484 REMNANTS OF TIME. XV. The Diamond painted. HOW wide and unhappy a mistake it is when christians endeavour to adorn their pure divine worship by the mixture of it with ceremonies of human invention. The symbolical ordi- nances of the gospel have a noble simplicity in them : Their materials are water, bread and wine, three of the most neces- sary and valuable things in human life ; and their mystic sense is plain, natural, and easy : By water we are cleansed when we have been defiled ; so by the grace of the Holy Spirit we are purified from sin, which pollutes our souls in the sight of God. By bread we are fed when we are hungry, and nourished into strength for service : By wine we are refreshed and revived when thirsty and fainting ; so from the body of Christ which was broken as an atoning sacrifice, and his blood which was poured out for us, we derive our spiritual life and strength. The application of these symbols is most simple, and natural also : We are commanded to wash with the water, to eat the bread, and to drink the wine ; most proper representations of our participation of these benefits. Thus much of figures and emblems did the all -wise God think proper to appoint and continue in his church, when he brake the yokes of Jewish bondage, and abolished a multitude of rites and ceremonies of his own ancient appointment. How plain, how natural, how glorious, how divine are these two christian institutions, Baptism and the Lord's - supper, if sur- veyed and practised in their original simplicity ! but they are debased by the addition of any fantastic ornaments. What think ye of all the gaudy trappings and golden finery that is mingled with the christian worship by the imaginations of men in the church of Rome ? Are they not like so many spots and blemishes cast upon a fair jewel by some foolish painter ? Let the colours be never so sprightly and glowing, and the lustre of the paint never so rich, yet if you place them on a diamond they are spots and blemishes still. Is not this a just emblem to represent all the gay airs, and rich and glittering accoutrements wherewith the church of Rome hath surrounded her devotions and her public religion ? The reformers of our worship of the church of England were much of this mind, for they boldly pass this censure on. many of the Popish ceremonies, " that they entered into the church by undiscreet devotion and zeal without knowledge They blinded the people, and obscured the glory of God, and are worthy to be cut away and clean rejected: That they did more confound and darken, than declare and set forth Christ's benefits unto us, and reduced us again to a ceremónial law, like that of Moses, and to the bondage of figures and shadows :" This is their sentence and judgment concerning many of the.
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