ART. Another consideration urged for the invocation of saints is, XXII. that, they seeing God, we have reason to believe that they see in him, if not all things, yet at least all the concerns of the church, of which they are still parts; and they being in a most perfect state of charity, they must certainly love the souls of their brethren here below: so that if saints on earth, whose charity is not yet perfect, do pray for one another here on earth, they in that state of perfection do certainly pray most fervently for them. And as we here on earth do desire the prayers of others, it may be as reasonable and much more useful to have recourse to their prayers, who are both in a higher state of favour with God, and have a more exalted charity by which their intercessions will be both more earnest, and more prevalent. They think also that this honour paid the saints, is an honour done to God, who is glorified in them and since he is the acknowledged fountain of all, they think that all the worship offered to them ends and terminates in God. They think, as princes are come at by the means of those that are in favour with them; so we ought to come to God by the intercession of the saints: that all our prayers to them are to be understood to amount to no more than a desire to them, to intercede for us; and finally, that the offering of sacrifice is an act of worship, that can indeed be made only to God, but that all other acts of devotion and respect may be given to the saints: and the sublimest degrees of them may be offered to the blessed Virgin, as the mother of Christ, in a peculiar rank by herself. For they range the order of worship into latria, that is due only to God; hyperdulia, that belongs to the blessed Virgin; and dulia, that belongs to the other saints. : It were easy to retort all this, by putting it into the mouth of a heathen; and shewing how well it would fit all those parts of worship, that they offered to demons or intelligent spirits, and to deified men among them. This is obvious enough, to such as have read what the first apologists for Christianity have writ upon those heads. But to take this to pieces; we have no reason to believe that the saints see all the concerns of the church. God can make them perfectly happy without this; and if we think the seeing them is a necessary ingredient of perfect happiness, we must from thence conclude, that they do also see the whole chain of Providence otherwise they may seem to be in some suspense, which, according to our notions, is not consistent with perfect happiness. For if they see the persecutions of the church, and the miseries of Christians, without seeing on to the end, in what all that will issue, this seems to be a stop to their entire joy. And if they see the final issue, and know what God is to do, then we cannot imagine that they can intercede against it, or indeed for it. To us, who know not the hidden counsels of God, prayer is necessary and commanded: but it seems inconsistent with a state in which all these events are ART. known. This which they lay for the foundation of prayers to XXII. saints, is a thing concerning which God has revealed nothing to us, and in which we can have no certainty. God has commanded us to pray for one another, to join our prayers together, and we have clear warrants for desiring the intercession of others. It is a high act of charity, and a great instance of the mutual love that ought to be among Christians: it is a part of the communion of the saints: and as they do certainly know, that those, whose assistance they desire, understand their wants when they signify them to them; so they are sure that God has commanded this mutual praying one for another. It is a strange thing therefore to argue from what God has commanded, and which may have many good effects, and can have no bad one, to that which he has not commanded; on the contrary, against which there are many plain intimations in scripture, and which may have many bad effects, and we are not sure that it can have any one that is good. Beside, that the solemnity of devotion and prayer is a thing very different from our desiring the prayers of such as are alive; the one is as visibly an act of religious worship, as the other is not. God has called himself Ps. lxv. 2. a jealous God, that will not give his glory to another.' And Isa. xlii. 8. through the whole scripture, prayer is represented as a main part of the service due to him; and as that in which he takes Ps. cxli. 2. the most pleasure. It is a sacrifice, and is so called: and Hos. xiv. 2. every other sacrifice can only be accepted of God, as it is accompanied with the internal acts of prayers and praises; which are the spiritual sacrifices with which God is well pleased. The only thing, which the church of Rome reserves to God, proves to be the sacrifice of the mass: which, as shall appear upon another Article, is a sacrifice that they have invented, but which is no where commanded by God; so that if this is well made out, there will be nothing reserved to God to be the act of their latria: though it is not to be forgotten, that even the Virgin and the saints have a share in that sacrifice. The excusing this, from the addresses made to princes by those that are in favour with them, is as bad as the thing itself; it gives us a low idea of God, and of Christ, and of that goodness and mercy, that is so often declared to be infinite, as if he were to be addressed to by those about him, and might not be come to without an interposition: whereas the scriptures speak always of God, as a hearer of prayer, and as ready to accept of and answer the prayers of his people: to seek to other assistances, looks as if the mercies of God were not infinite, or the intercessions of Christ were not of infinite efficacy. This is a corrupting of the main design of the gospel, which is to draw our affections wholly to God, to free us from all low notions of him, and from every thing that may incline us to idolatry and superstition. ART. Thus I have gone through all the heads contained in this XXII. Article. It seemed necessary to explain these with a due copiousness; they being not only points of speculation, in which errors are not always so dangerous, but practical things, which enter into the worship of God, and that run through it. And certainly it is the will of God, that we should preserve it pure, from being corrupted with heathenish or idolatrous practices. It seems to be the chief end of revealed religion to deliver the world from idolatry; a great part of the Mosaical law did consist of rites of which we can give no other account, that is so like to be true, as, that they were fences and hedges, that were intended to keep that nation in the greatest opposition, and at the utmost distance possible from idolatry: we cannot therefore think that in the Christian religion, in which we are carried to higher notions of God, and to a more spiritual way of worshipping him, there should be such an approach to some of the worst pieces of Gentilism, that it seems to be outdone by Christians in some of its most scandalous parts; such as the worship of subordinate gods, and of images. These are the chief grounds upon which we separate from the Roman communion; since we cannot have fellowship with them, unless we will join in those acts, which we look on as direct violations of the First and Second Commandments. God is a jealous God, and therefore we must rather venture on their wrath, how burning soever it may be, than on his, who is a consuming fire. ART. ARTICLE XXIII. Of Ministering in the Congregation. It is not lawful for any Man to take upon him the Office of public Preaching or Ministering the Sacraments in the Congregation, before he be lawfully called and sent to execute the same. And those we ought to judge lawfully called and sent, which be chosen and called to this Work by Men, who have public Authority given unto them, in the Congregation, to call and send Ministers into the Lord's Vineyard.* We have two particulars fixed in this Article: the first is against any that shall assume to themselves, without a lawful vocation, the authority of dispensing the things of God: the second is, the defining, in very general words, what it is that makes a lawful call. As to the first, it will bear no great difficulty: we see in the old dispensation, that the family, the age, and the qualifications, of those that might serve in the priesthood, are very particularly set forth. In the New Testament our Lord called the twelve apostles, and sent them out: he also sent out upon another occasion seventy disciples: and before he left his apostles, he told them, that as his Father John xx. had sent him, so he sent them which seems to import, that 21. as he was sent into the world with this, among other powers, that he might send others in his name; so he likewise empowered them to do the same: and when they went planting churches, as they took some to be companions of labour with themselves, so they appointed others over the particular churches in which they fixed them: such were Epaphras, or Epaphroditus at Colosse, Timothy at Ephesus, and Titus in Crete. To them the apostles gave authority: otherwise it was a needless thing to write so many directions to them, in order to their conduct. They had the depositum of the faith, with 2 Tim. i. which they were chiefly intrusted: concerning the succession 13. in which that was to be continued, we have these words of St. Paul: The things which thou hast heard of me, among many 2 Tim.ii.2. witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.' To them directions are given, conerning all the different parts of their worship; supplications, 1 Tim. ii. 1, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks:' and also the keep- 2,3. i. 12. On the question of Holy Orders, the reader should examine Mason's celebrated work in Defence of the Orders of the Church of England. He will also find this point ably discussed in a work undertaken by the command of archbishop Sancroft, and entitled, A Legacy to the Church of England, vindicating her orders from the objections of Papists and Dissenters,' by the Rev. Luke Milbourn. This subject is also handled by bishop Taylor in his Episcopacy Asserted.'—[ ED.] XXIII. 15. 3, 17, 19, 22. ART. ing up the decency of the worship, and the not suffering of women to teach; like the women priests among the heathens, who were believed to be filled with a Bacchic fury. To them are directed all the qualifications of such as might be made 1 Tim. iii. either bishops or deacons: they were to examine them according to these, and either to receive or reject them. All this 1 Tim. ii. was directed to Timothy, that he might know how he ought to 'behave himself in the house of God.' He had authority given 1 Tim. v.1, him to rebuke and intreat, to honour and to censure. He was to order what widows might be received into the number, and who should be refused. He was to receive accusations against elders, or presbyters, according to directed methods, and was either to censure some, or to lay hands on others, as should agree with the rules that were set him; and in conclusion, he 1 Tim. vi. is very solemnly charged, to 'keep that which was committed to his trust.' He is required rightly to divide the word of truth,' to 'preach the word,' to 'be instant in season and out of season,' 2 Tim. iv. to 'reprove, rebuke, and exhort, and to do the work of an evangelist, and to make full proof of his ministry. Some of the same things are charged upon Titus, whom St. Paul had left in Crete, to set in order the things that were wanting, and to ordain elders in every city: several of the characters by which he was to try them are also set down: he is charged to rebuke the people sharply, and to speak the things that became sound doctrine: he is instructed concerning the doctrines which he was to teach, and those which he was to avoid; and also how to Tit. iii. 10. censure an heretic: he was to admonish him twice; and if that did not prevail, he was to reject him, by some public 20. 2 Tim. ii. 15. 2, 5. Tit. i. 5, 9. 13. censure. These rules given to Timothy and Titus do plainly import, that there was to be an authority in the church, and that no man was to assume this authority to himself; according to that maxim, that seems to be founded on the light of nature, as well as it is set down in scripture, as a standing rule agreed to Heb. v. 4. in all times and places: 'no man taketh this honour to himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron.' Rom. xii. 6, 7, 8. I Cor. xii. 28. up St. Paul, in his Epistles to the Romans and Corinthians, did reckon the several orders and functions that God had set in his church, and in his Epistle to the Ephesians he shews, Eph.iv.11, that these were not transient but lasting constitutions; for 12, 13, 16. there, as he reckons the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, as the gifts which Christ at his ascension had given to men; so he tells the ends for which they were given; "for the perfecting the saints,' (by perfecting seems to be meant the initiating them by holy mysteries, rather than the compacting or putting them in joint; for as that is the proper signification of the word, so it being set first, the other things that come after it make that the strict sense of perfecting; that is, completing does not so well agree with the period,) 'for the work of the ministry,' (the whole ecclesiastical or |