgin; and Dulia, that belongs to the other Saints. : It were easy to retort all this, by putting it into the mouth of a Heathen; and fhewing how well it would fit all thofe parts of worship, that they offered to demons or intelligent fpirits, and to deified men among them. This is obvious enough to fuch as have read what the first apologifts for Christianity have writ upon those heads. But to take this to pieces; we have no reason to believe that the faints fee all the concerns of the Church. God can make them perfectly happy without this; and if we think the feeing them is a neceffary ingredient of perfect happiness, we muft from thence conclude, that they do alfo fee the whole chain of Providence: otherwise they may seem to be in some suspense, which, according to our notions, is not confiftent with perfect happiness. For if they fee the perfecutions of the Church, and the miseries of Chriftians, without feeing on to the end, in what all that will iffue, this feems to be a ftop to their entire joy. And if they see the final iffue, and know what God is to do, then we cannot imagine that they can intercede againft it, or indeed for it. To us, who know not the hidden counfels of God, prayer is neceffary and commanded: but it feems inconfiftent with a state in which all these events are known. This which they lay for the foundation of prayers to faints, is a thing concerning which God has revealed nothing to us, and in which we can have no certainty. God has commanded us to pray for one another, to join our prayers together, and we have clear warrants for defiring the interceffion of others. It is a high act of charity, and a great inftance of the mutual love that ought to be among Chriftians: it is a part of the communion of the faints: and as they do certainly know, that thofe, whofe affiftance they defire, underftand their wants when they fignify them to them; fo they are fure that God has commanded this mutual praying one for another. It is a ftrange thing therefore to argue from what what God has commanded, and which may have many ART. good effects, and can have no bad one, to that which he XXII. has not commanded; on the contrary, againft which there are many plain intimations in Scripture, and which may have many bad effects, and we are not sure that it can have any one that is good. Befide, that the folemnity of devotion and prayer is a thing very different from our defiring the prayers of fuch as are alive; the one is as vifibly an act of religious worship, as the other is not. God has called himfelf a jealous God, that will not give Ifa. xlii. 8. bis glory to another. And through the whole Scripture, prayer is reprefented as a main part of the fervice due to him; and as that in which he takes the most pleasure. Pfal. lxv. 2. It is a facrifice, and is fo called: and every other facrifice Pfal.cxli, 2. can only be accepted of God, as it is accompanied with Hof. xiv. 2. the internal acts of prayers and praifes; which are the fpiritual facrifices with which God is well pleased. The only thing, which the Church of Rome referves to God, proves to be the facrifice of the Mafs: which, as fhall appear upon another Article, is a facrifice that they have invented, but which is no where commanded by God; fo that if this is well made out, there will be nothing referved to God to be the act of their Latria: though it is not to be forgotten, that even the Virgin and the Saints have a fhare in that facrifice. The excufing this, from the addreffes made to princes by those that are in favour with them, is as bad as the thing itself; it gives us a low idea of God, and of Chrift, and of that goodnefs and mercy, that is fo often declared to be infinite, as if he were to be addreffed to by those about him, and might not be come to without an interpofition: whereas the Scriptures fpeak always of God, as a bearer of prayer, and as ready to accept of and answer the prayers of his people: to feek to other affiftances, looks as if the mercies of God were not infinite, or the interceffions of Chrift were not of infinite efficacy. This is a corrupting of the main defign of the Gofpel, which is to draw our affections wholly to God, to free us from all low notions of him, and from every thing that may incline us to idolatry or fuperftition. Thus I have gone through all the heads contained in this Article. It seemed neceffary to explain these with a due copioufnefs; they being not only points of fpeculation, in which errors are not always fo dangerous, but practical things, which enter into the worship of God, and that run through it. And certainly it is the will of God, that we should preferve it pure, from being corrupted with heathenish Z 2 ART. heathenish or idolatrous practices. It feems to be the XXII. chief end of revealed Religion to deliver the world from idolatry a great part of the Mofaical Law did confift of rites of which we can give no other account, that is fo like to be true, as, that they were fences and hedges, that were intended to keep that nation in the greatest oppofition, and at the utmoft diftance poffible from idolatry: we cannot therefore think that in the Chriftian Religion, in which we are carried to higher notions of God, and to a more fpiritual way of worshipping him, there fhould be fuch an approach to fome of the worft pieces of Gentilifm, that it seems to be outdone by Chriftians in fome of its moft fcandalous parts; fuch as the worship of fubordinate Gods, and of images. These are the chief grounds upon which we feparate from the Roman communion; fince we cannot have fellowship with them, unless we will join in thofe acts, which we look on as direct violations of the First and Second Commandments. God is a jealous God, and therefore we must rather venture on their wrath, how burning foever it may be, than on his, who is a confuming fire. ARTICLE ARTICLE XXIII. Of Ministering in the Congregation. It is not lawful for any Pan to take upon him the Office of public Preaching or Minikring the Sacraments in the Congregation, befoze he be lawfully called and lent to execute the lame. And those we ought to judge lawfully called and fent, which be chosen and called to this Work by Men, who have public Authority given unto them, in the Congrega, tion, to call and lend Ministers into the Lord's Minepard. WE : E have two particulars fixed in this Article: the first is against any that fhall affume to themselves, without a lawful vocation, the authority of difpenfing the things of God: the fecond is, the defining, in very general words, what it is that makes a lawful call. As to the firft, it will bear no great difficulty: we fee in the Old Difpenfation, that the family, the age, and the qualifications of those that might ferve in the priesthood, are very particularly fet forth. In the New Teftament our Lord called the twelve Apoftles, and fent them out: he also sent out upon another occafion feventy Difciples and before he left his Apoftles, he told them, that as bis Father Joh. xx. 21. bad fent bim, fo be fent them: which feems to import, that as he was fent into the world with this, among other powers, that he might fend others in his name; fo he likewife empowered them to do the fame: and when they went planting Churches, as they took fome to be companions of labour with themselves, fo they appointed others over the particular Churches in which they fixed them fuch were Epaphras or Epaphroditus at Coloffe, Timothy at Ephefus, and Titus in Crete. To them the Apoftles gave authority: otherwife it was a needless thing to write fo many directions to them, in order to their conduct. They had the depofitum of the faith, with 2 Tim. i, which they were chiefly entrusted: concerning the 13. fucceffion in which that was to be continued, we have these words of St. Paul: The things which thou haft beard 2 Tim. ii. 2. of me, among many witneffes, the fame commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others alfo. To them directions are given, concerning all the different parts of 23 their 2, 3. 12. 15. ART. their worship; fupplications, prayers, interceffions, and giving XXIII. of thanks: and alfo the keeping up the decency of the worship, and the not fuffering of women to teach; like 1 Tim. ii. 1, the women priests among the Heathens, who were believed 1 Tim. ii. to be filled with a Bacchic fury. To them are directed all the qualifications of fuch as might be made either 1 Tim. iii. Bishops or Deacons: they were to examine them according to these, and either to receive or reject them. All this was directed to Timothy, that he might know how he 1 Tim. iii. ought to behave himself in the boufe of God. He had authority given him to rebuke and entreat, to honour and 1 Tim. v. 1, to cenfure. He was to order what widows might be 3, 17, 19, received into the number, and who fhould be refused. He was to receive accufations against Elders, or Prefbyters, according to directed methods, and was either to cenfure fome, or to lay hands on others, as fhould agree with the rules that were fet him and in conclufion, he is very Tim. vi. folemnly charged, to keep that which was committed to his 2 Tim. ii. truft. He is required rightly to divide the word of truth, to preach the word, to be inftant in feafon and out of feafon, 2 Tim. iv. to reprove, rebuke, and exhort, and to do the work of an Evangelift, and to make full proof of his miniftry. Some of Tit. i. 5,9, the fame things are charged upon Titus, whom St. Paul 20. 2 14. 2, 5. 13. had left in Crete, to fet in order the things that were wanting, and to ordain Elders in every city: feveral of the characters by which he was to try them are also set down : he is charged to rebuke the people sharply, and to speak the things that became found doctrine: he is inftructed concerning the doctrines which he was to teach, and those which he was to avoid; and alfo how to cenfure an heretic: he was Tit. iii. 10. to admonish him twice; and if that did not prevail, he was to reject him, by fome public censure. Thefe rules given to Timothy and Titus do plainly import, that there was to be an authority in the Church, and that no man was to affume this authority to himself; according to that maxim, that seems to be founded on the light of nature, as well as it is fet down in Scripture, as a Heb. v. 4. ftanding rule agreed to in all times and places: no man taketh this honour to himself, but be that is called of God, as was Aaron. Rom. xii. 6, 7, 8. 1 Cor. xii. 28. St. Paul, in his Epiftles to the Romans and Corinthians, did reckon up the feveral orders and functions that God had fet in his Church, and in his Epiftle to the Ephefians Eph. iv. 11, he fhews, that these were not tranfient but lafting conftitu12, 13, 16. tions; for there, as he reckons the Apostles, Prophets, Evangelifs, Paflors, and Teachers, as the gifts which ends |