Catholic communion defended against both extremes, and unnecessary division confuted in five parts ...…Catholick communion defended against both extreams, and unnecessary division confuted in five parts ...…

D. O.

2. Prayers and Praises absolutely considered, are not an institution of Christ; they are a part of Natural Worship common unto all Mankind: His institution respects only the internal form of them, and the manner of their performance; but this is that which the Liturgy takes on it self, namely, to supply and determine the matter, to prescribe the manner, and to limit all the concerns of them to Modes and Forms of its own, which is to take the work of Christ out of his hand.

§ 9. Your Second Answer is no better: 1. If by absolutely, you mean not generally (but as opposite to conditional), it hath no sense here that I can find: But if it be [in genere] that you mean, as the Context intimateth, they are no part of Worship at all, natural or instituted: For there is praying, which is cursing, and striving against God and Goodness, and praying to Idols. But I suppose you mean [de specie], praying to the true God for good things needful. And so it is another Mistake, That this Prayer is not of Christ's Institution, because it is a part of Natural Worship. All is of Christ's institution which is part of his commanding Law: The Law of Nature is now Christ's Law, who by Redemption is become Lord of Nature, and of all, John 17.2, 3. Mat. 28.18, 19. Eph. 1.22, 23. Rom. 14.9, 10. John 5.22, &c. He most strictly commandeth Natural Duties. The Ten Commandments were of Natural Obligation,