_Direct._ XIX. In circumstances and modes of worship not forbidden in the word of God, affect not singularity, and do not easily differ from the practice of the church in which you hold communion, nor from the commands or directions of your lawful governors. It is true, if we are forbidden with Daniel to pray, or with the apostles to speak any more in the name of Christ, or are commanded as the three witnesses, Dan. iii. to worship images, we must rather obey God than man;[36] and so in case of any sin that is commanded us: but in case of mere different modes, and circumstances, and order of worship, see that you give authority and the consent of the church where you are their due. _Direct._ XX. Look more to your own hearts than to the abilities of the ministers, or the ceremonies or manner of the churches' worship in such lesser things. It is heart-work and heaven-work that the sincere believer comes about; and it is the corruption of his heart that is the heaviest burden, which he groaneth under with the most passionate complaints: a hungry soul, inflamed with love to God and man, and tenderly sensible of the excellency of common truths and duties, would make up many defects in the manner of public administration, and would get nearer God in a defective, imperfect mode of worship, than others can do with the greatest helps;[37] when hypocrites find so little work with their hearts and heaven, that they are taken up about words, and forms, and ceremonies, and external things, applauding their own way, and condemning other men's, and serving Satan under pretence of worshipping God. [18] Read on this subject a small book which I have written, called "Catholic Unity." [19] See Rom. xiv. xv; 1 Cor. viii. 13. [20] Lev. xix. 2; xx. 7; 1 Pet. i. 16. [21] The second commandment. Cicero de Nat. Deor. lib. i. p. 46, saith, that Possidonius believed that Epicurus thought there was no God, but put a scorn upon him by describing him like a man, idle, careless, &c. which he would not have done if he had thought there was a God. [22] Matt. xv. 2, 3, 6; Mark vii. 3-14; Col. ii. 8, 18, 22. [23] But with the barbarous it is otherwise, saith Acosta the Jesuit, p. 249. l. 2. Proderit quam plurimum ritus et signa et omnem externum cultum diligenter curare. His quippe et delectantur et detinentur homines animales (N. B.) donec paulatim aboleatur memoria et gustus præteritorum. So Gr. Nyssen saith in vita Gr. Neocœs. that they turned the pagans' festivals into festivals for the martyrs, to please them the better. Which Beda and many others relate of the practice of those times. [24] Rom. iii. 7. [25] Read Plutarch of Superstition. [26] Isa. ii. 3; i. 10; xlii. 4; Mic. iv. 2; Heb iii. 2, 3, 5; x. 28: Acts vii. 37, 38; iii. 23; Psal. xix. 7; Isa. v. 24.