2nd Commandment:
Q. What is the second commandment?
A. Thou shall not make to thyself…etc.
Q. What is forbidden in this commandment, in one word?
A. Will worship.
Q. What is will-worship?
A. To worship God after our own wits and wills.
Q. What is commanded?
A. To worship God according to his Word. So parents look to be served of their children, not doing that which they think will please their parents; but by doing what their parents command them; so masters look to be served by their servants, so princes look to be served of their subjects. Yet the child is made after the image of God, as well as the father, the servants as well as the master; the subjects as well as the Prince: and therefore are able to understand of themselves what is fit to please their parents, their masters, their Princes: but none of us is of himself able to conceive what is pleasing to God: for my ways are not your ways; neither are my thoughts your thoughts, saith the Lord: but as high as the heavens are above the earth; so are my ways above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts, saith the Lord. Isa. 55:8, 9.
Q. What is that worship of God which he hath commanded us in his word?
A. It is of a different nature, according unto different times; under the Old Testament, and unto the New.
Q. What was the worship that God commanded in time of the old Testament?
A. In consists in variety of ceremonies, both touching the place of his worship, the temple in Jerusalem; and touching the persons that performs it, which were the priests. And last of all, touching the actions performed by them in variety of services.
Q. What was chiefly meant hereby?
A. The crucifying of Christ Jesus, together with all the graces and benefits which the Church of god both enjoy through the death and passion of Christ Jesus.
Q. What be those benefits which we enjoy by Christ?
A. They are in number three.
Q. What is the first?
A. Our atonement and reconcilement with God, which consists in the forgiveness of our sins.
Q. What is the second?
A. The sanctification and purification of our natures.
Q. What is the third?
A. The salvation of our souls.
Q. What is the worship of God prescribed in God's word, in the days of the New Testament?
A. That which for the most part is merely moral and perpetual.
Q. How many parts be there of it?
A. Three.
Q. What is the first?
A. The ministry of the Word in the preaching and hearing of it.
Q. What is the second?
A. The exercise of prayer.
Q. What is the third?
A. The administration and participation of the sacraments.
Q. What is forbidden?
A. The contraries unto these.
Q. What is contrary to the ministry of the Word?
A. Two things:
Q. What is the first?
A. The contempt of it.
Q. Wherein doth this consist?
A. In two things? To wit, the disuse thereof, or the ole thereof in an unconscionable manner.
Q. What is the second?
A. The bringing in of a worship besides or contrary to the Word of God.
Q. Give some examples hereof.
A. As the sacrifice of the spells among it papists.
Q. What else?
A. The making of images to impression errors, the placing of them in churches, and the worshipping of them.
Q. What else?
A. The worshipping of relics.
Q. What else?
A. The consecrating of opal, cream, salt, etc.
Q. What is contrary unto prayer?
A. Two things.
Q. What is the first?
A. The neglect, or the whole of prayer.
Q. What is the second?
A. The unlawful use of prayer.
Q. Wherein does that consist?
A. In two things.
Q. What is the first?
A. In prayer without a right faith.
Q. Wherein does that consist?
A. In praying unto any other [rather than] unto God. In praying in any other name than in Jesus Christ.
Q. Do papists transgress in this?
A. Yea.
Q. How many ways?
A. In praying unto saints, in praying unto Angels, in praying unto images,
Q. What is the second?
A. In praying without right affections.
Q. How many ways is that committed?
A. Two ways.
Q. How?
A. In praying superstitiously, or in praying profanely.
Q. How superstitiously?
A. In praying in a tongue they understand not, as papists.
Q. How profanely?
A. In praying without due reverence and devotion.
Q. What is contrary to the right administration of the Sacraments?
A. Two things.
Q. What is the first?
A. The contempt of God's institution
Q. How is that committed?
A. Two ways.
Q. What is the first?
A. By not coming to the Lord's table.
Q. What is the second?
A. By receiving it unworthily, when we do come.
Q. What is the second way in general?
A. By bringing in our own institutions, as the papists baby brought in the sacraments maze.
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