Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	life_n	name_n	write_v	18,504	5	6.4426	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47748	Liturgy's vindicated by the dissenters, or, The lawfulness of forms of prayer and liturgies proved from the very texts of Scripture urged against them by John Bunyan and the dissenters / by the author of the Religious conference between a minister and his parishioner about infant baptism.	Leslie, Charles, 1650-1722.	1700 (1700)	Wing L1137; ESTC R34970	43,840	127

as his Malice and Uncharitableness appears in calling us the Children of the Devil so does his Pride also in calling himself and his Party Saints as is manifest from the last Passage I quoted out of him Before the Father even our Father to whom the Saints i. e. such as themselves may thus address but none of the blind ignorant Sots as we are of the World besides Page 73 he starts a Question What would you have us poor Creatures to do that cannot tell how to Pray c. Where before I give you his Answer I cannot choose but take notice again of the subtilty of the Man in suppressing so much of the Objection as would have made it unanswerable if he had but fairly proposed it and that is this How shall we poor Creatures Pray in our respective Families since we have not the Gift of Prayer which you and others pretend to If it be an evil thing to make use of Forms to have Prayerless Families is much worse and that ours must be if we are denied such needful helps Now what would John Bunyan say to this untoward Objection Wou'd they advise these poor Creatures as I am credibly inform'd a Non-conformist did a Neighbour of his when he was desired to compose a form of Prayers for him to use in his Family viz. that he had better sit down and Groan I suppose by what follows in my Author that such poor Creatures must kneel down for that is a more humble posture than sitting and groan awhile and that must for as good a Family Prayer as if he had said one out of the Practice of Piety but alas This will not serve the turn for what Edification is this to the Family altho' they should all groan with him What reasonable Service is this to present to Almighty God or Wherein is this better than the Quakers Silent-Meetings And if Groaning with ones Family instead of Praying with them be Absurd and Ridiculous I would fain know what other course such ignorant Masters must Steer who have not this pretended gift of Prayer Certainly there is no other Remedy for them but to use the help of some Pious Form in Praying with their Family or else they must forbear Praying with them till they have attained this pretended Gift which perhaps may not be so long as they live and then they must never Pray with them at all and so fall under the Curse denounced against such Families as call not on the name of the Lord Jer. 10.25 Where those that cannot pray in their Families without it and yet despise the assistance of a Form have a form of Prayer made to their Hands but it is a dreadful one that Woes and Vengeance in it which I desire all concern'd therein seriously to consider lest it fall one day upon their Guilty Heads But in Answer to this Query as our Adversary has mollified it what would you have us poor Creatures do that cannot tell how to Pray c. he say poor Heart Thou canst not thou complainest Pray canst thou see thy Misery Hath God shewed thee that thou art by Nature under the curse of his Law If so do not mistake I know thou dost Groan and that most bitterly I am perswaded thou canst scarely be found doing any thing in thy Calling but Prayer breaks from thy Heart Have not thy Groans gone up to Heaven from every corner of thy House I know 't is thus and so also doth thine own sorrowful Heart Witness thy Tears thy forgetfulness of thy Calling c. is not thy Heart so full of desires after the things of another World that many times thou dost forget the things of this World What abominable Pride and fulsome Flattery is this He is perswaded of his own Party that Prayer breaks from their Heart in every thing they are doing tho' he does not hear them utter one Word to that purpose he knows they groan most bitterly in every corner of their House as if he were by and heard and saw and followed these poor Creatures from one Room to another he has the Confidence to say more than once I know 't is thus with them but when he is speaking of some of our People he has the impudence to say scarce one in Forty of them knows what 't is to be born again and to have Communion with God and this he is as sure of as he is of the Heart breaking Prayers and bitter Groans of his own dear Brethren and as if he had seen and read the Book of Life John Bunyan can tell how few of us scarce one in Forty and how many of them yea all his own poor Creatures have every one of their Names written therein and he lays down one Mark whereby to discern it viz. that their Hearts is so full of Desire after the the things of another World that they forget many times the things of This tho this is a very fallible one as is clear from Balaam who had sometimes such eager Desires as these Let me Die the Death of the Righteous and let my last End be like his Num. 23.10 yea he was a Prophet and had his Visions and Trances wherein without doubt he thought and spake so much of another World that he sometimes quite forgot this and yet notwithstanding his Gift of Prophecy which surely equall'd if not exceeded Jo. Bunyans Gift of Prayer notwithstanding his Raptures Revelations and Heavenly Desires Balaam was a very wicked Man giving that pernicious Council to the Moabites to seduce the Israelites to Idolatry by the Temptations of their Beautiful Women Num. 31.16 he also loved the Wages of unrighteousness and is Branded for his Iniquity in several places of the Old and New Testament and in this evil and wretched Condition he lived and so in all likelihood he dyed Josh 13.22 And this I the rather mention to shew that for all their Pretences to Pray by the Spirit and to other extraordinary Gifts this Man and his Party may be as bad as Balaam was but God forbid I should think so of all of them and be so uncharitable to them as they are to us I hope better things of the worst among them but I speak this to prove that if they had greater Gifts than they pretend to they may notwithstanding this be very wicked Men for so was Balaam and so was O. Cromwel so was Major Weir of Scotland and so were some Witches and Wizards who could all Pray in a wonderful manner and were believed by their Followers to Pray by the Spirit and far more Powerfully too than any Tinker Preacher of this Age for we must carefully distinguish between the miraculous Gifts and saving Graces of the Spirit wicked Men may and sometimes have the former but the latter fall to the Share of none but good Men and the Praying with the Spirit which St. Paul speaks of 1 Cor. 14.15 was such an extraordinary and miraculous Gift it was Praying in an

of an extraordinary and miraculous Nature as the Gift of Healing diverse kinds of Tongues working Miracles and the Faith there mentioned among them was not such as is ordinary and saving even to believe that Jesus Christ is the true Messias and Saviour of the World but it was a Faith of an extraordinary and miraculous Nature even to believe that God would enable them to Work the Miracle they were about to perform before the People for the Apostles never attempted to work a Miracle till they had this extraordidinary Faith wrought in them first by some Divine impulse from the Spirit which assured them that they should certainly perform the Miracle they undertook for had the Apostles at any time failed in such attempts and set about a Miracle which they were not able to work it would have exposed them mightily to the World and given a great Blow to the Christian Religion and made them and it to be looked on as an Imposture and therefore they had always first a strong and infallible Impulse upon their Minds which St. Paul calls also Faith to assure them they could and should be able to work the Miracle before ever they attempted to do it but this and the other Gifts he there reckons up were not ordinary and saving which every good Christian may now hope for but they were extraordinary and miraculous as is farther evident from 1 Cor. 12.11 But all these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit dividing to every Man severally as he will i. e. no one Person had all these miraculous Gifts before mentioned but they were variously distributed among them one had this another had that another a third and so on and they all ceased in that Age which cannot be said of the saving Gifts and Graces of the Spirit where he that has one in truth has certainly all of them as he that truely has saving Faith has also Hope and Charity Patience and Meekness in some measure they being all knit together as so many Links in the same Chain that there can be no Separation made between them and these shall never cease and the not understanding and considering this is the main Cause I doubt that many in this Age expect and pretend to those extraordinary and miraculous Gifts of the Spirit which are long since ceased as St. Paul declares they should 1 Cor. 13.8.13 Charity never faileth but whether there be Prophecies they shall fail whether there be Tongues they shall cease whether there be Knowledge it shall vanish away and now abideth Faith Hope Charity these three but the greatest of these is Charity But little or nothing of this is to be found in all Jo. Bunyan's Book which I have here Answered as I believe any one will find that does not think his Labour lost to read it The CONCLVSION AND thus having with his own Weapons Vanquish'd this Anabaptistical Goliah that is Armed Cap-a-pee with Brass I shall close all with this short Address to the Armies of our Israel That they would every one of them get a Common Prayer Book that is able to use it and think himself Naked and Vnarmed without it as a Soldier does that is without his Sword and that they would not only have their Common Prayer Books about them but also make use of them in their daily Devotions and not only use them but put them also in Practise by their daily Conversation in living a Godly Righteous and Sober Life as they are therein taught to do without this tho' our Prayers are never so good and we make never so many of them they will signifie nothing they will do us no more Service than the Ark of God did the Israelites when they relyed on it only for their Deliverance and Preservation and did not take care to walk worthy of the Divine Presence which resided therein and dwelt among them 1 Sam. 4.3 Let us fetch the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord out of Shiloh unto us that when he cometh among us it may save us out of the Hand of our Enemies Thus they thought and earnestly expected but were soon convinced of the contrary by the overthrow of their Army and the taking of the Ark it self and carrying it in Triumph into the Philistines Camp ver 10 11. And thus has it fared with our Common Prayer Book when we too much rested in it and made use of it with Formality Lukewarmness and Indifferency and not with a suitable Zealand Devotion it was twice thrown out of the Church and taken from us and carried Captive by our Adversaries of Geneva and Rome who tho' they seem to stand at a distance and defie one another yet they both agree in this to Hate our Common Prayer Book and to do what they can to destroy it and nothing but our walking unworthy of it nothing but the Sins of our Priests and the Iniquity of our People can give them once more their desired Success against it wherefore let all the Members of our Orthodox Church shew their Soundness and Sincerity by something else than the bare use of the Common Prayer in their respective Families by something else than Drinking numerous Healths to the Prosperity of both for I must needs say such numerous Healths as these are one of the Diseases she at present labours under and there is no hopes of a Cure till all her Sons grow wise unto Sobriety till they all shew themselves sincere Christians and sound Protestants by something else than bare Names and meer outward Professions even by living Godly Righteous and Sober Lives as our Common Prayer Book teaches us to Pray every Day in its general Confession and we are bound to Practice in our daily Conversation in short our leading reformed Lives and our Walking as well as Praying according to the Common Prayer Book is the best the only way to Preserve it and the Reformed Religion among us FINIS