Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	administration_n	prayer_n	sacrament_n	2,563	5	7.2488	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

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