Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	common_a	prayer_n	rite_n	2,290	5	10.0209	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A75749	A remonstrance, against presbitery. Exhibited by divers of the nobilitie, gentrie, ministers and inhabitants of the county palatine. of Chester with the motives of that remonstrance. Together with a short survey of the Presbyterian discipline. Shewing the inconveniences of it; and the inconsistency thereof with the constitution of this state, being in its principles destructive to the laws and liberties of the people. With a briefe review of the institution, succession, iurisdiction of the ancient and venerable order of bishops. Found to bee instituted by the Apostles, continued ever since, grounded on the lawes of God, and most agreeable to the law of the land. / By Sir Thomas Aston baronet.	Aston, Thomas, Sir, 1600-1645.	1641 (1641)	Wing A4078; Thomason E163_1; Thomason E163_2; ESTC R212696	75,691	128

God prescribed unto and cruelly imposed upon us by them for as touching the Prelates themselves we conceive them to be the Popes Substitutes per accidens at the least if not by solemne covenanted allegiance as it may appeare by their Lording it over Gods heritage both Pastors and People and assuming the power of the Keyes onely to themselves contrary to Gods sacred word Therefore we humbly Petition you this honourable Assembly as you tender the glorie of God the Kings Prerogative the Subjects libertie the purity of Gods sacred Ordinances and the welfare of Posteritie or wish the downfall of Antichrist and his adherents to stirre up the zeale and strength wherewith the Lord hath endued you and courag●ously proceed unto your immortall praise against these his mightie enemies and secret underm●n●rs of the good estate of our Church and Common-wealth and utterly dissolve their Offices which give l●fe to the most superstitious practises in or about the worship of God And so together with the ruine of their Antichristian Offi●es and Government we also humbly pray may fall to the ground their impious Courts with all their dependant Officers even from the Chancellors to the Parators their corrupt Canons booke of Articles the English refined Masse-booke of Common Prayer with all their popish significant Ceremonies therein contained the strict imposing whereof hath driven out of this our English Nation many of our most godly and able Ministers and other his Majesties loyall Subjects able both for person and estate to have done good service to God our King and Countrie Secondly our Civill miseries are chiefely these First That the tenths of all our goods should bee taken from us by Parsons Impropriators and in some places by Recusants under a pretence of maintaining the Ministerie and yet notwithstanding wee forced in divers places to maintaine a Ministerie out of the rest of our estates if we will have any and to repaire our Churches which have beene of late very excessive and superstitious Secondly That Sutes in Law are so long unnecessarily detained in Civil Courts before judgement be had wherby divers persons have their estates utterly ruined and others much decayed Thirdly That the Oath in Courts Leet and Baron is usually administred without limitation and before the charge be given so that the Jurors cannot sweare in judgement as the Lord requires they should Fourthly That the Countie Court is kept upon the Munday and thereby we are put unto excessive charges in travelling thereto unlesse wee should labour upon the Lords day next before Fiftly that our Countrie is verie destitute of sufficient Schoolemasters for the educating of our Children and fitting them for the service of God our King and Common-weale Sixtly that there are such excessive fines by some Gentlemen imposed upon their Tenants as that thereby they are both disabled to maintaine their families whence ariseth so many poore people and to doe his Majestie service and pay him lawfull tribute Therefore that these our grievances both Ecclesiasticall and Civill may be redressed and that the contrarie privileges which Christ hath purchased and commanded us to stand unto may be obtained and established WEe most humbly beg that the revealed will of God contained in the Books of the Old and New Testaments and recorded for our practise in the dayes of the gospell may be that Rule which your Honors would be pleased to follow O what glory would it be unto our God our King and Nation what beauty unto our Church what honor unto this Noble Parliament and what confusion to the enemies of his Majesty and loyall Subjects if wee might see the morall Doctrine of the Prophets and Apostles made old Englands Canons then might our Ministers have liberty to preach Gods world and administer the Sacraments according to the mind of Christ and our Congregation power to execute Ecclesiasticall Censures within themselves Then might his Majesties Subjects meete together and pray for the King and Queene and their Posterity without punishment and false Calumniation O this would make our peace with God and good men this would gaine our friends and scatter our enemies This would make our Land impregnable and our Souldiers courageable This would unite our Kingdome in peace and cause us and our little ones to sleepe in safety This would cal backe the banished and release the Lords imprisoned this would advance our Mord●cais and hang our wicked Hamans This would replant our conscionable Ministers and supplant our Lordly Pr●lacy This would take away illegall exactions and bring our people to due subjection this would take away extorted Herriots excessive Fines and unlimited Boones for it would learn land-Lords more compassion and Tenants due submission yea this would make a sweete Harmony betwixt Rule and Obedience in all Relations Which that it may now happily be effected we earnestly implore the Lord of Heaven to bend your noble spirits to this great work of God which so sweetly ushereth al other comforts And so we shall ever pray c. The Positions annexed also to the Remonstrance Certaine Positions preached at St. Iohns Church in Chester by Mr. Samuel Eaton a Minister lately returned from new England upon Sunday being the third day of Ianuary 1640. in the afternoone FIrst That the names of Parsons and Vicars are Antichristian 2. The Pastors and Teachers of particular Congregations must be chosen by the people or else their entrance is not lawfull 3. That all things which are of Humane invention in the worship of God under which he seemed chiefly to comprehend the book of Common prayer and the rites and Ceremonies therein prescribed are unsavory and loathsome unto God 4. That Ecclesiasticall censures of admonition and Excommunication ought to be exercised by particular congregations within themselves 5. That the people should not suffer this power to bee wrested out of their hands and usurped by the Bishops 6. That the supreame power in Church matters next under Christ is in the Church meaning as he clearly explained himselfe particular Congregations for he denied all Nationall Provinciall and Diocesan Churches as well as Bishops and so expounded that text Math. 18. Go tell the Church c of particular Congregations or as we call them parochiall Churches 7. That all good people should pray earnestly unto God and not cease to petition the Parliament for the razing of the old foundation meaning as he plainly discovered himselfe the abolishing of Episcopall Government and the establishing of their new Presbyterian Discipline as also for the purging all filth and Ceremonies out of the house of God 8. That they that put not to their hand to helpe forward this worke may justly feare that curse pronounced against Meroz Iudges 5. Curse you Meroz because they come not to helpe the Lord against his mighty enemies there he expresly called the Bishops the mighty enemies of God and his Church Certayn other Positions preached by the same man at Knuttesford a great market Towne in the same County 9

THat every particular Congregation is an absolute Church and is to have all ordinances and officers within it selfe the members of it must be onely Saints these must enter Covenant amongst themselves and without such a Covenant no Church 10. That the power of the Keyes is committed neyther to the Pastors nor Governours but to the whole Congregation and to every particular member of the same and Christ having committed them to every one would of every one demaund an account of them and therfore charged the people as they would answer it at the dreadfull day of judgment to keep the keyes amongst themselves and not to suffer any authority to wrest them out of their hands 11. That it is an heynous sin to be present when prayers are read out of a Book either by the Minister or any other By which and other such Doctrines many of the common people are brought into that odium of the Book of common prayer that divers of them will not come into the Church during the time of Divine Service THe spreading of the foresaid Petition and the publicke and frequent preaching of these and such like seditious Doctrines having stird up a generall discontent in many common people divers of the Gentry without any sinister respect whatsoever but only out of a care of the publicke peace being thereunto induced by the presidents of London and Essex into which the Lords had formerly directed orders for suppression of such disorders did humbly desire the Earle of Darby Lord Lieutenant of the County to joyne in a Remonstrance of the distempers likely to ensue and to represent the same to the house of Peerese Praying their care for prevention thereof THe Remonstrance beeing resolved of upon a conference of many of the Gentlemen of the Country some Divines were sent unto to know if they would joyne in subscription with the Gentry and for the clear carriage and quick dispatch severall Letters were sent into the several hundreds directed to some of the princ●pal Iustices there with copies of all inclosed to procure the subscriptions of their neighbor-hood all of the same contents and subscribed by those few who underwrit this following beeing foureteene persons of quality Gentlemen VPon consideration of the copy of a Petition inclosed from the Freeholders of this County which hath been spread abroad and signed by many hands wee conceive it would much reflect upon the Countrey to let it passe in the names of the Countie without any protestation against it beeing not onely clamorous against the governement of Church and State but against our Country in particular And beeing the shortnesse of time would not permit a generall meeting yet such as wee have consulted both with Divines and others are pleased to approve of the coppy inclosed Therefore for the speedy dispatch of it we have thought fit to send severall Coppies into the severall hundreds intreating that you will be pleased to assemble or send unto all the Gentrie of your hundred and such Divines as you conceive will joyne in it and some of the chiefe Free-holders before wedn●sday next and signe the Paper annexed to the Petition with as many hands of quality as you can get and returne them to Cholmley where wee shall some of us meete and annex them all to the originall it selfe which wee have signed and will so send it up to bee preferred the dispatch is the life of the businesse Wee hope no man will be slack in that so much concernes the Country So we rest your very loving friends We desire that you would be pleased not to let any Coppies be taken and returne it on Thursday next at farthest and let no Papist subscribe whatsoever January 30. 1640 The Direction or Superscription To the Right Honourable the L. Brereton Mr. Doctor Dod and Henry Mainwayring Esquire or one of them and to others the Gentlemen of the Hundred of Northwich This publike carriage I hope will satisfie all ingenious men how injurious such clamours have beene as pretended undue practises to procure Subscriptions And if some few timorous people by pretence of trouble have beene frighted to retract their former Subscriptions J presume no judicious man will conceive it either to reflect on the Gentry or dis-value the substance of the Remonstrance To the Honorable the Lord Bishops Reverend Fathers IN the first part of this Discourse I have had a particular Interest us'd the liberty of my owne expressions out of the sense and fore-sight of my owne endangered Liberty which I apprehend absolutely to depend upon the preservation of your regulated order and Legall Government to be inevitably if not irrecoverably lost by the admission of an irregular Arbitrary Presbytery I denie not but the wisedome of this Age may finde out a new way neither pattern'd by the Apostles nor practiz'd in any Age or State and when it is established by Law I know my part obedience But till then Law being on my side God forbid I should not as freely speak in defence of fundamentall Lawes of Divine institutions as others doe to the subversion of both Such has beene the unhappinesse of my Privacie I am scarce knowne to hardly know any of your persons yet with that Reverence doe I looke upon your Sacred order as an Apostolicall therefore not questionable institution I consider your Predecessours as the Ballast which have poyz'd the Barks of Monarchy to sayle safely in the Sea of Vulgar whose piety and wisedome first prescribed the Medium twixt Tyrannie and Anarchy Till Bishops help'd to reduce the unbounded wills of Princes to the limits of Lawes Kings were Tyrants And where ever they are not there ever followes a popular which is a worse Tyranny Obedience to Kings Conformity to Lawes is a Duty both to God and nature but subjection to the absolute and unlimited wills of men is unnaturall to those that were borne under the protection of Lawes Long ha's this Nation flourished in the equall dispensation of Lawes by Divines Civilians and Common Lawyers Glorious and fortunate have beene the Proficients in all of them They much deceive themselves that think the one shall rise by the fall of the other two If two or three mixt Arbitrary Courts sitting onely in Tearme time shall be thought so prejudiciall to the Common Law what must a Quotidian-Chancery prove in every Parish Sure hee that should but seriously consider the condition of the Advocates in the Low Countries Geneva and in all places where the Presbytery hath got footing would burne his Barr Gowne and begin a new profession at the apprehension of such a change No doubt Rebus sic stantibus At this instant there are many able men ready to supply your voyded seates and an instant extinguishment of all the lights of the Church cannot be fear'd But if all preferment for humane learning shall be thus taken away in the next Age wee are liker to degenerate to the Barbarisme of the Greekes then arive at their perfection The

before the Throne and before the Lamb cloathed with white robes and palmes in their hands which came out of great tribulation and had washed their robes Verse 14. and made them white in the bloud of the Lamb. But such as these think their dye is not deepe enough they must yet strike the Basilike veine y Sions plea 262. Gibson threatned King Iames that as Ieroboam he should be rooted out and conclude his race if he maintained Bishops Bancroft fol. 28. Nothing but this say they will cure the pleurisie of our State By which what fountaine of bloud they meane is fitter for the exposition of a Jesuite z Carolus Scriban Erratum valde fuisse in festo Barthol quòd secta non fuerit vena basilica id est quod percitum fuit regi Navarrae principi condensi than the enquiry of a Protestant Onely the torrent of such spirits is observable if not formidable who check at no power Well may the all-reaching arme of a Parliament assist but they hold it cannot stay their course * Sions plea 155. If the Hierarchy be not removed and the Scepter of Christs kingdome namely his owne discipline be advanced there can be no healing of the sore The Parliament may remove all state grievances in repairing wrongs censuring misdemeanours c. All which are to be done Sions plea 156. but the former is not to be left undone As God hath not blest any Parliamentary endevours because as we take it say they they went not this way to work so it is likely he will not be with you now if you go not this way to work Some were a little freer languag'd against the Parliament a Supplicat pag. 25. Bancroft fol. 50. 29. Eliz. That if they did not abrogate the government of Bishops they should betray God the truth and betray the whole kingdome But this is but gentle admonition if faire words will prevaile it is well if not they will doe it perforce b Unlawfulnesse of unlimited Prelacie fol. 12. Though the Parliament be for Bishops sayes one of them yet all the godly and religious will be against them And it is now become the language of the pulpit that if the Parliament will not releeve them c Eaton in his Sermon at Chester yet they shall stick fast together to maintaine their cause which is Christs cause Herein following the counsell of their Predecess●urs d Bancroft fol. 169. That if the brethren cannot obtaine their wils by suit nor dispute the multitude and people must work the feat Thus built upon the authoritie of one of their ancient Ring-leaders who tels them e Knox to the Communaltie fol. 49 50. Reformation of Religion belongs to the Communaltie The which carrying some Species of libertie in it they seeke to confirme that popular ambition by cherishing in them an opinion of a right in the power of the keyes as belonging f Eatons positions annexed 9. neither to the Pastour nor Governours but to the whole Congregation and to everie particular member thereof and Christ having committed them to everie one would of everie one demand an accompt A dangerous doctrine if once grounded in vulgar apprehensions These possest with an opinion of an equall interest in the power of the keyes of the Church which they know how to manage will much more plausibly embrace the suggestions of a paritie in the sway of the State as better suting with their capacities It will bee somewhat difficult to possesse the common people A Priest stirred up rebellion in King Richard the seconds rime with this argument that we are all sprung from the Tribe of Levi But the old seditious argument will be obvious to them That wee are all the sons of Adam borne free some of them say the Gospell hath made them free And Law once subverted it will appeare good equitie to such Chancellours to share the earth equally They will plead Scripture for it that wee should all Genesis 3.19 live by the sweat of our browes They will tell us that in Aegypt we were all fellow Brick-makers And it is no noveltie in the stories of this State That such Artificers have levelled the palaces of Nobles and squared out the dimensions of the Gentrie and Law-Givers according to the rule of their reason The emptie name of libertie blowne into vulgar eares hath over-turned many States how much more prevalent and dangerous must it bee when enforced as a religious dutie to disobey authoritie We know Saint Pauls precept is h Romans 13 1 2. Let everie soule be subject to the higher powers they that resist receive damnation And certainly since his time never any age till now brought forth such desperate Anti-Apostles as I may not improperly call them in absolute opposition to the rule of the Apostle i Eatons Position 9. To conjure men in their pulpits as they will answer it at the dreadfull day of judgement not to submit to any authoritie whatsoever And in defiance and contempt of our Lawes still in force which exact the deprivation of everie Ecclesiastique k Stat. 1 Eliz. cap. 2. the confiscation of the goods and chattels and imprisonment during life of every Laick that shall wilfully deprave the Liturgie established by Law in their petition to stile it l Freholders Petition Note 8. The English refined Masse-booke of Common Prayer In their pulpits to preach it m Eatons Position Note 10. sin to be present at reading of a prayer out of a booke by Minister or any other In print to publish that it is absolutely n 8 Propositions in print p. 1. sinful and unlawful to hear any Minister preach in the Church of England and the Assemblies thereof And seeing these are seconded by the frequent and publique venring of scandalous invective and libellous pamphlets full of seditious doctrines implying an absolute abnegation of the Kings supremacie * Volumes of Paraphlets That the Church is independant and must have all her officers and Lawes within her self which is to denie the Ecclesiasticall Law which Sir Ed. Cook says whosoever shall enie he denyeth that the King hath full power to deliver Iustice in all causes to all his subiects and withdrawing the people from their due allegeance exciting them to disobedience To me such bold violation and uncontrolled contempt of Lawes sitting the Law-Makers appeares formidable Omnia cum liceant non licet esse bonum I consider the Nobilitie and Gentrie of this Isle this nurserie of honour situate as the Low Countries in a flat under the banks and bounds of the Lawes secured from the inundations of that Ocean the Vulgar which by the breach of those bounds would quickly overwhelme us and deface all distinctions of degrees or persons and cannot but with admiration observe that Sampson like in their full strength but as blind with inconsiderate zeale as he by treacherie any such should lay hold