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	holy_a	read_v	3,400	5	6.3225	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A04417	Christ on his throne. Or, Christs church-government briefly laid downe and how it ought to bee set up in all Christian congregations. Resolved in sundry cases of conscience.	Burton, Henry, 1578-1648, attributed name.	1640 (1640)	STC 14541; ESTC S107732	25,100	92

in Gods Service It beeing also a strange presumption for any man to think that either he hath authority to prescribe how God should bee worshipped or that God should be pleased with any such will-worship when in stead of being pleased hee saith In vain they worship me teaching for Doctrine the Comments of men For surely with vaine worship God is neither pleased nor honoured Againe seeing we are here fallen upon the consideration or examination of the Service booke let all wise hearted and well instructed schollers in Christs schoole that have learned the art of separating the pretious from the vile but tell me what they think of Apocryphall bookes publiquely read in Churches as if they were the holy Scriptures What of the whole Letanie so stuffed with Tautologies or vain repetitions What of the prayer in the Letanie and of the Collect wherein Bishops or Prelates are prayed for being Antichristian and false Bishops and all other Ministers are prayed for as being the Curates of those Bishops than which what can be a greater reproach and shame to the Ministers of the Church of England What of so many carvings of Scriptures into Epistles and Gospels with their severall Collects for the maintenance and celebration of Saints days called Holydayes What of the lame and incongruous yea senseles translations of those sundry Scriptures with the Psalmes What of prayers at the buriall of the Dead What of Churching of women aliâs Their Purification as some call it and which answers to that under the Law What of Priestly absolution with many more particulars too long here to rehearse And in a word What of so many prayers injoyned to be read enough to blunt the edge of any true devotion and so to tyre out the strongest sided Minister as hee hath neither strength nor time left for Gods Ordinance namely the preaching of the Word And to say the very truth this kind of long Service was devised by the Popes successively to that very end namely to entertaine the people with a blinde devotion and to retaine them in ignorance when now no roome was left for preaching which was by this meanes thrust by the head and sholders out of their Churches And thus what a deale of pretious time is taken up with a long dull and dead forme of prayer which might and ought to be spent to edification of Gods people on the Lords owne Day which should be sanctified not in humane devises but in Gods owne Ordinances to the glory of Him who is the Lord of the day I say againe for I speake nothing definitively as passing myne own private judgement of these things let this wise and grave Senate now assembled for a thorow-reformation and removall of all abuses and grievanand primarily in the matters of God and of Christ maturely judge CASE VII Whether any set forme of a Liturgie or publique Prayer be necessarie to bee used in the publique Worship of God FOr answer Indeed if it bee necessary to have unpreaching Ministers and dumb dogs over the people of the Lord who can nor preach nor pray then it will bee no lesse necessary to have some form of Booke prayers or Liturgy for such to officiate by And for this cause the Prelates have had some reason to hold up their Liturgy to the full as without which there had beene nothing for their Mutes to do in the Church Now though dumbe Priests have need of such a Liturgy yet it doth not follow that therfore able godly Ministers that know how to fit their prayers to all such severall occasions as do continually present themselves which a set prayer in a booke cannot do should be tied to any such precise set forme For otherwise this were to quench the spirit of prayer and to muzzle the mouth of prayer and to stoppe the course of Gods spirit which doth wonderfully improve it self in all those both Ministers and people on whom God hath powred the spirit of grace and supplication and who do by daily exercise grow unto such a habit of prayer and which doth powre it selfe forth in such a life and power as is not possible for any set read prayer to exercise or have For true fervent effectuall prayer is that which is the hearts expression by the Spirit of God As the Apostle saith I will pray with my Spirit and Phil. 19. Prayer is supplied by the Spirit of Jesus Christ This is that prayer which is first in the heart before it come to the mouth and is dictated by Gods spirit before it be uttered with the lippes whereas a read prayer is in the mouth before it can come unto the heart which in prayer is a speaking unadvifedly with the lips before the heart hath first digested and suggested the matter This is an abortive birth which never had a right conception But a godly Minister that is best acquainted with the state of his flocke and of the church of God can accordingly so inlarge and apply his prayer by the supply of Gods spirit as may be most usefull to the Congregation as beeing most occmmodate to their spirits when they finde the matter of the prayer to be that the want whereof they are most sencible of so as there is here a concurrence of the spirits both of the Minister and people which causeth a prayer to bee so much the more effectuall lively powerfull and operative and that not onely with God but in the hearts of all those whose joint praier it is Whereas a read prayer is in comparison a dead and dull formal prayer without any life or power either to prevaile with God or to profit the people as beeing such a prayer as suits only such Readers as are destitute of the spirit of Grace and supplication and of faith and sanctification and therefore such as God regardeth not So as a true Minister of Christ ought not to be tyed with the bonds and lines of a written forme of prayer that must bee read forasmuch as hereby the spirit of prayer in him is bound up and both he and the people of God deprived both of the benefit of such a gift and of that profit also which the prevailing prayer of Christs spirit procures of God Yea not even a set written prayer which the Minister makes saith by heart though he reade it not and though it bee better to say it by heart than to read it out of a booke yet is or can be so lively and powerfull as that prayer which is not tied to a set forme of words From such a prayer as is uttered by heart as we say the memory is more exercised than the understanding and affections within him there beeing now a suspension of that worke of the spirit of supplication and grace which breatheth forth with a lively power in a conceived prayer wherein not the memory so much as the whole mind soule spirit affections have their joint operation But it may be objected That the

withall stript of his office and so of his flock wherof another now is made the Overseer or Bishop and the title and Office of a Curate onely is left him according to the Collect for Bishops and Curates Or if there be a mentall reservation to every Minister of a congregation of the office of Pastorship yet when the title of Bishop is given to one above him even thus also is an invasion made upon Christs owne title and prerogative who is the onely {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the chiefe Shepheard or chiefe Bishop of his Church besides whom and above whom all the Pastors acknowledge none And if of Pastors some onely be called Bishops and the rest not here also Christs sheepehooke is wrung out of his hand as where he is called the Shepheard and Bishop of our soules So easie a thing it is by the alienation or impropriation of a name to set up such an office and government in the Church as wherby Christs government the proper office of his true Ministers are cast to the ground trampled under foot Moreover if ever this governement of Bishops falsly so called shall bee set up or continued in maner aforesaid yet farre bee it from those Worthies of the land whose justice is so cleare and unpartiall in other things and namely in the cutting off of all Monopolies in the civill State to erect or ratifie or any way to countenance such a Monopoly in Christs kingdome so derogatory to his incommunicable prerogative and to that stile and office wherein he hath so highly dignified and intrusted all faithful Ministers For what a Monopoly is this to take away the title wherein the Office of all true Pastors is comprehended and to transfer it to one alone among many Ob. But here it may be objected That the Reformed Churches beyond the seas as even Geneva it selfe have their Overseers which is a title and office equivalent to our Diocesan Bishops Episcopus signifying an Overseer why then is it not as lawfull to have the like in England I answer The case is farre different for such Overseers or Moderators as in other reformed Churches they are called as in the Kirke of Scotland are chosen by the Ministers and Elders and that but for one yeare and whose office is to call the Synods at certaine fixed times and to collect the votes the like But some say that our usurping Bishops shall bee perpetuall for their lives and how farre the power of their place and dignity may be extended especially when they have their election from the Court either immediate and absolute per se or by the means of a Conge de lier as whom so designed above the Ministers of the Diocesse in stead of the Deane and Chapter are bound to elect Or if they be but Triennial so to come under the visitation of a Trienniall Parliament yet who knows but such spirits may so work as in time to make Parliaments as geason as heretofore when some of them have confessed that they never dreamed to see a Parliament againe Or if they shall be continued from three yeare to three yeare yet this is also more than is used in forreine Reformed Churches And however for them to retaine the name of Bishop still as before is against Gods Word and not onely derogatory to Christs true Ministers for the present but also very prejudiciall to their liberty when such Bishops holding their favor in Court and their neerenesse to the Chaire of State may by that means grow awfull to those their Curates among whom some and perhaps too many may be found ready to prostitute their officiousnesse unto their Bishop in stead of Christ out of a hope to be made the heires apparant of the Bishopricke which though it be now cropt and deplumed yet will be still a bait for ambition which must be doing and will rather play small game than sit out All which considered I leave it to the Wise to judge what may bee the consequents thereof whether by this means either we or our children may come to see as great corruption both in doctrine and manners as now we doe For as I sayd before the time may come when God in his justice may deny this State the like opportunity so armed with a necessity of reformation as we neither could have wished nor any more can hope for to reforme Episcopall insolencie Or suppose a possibility of Prelates to become no worse than as the Parliament shall leave them yet the least rag of Prelacie making a rent in Christs coat as it beeing the head of such a Government as is condemned by the Word of God ought no more to be pieced to Christs livery seeing it destroyeth Christian liberty both in Ministers and people And all this I say ariseth from the very name of Bishop so misplaced for which cause it ought to be with the whole Bishopricke utterly extirped and that no lesse than the heathen Romans rooted out the very name of the Tarquins for the tiranny which they had exercised CASE X. Whether the whole Hierarchy being abolished the 39 Articles which were agreed upon in 62 by the Archbishops and Bishops c. in both Provinces doe any longer binde or that Ministers are bound to subscribe unto them I Answer First That these 39 articles taken conjunctim together no man can with a good conscience rightly informed subscribe unto them For secondly There be some of those articles which are very false as Article 20 which saith The Church hath power to decree Rites and Ceremonies and authority in Controversies of faith Both which are false as before is noted and were added since the same article was first made in King Edward the sixt his dayes Againe the 36 Article is no lesse false which saith The booke of ordination of Archbishops and Bishops and ordering of Priests c. doth containe all things necessary to such consecration and ordering Neither hath it anything that of it selfe is superstious and ungodly And therefore all so consecrated and ordered according to the Rites prescribed c. wee decree to bee rightly orderly and lawfully consecrated and ordered Now to this article all Ministers subscribe although they be false Bishops consecrated after the order of Rome and false Priests that are by false bishops so ordered Thirdly Art 3. it is sayd As Christ died for us and was buried so is it to be beleeved that he went down into hell Which going downe into hell imports a locall going downe into the place of hell which hath no proof in Scripture nor holds any proportion or analogie of faith but crosseth the truth of Scripture and the current of all sound interpreters and therefore not to bee beleeved as Christs death and buriall Fourthly some Articles are made of late by the enemies of grace the Prelates of so doubtfull and double a sence as those especially about Grace and Freewill that they have procured a