The Marrow of Sacred Divinity - William Ames (1642)

1. INstituted worship is the meanes ordained by the Will of God, to exercise and further naturall worship.

2. All such like meanes ordained of God are declared in the second Commandement, by forbidding all contrary meanes of worship devised by men, under the title of Graven and Image: which seeing they were of old the chiefe inventions of men corrupting the worship of God, they are most fitly (by a Synechdoche frequent in the Decalogue) put instead of all devises of mans wit pertaining to worship.

3. This worship doth not depend In specie,²¹⁹ and immediatly upon the nature of God, or upon that honour which by vertue of our Creation we owe to God, but upon the most free institution of God.

4. Hence this worship was divers according to the divers constitution of the Church; one before Christ exhibited, and another after.

5. It is a meanes having relation to the naturall worship, otherwise it were not worship, because one cannot give that honour to God which is due to him, as touching the essence of the act any other way then by Faith, hope, and Love, whereby we doe receive from God with due subjection, those things he propounds to us to be received, & with the same subjectiō we offer to him those things which may be offered by us to his honour. But because the acts themselves are in a speciall manner exercised in those things, which God hath instituted for his honour, therefore there is in them a certaine secundary worship, and a certaine partaking of the former.

6. But it hath in respect to that naturall worship the affection of an effect, which existeth by vertue of the former: and of a meanes and instrument, whereby Faith, Hope, and Love, (in which that worship is contained) doe exercise their acts; and of an adjuvant cause²²⁰ whereby they are furthered, and also of an adjunct²²¹ to which thy are subjected.

7. But it is properly called worship, as it is a meanes and helping cause of that primary worship.

8. But because, the command of God being put, it depends and flowes from the primary worship of God, therefore it is oft perswaded, and urged by those arguments which are taken from the inward and essentiall manner of worshipping God, as in the second precept. They that love me, and keep by Commandements. Deut. 10. 12, 13. What doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but that thou feare the Lord thy God, walke in all his wayes, & that thou love him, & worship the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soule: observing the precepts of the Lord, and his Statutes.

9. That rule therefore of interpreting the Scriptures which is wont to be delivered by some is not universally true; that all those duties morall and immutable, which have morall and immutable reasons joyned to them; except it be thus understood, that those duties doe follow upon those reasons, no speciall command coming betweene. Lev. 11. 44. I am the Lord your God, that sanctifie you, that ye may be holy, as I am holy, defile not therefore your selves with any creeping thing.

10. No worship of this kind is lawfull, unlesse it hath God for the Author, and ordainer of it. Deut. 4. 2. & 12. 32. Keep you all things which I shall command you, Ad not to the word which command you, neither take from it, every thing which I command you observe to doe: ad not to it, nor take from it every thing which I command you observe to doe: ad not to it, nor take from. 1. Chron. 16. 13. Our Lord broke in upon us, because we did not seeke him aright.

11. That is declared in those words of the Commandement. Thou shalt not make to thy selfe: that is of thine own braine or judgement, for although that particle to thyselfe, doth sometimes either abound, or hath another force: yet here the most accurate brevity of these Commandements doth exclude redundancy, and it is manifest that the vanity of mans cogitations is excluded by other places of Scripture pertaining to the same thing. As Amos 5. 26. Which yee made to your selves. Numb. 15. 39. That yee follow not after your own heart and your own eyes, which when yee follow; yee goe a whoring.

12. The same is also declared by that universality of the prohibition, which is explained in the Commandement by a distribution of the things which are in Heaven above, or in the Earth beneath, or in the Waters under the Earth.

13. For none beside God himselfe can either understand what will be acceptable to him: or can ad that vertue to any worship whereby, it may be made effectuall and profitable for us; neither can there be any thing honorable to God, which comes not from him as the author of it, neither finally doe we read that such a power was at any time given to any man by God, to ordaine any worship at his own pleasure. Matthew 15. 9. In vaine doe thy worship me, teaching for doctrines the precepts of men.

14. Hence implicitly and by interpretation of God himselfe, we make him our God, and give the honour due to God to him, whose authority or ordinances we subject our selves unto in religious worship.

15. In this respect also men are sometime said to worship the Devill, when they observe those worships which the Devill brought in. 1. Cor. 10. 20. Levit. 17. 7. Deut. 32. 17.

16. But we must observe that worship which God hath appointed with the same religion, as we receive his word or will, or call upon his name Deut. 6. 17, 18. & 12. 25. 28. & 13. 18. & 28. 14.

17. The meanes which God hath ordained in this kind, some of them doe properly, and immediatly make to the exercising and furthering of Faith, Hope and Charity; as publique and solemne preaching of the word, celebration of Baptisme, and the Lords Supper, and prayer.

And some of them are meanes for the right performance of those former, as the combination of the faithfull into certaine Congregations or Churches, Election, Ordination, and Ministration of Ministers ordained by God, together with the care of Ecclesiasticall Discipline.

18. Those former are most properly the instituted worship of God; yet the rest are also worship, not only in that generall respect, as all things are said to be acts of worship and religion, which doe any way flow from, or are guided by religion; but also in their speciall nature, because the adequate end and use of them is, that God may be rightly worshipped.

19. All these therefore both in generall, and in speciall ought to be observed of us as they aré appointed by God; for God must be worshipped by us with his own worship, totally and solely, nothing must here be added, taken away or changed. Deut. 12. 32.

20. That is a very empty distinction, whereby some goe about to excuse their additions. That only addition corrupting, and not addition conserving is forbidden; because every addition as well as detraction²²² is expresly opposed to observation, or conservation of the commands of God, as being a corruption. Deut. 12. 32.

21. Of like stampe also is that evasion whereby they say there is forbidden only addition of essentialls, and not of accidentalls: for first although there be accidents or certaine adjuncts of worship, yet there is no worship to be simply called accidentall, because it hath in it the very essence of worship. Secondly, as the least commands of God even to Iotaes and Titles are religiously to be observed, Mat. 5. 18. 19. So additions which seeme very small, are by the same reason to be rejected. Thirdly, Moses doth seale up even those lawes of the place of Divine worship, of the manner, of abstinence from blood, and the like which must needs be referred to accidentall worship if any such be, with this very caution of not adding, or taking away. Deut. 12. 32.

22. This observation is in a speciall manner called obedience, because by it we doe that which seemes right in the eyes of the Lord, although some other may seem righter in our eyes. Deut. 12. 25. 28.

23. There is opposed unto this instituted worship, as unlawfull, that will-worship which is devised by men. Mat. 15. 9. Col. 2. 23.

24. The sin which is committed in will-worship, is by a generall name called superstition.

25. Superstition is that whereby undue worship is yielded to God.

26. For in superstition God is alwayes the object, and the end in some measure, but the worship it selfe is unlawfull.

27. It is called undue worship, either in respect of the manner or measure, or in respect of the matter and substance of the worship. In the former manner the Pharises offended about the Sabboth, when they urged the observation of it as touching the outward rest, above the manner and measure appointed by God. And they also offended in the latter manner, in observing and urging their own traditions, Marc. 7. 8.

28. Hence superstition is called an excesse of religion, not in respect of the formall power of religion, because so none can be too religious; but in respect unto the acts and meanes of religion.

29. This excesse is not only in those positive exercises, which consists in the use of things, but also in abstinence from the use of some things, as from meats, which are accounted uncleane and unlawfull, and the like.

30. Yet every abstinence, even from things lawfull, although they be counted unlawfull, is not superstition, to speake properly, unlesse there be some speciall worship and honour intended to God by that abstinence.²²³

31. This indue worship is either properly opposed to that worship, wherein instituted worship is directly put forth and exercised, that is, in hearing the word celebration of the Sacraments, and prayer; or to that which respects the meanes of it.

32. Unto the hearing of the word is opposed, first, A teaching by images devised by men. Deut. 4. 15. 16. Is. 40. 18. & 41. 29. Ierem. 10. 8. 15. Heb. 2. 18. Secondly, a vanting of traditions as they are propounded as rules of religion, Mat. 7. 8.

33. Religious teaching by Images is condemned, first, because they are not sanctified by God to that end: secondly, because they can neither represent to us God himselfe, nor the perfections of God; thirdly, because they debase the soule, and turne away the attention from spirituall contemplation of the Will of God; fourthly, because if they be once admitted into the exercises of worship, the worship it selfe by the perversnesse of mans wit, at least, in part, will be transferred to them: as it is declared in those words of the Commandement. Thou shalt not bow downe to them, nor worship them.

34. Of like kind with Images, are all those ceremonies, which are ordained by men for mysticall or religious signification.

35. For such ceremonies have no determinate power to teach, either by any power put into them by nature, or by divine institution: but they can receive none by humane institution, because man can effect this neither by commanding, seeing it is beyond his authority, nor by obtaining, seeing GOD hath promised no such thing to him that asketh.

36. Neither can men take to themselves any authority in ordaining such ceremonies, from that, that it is commanded to all Churches, that all things be done decently, and in order. 1. Cor. 14. 40. For neither the respect of order nor decency requires, that some holy things should be newly ordained, but that those which are ordained by God, be used in that manner, which is agreeable to their dignity; neither doe order and decency pertaine to holy things only, but also to civill duties; for confusion and indecency in both are vices opposite to that due manner which is required to the attaining the just end and use of them.

37. To the Sacraments are opposed. 1. Sacrifices properly so called, whether they be bloudy or unbloudy, as the Papists faine of their Masse: for after Christ exhibited, all old sacrifices are abrogated: neither is there any new ordinance, because the sacrifice of Christ being once offered we have no need of other types, then those which pertaine to the exhibition and sealing of Christ bestowed on us, which is sufficiently by Gods ordinance performed in the Sacraments, (without Sacrifices.)

38. Also the ordination and use of new seales, or ceremonies sealing some grace of God is opposed to the Sacraments: for it belongs to him to seale grace, to whom it belongs to give it.

39. Unto prayer is opposed that relative use of Images, whereby God is worshipped at them, or before them, although the worship is not referred to the Images themselves, as some say, subjectively, but objectively by them to GOD alone.

40. Superstition of this kind is called idolatry. Exod. 32. 5. Psal. 106. 20. Acts 7. 41.

41. If they be idolls, which are in themselves worshipped in stead of God, it is that idolatry which is against the first Commandement; but when the true God is worshipped at an Image, or in an Image, this is idolatry, which is against the second Commandement.

42. For although in respect of the intention of him that worshippeth, he doth not offend in the primary or highest object, yet from the nature of the thing it selfe he alwayes offends against the formall worship of God, and interpretatively also a new God is faigned for the object, who is delighted with such worship, and religious worship is given also to the Image it selfe, although it be not done with that purpose that that worship be lastly bounded in the Image, but that it be by that directed also to God himselfe.

43. Hence we must not only shun this idolatry’ as well as that absolute idolatry▪ which is against the first Commandement: but also the very idols, and idolothites, or the things that are dedicated to Idolls, and all the monuments properly so called of Idolls, 1. John 5. 21. 1. Corinthians 8. 10. & 10. 18. 19. 21. 2. Cor. 12. 6. 26. Numbers 33. 52. Deut. 12. 2. 3. Exod. 23, 13.

44. Superstition of the second kind is in humane formes of the Church, such as are Churches that are visibly integrally, and Organically, Oecumenicall, Provinciall, and Diocesan, brought in by men; as also in the Hierarchy agreeable to them, and orders of religious persons, who are found among the Papists, and in functions, and censures which are exercised by them.

45. The audaciousnesse of those men is intolerable who either omit the second Commandement, or teach it ought to be so maimed, that it should be read now under the New Testament. Thou shalt not adore nor worship any likenesse, or Image.²²⁴