Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	form_n	prayer_n	prescribe_v	2,556	5	9.9248	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29932	Dwelling with God, the interest and duty of believers in opposition to the complemental, heartless, and reserved religion of the hypocrite / opened in eight sermons by John Bryan ...	Bryan, John, d. 1676.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1670 (1670)	Wing B5243; ESTC R31994	149,472	465

People together are warranted If all such means of worship must be ordered by special Institution or they shall be unlawful God must upon the matter have no Worship at all from us in the meanes which he himself hath ordained because it is impossible to use these meanes and not to do many things which he hath not instituted To return to Prayer that a true Prayer may be made to God in a Set form cannot be denyed because things agreeable to God's will may be disposed therein as in the Lord's Prayer and it 's possible for the heart and affections to go along with it and faith and other graces to be exercised in it But you question whether Ministers may read in the Congregation prescribed Formes of Prayer imposed Admit it were unlawful for them to do it yet it is warrantable for you to be present at such Prayers because all Prayers wherein you joyn are stinted to you and you are tyed to the forme of words uttered by him that prayes nor is a holy good prayer made evil to him that hears it for the possibility aforesaid Obj. But the Prayers in the English Liturgy are Formes neither holy nor good for the Book it self is an Idolatrous Book the Mass in English Answ This is as true that light is darkness and white black Consider what is the matter of the Popish Mass prayers in an unknown Tongue to Saints departed and to feigned Saints receiving the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in one kind an unbloody sacrifice offered up for quick and dead the real Presence satisfaction for Venial sins temporal penance for mortal sins blotting out the Second Commandment or confounding it with the First c. Blackness and Darkness and what is the matter of our English Liturgy reading the Holy Scriptures in a known Tongue the calling upon God in the mediation of Christ and not upon Angels and Saints for the living and not for the dead the administration of the Holy Supper in both kinds singing of David's Psalms c. all White and Light Obj. But sundry of the Prayers are found word for word in the Mass-Book Ans So may a true Man's goods be found in a Thieves Den and the goods of the Church may be in the possession of Antichrist an Usurper which goods she may lawfully require and take back again not as borrowed from him but as due to her self being the rich Legacies which Christ bequeathed to his Church which Anti-christ had seized upon the Good therefore in the Mass Book belonged not to Anti-christ but the foul gross Errours which are purged out of ours Obj. But there are foul errours and gross corruptions in our Liturgy which are not purged out Ans Admit there be or were yet there are no Fundamental Errours nor any that bordereth thereupon objected The corruptions objected are misapplications of Scriptures frequent repetition of the same things disordered Prayers and Responsories breaking Petitions asunder c. No errours that concern the main grounds or chief heads of Christianity but faults that may be tolerated and for which a Christian hath no cause to separate Suppose a Teacher misalledge a Text of Scripture or that something be amiss in his Prayer when he exerciseth his own gifts is this a ground sufficient to separate from the Ordinance of God or reject the good for that which is amiss Nor is there any doctrinal passage in any of the Prayers that may not bear a good construction and so Amen may be said to it Charity binds us to take every thing in the best sense nor can you think it pleasing to God for some evil that may be fastned upon some passages to with-draw communion especially when communion may be had without approving of any of the errours or corruptions though we do not for their sakes with draw from the communion of the Churches while they are exercised Obj. But most of the Ministers that officiate in these Congregations are either blind or superstitious or prophane or idle or Drunkards or Whore-masters and they that are not of this last Tribe are most of them Apostates from their Principles and therefore we cannot bring our hearts to hear any of them pray read or preach Answ You may finde as bad as any of these in the Church of Israel and as many for the space of Ground before our Saviour's time and in his Dayes and in the Apostolical Churches and yet you do not finde any of the People to have forsaken the publick Ordinances of God How far the charge is true or false I shall not now meddle In some Countreys I am sure that there are many sober godly Orthodox able Preachers yet in possession of the publick places And if you know any Countrey where it is worse consider if Christ himself did not joyn with worse O that I could perswade with you to lay sadly to heart the greatness of the sin of Divisions and the grievousness of the punishment threatned against it and that hath been executed for it and that the Leaders and Encouragers of private Christians to make this sinful separation would read oft and meditate much upon St. Judes Epistle to v. 20. And that the multitudes that are willing to be led by them would follow the prescription of the meanes here to preserve or recover themselves from this seduction v. 20 21. And that both would leave off their reviling the Government Ecclesiastical and the Ministers that conform and peaceably and submissively behave themselves by the example of Michael who though an Arch-Angel and contending in a just cause and disputing in an Argument wherein he was very knowing did not durst not bring a railing accusation though his adversary was the Devil But committed the cause to God saying The Lord rebuke Thee Though Quakers who pretend to follow no other Rule save the Light within them use ordinarily such railing and reviling Language yet let no such word ever be heard to Proceed out of your Mouths who profess to follow and walk exactly according to the written Word of God The last sort of Persons are those of your own House Fellow-members of the same Family and your Fellow-commoners your duty in reference to these is manifold I shall earnestly commend this one namely to live in Unity with them to move you effectually hereunto behold how good and how pleasant it is for Brethren to dwell in unity together It is like the precious Oyntment upon the Head that ran down upon the Beard even Aaron's Beard that went down to the Skirts of his Garments as the Dew of Hermon and as the Dew that descended upon the Mountain of Zion For the Lord commanded the blessing for evermore Psal 133. a Song of Degrees purposely pend for the knitting together the Hearts of God's People in the blessed band of Unity Emphatically propounding both the profit and pleasure redounding there-from Behold a matter worth the marking how good in regard of profit and how pleasant in regard of delight

having this Seal the Lord knoweth them that are his that the purpose according to Election might stand Even so at this present also there is a remnant according to the election of grace All that the Father giveth me shall come to me I know my Sheep and I give unto them Eternal Life and they shall never perish Ye are come to the Church of the first born which are inrolled in Heaven rejoyce that your Names are written in Heaven Whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the Lake of Fire Insomuch if it were possible they should deceive the very Elect. So that howsoever Salvation in the execution of it depends upon the conditional use of the means yet the will of God is not conditional incompleat or mutable because God hath absolutely purposed to give his Elect both will and power to perform those very conditions required namely Repentance Faith and Perseverance For the Decree of God predestinating must not be considered after this form I will choose Peter to Eternal Life if it shall so happen that he doth believe but rather thus I do choose Peter to Eternal Life which that he may infallibly obtain I will give him faith As many as were ordained to eternal life believed according to the faith of God's Elect. Elect according to the fore-knowledge of God the Father who are kept by the power of God through Faith unto Salvation All gifts of grace leading into the habitation of holiness and whom to salvation are the fruits and effects of Eternal Election Neither is it true that we are Elected for faith and holiness for we are Elected unto both according as he hath chosen us in him that we should be holy Election therefore is before the spiritual blessings both in order and time Ye have not chosen me but I haven chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain For by grace are ye saved through faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God As for this only General Election of all and every Man to salvation upon condition of faith it is indeed alone no Election because it predestinates no Man actually severs no one from another writes no Name in the Book of Life ordains no individual to have his habitation in God but only prescribes the manner of coming to salvation promiscuously to all neither by it is it decreed who shall be saved but what manner of Men. Moreover who holds this Universal Election alone must also grant an Universal reprobation For if God will only have all to be saved indefinitely if they will believe he willeth likewise that all shall be damned that do not believe and so God neither chooseth or refuseth any antecedently Finally this opinion makes Man's will to over-rule God's counsel Nor can you believe God's equal love to all Men when you hear him professing that he did not equally love two who were equal by Nature nor that he desires the salvation of all alike because all are not converted and saved it being as easie for him to effect as desire and by his effectual Grace to make Men of unwilling willing without destroying their voluntary liberty 3. Touching the efficacy of God the Holy Ghost working Conversion that it is not to be restrained to moral perswasion only which Man 's will may embrace or reject and finally resist is abundantly evinced by that one Text where the Apostle heaps up so many emphatical and significant words on purpose to declare the power of the spirit of God put forth in the conversion of a sinner That they may know what is the hyberbolical greatness of his power to us-ward who believe according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead To which many more may be added and that it depends not upon Man's free-will which can neither convert it self nor overcome divine grace to put forth for his conversion The Scripture every where plainly and expresly teacheth I mean that grace which is given with an absolute purpose to convert See 2 Cor. 10. 4 5. Col. 2. 12. 2 Thes 1. 11. Luk. 11. 22. 2 Pet. 1. 3. Next to the principal efficient causes of their happiness the instrumental are to be owned and thanked Those from whom you had your natural beeing without which you had not been capable of this or any other good Honour is due to natural Parents how poor how bad soever nor must they be despised for any default of body or mind and it is a point of piety to relieve them if they be in want Nor can you ever sufficiently requite them though it must be your study so to do Let them learn first to shew piety at home and requite their Parents for this is acceptable before God Your spiritual Parents are much more to be honoured and much less to be contemned for as much as they have been instruments of your better beeing your being in Christ in God without which you had better to have been Dogs or Toads Yea good had it been for you if you had never been born In Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the Gospel Think nothing too dear for these I bear you record that if it had been possible ye would have pluckt out your own Eyes and have given them unto me Time was when you held your selves happy in me and blessed the time that ever you saw and heard me Howbeit I do not say unto thee how thou owest me even thine own self Bless also all those who have been fellow-helpers with these by informing convincing reproving instructing advising comforting you against despair All these call for thankfull acknowledgment Blessed be the Lord God of Israel which sent thee this Day to meet me and blessed be thy advice and blessed be thou which hast kept me from avenging my self Let the Righteous smite me reprove and chide me It shall be a kindness I will thank him for it and God for him for it and God for him The next sort of Persons to whom you owe duty to the performance whereof I shall earnestly exhort you are they who as yet are without God in the World to whom it may be said They have neither part nor lot in this matter but are in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity And that not only without the Pale of the Church Twenty-Six parts of the World divided into Thirty-One having not so much as the Name of Christians and of those Five that are Christians in Name What a World of Papists are there besides Hereticks that cut off themselves from the true Church But even in the reformed Churches and even in this Land of light and Valley of Vision there are six sorts and a great number of them who dwell not