2. Argument 1. Worship not divinely instituted is false and not accepted.
Argument 1. Worship not divinely instituted is false and not accepted.
A rgument 1 Owen:
On these suppositions the proposition laid down is proved by the following arguments:
1st Argument. [Major proposition:] Religious worship not divinely instituted and appointed is false worship, not accepted with God. 1 [Minor proposition:] But the Liturgical-worship intended is a religious worship, not divinely instituted and appointed, therefore, not accepted with God. 2
The [major] proposition is confirmed by all the divine testimonies wherein all such worship is expressly condemned; see Dt. 4:2; 12:32; Prov.
30:6; Jer. 7:31; Isa. 29:13, etc., and that especially where the Lord Christ restrains all worship to his own command (Mt. 28:20). 3
Baxter:
§7. To your first argument I answer: I have fully answered this to Mr.
Raphson: 4
1. As to the bare name, either you will call all acts done to signify immediately the soul's honoring of God by the name of "worship," or you will not; if not, then that which is no "worship," is no false worship. If you will, then your proposition is false; so that either your major or minor is another error.
For I take it for granted that by God's instituting you mean not a general command to man to institute it, such as, "Let all be done to edification" [1
Cor. 14:40]; if you did, then your minor is not true: kneeling at prayer rather than sitting, 5 putting off the hat, using white linen and silver plate at the sacrament, praising God by new hymns and in English meter and tunes, and many such, are worship in the secondary sense, 6 and yet not imposed by any determining divine institution.
Your wrong exposition of all the texts of Scripture here cited by you is more than one mistake. Dt. 4:2 and 12:32; Prov. 30:6, forbid adding to God's worship, which is broken by all that either say that that is in God's
Word which is not there (as you here do), or that devise any worshipordinances coordinate, or of the same sort, with his own, as if they were imperfect. But there is not a word forbidding subordinate, secondary acts of worship, such as kneeling, putting off the hat, using written notes in preaching or forms of singing, praying, catechizing, laying the hand on the Book, 7 or putting it under the thigh, or lifting it up in swearing, the formal words of vows, oaths, covenants, confessions, professions and many such.
Jer. 7:31 condemns them that offered their children in fire to idols because God never commanded such cruelty and idolatry. It is not true that therefore we may not kneel or put off the hat, or preach, pray or sing in a human form of words till God determine it by command. It was forbidden things which in Isa. 29:13 and Mt. 15 are reproved, as being the precepts of men or
things fained to be necessary acts of obedience to God, which were not so.
But this you yourself think does not forbid your form of church-covenant, 8 nor your books, translation of Scripture, hymns, 9 written sermons, because they are devised by man, nor children's forms of prayer for being commanded by parents.
Mt. 28:20: It follows not that because Christ bid the apostles teach all, that He commanded therefore nothing else subordinate may be taught. He commanded not the additional form of the Creed, but only the form of baptism in three articles; nor the hymns and spiritual songs in form mentioned by Paul, nor the kiss of peace [1 Pet. 5:14], the women's veils, the men's being uncovered, not wearing long hair [1 Cor. 11:2-16], the selling all and laying it down at the apostles' feet [Acts 4:35, 37; 5:2], etc.
Owen:
It is answered [by our opponents] to the minor proposition that the Liturgical-worship is of Christ's appointment as to the substantials of it, though not as to its accidentals, namely, prayers and praises; not unto its outward rites and form, which do not vitiate the whole. 10
Baxter:
Our answer you well recite, if you add that (call it "substantial," or what you will) the common Lord's-Day worship according to the Liturgy has not many, if any words in it whose signified matter is not sound and true; and as to the manner, extemporate prayer has oft as great unaptness of words
(which every age changes), disorder and defectiveness.
Owen:
But it is replied: There is nothing accidental in the worship of God. 11
Every thing that belongs to it, is part of it. 12 Some things are of more weight, use and importance than others (Mt. 23:27), but all things duly
belonging to it, are parts of it, or of its subsistence; 13 outward circumstances are natural and occasional, 14 no accidental parts of worship. 15
Baxter:
§8. As to your reply, it is the strangest that ever I read from so learned a man, and is a great mistake: What is there in the world that is a subject without any accidentals? God's worship has a multitude of accidents, as: the hour, the place, the pulpit, the tables, the cups of silver, the linen and other ornaments, the books as printed, the meter, the tunes, the chapters and verses, the words of translation, the building, the gestures, vestures, treasures, etc.
You add another mistake, that "everything that belongs to it, is a part of it." Then all these forementioned things are parts of it, for they all belong to it. What a strange thing make you of God's worship? Then your time, place, notes, words, tunes, gestures, covenant-form, catechism-forms, etc. are all parts of God's worship, for they belong to it: and then you must be separated from for adding them.
But after this mistake you say, "Outward circumstances are natural and occasional, no accidental parts of worship." Answer: Just now all accidents were parts (or else accidents belong not to it), and now "it has no accidental parts." Certainly this [latter statement] is the truer, for I remember not that ever I heard of mere accidents that were parts. A man's name, relation, trade, clothing, age, house, etc. belong to him and are accidents, but are no parts of him: no, nor his hair, if it be a mere accident. But do none of these duly belong to him?
2. The word "worship," as I said before, is equivocal, as signifying only the things made necessary to the honoring of God directly by divine
command, or the subordinate acts, modes, circumstances left to human choice. 16 In the former sense, the order, words and forms in the Liturgy and in all our usual devotions are accidents and not parts. In the latter sense, they are parts. But whether this latter sense of "worship" be apt is but a strife about a word.
But you say they are "natural and occasional." Answer: Dark words!
1. I think the translations, meter, tunes, notes, your words and method, table, cups, cloth, temples, etc. are rather artificial than natural; art and not nature made them what they are. 17 If you mean that nature commands them, then God by the Law of nature commands them, and what greater authority can they have? But yet that is not so: nature does not determine us to this or that, but leaves all to apt and prudent choice. And so He does as to the form or words of prayer.
2. If by "occasional" you mean such as must be mutably fitted to just occasions, there is no doubt of it: and while the occasion is constant, so may the accidents be. But sure while they are such, yea and relatively appropriated or separated to worship (as buildings, utensils and maintenance may be), they belong to that worship, which they are no parts of.
Owen:
2. Prayers and praises absolutely considered are not an institution of Christ; 18 they are a part of natural worship 19 common unto all mankind.
His institution respects only the internal form of them and the manner of their performance; but this is that which the Liturgy takes on itself, namely to supply and determine the matter, to prescribe the manner and to limit all the concerns of them to modes and forms of its own, which is to take the work of Christ out of his hand.
Baxter:
§9. Your second answer is no better:
1. If by "absolutely," you mean not generally (but as opposite to conditional), it has no sense here that I can find. But if it be in genere [in the genera] that you mean, as the context intimates, they are no part of worship at all, natural or instituted: for there is praying which is cursing and striving against God and goodness, and praying to idols.
But I suppose you mean de specie [concerning the species], praying to the true God for good things needful. And so it is another mistake that this prayer is not of Christ's institution, because it is a part of natural worship. 20
All is of Christ's institution which is part of his commanding Law: The Law of Nature is now Christ's Law, who by redemption is become Lord of nature and of all 21 (Jn. 17:2-3; Mt. 28:18-19; Eph. 1:22-23; Rom. 14:9-10; Jn.
5:22, etc.) He most strictly commands natural duties. The Ten Commandments were of natural obligation, and yet instituted. And as love was called a new and special commandment [Jn. 13:34; 2 Jn. 1:5], as required on new and special grounds and ends, so is prayer thus far also new.
2. And it is another mistake that Christ's institution respects only the internal form and the manner of performance. The internal form is inward desire offered mentally to God. And is not this natural, if prayer be? Sure the form is the thing. 22 But the institution of Christ reaches the matter of prayer as well as the inward form and outward manner: That we pray for the things mentioned in the Lord's Prayer, for God's glory, Kingdom will to be obeyed, etc. for pardon, the Spirit, grace, glory, etc. that the gospel may have free course, etc.
It is another mistake that the manner of performance is sinful which is not of Christ's institution. The words and method, and length, are the manner of performance. Can you show an institution determinative of all the words, method and length of all our prayers? Or of all our psalms, rhymes and tunes, and all our gestures and utensils? etc. By these words I am induced to hope that the common report that you were against the ordinary use of the Lord's Prayer in words 23 is false: for here you seem to be more for it than you ought. For if all the outward manner must be instituted by Christ, sure the Lord's Prayer will be at least the chief part.
You say the Liturgy takes on itself to supply and determine matter.
Answer:
1. Matter is more than manner. But this is another mistake: For the Liturgy supposes that Scripture is the rule and Christ the Commander of all the matter of prayer which is of constant use and need (as the Articles of Religion 24 and the ordination-covenant show); and you give no instance of the contrary. But as to mutable matter, which vary as occasions by providence do (as days of humiliation and thanksgiving, the 5th of November 25 and those things that are specially suited to some times and places), you determine of such yourselves in all your prayers.
It is another mistake that thus to limit the concerns of prayer to modes and forms is to take Christ's work out of his hands. If so, then you must show us where Christ Himself undertook so to limit us to his modes and forms only, else it is not Christ's proper work: Is there a liturgy of his making more than we ever heard of?
2. And then do not all ministers in every public prayer take Christ's work out of his hands? Do they not limit the people in matter, mode and form of words? What heavy charges lay you on yourselves? Do not the composers
of hymns and psalms so limit them to mode and form? It's clear that they do.
Owen:
3. Outward rites and modes of worship divinely instituted and determined do become the necessary parts of divine worship. 26 See the instance, Lev.
1:16. Therefore such as are humanly instituted, appointed and determined are thereby made parts of worship, 27 namely that which is false, for lack of divine institution. 28
Baxter:
§10. Your third reply is no better than the rest, viz. that because divine institution makes rites and modes necessary, therefore human institution makes such parts of false worship for lack of divine institution. I cannot imagine how so worthy a man could mistake so widely, but by studying only what to say for his cause and never thinking what may be replied.
God's determination can make any indifferent thing a duty, and does it follow that therefore He has left nothing to man's determination?
God's choice of Jerusalem for his worship, of the tabernacle-shape, of the priests, etc. made these necessary: Is therefore man's determination of the fixed places for ordinary worship, of the form of the temple [church building], of ordained ministers, false worship? God made it a duty to sing the psalm, Dt. 32, and others since: Is it therefore false worship now to make hymns for public use? Christ taught his disciples a form of prayer: may you therefore not teach your children or scholars any? Christ chose a text, Lk. 4, and preached, and that on a mountain, in a ship, etc. Therefore we may [not] choose a text, and place, etc. God appointed anniversary fasts and feasts: Is it therefore false worship to keep the 5th of November or the like? God determined of the priests' maintenance: Is it a sin now to
determine of ministers' maintenance? If God should institute and command all the words of your church-covenants, prayers, sermons, they would become necessary: Are they therefore sinful if man determine them? If God had made all the articles of your Savoy Confession or all the laws of the land, they would have been necessary: Are they now all unlawful because man made them?
That which God has commanded is no false worship: But God has commanded the churches to determine undetermined modes and circumstances needful in genere, so as all may be done to edification, decently and in order, and not causelessly to cross the customs of the Churches of God, and to obey those that are over them in the Lord.
Owen:
4. Prayer and praise are not the things prescribed and enjoined in and by the Liturgy: It is so far from it that thereby all prayers and praises in churchassemblies, merely as such, are prohibited; but it is its own forms, way and mode, with their determination and limitation alone, that are instituted, prescribed and enjoined by it: But these things have no divine institution and therefore are so far false worship.
Baxter:
§11. Here are two more strange mistakes:
1. Are there so many prayers enjoined and the people called on with a "Let us pray," and yet is not prayer enjoined? There is some secret meaning in this, for doubtless you would never else affirm it and expect that all men renounce their senses. You can mean nothing less than that their imposed forms, when used as commanded, are no prayers, which is another error. If so, then all the prayers of the Church of God for 1,300 years at least, that we read of, were no prayers: and then you desire no part in the prayers of
any churches on earth at this day, save New England's or a few Separatists'.
What wonder then if you be left without the benefit of all those prayers? Is this the communion of saints in the catholic Church?
2. And are there no praises enjoined. Are none of their psalms, hymns and doxologies the praises of God when used: You suppose that Christ will call them none, or else you durst not. And is such a slander of Christ and the universal Church no sin?
Your next misreport is that "by the Liturgy, all prayers and praises in church assemblies are prohibited." This is too rash: Where is there a word forbidding them? This can have no sense but that either none are churchassemblies that have a liturgy, or that nothing commanded in the Liturgy is prayer and praise in a church-assembly. But if this be your meaning, it is both ways untrue:
1. Is there no church on earth out of England? Or do they forbid any out of England to pray and praise God?
2. Do they forbid the Dutch and French in England to pray and praise God?
3. Do they forbid all prayer and praises in the pulpits in the parishchurches?
4. Have you proved all the parish-churches in England to be no churches?
Where is your proof? How much soberer were the old Brownists?
5. Have you proved that commanding men to pray in such words is forbidding them to pray? When you set a psalm for praise, is that to forbid all praise? Is not omnis modus entis modus [every mode a mode of a thing] and includes the thing?
1. See https://reformedbooksonline.com/on-impurities-in-worship/#bible at 'On Impurities of Worship' (RBO).
2. Owen: "But the principal reason of the separation we defend, is the practicing and imposing of sundry things in the worship of the Church not of divine institution, yea in our judgment contrary thereunto, and the framing of a rule of government of men's devising, to be laid on all the members of them, this is the primary cause pleaded herein." https://ota.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/repository/xmlui/bitstream/handle/20.500.12024/A53704/A53704.html? sequence=5&isAllowed=y , pp. 341-42; "Whoever departs from the observance of the gospel and the institutions thereof, does in so doing depart from the living God… Men think it almost a matter of nothing to play with gospel institutions at their pleasure… For, First. In their so doing, the authority of God over their souls and consciences is utterly rejected, and so consequently is God Himself. For where his authority is not owned, his being is despised… Every way whereby he reveals Himself, He also makes known his sovereign authority over us… Whatever men may say or do, or pretend as to the worship of God, if it be not in and by the name of Christ, if it be not appointed and revealed in the gospel, it is not performed unto the living God, but to an idol of their own hearts… He says of all such worship, as he did of the sacrifices of the Israelites, when their hearts went after their idols,
Amos 5:26, 'It is all to Moloch and Chiun, and not to Him.' Such, I say, is all the worship that men design to offer unto the living God, but not according to the gospel." Hebrews, vol. 2, https://archive.org/details/expositionofepis184002owen/page/622/mode/2up?view=theater
3. See the https://reformedbooksonline.com/on-impurities-in-worship/#bibleaccept that 'God may
Graciously Accept Impure Obedience & Worship'.
4. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A26880.0001.001/1:8?rgn=div1;view=fulltext in Baxter,
Catholic Communion Defended against both Extremes, and Unnecessary Division Confuted in Five
Parts (London, 1684), pp. 1-18. See especially pp. 14-17.
5. Puritanism typically held, though not all postures are of equal appropriateness, yet they may be variable in worship, and are not regulated as equal with formal parts of worship, but are to be in accord with nature's light, Christian prudence and the general rules of the Word
(https://thewestminsterstandard.org/the-westminster-confession/ .6); see https://reformedbooksonline.com/posture-in-prayer/ (RBO).
6. For an explanation and elaboration of this necessary secondary sense, namely of otherwise indifferent material actions coming under formal acts of worship, and hence becoming material worship, yet without becoming worship per se, see Fentiman, https://reformedbooksonline.com/wp-
content/uploads/2022/11/Fentiman-Travis-1-Corinthians-Head-Coverings-are-Not-Perpetual-andthey-were-Hair-Buns-with-or-without-Material-Proven.pdf , pp. 73-74.
7. On this and other items in this list, see https://reformedbooksonline.com/on-veneration-asdistinguished-from-the-worship-of-adoration/#laying at 'On Natural Gestures, Signs & Customs about Worship, & of Reverence & Veneration as Distinguished from the Worship of Adoration'
(RBO).
8. A church-covenant was commonly used by congregationalists, they generally holding a written, man-composed covenant (enumerating Scriptural duties) between all the initial members of the congregation was morally necessary for the proper establishment of a particular church. The presbyterians argued rightly according to Scripture that such was not necessary: https://reformedbooksonline.com/topics/topics-by-subject/the-church/church-membership/#covenant at 'Church Membership' (RBO).
9. While there are many instances of Owen approving psalms being sung as a public ordinance of worship in his published works, there are no instances of Owen approving hymns for the same.
10. It is here being acknowledged by Owen's opponents that the Liturgy was impure with respect to its accidentals and outward rites and form. See the presbyterian Zachary Crofton delineate what corruptions do not vitiate the whole of worship and which do, under the section https://reformedbooksonline.com/on-impurities-in-worship/#vs at 'On Impurities of Worship' (RBO).
11. On the one hand Baxter below does not interpret Owen here in the best light possible. Owen's words are most true in speaking of worship formally considered, as divinely prescribed. See https://reformedbooksonline.com/on-the-definition-of-worship/#material at 'On the Definition of Worship' (RBO). Yet, Owen is evidently using this principle as an argument for why there can be nothing deemed accidental in the material Anglican worship, any undue accident therein becoming and corrupting a part of the prescribed worship of God as such (and hence, according to Owen, necessitating separation). While undue natural accidents, circumstances or adjuncts may hinder or obstruct prescribed formal worship in some degree or manner, yet they do not thereby necessarily become formal worship, though adjoined (in whatever way) to the material worship. The accident or circumstance may still simply remain an undue accident or circumstance, and not be formally worship (nor considered such by the people). This was commonly held in early English puritanism and after, as can be seen from the very fact that the puritans had https://reformedbooksonline.com/topics/topics-by-subject/worship/the-regulative-principle-ofworship/on-ceremonies/#rules (at 'On Ceremonies' at RBO), and that they considered unnecessary, hindering indifferent things in worship to remain such. While unnecessary indifferent things may become part of material worship and are worthy of being complained of as useless, obstructive, hindering, etc. they do not constitute of themselves a new part of formal worship, or idolatry. It seems impossible Owen could have been ignorant of this; rather, it seems more likely he was
conscious of his separatistic trajectory. The persuasiveness of Owen's argument essentially rests on the ambiguity of whether "worship" be taken and applied formally or materially. Baxter rightly exposes and blows up this latent ambiguity, and hence the force of Owen's argument. Owen's paradigm here given cannot account for all the issues that go into worship; hence he is reducing things that cannot be so reduced. Numerous reformed theologians saw a need to delineate an accidental-worship, such as Daniel Chamier and William Ames, or allowed for such, as George
Gillespie. See https://reformedbooksonline.com/on-the-definition-of-worship/#proper and https://reformedbooksonline.com/on-the-definition-of-worship/#essential at 'On the Definition of Worship' (RBO).
12. John Corbet, an English, congregationalist puritan that tended in the same strain as Baxter: "Here it may be considered whether every adjunct of worship instituted of God does by that institution become a matter or part of worship, which otherwise it would not be. Some say that in the old Law the least ceremony prescribed of God was a part of worship, which assertion I do not now so far examine as to declare my assent or dissent. But if it were so, I think it was not merely as prescribed of God, but upon some further reason. For I do not see that God cannot prescribe a mere adjunct of worship, but it must thereby lose its formal state, or become formally another thing, viz. a matter of worship, but think it may remain in its own state, a mere adjunct still. Nevertheless, the observation of that divinely prescribed adjunct may be an act of worship so far as every act of obedience to God as such may be so called. But here we speak of worship, not in so large, but in the stricter sense." The Remains of the Reverend & Learned Mr. John Corbet (London, 1684), Of Divine Worship, pt. 1, §16. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A34542.0001.001/1:10.1.16?rgn=div3;view=fulltext , pp. 184-85.
13. Owen: "These are not circumstances attending the nature of the thing itself, but are arbitrarily superadded to the things that they are appointed to accompany. Whatever men may call such additions, they are no less parts of the whole wherein they serve, then the things themselves whereunto they are adjoined… such additionals that are called circumstanstantial, are made parts of worship, as are made necessary by virtue of command to be observed." Discourse concerning
Liturgies, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A53684.0001.001/1:8?rgn=div1;view=fulltext , pp. 42-
14. That some circumstances are not merely natural or occasional, but are regulated worship, see https://reformedbooksonline.com/topics/topics-by-subject/the-lords-day/#regulated and Fentiman,
'How Head-Coverings are Different from the Regulated Circumstances of the Lord's Supper' in https://reformedbooksonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Fentiman-Travis-1-Corinthians-HeadCoverings-are-Not-Perpetual-and-they-were-Hair-Buns-with-or-without-Material-Proven.pdf , pp.
87-90. Owen appears to agree with this in Discourse concerning Liturgies, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A53684.0001.001/1:8?rgn=div1;view=fulltext , pp. 41-43.
15. The phrase "accidental parts of worship" was coming from certain defenders of the Liturgy, who Owen mentions and argues against further in Discourse concerning Liturgies, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A53684.0001.001/1:8?rgn=div1;view=fulltext , pp. 41-43.
Gillespie also refers to such persons: A Dispute Against the English-Popish Ceremonies… (Leiden,
1637), pt. 3, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A01760.0001.001/1:7.7?rgn=div2;view=fulltext , pp.
120-21.
16. See above.
17. A more fitting category may be the secondary laws of nature. These are founded on more basic and necessary natural laws, but also involve degrees of positive human choice, are partly artificial and may partake of art. This category encompasses the best of what Owen and Baxter are seeking to get at while excluding that which is not appropriate from either view. For more on this see Fentiman,
"Men's Long Hair: 'Nature' in v. 14 & Custom" in https://reformedbooksonline.com/wpcontent/uploads/2022/11/Fentiman-Travis-1-Corinthians-Head-Coverings-are-Not-Perpetual-andthey-were-Hair-Buns-with-or-without-Material-Proven.pdf , pp. 27-28.
18. Both Owen and Baxter here, being congregationalists, judged that church ordinances must have been warranted from Christ in the New Testament specifically. Presbyterians held that the warrant may come from the Lord in either Testament, as appropriate.
19. For the differences between natural and instituted worship, see: https://reformedbooksonline.com/natural-vs-instituted-worship/ (RBO). That prayer is a part of natural worship was variably judged in that era. The Westminster Confession does not affirm it
(https://thewestminsterstandard.org/the-westminster-confession/#Chapter%20XXI .1), but rather says: "The light of nature showeth that there is a God, who… is therefore to be… praised, called upon…", rightly citing https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/? search=ps.%2018%3A3&version=KJV ; https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/? search=rom.%2010%3A12&version=KJV (see also https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/? search=gen.%204%3A26&version=KJV ; https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/? search=jer.%2010%3A25&version=KJV ). The main issues are the measure of God's condescension under the light of nature, of freedom of access to Him by such (considered before and after the Fall, and in distinction from the Covenant of Works), and whether regular stated prayer may be directed and set up by nature's light alone. Rutherford: "for if prayer was a worship enjoined to Adam before the Fall, no less then public worship of praising for the workmanship of creation, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=gen.%202%3A2-3&version=KJV , it may be said, if Adam was to suit anything in prayer to God, then especially was he to pray that he might not sin, and might not be led into temptation, but might stand in obedience, and so might have influences to determine his will to stand and continue therein, and this the law of nature seems to say." Influences
of the Life of Grace (London, 1659), bk. 1, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A92141.0001.001/1:5.1?rgn=div2;view=fulltext , pp. 2-3.
20. That natural law was understood by numerous in that era to be in a way instituted, see Travis
Fentiman, https://reformedbooksonline.com/natural-vs-instituted-worship/#westminster at 'Natural vs. Instituted Worship' (RBO).
21. Baxter took, to put it anachronistically, the Reformed Presbyterian view of the Mediatorial
Kingship of Christ, yet, as is evident, this for him was founded on his view of a universal atonement
(unlike the Reformed Presbyterians). Rutherford: "That opinion is not to be held which lays ground that Christ-Mediator is a temporary king, has under Him magistrates, even heathenish, who have nothing to do with a mediator, to bear a temporal sword for a supernatural and spiritual end, as Christ under-heirs, He himself being the first-heir of all such and so makes heathens within the verge of the Mediatorial Kingdom; as if Christ were as Mediator, a King to heathen and all and everyone of mankind, who must have magistrates, and so [it] makes the Kingdom of men as men, and the Kingdom of Grace commensurable, and of alike latitude and extension, and makes nature and grace of equal comprehension: But such is the former opinion; the proposition cannot be denied, except by Arminians, Socinians, Papists, who do maintain an universal redemption, a grace universal, a catholic
Kingdom of Grace comprehensive of all and every man, of Pharaoh, Evil Merodach, Belshazzar, all the kings of Romans, Persians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, and of Turk[s], India, and such as worship the sun and moon, the Devil, and the work of men's hands…" The Divine Right of ChurchGovernment… (London, 1646), https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A92138.0001.001/1:7.28? rgn=div2;view=fulltext , p. 614.
22. That is, in the Aristotelian notion of form.
23. Owen gives reasons tending to the conclusion that the Lord's Prayer should not be regularly used in public worship in Discourse concerning Liturgies, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A53684.0001.001/1:4?rgn=div1;view=fulltext , pp. 15-18.
24. Thirty-Nine Articles, Article 6, https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worshiptexts-and-resources/book-common-prayer/articles-religion#VI 25. Guy Fawkes Night marked the overturning of the Romanist Gunpowder Plot in 1605, which threatened to assassinate King James I and blow up the House of Lords.
26. This is not in all respects true. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/? search=ps.%2095%3A6&version=KJV says, "let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our maker." Yet kneeling of its nature is a civil custom, not wholly natural, and it is not necessarily sinful if a person goes their whole life without kneeling to God, as kneeling is not made by God's command in Scripture to be in its nature formally worship per se. There is much of this sort in Scripture that is variable. One New Testament instance is female head-coverings in https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20cor.%2011%3A2-16&version=KJV , which
was an "ordinance" (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/? search=1%20cor.%2011%3A2&version=KJV ) divinely instituted by the apostle Paul under inspiration for the context, which yet retained its nature as a social custom; see Fentiman, https://reformedbooksonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Fentiman-Travis-1-Corinthians-HeadCoverings-are-Not-Perpetual-and-they-were-Hair-Buns-with-or-without-Material-Proven.pdf .
Something materially instituted of God does not of itself mean its mode is formally instituted and becomes a part of necessary worship: another example is https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/? search=1%20tim.%202%3A8&version=KJV , "I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands…" Lifting up one's hands is not necessary for praying, as approved examples to the contrary abound in Scripture. If "modes of worship divinely instituted and determined do" not therein
"become the necessary parts of divine worship," how much more are "humanly instituted, appointed and determined" modes of worship not "thereby" inherently "made parts of worship"?
27. Owen: "for every circumstance observed religiously, or to be observed in the worship of God, is of the substance of it;" https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A53671.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext
(London, 1667), p. 65. Owen: "1. They will receive nothing, practice nothing, own nothing in his worship, but what is of his appointment. They know that from the foundation of the world He never did allow, or ever will, that in any thing the will of the creatures should be the measure of his honor, or the principle of his worship, either as to matter or manner…" Of Communion with God the Father,
Son & Holy Ghost… (Oxford, 1657), pt. 2, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A53713.0001.001/1:4.5?rgn=div2;view=fulltext , pp. 169-71.
28. Owen's basic mistake here is equivocating on the word "worship": modes of material worship
"humanly instituted, appointed and determined are" not "thereby made parts of" formal "worship." If the instituted mode be undue in some degree (lacking divine institution, whether by Scripture or nature), it only necessarily remains an undue mode of material worship, hindering formal worship to that degree. Compare above.