Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
doctrine_n	church_n	teach_v	teacher_n	2,504	5	9.1605	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59783	Several short, but seasonable discourses touching common and private prayer relating to the publick offices of the church. By R. Sherlock, D.D. Rector of Winwick, and author of The Practical Christian.	Sherlock, R. (Richard), 1612-1689.	1687 (1687)	Wing S3258; ESTC R221149	35,625	131

God to go before us for as for this man Moses we wot not what is become of him Numb 22.1 When the same people were weary of the Government of Samuel the Prophet and desired a King the Lord said unto Samuel They have not despised thee but they have despised me 1 Sam. 8.7 Whereupon St. Gregory Quam reverendi sunt Pastores optimi Sanctae Ecclesiae how reverendly to be esteemed are the Pastors of holy Church who whilst they faithfully serve the Lord in the Execution of their function they are so closely joyn'd unto him in the bond of love that the least slight disesteem or neglect that is cast upon them the Lord takes it as an injury to himself So said the Lord to his Apostles and in them to their Successors He that heareth you heareth me and he that despiseth you despiseth me and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me Luc. 10.16 And this duty that the people should take heed to their Priests is commanded under a severe penalty Deut. 17.8 If there arise a matter too hard for thee in Judgment thou shalt arise and come unto the Priests the Levites and that man that will do presumptuously and will not hearken unto the Priest that standeth to Minister even that man shall dye And under the Gospel also the same command is given Heb. 13.17 Obey them that have the Rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your Souls But notwithstanding these and many more commands in the sacred sh●e●s of either Testament yet is this Christian duty slighted and generally omitted and especially by those who pretend most to the sole Authority of the holy Scriptures without any Relation to the doctrine and Authority of the Church in the Interpretation thereof There being many amongst us in every Flock who presume to direct their Shepherds guide their Guides and teach their Teachers who if they teach not preach not pray not as they would have them and consonant to their humors and opinions they will censure their doctrines contemn their directions revile their persons scandalize their profession and even snatch the holy Oracles out of their mouths and separate themselves into Conventicles where they may heap to themselves Teachers after their lusts having itching ears and they turn away their ears from the truth and are turned unto fables believing and delighting in lies and vain empty prophesyings which profit not as was foretold of such 2 Tim. 4.3 4. And having mentioned Conventicles I cannot but add a word of the danger of them not so much in order to the disturbance of the peace of the Nation leaving that to the Secular Magistrate but in order to the seduction of unwary and unstable souls into falshood and errors in Religion Verily verily I say unto you he that entereth not in by the door into the sheepfold but climbeth up some other way the same is a thief and a robber Joh. 10.1 'T is the practice of subtile thieves when they seize on the honest Traveller to drag him out of the high road-way into hedges and by-places the more securely and without interruption to robb and spoil him so the spiritual thieves false Prophets ring leaders of faction and sedition do more easily seduce and robb poor silly men and women of the inestimable treasures of truth and obedience by drawing them from the open and Publick Assemblies of Gods people in his houses of prayer into By-places and lone honses where they may more securely breath forth the spiritual Infections sow the seeds of Schism and Sedition and whisper their irreligious Treasons under the mask of Religion In such places they may to their advantage vent and put off their counterfeit ware their false glosses and misinterpretations of holy Writ and make their Apocryphal Comments upon Canonical Scripture making the Holy Word of God to speak not what the ●pirit of God intends therein but what their factious spirits and wild fancies would have it That there should be such false Prophets in desart places and private houses our Lord hath foretold commanding all his disciples not to believe or follow them Mat. 24.26 Wherefore if they should say unto you he is in the desart go not forth behold he is in the secret chamber believe it not St. Augustine observes of the man that fell among thieves and was robbed and wounded Luc. 10.30 Si non descendisset If he had not been going down from Jerusalem the place of Gods Temple to Jericho a prophane and common place he had escaped that sad disaster To teach all people to beware how they leave the place which God hath chosen to put his name there the Temple and house of God to convene in any common or prophane By places under pretence of Religion and the performance of holy duties in such places 'T was otherwise with the man after Gods own heart Psa 5.7 As for me I will come into thine house even upon the multitude of thy mercies and in thy fear will I worship towards thy holy Temple And with him resolves the whole body of Gods people Psal 132.7 We will go into his tabernacle and fall low on our knees before his footstool And not only this under the Law but under the Gospel Mark 11.17 My house not the houses of men shall be called the house of Prayer of all Nations Not of the Jews as under the Law but of the Gentiles also under the Gospel and 't is there especially in Gods own house that he has promised to meet his people to be in the midst of them to hear their prayers and bless them To teach them his waies by his faithful and true Pastors and there in a word to dispence all the blessed means of grace and salvation to them Deuteron 12.5 6.11 12 13 14. 1 Kin. 8.29 30. Mat. 18.20 Luc. 19.46 1 Cor. 11.20 7. But the grand excuse of the wandring sheep and the cry of many Orthodox also is The division of the Shepheards who being divided amongst themselves do lead their flocks into several divided wayes of divine worship And the generality of the flock being not wise enough to know what way to take or whom most securely to follow they hereupon heap to themselves Teachers after their own Lusts and with the Schismatical Corinthians 1 ep 1 cap. 12. vers Every one saith I am of Paul I am of Apollos and I of Cephas and I of Christ one man or Sect of men liking this mans way of preaching and praying another anothers way and others none at all but independently rely upon the immediate teaching of Christ by his Spirit And thus Sects and Divisions are multiplied This complaint is too true and such sad effects thereof too evident and if not stopt will prove bitterness in the end But would you know who be these divided Pastors or Preachers or Sect-masters rather the corrupt springs from whom all our polluted streams of divisions flow They are such in a word as first divide

But what kind of Prayers these were is not considered viz. short Collects or rather Ejaculations imploring the Divine Assistance which they used not always before but sometimes in the midst of their Sermons also when they treated of some high mystery of Godliness of other matter of difficulty or were transported with more than ordinary zeal to the practice of such of such a virtue or the eradication of some reigning offence amongst the people as is frequent in many of St. Chrysostome's Homilies And of St. Ambrose he being a Metropolitan might surely assume such a power to compose a prayer for his own use which is not nay ought not to be allowed to every inferior Presbyter Secondly because he used a short prayer and this but sometimes before his Sermon it doth not follow That every green-headed Minister may use a prayer of his own private conception twenty times as long as the other and so fully as far distant from the pattern which our Lord hath given us which is also answer sufficient to St. Paul's example objected Object 10. But St. Augustine affirms the necessity of this Prayer before Sermon saying That Queen Esther prayed for the temporal safety of her Nation before she adventured to speak before the King Ahasuerus that God would be pleased to put into her mouth congruous words How much more ought we to pray for the like gift when we are to speak for the eternal salvation of souls in the Word and Doctrine August de Doct. Christiana And again saith he When the hour is come to preach before he opens his mouth let him lift up his thirsting soul unto God. Answ It is undoubtedly a laudable practice for every Preacher to pray for the Divine Assistance in his Sermons to the People And this not only in the publick prayers of the Church but in private also betwixt God and his own soul and this as the Father directs before he opens his mouth in publick And such was Queen Esther's prayer in private before she publickly spake to the King which makes rather against than for the private prayer in publick for and with the whole congregation St. August could not be guilty of any such practice for it was against his judgment being himself one of the Two Hundred Fathers of that Milevitan Councel wherein it was decreed that no prayer should be us'd in publick but such as were approv'd in the Synod Sometimes this Father did conclude his Sermon with an Exhortation conceived in form of a Prayer e. g. Conversi Turning unto the Lord God Father Almighty let us render him all possible thanks beseeching him of his great mercy that he would vouchsafe to hear our prayers and expell the Enemy from having any influence upon our thoughts and desires words and actions that he would increase our faith govern our minds fill us with spiritual cogitations and at last bring us to everlasting happiness through Jesus Christ which is not so much a Prayer as an Invitation to Prayer suitable to the Form prescribed in the Canon of our Church Object 11. The liberty or private prayer in publick is the way to make an able Ministry whilst thus they are put on to exercise and improve their Ministerial gifts and graces Answ T is rather the way to make a Licentious Fanatick Brain-sick Ministry and in process of time no Ministry at all for from this practice it is that so very many unlearned unstable souls have taken up the trade and proved as eminent at least as well approved of by the people for their gift of Prayer as the most learned of their Tutorers therein And whosoever shall impartially weigh and without prejudice consider it he may observe that this private prayer in publick both in Church and at home is the very life and soul of that Schism and Division which is still so perniciously kept up in this Church T is hereby maintained more than by preaching and disputes T is from hence that Parties do call their Leaders Godly Ministers and themselves the godly Brethren the children that cry Abba Father the chosen and familiar friends of God from their over-sancy and familiar converse with God. This is that great Idol whom all the world of Non-conformists on this side the pale of the Roman Church adore and worship crying down the goodly frame of Gods worship in his Church under the notion of Idolatry Superstition and Will-worship that every one may set up his Idols in his own heart follow the sway of their own imaginations to be guilty themselves of that Will-worship which they falsly impute to the Church of Christ Upon this Rock many thousands of Souls have suffered shipwrack who have been otherwise piously inclined For being taken with holy language religious tone and sceming zeal of this or the other person in their private and conceived prayers they have in respect thereof slighted and undervalued even the Celestial Prayer of God the Son all the divinely inspired prayers of God the Holy Ghost recorded in Holy Writ with all the devout and excellent Prayers of the Church of Christ which are framed after the pattern prescribed by our Lord commanded by the higher Powers used by the devout people of God in all Ages and whereby many thousand triumphant Saints in Heaven have pray'd themselves into that blissful place of Eternal Glory After all this it would be considered That as every error in Religion is very prolifick in bringing forth many others of the same mishapen stamp and nature so this erroneous way of divine worship the use of a private Prayer in a publick Congregation is also productive of many mistakes and falshoods and deformed ways of worship in the management thereof And 1. Such private Prayers in publick are generally erroneous in the length of them For that Long Prayers are unlawful is apparent First Because they are prohibited by our Lord Mat. 6.7 When ye pray use not vain repetitions which cannot be understood of the same prayer repeated which is falsly objected against the prayers of the Church for so prayed our Lord himself and his example surely contradicts not his Doctrine whose Prayer when most earnest in his Desires was the same three times repeated and a very short prayer also Mat. 26.44 By vain repetitions then must be meant the repetitions of the same thing in other words For First to use multitude of words and variety of expressions in prayer is vain i. e. superfluous impertinent and to no purpose since our desires may and ought to be expressed in few words and pertinent Secondly such are generally vain i. e. empty and insignificant that have more noise than weight more sound than sense serving only to fill up the time to amuse the minds and tickle the itching ears of the Hearers That such kind of long Prayers are here forbidden by our Lord is manifest Secondly From the parallel Text quoted in the Margin Eccles 5.2 Be not rash with thy mouth and let not thy