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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	king_n	read_v	write_v	2,895	5	5.5794	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50383	Unity restor'd to the Church of England by John Mayer.	Mayer, John, 1583-1664.	1661 (1661)	Wing M1426; ESTC R28824	26,506	53

Unity Restor'd TO THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND By JOHN MAYER D. D. Minister of the Church of Roydon in the County of Suffolk and Author of the Exposition of the Church Chatechism and the Comentary on the Old and New Testament contained in Six Volumes Matth. 5.9 Blessed are the Peace-makers for they shall be called the Children of God Psalm 122.6 Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem they shall prosper that love her LONDON Printed for A. Rice and are to be sold by Book-sellers 1661. Unity Restor'd TO THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND Matth. 5.9 Blessed are the Peace-makers for they shall be called the Children of God Psalm 122.6 Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem they shall prosper that love her LONDON Printed for A. Rice and are to be sold by Book-sellers 1661. To the KING 's most Excellent Majesty CHARLES the Second of England Scotland France and Ireland King Defender of the Faith c. Grace and Peace in Jesus Christ MOst Gracious and dear Sovereign so soon as I saw Your Majesties Declaration of October 25. I could not but rejoice greatly for Your Care and holy Solicitude expressed therein and wisdome like the wisdom of Solomon about setling unity and uniformity in the Church of England and devising the means of effecting it And whereas some have in writing cast aspersions upon Your Sacred person I could not but be greatly grieved at it and to see how that notwithstanding this Your Majesties most serious profession to have inform'd your self what you could by consulting with many both grave and learned beyond Sea and of your own Land by what means most probably Vnity may be restored to the Churches under your Majesties Dominion yet may remain unsatisfied who although they are not reverse from Episcopal Government reformed yet at hearing of Suffragens and rural Deans they are much troubled as at Officers not formerly heard of either in the time of Queen Elizabeth King James Your Grandfather or of King Charles Your Father And as for the book of Common Prayer although the Prayers therein contained are most pithy and pious yet the multitude of them and often repetitions of some c. are offensive and above all the Ceremonies therein prescibed which they will never abide to see used although they be not urged upon them and so the seeds of dissention will still continue in our Churches which will in time spring up again the peace and unity desired will never be setled for to settle it must be as but on God so but one way under one Vice-gerent of God upon earth and that must be the best approved of by the word of God which being so and Your Majesties gracious inclination such that you have condescended so far as to consult with some of your own Subjects what way might be best to introduce Vnity about matters Ecclesiasticall which hath been so long wanting My Humble Sute unto your Majesty is that You would vouchsafe to cast Your favourable aspect upon this little book which I a Subject of yours as loyally affected to your Majesty as any other man have written in concurrence with Your Majesty in the earnest desire of Vnity to be restored to our divided Churches before the comming out of your Pious and Learned Declaration having no opportunity hitherto to present it to your Royall view being 78 years of age and full of grievous Diseases so as that I cannot Travell And in this little Book I hope your Majesty shall see good reason to be inclined to go the way therein pointed out to prevail for the restoring of Vnity so much desired and indeed so necessary to promote a setled and lasting peace which God grant unto us under Your Majesty Our Supream Head next unto Christ Jesus And to this end that you may live Usque ad miraculum gloriously reigning upon earth as you have been miraculously brought to this Throne of Your Fathers continuing constantly zealous for the propagation of the true Religion to the end of your days and finally be Crowned in Heaven with a never fading Crown of Glory Your Majesties most Humble and Obedient Subject and dayly Orator before the Throne of Grace IOHN MAYER How Vnity may be restored to the Church of England WE having now by God's singular blessing Unity restor'd to this our Commonwealth under one Head in whom for his gracious disposition and undoubted right to this Diadem we all agree What remains now so much to be desired as Vnity in our Churches also for want of which such bloudy dissentions hath been so long amongst us to the great disgrace of our most true reformed Religion and to the setting of these three Nations in a most fearfull Combustion Upon this consideration therefore I though the least able among many of my Brethren An. Dom. 60. Jacobus frater Domini fuit Episcopus Hierosolymitanus illo inter fecto Simeon Cleophae filius Hieronimus in Catalogo cap. 23. Marcus Praesul Alexandriae an 67. ibid. post Petrum linus Epist 2. Romae an 70. lib. 3. cap. 3. huic successit annacletus vel Cletus an 89. Crescentius Episcopus Moguntinis an 72. Euseb l. 3. c. 4. shall endeavour to shew my good will to restore this desirable Unity amongst us The main differences I suppose at this day are about Ecclesiasticall Government and the Liturgy or Book of Common Prayer For the first there will not be I perceive any great relucting against Episcopal Government because it hath so ancient and such pregnant proofe hereof is brought from holy Scripture and the practice of the Catholick Church ever since the Apostles dayes and whilst they lived and ordered the Government of the Church of Christ if we will give any credit to the most ancient and most credible History-Writers touching Church-matters But about their election to this high and weighty Office who are to govern herein and what power they ought to have above other Bishops or Presbyters their Brethren and what Assistants they ought to use in exercising their power and whether by any other means they ought to have power to punish notorious Offenders than by delivering them to Satan and not by imprisoning or any pecuniary punishment and whether a Bishop may deliver any over to Satan for any other cause but scandalous living or blaspheming and lastly whether there ought not to be a Bishop in every City and great Town that is for the more Churches therein as a City with the Villages about it and so large Diocesses to the putting both of Clergy and People to such tedious travell to have their Causes heard First touching the electing of a Bishop what better President can there be to follow than that of the first Assembly of Apostles and Believers Acts 1.23 being 120 to chuse one into the room of Judas who was chosen by praying first and propounding two known men amongst them and casting lots which was done by the Apostles and the whole congregation of Believers For let an Election be made

indued with reason more than the custome that hath heretofore been when our case was not like to that which now is As for the Ornaments as they are called wherein the Minster is injoyned to read and to use them in all his ministration Surplice and Cope viz. The Cope and Surplice and Hood because I hear that they shall no more be injoyned because of the scandal that hath been by them in most parts of the land I will say no more but this they are truly relicks of Popery although the Surplice hath been used very anciently yet not in the first century but altogether without ground in holy Scripture which commandeth to do only in the publick worship of God what he prescribeth without adding or detracting ought which holdeth as well under the N. T. as the old wherein vestments were indeed commanded to be used Deut. 12.32 by the Priests in their ministration about the Altar but now under the new that kind of service being at an end and a new which is spiritual being set up without peculiar vestments for which the Minister is left free as well as other men what was it but a reducing again of a ceremony antiquated long before into the Evangelical Church which was proper to the legal contrary to the Rule given by our Saviour The true worshippers of God John 4.20 shall worship him in spirit and in truth which is not yet so to be understood as if no regard was to be had to externals for we must worship God outwardly in the body also according to that O come let us worship and fall down and kneel before the Lord our maker and a man praying or Prophesying with his head covered that is having his hat on his head as when he is only amongst his fellowes for not doing this outward reverence to Christ his head who is in a special manner present in the congregation thus reverencing him lesse than the head of the Kingdome where he liveth dishonoureth his head Cor. 11. and for garments to be worn by the Minister in his ministration that which is most decent may be injoyned for all things must be done decently and in order and if by our governours in the Church a black Gown which hath been proper to a Minister be judged most decent and a peculiar kind of Cloak whereby he may in all places be known from other men and reverenced accordingly what are any that are inferiours to take exceptions thereto and likewise if they inhibet the Clergy from wearing long hair which the Apostle saith is a shame for any man to wear and require that they shew no levity and in their own apparrel by wearing light colours but dark which shewes gravety not in following vain fashions of the time Zeph. 1.8 which shewes exceeding great levity which ought to be reproved by the Minister and threatned Reading of the Scriptures as by Zephany even in the Kings Children For Reading of the holy Scriptures in the Church before preaching there is something which is justly excepted against viz. both the appointing of Chapters to be read out of Apocry phal Books as Esdras the book of Wisdom and of Tobit c. and those not a few but 60 at the least in the year wherein they say that the Service book which now we have is altered from the first appointed in the year of Edward 6. in which were none but canonical Scriptures appointed to be read and that in all Churches the Ministers are required to read Chapters both in the Old and New Testament appointed by the daies of the month which though it may be well in Churches or Chappels where service is said every day yet if the Minister in every parochial Church keepeth himself to this order he shall not in many years by reading the Chapters appointed for the Lords dayes read most of the Chapters of the Bible but passe them over continually And forasmuch as now there is preaching in every Church of the Gospel of Jesus Christ sometimes upon Gospels somtimes upon Epistles this is but an adding of an unnecessary labour to the wearying of the preacher before he commeth to his greatest labour Wherefore His Majesty and the Councel of the Land in whose power only it is are to be desired to see these things amended also And lastly because it is an offence to some Reading of prayers indeed not so commendable in a Minister to read prayers there was not any such thing done in Israel of old for nothing was read in the congregation but Scripture and as for praying and praysing of God it was don memoriter by the Minister Nehe. 8. the saying of the prayers set forth in the Book of Common Prayer without book by the Minister would be enjoyned that comming from his spirit immediately as if they were his own both he himselfe and the whole Congregation may be the better affected therewith and such as know not how to pray by hearing them often so said may be stirred up to learn them by heart also and make use of them or some of them in private which how shall they be put on to do if the Minister himself cannot say them but by the book to read a prayer made by others cannot be praying by the spirit as all praying in the Congregation ought to be but then may one be said to pray by the spirit when he hath laid up the prayer to be uttered in his heart and from thence immediately brings it forth being affected with it as if it were of his own conceiving If it shall be counted sufficient for a Minister to read prayers in the Congregation when his sight groweth dim or he cannot see or the Sky be overcast with darknesse how shall he be able to go on in praying if it be said every one hath not so good a memory I answer He that giveth himself to praying upon paines taking shall attain to a memory snfficient for this and so all Ministers after the example of the Apostles ought to do Act. 6. or else they are not worthy of the Ministry as for the praying in the Pulpit if so much time hath been spent in praying before it will not be requisite now for the Preacher to spend much time in praying again but after a short prayer made for the assistance of Gods holy Spirit and for a blessing to fall immediately to the work of preaching Matt. 5. Luke 4. For when Christ preached in the Mount and in Nazareth we read of spending time in preaching but not in praying and likewise of the Apostle Peters saying much when the people were assembled together to hear him Act. 2. Act. 10. by way of preaching only and of Paul neither do I find that any of the Ancient Doctors of the Church when they stood up to preach did otherwise As for the ten commandements rehersing every Lords day in the house of God to make all