20 d HUMBLE A'rT1 MPT, &C. service Of your Creator and more careful to practise. every ap".. pointinent of God, since you aredisengaged from the appoint- gents of men? Are your spirits more warmly engaged id spiritual things ? Me you more zealous in your devotion Have you the fear of God more constantly before your eyes, and the faith of-Our Lord Jesus Christ working more powerfully its your hearts ? Say, my friends, while your outward worship is more uncorrupted with a mixture of htrntan forms, have -you More 6f the divine power and inward Fife of religion ? And while you make the bible the only acrd the perfect rule of your faith and practice, are you more careful to observe all the duties of christianity, which the bible recommends; than those who join the additional inventions of men with them in their religious performances ? Alas I *hat will all your pretences to greater purity in the' outward forms of worship avail you, if you are not more pure and more advanced in the spiritual parts of piety and religion than your neighbours ? You will give occasion to others severely to upbraid you, add drat with some appearance of reason too, that you really stand in need of these outward forms to assist you ; that you want these rites and ceremonies to stir up your dull minds to the remembrance of your duty to God by their notable and spirited signification, which is the very reason given for the use and continuance of them in the preface to the com- mon-prayer. Unless you are more religious and holy without these forms than they are with them, thew will fling your pre- tence of separation for the sake of greater purity back upon your faces with huge and deserved reproaches. 1Vhat! are you the persons who profess to cleave only to the pure ordinances of God's appointment ? Do you abandon and renounce our ceremonious outward forms as though they were carnal, uncleanand unholy; and yet shamèfnllq" neglect the inward, the spiritual and more necessary parts of true religion and godliness? And how will yon be able to answer such sharp and righteous rebukes ? Shall The permitted to mention two or three of these ceremonies upon this occásion, that I may awaken and excite you thereby to va- rious duties, and warn you against a neglect of them. 1. You have not the divine ordinanceof baptism encum- bered amongst you, with the human addition of the sign of the cross to be made on the forehead of the child -°, which is ap- pointed by the church as a token. that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confess the faith if Christ crucified, and manfully to fight .under his banner against sin, the world, and the devil. You renounce this ceremony of thecross ; but do you remember a crucified Saviour, and let him dwell upon your thoughts more than they do who make Use of it? Are you more courageous See Är: Calamy of Moder. Norooiif. Vol. 11. p. 15'9. vol. Ili. p. 61. Lay.Nooconf. Justified, p.29.
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