4. Argument 3. Christ is the sole lawgiver for worship.
Argument 3. Christ is the sole lawgiver for worship.
A rgument 3 Owen:
Argument 3: That in religious worship which derogates from the kingly office of Jesus Christ, so far as it does so, is false worship.
Unto the office of Christ it inseparably belongs that He be the sole Lawgiver of the Church in all the worship of God. 1 The rule of his government herein is, "Teach men to do and observe whatsoever I command." [Mt. 28:20] 2 But the worship treated about consists wholly in the institutions, commands, prescriptions, orders and rules of men; and on the authority of men alone does their impositions on the practice of the Church depend.
What is this but to renounce the kingly office of Christ in the Church?
Baxter:
§17. To the major of your third argument I answer:
1. There is that in worship (as the badness of the men, etc.) which is no part of the worship, and therefore it is no false worship.
2. True worship materially may be so abused as to derogate from the kingly office of Christ.
3. But it is granted that all your own or other men's errors or sin in worship (which no man is totally free from) do in some degree practically derogate from the kingly office of Christ (which should be better obeyed) and so is so far false worship.
That it belongs to this office of Christ to be the sole lawgiver in all the worship of God is another mistake: 3
1. There is that in God's worship which is no part of his worship.
2. There is a secondary worship subservient to God's institutions which men may make laws about.
3. There are temporary by-laws and mandates which have the essence of law (which is to signify the ruler's will, making the subjects' duty), besides general laws, by excellency so called.
1. And so princes may make laws for the use of the best translation of Scripture, 4 for the version of psalms, for ministers' due ordering worship, to restrain some seducers, for time, place, utensils, to be uncovered and to kneel or stand at prayer, etc. 5 and the pastor may by mandate oblige the people to much of the like.
Mt. 28:20, by saying "whatever I command you," does not say, "Do nothing which your parents, prince or pastor command you besides my commands." Sure it was his Spirit that said, Heb. 13:7, "Obey them that have the rule over you." Christ never particularly commanded any of the twenty things in which I instanced to Mr. Raphson. 6 Must not children obey parents or servants their masters in learning any form of catechism, or others choose any minister or write sermons, etc. till Christ will particularly command them? This is a false exposition.
2. It is another mistake that the worship treated about consists wholly in the command, etc. of men. This worship contains:
1. In general: praying, praising, preaching. Is this none of God's command?
2. It contains for the matter signified the confession of sins of omission and commission, the petitioning for all contained in the Lord's Prayer and for all graces (though prayers for faith or its increase was much forgotten, save on St. Thomas's day or such an odd occasion), and for the Church and others as well as ourselves, for kings and all in authority, and thanksgivings for all sorts of men. I can find little in the common public worship whose matter is not of divine command; and can you find none such at all?
Wonderful difference of eye-sight!
3. The matter signifying is much of it: the psalms of David, the Old Testament and the New read, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments,
Scripture hymns, a Scripture-benediction: Is none of all this commanded by God? What Christian should believe it?
It is also a mistake that "on the authority of men alone does their imposition on the practice of the Church depend," for:
1. The foresaid parts are imposed by God Himself.
2. The lawful modes imposed by men depend not on their authority alone, but on God's, who authorizes rulers to do it: For he has said, "Let all be done to edification," [1 Cor. 14:26] "in order;" [1 Cor. 14:40] "Obey them that have the rule." [Heb. 13:7] They that obey a pastor for time, place, utensils, translations, psalms, etc. or that obey the king depend not herein on man alone.
Your conclusion also is a mistake. This is not to renounce the kingly office of Christ in the Church no more than you did when you wrote your
Savoy Articles of Confession, or when you draw up the form of a churchcovenant for your flock. All that is a sin against Christ's kingly office is not a renouncing of it.
1. Owen: "our principal assertion is that Christ alone is the Author, Institutor, and Appointer, in a way of authority and legislation, of the gospel Church-state, its order, rule and worship, with all things constantly and perpetually belonging thereunto, or necessary to be observed therein. What is not so is of men and not from heaven;" https://ota.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/repository/xmlui/bitstream/handle/20.500.12024/A53704/A53704.html? sequence=5&isAllowed=y , p. 33
2. Owen: "there is so much negligence in all sorts of persons about the observance of evangelical institutions, so little conscientious care about them… This indeed is no other but that solemn covenant between God and the whole church, wherein the church takes upon itself their due observance. This renders our obedience in them and by them no less necessary than any duties of moral obedience whatever." An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews… 4 vols., new ed. (London:
Tegg, 1840), on Heb. 9:18, https://archive.org/details/vindicationofdis00walk/page/152/mode/2up? view=theater . Owen's saying positive evangelical institutions are "are no less necessary than any duties of moral obedience" is false. "Go ye and learn what that meaneth, 'I will have mercy, and not sacrifice.'" (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mt.%209%3A13&version=KJV ) See https://reformedbooksonline.com/on-the-relations-between-the-1st-2nd-tables-of-the-law/ (RBO) and https://reformedbooksonline.com/on-church-ordinances/ (RBO).
3. Owen, again, is speaking of worship formally considered, yet applies this to material worship and makes a separatistic conclusion therefrom; compare & . While Baxter does not agree where he can with Owen up front, Baxter is not wrong to press the issues with regard to material worship, wherein the greatest difference between the two lies, and regarding which the tracts of both Owen and Baxter were written.
4. Under the notion of circa sacra, that the magistrate has power around sacred things, though not in sacred things, Baxter, https://reformedbooksonline.com/the-civil-magistrates-authority-aroundspiritual-things-circa-sacra/#independents , gave more authority to the magistrate than the presbyterians. Consider the presbyterian Rutherford: "the right translation of the Bible out of the Hebrew and the Greek in the vulgar language is a cause merely ecclesiastical, belonging to the Church Assembly; it were hard to make the king, being ignorant of these mother languages, the judge of that version as he is made by them judge in all causes ecclesiastical; howbeit, de jure [by right], he is a politic judge, even in this judging by a coactive and kingly power; howbeit, de facto, and through ignorance he cannot exercise the kingly power that God has given him in this act." A Peaceable &
Temperate Plea for Paul's Presbytery in Scotland (1642), https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A57976.0001.001/1:23?rgn=div1;view=fulltext , p. 306.
5. Again, while Baxter here expresses his own view, and it ought to be more qualified, as the presbyterians held, it is not entirely wrong. On the more accurate classic, reformed, and presbyterian, view, see Travis Fentiman, "The Nature of Civil Power about Worship Ordinances" in https://reformedbooksonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Fentiman-The-Civil-GovernmentsPower-about-Religion-and-the-Church-Circa-Sacra.pdf (Reformed Books Online, 2021), pp. 18-20.
6. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A26880.0001.001/1:8?rgn=div1;view=fulltext , pp. 4-8 in Catholic Communion Defended against both Extremes.