Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	abandon_v	church_n	protestant_n	32	3	7.5390	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60955	Twelve sermons preached upon several occasions. The second volume by Robert South.	South, Robert, 1634-1716.	1694 (1694)	Wing S4746; ESTC R39098	202,579	660

Judges have Absolved nor Absolves whom his Judges have Condemned whatsoever the People and Republicans may Now from this Principle That the Authority of Conscience stands founded upon its Vicegerency and Deputation under God Several very important Inferences may or rather indeed unavoidably must ensue Two of which I shall single out and speak of As First We collect from hence the Absurdity and Impertinence And Secondly The Impudence and Impiety of most of those Pretences of Conscience which have born such a mighty sway all the World over and in these poor Nations especially 1. And first for the Absurdity and Impertinence of them What a rattle and a noise has this word Conscience made How many Battles has it fought how many Churches has it robbed ruined and reformed to Ashes how many Laws has it trampled upon dispenced with and addressed against And in a word how many Governments has it over-turned Such is the mischievous force of a plausible Word applied to a detestable Thing The Allegation or Plea of Conscience ought never to be admitted barely for it self For when a Thing obliges only by a borrowed Authority it is ridiculous to alledge it for its own Take a Lieutenant a Commissioner or Ambassador of any Prince and so far as he represents his Prince all that he does or declares under that capacity has the same force and validity as if actually done or declared by the Prince himself in Person But then how far does this reach why just so far as he keeps close to his Instructions But when he once baulks them though what he does may be indeed a Publick Crime or a National Mischief yet it is but a Private Act and the Doer of it may chance to pay his Head for his Presumption For still as great as the Authority of such kind of Persons is it is not founded upon their own Will nor upon their own Iudgment but upon their Commission In like manner every Dictate of this Vicegerent of God where it has a Divine Word or Precept to back it carries a Divine Authority with it But if no such Word can be produced it may indeed be a strong Opinion or Perswasion but it is not Conscience And no one Thing in the World has done more Mischief and caused more Delusions amongst Men than their not distinguishing between Conscience and meer Opinion or Perswasion Conscience is a Latin Word though with an English Termination and according to the very Notation of it imports a double or joynt Knowledge to wit One of a Divine Law or Rule and the Other of a man 's own Action And so is properly the Application of a General Law to a Particular Instance of Practice The Law of God for example says Thou shalt not steal and the Mind of Man tells him That the taking of such or such a thing from a person lawfully possessed of it is Stealing Whereupon the Conscience joyning the Knowledge of both these together pronounces in the Name of God That such a Particular Action ought not to be done And this is the true procedure of Conscience always supposing a Law from God before it pretends to lay any Obligation upon Man For still I averr that Conscience neither is nor ought to be its own Rule I question not I confess but meer Opinion or Perswasion may be every whit as strong and have as forcible an Influence upon a man's Actions as Conscience it self But then we know Strength or Force is one Thing and Authority quite another As a Rogue upon the High-way may have as strong an Arm and take off a man's Head as cleverly as the Executioner But then there is a vast Disparity in the Two Actions when one of them is Murther and the other Iustice Nay and our Saviour himself told his Disciples That Men should both kill them and think that in so doing they did God service So that here we see was a full Opinion and Perswasion and a very Zealous one too of the high Meritoriousness of what they did but still there was no Law no Word or Command of God to ground it upon and consequently it was not Conscience Now the Notion of Conscience thus stated if firmly kept to and throughly driven home would effectually baffle and confound all those senceless though clamorous Pretences of the Schismatical Opposers of the Constitutions of our Church In defence of which I shall not speak so much as one syllable against the Indulgence and Toleration granted to these Men. No since they have it let them in God's Name enjoy it and the Government make the best of it But since I cannot find that the Law which tolerates them in their way of Worship and it does no more does at all forbid us to defend ours it were earnestly to be wished that all hearty Lovers of the Church of England would assert its excellent Constitution more vigorously now than ever And especially in such Congregations as this in which there are so many young Persons upon the well or ill principling of whom next under God depends the happiness or misery of this Church and State For if such should be generally prevailed upon by Hopes or Fears by base Examples by Trimming and Time-serving which are but Two Words for the same Thing to abandon and betray the Church of England by nauseating her pious prudent and wholsome Orders of which I have seen some scurvy Instances we may rest assured That this will certainly produce Confusion and that Confusion will as certainly end in Popery And therefore since the Liturgy Rites and Ceremonies of our Church have been and still are so much cavilled and struck at and all upon a Plea of Conscience it will concern us as becomes Men of Sense seriously to examine the force of this Plea which our Adversaries are still setting up against us as the Grand Pillar and Buttress of the good Old Cause of Non-conformity For come to any Dissenting Brother and ask him Why cannot you communicate with the Church of England Oh says he it is against my Conscience my Conscience will not suffer me to Pray by a Set-form to Kneel at the Sacrament to hear Divine Service read by one in a Surplice or to use the Cross in Baptism or the like Very well And is this the Case then that it is all pure Conscience that keeps you from complying with the Rule and Order of the Church in these matters If so then produce me some Word or Law of God forbidding these things For Conscience never commands or forbids any thing Authentically but there is some Law of God which commands or forbids it first Conscience as might be easily shewn being no distinct Power or Faculty from the Mind of Man but the Mind of Man it self applying the General Rule of God's Law to particular Cases and Actions This is truly and properly Conscience And therefore shew me such a Law and that either as a Necessary Dictate of Right Reason or a Positive

a manner as the Holy Ghost in Scripture either commands or allows of As for any other kind of Praying by the Spirit upon the best enquiry that I can make into these matters I can find none And if some say as I know they both impudently and blasphemously doe that to pray by the Spirit is to have the Spirit immediately inspiring them and by such Inspiration speaking within them and so dictating their prayers to them let them either produce plain Scripture or doe a Miracle to prove this by But till then he who shall consider what kind of prayers these pretenders to the Spirit have been notable for will find that they have as little Cause to father their Prayers as their Practices upon the Spirit of God These Two things are certain and I doe particularly recommend them to your Observation One that this way of Praying by the Spirit as they call it was begun and first brought into use here in England in Queen Elizabeth's days by a Popish Priest and Dominican Fryar one Faithfull Commin by Name who counterfeiting himself a Protestant and a Zealot of the highest form set up this new Spiritual way of Praying with a design to bring the People first to a Contempt and from thence to an utter Hatred and Disuse of our Common-prayer which he still reviled as only a Translation of the Mass thereby to distract men's Minds and to divide our Church And this he did with such success that we have lived to see the Effects of his Labours in the utter subversion of Church and State Which hellish Negotiation when this malicious Hypocrite came to Rome to give the Pope an account of he received of him as so notable a service well deserved besides a thousand Thanks two thousand Ducats for his pains So that now you see here the Original of this Extempore-way of praying by the Spirit The other thing that I would observe to you is That in the neighbour Nation of Scotland one of the greatest Monsters of Men that I believe ever lived and actually in league with the Devil was yet by the confession of all that heard him the most Excellent at this Extempore-way of Praying by the Spirit of any Man in his time none was able to come near him or to compare with him But surely now he who shall venture to ascribe the Prayers of such a Wretch made up of Adulteries Incest Witchcraft and other Villainies not to be named to the Spirit of God may as well strike in with the Pharisees and ascribe the Miracles of Christ to the Devil And thus having shewn both what ought to be meant by Praying by the Spirit and what ought not cannot be meant by it let us now see whether a Set-form or this Extemporary-way be the greater hinderer and stinter of it In order to which I shall lay down these three Assertions 1. That the Soul or Mind of Man is but of a limited Nature in all its Workings and consequently cannot supply two distinct Faculties at the same time to the same height of Operation 2 ly That the finding Words and Expressions for Prayer is the proper business of the Brain and the Invention and that the finding Devotion and Affection to accompany and go along with those Expressions is properly the Work and Business of the Heart 3 ly That this Devotion and Affection is indispensably required in Prayer as the principal and most Essential part of it and that in which the Spirituality of it does most properly consist Now from these three Things put together this must naturally and necessarily follow That as Spiritual Prayer or Praying by the Spirit taken in the right sense of the word consists properly in that Affection and Devotion that the Heart exercises and imploys in the Work of Prayer so whatsoever gives the Soul scope and liberty to exercise and imploy this Affection and Devotion that does most effectually help and enlarge the Spirit of Prayer and whatsoever diverts the Soul from employing such Affection and Devotion that does most directly stint and hinder it Accordingly let this now be our Rule whereby to judge of the Efficacy of a Set-form and of the Extempore-way in the present Business As for a Set-form in which the Words are ready prepared to our hands the Soul has nothing to doe but to attend to the work of raising the Affections and Devotions to go along with those words So that all the Powers of the Soul are took up in applying the Heart to this great Duty and it is the Exercise of the Heart as has been already shewn that is truly and properly a Praying by the Spirit On the contrary in all Extempore-prayer the Powers and Faculties of the Soul are called off from dealing with the Heart and the Affections and that both in the Speaker and in the Hearer both in him who makes and in him who is to joyn in such Prayers And first for the Minister who makes and utters such Extempore-prayers He is wholly imploying his Inventions both to conceive Matter and to find Words and Expressions to cloath it in This is certainly the work which takes up his Mind in this Exercise And since the Nature of man's Mind is such that it cannot with the same vigour at the same time attend the work of Invention and that of raising the Affections also nor measure out the same supply of Spirits and Intention for the carrying on the Operations of the Head and those of the Heart too it is certain that while the Head is so much imployed the Heart must be idle and very little imployed and perhaps not at all And consequently if to pray by the Spirit be to pray with the Heart and the Affections it is also as certain that while a Man prays Extempore he does not pray by the Spirit Nay the very truth of it is that while he is so doing he is not praying at all but he is studying He is beating his Brain while he should be drawing out his Affections And then for the People that are to hear and joyn with him in such Prayers it is manifest that they not knowing before-hand what the Minister will say must as soon as they do hear him presently busy and bestirr their Minds both to apprehend and understand the meaning of what they hear and withall to judge whether it be of such a Nature as to be fit for them to joyn and concur with him in So that the People also are by this Course put to study and to imploy their apprehending and judging Faculties while they should be exerting their Affections and Devotions and consequently by this means the Spirit of Prayer is stinted as well in the Congregation that follows as in the Minister who first conceives a Prayer after their Extempore-way Which is a Truth so clear and indeed self-evident that it is impossible that it should need any further Arguments to demonstrate or make it out The Sum of all is this