A brief instruction in the worship of God, and discipline of the churches of…

The principal thing we are to aim at in the whole worship of God, is the discharge of that duty which we owe to Jesus Christ the King and head of the Church▪ Heb. 3.6. Christ as a Son over his own house▪ whose house are we, 1 Tim. ⟨p. 86⟩3.15. That thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thy self in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God. This we cannot do unless we consider his authority as the formal reason and cause of our observance of all that we do therein. If we perform any thing in the worship of God on any other account, it is no part of our obedience unto him; and so we can neither expect his grace to assist us, nor have we his promise to accept us therein; for that he hath annexed unto our doing and observing whatever he hath commanded, and that because he hath commanded us, Matth. 28 20. teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the World. This promised presence respects only the observance of his commands. Some men are apt to look on this authority of Christ as that which hath the least influence into what they do. If in any of his institutions they find any thing that is suited or agreeable unto the light of nature, as Ecclesiastical societies, government of the Church, and the like they say are, ⟨p. 87⟩they suppose and contend, that that is the ground on which they are to be attended unto, and so are to be regulated accordingly. The interposition of his authority they will allow only in the Sacraments which have no light in reason or nature; so desirous are some to have as little to do with Christ as they can, even in the things that concern the worship of God. But it would be somewhat strange, that if what the Lord Christ hath appointed in his Church to be observed in particular, in an especial manner, for especial ends of his own, hath in the general nature of it an agreement with what in like cases the light of nature seems to direct unto, that therefore his authority is not to be considered, as the sole immediate reason of our performance of it; But it is evident,