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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	holy_a	scripture_n	testament_n	5,469	5	8.2866	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A69535	The grand debate between the most reverend bishops and the Presbyterian divines appointed by His Sacred Majesty as commissioners for the review and alteration of the Book of common prayer, &c. : being an exact account of their whole proceedings : the most perfect copy.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Commission for the Review and Alteration of the Book of Common Prayer.	1661 (1661)	Wing B1278A; Wing E3841; ESTC R7198	132,164	165

the observation of Lent as a Religious Fast the Example of Christ's fasting forty dayes and nights being no more imitable nor intended for the imitation of Christians than any other of his miraculous works were or than Moses his forty dayes Fast was for the Jewes and the Act of Parliament 5 Eliz. forbidding abstinence from flesh to be observed upon any other than a politick Consideration and punishing all those who by Preaching Teaching Writing or open Speech shall notifie that the forbearing of flesh is of any necessity for the saving of the soul or that it is the service of God otherwise than as other politick Laws are VI. That the Religious observation of Saints dayes appointed to be kept as holy dayes and the Vigils thereof without any foundations as we conceive in Scripture may be omitted that if any be retained they may be called Festival and not Holy dayes nor made equal with the Lords day nor have any peculiar Service appointed for them nor that the People be upon such days enforced wholly to abstain from work and that the names of all others not inserted in the Callendar which are not in the first and second Books of Edward the Sixth may be left out VII That the gift of Prayer being one special qualification for the Work of the Ministery bestowed by Christ in order to the edification of his Church and to be exercised for the profit and benefit thereof according to its various and emergent necessities It is desired that there may be no such Imposition of the Liturgy as that the exercise of that gift be thereby totally excluded in any part of publick worship and further that considering the great age of some Ministers and the infirmities of others and the variety of several services oft time occurring upon the same day whereby it may be inexpedient to require every Minister at all times to read the whole it may be left to the discretion of the Minister to omit it as occasion shall require which liberty we find to be allowed even in the first Common Prayer Book of Edward the Sixth VIII That in regard of the many defects which have been observed in that Version of the Scriptures which is used throughout the Liturgy many fold instances whereof may be produced as in the Epistle for the first Sunday after Epiphany taken out of Rom. 12. 1. Be you changed in your shape And the Epistle for the Sunday next before Easter taken out of Phil. 2. 5. Found in his apparel as a man As also the Epistle for the first Sunday in Lent taken out of the fourth of the Galatians Mount Sinai is Agar in Arabia and bordereth upon the City which is now called Jerusalem The Epistle for Saint Matthews day being taken out of the second Epistle of the Corinthians and the fourth We go not out of kind The Gospel for the second Sunday after Epiphany taken out of the second of John When men be drunk The Gospel for the third Sunday in Lent taken out of the eleventh of Luke One house doth fall upon another The Gospel for the Annunciation taken out of the first of Luke This is the sixth month which is called Barren and many other places we therefore desire instead thereof the Translation allowed of by Authority may alone be used IX That in as much as the Holy Scriptures are able to make us wise unto salvation to furnish us thoroughly unto all good works and contain in them all things necessary either in Doctrine to be believed or in Duty to be practised whereas divers Chapters of the Apocryphal Books appointed to be read are charged to be in both respects of dubious and uncertain credit It is therefore desired that nothing be read in the Church for Lessons but the Holy Scriptures in the Old and New Testament X. That the Minister be not required to rehearse any part of the Liturgy at the Communion Table save onely those parts which properly belong to the Lords Supper and that at such time onely when the Holy Supper is administrated XI That the word Minister and not Priest or Curate is used in the absolution and in divers other places It may thoroughout the whole Book be used instead of those two words and that instead of the word Sunday the word Lords day may be every where used XII Because singing of Psalms is a considerable part of Publick Worship we desire that the Version set forth and allowed to be sung in Churches may be amended or that we may have leave to make use of a purer Version XIII That all obsolete words in the Common Prayer and such whose use is changed from their first significancy as read who smote thee used in the Gospels for the Monday and Wednesday before Easter Then opened be their witts used in the Gospel for Easter Tuesday c. may be altered into other words generally received and better understood XIV That no portions of the Old Testament or the Acts of the Apostles be called Epistles or read as such XV. That whereas throughout the severall offices the Phrase is such as presumes all persons within the Communion of the Church to be regenerated converted and in an actuall state of grace which had Ecclesiasticall Discipline been truly and vigorously executed in the exclusion of scandalous and obstinate sinners might be better supposed But that there having been and still being a confessed want of that as in the Liturgy is acknowledged it cannot rationally be admitted in the utmost latitude of Charity we desire that this may be reformed XVI That whereas orderly connexion of Prayers and of particular Petitions and expressions together with a competent length of the formes used are tending much to edification and to gain the reverence of people to them There appears to us too great neglect of this Order and of other Just Laws of method particularly 1. The Collects are generally short many of them consisting but of one or two Sentences of petition and those generally usherd in with a repeated mention of the Name and Attributes of God and presently concluding with the Name and Merits of Christ whence are caused many unnecessary intercessions and abruptions which when many Petitions are to be offered at the same time are neither agreeable to scripturall example nor suted to the gravity and seriousness of that Holy Duty 2. The Prefaces of many Collects have not any clear and speciall respect to the following Petitions and particular petitions are put together which have not any due order or evident connexion one with another nor suitable with the occasions upon which they are used but seem to have fallen in rather casually than from any orderly codtinuance It is desired that instead of these various Collects there may be one Methodicall and entire form of Prayer composed out of many of them XVII That whereas the Puplick Liturgy of a Church should in reason comprehend the summe of all such sins as are ordinarily in Prayer by

weaknesse by some unapt Expressions or disorder Which is an evil no way to be compared with the fore-mentioned good considering that it is but in the weak and that if that weaknesse be so great as to require it forms may be imposed on those few without imposing them on all for their sakes as we force not all to use Spectacles or Crutches because some are purblind or lame and considering that God heareth not Prayers for the Rhetorick and handsome Cadencies and neatnesse of Expression but will bear more with some Incuriosity of words which yet we plead not for than with an hypocritical formal heartlesse lip-service For he knoweth the meaning of the Spirit even in the groans which are not uttered in words And for the Common-Prayer our Observation telleth us that though some can use it judiciously seriously and we doubt not profitably yet as to the most of the vulgar it occasioneth a relaxing of their attention and intention and a lazie taking up with a Corps or Image of devotion even the service of the lips while the heart is little sensible of what is said And had we not known it we should have thought it incredible how utterly ignorant abundance are of the sence of the words which they hear and repeat themselves from day to day even about Christ himself and the Essentials of Christianity It is wonderful to us to observe that rational Creatures can so commonly seperate the words from all the sense and life so great a help or hinderance even to the understanding is the awakening or not awakening of the Affections about the things of God And we have already shewed you many unfit Expressions in the Common-Prayer-book especially in the Epistles and Gospels through the faultinesse of your Translations as Eph. 3. 15. Father of all that is called Father in Heaven and Earth And that Christ was found in his Apparel as a man That Mount Sinai is Agar in Arabia and bordereth upon the City now called Jerusalem Gal. 4. 25. This is the Sixth Month which is called Barren Luke 1. And when men be drunk John 2. with many such like which are parts of your publick worship And would you have us hence conclude that the mischiefs of such Expressions are worse than all the benefits of that worship And yet there is this difference in the Cases that weak rash Ministers were but here and there one But the Common-Prayer is the service of every Church and every day had we heard any in extemporary Prayer use such unmeet Expressions we should have thought him worthy of sharp reprehension yea though he had been of the younger or weaker sort Divers other unfit Expressions are mentioned in the Exceptions of the late Arch-Bishop of York and Primate of Ireland and others before spoken of And there is much in the prejudice or diseased Curiosity of some hearers to make words seem Idle Impertinent or Ridiculous which are not so and which perhaps they understand not some thought so of the inserting in the late Prayer-book the private opinion of the Souls departed praying for us and our praying for the benefit of their prayers As for the security which you call for though as is shewed you have given us none at all against such errors in your forms yet we have before shewed you that you have as much as among imperfect men can be expected The same that you have that Physitians shall not murther men and that Lawyers and Judges shall not undoe men and that your Pilate shall not cast away the ship you have the power in your hands of taking or refusing as they please or displease you and of judging them by a known Law for their proved miscarriages according to the quality of them and what would you have more To prevent which mischief the former Ages know no better way than to forbid any Prayers in publick but such as were prescribed by publick Authority Con. Carthag Can. 106. Milen Can. 12. Repl. To what you allege out of two Councils we answer 1. The Acts of more venerable Councils are not now at all observed as Nice 1. Can. ult c. nor many of these same which you cite 2. The Scripture and the constant practice of the more antient Church allowed what they forbid 3. Even these Canons shew that then the Churches thought not our Liturgy to be necessary to their Concord Nor indeed had then any such form imposed on all or many Churches to that end For the Can. of Counc Carth. we suppose you meant Council 3. Can. 23. mentioneth Prayers even at the Alter and alloweth any man to describe and use his own Prayers so he do but first cum instructionibus fratribus eas conferre Take advice about them with the abler Brethren If there had been a stated form before imposed on the Churches what room could there be for this course And even this much seems but a Caution made newly upon some late abuse of Prayer The same we may say de Concil Male Can. 12. If they were but a prudentioribus tractata vel comprobata in Synodo new Prayers might by any man at any time be brought in which sheweth they had no such stated publick Liturgy as is now pleaded for And even this seemeth occasioned by Pelagianisme which by this Caution they would keep out We hope your omission of our 8th desire for the use of the new Translation intimateth your grant that it shall be so But we marvel then that we find among your Concessions the alteration of no part but the Epistles and Gospels As they would have no Saints dayes observed by the Church so no Apocriphal Chapter read in the Church but upon such a reason as would exclude all Sermons as well as Apocripha viz. because the holy Scriptures contain in them all things necessary either in Doctrine to be believed or in duty to be practised if so why so many unnecessary Sermons why any more but reading of Scriptures If notwithstanding their sufficiency Sermons be necessary there is no reason why these Apocriphal Chapters should not be as useful most of them containing excellent discourses and rules of mortality it is heartily to be wished that Sermons were as good if their fear be that by this mean● those Books may come to be of equal esteem with the Canon they may be secured against that by the Title which the Church hath put upon them calling them Apocriphal and it is the Church's testimony which teacheth us this difference and to leave them out were to cross the practice of the Church in former Ages Repl. We hoped when our desires were delivered in writing they would have been better observed and understood We asked not that no Apocriphal Chapter may be read in the Church but that none may be read as Lessons for so the Chapters of holy Scripture there read are called in the Book and to read them in the same place under the same title without any sufficient note of distinction or notice given to the people that they are not Canonical Scripture they

is ancient So there wants not a Bign Bellarm. c. to tell us of S. James his Liturgy that mentions the Confessours the Deiparam the Anchorets c. which made Bellarm. himself say de Liturgia Jacobi sic sentio Eam aut non esse ejus aut multa à posterioribus eidem addita sunt And must we prove the Antiquity of Liturgies by this or try ours by it There wants not a Sainctetius a Bellarm. a Valentia a Peresius to predicate the Liturgy of S. Basil as bearing witnesse to transubstantiation for the sacrifice of the Masse for praying to Saints c. When yet the exceeding disagreement of Copies the difference of some forms from Basils ordinary forms the prayers for the most pious and faithful Emperours shew it unlikely to have been Basils many predicate Chrysostomes Masse or Liturgie as making for praying to the dead and for them the propitiatory Sacrifice of the Masse c. when in one edition Chrysostom is prayed to in it saith Cook in another Nicolaus and Alexius that lived 1080 is mentioned in another doctrines are contained as de Contaminata Maria c. clean contrary to Chrysostoms doctrine must we now conclude that all is ancient that is Orthodox when one Copy is scarce like another or can we try our Liturgies by such as this The shreds cited by you prove a Liturgie indeed such as we have used while the Common Prayer-book was not used where the Psalms the words of Baptism and the words of Consecration commemoration and delivery of the Lords Supper and many other were used in a constant form when other parts were used as the Minister found most meet so Sursum Corda was but a warning before or in the midst of devotion such as our Let us pray and will no more prove that the substance of prayer was not left to the Minister's present or prepared Conceptions than Ite missa est will prove it The Gloria patri Bellarm. himself saith according to the common opinion was formed in the council of Nice which was in the 4th Century And even then such a particular testimony against the Arrians might well stand with a body of unimposed prayers and rather shewes that in other things they were left at liberty If the Benedicite the Hymnes or other passages here mentioned will prove such a Liturgy as pleaseth you we pray you bear with our way of worship which hath more of Hymnes and other forms then these come to That these Liturgies had no original from generall Councils addes nothing with us to their Authority but sheweth that they had an arbitrary original and all set together shews that then they had many Liturgies in one Prince's Dominion and those alterable and not forced and that they took not one Liturgy to be any necessary means to the Churches unity or peace but bore with those that used various at discretion We well remember that Tertull tells the Heathens that Christians shewed by their conceived Hymnes that they were sober at their religious feasts it being their custome ut quisque de scripturis sanctis vel de proprio ingenio potest provocetur in medium Deo canere Apol. cap. 39. Note here 1. that though there be more need of forms for singing then for praying yet even in this the Christians in publick had then a liberty of doing it de proprio ingenio and by their own wit or parts 2. That those that did not de proprio ingenio did it de scripturis sanctis and that there is no mention of any other Liturgy from which they fetch so much as their Hymnes And the same Tertul. Apol. cap. 30. describing the Christians publick prayers saith sine monitore quia de pectore oramus we pray without a Monitor or promptor because we do it from the heart or from our own breast And before him Just Mart. Ap. 2. p. 77. saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But if all these words seem not plain enough to some it is no wonder when they rest not in the greater plainness of the holy Scriptures where prayer is so frequently mentioned as much of the imployment of believers and so many directions encouragements and exhortations given about it and yet no Liturgy or stinted forms except the Lords prayer is prescribed to them or once made mention of no man directed here to use such no man exhorted to get him a prayer-Prayer-book or to read or learn it or to beware that he adde or diminish not whereas the holy Scriptures that were then given to the Church men are exhorted to read and study and meditate in and discourse of and make it their continual delight and it 's a wonder that David that mentions it so oft in the 119. Psalm doth never mention the Liturgy or common-prayer-Common-Prayer-Book if they had any And that Solomon when he dedicated the house of Prayer without a Prayer-book would onely begge of God to hear what Prayers or what Supplication soever shall be made of any man or of all the people of Israel when every one shall know his own sore and his own grief and shall spread forth his hands in that house 2 Chron. 6. 29. and that he giveth no hint of any Liturgie or form so much as in those common Calamities and talkes of no other book then the knowledge of their own sores and their own griefs And in the Case of Psalmes or singing unto God where it is certain that they had a Liturgy or form as we have they are carefully collected preserved and delivered to us as a choise part of the holy Scripture And would it not have been so with the prayers or would they have been altogether unmentioned if they also had been there prescribed to and used by the Church as the Psalmes were Would Christ and his Apostles even where they were purposely giving rules for prayer and correcting its abuse as Matth. 6. 1 Cor. 14. c. have never mentioned any forms but the Lord's Prayer if they had appointed such or desired such to be imposed and observed These things are incredible to us when we most impartially consider them For our own parts as we think it uncharitable to forbid the use of Spectacles to them that have weak eyes or of Crutches to them that have weak Limbs and as uncharitable to undo all that will not use them whether they need them or not so we can think no better of them that will suffer none to use such forms that need them or that will suffer none to pray but in the words of other mens prescribing though they are at least as able as the prescribers And to conclude we humbly crave that ancient customes may not be used against themselves and us and that you will not innovate under the shelter of the name of Antiquity Let those things be freely used among us that were so used in the purest primitive times Let unity and peace be laid on nothing on which they laid them not let