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
A85035	A triple reconciler stating the controversies whether ministers have an exclusive power of communicants from the Sacrament. Any persons unordained may lawfully preach. The Lords prayer ought not to be used by all Christians. By Thomas Fuller, B.D.	Fuller, Thomas, 1608-1661.	1654 (1654)	Wing F2472; Thomason E1441_2; ESTC R202064	51,442	150

such a height as to make it a sacrament The Church of England under Episcopacie retained it so far as an ancient and usefull custom appropriating the exercise thereof to Bishops alone The present discipline hath utterly abolished both Bishop and the use of Confirmation However something analogical thereunto may and must be continued The Primitive Christians being wise in the appointing though after-ages were superstitious in the abusing thereof and the more confirmation is neglected the more ought a serious examination of youth in this kind be continued and practised In a word there is a way to examin people committed to the care of the Ministers which may be done without any dangerous noyse and without the least suspition of pragmaticalness and yet to the great glorie of God quiet of the Minister and edification of the Church This examining consisteth not in summoning people before them and sounding them with Question and Answer but in the solid and faithfull preaching the sincere Word of God which carrieth a secret searching power along therein Heb. 4. 12. For the word of God is quick and powerfull and sharper than any two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joynts and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart Thus by prophecying that is by preaching of Gods Word 1. Cor. 14. 23. If there come in one that believeth not or one unlearned he is convinced of all he is judged of all thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest and so falling down on his face he will worship God and report that God is in you of a truth I say let us take off for a time from the other and more practice this examination as least subject to exception Trie it but for a time and you shall see what success it will find and fright unworthy persons from the Sacrament with a more awfull reverence than your actual secluding them for not submitting themselves to re-examination To conclude I may compare the first high acting of Presbyterians to men running in a race It is impossible for a Racer to stop just at the mark he must either over-run it or else can never come at it But when past the mark necessarily transported with his own fierceness beyond the same he will return to it again to shew that that place and no further was the intended end of his endeavours Whilest you contested with Episcopacie your Corrival and were seven years since in the height and heat of your contention therewith much may be pleaded for your passion if it transported you in some actions beyond the just standard and proportion of your judgements But seeing now it hath pleased God that you have run your Adversarie quite out of distance and have attained that you strove for it will be no shame nay it will be your honor to abate and remit of your former eagerness and coolly and calmly to return to the place which you over-shot in the Paroxcism of that contest This is the humble advise and desire of him who hath no private ends therein but the advancement of Gods glorie and the good of his Church Amen Dum Spiro Spero THE SECOND RECONCILER ACTS 13. 15. And after the reading of the Law and the Prophets the Rulers of the Synagogue sent unto them saying Ye men and Brethren if ye have any word of exhortation for the people say on THis Chapter presents us with four principal remarkables The solemn separation of Paul and Barnabas for the Ministerie five pious persons are mentioned vers. 2. all in humane likelihood equally probable for the employment Barnabas Simeon Lucius Mahanaem and Saul of these God leaves the three middlemost takes the first and the last even so Father because it pleaseth thee Then have we the three first adventures of Barnabas and Saul in there Ministerie whereof the first proved prosperous the second with the Jews at Antioch had sad success the third with the Gentiles in the same place came off with comfort We Ministers must not be elated with good success but fear the worst nor dejected with bad but hope the better In their first adventure they confounded Elimas the Sorcerer and Saul converted Sergius Paulus the wise Deputie of Cyprus By the Laws of Herauldry whosoever fairly in the Field conquered his Adversary may justifie the wearing and bearing of his Arms whom he overcame Here Saul had conquered Sergius Paulus overcome his ignorance vanquished his infidelitie no wonder then if he assumeth his name and henceforward is called Paul in all the historie his next voyage ends sadly and sorrowfully with Blasphemie and Persecution from the Jews at Antioch though it began Comically and courteously with this fair invitation in my Text and after the reading of the Law and the Prophets c. The words contain a principal part of the Jewish Liturgie or if that displease their Directorie wherein their solemn Sabbath-service is plainly presented unto us I confess there is no mentiō of prayer an essential part of Gods worship among them my house shall be called the house of prayer which is omitted in the Text not as if it were omitted by the Jews but because St. Luke hasteneth with all convenient speed to the Doctrinal part as leading the nearest way to the matter in hand Some persons account this verse their Master-piece hoping hence by their cunning Chymistrie to extract a Licence general for all men to preach though the words well understood are so far from their building any advantage thereon that they batter down both their opinions and practice We will first clear the same from the incumbrances of all difficulties and then extract natural and profitable observations from them Law and the Prophets Law taken largely conteineth all the Prophets Prophets taken largely comprise all the Law 2. Pet. 1. 20. No Prophesie of Scripture is of private interpretation Yea Moses the Prophet Paramount was the penner of the Law Deut. 34. 10. And there arose not a Prophet since in Israel like unto Moses whom the Lord knew face to face But when the Law and the Prophets are distinguished so as to devide the old Testament betwixt them as Luke 16. 20. they have Moses and the Prophets then by Law is meant the Pentateuch or five books of Moses by Prophets all the rest of the old Testament not onely such parts as foretel what was to come but also which historically relate what was past The Rabbins tell us that the five books of Moses were divided into fiftie three Perasoth or Divisions each whereof conteined one hundred thirtie six verses and one of them was read every Sabbath-day beginning at the first Sabbath after the feast of Tabernacles if any say there being but fiftie two Sabbaths in the year what did they with the odd Perasoth or Division I can give no certain account save that it is probable they doubled their office the last Sabbath hemming it as

Spirit helping his infirmities Yea allow the Minister able strongly to go alone by himself without leaning on the Leage of any premeditate prayer to support him yet surely he may not onely lawfully but laudably degrade himself for the edification of others to use a set form of prayer We know how Jacob able to walk fast himself confined his feet to the pace of the Children and Ewes big with young Gen. 33. 13. he would not over-drive them Semblably a Minister endowed by God with the gift of extempore prayer may without any shame to himself and great profit to others go on pedetentim in a set form so to bring up the rear of his most lagging Auditours to go along with him the more knowingly from the beginning and close their Amen with him the more chearfully in the end of his prayer 2. Cavil It is not a prayer of it self but onely a pattern or draught by which other prayers are to be made therfore S. Mat. saith After this manner therefore pray ye It is both a pattern for prayer and a prayer in it self to all purposes and intents The Standard-Bushel which commonly is chained up in the Market place is not onely a Bushel to measure Bushels by all which ought to be adequate to the content thereof but also a Bushel to measure grain by it may chance of Wheat or of some other grain so this of our Saviour his prescribing is nevertheless a compleat and perfect prayer in it self although also it be a Model Type or Copy according to which for the essentials we ought to conform all our supplications Third Cavil I should be ashamed to set down as so weak and simple save that some in our dayes who pretend to judgement put it in not onely to swell a number but lay much stress on the strength thereof namely that Christ made it in his minority before he was arrived at his full perfection I answer as the folly of God is observed by the Apostle wiser than the wisdom of man and the weakness of God stronger then the strength of man so may I say that the minority of Christ was more than the majority his nonage than the full age his youth than the maturity of mankind Besides Christ was Luke 3. 21. about thirty years of age when he was baptised the prime conceived of mans life after which generally they impair rather than improve Yea besides the Original stock of perfection brought into the World at his birth he had already received a grand accession of the holy Spirit at his baptism Fourth Cavil There is nothing of a Saviour in this prayer It is but a legal Old Testament prayer whereas we are to ask all things in the name of Jesus no mention thereof herein As therefore some Jews have a diminitive opinion of the book of Esther because the word Jehova is not to be found in all the extent thereof on the same account we may justly ground an undervaluation of this prayer wherein the name of Jesus doth not appear which alone is so of the Quorum in all supplications that without it they cannot be presumed acceptable in the Court of Heaven Ans. The name of Jesus though not literally yet virtually and effectually is to be found in this prayer One cannot stir a step therein but in the very Porch of this prayer and at the very Threshold of this Porch he meets with Jesus a Saviour in those words our Father For fain would I know who wrought and brought this great and good alteration that God is beheld by us under so comfortable a notion How came in the Kindred whence sprang this our filial relation Man at his last parting with God when expulsed Paradise left him his adversary his enemy his enraged Judge whilest he himself was looked on as an Offendor and Malefactour Whereas now all things are become new Such who parted in anger meet in love of Foes are become Friends Yea Father and Sons Our Father Now none effected this change save Jesus Christ by his mercifull Mediation Is not the hand of our Savour clean through this prayer Wherefore as some Physicians give not in their receipts the bulk and mass of Herbs and Drugs but onely their Spirits or their infusions which though not so great in quantity are easier in the taking and stronger in the working so in this prayer though neither the name of Jesus Messiah or Christ is therein used yet the powerfull influence of both and soveraign effect is obvious to every judicious eye causing our confident and familiar addresses to God under the relation of a Father Fifth Cavil The prayer is too short it is not comprehensive enough of all mens necessities which ought to be represented therein It is too narrow as not adequate to the emergencies of all occasions The Merchant wanteth a clause therein for prosperous Gales to drive his Ship to a safe Haven and gainfull market The Souldier wants a clause to cover his head from danger and crown it with victory in the day of battel The Husband man discovereth a defect because no express therein for seasonable weather The unmarried want a Petition for loving Husbands dutifull Wives and the married for the continuance of the goodness or amendment of the badness of those to whom they are coupled Ans. First in general Whereas some finde fault with the shortness of the prayer know length of prayer is made a crime in Scripture but never the brevity thereof charged on any as a guilt Matth. 23. 14. Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites for you devour Widows houses and for a pretence make long prayers Neither length nor shortness is any whit considerable to the acceptableness thereof but the thickness of a prayer when it is not empty and hollow within but well filled with Faith in the heart and middle thereof One bought a Map of the whole world and being himself an Athenian Cavilled at the Map as imperfect and defective meerly because his own house in Athens was not presented therein Whereas the whole draught being not above a yard square it fell to the proportion of all Europe not to be a full foot All Greece not to be a full span Attica to be but a little spot and Athens to be a very speck therein so impossible was it that his invisible house should appear As his causeless Cavil betrayed him ignorant in Geography so their exception discovereth their weakness in Divinity who expect a prayer to particularize every mans necessities What was said by the way of Hyperbole of our Saviour that if all things which he did and spake were written the World were not able to contain them may it not be literally spoken here the World that is none of the men therein could contain so voluminous a prayer descending to the minutes of all mens wishes and wants No memory so tenacious as to retain it no voice so strong as to pronounce it Now although the