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	rome_n	scripture_n	3,077	5	6.0120	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61294	A discourse concerning the devotions of the Church of Rome, especially, as compared with those of the Church of England in which it is shewn, that whatever the Romanists pretend, there is not so true devotion among them, nor such rational provision for it, nor encouragement to it, as in the church established by law among us.	Stanley, William, 1647-1731.	1685 (1685)	Wing S5244; ESTC R1838	44,628	70

strengthen their Resolutions of amendment for it is our amendment and not our punishment which God is pleased with And we take care that all these things be performed in a due measure proportionably to the strength of the Person and the Nature and Design of the Duty but are afraid of straining them too high lest men should be altogether deterred from them or acquiesce only in the outward Action or render our selves and our Cause ridiculous by an imprudent management We have the Sacraments duly administred as our Saviour commanded them we reckon our Baptism with Water perfect without Oyl or Spittle We grutch not the Cup to the Laity nor celebrate solitary Communions nor admire whispering to God in the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ but as we have received from Christ so we teach and administer without Addition or Diminution of any thing essential or material In short in the holy Offices themselves and the behaviour which our Church requires they be celebrated with there is always a great propriety observable agreeable to the Command of God in Scripture and the Practice of the Apostles and first Ages of the Church proper to the several parts of divine Worship expressive of our Sense consonant to Reason and the use of the World especially respect being always had to the exciting of Piety and Devotion in the minds and carriage of our People Thirdly All useful Helps Motives and Occasions are here plentifully afforded and pressed on Men. For we not only have all our Service in a Language which the meanest People understand but have it so contrived by frequent Responses that every Person bears a part in that Worship which he is so much concerned in and doth not only hear the Priest speak to God Almighty but prays for himself and is required to joyn his assent to every short Prayer by a distinct Amen With us the same Service and Rules of Life are enjoyned to all all Men having the same Concern in another Life however different their Circumstances and Cocerns are in this Life We have constant Prayers in every Parish weekly at least in many dayly with the blessed Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ frequently administred nay every Sunday not only in Cathedrals but in several Colledges and private Parish Churches And we appeal to all Men whether there be any where more practical Sermons fitted to the Cases of Men without Vanity and Superstition than among us Whether good and free Learning be any where more encouraged or where better care is taken for the due Instruction of the People The Scriptures being in every one's hands with us and other excellent Books made according to the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures instead of Legends and Lives of Saints St. Bonaventure's Psalter and other such Books which are really Libels against Christianity and yet are the principal Books which the Priests of the Church of Rome commend to their People For as for the Bible if any one of them hath happened to read in it who is not licensed to that purpose he must own it as a Sin to his Priest at his next Confession And as there are such blessed Opportunities afforded so constantly and such Prudent Provision made for all Cases Ordinary and Extraordinary so I thank God we can say that our People are generally very diligent in the use of these Means or would be more so were it not for the Divisions which they of the Church of Rome especially raise among us For they may easily perceive that we urge no more on them than their own good and the commands of God require of them though our Church knows her Power very well yet she makes use of it only to enforce the Laws of God to explain illustrate and apply them to particular Cases but never to set up her own Commands in Opposition to them as the Church of Rome doth and therefore though we teach our People to dread an Excommunication it being summum futuri Judicii Praejudicium as Tertullian calls it a foretast or forestalling of the last Judgment and not for a World to lye under it though it were inflicted only for Contempt yet we warn them in the first place to avoid the Cause and Occasion of Excommunication and therefore not to value what Censures of the Church of Rome we are under they being so very unjust and Groundless Fourthly and lastly as only the true Object of Devotion is here worshipped only proper Expressions allowed all useful Helps afforded so also the greatest stress is laid on the Practise of it agreeable to the true Nature End and Design of it The Principal ends of Devotion are to pay a Homage to God our great Creator and Benefactor to get his Blessing and to work our selves up to a better temper of Mind And to this end we are in our Service Importunate without Vanity or Impertinency long without Tediousness or Idle Repetitions Only we use the Lord's Prayer often that no part of our Service may be without that perfect form and also in Consideration of the great Comprehensiveness of it and of the Distraction of Men's Minds which seldom can attend to the full Sense of it all at one time And we teach our People that every Man must work for himself for he that prays only by a Proxy it is very just that he should be rewarded only by a Proxy too we put our People in mind that an unfeigned Repentance is absolutely Necessary and not a Verbal one only That it is out of our power and of any Man 's in the World to turn Attrition into Contrition We pretend not to dispense with any for not obeying the Command of God We have no Taxa Camaerae by which the Papists are shown how all Sins are fined in their Church for in that Book Men see at what Charge they may kill a Father or comit Incest with their Sisters But we assure all that the Wages of Sin is Death Death Eternal if indulged and not most earnestly repented of And we tell all that Devotion is necessary for all though the Church of Rome hath ways of gratifying every Inclination so as they that will not lead a strict Life need not and yet may have hopes of Salvation We own their Policy in this Contrivance but do not so much admire their Religious regard to the Salvation of Mens Souls And to conclude though we thus forcibly press all Christian Duties on all Men yet at the same time we warn them not to pretend to Merit Heaven at God's Hand but after they have done their best to confess they are unprofitable Servants Wersay of our Charity or whatever else we do in Obedience to God that of his own we give to him and we are bound to thank him both for the Will and the Ability to give The most that we pretend to is only to make a small Acknowledgment by way of Sacrifice for what we have received we beg of God to accept it as a Testimony of a grateful Mind and we know that his Goodness is so great that he will abundantly reward an honest and sincere Servant though he hath done no more than was his Duty And we hope that what we offer though mingled with many Imperfections he will be pleased to accept for the sake of Christ as if it were perfect These are the Grounds that we go on in our Devotions and whatever we do for the Honour of God and thus designing and thus acting and persisting we need not doubt but the good Providence of God which watcheth over his whole Church will in an especial manner watch over this which is so pure a Member of it that he will accept of the Devotions which are offered to him in it and hear the Prayers that are made unto him for it and defend it against all its Enemies on every side which God of his Infinite Mercy grant for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. FINIS

any assurance from God that such effects shall follow Nay even the Sacraments themselves according to the Doctrine of the Church of Rome are only such a kind of Charms for they are supposed to work effectually on the Person without any Devotion or Vertuous Disposition being required of him in order to it Now whatever effect they promise above what the natural efficacy of the thing is apt and able to produce they must have express Authority from God or else they sadly delude and cheat those poor Souls that depend upon them And at the best they are supposed only a shorter cut to Heaven an easier way of pleasing God and getting his Blessing and are invented only to ease a Man of the fatigue and trouble of the common and ordinary rode of serving him by a constancy and regularity of Devotions Seventhly Their Manuals and Books of Devotion which they give their People to read instead of the Scripture which they forbid to be used though they may design them as Helps yet I must range them among the Hindrances of Devotion For the best of them are so full of Tautologies and vain Repetitions that they must needs come under the Censure of our blessed Saviour Matt. 6. though they use his own holy Name For so in the Jesus Psalter at the end of the Manual of Prayers and Litanies Printed at Paris in English An. 1682. in a Litany of fifteen Petitions the Name Jesu is repeated over above 130 times And in the same Book in the Litany of the blessed Virgin they pray to her by 40 several Names being only so many distinct praises of her And the like is observable in all their Books of Devotion which I ever saw Now their saying the same thing so often over is not contrived to help and assist Attention or prevent Distraction or as a Repetition of what is more then ordinarily important or for any other good and prudent Reason but out of pure Vanity and Ostentation or as it were even to flatter our blessed Saviour or the Saint which they pray to But most of the Books and Legends which they put into the hands of their People to excite their Devotion and by which the People take an estimate of the Christian Religion are such wretched plain Forgeries and so pitifully contrived Fables as can never be believed by Men of Sense and if they could be believed are proper indeed to make Men Mad and Enthusiastical but not to advance true Devotion and he that reads only such Books is qualified indeed to tell Stories and to believe Lies but no serious truth will stick to him or be valued by him So that such Books as these are so far from doing good that they do much harm to Religion for they Imprint a wrong Notion of Religion on Mens Minds would make a Man believe that God is like a Child pleased with Trifles that Religion and the Method of our Salvation is only a Charm and Trick which the Priests have gotten the receit of but that there is nothing in Christianity fit to make a man wife and manly in his Worship of God or in the management of himself and practice of Devotion Nay the Stories which are told in the Lives of their Saints and believed by the Common People are enough even to deprave the natural Sentiments of Mankind concerning God and Religion so that perhaps it were much better to leave Men to the natural effluxes of their own minds than to pretend to assist them with such Helps as these That a little Water or a consecrated Bell should scare the Devil or St. Francis's rope charm and bind him would make a Man have little fear of such an Enemy or a prodigious Veneration for such a Saint but how it should render a Man more piously affected toward God more relying on his Providence or more Religiously Careful over himself I see not And these Stories though so apparently false yet being affirm'd with such Confidence strike at the very Foundation of our Religion For it is apt to make Men believe that Christianity it self was at first propagated among a sad dull stupid and credulous Generation of Men when as really it first appeared in an Age as sharp-sighted as any Age before or since which is much for its Vindication It would tempt a Man to despise a Religion in which such Men are Saints and such Practises commended And will set Christianity but on the same level with modern Judaism and Mahometanism For the Jews have just as much to say for their Cabbala and the Turks for their incredible Fables for they are reported on the same Credit are just so credible in themselves and just as edifying of the People that attend to them The Miracles which they relate being often Just so useful as that pretended to be wrought in the Temple of Apollo when a Man coming out of the Temple it was observed that his body did not cast any shadow by which thing however strange in it self the Man was not much the better nor the World wiser But many of their Books of Devotion are worse than ridiculous for there are frequently such passages and prayers as I cannot tell how to vindicate from Blasphemy and Idolatry Saint Bonaventure's Psalter both in Latin and Italian I mentioned before in which there are I believe a thousand such Prayers to her or Expressions concerning her which I confess I could not with a safe Conscience say of any Creature And Albertus Magnus the Master of St Thomas Aquinas hath not only 12 Books of the Praises of the Virgin Mary but also a distinct Book called Biblia Mariana in which he applies several places of Scripture to the Virgin Mary as if she were prefigured in several passages of the Old Testament as well as her Son So Gen. 1.1 that she was that Heaven that God made Gen. 1.3 She was the Light which God there made and so on through almost the whole Scripture And however Cautious they are in the Books which they Print in English for the use of their Converts here yet in them we find often such sayings to or of the Virgin Mary as I cannot reconcile with Christianity for so in the Manual quoted before in the Prayers for Women with Child they sing thus to her Hail to the Queen who Reigns above Mother of Clemencie and Love c. Elsewhere they pray thus to her pag. 196. Oblessed Mother assist my Weakness in all my Dangers and Necessities in all Temptations to Sin and in the hour of my Death that through thy Protection I may be safe in the Lord. Where the Lord indeed is mentioned out of Complement and for Fashions sake but they had first begged of the Lady as much as they wanted or could desire and pag. 80. they call her Spouse of the Holy Ghost Promise of the Prophets Expectation of the Patriarchs Queen of the Angels Teacher of the Apostles Strengthner of Martyrs Faithful Comforter of the Living and