Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	old_a	prophet_n	testament_n	5,085	5	8.1969	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67134	A view of the face unmasked, or, An answer to a scandalous pamphlet published by divers ministers and entituled The common prayer book unmasked wherein the lawfulness of using that book is maintained ... : whereunto are added also some arguments for the retaining of that book in our Church ... / by Sam. Wotton ...	Wotton, Sam. (Samuel)	1661 (1661)	Wing W3657; ESTC R34766	45,602	60

be true but if any of them be to read any such Chapter at any time which he counteth not to be profitable to be read to the people he may read one out of the New Testament instead of it as Dr. Sparke shews concerning this matter in his brotherly perswasion to unity and uniformity Chap. 10. whether for brevity sake in this treatise I refer any reasonable man adding onely thus much that if those and such other objections seem to any man not to be sufficiently answered yet they cannot make the book wholly to be rejected but needfull in some particulars to be corrected and amended The next thing they come is the grand accusation against Epistles and Gospels which I presume belongs to their second head of frivolous things for though they began orderly with the first particular of false matters yet they proceed not so but I must be forced to follow them as they go up and down from one thing to another Concerning Epistles and Gospels then they have three weighty charges with which they begin thus We may subjoyn that profaning gross abuse of Epistles and Gospels in which there are three strange and remarkable occurrences for which there is no ground or reason but from the mass-Mass-book First These three remarkable things are 1. That the Acts of the Apostles and some books of the old Testament are read for and called Epistles 2. That we read not whole Chapters but scraps and shreds as they disgracefully call them 3. That at the Epistles there is silence sitting c. at the Gospels standing scraping bowing and responds before and after To the first of these concerning the name of Epistles given to books not so called in Scripture What great matter is this to be set out under those words of profane and gross abuse For first we know the old Testament is in the new sometime called the Law and the Prophets sometimes the Law Prophets and Psalms These several expressions shew that the word Prophets is sometimes largely taken for all the old Testament except the five books of Moses sometime more strictly for the other books onely but excluding the Psalms why then also may not the word Epistles be sometime taken generally for all the Scripture except the four Gospels and sometimes more strictly except the Acts Gospel and Revelation and sometime most strictly for those books which we commonly call the Canonical Epistles taking the word in the two former acceptions what hurt in calling all that we read for Epistles by the name of Epistles especially considering secondly that the whole Scripture is a letter or Epistle indited by the Holy Ghost and so sent from God by the holy writers thereof into the world or more especially to his Church and the fitness of this appellation they themselves confess and tell us The holy fathers spake so onely they tell us They spake so in a different sense from us which difference if they had shewed we had either answered them or yelded to them To their second accusation That our Epistle and Gospels are but scraps of Scripture and never a full passage in them If by full passage they mean a whole Chapter we desire to know why a whole Chapter must always be at once and neither more nor less but if by never a full passage they mean that we break off abruptly in respect of the matter read then any one may see they do us notorious wrong and the Book answers for it self without my help To avoid therefore the guilt of so foul a slander I am willing to take them in the former sense but must withal tell them that so they may as well accuse all our Preaching of this gross abuse and say we preach not upon the Word of God but upon scraps and shreds of it and that less shreds too then the other few Texts being half the length of the very shortest Epistles we have But why either our Texts or Epistles and Gospels should be thus taxed I see not the division of Chapters not being Canonical but made according to humane wisdom and discretion Of this therefore no more I come to the third charge which is concerning Silence Sitting Bowing c. To which I must first tell them That this comes in very unseasonably in this place this belongs rather to the ridiculous manner of our Service then to the matter of it but their want of method I must needs pass over many times lest my Book should grow too big Secondly I must tell them again that the Book appoints none of these things they here inveigh against therefore if those things were as bad indeed as they would make them all this were nothing to purpose against the Book which they pretend onely to write against Nevertheless being in many passages they labor to disgrace our Church what they can as well as the Book they write against I would if they would come to particulars assay to answer all and as far as I can by these general words guess at their meaning I will briefly answer them It hath been the custom long ago in many Churches to stand up at the Gospel and it was also usual at the naming of the Gospel to say Glory be to thee O Lord and after the end of the Gospel to say Thanks be unto God These I presume are the things they aim at for the bowing at the name of Jesus was and is as much used in all parts of Service and Sermon as of the Gospel To the other three therefore as proper to the Gospel I will onely speak And first to the standing up We know many men at the naming of the Text and many times in the Sermon will stand up not onely for their ease but to hearken the more attentively Why then is it not as lawful so to do at the Gospel We know standing up when we hear one beginning to speak to us does both shew respect to what is spoken and a readiness to receive what is spoken willingly and chearfully By standing up then at the reading of the Gospel we shew our gladness and readiness to receive it and what prophaneness or grand abuse can be in this Then for saying Glory be to thee O Lord. We know when the Angel first brought word of our Saviours birth the Author of the Gospel there were presently with him a multitude of Heavenly Angels saying Glory be to God on high If the Church then in memory Luke 2. 13 14. hereof do at the naming of the Gospel use part of that Angelical Hymn what grand abuse is this when our Saviour first came into the world this was the Angels praising God and when we hear mention made of the Gospel which declares and preacheth these glad tidings to us with the benefits coming to us thereby we do with like words give glory to God the Son and we are counted prophane for it Lastly when we have heard some of the Gospel read which publisheth these things

great weight and there say they will use but few words And I believe indeed that such Objections or Arguments as they will bring forth for themselves to answer shall have no great weight in them lest they should take upon them such a burden as they are neither able to bear nor to cast down ag●in handsomely after they have once taken it up Briefly therefore running over the Arguments here brought and their answers to them I shall at last use some Arguments my self for the continuance of our Liturgy among us as well as they have done for the abolishing of it but first to their Objections The first they bring from the antiquity of it to which they tell us Smectymnuus hath answered whom I never saw and so know not what his answer is and so can say nothing to him But whereas they answer here That antiquity without truth is nothing I grant that but tell them withal this is nothing to their purpose because what is most ancient must be supposed most true till the contrary be proved Therefore their answer to the antiquity of this Book is nothing against it till they have proved the unlawfulness of it a little better then yet they have done Secondly They s●y Many good men have liked it To which they answer That their approbation is not sufficient To this I rejoyn nor is their misliking and railing at it enough to condemn it For though they brag of more light then our forefathers this new light is the common argument in these days for all things done against the old light of Gods Word yet all their l●ght hath not shewed them how to frame such a Liturgy as we have received from our forefathers and till they have made a better they might be content with this Thirdly They say Our Book hath many good things in it but answer So hath the Alcoran and the Talmud But we reply that those Books if they have some good things in them which they are pleased to call many yet they are not many in respect of the evil with which they abound but our Book abunds with good if not free from some defaults The denomination then being to be taken from the greater part our Book and so the Apochrypha which here they also gird at are to be called good and the other two evil Fourthly It is better to amend then to cashiere To this first They suppose an impossibility of amending Secondly They say It is contrary to Gods course who commands the Altars to be thrown down c To this we say It is a vain and groundless supposition that every thing amiss in our Liturgy might not easily be amended Neither is it to be doubted but that they whom it concerns would sooner amend what is distastful to any quiet and moderate men if the violent opposition of troublesome and factious spirits not hinder it by the unreasonableness of their demands whom when nothing in that kinde done can satisfie it is to no purpose in respect of them to do any thing To the second we answer concerning Gods command to cut down the Altars burn the Groves c. the case is very far different from ours here Those Groves and Altars were directly against the express command of God for worshipping onely in the place by himself chosen namely the Temple at Jerusalem And again there is great difference between that Idolatrous worship and some defects and imperfections in the right worship of the true God Lastly It is not Gods course always in correcting abuses rather to abolish the thing then to take away the abuse for we know our Saviour speaking against the abuses in Fasting Prayer and Alms does not take them away or forbid any of them but shews how to amend the abuses And to make their answer good here they must plead against our Churches as well as our Liturgy To the fifth This Book they say hath Acts of Parliament to confirm it To which they answer first That this Book is not established by Act of Parliament Secondly That the thing it self being simply evil no Act can make it good To these we say again The Act before the Book is plain but they tell us The Books we now use have been altered since the Act and so the Act is not for them To this we answer If there be any such alterations in the Books that by the strictness of Law or tricks of Lawyers the Act cannot take such hold of Non-conformists as to make them liable to the penalties there appointed yet in conscience whatsoever is not altered in the Book is by vertue of that Act obediently to be observed and yielded to the intention of the Law-giver being as much or more to be regarded then the Letter of the Law And again those alterations being made according to Law that is by a Commission given forth by His Majesty then being King James of Blessed memory under the Broad Seal of England to the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury and others according to the form which the Laws of this Realm prescribe to be used as we see in His Majesties Proclamation before the Book of Common Prayer all are as much bound to observe the Book so altered as if no alteration at all had been made in it To the second answer we say That the supposition there made of the evilness of the Book hath been by my answer so taken away that the ground of this answer fails And so I have at last done with their Five undeniable Arguments as they call them and their three Motives for the taking off our Common Book and the Answers to the Objections which they were pleased to bring against themselves There remains now onely to take a view of their opinion concerning any Liturgy at all or any set form of Prayer for if these two be unlawful it is a sufficient Argument against the Common Prayer Book In delivering their opinion herein they say They will answer these two questions First Whether they do allow of any set Prayers in a more private way Secondly Whether of any set Liturgy To which two questions they might very well have spared their pains in answering we not much caring for their opinions herein yet seeing they would thus express themselves we will see what they say and deliver our mindes thereto First They say They allow the ignorant onely set forms of Prayer in private To which if by these set forms they mean set prayers made by others we are willing with them to allow them onely to such as cannot make better themselves but in general to use set forms for the very best of men is not onely lawful but very good and most carefully to be done that we may observe that of the wisest of men Eccles 5. 1. For the second A set Liturgy they say they allow in general but come to the particular use of any particular Liturgy they flee off again and will have their set Liturgy onely a pattern for a