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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	call_v	church_n	rome_n	2,941	5	6.6026	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50417	A sermon concerning unity & agreement preached at Carfax Church in Oxford, August 9, 1646 / by Iasper Maine ...	Mayne, Jasper, 1604-1672.	1647 (1647)	Wing M1477; ESTC R32062	36,818	45

worshipped superstitious garments worne and have heard the more superstitious Common-Prayer Booke read that great bolster to slothfull Ministers and twin-brother to the Mass and Liturgie of Rome Were this Charge true a very heavy one I confess had there been any among us so unreasonably stupid as to spend their devotion on a pane of glass or pay worship to the dumb sensless creature of the Painter or adore the Communion-Table the wooden issue of the Axe and Carpenter as I think there were none had there I say been very Idolaters among us yet unlesse they would have compelled them to be Idolaters too I after all the imparciall Objections which my weake understanding can frame can see no reason why they should not communicate with them in other things wherein they were no Idolaters I am sure if S. Paul had not kept company with Idolaters we to this day for ought I know had remained Infidels My Brethren deceive not your selves with a fallacy which every child is able to discover If such superstitions had been publikely practised among us it is not necessary that every one that is a spectator to anothers mans sin should presently be an offender Nor are all offences so like the Pestilence that he that comes within the breath and ayre of them must needs depart infected Thou seest one out of a blind zeale pay reverence to a picture he hath the more to answer for But why dost thou out of zeale altogether as blind thinke thy selfe so interested in his errour as to thinke thy self a partaker of his fault unless thou excommunicate thy selfe from his coversation Againe tell me thou who callest Separation security what seest thou in a Surplice or hearest in the Common-Prayer Booke which should make thee forbeare the Congregation where these are retained Is it the web or matter or colour or fashion of the garment or is it the frame or forme or indevotion of the Book which offends thee Or art thou troubled because they have both beene borrowed from the Church of Rome That indeed is the great argument of exception which under the stile of Popery hath almost turned Religion it selfe out of the Church But then it is so weake so accidentall so vulgar an Argument an Argument so fit for none to urge but silly women with whom the first impression of things alwaies takes strongliest that I must say in replie to it That by the same reason that thou poore tender-conscienc'd man who art not yet past milke or the food of infants in the Church makest such an innocent decent vesture as Surplices unlawfull because Papists weare them thou mayest make eating and drinking unlawfull because Papists dine and sup The subject is not high or noble enough to deserve a more serious confutation That therefore which I shall say by way of Repetition is onely this If to weare or do whatever Papists weare or doe be unlawfull as it will presently concerne us all to throw off our garments and turne Adamites so it will very neerely concern us too to lay aside our Tables and betake our selves to fasting as the ready way to famine Then to reject the Common-Prayer Book because some of the Prayers in it resemble the Prayers in the Romish Liturgie is as unreasonable as if thou shouldst make piety and devotion in generall unlawfull because Papists say their Prayers And so in opposition to whatever they do shouldst think thou art to turne Athiest because most in that Church do confess there is a God The time wil not give me leave to say much in the defence of that excellent Book Or if I should t is in any thing I presume which can fall from my imperfect mouth which wil be able to recover the use of it back again into this Church Yet thus much out of the just sense and apprehension which I have of the wisedome as well as piety and devotion of it I shall adventure to say That I cannot think that ever any Christian Church since the time that that name first came into the world had a publique forme of Gods Worship more Primitively pure more Religiously grave and more agreeable in all points to the Scripture then that is To which I shall only add this one praise of it more that there is not any Ancient Classically condemned Heresie to be found in the Records of Councells Church-Histories or the Confutations of Fathers which is not by some clause or other in that most Orthodox Book excluded Here then if there be any in this Assembly of that il-perswaded mind that he would not at this present make one of the Congregation if the Common-prayers were read let me once more ask him what that great Antipathie between him and that admirable Book is which should make them quarrel one another out of the Church Is it because it prescribes a Ring in marriage or a Cross in Baptisme over-scrupulous man who would'st rather choose to make a rent and schisme and division in the Church then be spectatour to th●ngs so harmless and indifferent But thy weak Conscience is wounded Weak indeed when a piece of marriage-Gold or a little water sprinkled in the signe and figure of a cross the Type and Emblem of thy Christianity shall drive thee from the Church I must confess to you freely if such things as the veneration of images or adorations of Altars or sacrifices for the dead or the worshiping of the Hoste or the Mass-book with all the unsignificant Ave Maryes and superstitious prayers which use to trauell round the Circle of a numerous set of Beads had been establisht among us by publique Authority And had been enforced upon the practice and Consciences of men and no Liberty of person or freedome of estates allow'd them unless they would conform to the present Golden Calf of superstition set up before them a separation had not only been allowable but necessary We would have offended God very much to be partakers of such dross And our best Answer would have been the Answer of the Three Children when the King would have had them fall down to the huge image and Colossus which he had set up O King we are not carefull to observe thee in this matter But where no such things were enjoyned where every one was left to the full use and exercise of his Christian liberty where nothing was blameable among us but the ridiculous over-acted postures and gestures of some few busie fantasticall men whose Popery lay in makeing discreet men laugh to see them so artificially devout and so affectedly ceremonious to divide and separate or to give us over for a lost Church because the Psalmes of David after his own Musicall way used to be sung to an Organ As innocently certainly as if they had been tuned through his own loud Cymball or had more softly been sung and vowell'd to his Harpe Or to renounce our solemne Assemblies for such sleight indifferent things as a piece of holy story in

Bed-chamber Or if like Saint Peter they can cure fevers and diseases by their bare shadowes passing over them Or if like the rest of the Apostles having never before knowne Letters they can of a sudden speake all Languages the Controversie is at an end It would bee a very great sinne against the Spirit of God to deny that hee is in them of a Truth But if all the proofe and signe they can give us that they have him be onely a strong perswasion of themselves Nay if by an infallible Illumination they could assure themselves that they have him yet as many as have not the like infallible Illumination to assure them so too will not be guilty of an unpardonable offence if they suspect they have him not For here I must once more repeat my former Question and aske by what effects or signes of the Spirit men shall know them to be called By what will some man say why Doe you not heare them preach expound Scripture unfold Prophecies interpret Parables nay plucke the veile and cloud from the Booke of Mysteries it selfe the very Revelation Can any of you great Schollers with all your study of Philosophers Fathers Councells Schoole-men Historians Oratours Poets either hold your Congregations longer or send them away more edified And will you yet ask Questions Or doubt of the certainty of their vocation I must not dissemble with you if I could meet with an unlearned Handicraft-man who without study can doe this to the same height and measure of Truth as those unjustly-cryed downe learned and well-studied men doe I should begin to alter my opinion And should reckon him as hee deserves in the number of the inspired But alas my Brethren as I am not come hither to disparage the guifts of the Holy Ghost in what person soever I finde them or to perswade that Scripture rightly expounded is not one and the same from the mouth of a Priest or an inspired Lay-man so this I must freely say to you That as many of those strange Teachers as I have heard have expounded Scripture indeed and have ventured upon some of the hardest places of the Prophets But then if all my studies of the Bible assisted with all those holy uncorrupted learned helps which might enable mee to understand it aright have not deceived me their expositions and Sermons how passionately delivered or how long soever are evident proofes to mee that they have not the Spirit If they had they would never certainely expound Scripture so directly contrary to his meaning Or make the writings of the Prophets or Apostles weare only that present shape not which the holy Ghost hath imprinted and stampt upon them but which tends to the division of a Kingdom and the confusion of a Church Nor would they as they do what ever the Text be presse that sense from it not which is genuine and naturall but which tends most to the destruction of a party or the fomentation of a most unnaturall Civill Warre Saint Paul tells us in the fift Chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians at the 22 and 23. Verses that the fruits or effects of the Spirit are love peace long-suffering gentlenesse meeknesse temperance He useth to speake to men in the voice and figure of a Dove But to entitle him to all those forbidden workes of the flesh of variance hatred sedition heresies envyings murthers and the like there reckoned up in the precedent Verses of that Chapter is to make him speake with the voice of a Raven In short my Brethren the Holy Ghost is not the Author of such Doctrines as breake Gods Commandements in the Pulpit Nor is it a long Prayer or a zealous two-houres reviling of the foot-steps of the Lords Anointed their lawfull Soveraigne which can make their Sermons to be any other then so much Libell or holy Detractation Or which can make their Intrepretations of the Word of God how moderate soever in other cases if they be not agreeable to the scope and minde and intention of the Holy Ghost to be any more then so many zealous mistakes and so many illegitimate births and creatures of their own deluded fancies Next in pursuit of this seasonable Argument give me leave I pray with all the plainenesse I can for I well know where I am and to what Auditorie I speake to make it yet farther evident to you that if I should grant what these {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} as S. Basil calls them these Saints of a daies growth challenge to themselves who thinke that all that is required to make a Minister of the Gospell is {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} onely to be willing and to start up a Preacher If I say it should be granted them that they have the inward calling of the Spirit yet God is so much the God of order that unlesse they will enter themselves into his service by undergoing those Rites of Consecration and Imposition of Hands which God hath prescribed in his Church to stand for ever as the outward formes and signes of their vocation too every act of the Ministerie which they performe is but a sacrifice like theirs who offered strange fire before the Lord and miserably perisht by their owne forbidden Censors Or if you will have me expresse the danger of it by a judgement as terrible Thus to put their hand to the Arke thus to support it if 't were ready to fall is such an unwarranted piece of officiousnesse as will certainely unrepented at some time or other draw the punishment of Vzzrah upon them provoke the abused Almighty to breake forth in a flame of fire upon them and consume them for their unnecessarie diligence For here all the Scripture examples which imbolden them to this worke do returne upon them as so many instances and proofes of their incroachment on our office For here let me once more ask them How was Elisha called to be a Prophet meerly by the secret unknown whisper and instinct of the holy Ghost Truly if he had yet this would not make much for them because God never tyed himself precisely to those outward formes in the choice of a Prophet which he then did and still doth in the choice of his Priests Yet the calling of this Prophet was not without its visible signe Goe saies God to Elias in the 19. Chap. of the first booke of Kings at the 16. Verse Anoint Elisha the Son of Shaphat to be Prophet in thy roome And whether the like Ceremony of powring oyle on his head were not also performed by some elder Prophet upon Amos as the younger as 't is not affirmed so 't is not denyed in Scripture but left probable In the Consecration of the Priests of those times the case is much more evident Read at your leisure the 29. Chapter of Exodus there you shall finde that before God would receive them into that sacred function first divers Sacrifices were to bee offered for them then they