- Why God requires a public worship or a joint service of his people in communion together, and why this particular duty of prayer.
(1.) As a free and open acknowledgment of their dependence on and allegiance to God. It is most reasonable we should own the God we serve, even in the face of the world, and not, like Nicodemites, carry our religion in a dark lantern. He is unworthy of his master’s service that is ashamed to wear his livery, and follow him in the street with it on his back. ‘Thou hast avouched,’ saith Moses to Israel, ‘the Lord this day to be thy God, and to walk in his ways, and to keep his statutes, and his commandments, and his judgments, and to hearken unto his voice. And the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people,’ Deut. 26:17, 18. Even heathens understand this much, that they owe a free profession and public service to the god they vouch: ‘All people will walk every one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever,’ Micah 4:5. Now by walking in the name of God, they mean they will invocate his name, and vouch him by a public worship, as you may see by ver. 1, 2, of that chapter. And this is a gospel prophecy concerning the last days; where, by the way, we may take notice of the folly and pride of those that cast off public ordinances, and private also, from a pretence of their high attainments, leaving these duties of religion as strings for those that are yet children to be led by. This is horrible pride and ignorance to have such a high opinion of themselves. But were they so perfect as they falsely imagine themselves, and needed not any further teaching, yet ought they still to vouch God by worshipping of him? The ground from which divine worship becomes due to God, is his own infinite perfections, and our dependence on him as the author of our beings and fountain of our bliss. Hence it is, that angels and saints in heaven worship him, though in a way suitable to their glorified state. Some ordinances, indeed, fitted to the church militant on earth, shall there cease. But a worship remains: yea, it is their constant employment. Saints on earth serve God always, but cannot always worship, therefore they have stated times appointed them. Now to cast off the worship of God is to renounce God himself, and communion with his church both on earth and in heaven. ‘But ye are they that forsake the Lord, that forget my holy mountain,’ Isa. 65:11. They did not give him his public worship, and he interprets this as a casting him off from being their God. Sometimes, I confess, the church doors are shut by persecutors, and, when this flood is up, the ways to Zion mourn; yet then we are to lament after the Lord and his ark. Holy David was no stranger to private devotions, yet could not but bewail his banishment from the public: ‘My flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; to see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary,’ Ps. 63:1, 2.
(2.) To preserve love and unity in the church. God is one, and dearly loves oneness and unity among his people. The reason he gives why he would have the curtains of the tabernacle coupled together, that it might be ‘one’ tabernacle, Ex. 36:13-18. The fastening of these curtains so lovingly together for this end, that the tent might be one, signified the knitting and clasping together of the saints in love. Now, though this be effected principally by the inward operation of the Holy Spirit upon their hearts, for he alone can knit souls and knead them into one lump; yet he useth their joint communion in ordinances as a happy means through which he may convey and de-rive his grace that fastens them in love together. These are the ligaments that tie one member to another in this mystical body. And do we not see that Christians, like members of the natural body, take care for, and sympathize with, one another, so long as they are united in one communion? But when these ligaments are cut, communion in worship is broke; then we see one member drops from another, and little care for or love to each other is to be found among them. The apostle saw good reason to join both these in one exhortation: ‘Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together,’ Heb. 10:24, 25. As if he had said, If you cannot agree to worship God one with another, you will have little love one for another. When the Jews’ staff of ‘beauty’ was cut asunder, the staff of ‘bands’ did not last long unbroken, Zech. 11:10. Religion hath its name â religando —from binding back; it is a strong binder. Break the beautified order of church communion, and a people will soon fall all to pieces. It is observable how endearing conversation and communion is in things of an inferior nature. Scholars that go to school together, those that board in the same house, collactanei—that suck the same milk, twins that lie together in the same belly, they have a mutual endearment of affection each to another. How influential then must church communion needs be where all these meet? —when they shall consider they go to the same public school of the ministry, sit at the same table of the sacrament, suck the same breasts of the ordinances, and lie together in the bosom, yea womb, of the same church. This was admirably seen in the primitive Christians, who, by fellowship in ordinances, were inspired with such a wonderful love to one another, that they could hardly find their hearts in their own breasts: ‘All that believed were together, and had all things common; and continuing with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart,’ Acts 2:44, 46. But when a breach was made in the church’s communion, then love caught her cold, and grew upon Christians as divisions increased. Now one would think the cause of our disease, being so easily known, the cure should not be so hard, as, alas! at this day we find it.
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