Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	pray_v	prayer_n	supplication_n	1,200	5	11.1166	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44145	Letters written to J.M. a nonconformist teacher, concerning the gift and forms of prayer The second part. By Matthew Hole, B.D. sometime fellow of Exeter College, Oxon. now vicar of Stoke-gursey in Somersetshire.; Correct copy of some letters written to J.M. a nonconformist teacher, concerning the gift and forms of prayer. Part 2.	Hole, Matthew, 1639 or 40-1730.	1699 (1699)	Wing H2410; ESTC R215281	96,332	185

vulgar Minds and such as are mostly led by Imagination that are thus taken with the Novelty and Sound of Words and seek about for Variety of Expressions Now this is a Weakness in them which you should be so far from cherishing and encourageing that you ought rather to use your best Skill to perswade them out of it and to let them know that God neither expects nor is delighted with these things For true Religion inclines still to the doing and speaking the same things He that endeavours to keep up a constant Reverence and Fear of God in his Heart and by a daily continued Practice desires the same Blessings in the same Words shall be more soberly and religiously devout and find better Acceptance with him than he that loves and labours for new Words and thinks he shall not be accepted without a Multitude or Variety of Expressions The Study whereof is more apt to distract than compose the Mind in this Duty Indeed where God in his Providence hath done any new thing either by sending some new Judgment or Calamity or by bestowing some new Mercy or Deliverance here in our publick Fasts and Thanksgivings there must be such new Words as may suit such Occasions And Thanks be to God the pious Care and Wisdom of our Governours is never wanting to make a due and suitable Provision for us on such Occasions But for the constant Matter of our daily Prayers and Praises there can be no need of new Words but only to bring new Hearts and good Affections in the use of the old well-digested Words and Composures of the Church We read of our Saviour's praying three times most earnestly using the same Words so that these can neither hinder the Earnestness nor the Efficacy of true Devotion In the Prayer that Christ gave his Disciples and in all the Prayers he put up himself he hath left no Command or Example for such unnecessary Variation but rather the quite contrary and therefore you are to consider further how you will excuse it from Superstition to think that God is pleas'd with many and new Words or displeas'd without them Which is to place Religion in things which God hath no where requir'd at your hands and to lay a doctrinal Necessity in the Inventions of Men Which is a piece of Will-worship and Superstition As for the Multitude of Words Solomon hath shew'd that to be an Occasion of Sin Prov. 10.19 and an Instance of great Folly Eccles 5.2 and therefore wills that our Words unto God should be few And our Blessed Saviour condemned the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matth. 5. or much speaking of the Heathens and all that imitate them And as for the Change and Variety of Expressions in Prayer there is not the least Colour of a Command or Encouragement for it in Holy Scripture for tho' we are bid To pray 〈◊〉 all prayer and supplication in the spirit Ephes 6.18 That is by the same Apostle expounded of the several parts of Prayer but is understood by none 1 Tim 2.12 of extempore or varied Prayers So that to make it a Ministerial Duty to pray without Book and to put the Vulgar upon beating their Brains for new Phrases as a more spiritual way of praying cannot be excused from Vanity and Superstition Yea a Learned and Ingenious Divine hath shew'd this to be a sort of Idolatry For the Mis-representation of God and worshipping him according to that Misrepresentation is the Sin of Idolatry Now to think to please God with new and varied Phrases in Prayer is to mis-represent him and to take him for such an one as our selves and by offering up such Prayers we worship him according to that Image and false Representation of him And therefore 't will be hard to excuse this Practice from the Sin of Idolatry Yea such Persons not only represent God under the Shape of a Man but pray to him as represented under the Weaknesses of a Man And certainly if the Mis-representation of the Object makes the Idolatry by how much the worse the Representation is by so much the grosser must the Idolatry be Sir If you will throughly weigh and consider these things you will find That the main Work and Business of Prayer lies in the Heart and the good Motions of it And therefore the Gift or Ability of performing it must properly be placed there So that your great Mistake all this while hath been in taking the Gift of wording Prayer for the Gift of Prayer To rectifie which you must know that Words are no part of Prayer or if they were the well-consider'd and digested Words of a Form are far more agreeable to the Nature and Dignity of this Duty and the Majesty we address to in it than any present and hasty Expressions And consequently the Gift of composing pious and well-ordered Forms for publick and private Devotion is in this Sense far more fitly styl'd the Gift of Prayer than your Talent of Extemporary Effusions But at rast I find you in that Letter of April 15th acknowledging that the offering up pious Desires to God without the use of any Words is Prayer in a proper Sense and that pious Souls who are duly affected with their Wants Sins and Mercies may be said to have the Gift of Praying acceptably to God in a spiritual manner without them Where you seem to place the Gift of Prayer as it should be in the Heart Yea all your own Arguments and Distinctions if well consider'd do most properly and principally place it there For what you call the special internal devout spiritual and successful Gift is truly the Gift or Grace of Prayer And what you style the common external and artificial Gift is properly the Gift of Speech Utterance and Elocution applyed to the Duty of Prayer And for the Novelty and Variety of Words you grant in your Letter of April 1st that 't is no further necessary than as the various Matter and Occasions require So that Thanks be to God by these Concessions that part of the Controversie is come to a pretty good Issue It remains then that you endeavour to undeceive the People and take them off from their vain and high Thoughts of this Verbal Gift That they may return to the Ancient Publick and Devout Prayers of the Church from which they have ignorantly swerved I am Yours in all true Affection M. H. July 24th 1697. LETTER II. SIR I Consider'd in my last the Letters relating to the Gift of Prayer and finding nothing of moment objected against them that may need or deserve a farther Answer I proceed to the Letters that relate to Forms of Prayer About which two Things are chiefly to be considered viz. 1st their Lawfulness and 2dly their Expediency And that we may bring Things to some good Issue I will shew how far we are agreed that we may the better compromize Matters where we differ 1. First then We are agreed about the lawfulness of