Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	believe_v	church_n	word_n	2,694	5	4.5532	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23818	The reform'd samaritan, or, The worship of God by the measures of spirit and truth preached for a visitation-sermon at the convention of the clergy, by the reverend Arch-Deacon of Coventry, in Coventry, April the sixth, 1676 : to which is annexed, a review of a short discourse printed in 1649, about the necessity and expediency of worshipping God by set forms / by John Allington ...	Allington, John, d. 1682.	1678 (1678)	Wing A1213; ESTC R2327	57,253	87

them Lastly Forasmuch as the muniments of Religion are preservers of the dearest thing imaginable Gods glory and our Souls welfare I do not know what I should suffer in defence of if not of these I lately reading as it fell proper to the day the fifth of Esay when I came to those dreadful words I will take away thy hedge and it shall be eaten up break down the wall and it shall be trodden down it made my Heart even ake to think how applicable this methodical destruction is to our ungrateful Vineyard I will take away the hedge I will break down the wall Take the Hedge and the Wall away cut up the Fence and the Vineyard will soon be waste the Government the Discipline the Liturgy which as a Hedge or a Wall ever since our Reformation preserved the Vineyard since I see it hath pleased God to suffer this Hedge and the Wall to be trodden down I can but fear confusion and desolation to be the sequel For since the worldly wise man verily believes where the Fence is wanting spoil and waste inevitably followeth and therefore his main care is to tend it Even so where the muniments of any Profession or Religion are slighted and taken away where Liturgy this thirteen hundred years without controversie held the Hedge and mound of Faith and God's Worship in a national Church where I say this is pull'd down and taken away there is imminent and evident fear a gap is opened to let in whatever will come be it the beast of the field be it the little Foxes be it the wilde Boar of the Forest come what will there is no muniment no provision no fence against it so that in my poor conceptions the Hedge the Fence the Muniment of the Church they are matters of such necessary consequence that Ministers I conceive had better lay themselves and all their Fortunes in the Gap than for want of fence to suffer the destroyer to come in Indeed I have been told by some who wish very well unto me that humane inventions and things merely circumstantial ought not to be thus stood upon I thank them heartily for their affection and bless them for their good will but our judgements yet must differ For if no suffering for humane invention if life it self may not be exposed to hazard in defence of humane constitutions certainly then no fighting for the Laws of the Land nor no taking up arms for Priviledge of Parliament for these sure are humane and political institutions and as these are necessary for the preservation of a State even some such are also necessary for the preservation of a Church and of such Church-men cannot be too chary Again whereas Liturgy in genere or ours in specie is counted but a circumstantial business I believe I may finde out such circumstantials in a Christian Church as will hazard the whole if they perish In the tenth Persecution under the Tyranny of Dioclesian a Decree pass'd ut Templa libri delerentur that Christians should deliver up their Books and destroy or at least permit the destruction of their Churches Books and Churches I conceive are but circumstantials to Religion for the world was more than 2400 years old before there was any Scripture in it yea the Christian Church it was from the birth of Christ more than 90 years before the Canon of the New Testament was compleated yea after the Death and Resurrection of our Saviour there is supposing his passion at 31 ten years numbred before any Gospel at all was committed unto writing twice ten before the second thrice ten before the third and more than three twenties before the last a plain argument that Books and Writings are but circumstantial to Religion for one may live and die a very good Christian and know never a Letter on the Book Suppose now the Pope and Popery should so far prevail as to have power under the notion of Books heretical for so they will not stick to call our Bibles to call in and under pain of death to deliver up our Bibles even to the fire could any conscientious Protestant satisfie his Soul with this poor evasion Alas the Bible is but circumstantial the Doctrine and Religion of it I can preserve though the Bible be gone Without all peradventure it is most true a learned and well-grounded Christian he may preserve the faith he may deliver and hold fast the form of sound words though among Turks where a Bible is not to be looked upon and yet for my particular I should scarce look upon that man as a Christian who to save his Purse yea his Body should deliver up his Bible to the fire In the Roman Martyrology there is a commemoration made of many holy Martyrs who despising the sacrilegious Edict of Dioclesian 7. Quo tradi sacros codices jubebantur potiùs corpora carnificibus quàm sancta dare canibus maluerint chose rather to deliver their Bodies to the Executioner than holy things to Dogs or holy Books unto the fire And truely I should rather honour these as Martyrs than those for good Christians who under pretence of things circumstantial should deliver those to save themselves so highly I conceive God would be dishonoured in the betraying of so great a preserver and muniment of his honour Again as Books even so to some much more clearly Churches Oratories Temples they are mere circumstantials Now suppose the Independent and Congregational Brother-hood should so far overpower as to command the demolition as they call them of our Steeple-houses the destruction and levelling of our Churches I would very fain know whether in point of conscience I were not rather bound to suffer than in any measure to appear willing to so high a Sacriledge I who am Flesh and Blood as well as other men could finde pretty evasions and glosses to fool my Soul withal I could say as I hear is not a Sermon as well in a Parlour as in a Church Did not Christ preach in a Ship Paul pray upon the Sands and shall I suffer in defence of so unnecessary a trifle as an heap of Stones a popish Relique a sorry Meeting-house For my particular I am afraid many things are daily called circumstantial not with consideration whether so or no but because these are the things in question these the points which I must either dissemble desert or suffer for I pray let me as a close to this present you with the example of one who though a Bishop was ever reverenced as a Saint and a good man I mean that great Doctor St. Ambrose who being once tempted and provoked even in this very point and that by no less than the Emperour to deliver up his Church though it pleased the Emperour in a fair way to send Earls and Tribunes to him ut Basilicae fieret matura traditio that there might be a seasonable deliverance of that Royal Palace for so his piety terms

honour I have reviewed the thing and finde that what is Truth and Reason it will still be so change the state and condition of Seculars how they please So that look what in the days of Tryal they then did no other in these better days do they seem to me And what to me that also they appear to some so candidly judicious that upon their account and as they conceive for the good of others they again shew themselves not so much because strong but because short and plain and ad Captum vulgi and to their capacity who most need them it being thought by some that what was writ and published when the Liturgie like Christianity in the days of St. Paul was every where much spoken against that will be much sooner heeded than what hath been published since our Form of Worship hath been like the rising Sun either for the Beauty or Necessity of it received at most hands For to receive it now may be gain but to retain it then had more of godliness But as the Apostle of the Gospel the same may I say of the Liturgy whether in pretence or truth it is now used I do therein rejoyce and will rejoyce for I know this may turn to the salvation of many by the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ which being the spirit of Wisdom and Holiness will much more certainly accompany a well-digested Form than a sudden Rapsody in as much as Consideration and Prudence approach nigher to Holiness and Wisdom than rashness basty and inconsiderate Effusions One pretending to pray in my sequestred Pulpit is said to say O Lord get up upon thine Horse and make haste into Ireland or thou wilt lose more honour there than ever thou gotst in England He certainly had less of the spirit of Prayer than he who shall devoutly read the meanest of our Collects And it is very well known if it were worth the while to shovel up such Dunghils we might present the World with an huge heap of such unsavory Profanations and therefore except the madness of the people and the upholding of their Credits who have thus dishonoured God I cannot imagine what should hinder as universal joy that Forms are established and Ministers confin'd to pray with the Spirit and with the Understanding also For if St. Paul did wisely well when he preferred five Words spoken with the understanding before ten thousand in an unknown Tongue certainly it is as proportionably true to say A Prayer of five Lines deliberately made understandingly penn'd and devoutly offered is to be preferred before an whole hour of that which neither Speaker nor Hearer can give any tolerable repetition or account of Some whom I have lately treated with are come to this Truely they like the Prayers and wish there were no worse made but the Imposition that Christians should be under penalties compelled to be present at these Prayers that they like not Now for their sakes who make this Objection I must needs and especially to them remember that when the Lords and Commons acting both without and against their King were doing as the godly Ministers and Party then hoped their work then even they now Enemies to Imposition were by them stiled Custodes vindices utriusque Tabulae Not onely Gods Ministers but Gods Avengers Then it was lawful for their Magistrates in matters of Religion and Worship to Impose and if not obeyed to Dispose even of all men had Thus thought the Worthy that I have to deal with for Mr. Marshall in a Sermon upon Psal 102. v. 16 17. thus Those in Authority in things of this life may command and act ad Modum imperii by way of imposing in matters of Religion And a little after As Josiah put to death those that followed Baal so may the Parliament those that will not return to the Lord and leave Antichristianism In the year 1647 I have the testimony of many persons of Quality then Prisoners in the Tower who after an hundred Sollicitations but to have Bread out of their own Estates received from a Chair-man this Answer He would famish them into the taking of the Covenant and Negative Oath In the Articles for which I loft my Livelyhood a grand Charge is the refusal of the Directory Now if it were lawful for usurping Powers to oblige under the severity of undoing to be present at no man knew what at such Prayers as could neither be considered on nor reviewed Certainly then à Fortiori it is much more lawful for a legal and undoubted Authority to exact our presence at a Form which may be both seen and read and examined before men approach to make or give consent to the oblation of it And indeed not to make a business of this pretence it is undoubtedly clear that no party in Authority but did impose and did exact a Conformity to their Imposition Witness the Protestation the Covenant and the Engagement All Forms Humane Forms and such as have neither Command nor Example in the Book of God Yea they were Forms Contradictory and gain-saying each the other And yet whosoever refused any one of them he was proceeded against as disaffected to the present Government and by consequent unworthy to enjoy his own Bread Nor do I believe there can be found so great a difference between a Vow in Form and a Prayer in Form that it shall be lawful for Vsurpers to impose the one and unlawful for the legal and loyal Magistrate to impose the other So that refusal of the Common-prayer meerly upon the account of Imposition it seems to carry a greater measure of stomack than Conscience in it And thus thought Mr. Calvin or else he would never have writ to the Protector in the first of Edw. the sixth as in the Title-page That he exceedingly approved a set Form both of Prayer and Ecclesiastical Rituals and would have it such as no Pastor might recede from And for proof of it in England I shall onely relate what hapned some nine years after and may be read in the 1531 Page of the old and unpurged Edition of The Book of Martyrs of John Careless a Coventry-Confessor who to Dr. Martin thus The second Edition speaking of the Common-prayer of Edw. 6. is good and godly and in all points agreeing to the Word of God And then infra I will adde thus much more That the same Book which is so consonant and agreeable to Gods Word being set forth by common Authority both the King's Majesty that is dead and the whole Parliament-house ought not to be despised of me or of any other private man under pain of God's curse and high displeasure and Damnation except they repent April 25 1556. See here one ready to go to the Stake being as himself writes proclaimed Heretick at Paul 's Cross makes such a conscience of obeying the Authoritative Imposition of the Common-prayer-book that he professeth Nor he himself and will these Exceptors say he had