A26912:176
A defence of the principles of love, which are necessary to the unity and…
A defence of the principles of love, which are necessary to the unity and concord of Christians and are delivered in a book called The cure of church-divisions ... / by Richard Baxter ...
London: printed for Nevil Simmons, 1671
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Nor is every use of the same places, words, or ⟨p. 83⟩other things indifferent, a symbolizing with Idolatry: But the saying those words, or the using those Acts or Ceremonies, by which their false Religion in specie is notified, as by a tessera, or badge to the world. Or using the Symbols of their Religion as differing from the true. Even as the use of Baptism, and the Lords Supper, the Creed, and the constant use of our Church-Worship, are the Symbols of the Christian Religion. So their Sacraments, Incense, Sacrificings, and Worshipping Conventions, were the Symbols of Worshipping false Gods; which therefore Christians may not use.
But they that say, that all false Worship of the true God is Idolatry, add to Gods word, and teach doctrines which are but the forgeries of their own brain. Though more than Idolatry be forbidden by Consequence in the second Commandment, that proveth it not to be Idolatry, because its there so forbidden.
2. I have after distinguished of false Worship, and told you, that if by false, you mean forbidden, or not commanded, or sinful, we all worship God falsely in the Manner every day, and in some part of the matter very oft. Our disorders, confusion, tautologies, unfit expressions, are all forbidden, and so false worship: And if God prohibit any disorder which is in the Liturgy, he prohibits the same in extemporate prayers (in which some good Christians are as failing as the Liturgy) And as the words of the Liturgy are not commanded in the Scripture, so neither are the words of our extemporate or studied Sermons or Prayers.
2. I have after distinguished of false Worship, and told you, that if by false, you mean forbidden, or not commanded, or sinful, we all worship God falsly in the Manner every day, and in some part of the matter very oft. Our disorders, confusion, tautologies, unfit expressions, are all forbidden, and so false worship: And if God prohibit any disorder which is in the Liturgie, he prohibits the same in extemporate prayers (in which some good Christians are as failing as the Liturgie) And as the words of the Liturgie are not commanded in the Scripture, so neither are the words of our extemporate or studied Sermons or Prayers.