Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	form_n	prayer_n	set_a	6,981	5	11.4340	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62994	Atheismus vapulans, or, A treatise against atheism, rationally confuting the atheists of these times by Will. Towers ... Polytheismus vapulans, or, There is but one God.	Towers, William, 1617?-1666.; Towers, William, 1617?-1666. Polytheismus vapulans.	1654 (1654)	Wing T1959; ESTC R23437	141,181	385

an indifferent worship but a necessary duty if so so it is by vertue of command either from God or from the Church of God That God hath not commanded this kind of worship we shall shew anon only in the mean while let me tell them that if they pretend th●● to be a duty their performance of it to be an obedience to the command of their God then this it self is not in their sense a Religious but by their own Interpretation a Divine worship in that they only obey that God in doing it who commanded them to do it If I do not worship God himself and worship him infinitely in respect of himself and as near to infinitely as I can in respect of my own devotion when I labour to the utmost of my own indeavours assisted by his grace to fulfil all or any of his own immediate commands I would fain know when it is or in what it is that they do or I can worship the God of us all with a Divine worship If they worship Saints or Angels by vertue of a command from the Church of God which very Church of God can only command either that Gods own commands be obey'd or that her commands be obeyd in the name of God in those things which God by leaving them indifferent neither charg'd nor prohibited hath left to her prudence to consider and to her power to determine not at all that any Sanction of hers be submitted to against the express will of God then they perform this duty either simply as the Church consisting of such a number of Men commands it and then it is not so much as Dulia to Saints or Angels but rather a civill worship of the Commanders for as the stream will never run up any higher then the Fountain which feeds it so their obedience cannot be denommated by a more excellent stile then that which belongs to the primary cause of their obedience or else they perform this duty as the Church not consider'd as such a number of Men but as infallibly assisted with the Grace and direction of God Injoins it and then their worship of Saints and Angels is not so little as Dulia but so much as Latria in that the Direction of God is the principal cause of their worship and the service perform'd to Saints and Angels it being not perform'd to them as they are Saints and Angels for such they are though God and his Church never bids the worship of them but because God hath commanded it either by himself immediatly or by his Spirit residing in his Church is as much a Latria and worship of God as Prayer to God himself even privatly because he hath commanded it or Prayer to God in a set form of Liturgy in his House because his Church hath prescrib'd it is a Latrta and worship of God eâdem positâ causâ idem sequitur effectus Thus for ought I yet see their distinction of Latria and Dulia and civil worship grounded upon and proportion'd to as they tell us most triumphantly the three several degrees of Excellency that of God that of created but supernatural grace and glory that of worldly Excellency which they truly say are as much different as God Heaven and Earth is as to their present use of it fallen to the ground and hath deserted them to a Palinodia Canenda for though in all these the Excellency Inherent in the severall subjects is That which Is worshipped yet the Cur sit in all of them is the Command of God els the wisest of the Heathen who often do that which is Bonum but not Benè for want of understanding the Right Cause for which they should do it do worship aright because they pay Reverence to the most Excellent object of Worship though they pay it not according to the Command and Direction of That Chief Excellency els the same Heathens Reverence their Kings aright for that of the King is the Instanc'd worldly excellency which Inferiour men ought to Reverence though they do not Reverence them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Pet. 2.13 and is there not more Regard to be had in the Reverence and Adoration which we Pay to the Chief●st Excellency of all even to God Himself to the Why we do it then to the Bare doing of it But of this no more Rather 16. To take off from the Worshipping of Angels and by consequent from the Worshipping Saints too for the Reason of their Dulia drawn from Grace and Glory is equally valid or equally Invalid as to both Let me give you two Reasons One Negative out of the History of Moses and the Other Positive from the Command of Christ 17. Why is it that Moses in the History of the Creation either speaks not at all of the Creation of Angels in so much that some say the Angells were Created long before that History which Moses wrote or els that He speaks of their Creation so obscurely that some say they were Created when God made the Heavens others they were Created when God said Fiat Lux why this either preterition or Intricacy but that it is a much less Mistake and no sin at all when Man is Invincibly I or Supinely and Carelesly Ignorant of the time in which the Angels were Created or whether they were not Created before any Time Was Time which the Philosopher defines to be Numerus Motus Aristot c. de quanto and which Motus relates to Bodyes being That which the B●dyless Angells are very little concernd in then to know so Curiously of them till Man does Idolize them Idolatry we all know was apt to creep into the very Cradle of the world the Serpent which Himself was the first and the early Idoll in being listned to more than God did not account it as any of his small skills to wrapp a superstitious Adoration in the Mantle of antiquity In the first Book of God we hear of an Abraham before any tidings of an Angel of that Abraham who is the Father of the Faithfull Rom. 4.12 who it is like would teach the people the same Faith which himself did bear to God alone of whom it is first recorded that He Believed in the Lord Gen. 15.6 and he counted it to him for Righteousness or in the Doway-Books Abraham believed God and it was Reputed to him unto Justice and then in the Chapter after the first newes of an Angel and the first business of an Angel in Scripture was to send back Hagar to her Mistress Sarah Gen. 16.7.9 from whom she had Fled And the Angel of the Lord said unto her Return to thy Mistress and submit thy self unto her hands perhaps to signify that least of all would they themselves robb That God whose servants and Ministers they are of the Honour due to him from any their fellow-servants when they were so Jealous of the Honour of Sarah to send back her servant to her and to charge her carry her