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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	according_a	bishop_n	church_n	2,848	5	4.3599	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56717	The work of the ministry represented to the clergy of the Diocese of Ely / by Symon, Lord Bishop of Ely.	Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.	1698 (1698)	Wing P867; ESTC R33031	38,681	134

once a Year on the first day of Lent though the Prayers then appointed are to be used at other times as the Ordinary shall appoint This if done solemnly though it seem a thing of no great labour yet might have a great effect For every one knows or ought to know that the Lent Fast was Instituted to be a time of Repentance and to bring Men to it what can be more effectual than this Denunciation of Gods Anger and Judgments against Sinners with most comfortable assurances of Grace and Mercy to the Penitent I know it is hard as the World goes to get a Congregation together upon that day when this is required to be read in the Church You may therefore read it on the First Sunday in Lent and then put the Sense of it into your Sermon where it may be proper to press them to weigh every part of it distinctly And in order to it remove that foolish Objection which I have heard some have in their Mouths that they cannot endure to Curse their Neighbours by showing them plainly that they are not the Curses of the People but of God himself which he hath denounced against Sinners To which when the People are ordered to say AMEN they only consent to the truth of that which God saith The very Office teaches this when it declares the end of reading those Curses gathered out of the XXVII of Deuteronomy and other places of Scripture and the Peoples saying Amen to them that they may flee from such vices for which they affirm with their own mouth the Curse of God to be due And represent to them also that whether they will affirm these Curses to be due or no they will fall upon them if they be such Sinners as are there named and the sooner because they refuse to say Amen to the Words of God that is affirm what he affirms who is the Faithful and the True This Cavil being taken away it will be easie to make them sensible how useful it is for them to joyn with you in this Commination which may awaken drousy Souls to consider and amend their evil doings that they may escape those Judgments that are threatned to them which are unavoidable if they go on still in their Sins There was something like this among the ancient Jews who at certain stated times were wont to denounce a general Anathema against all the Israelites who knowingly and willingly violated such and such Laws A Form of which Mr. Selden hath given us out of their Ritual called Colho Lib. IV. De Jure Nat. Gent. cap. 7. This it is likely the Christian Church thought fit to imitate not by denouncing a formal Anathema but only by a solemn recital of the Threatnings in God's Laws against impenitent Sinners And their affirming the truth and certainty of them Which in the Romish Church came at last to such an Anathema as I now mentioned in the Jewish Ritual call'd The greater Excommunication which here in England was denounced by every Bishop twice a year and by every Parish-Priest four times a year against certain Persons A Form of which great Curse the same most Learned Person hath given us out of the Ritual according to the use of the Church of Sarum in his first Book De Synedriis Cap. X. where he observes that in the room of this our first Reformers only ordered this Maledictory Commination as he well stiles it to be used once a Year In the beginning of which Commination there is mention made of a godly Discipline in the Primitive Church whereby such Persons as stood Convicted of notorious sins were in the beginning of Lent put to open Pennance This Discipline we there wish might be restored again but seem to suppose that for the present we can only instead of it denounce God's anger and judgments against sinners and make them say Amen thereunto whereby they may stand Convicted in their own Consciences that they are under the Curse of God and so be brought to Repentance Had we not need then do this very seriously if it be all that we can do of this kind Yet let it be considered whether we may not be able to do something more if we will attempt it For may not scandalous Persons be more frequently presented than they are May not private Admonitions if not publick be more used Let us not then think fit to do nothing because we cannot do all that we would The right way to enlarge our Authority of the want of which we complain is to use that which we have uprightly and faithfully That is if we presented none in the Ecclesiastical Court till private Applications had been made to them with seriousness and earnestness unsuccessfully and if it were done without respect to Persons Parties or Interests we might bring our Courts into that just esteem and credit which they ought to have And having mentioned private Admonition let me in a few words remember you that at your Ordination you promised to use both publick and private monitions and exhortations as well to the sick as to the whole within your Cures as need shall require and occasion shall be given And perhaps more good might be done this way than any other if it were done at fitting times with as much secrecy as may be and with apparent affection to them In some Cases perhaps it may be done most effectually by Letter which may be sent when you cannot have opportunity to speak to them And here it may be proper to admonish you that Dissenters from our Church are thus to be dealt withal by some way of private Conference with them not by Preaching against them for they are not there to hear it Our own People indeed are by publick Discourses as well as otherways to be confirmed and established in our Communion But there is no way to reduce them but by private arguing with them Which is not to be omitted because the present act of Indulgence doth not justify them in their separation but only suspends the Punishments to which they were before liable Still they are in a state of Schism out of which you should endeavour to recover them by kind Perswasions and Arguments which may work more upon them than all the Penalties formerly inflicted which made them Angry but did not Convert them For the Conclusion of this part of my Treatise I should upon the mention of LENT have said something concerning that Fast and other days of Fasting or Abstinence appointed by the Church which if Men could be perswaded to observe as times of Recollection and Examination of themselves and Prayer they would find great benefit thereby to the encrease of Christian Piety I wrote a little Book about it in the beginning of the late Reign which had the Approbation of my Superiours But I have not room to say more of it here Nor of the Festivals which are ordered to be kept in Commemoration of great Blessings God hath bestowed

Parents were sometimes snatch'd on a sudden from their Children by bloody Persecutors They might have been brought up in Paganism if these Spiritual Parents had not been engaged to look after them and instil Christian Principles into them 6. You give a charge after Baptism to the Godfathers and Godmothers that they take care the Child be brought to the Bishop to be confirmed by him so soon as he is fit for it And therefore you would do well to remember them as you have opportunity of this part of their Duty and in order to it to see they be instructed in the Church Catechism set forth for that purpose SECT VII Which is the next part of your care diligently upon Sundays and Holy-days to instruct and examine openly in the Church so many of the Children of your Parish sent unto you as you shall think convenient in some part of the CATECHISM They are the very words of the first Rubrick in the end of that Office where in the next Rubrick Fathers Mothers Masters and Dames are ordered to cause their Children Servants and Prentices which have not learnt their Catechism to come to the Church at the time appointed and obediently to hear and to be ordered by you till they have learned all that is appointed in the Catechism for them to learn It is to be hoped they will do this if you call upon them and beseech them to take care of it letting them know that you are ready and desirous to perform your Duty if they will do theirs And mark I beseech you what is required of you not only to examine the Children in the Catechism that is to ask them the questions and receive their answers but to instruct them therein that is teach them the meaning and make them understand the weight of every word If you would spend a quarter of an Hour in this exercise all the Summer long when the days are long at Evening Prayer after the Second Lesson as the Rubrick appoints it would be of wonderful use both to your selves and to your People I say to your selves as well as the Parish because it would put you upon Considering Collecting and Digesting such proper places of Scripture as relate to every Article of the Creed and to the Commandments and to all other parts of the Catechism And upon studying also and framing the plainest and clearest Explications and Illustrations of every Point couched in so few words that they might easily be carried away and remembred Which being once well done it would serve you all your Life The same thing being to be repeated over and over again every Year For I suppose you may be able once a Year to go through the whole Catechism Which would certainly edify your People very much and make them more capable to understand your Sermons by having a clear Notion of many Terms which you have constant occasion to use in them It would bring People also to Church in the Afternoon For they would soon perceive this short Instruction to be as useful as any Sermon And consequently they would observe the Lord's day better For I cannot but think that many would by this means have your Explication of the Catechism by Heart and be able to instruct their Children again at home I shall quicken you to this by what I find was done about it in the Reign of King James I. who sent strict Orders to the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury both concerning Preaching and Catechising especially the latter Which he would have by all means continued in the Afternoon according to the former custom in England so his words are which it seems then began to be disused And of this the Lord Keeper Williams saith the King was so desirous that he declared If his Bishops would not take care that it should be done he would recommend it to the care of the Civil Magistrate And in a Letter to the Bishop of London he tells him the reason of all this He saw many going away to Popery or Anabaptism or other points of Separation and considering with much admiration what should be the cause of it especially since he opposed both so much himself he could think of none in greater probability than the lightness affectedness and unprofitableness of that kind of Preaching which had of late Years been much taken up in Court University and Country The usual scope of very many Preachers being noted to be soaring up in points of Divinity too deep for the Capacity of the People or the mustering up a great deal of reading or the displaying of their own Wit or an ignorant medling with Civil Matters or the venting their own Distasts c. So the People being bred up with this kind of teaching and never instructed in the CATECHETICAL and Fundamental Points of Religion were easily led aside from their Religion either by Papists or Anabaptists or other Sectaries This I find in the Cabala of Letters p. 112. which is necessary to be considered now Because since that time the Explication of the Catechism in the Afternoons hath been much neglected unto which we have reason to impute the instability of many Souls in their Religion SECT VIII When the Children of your Parish are throughly instructed in the Church-Catechism and are come to a competent Age as the words of the third Rubrick are in the end of that Office you are to take care that they be brought to the Bishop to be Confirmed by him Now such little Children as are commonly presented to the Bishop cannot be thought to be of a competent Age. Which is explained both in the Title of the Order of Confirmation and the Preface to it to signify such as are come to years of Discretion That is to understand what they do and consent to renew the solemn Promise and Vow that was made in their Name at their Baptism ratifying and confirming the same in their own Persons and acknowledging themselves bound to believe and do what their Godfathers and Godmothers undertook for them As you are bound therefore by the last Rubrick at the end of the Catechism when the Bishop gives notice of his intention to Confirm either to bring or send in Writing with your Hands Subscribed thereunto the Names of all such Persons within your Parish as you shall think fit to be Presented to him to be Confirmed So I beseech you take care you set down the Names of none but such as have a sense that they take upon themselves an Obligation to keep their Vow in Baptism and are resolved to do their Duty towards God and towards their Neighbour as they have been taught in their Catechism In short I think none ripe to be Confirmed but such as are fit and disposed immediately after it to receive the Holy Communion of Christ's Body and Blood Our Church seems to signify so much when in the end of this Office it Ordains That none be admitted to to the Holy Communion until such time as he