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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	administration_n	church_n	sacrament_n	2,007	5	7.0614	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60395	A short treatise of altars, altar-furniture, altar-cringing, and musick of all the quire, singing-men and choristers, when the holy Communion was administered in the cathedrall church of Durham by prebendaries and petty-canons, in glorious copes embroidered with images, 1629 / written at the same time by Peter Smart ...	Smart, Peter, 1569-1652?	1643 (1643)	Wing S4014; ESTC R20243	26,828	32

find them allowed in any well-reformed Church sure I am they were never in Durham Church till Bishop Neale came to that Bishoprick 1617. 2 B. Halls excellent lessons against Innovations and affected bravery in the worship of God and consequently against Durham Innovators with their sumptuous altar organs copes et caet It is a dangerous presumption saith a learned Father of our Church D. Hall now Bishop of Exceter to make innovations it but in the circumstances of Gods worship These humane additions which would seem to grace the institution of God deprave it That infinite Wisdome knoweth best what will please it selfe and prescribeth accordingly The foolishnesse of God is wiser then the wisdome of men Idolatry and falshood is commonly more gawdy and plausible the● truth That heart which can for out ward homelinesse despise the Ordinance of God is already alienated from true religion and lies open to the greatest superstition Never any Prince was so fouly idolatrous as that he wanted a Priest to second him An Vriah is fit to humour an Ahaz Greatnesse could never command any thing which some servile wits were not ready to applaud and justifie Thus much saith D. Hall whose excellent lessons if the new-fangled innovators and corrupters of our Durham Church would have learned and followed no Sermon need to have been preached against superstitious vanities with superfluity of which it is exceedingly pestred at this day by our idolatrous altar-building Priests without any direction or approbation of our religious Kings and Princes who in their Lawes forbid both altars and images and all other superstitious rites and ceremonies For they Bishop Neales Chaplains have taught the people in their Sermons that too much cost cannot be bestowed upon Christ that is the Church and Church-ornaments brave Altars rich Altar-furniture gorgeous Vestments Sumptuous Organs glorious glasse-windowes painted gilded and garnished images and other excessive bravery vaine and unnecessary which hath cost the Church of Durham above 2000. pound wring'd out of poore mens purses to the utter undoing of many poore tenants 3 Bernard crieth out against the excessive vanity of sumptuously adorned Churches and the neglect of poor Christians the temples of the Holy Ghost which is worse now in Durham then in the time of Popery What would Bernard say if he were now alive and saw the glory of our Abby-Church as it is called the superfluous ornaments of which have cost more then would build a faire Church who thus writeth AdGul Abbatem to Abbot William making this exclamation O vanitas vanitatum sed non vanior quàm insanior fulget Ecelesia in parietibus sed in pauperibus eget O vanity of all vanities but whether more vaine or more mad I know not the Church shineth in trimly decked walls but in the poore members of Christ it is naked and needy And who dare withstand their vaine and mad courses who dare gainsay them or mislike their doings if any do so let him look for no better then to be persecuted to death for they teach the people that such are very Iudasses Counting all to be wast that is bestowed upon Christ as if Christ were in walls Altars and Images more then in the temples of the Holy Ghost the bodies and soules of poore Christians whereby the people learne to contemne their own parish-Churches because they are plaine and simple after the old fashion handsome enough and decent though not so proud and stately not brave and magnificent as this Cathedrall Abby as now it is adorned passing gaily with paintings and gildings 4 B. Morton out of Ierom upon Malachy calleth it a festred superstition of the Iewes to esteeme a brave Altar and ornaments of gold and silver better then the godly minds of them that bring oblations This soule errour and superstitious folly is thus refuted by D. Morton now Bishop of Lichfield in his Appeale If any haply shall contemne the worship of God because it is not sumptuous he shall but renew an old infestred superstition of the Iewes who esteemed an Altar built of unhewen stones to be but a prophane and polluted thing As Ierome hath observed upon the first of Malachy Reversus de Babylone populus Altare tantùm impolitis lapidibus extruxerat the people of Israel returning home from the Captivity of Babylon built an Altar of rough stones unpolished before there was a Temple or walls of a City Esdr 1. and they esteemed their religion contemptible because the ornaments of the Temple were wanting to whom God speaketh by the Prophet Malachy You thinke that mine Altar is polluted the sacrifices also laid on the Altar and the fire that consumes the sacrifice you count to be unhallowed and defiled Neither understand ye that Almighty God regards not nor lookes for either gold or precious stones or a multitude of sacrifices but the willing minds of them that bring their oblations 5 The Church of England in the Booke of Homilies and Hemingius shew what are true and false ornaments of Gods Church acceptable to God and profitable to men Agreeable to this is the doctrine of the Church of England in the Homilies against the perill of Idolatry and superfluous decking of Churches which utterly disalloweth our abominable ornaments Altars and Images and teacheth wherewith Gods house is truely adorned which are these The Word of God ought to be read taught and heard the Lords holy name ought to be called upon by publike prayer and thanksgiving his holy Sacraments ought duly and reverently to be administred not gawdily flauntingly theatrically due reverence is stirred up in the hearts of the godly by the consideration of these true ornaments of the house of God and not by any outward ceremonies and costly and glorious decking of the said house or Temple of the Lord. Pratendunt ornatum saith Hemingius si illi ornatui adjunctum sit ullum periculum sit maledictus They pretend that Altars and Images are set up in Churches for ornament but cursed be such ornaments to which the perill of Idolatry is joyned And again Spiritus Sanctus saith Ezechiel Ch. 20. vocat Idola abominationes oculorum sed pulvis cinis ea vocat ornamenta oculorum The Holy Ghost cals Images and Altars all such as God appointed not the abominations of the eyes but man that is but dust and ashes cals them ornaments of the eyes And then he concludeth Verus ornatus templorum utilis Deo gratus est concio cantio oratio communio non haec quae vel impediunt vel vitiant The true ornaments of Churches profitable to men and acceptable to God is the preaching of Gods Word the singing of Psalmes the administration of the Sacraments and prayer and not such things as do hinder and defile the same This is the doctrine which the Church of England teacheth in sundry places in the book of Homilies in the Articles and Injunctions that Images and Altars superstitious ceremonies and superfluous ornaments

piping and singing beautifying of temples beyond all meane and measure pollute and defile the house of God and none but rotten members of our Church can say the contrary 6 Bernard Augustine Ierome c. reprehend the too too great magnificence of temples esp●cially when they are made theaters rather to delight the peoples ears and ey● with melodio is tunes and pompous spect●cles then oratories to pray and praise God and be edified by preaching Bernard also reprehended in his time excessive heights and immoderate lengths of Churches because he misliked worldly magnificence in the spirituall service of God who dwels not in Temples made with hands So likewise doth Augustine Ierome Iustin Martyr and others they condemne gay ornaments and pompous spectacles of glittering pictures with melodious tunes of pipers and singers in the spirituall service of God especially at the administration of the holy Communion and Baptisme because they hinder godly meditations upon our Saviour Christ his bitter death and passion and our regeneration represented unto us in those mystical Sacraments For thus writeth Bernard in his Apologie against the superfluous ornaments of Churches I let passe the great statelinesse of temples their immoderate lengths their vaine breadths their sumptuous polishings their curious paintings which while they draw the sight of them that pray unto them they hinder their affection and they seem to me to resemble the old custome of the Jewes Mark this saith a learned writer in his Commentary on Iude how Bernard saith that those things which now adayes the defenders of superstitious vanities in Popery say were ordained to help devotion as gilded images and costly ornaments curious and sumptuous paintings and polishings of Altars and Temples they are so far from helping that they hinder devotion they withdraw saith Bernard not only the sight of them that pray but their affection also and they smell rather of Judaisme then Christianisme 7 The Iews had but one temple in the whole world and that was beautified with all manner of sumptuous ornaments altars and vestments for the Priests to offer sacrifices which could be done no where els it had singers also and musicall instruments But the synagogues which are answerable to Churches where the law of God was read and expounded every Sabbath day had none of those ornaments neither Priests nor priestly vestments nor altars nor s●crifices nor musick either instrumentall or vocall neither should our Church have the like because they are synagogues rather then temples Synagoga a congregation an assembly And Ierome in his Epistle to Nepotian concerning the life and conversation of the Clergy saith Iewrie had a rich temple and all things then made of gold then those things were allowed of the Lord. Then that is they are not now allowed of the Lord. And where were they allowed of the Lord Not in the Synagogues which the Jewes had in all cities of the countrey where they assembled to heare the Law and the Prophets read and expounded every Sabboth day they had not there either Altars bloody sacrifice or incense golden vessels or Priestly vestments musicall instruments or singers but only in the Temple of Jerusalem as David the King and Prophet by the instinct of Gods Spirit ordained there to be used only when solemne sacrifice was offered For thus writeth Arias Montanus Fuit in templo suggestum inter sacerdotes populum atrium constitutum in quo Levitae musicis instrumentis solennium quotidianorum sacrificiorum tempore canerent There was a pulpit gallery or scaffold erected in a great roome or court betwixt the Priests and the people where the Levites might sing and play upon their musicall instruments when the solemne sacrifices were daily offered Daily saith he but Flavius Iosephus the Jew being himself both Priest and Levite knew better what was done he in his seventh book of Antiquities saith David that renowned Prophet of God devised many instruments of musick and he taught the Levites to sing and play hymnes to the Lord per Sabbathorum dies aliásque sol●nnitates at the solemnities of Festivall dayes and Sabbaths Therefore not every day in the week nor thrice every day they did not turn the houres of prayer into solemne services with piping and chanting morning and evening and mid-day as our new-fangled ceremony-mongers of late most audaciously attempted to do in this Church of Durham and did so indeed the space of two years without authority contrary to the Injunctions statutes and customes of our Church which they were sworne to observe Vitalianus himselfe was not so impudently presumptuous who was the first Pope that brought Organs into Churches not into his own Chappell at Rome for there they are not yet nor ever were saith Cardinall Cajetan not to be used but onely upon Holy-Dayes and this he did about the yeare of our Lord 660. about 60. years after Gregory the great who would never have allowed such excesse of piping and chanting Of this Vitalianus borne at Signium a town in Italy thus writeth Mantuan Signius adjunxit molli conflata metallo Organa quae festis resonent ad sacra diebus First Pope Vitalian to the singers joyned his Organs Which might on Holy-Dayes at Service pipe to the people 8 The singing of Psalm●s commended and practised by Ambrose Constantine the great Basil and the whole Primitive Church but organs and prick-song were never heard of in the Church till Pope Vitalian brought them in Athanasius that great pillar of the Church which he supported against Arrianisme Canendi usum in Ecclesiis interdixit vanitates fugitans In detestation of superstitious vanities he utterly forbad the use of chanting in Churches but he forbade not the singing of Psalms in a plaine tune by the whole congregation which was then allowed and highly commended by Ambrose and Gelasius and practised by the Emperour himselfe as Eusebius witnesseth in the fourth Book of the life of Constantine the great Cantare primus incepit unà oravit conciones stans reverenter audiit adeò ut rogatus ut consideret responderit fas non esse dogmata de Deo remisse segniter audire This most famous Christian Emperour that ever the Church of Christ had he first began to sing the Psalme he joyned with the people in prayer to God standing up reverently he heard Sermons insomuch as being intreated to sit downe he answered it is not lawfull to heare the doctrine of God slothfully and carelesly So that he used not the gesture of standing superstitiously as a ceremony more holy then sitting or kneeling as our upstart reformers do in this Church of Durham compelling all the people to stand looking about them like fooles and noddies all the time that the Nicene Creed is sung with the Organ c. which Creed Why Constantine stood to heare they can neither say by heart nor understand one word when it is sung But onely that religious Prince stood upon his feet that he might