Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
christian_n	church_n	communion_n	universal_a	2,106	5	9.1629	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54945	A discourse of prayer wherein this great duty is stated, so as to oppose some principles and practices of Papists and fanaticks; as they are contrary to the publick forms of the Church of England, established by her ecclesiastical canons, and confirmed by acts of Parliament. By Thomas Pittis, D.D. one of His Majesties chaplains in ordinary. Wherefore, that way and profession in religion, which gives the best directions for it, (viz. prayer) with the most effectual motives to it, and most aboundeth in its observance, hath therein the advantage of all others. Dr. Owen in his preface to his late discourse of the work of the Holy SPirit in prayer, &c.	Pittis, Thomas, 1636-1687.	1683 (1683)	Wing P2314; ESTC R220541	149,431	404

God they ought to be mindful both of Modesty and Discipline Non passim ventilare preces nostras inconditis vocibus c. Not to brethe out our prayers in insipid words nor throw out our petition which is modestly to be commended unto God with a tumultuous speech because God is not the hearer of the voice but the heart nor is he to be put in mind of any thing by clamours and outcries who sees and understands the thoughts of men And now I have finished this Discourse of Prayer which I both wrote for and preached to the people to whom I have as I ought fairly dedicated it And if others only to exercise their censuring talent shall find fault with it let them in charity honestly mend it or else they may as assuredly they will Turn the Buckles of their Girdles behind them FINIS I desire here to recommend to the Parishes to which the former Discourse is Dedicated a few Collections out of a Book intituled The Vindidication of the Presbyterial Government By the Ministers of the Province of London November the 2. 1649. THey complain that to such a degree of Apostasie some were arrived that they were labouring for an odious Toleration of all abominable Opinions as can shroud themselves under the name of the Christian Religion Pag. 103. And that those errors which were but few in the Prelates time were now many in theirs Their note on Rom. 16.17 Mark them which cause divisions c. is that we are not only required to avoid their Doctrines but their persons For proof of which is quoted 1 Tim. 6. ch 3 4 5. Pag. 104. The Doctrine of a Toleration of all Religions is contrary to Godliness and opens a door to Libertinism and Prophaneness And that all Doctrines are to be avoided that hold forth a strictness above what is written And therefore their advice is that men must be Candidates of a Canonical not an Apocryphal strictness And where God has not a mouth to speak men must not have an ear to hear nor an heart to believe Pag. 105. That Doctrine which crieth up Purity to the ruin of unity is contrary to the Doctrine of the Gospel And they conclude with this affirmation That certainly the Government that carrieth in the front of it a Toleration of different Religions and is not sufficient to keep the Body of Christ in unity and purity is not the Government of Christ And again That Doctrine which is contrary to the rule of Faith or any duty required in the ten Commandments or to any petition of the Lords Prayer is not a Doctrine of Christ and therefore to be rejected Pag. 107. Nay they complain that then they were an Hypocritical Nation and the people of Gods wrath because they had been Truce-breakers Self-lovers Traytors false Accusers and all under the specious form of Godliness Nay if any will read over the Book they will by their own confessions prove some of the wickedest people under the Cope of Heaven We are say they Proud Secure Liars Swearers and forswearers Murderers Drunkards Adulterers and Oppressors We have not learned Righteousness but Unrighteousness by all the judgments of God We are worse and worse by all our deliverances We have spilt the blood of Christ in the Sacrament by our unworthy Receiving Nay after all this long Catalogue of sins they tell us that it would be too long to reckon all the particular relative iniquities of the party of Magistrates Ministers Husbands Wives c. And they conclude this with those expressions Isai 1. from the 5th Verse onwards Ah sinful people A people laden with iniquity a seed of evil doers c. vid. Pag. 109 c. Let God and other men now judge out of their own mouths For 't is not my business to judge any man But to go on a little more with that Orthodox Doctrine which this Provincial Assembly there exhibited They say farther Pag. 119. That it is the duty of all Christians to enjoy the Ordinances of Christ in Unity and Uniformity as far as it is possible Because the Scripture calls to Unity and Uniformity as well as to Purity and Verity And that not only because it is not impossible in it self but for that God has promised that his Children shall serve him with one heart and with one way and with one shoulder And for this they quote the Prophets among the Jews predicting the glorious flourishing of the Gospel Jer. 32.39 Zeph. 3.9 Zech. 14.9 As also our blessed Saviours prayer That we may all be one as the Father was in him and he in the Father Joh. 17.21 That so from the unity and love of his Disciples the world might believe that God had sent him And therefore this Provincial Assembly concludes That nothing hinders the propagation of the Gospel so much as the divisions and separation of Gospel Professors Nay they farther say That if all men cannot come up in all particulars to the Uniformity of the Church Yet they ought to hold Communion together in what they agree And to prove this they quote the Text which that very worthy and Reverend Person Dr. Stillingfleet the present Dean of St. Pauls Church chose to Preach his most excellent Sermon from before the Lord Major of this Honourable City against which so many pens have been sharpned and blunted too Phil. 3.16 Nevertheless whereunto we have already attained let us walk by the same Rule Let us mind the same thing Nay they add also that this was the practice of the Primitive Christians Which is the very same thing which the Reverend Dean endeavoured to prove And yet men pretending to the same Principles with these Provincial Divines either as plainly endeavour to deny such things or according to the custom of Pharisees Jesuits attempt to evade them by face or distinction The Lord help me who am a poor simple man when persons of wonderful and miraculous education and learning thus talk in and out Nay farther in the matter of forbearance the Provincial Divines desire only that all things may be tolerated that consist with the fundamentals of Religion the Power of Godliness and with that Peace which Christ has established in his Church But to Preach up or practise that which makes Ruptures in the Body of Christ I use here their own language and to divide Church from Church and to set up Church against Church and to gather Churches out of true Churches and to hold Communion in nothing This say they we think hath no warrant out of the word of God and will introduce all manner of confusion in Churches and families And not only disturb but in a little time destroy the power of Godliness Purity of Religion Peace of Christians Nay set open a wide gap to bring in Atheism Popery Heresie and all manner of wickedness And therefore this Provincial Assembly of the Ministers of the Province of London concludes Pag. 121. with that description which Dr. Ames gives

of the mischievousness and sinfulness of Schism lib. 5. Cap. 21. Schism saies he is a grievous sin 1. Because it is against Charity to our Neighbour 2. B cause it is against the Edification of him who makes the Separation in that he deprives himself of Communion in Spiritual good 3. Because it is against the honor of Christ in that as much as in it lyeth it takes away the Unity of his Mystical Body And 4. It makes way to Heresie and separation from Christ from whence they conclude that Schism is a sin by all good men to be abhor'd Nay if we look into Pag. 112. we shall find that when men separate from what they acknowledge to be a true Church 'T is Schism And to set up a Church against a Church and as the Ancients call'd it Altar against Altar This is the weakning the hands of the Church hindering the glorious work of Reformation causing the building of Gods House to cease and is a Deformation instead of a Reformation Upon such a dismal state and farther prospect of worse times if any could be so within less than a year after the Throne followed the downfal of the Episcopal Church of England these London Ministers gathered together in a Provincial Assembly thus exhort the people Pag. 110. After their being humbled for the evils that so much abounded for which as they say even those in their daies of Reformation the Earth mourned and the Heavens were black over them when they had mourned seriously every one a part Their desire and advice to them is this That you would put away the iniquity that is in your hand That you would be tender of the Oaths which you have taken and those which may be offered to you That you would prize the Publick Ordinances and reverence your Ministers That you would sanctifie the Sabbaths and hate Hypocrisie and self-seeking That you would receive the love of the truth lest God give you over to believe lies That you would not trust to your own understanding lest God blind your understanding That you would conform to the truths you already know that God may discover to you the truths ye do not know That ye would not have such itching ears as to heap to your selves Teachers nor embrace any Doctrines for the persons sake That ye would seek the truth for the truths sake and not for any outward respect That ye would study Catechism more diligently by degrees be led on to perfection And let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity These were the excellent exhortations of a Province of Divines then separated from the Episcopal Church of England And why should not such admirable instructions and advice be prevalent in this paper since they are transcribed from their own To conclude therefore in the language of this Provincial Assembly If we are a true Church of Christ which the late Doctrine of occasional Communion sufficiently proves and Christ holdeth Communion with us why do any separate from us If we are the Body of Christ do not they who separate from the Body separate from the Head also If the Apostle calls those divisions in the Church of Corinth by the name of Schisms 1 Cor. 1.10 Though Christians there did not separate into divers formed Congregations of several Communions in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper May not your Secession from us and the profession that you cannot join with us as members and setting up Congregations of another Communion be more properly called Schisms Especially when Churches were gathered out of Churches as this Provincial Assembly there complains If any are willing to see more of this let them peruse the Book And the good God give us all a right understanding in all things FINIS

as may consist with perspicuity how can it be possible that the quickest men subject to many infirmities in their bodies that must and will many times cloud their minds should upon a sudden without a previous and exact consideration word their own and the common desires of other men according to the order and method and importance of things unless they have before hand invented digested and reduced both their matter and expressions into a well studied and set form of prayer He that adventures to pray extempore in a publick audience is so selfish in the matter of his petitions and oftentimes so ridiculous in the expressions that it is impossible all should be able to say Amen to several things petitioned for if they at all use their understandings and do not implicitly joyn upon the authority of the gifted person But you will find more of this in a place of this Discourse more particularly reserved for it I do not deny but matter and words may present themselves on a sudden for private and more brief ejaculations or intermix themselves in our single devotions beyond the form which we may generally use either through the great enlargement of our minds and affections or upon sudden and unexpected necessities or by recollecting in our memories something that was either before omitted or our form does not directly enough or in particulars express But in publick where petitions ought to be so general that all present may say Amen and by this signifie their assent and wishes it is not only convenient but necessary too that men should have some time to judge and be acquainted with what is delivered in their behalf before they give their assent to it otherwise they pray not with judgement and understanding which ought to go before and lead their affections and not permit the passions to sally forth without taking notice of it in the way Now I cannot see how this can possibly be done without a form which those that joyn in may be acquainted with However methink to us Christians there are several arguments to be taken from universal pratice in former ages and reasons also from the holy Scriptures which are sufficient to determine us in this affair and to recommend this method of addressing our selves to Almighty God First The antiquity of publick forms of prayers and benedictions wherein also prayer is included is so evident that both Jews and Christians have agreed in this notwithstanding the introduction of the one religion superseded and evacuated the other Under the Law we find the prescription of a form by God himself wherewith the Priests were to bless the people by invocating and wishing that Gods blessing might descend upon them and they were the authoritative instruments in this method to convey it to them Numb 6. 22 23 c. Nay there is a form of prayer made and prescribed by the same God for those to rehearse who had payed their tythe every third year as any one may see both the form and the command to use it Deut. 26. from v. 12. onward What are the Books of the Psalms of David but a form of Confessions Petitions and Thanksgivings which were used in the worship of God in the Temple delivered to the Levites in the several Quires according to the Ordinance of the King of Israel When they sang together by course in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord because he is good for his mercy endureth for ever Ezra 3.10 11. Nay and what seems to me matter of wonder these very Psalms translated into English Metre are yet sung in those dissenting Congregations who refuse otherwise to pray to God by a form But to leave the form prescribed to the Jews and accordingly practised because according to some men of quick invention and volubility of language they were a carnal and an heavy people to be led on in a dull and formal way Yet unless the opposers of forms of prayer will be too nimble for the Apostles themselves and account them dull and carnal we shall find forms in the New Testament not only composed but injoyned too None surely can be unacquainted that our Saviour taught his Disciples to pray and gave them a form not only for imitation but for use men do not I hope so learn Christ 'T is true S. Matthew delivers the command After this manner therefore pay ye Mat. 6.9 yet S. Luke recording the same prayer when in another year and on another occasion our Saviour delivered it gives us the account of our Lords prescription in these words When ye pray say Our Father c. Luke 11.1 Yet this difference can only infer these two things 1. That in all our composures of prayer in which we enlarge the words of our petitions suitable to the enlargement of our minds we should have regard and bear some proportion to this pattern which Christ himself has given for our direction And 2. That we should use also the words themselves in which our Saviour has taught us to pray supplying the imperfections of our own invention by the fulness of that prayer which he has prescribed for all true Christians to use And such a method we find followed by the Church till the vanity of some men who thought themselves wiser and they may be accounted more fanciful than the aged designed to suit their expressions and tones to captivate the affections and passions of the multitude for ends at first best known to themselves but since with a vengeance declared to others Though in the mean time they offered unto God fancy for devotion and out of their pretended wisdom the sacrifice of fools And I pray God there be no Knavery in it that was also intended to the people Secondly I argue for forms of prayer to be used in publick because the Minister then is the mouth of the congregation and is to be supposed to utter all by their consent and to pray in their names testifying their unity of affection by their consent in prayer And this so prevails with the great God of infinite goodness that if but two shall agree together on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask it shall be done for them by the Father which is in heaven Matth. 18.19 Unity of affection and consent in prayer is that which renders our publick devotions so acceptable to God This gives them strength and vertue causes our prayers to ascend as incense and the lifting up of our hands to be as an evening sacrifice Now there cannot in my opinion be this consent and unity of affection in prayer but where there is an uniformity in calling upon God that all let them come whence they will into any publick place of devotion where a congregation is assembled to offer their joynt prayers to God if they are in communion with and frequent the Churches being before acquainted with the service and prayers which all there make to God they may unite themselves immediately to

means ordained for their own preservation CHAP. IX THat I may now draw to a conclusion of this Discourse I think I may justly infer from the whole these three Propositions the exemplifying of which I shall be as brief in as I may at least as short as may comport with the bad times in which we live 1. That the Prayers and Service of our own Church The Church of England Established by the known Laws of the Land are composed and performed in such a manner that God will accept them 2. That the Church of Rome offend him with theirs and is most irrationally and abominably peccant in their devotions And 3. That they who live amongst us and yet strangely separate from us under the shelter and pretence of greater Reformation and a more pure Evangelical Worship do not perform their services unto God in such a manner as is suitable to his Attributes and Worship mans dependance and that infinite distance betwixt their Creator and themselves And so upon the whole it must appear to be an unreasonable service First it may be plainly infer'd That the Church of England embodied with the State allowed and strengthned by civil Sanctions worships God in such a manner as he accepts and offers him such a Spiritual Sacrifice with which he is well pleased that can no way be frustrated of its excellent design but by a neglect in the devotionists or the bad lives of those who pretend thus to worship This will appear though not only from that which our Adversaries are pleased sometimes to call a Club Argument because it is Established by a Royal Christian Assent in Parliament And yet this as it makes for the interest of those who contend with us becomes Sacred though at other times when the advice of Parliaments with their own consent is by the King pass'd into a Law if it contra●icts either their Principles or their Humour and 't is difficult to guess which is the Commander it shall be judged hard or sanguinary or not agreeing with that liberty in which Christ has made us free and a Text uttered at first upon a very far different account shall be as frequently urged as it has been answered We ought to obey God rather than men So that such persons are extremely for Government according to Law when this allows or indulges their Principles and their Practice but conclude it to be unequal and unjust when the same Laws condemn and punish them and they seem to be like a noble Traytor accused and now going to his Trial who walks in state and seemingly with an unconcerned mind nay many times with joy and briskness in his countenance when the back of the Ax is turned towards him but when as he comes back again the edge of the fatal instrument of death looks upon him his face is demure he treads the earth with trembling steps and wishes there had been no Law to condemn him and if he has any sprightliness in his looks his end is only by this significant ceremony to persuade the people that he remains innocent and that the Law is hard by which he is condemned though perhaps before when it served his turn and promotion too nothing was like Government according to Law But to leave this Argument because it may grieve some persons whose principles and zeal are managed suitable to their Secular interest although I fear it must be the effectual reason at last to convince them Let us enquire whether the Prayers and Worship of the Church of England are not to be justified another way This being a publick Worship of Christians Embodied and Constituting the Sacred Society of a Church who with unity of hearts and a suitable uniformity meet together in a place devoted to the service of God and separated from vulgar and profane uses the prayers and service must be allowed by reasonable persons to be such as it ought to be uttered in such general expressions as all may be able to consent unto and say Amen at the close and period And where confessions prayers and thanksgivings are more precisely and particularly managed and he who is the mouth of the Congregation invents his own unallowed prayers and pretends to utter the concernments of all though some may be able to joyn in one part and some in another yet 't is very seldom that any one can consent to all and all perhaps had they time to consider could not give their assent to one period besides those that tell God his own or some general things which are usually declared before he comes to what are called soul searching particulars I have heard of a Quaker who vouchsafing to hear one that was not of his own perswasion and finding that the man who pray'd extempore had laid a great heap of Confessions before him and had been very curious in sorting sins into their several kinds and degrees and uttering all in the name of the Congregation he presently as if he had been used to chop Logick makes his inference in this Dilemma Either this man tells lies or this people are very wicked and resolved to have no more to do with them But another perhaps more severe than he may think his conclusion very reasonable when he supposes and infers that the man prays from his own experience and from his particular defects attributes the same to all mankind and causes a multitude to be partakers of his private sins to petition what he only wants and to give thanks for the benefits which he has received And perhaps upon the consideration of all the mouth of the people may at last be thought the worst member among them all whatever his headship may yet signifie But not to confound Closets with Churches nor yet to grant that a single man can hold a great Congregation in his belly Let us take a prospect of our own Church and see whether we can justifie that without finding faults in others In this we offer up to God all those desires of our minds that are fit for men embodied into a Christian Society and who are partakers of the same Communion We confess the general heads of sin of which all being guilty they can from a short reflection upon themselves truly acknowledge that they have been sharers in And if it should be rendered more particular some only might be guilty and so there would be a Schism in our acknowledgements because all could not give their assent without telling a lie to their Maker and supposing themselves more vile than they are And moreover this way of publick Worship would expose all the professors of Christianity to the contempt of those that are enemies to Religion at least adversaries to that of the Gospel We have also in the Service which the Church of England owns upon our Confession Gods free pardon declared to us in that manner as Christ himself has appointed in his Gospel without such an Auricular confession as may give us Knowledge of the

behaviour and deportment of our bodies And this will justifie the bowing our Ne●ks by a reverent inclination the bending our Knees or an erected posture of our bodies when our supplications and prayers may require the one or our praises the other Thus when Ezra had mourned for that affinity which the Jews had contracted with Strangers by mingling Gods heritage with the people of the Land contrary to the Injunctions of him who was their Divine King and Supreme Legislator he not only rended his own garment and tore his mantle and pluck'd off the hair of his head to represent the sorrow and lamentation of his mind by such outward signatures and actions of his body but the guilt and the punishment which he might fear would attend it caused him to fall down upon his knees and spread out his hands unto the Lord his God Ezra 9.5 Such demonstrative symbolical and significant actions of his body accompanied the lowly humility of his mind when he made his afflicting confession to his Maker Thus we find also that when the most impious and prophane Decree was signed by Darius as full of cruelty as it was of irreligion That whosoever asked any petition from God or man excepting only from this King himself for the space of thirty dayes he should be cast into the Den of Lions Daniel notwithstanding fell upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks to his God as he did before the decree was pass'd Dan. 6.10 Nay we have not only Old Testament examples for joyning the worship of our bodies with our souls and by outward gestures signifying the inward devotion of our minds but we find in the New Testament too besides our Saviours kneelings prostrations and lifting up his eyes and hands to Heaven mentioned with other Canonical patterns before in this Discourse that S. Paul when he prayed that the Ephesians might have courage and strength to persevere in the profession and heroick duties of Christianity notwithstanding the threats and persecutions of their adversaries bowed his knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Eph. 3.14 He might surely have petitioned God for the same blessings when for ought we know he was in private by himself without any such external ceremony which some men so disregard in publick where the influence which our deportment has on others becomes the great argument for its necessity But nature it self would have provoked him to this which men forsake when they bid defiance to such outward testimonies of respect As if God because he has no bodily eyes can neither see nor understand But who is the man that is truly devout and does not chuse his Religion as it best suits with his secular advantages that can look upon the Levites under the Law standing up to bless the Lord their God and calling upon others to put themselves into the same decency of posture and when all were uniform crying out with a loud voice Blessed be thy glorious Name which is exalted above all blessing and praise Nehem. 9.5 and yet under the larger blessings of the Gospel fit fast and refuse to stand up at the Gloria Patri and other Hymns of the Christian Church or who could have seen the Primitive Christians laying upon the floor and knocking their breasts and fasting themselves almost into Skeletons wanting little more to dissolve their bodies into dust and ashes and yet obstinately conclude that their zeal transported them beyond their knowledge and that groans and sighs might more compendiously have expressed their sorrow and repentance And that 't is better now to have no external demonstrations at all But I shall not pursue such arguments any farther nor any men with whom no reason can prevail who seem to take such great care for the ease of their bodies whatever pains their souls must at last endure From what has been said it will readily be inferr'd by all who are inclin'd to piety and devotion that when we meet with a people who pretend to worship the Great and only Supreme God and yet deny the signs of reverence and due respect so universally paid by all serious and religious men we may well conclude that they do not perform their service and homage with such humility and regard as must properly be due to so great a Majesty as God is when their own reason might prompt them to it since it naturally concludes for obsequiousness and ceremony to be due to men suitable to their worth and grandeur in the world Nay will not these very persons themselves who are so scrupulous in giving bodily worship to God and so loth to use care in composing Prayers or to joyn in those that are composed to their hands when they desire and expect kindness from men use more than ordinary sawning expressions and bend their bodies into the most obliging postures to advance their designs by pretending a large inward respect which they thus endeavour outwardly to express And can they really think that the great God ought to have less honour and regard when we petition him for the largest Boons and greatest Kindnesses that can possibly be bestowed upon the Sons of men even such as will render them as fully happy as their natures in perfection are capable to receive Let any mans reason judge in this case And let him make a fair appeal to himself And upon a just retirement and examination of the matter if he puts not a bar against his own conviction he will yield that a tribute ought to be paid by the bodies of men as well as their souls unto that infinite Being which made both And consequently he must condemn the worship of those who to support their Schsm separate their very souls from their bodies Unman themselves to ungod the Deity Pay more respect to a man on Earth than to the Supreme Lord of the whole Universe and crouch to his Footstool when yet they will not bow to his Throne CHAP. XIII I Proceed now to a Second Argument whereby we prove that those who under the pretence of greater Reformation separate from us whilst they yet live among us do not pray to God in such a manner as is suitable to his Attributes their own dependance on the object of their devotions and the infinite distance that is betwixt their Maker and themselves Because their prayers are commonly a very rude indigested heap rashly conceived and uttered extempore Fraught too frequently with impertinency and nonsence And hast too often becomes the cause of blasphemy also And how indeed can it well be otherwise When their principle will not give them time to think nor mind well what they utter So that if at any time they sail betwixt these rocks and dash themselves against neither the wind and tide are their only friends and their safety is not owing to the steeridge of the Pilot nor to be attributed to their own pains and skill when they allow not themselves time to employ either