SECTION NUI. -41 ßçóß. VIII.Of the Power of Churches to appoint Holy Things or Actions. Question. --Whether a christian church may not appoint or determine circumstances and ceremonies of worship and order, which are left undetermined in the New Testament, and require them to be observed ? Answer. In the primitive churches there were extraordi- nary gifts and powers communicated to them : There were apostles, evangelists, and inspired leaders and guides ; but since theseextraordinarygifts and powers are Ceased, reason and scrip- ture are our only rules. It is upon this foot every christian church, or every single society of christians, receivingone another in the Lord, as St. Paul speaks, Rom. xvi. 2. that is, agreeing to worship and walk together according to the faith and order of the gospel, when it is furnished with its proper officers, that is, a bishop, or bishops and deacons is the highest ecclesiastical power that I know of in this-world, which has plain evidence and 'sup- port in the word of God, or the necessary reason of things. Yet I cannot find that either the light of reason' or scripture has given such a church, or its officers, any authority to invent and use, to appoint and command new ceremonies of divine worship in any case: Nor has it, a right to impose on the consciences of men any such self-invented modes or circumstances of worship, so as to make them holy things, or to oblige any single christian to comply therewith. But to speak a little more particularly to this matter. We must distinguish between the religious cere monies of worship, and the mere natural circumstances of the performance of it. Natural circumstances are such as are necessary, er at least highly expedient, for the performance of acts of worship, consi- dered merely as natural actions, and abstracted from their religi- ous design. Such are time, place, habit, gesture, &c. for no natural action can be put forth but it must be in some time, or in some place, in someposture of body: nor can any transaction in public society be conveniently performed without some sort of garments, without a commodious place and seasonable hours for assembling : These in their own nature are properly no parts of worship or religion, but circumstances belonging to those actions considered merely as natural, and as the actions of natural and sociable creatures. Among these natural circumstancesof actions in social worship, some are necessary to be determined one certain way, and others are not so. The circumstances necessary to be determined one certain way, are the time and place, the lan- guage, and something of the manner or order of the religious actions, &c. Now where these are not determined by God himself, it is granted they must be determined by every worshipping society
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