Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

7. It is evidenced. In mixing rules for the worship of God, with those which have been ordered by him. Since men are most prone to live by sense; 'tis no wonder that a sensible worship, which affects their outward sense, with some kind of amazement, is dear to them, and spiritual worship, most loathsome.

7. It is evidenc'd. In mixing rules for the worship of God, with those which have been ordered by him. Since men are most prone to live by sense; 'tis no wonder that a sensible worship, which affects their outward sence, with some kind of amazement, is dear to them, and spiritual worship, most loathsome.

Pompous rites have been the great Engine wherewith the Devil hath deceived the souls of men, and wrought them to a nauseating the simplicity of divine worship, as unworthy the Majesty and excellency of God.^* Thus the Jews would not understand the glory of the second Temple in the presence of the Messiah, because it had not the pompous grandeur of that of Solomons erecting.

1. *2 Cor. 11.3.

Hence in all Ages men have been forward to disfigure Gods models, and dress up a brat of their own; as though God had been defective in providing for his own honour in his institutions without the assistance of his Creature. This hath always been in the world: the old World had their imaginations, and the new World hath continued them. The Israelites in the midst of miracles, and under the memory of a famous deliverance would erect a Calf. The Pharisees, that sate in Moses Chair, would coin new Traditions and enjoin them to be as currant as the Law of God.