Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	church_n	england_n	homily_n	1,679	5	11.5743	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A55491	The character of a formall professor in religion preached in two sermons at St. Chads Church in Salop, Jan. 11, 1661, on 2 Tim. 3, 5 / by Tho. Porter ...	Porter, Thomas, d. 1667.	1661 (1661)	Wing P2989; ESTC R12187	26,346	43

observable Prov. 18. 2. A fool hath no delight in understanding but that his heart may discover it sels i. e. he might win to himself popular applause and vain glory Our Chronicles and Histories tell us that Cardinal Campegius an Italian being joyned in Commission for the Pope with our Cardinal Wolsey about the Divorce of Hen. 8. arrived at Calais but Wolsey hearing his arrival was with an equipage not so Court-like as he desired and loth that his own pomp should be shamed by the others poverty caused him to stay there till he sent him more splendid accommodations at least in outward shew But as the Cardinals Mules passed Cheapside they out of unruliness happend to break the Trunks they carryed which were found full of nothing but emptiness or that which was next to it old Boots and Shooes c. Just so a Formalist in Religion makes a great shew but what is within like the Apples of Sodom fair to the eye but being toucht are nothing else but a compound of ashes or like the Egyptians Temples gay without but nothing within but a Crocodile or a Cat or some such ugly Creature So is he that hath but a Form his outside is fair but his inside is very foul When he comes into the Church he must squat down like a Hare to his private Prayer dung-Devotion though the Minister and Congregation or both be imployed in some publick act of Divine Worship contrary to the Book of Homelies of the Church of England Thus he sets himself out to the shew whereas sincerity affects secrecy He that hath the power of godliness seeks to be good rather then seems to be good Mistake me not it is one thing to do a work that cannot but be seen and another thing to do it that it may be seen This is the end of the worker that is the end of the work 2. He slubbers over the Service of God when he is imployed in it unspiritually unzealously with superficialness and overliness as a boy his Lesson or a Scholler his Task Is 64. 7. none stirreth up himself to take hold of thee Heb. 9. 14. dead works because they have as we said the lineaments of a true body but they want life and soul now he hath the power of godliness if he be a Preacher that is like Christ in measure Mark 1. 22. he taught them with authority and not as the Scribes if otherwise he prayes with feeling or fervency Jam. 5. 16. The effectual fervent Prayer so the Books have it but it is in the Original the operative Prayer that sets all the powers of the Soul on working One renders it a through-wrought Prayer in allusion to cloth or such like which we use to say is throughly-well wrought when another is but slightly wrought Like Elias Jam. 5. 17. he prayes in praying and so reads in reading and fasts in fasting You have a notable example in Acts 9. 11. Behold he prayeth Without doubt while Paul was a strict Pharisee he prayed For he saith concerning himself Phil. 3. 6. touching the righteousness which is in the Law blameless according to the Pharisees Gloss which confined the Righteousness of the Law to externals Now Prayer is a part of that Righteousness nay according to the Pharisees practice who did pray much as you shall hear anon But he prayed not till now then he prayed formally now feelingly then was Prayer a meer lip-labour now the travel of his heart for Joh. 4. 14. God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth Glow-worms shine in the night but they have no heat 3. He Stands more on Rites than on Religion more on the shadow than the body more on the circumstance than on the substance of Religion more on humane Inventions then on divine Institutions He is fundamental in circumstantials as he is circumstantial in fundamentals As the formal Pharisees stood more on outward washing than holy walking on the Tradition of the Elders more then the Truth and Latitude of Gods Commands See Matth. 15. from the 1 v. to the 16. v. but specially Matth. 23. 23. Ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin and have omitted the weightier matters of the Law Without breach of charity we judge the Papists generally to have but a Form not daring to eat an Egge in Lent c. yet make no bones of neglecting the Word prophaning the Sabboth and blaspheming Gods Name c. and is it not so with most Protestants streight-lac'd in a Ceremony and loose-girt in the substance of Religion Surely the Heathens shall rise up in judgment against these Socrates said God will be worshipped with that kind of worship he himself hath commanded and Cicero said He will not be worshipped with Superstition but with Piety 4. He sticks in the work done as he strives not to do it in an holy manner Thus Micah said Josh 17. 13. Now know I that the Lord will do me good seeing I have a Levite to be my Priest as if nothing had been wanting in this establishment of a worship but a lawfull Minister as the Levites were whereas there was a defect in all in the Institution without command approbation and promise of God in the place means and idolatrous Ceremonies yet he rested in the work done So did that Strumpet enticing the younker Prov. 7. 14. I have peace offerings with me I have paid my vows q d. I have offered a Sacrifice of thanksgiving and have a feast of the residue to entertain thee with Thus did the Formal Jews they bound the Sacrifice with cords to the horns of the Altar but never minded the spiritual signification 2 Cor. 3. 13. They could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished They had no eye to Christ who was the end of the Ceremonial Law abolished Thus they cryed Jer. 7. 4. The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord but never inquired after Christ typified by that Temple It is well to keep the heart close to duty but it is better to keep the heart close to God in the duty It is good to perform Service to God but better to rest on God in our performances A true Christian is like Noah's Dove that could find no rest but in the Ark to which therefore she returned the Raven sent out did not return because it seized on some carcass on which it preyed Psal 116. 7. Return unto thyrest O my Soul A good heart is not satisfied till it find God in the Duty Peter and John when they were come to our Saviours Sepulchre were not contented with the grave-cloathes when the body of Christ was not there It was a pious saying Lord I never go from thee without thee A sincere Soul labours to find Christ in an Ordinance else it makes pitiful moans as the Spouse who seeks him in meditation Cant. 3. 1. By night on my bed