Q15. The Importance of Instituted Worship

From where may it appear that the right and due observation of instituted worship, is of great importance to the glory of God, and of high concernment to the souls of men?

This is fully taught in the Scriptures; as (1) God would never accept in any state of the Church, before or since the fall, moral obedience without the observation of some institutions as tryals, tokens, and pledges of that obedience. And (2) in their use and signification by his appointment they nearly concern the principal mysteries of his will and grace. And (3) By their celebration is he glorified in the world: And therefore, (4) As he has made blessed promises to his people, to grant them his presence and to bless them in their use: So (5) Being the tokens of the marriage relation that is between him and them, with respect to them alone he calls himself a jealous God; And (6) has actually exercised signal severity towards the neglecters, corrupters or abusers of them. (1) Genesis 2:16, 17; Genesis 4:3, 4; Genesis 17:9, 10, 11; Exodus 12:24; Exodus 20; Matthew 28:19, 20; Matthew 26:26, 27; Ephesians 4:11, 12; Revelation 1:13; Revelation 21:3. (2) Genesis 17:10; Exodus 12:23, 24; Romans 6:3, 4, 5; Matthew 26:27; 1 Corinthians 11:25, 26, 27. (3) See question the eighth and ninth. (4) Exodus 29:42, 43, 45; Deuteronomy 14:23; Psalm 133:3; Matthew 18:20; Revelation 21:3. (5) Exodus 20:5; Deuteronomy 4:23, 24; Joshua 24:19; Ezekiel 16. (6) Leviticus 10:1, 2; Numbers 16:3, 8, 9, 32, 35; 1 Samuel 2:28, 29; 2 Samuel 6:6, 7; 2 Chronicles 26:16, 19; 1 Corinthians 11:30.

Explication.

For the most part, the instituted worship of God is neglected and despised in the world. Some are utterly regardless of it, supposing that if they attend, after their manner, to moral obedience, that neither God nor themselves are much concerned in this matter, of his worship. Others think the disposal and ordering of it to be so left to men, that as to the manner of its performance, they may do with it as it seems right in their own eyes, and some follow them therein as willingly walking after their commandments, without any respect to the will or authority of God. But the whole Scripture gives us utterly another account of this matter. The honor of God in this world, the trial of our faith and obedience, the order and beauty of the Church, the exaltation of Christ in his professed subjection to him, and the saving of our souls in the ways of his appointment, are therein laid upon the due and right observance of instituted worship, and they who are negligent about these things, whatever they pretend, have no real respect to any thing that is called religion. First therefore, in every state and condition of the Church, God has given his ordinances of worship, as the touchstone and trial of its faith and obedience, so that they by whom they are neglected, do openly refuse to come to God's trial. In the state of innocency, the trial of Adam's obedience according to the law of nature, was in and by the institution of the trees of life, and of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:16, 17). And the Lord God commanded the Man saying, of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it for in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die. This was the first institution of God, and it was given to the Church, in the state of innocency and purity. And in our first parents' neglect of attending thereunto, did they transgress the whole law of their creation, as failing in their duty in that which was appointed for their trial in the whole; Chapter 3:11, Have you eaten of the tree whereof I commanded you that you should not eat? And the Church in his family after the fall, built upon the promise, was tried also in the matter of instituted worship. Nor was there any discovery of the wickedness of Cain, or approbation of the faith of Abel, until they came to be proved in their sacrifices, a new part of God's instituted worship, the first in the state and condition of sin and the fall whereinto it was brought (Genesis 4:3, 4, 5). In process of time, it came to pass Cain brought of the fruit of the ground, an offering to the Lord, and Abel he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof; and the Lord had respect to Abel, and to his offering, but to Cain, and his offering he had not respect. The ground whereof the Apostle declares (Hebrews 11:4), By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts. In the observation of that first institution given to the Church in the state of the fall, did Abel receive a testimony of his being justified and accepted with God. Afterwards when Abraham was called, and peculiarly separated to bear forth the name of God in the world, and to become the spring of the Church for future ages, he had the institution of circumcision given him for the trial of his obedience; the law and condition whereof was, that he who observed it not should be esteemed an alien from the covenant of God, and be cut off from his people (Genesis 17:9, 10, 11). God said to Abraham, you shall keep my covenant, you and your seed after you in their generations. This is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you, and your seed after you, every man-child among you shall be circumcised, verse 14, and the uncircumcised man-child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people, he has broken my covenant. And in like manner so soon as ever his posterity were to be collected into a new Church state and order, God gave them the ordinance of the Passover (Exodus 12:24), You shall observe this thing for an ordinance to you and to your sons for ever, and that upon the same penalty with that of circumcision; to these he added many more on mount Sinai (Exodus 20), all as the trials of their faith and obedience to succeeding generations: how he has dealt with his Church under the new Testament, we shall afterwards declare. In no state or condition then of the Church, did God ever accept of moral obedience without the observation of some instituted worship accommodated in his wisdom to its various states and conditions. And not only so, but as we have seen, he has made the observation of them according to his mind and appointment, the means of the trial of men's whole obedience, and the rule of the acceptance or rejection of them. And so it continues at this day, whatever be the thoughts of men about the worship which at present he requires.

Besides, God has appointed that his ordinances of worship shall be as effectual means as to instruct us in the mysteries of his will and mind, so of communicating his love, mercy, and grace to us; as also of that communion, or intercourse with his holy Majesty, which he has graciously granted to us by Jesus Christ. And this as it is sufficiently manifested in the Scriptures quoted in answer to this question, so it is at large declared in the writings of those holy and good men, who have explained the nature of gospel ordinances, and therefore in particular we need not here insist much in the farther proof of it. Thus Abraham was instructed in the nature of the Covenant of Grace by circumcision (Genesis 17:10), which is often explained in the Old Testament, by applying it in particular to the grace of conversion, called the circumcision of the heart (Deuteronomy 10:16; chapter 30:6; Jeremiah 4:4), as also in the New Testament (Colossians 2:11). And by the Passover, where the people were taught, not only the mercy of their present deliverance (Exodus 12:23, 24), but also to look for the Lamb of God who was to take away the sin of the world (John 1:29), the true Passover of the people of God which was sacrificed for them (1 Corinthians 5:7). How our incision or implanting into Christ is represented and signified by our Baptism, the Apostle declares (Romans 6:3, 4, 5), as also our communion with him in his death, by the Supper of the Lord (Matthew 26:27; 1 Corinthians 11:25), and all these graces which they teach, they also exhibit, and are the means of the communication of them to believers. Moreover the experience of all believers, who have conscientiously waited upon God in their due observance, may be produced in the confirmation of it. The instruction, edification, consolation, spiritual strength, courage, and resolution, which they have received in and by them, has been witnessed to in their lives, and ends; and they to whom these things are not of the greatest importance, do but in vain pretend a regard to God in anything whatever.

Furthermore, God has appointed our duty in the observation of his instituted worship, to be the means of our glorifying him in the world. Nor can we otherwise give glory to God, but as we own his authority over us, and yield obedience to what he requires at our hands. And what we do herein, is principally evident in those duties which lie under the eye and observation of men. Some duties of obedience there are, which the world neither does, nor can discern in believers. Such are their faith, inward holiness, purity of heart, heavenly mindedness, sincere mortification of indwelling sin, some whose performance ought to be hid from them, as personal prayer, and alms (Matthew 6:2, 3, 4, 5, 6). Some there are, which are very liable to misconstruction among men, as zeal in many of the actings of it. But this conscientious observation of instituted worship, and therein avowing our subjection to the authority of God in Christ, is that which the world may see, and take notice of, and that, which unless in case of persecution ought not to be hid from them; and that which they can have no pretence of scandal at. And therefore has God appointed that by this means and way, we shall honor and glorify him in the world, which if we neglect, we do evidently cast off all regard to his concernments in this world. Herein it is, that we manifest ourselves not to be ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, of him and his words, which he so indispensably requires at our hands (Mark 8:38). For, says he, whoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father, with the holy angels. Hereby do we keep the commandments of Christ, as his friends (John 13:35), for these peculiarly are his commands, and if we suffer for them, then we do most properly suffer as Christians, which is our glory (1 Peter 4:14, 15, 16). If you be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are you; for the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you, on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified, but let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evil doer, or as a busybody in other men's matters, but if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this behalf. And a happy and a blessed thing it is, to suffer for the observation of the special commands of Christ.

Farther, to encourage us in our duty, the holy faithful God has given us many great and precious promises, that he will graciously afford to us his especial sanctifying blessing presence, in our attendance on his worship according to his appointment. For as he promised of old that he would make glorious the place of his feet, or abode among his people (Isaiah 60:13), that he would meet them in his sanctuary, the place of his worship, and there dwell among them, and bless them, and be their God (Exodus 29:42, 43, 44, 45; Deuteronomy 14:24), so the Lord Jesus Christ has promised his presence to the same ends and purposes, to all them that assemble together in his name, for the observation of the worship which in the Gospel he has appointed (Matthew 18:20). For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. And therein is the tabernacle of God, his gracious dwelling place, with men (Revelation 21:3). Now when God offers to us his presence, his gracious blessing, sanctifying, and saving presence, and that in and by promises which shall never fail, what unspeakable guilt must we needs contract upon our own souls, if we neglect or despise the tenders of such grace?

But because we are apt to be slothful, and are slow of heart in admiting a due sense of spiritual things that fall not in with the light and principles of nature, to stir us up to a diligence in our attendance to the will of God in this matter, he has declared that he looks upon our obedience herein as our whole loyalty to him in that conjugal covenant which he is pleased in Christ Jesus to take Beleivers into with himself (Jeremiah 3:14). "Turn O backsliding children," says the Lord, "for I am marryed to you, and will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and will bring you to Sion, and I will give you Pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding." Coming to Sion, in the worship of God, under the leading and conduct of Pastors according to the heart of God, is our answering the relation wherein we stand to him as he is marryed to us, and thereupon he teacheth us that as a husband, he is jealous of our discharge of our duty in this matter, accounting our neglect of his worship, or profanation of it by inventions and additions of our own, to be spiritual disloyalty, whoredome and adultery, which his soul abhorreth, for which he will cast off any church, or people, and that for ever (see Exodus 20:5; Deuteronomy 4:23, 24; Joshua 24:19; Ezekiel 16). Whatever he will bear withal in his church, he will not bear with that which his jealousie is exercised about. If it transgress therein, he will give it a bill of divorce; which repudiated condition, is the state of many churches in the world, however they please, and boast themselves in their meritricious ornaments and practices.

To give yet farther strength to all these considerations, that we may not only have rules and precepts, but examples also for our instruction, God has given many signal instances of his severity against persons who by ignorance, neglect, or regardlesness, have miscarried in not observing exactly his will and appointment in and about his worship. This was the case of Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron (Leviticus 10:1, 2), of Corah, Dathan and Abirain (Numbers 16:3, 8, 9, 32, 35), of the sons of Ely, a sin not to be expiated with sacrifices and burnt offerings forever (1 Samuel 2:28, 29), of Uzza in putting the Ark into a cart, when he should have born it upon his shoulders (1 Chronicles 16:13), of Uzziah the King in offering incense contrary to God's institution, that duty being appropriated to the Priests of the posterity of Aaron (2 Chronicles 26:16, 19). These are sufficient intimations of what care and diligence we ought to use in attending to what God has appointed in his worship, and although now under the New Testament he does not ordinarily proceed to the inflicting of temporal judgements in the like cases of neglect, yet he has not wholly left us without instances of his putting forth tokens of his displeasure in temporal visitations on such miscarriages in his church (1 Corinthians 11:30). "For this cause," says the Apostle, "many are weak, and sickly among you, and many sleep." From all which it appeares of what concernment it is to the glory of God, and the salvation of our own souls, to attend diligently to our duty in the strict and sincere observation of the worship of the Gospel; for he lets us know, that now a more severe punishment is substituted against such transgressions in the room of that which he so visibly inflicted under the Old Testament (Hebrews 10:25, 26, 27, 28, 29).