Exercitations concerning the name, original, nature, use, and continuance of a day of sacred…

(4.) The Custom and Practice of the Church of God in all Ages is to be enquired into. I intend not merely the Church of Christ under the Gospel, but the whole Church from the Beginning of the World, in the various Dispensations of the Will and Grace of God unto it, before the giving of the Law, under the Toke of it, and since the Promulgation of the Gospel. And great weight may certainly be laid upon its Harmonious consent in any practice relating to the Worship of God. Nay, what may be so confirmed, will thence appear not to be an Institution peculiar to any especial Mode of Worship that may belong unto one season, and not unto another; but to have an everlasting Obligation in it, on all that worship God, as such, never to be altered or dispensed withal. And if every particular Church be the Ground and Pillar of Truth, whose Testimony thereunto is much to be esteemed, how much more is the Universal Church of all Ages so to be accounted. And it is a brutish Apprehension to suppose, that God would permit a Persuasion to befall the Church in all Ages, with respect unto his Worship, which was not ⟨p. 21⟩from himself, and the Expression of its Practice accepted with him. This therefore is diligently to be enquired into, as far as we may have certain light into things involved in so much Darkness, as are all things of so great Antiquity.

(4.) The Custom and Practice of the Church of God in all Ages is to be enquired into. I intend not meerly the Church of Christ under the Gospel, but the whole Church from the Beginning of the World, in the various Dispensations of the Will and Grace of God unto it, before the giving of the Law, under the Toke of it, and since the Promulgation of the Gospel. And great weight may certainly be laid upon its Harmonious consent in any practice relating to the Worship of God. Nay, what may be so confirmed, will thence appear not to be an Institution peculiar to any especial Mode of Worship that may belong unto one season, and not unto another; but to have an everlasting Obligation in it, on all that worship God, as such, never to be altered or dispensed withal. And if every particular Church be the Ground and Pillar of Truth, whose Testimony thereunto is much to be esteemed, how much more is the Universal Church of all Ages so to be accounted. And it is a brutish Apprehension to suppose, that God would permit a Perswasion to befall the Church in all Ages, with respect unto his Worship, which was not ⟨p. 21⟩