474 WHAT MGHT MUST Christian love, and peace, and concord, on pretense of zeal for or- der, government, ceremonies, forms, or for this or that mode of discipline or worship. Not having learned what this meaneth, " I will have mercy and not sacrifice ; " nor that .forms and external institutions were made for man, and not man for them. And yet I know that this will not justify the Familist or hypocrite, who thinks he may do any thing to save his flesh. Do you think it is not a scandal to Turks, or other infidels, tempting them to deride or hate Christianity, to find the Papists placing their merits in hurtful pilgrimages, which waste that time which should be spent, and in a multitude of unprofitable ceremo- nies, and in unwholesome food, and injuries to health, under the names of abstinence and mortification ? By this rule they may next persuade us, that it will please God if men famish or bang themselves ; and, consequently, if 'they do so by others, for we must love our neighbor but as ourselves. God himself bath made all our religion so-suitable to our good, that he expecteth not that we should take anything for our duty, but what he giveth us evi- dence in the thing, or security by his promise, shall be our gain. He that worketh upon self-love, and winneth man by a Savior, and a glorious reward, and proveth the goodness of all his word and ways, as to our happiness, hath instituted none of his ordinances to our hurt. The apostles had their power only to edification,and not the destruction or hurt of souls; 2 Cor. x. S. and xiii. 10. " Let all things be done to edifying" (1 Cor. xiv. 26.) is a word of greater comprehension and use than many do conceive. When it is against edification, it is not acceptable to God. One would think. Christ had brokenhis own lawof discipline when he did famil- iatly eat with publicans and sinners ; and yet that very act of his is oneof those which he justifieth by the aforesaid rule, " I will have mercy, and not sacrifice ; " Matt. ix. 11-13. Learn this lesson of preferring mercy before sacrifice, if ever you will glorify God. The right manner of worshiping God is ofgreat moment to the honor of him and of our religion before the world ;. that we give no false descriptions of God, or dishonorable. attributes ; that we teach no dishonorable doctrine as his, especially of his own will and counsels, and of his government, laws, and judgment; that we neither take down the glory of the gospel .mysteries, by reducing them to the rank of common providence, nor yet be de- ceived by Satan or his ministers, as the promoters of light and righteousness, (2 Cor. xi. 15.) to abuse and dishonor them by over- doing ; that we seek not to glorify God by our lies, or by our own mistaken interpretations or inventions. God must be worshiped as a Spirit, in spirit and truth, and not with Popish toys and foppe- ries, which make others. think that our religion is but like a puppet
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