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	use_v	5,546	5	5.8777	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34537	The interest of England in the matter of religion the first and second parts : unfolded in the solution of three questions / written by John Corbet.	Corbet, John, 1620-1680.	1661 (1661)	Wing C6256; ESTC R2461	85,526	278

the wearing of the best apparel upon solemn sacred times all which are recommended in the general Rule Let all things be done decently and in order Which Rule properly is of the Law of nature and would oblige Christians though it had not been written in the holy Scripture In the things before mentioned we perceive a good accord but here lies the difference The Presbyterians stick at Ceremonies properly sacred and significant by humane institution which they conceive to be more than meer circumstances even parts of Worship and whatsoever instituted Worship is not ordained of God they hold unlawful To the making up of the Ceremonies now in question they observe these things Humane Institution mystical and instituted not natural signification and appropriation to divine Worship And it alters not the case that they are by nature apt to signifie for so are all Sacraments if they do not actually signifie without institution That such Ceremonies are parts of divine Worship they prove from the nature of Worship in general which requires no more then that it hath the honour of God for its direct and immediate end it is something not reductively but directly sacred and religious and an immediate expression of our observance of God and obligation to him And such is the nature of the controverted Ceremonies much differing from matters of order and decency which properly and immediately respect men that use them as the Church or Temple is immediately and directly for the assembling of people a Communion Cup for drinking a Table cloth for covering Decency is no part of Worship but a circumstance thereof not proper to it but common with grave civil actions and doth no more become sacred when applyed to sacred uses than a sacred thing as prayer becomes civil when applyed to civil uses Time considered as a meer circumstance of a sacred action belongs to it not precisely as sacred but as an action because without time no action can be performed And being a meer circumstance it needs not be determined of God but is left to humane prudence according to occasion whether for private or publick Worship which is the case of time for private devotion and dayes of publick Humiliation and Thanksgiving But they that scruple our mystical significant Ceremonies conceive that they are properly and meerly sacred as having the honour of God for their direct and immediate end That the Surplice is not for gravity nor meerly for decent distinction but a religious mystical habit the character or badge of a sacred Office or Service conformable to the linen Ephod under the Law The signing with the signe of the Cross they conceive is more evidently sacred than the former As Baptism consecrates the Child so doth the Cross. It is used as a sealing sign of our Obligation to Christ as the words used in the application thereof do manifest and the book of Canons doth declare expresly which saith That it is an honourable hadge whereby the Infant is dedicated to the service of him that died on the Cross as by the words used in the Book of Common Prayer it may appear And therefore it is in that respect Sacramental Besides if it were not a sealing sign but only for mystical teaching it hath the same nature with divers Levitical Ceremonies which were not typical but doctrinal teaching some Moral Duty A holy day or time properly sacred whether by divine institution as the Lords day or humane as other sacred Festivals is not a meer circumstance but a part of Worship For it is not only belonging to a sacred action as an action but precisely as a sacred action on that day to be performed yea it is of it self sacred and is not only sanctified by the Service but also sanctifieth the Service The truth is sacred Ceremonies may in some respect be called circumstances as being inferiour things subservient to Moral Worship which is the main yet they are also parts of Worship in general for Worship is either Moral or Ceremonial and that Ceremonial Worship which is commanded of God is lawful and good but that which is not commanded by him is neither good nor lawful nevertheless it is Worship On this manner the Non-Conformists and Presbyterians have debated this Controversie and argue further That humane discretion is the rule of Order and Method Nature and civil Custom is the rule of Decency but only Scripture is the rule of instituted Worship wherein both addition and diminution is alike forbidden It the English Ceremonies be warrantably used what hinders the use of divers other Ceremonies used in the Roman Church Is it said their multitude will become burthensom and inconvenient But who can determine the convenient number And however an exchange of one Ceremony for another were not unlawful For what reason may not some other Romish Rites in Baptism be used as well as the Cross seeing they are nothing less significant or inoffensive nay peradventure much more inoffensive because the Papists by giving divine Worship to the Cross have abused it to gross Idolatry We take this to be sound speech or discourse that cannot be gain-said And surely those of temperate spirits that are otherwise minded might well conceive that it hath such probable appearance as might possibly take with learned and pious men And seeing the one Side allow and commend all natural external Worship and all matters of Decency and Order and desire to be spared in mystical Ceremonies of humane institution the other Side should not in reason or charity insist on the said Ceremonies as the terms of Church communion and priviledges and or Christian unity and amity Section XXV As concerning the Liturgy the Presbyterians do not gain-say the lawfulness of a stinted form of Prayer in as much as the observing either of a Form or a Directory is not of the substance of prayer but an accident or circumstance belonging to it and left to humane determination It is further granted by them that in some parts of publick worship a form is ordinarily necessary as in the Sacramental actions in the act of Baptizing and of consecrating and delivering the Lords Supper And herein will be no dis-harmony because they are Scripture forms Likewise in such parts of Divine Service where it is not necessary they can submit unto it for the Churches peace Nevertheless they are not satisfied in the present Liturgy but desire it may be laid aside or much reformed And what solid reason withstands the equity of this desire Moderate Prelatists have acknowledged considerable imperfections in the Book of Common-Prayer and Bishop Usher hath collected sundry particulars in his direction concerning the same presented to the House of Commons upon their request Let sober judgments consider whether this or that form of prayer be of the substance of that sacred exercise or only its outward shape and dress If it were of the substance of Religious Worship it would require Divine Institution to make it lawful as do other

not with a safe conscience be present at the Popish Mass because he wounds his conscience by impious dissimulation thereby making a shew of approving that pretended expiatory sacrifice In another Question he resolves That Papists are bound to be present at the English Divine Service because nothing occurs therein that can be by themselves reproved In applying this to our case it is far from my thoughts to make the comparison between Presbyterians and Prelatists parallel with that between Protestants and Papists but I make the reason of both cases parallel for as Papists find nothing in the Protestant Liturgy according to their own principles impious or unsound in like manner the Prelatists can find no positive thing in the propounded terms of accommodation contrary to divine right and primitive practice only as the Papists find not so much as they would have in our Liturgy so the Prelatists in the said proposals Nay the Papists have better colour of reason to separate from our publique Service because although they find nothing positively unsound yet according to the Roman Faith they may pretend fundamental defects therein as the want of the sacrifice of the Mass but the Prelatists can here alledge no such thing the supposed defects and omissions being only in things remote from the foundation of Faith and Religion For we trust the greater number of them do not hold that there is no Church without a Prelate having sole jurisdiction over the Clergy That there is no Ministry but what is ordained by such a Prelate That there is no true divine Service where the Common-Prayer Book is not used and that there is no acceptable worship without humane mystical Ceremonies Let them that have taken up such opinions sadly consider whether they are led therein by conscience or by humour and designe Section XXVIII The greatest shew of reason opposing this moderation is a pretended fixation in Religion and indeed it is but a shew and colour That Religion is a thing unmoveable all that be truly religious do from the heart acknowledge and for the immobility thereof none contend more earnestly then the Presbyterians But they fix its unmovable state in the Canonical Scripture and they continually cry to the Law and to the Testimony against humane Traditions and Inventions in one Extream and against Enthusiasms in the other Upon occasion of any aberration in Doctrine or practice they recall us to the primitive rule and pattern and what is received from the Lord that deliver they to the Churches That sacred Rule they willingly suffer not to be captivated in its interpretation by the Churches infallibility as do the Papists nor by proud and arrogant reason as the Socinians nor by impulse and imagination as the Euthusiasts but they maintain it in its full authority to interpret it self whose authentick interpretation we are inabled to discern by rational inferences and deductions wherein we make use of reason not as an argument but as instrument As for the Decrees and Canons of the Church what rightful Authority doth make them as the Law of the Medes and Persians that altereth not Must things be enacted by the Church once and for ever And whether they be little or great clear or doubtful necessary or superfluous must they be held unquestionable and indisputable Surely this is to Idolize humane Constitutions and to equalize them with Divine and to lead the people to a blind implicite faith and a neglect of searching the Scriptures And upon this ground those large Churches as the Roman Grecian Aethiopick Armenian Indian and the rest are obstinately divided for many ages from each other and holding to this principle of unalterable Traditions and Constitutions they will be divided to the end of the world Had not all Ecclesiastical Canons and Decrees a beginning and that at sundry times and in divers manners And are not many of them as it were but of yesterday And when they were brought in where was the pretended fixation Doubtless Religion may be alike altered by Addition as by Substraction Nay Hath there not been Substraction also Are not divers Customs and Ceremonies of great antiquity now quite abolished among us If the Church of Rome may erre why not the Church of England Indeed the Papists that hold their Church infallible may hold the Decrees thereof unalterable but the Church of England claims no such priviledge Was it necessary that our first Reformers should see all things at the first day-break out of the night of Popery Or if they saw all things requisite for their own times could they foresee all future events and provide remedies for inconveniencies which time might bring forth It is a wise saying of a learned man That time it self is the greatest Innovator and again That Physick is an Innovation Surely as the naturall so the body politick sometimes needs physick and oftentimes moderate Reformations do prevent abolitions and extirpations Besides a great alteration in this kind hath continued in a stated posture for many years which inferres a greater necessity of an accommodation Nevertheless there is no attempt or question made of changing any thing that toucheth sound faith and good life or the substance of divine worship Yet in the Doctrine of the Church somthing possibly may have been inserted as an Article of Faith which is but problematical and in a fundamental Article some inconvenient expression may be used and this questionless may be altered without any imputation of uncertainty to the established Doctrine Some change in the outward Form and Ceremonies which are but a garb or dress is no real change of the Worship some change in the late external jurisdiction of the Church which was not formally Ecclesiastical and spiritual but temporal and coercive invested in the Bishops by the Law of the Land is no change in the true spiritual power that is intrinsecal to their spiritual office Nay the reformation may be encompassed with little variation as to the outward model and platform the Kingdom being already squared for it as hath been above shewed in the offers made by some Bishops Only the power will be more diffused being distributed among Bishops and Presbyters in due proportion Is it objected once remove the ancient bounds and we know not where to stop we must serve every humour and an inundation of errour and Schism will break in Surely Papists have as much to say herein against the Protestants as the Prelatists against the Presbyterians For they say that Protestantism is the womb of all Sects and that we having forsaken the infallible Guide the Church of Rome have lost our selves in a Wilderness of errour besides who were they that removed the ancient bounds set in the first English Reformation by introducing many innovations but to give a direct answer are not the sacred Scriptures and Christs holy Institutions sufficient bounds and land-marks Cannot prudent and faithful Church-guides keep the flock from wandring unless they hedge them in by unchangeable Canons