Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	aaron_n	call_v	see_v	67	3	3.3916	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61499	Several short, but seasonable discourses touching common and private prayer relating to the publick offices of the church / by a divine of the Church of England.	Steward, Richard, 1593?-1651.	1684 (1684)	Wing S5525; ESTC R7767	35,778	130

whereof runs thus That he will use the Service Book prescribed in Publick prayer and no other Secondly Because the use of such Prayers is directly against an Act of Parliament viz that for the Uniformity of Common Prayers which enjoyns peremptorily under sharp punishments that no man shall use any other open Prayers than are mentioned and set forth in the said Book Thirdly No man is to presume to exercise any Office in the Church except he be called to it as it was in Aaron Seeing therefore both the Church and State have expresly enjoyn'd us to use no Publick prayers but the Liturgy except his Majesty give leave upon extraordinary Occasion for the drawing up of Forms which leave hath ground de Iure communi both Ecclesiastical and Civil it followeth that neither Church nor State have given power to any to vent themselves in such open Prayers in the Church because they expresly forbid it To presume then to use such Prayers contains in it a complication of several Sins 1. The Sin of Falshood or the breach of solemn Promise confirm'd by subscription of the Church 2. T is an act of Disobedience to the Higher Powers and so it is an express sin against the Fifth Commandement 3. T is an act of Injury aed Usurpation offered to the Church in presuming to thrust themselves into a sacred Office which such men are not to be intrusted with nor thought fit at all to execute for many may be able to discourse unto men since if they chance there to fail in point of truth or congruity the matter is of less consequence but the Church will but trust but few that shall lead Men when they speak to God because there a Falshood may prove an abomination in Speech an Incongruity may soon amount to a Blasphemy I would glanly demand of any prudent person whether he conceive that when the Church of England was in her greatest glory she had ever in it 9500 Persons answerable to the 9500 Parishes that were able to lead the people in prayer Sad experience tells us the contrary and informs us loudly enough of the Soloecisms and Blasphemies and the same experience tells us that their Directory helps them not at this dead lift nay it may often prove the greatest impediment since were some weak men allowed as well their Matter as Words they might perhaps come off with some tolerable approbation but being forced to confine themselves to matter which either they well understand not or are not so well us'd to speak of their Prayers are oftentimes vain and ridiculous or which is worse erroneous and blasphemous The licentiousness of Devotion that each private Priest durst adventure to lead others in Publick prayer breeding great disturbance in the Primitive Church brought the Fathers to decree thus in the second Council of Milevis where St. Austin sate as appears by the Subscription That no Publick Prayers should be offered up to God that had not been approv'd of in a Council or least agreed upon by the more discreet sort of men Ne fortè aliquid contra fidem vel per ignorantiam vel per minus studium fit compositum Lest either through ignorance or want of good pains the publick Faith might receive hurt by such Prayers Now besides other hurts which the Church of England hath received by this unlawful course all know that she hath received one remarkable mischief in the neglect and scorn of her Liturgy For when Cartwright the Puritan Incendiary saw he wanted Power either to extirpate or to alter our established Book of Common Prayer he was the first durst boldly use this forbidden Knell of Devotion and those that followed him improved it to so great an height by posting over our Liturgy with so much carelesness and scorn and by giving all the Advantages to those Forms of their own both of the Voice and of the Eyes and of the Hand that the People began e're long to think that the reading of the Liturgy was but an useless task impos'd by the Church on the Priests but that they compleatly served God if they came when the Psalms were singing because besides that they served God and had the benefit of a Sermon they heard a long Prayer also set out with all the Devotion and all the advantage that it could possibly receive from the Art or from the natural good parts of the person who compos'd it So that he who will needs continue the use of these forbidden prayers in the Pulpit takes the readiest course as much as in him lies for the rooting out the publick Liturgy I suppose that these men do not at all like the course which the Independants now use in Prayer who permit this extemporary or voluntary way not only to the Priests but to the Soldiers and to the Mechanicks and I imagine a main cause of their mistakes to be because such an Office is intruded on by those men who have not just authority to perform it But then if they would consider things well they would easily find that this use of forbidden Prayer hath metamorphos'd them into Independants since they have no more authority to compose such Forms from that Apostolical Church that ordained them than either that person hath who is now imployed to make Shoes or that other Ecclesiastick whose Formalities are a Belt and a Buff Jerkin It may be said perhaps that many Churchmen both of great knowledge and great place have themselves us'd these forms of Prayer and upon that ground why may not they Truly if to argue thus were concluding it might soon free us not only from the ties of many English laws but from the obligation of the Decalogue it self which without all doubt is broken often enough not only by those of the common sort but by men of great Place and Knowledge But we must distinguish between Consuetudo and Corruptela and so learn that Usages taken up against press-written Laws are Corruptions but not justifiable Customs One thing I shall adde more and it is a short Discourse How the Pulpit-Forms of Prayer were brought into the Church of England We must know then that in the time of Popery the manner commonly was to use the Lords Prayer or else an Ave Maria before Sermon so that when Edward the Sixth came to compose his Injunctions he made choice as he had good reason of the Lords Prayer for that purpose But because it was thought fit that the King 's just Supremacy in Ecclesiastical things should be at the least weekly published to the People it was thought expedient to premise to the ' Pater noster a Form as his Injunction stiles it of Bidding Prayer wherein the Priest was not to speak to God but only to the People exhorting them to pray instantly for such and such persons but he prayed not to God at all untill he closed with the Lords Prayer This was likewise confirm'd in the Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth and expresly call'd the Form