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INstituted worship is the meanes ordained by the Will of God, to exercise and further naturall worship.
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All such like meanes ordained of God are declared in the second Commandement, by forbidding all contrary meanes of worship devised by men, under the title of Graven and Image: which seeing they were of old the chiefe inventions of men corrupting the worship of God, they are most fitly (by a Synechdoche frequent in the Decalogue) put instead of all devises of mans wit pertaining to worship.
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This worship doth not depend In specie, and immediatly upon the nature of God, or upon that honour wich by vertue of our Creation we owe to God, but upon the most free institution of God.
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Hence this worship was divers according to the divers constitution of the Church; one befor Christ exhibited, and another after.
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It is a meanes having relation to the naturall worship, otherwise it were not worship, because one cannot give that honour to God which is due to him, as touching the essence of the act any other way then by Faith, hope, and Love, whereby we doe receive from God with due subjection, those things he propounds to us to be received, & with the same subjection we offer to him those things which may be offered by us to his honour. But because the acts themselves are in a speciall manner exercised in those things, which God hath instituted for his honour, therefore there is in them a certaine secundary worship, and a certaine partaking of the former.
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But it hath in respect to that naturall worship the affection of an effect, which existeth by vertue of the former: and of a meanes and instrument, whereby Faith, Hope, and Love, (in which that worship is contained) doe exercise their acts; and of an adjuvant cause whereby they are furthered, and also of an adjunct to which thy are subjected.
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But it is properly called worship, as it is a meanes and helping cause of that primary worship.
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But because, the command of God being put, it depends and flowes from the primary worship of God, therefore it is oft perswaded, and urged by those arguments which are taken from the inward and essentiall manner of worshipping God, as in the second precept. They that love me, and keep by Commandements. Deut. 10. 12, 13. What doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but that thou feare the Lord thy God, walke in all his wayes, & that thou love him, & worship the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soule: observing the precepts of the Lord, and his Statutes.
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That rule therefore of interpreting the Scriptures which is wont to be delivered by some is not universally true; that all those duties morall and immutable, which have morall and immutable reasons joyned to them; except it be thus understood, that those duties doe follow upon those reasons, no speciall command coming betweene. Lev. 11. 44. I am the Lord your God, that sanctifie you, that ye may be holy, as I am holy […]t defile not therefore your selves with any creeping thing.
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No worship of this kind is lawfull, unlesse it hath God for the Author, and ordainer of it. Deut. 4. 2. & 12. 32. Keep you all things which I shall command you, Ad not to the word which command you, neither take from it, every thing which I command you observe to doe: ad not to it, nor take from it every thing which I command you observe to doe: ad not to it, nor take from. 1. Chron. 16. 13. Our Lord broke in upon us, because we did not seeke him aright.
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That is declared in those words of the Commandement. Thou shalt not make to thy selfe: that is of thine own braine or judgement, for although that particle to thyselfe, doth sometimes either abound, or hath another force: yet here the most accurate brevity of these Commandements doth exclude redundancy, and it is manifest that the vanity of mans cogitations is excluded by other places of Scripture pertaining to the same thing. As Amos 5. 26. Which yee made to your selves. Numb. 15. 39. That yee follow not after your own heart and your own eyes, which when yee follow; yee goe a whoring.
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The same is also declared by that universality of the prohibition, which is explained in the Commandement by a distribution of the things which are in Heaven above, or in the Earth beneath, or in the Waters under the Earth.
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For none beside God himselfe can either understand what will be acceptable to him: or can ad that vertue to any worship whereby, it may be made effectuall and profitable for us; neither can there be any thing honorable to God, which comes not from him as the author of it, neither finally doe we read that such a power was at any time given to any man by God, to ordaine any worship at his own pleasure. Matthew 15. 9. In vaine doe thy worship me, teaching for doctrines the precepts of men.
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Hence implicitly and by interpretation of God himselfe, we make him our God, and give the honour due to God to him, whose authority or ordinances we subject our selves unto in religious worship.
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In this respect also men are sometime said to worship the Devill, when they observe those worships which the Devill brought in. 1. Cor. 10. 20. Levit. 17. 7. Deut. 32. 17.
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But we must observe that worship which God hath appointed with the same religion, as we receive his word or will, or call upon his name Deut. 6. 17, 18. & 12. 25. 28. & 13. 18. & 28. 14.
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The meanes which God hath ordained in this kind, some of them doe properly, and immediatly make to the exercising and furthering of Faith, Hope and Charity; as publique and solemne preaching of the word, celebration of Baptisme, and the Lords Supper, and prayer.