5. Argument 4. What arises from a supposed defect in Christ's faithfulness is not to be yielded.
Argument 4. What arises from a supposed defect in Christ's faithfulness is not to be yielded.
A rgument 4 Owen:
4th Argument: That which gives testimony against the faithfulness of Christ in his House as a Son and Lord of it above that of a servant, is not to be complied withal; let all his disciples judge.
Unto this faithfulness of Christ it does belong to appoint and command all things whatever in the Church that belongs to the worship of God, as is evident from this comparison with Moses herein and his preference above him (Heb. 3:3-6). But that institution and prescription of all things in religious worship, of things never instituted nor prescribed by Christ in the forms and modes of them, 1 arises from a supposition of a defect in the wisdom, care and faithfulness of Christ, whence alone a necessity can arise of prescribing that in divine worship that He has not prescribed.
Baxter:
§18. To your fourth argument I answer:
1. To the major proposition (1. To give testimony) signifies either by remote, unseen consequence to cross Christ's faithfulness (and so do many of the mistakes of you and every party), or it signifies a known denial of Christ's faithfulness. No Christian complies with this.
2. "Complying" also is an ambiguous word: if it mean an approbation of any sin, so no man must comply. If it mean communicating in good 2 where there is a faulty mixture of some evil, so he that will not comply must join with no Church and with no man living.
2. To your minor I answer (passing by the misforming) in your supposition: It is not true that it belongs to Christ's faithfulness to appoint and command all things whatever in the Church which belongs to the worship of God: Else He were unfaithful in bidding them appoint many things belonging to his worship. I have named instances now which I must not still repeat: You and all ministers belong to his worship and yet Christ has not in Scripture named you, but left the choice of you to man. So of all accidents undetermined.
It is another error that the prescription of forms and modes of things in worship not commanded by Christ can arise from nothing but from supposition of a defect in the wisdom, care and faithfulness of Christ. I confute it:
1. You know not the hearts of all the world and therefore cannot say that this can arise from nothing else: Did you know Ambrose, that made the Te
Deum ["Thee, God, we praise"], and all that made and prescribed psalms, hymns and prayers, and Calvin that made a liturgy, and Bucer, and the martyrs here and all that prescribed translations and meters, etc. so well as to know that all these and almost all the Churches on earth do suppose
Christ to be unfaithful?
2. Is it only such a charge or supposition against Christ which made you yourself prescribe your form of church-covenant, your Savoy Articles, your catalogue of fundamentals, your lay-elders, your time and place of meeting, your utensils and ornaments at the sacraments, etc.?
3. I tell you another possible end: They did it because they thought that these modes are mutable according to persons, place, time, occasion, etc., 3 and therefore that it belonged not to Christ's faithfulness to determine them, and that they should deny his faithfulness if they did deny that it has left them to human determination under general rules and bid the people obey them that have the rule over you, etc.
1. Owen's reasoning holds good if such prescriptions are held to be absolute and unconditional, however it ignores that such material prescriptions could have been prescribed derivatively, conditionally, for the here and now (as they manifestly were), without claiming to be absolute or unchangeable, as was standard reformed doctrine. On the lawfulness and inherent mutability of Church ordinances (though they be enforced in specific times and places) see, https://reformedbooksonline.com/on-church-ordinances/ (RBO).
2. Thomas Goodwin: "I have found by trial of things that there is some truth on all sides. I have found holiness where you would little think it, and so likewise truth; and I have learned this principle, which I hope I shall never lay down… To acknowledge every good thing, and hold communion with it, in men, in churches, or whatsoever else. I learn this from Paul; I learn this from Jesus Christ
Himself: He fills all in all; He is in the hearts of his people, and fills them in his ordinances to this day; and where Jesus Christ fills, why should we deny an acknowledgment and a right hand of fellowship and communion." Works, 12 vols. (d. 1680; Edinburgh: Nichol, 1861), vol. 1, Exposition of Eph. 1 (1681), sermon 36, on 1:2223, https://archive.org/details/worksofthomasgoo01good/page/558/mode/2up .
3. On the mutability of Church ordinances as standard reformed doctrine, see https://reformedbooksonline.com/on-church-ordinances/ (RBO).