Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	see_v	zeal_n	zealous_a	14	3	8.2603	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63711	A collection of offices or forms of prayer in cases ordinary and extraordinary. Taken out of the Scriptures and the ancient liturgies of several churches, especially the Greek. Together with the Psalter or Psalms of David, according to the Kings translations; with arguments to the same.; Collection of offices or forms of prayer publick and private	Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.	1657 (1657)	Wing T300; ESTC R203746	242,791	596

That indetermination of the office may not introduce indifferency nor indifferency lead in a freer liberty or liberty degenerate into licentiousness or licentiousness into folly and vanity and these come sometime attended with secular designs lest these be cursed with the immission of a peevish spirit upon our Priests and that spirit be a teacher of lies and these lies become the basis of impious theoremes which are certainly attended with ungodly lives and then either Atheism or Antichristianism may come according as shall happen in the conjunction of time and other circumstances for this would be a sad climax a ladder upon which are no Angels ascending or descending because the degrees lead to darkness and misery 5. But that which is of special concernment is this that the Liturgy of the Church of England hath advantages so many and so considerable as not onely to raise it self above the devotions of other Churches but to endear the affections of good people to be in love with Liturgy in general 6. For to the Churches of the Romane Communion we can say that ours is reformed to the reformed Churches we can say that ours is orderly and decent for we were freed from the impositions and lasting errours of a tyrannical spirit and yet from the extravagancies of a popular spirit too our reformation was done without tumult and yet we saw it necessary to reform we were zealous to cast away the old errours but our zeal was balanced with consideration and the results of authority Not like women or children when they are affrighted with fire in their clothes we shak'd off the cole indeed but not our garments lest we should have exposed our Churches to that nakedness which the excellent men of our sister Churches complained to be among themselves 7. And indeed it is no small advantage to our Liturgy that it was the off-spring of all that authority which was to prescribe in matters of Religion The king and the Priest which are the Antistites Religionis and the preservers of both the Tables joyn'd in this work and the people as it was represented in Parliament were advised withal in authorizing the form after much deliberation for the Rule Quod spectat ad omnes ab omnibus tractari debet was here observed with strictness and then as it had the advantages of discourse so also of authorities its reason from one and its sanction from the other that it might be both reasonable and sacred and free not onely from the indiscretions but which is very considerable from the scandal of popularity 8. And in this I cannot but observe the great wisdome and mercy of God in directing the contrivers of the Liturgy with the spirit of zeal and prudence to allay the furies and heats of the first affrightment For when men are in danger of burning so they leap from the flames they consider not whither but whence and the first reflections of a crooked tree are not to straightness but to a contrary incurvation yet it pleased the Spirit of God so to temper and direct their spirits that in the first Liturgy of King Edward they did rather retain something that needed further consideration then reject any thing that was certainly pious and holy and in the second Liturgy that they might also throughly reform they did rather cast out something that might with good profit have remained then not satisfy the world of their zeal to reform of their charity in declining every thing that was offensive and the clearness of their light in discerning every semblance of errour or suspicion in the Romane Church 9. The truth is although they fram'd the Liturgy with the greatest consideration that could be by all the united wisdome of this Church and State yet as if Prophetically to avoid their being charg'd in after ages with a crepusculum of Religion a dark twilight imperfect Reformation they joyn'd to their own starre all the shining tapers of the other reformed Churches calling for the advice of the most eminently learned and zealous Reformers in other Kingdomes that the light of all together might shew them a clear path to walk in And this their care produced some change for upon the consultation the first form of King Edwards Service-book was approved with the exception of a very few clauses which upon that occasion were review'd and expung'd till it came to that second form and modest beauty it was in the Edition of M D L II and which Gilbertus a German approved of as a transcript of the ancient and primitive forms 10. It was necessary for them to stay somewhere Christendome was not onely reformed but divided too and every division would to all ages have called for some alteration or else have disliked it publickly and since all that cast off the Romane yoke thought they had title enough to be called Reformed it was hard to have pleased all the private interests and peevishness of men that called themselves friends and therefore that onely in which the Church of Rome had prevaricated against the word of God or innovated against Apostolical tradition all that was par'd away But at last she fix'd and strove no further to please the people who never could be satisfied 11. The Painter that exposed his work to the censure of the common passengers resolving to mend it as long as any man could finde fault at last had brought the eyes to the ears and the ears to the neck and for his excuse subscrib'd Hanc populus fecit But his Hanc ego that which he made by the rules of art and the advice of men skill'd in the same mystery was the better peece The Church of England should have par'd away all the Canon of the Communion if she had mended her peece at the prescription of the Zuinglians and all her office of Baptism if she had mended by the rules of the Anabaptists and kept up Altars still by the example of the Lutherans and not have retain'd decency by the good will of the Calvinists and now another new light is sprung up she should have no Liturgy at all but the worship of God be left to the managing of chance and indeliberation and a petulant fancy 12. It began early to discover its inconvenience for when certain zealous persons fled to Frankford to avoid the funeral piles kindled by the Romane Bishops in Queen Maries time as if they had not enemies enough abroad they fell foul with one another and the quarrel was about the Common Prayer Book and some of them made their appeal to the judgement of M r Calvin whom they prepossessed with strange representments and troubled phantasms concerning it and yet the worst he said upon the provocation of those prejudices was that even its vanities were tolerable Tolerabiles ineptias was the unhandsome Epithete he gave to some things which he was forc'd to dislike by his over-earnest complying with the Brethren of Frankford 13. Well! upon this the wisdome of

this Church State saw it necessary to fixe where with advice she had begun and with counsel she had once mended And to have altered in things inconsiderable upon a new design or sullen mislike had been extreme levity and apt to have made the men contemptible their authority slighted and the thing ridiculous especially before adversaries that watch'd all opportunity and appearances to have disgraced the Reformation Here therefore it became a Law was established by an Act of Parliament was made solemne by an appendant penalty against all that on either hand did prevaricate a sanction of so long and so prudent consideration 14. But the Common Prayer-book had the fate of S. Paul for when it had scap'd the storms of the Romane Sea yet a viper sprung out of Queen Maries fires which at Frankford first leap'd upon the hand of the Church but since that time it hath gnawn the bowels of its own Mother and given it self life by the death of its Parent and Nurse 15. For as for the Adversaries from the Romane party they were so convinc'd by the piety and innocence of the Common Prayer-Book that they could accuse it of no deformity but of imperfection of a want of some things which they judged convenient because the error had a wrinckle on it and the face of antiquity And therefore for ten or eleven years they came to our Churches joyn'd in our devotions and communicated without scruple till a temporal interest of the Church of Rome rent the Schism wider and made it gape like the jaws of the grave And let me say it addes no small degree to my confidence and opinion of the English Common Prayer-Book that amongst the numerous Armies sent from the Romane Seminaries who were curious enough to enquire able enough to finde out and wanted no anger to have made them charge home any errour in our Liturgy if the matter had not been unblameable and the composition excellent there was never any impiety or heresy charg'd upon the Liturgy of the Church for I reckon not the calumnies of Harding for they were onely in general calling it Darkness c. from which aspersion it was worthily vindicated by M. Deering The truth of it is the Compilers took that course which was sufficient to have secur'd it against the malice of a Spanish Inquisitor or the scrutiny of a more inquisitive Presbytery for they put nothing of controversy into their prayers nothing that was then matter of question onely because they could not prophecy they put in some things which since then have been called to question by persons whose interest was highly concerned to finde fault with something But that also hath been the fate of the Penmen of holy Scripture some of which could prophecy and yet could not prevent this But I doe not remember that any man was ever put to it to justify the Common Prayer against any positive publick and professed charge by a Romane Adversary Nay it is transmitted to us by the testimony of persons greater then all exceptions that Paulus 4 t●s in his private entercourses and Letters to Queen Elizabeth did offer to confirm the English Common Prayer Book if she would acknowledge his Primacy and authority and the Reformation derivative from him And this lenity was pursued by his Successor Pius 4 tus with an omnia de nobis tibi polliceare he assured her she should have any thing from him not onely things pertaining to her soul but what might conduce to the establishment and confirmation of her Royal Dignity amongst which that the Liturgy newly established by her authority should not be rescinded by the Popes power was not the least considerable 16. And possibly this hath cast a cloud upon it in the eyes of such persons who never will keep charity or so much as civility but with those with whom they have made a league offensive and defensive against all the world This hath made it to be suspected of too much complianc● with that Church and her Offices of devotion and that it is a very Cento composed out of the Mass Book Pontifical Breviaries Manuals and Portuises of the Romane Church 17. I cannot say but many of our Prayers are also in the Romane Offices But so they are also in the Scripture so also is the Lords Prayer and if they were not yet the allegation is very inartificial and the charge peevish and unreasonable unless there were nothing good in the Romane Books or that it were unlawful to pray a good prayer which they had once stain'd with red letters The Objection hath not sense enough to procure an answer upon its own stock but by reflection from a direct truth which uses to be like light manifesting it self and discovering darkness 18. It was first perfected in King Edward the sixths time but it was by and by impugned through the obstinate dissembling malice of many They are the words of M. Fox in his Book of Martyrs Then it was reviewed and published with so much approbation that it was accounted the work of God but yet not long after there were some persons qui divisionis occasionem arripiebant saith Alesius vocabula penè syllabas expendendo they tried it by points and syllables and weighed every word and sought occasions to quarrel which being observed by Archbishop Cranmer he caused it to be translated into Latine and sent it to Bucer requiring his judgement of it who returned this answer That although there are in it some things quae rapi possunt ab inquietis ad materiam contentionis which by peevish men may be cavill'd at yet there was nothing in it but what was taken out of the Scriptures or agreeable to it if rightly understood that is if handled and read by wise and good men The zeal which Archbishop Grindal Bishop Ridly D r Taylor and other the holy Martyrs and Confessors in Queen Maries time expressed for this excellent Liturgy before and at the time of their death defending it by their disputations adorning it by their practice and sealing it with their blouds are arguments which ought to recommend it to all the sons of the Church of England for ever infinitely to be valued beyond all the little whispers and murmurs of argument pretended against it and when it came out of the flame and was purified in the Martyrs fires it became a vessell of honour and used in the house of God in all the days of that long peace which was the effect of Gods blessing and the reward as we humbly hope of an holy Religion and when it was laid aside in the days of Queen Mary it was to the great decay of the due honour of God and discomfort to the Professors of the truth of Christs Religion they are the words of Queen Elizabeth and her grave and wise Parliament 19. Archbishop Cranmer in his purgation A. D. 1553. made an offer if the Queen would give him leave to prove All that