Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	king_n	lord_n	privy_a	5,184	5	10.8596	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61498	The old Puritan detected and defeated, or, A brief treatise shewing how by the artifice of pulpit-prayers our dissenters, at all times, have endeavour'd to undermine the liturgy of the reformed Church of England together with the fault and danger of such prayers, whether vented extempore, or forethought by the speaker / by a most learned and reverend divine now with God.	Steward, Richard, 1593?-1651.	1682 (1682)	Wing S5524; ESTC R16271	6,447	12

enjoyned us to use no Publick Prayers but the Liturgy Except his Majesty give special leave upon some extraordinary occasion for the drawing up of Forms which leave has ground de jure Communi both Ecclesiastical and Civil it follows that neither Church nor State have given power to any to vent Themselves in such Open Prayers in the Church because they Expresly forbid it To presume then to use such prayers contains in it a Complication of several Sins First A sin of Falshood or the breach of a Solemn Promise confirmed by Subscription to the Church Secondly It is an Act of Disobedience to the Higher Powers and so 't is an express sin against the Fifth Commandment Thirdly It is an Act of Injury and Vsurpation Offer'd to the Church in presuming to thrust themselves into a Sacred Office which such men are not intrusted with nor thought fit at all to Execute For Many may be able to discourse unto Men since if they chance there to fail in point of Truth or Congruity the matter is of less Consequence But the Church will trust but Few that shall Lead men when they speak to God because there a Falshood may oft prove an Abomination in speech and an Incongruity may soon amount to Blasphemy I would gladly Demand of any prudent Person whether he conceives that when the Church of England was in her greatest Glory she had ever in it 9500 persons answerable to the 9500 Parishes that were able to Lead the People in Prayer Sad Experience tells us the Contrary and informs us loudly enough of their Solaecisms and Blasphemies And the same Experience tells us that the Directory helps them not at this Dead Lift Nay it may often prove the greatest Impediment since were some weak men allow'd to choose as well their matter as their words they might perhaps come off with some tolerable approbation But being forc't to Confine themselves to matter which either they well understand not or are not so much used to speak on their Prayers are oft times vain and ridiculous or which is worse Erroneous or Blasphemous The Licentiousness of Devotion that Each Private Priest durst adventure to Lead others in Publick Prayer breeding great disturbance in the Primitive Church brought the Fathers to Decree thus in the 2 d. Council of Milevis where St. Augustine sate as appears by the Subscription that no Publick Prayer should be offer'd up to God that had not been approv'd of in a Council or at least Agreed upon by the more discreet sort of men Ne fortè aliquid contra Fidem vel per Ignorantiam vel per minus studium sit Compositum least either through Ignorance or for want of due pains the Publick Faith might receive hurt through such Prayers Now besides other Hurts which the Church of England hath received by this unlawful Course all may know she hath received one remarkable mischief in the Neglect and Scorn of Her Liturgy For when Cartwright that Puritan Incendiary saw he wanted Power either to Extirpate or Alter our Establisht Book of Common-Prayer He was the First durst boldly use this Forbidden Knell of Devotion which he and those who follow'd him improv'd to so great an height by Posting over our Liturgy with so much Carelesness and Scorn and by giving all the Advantages to those Forms of their own advantages both of the Voice and of the Eyes and of the Hands that the People began ere long to think that the Reading of the Liturgy was but a Vseless Task impos'd by the Church on the Priests But that they compleatly serv'd God if they came in to the Church when the Psalms were singing because besides that they praised God and had the Benefit of a Sermon they heard a long Prayer too And that set out with all the Devotion and all the Advantages it could possibly receive from the Art or from the Natural good Parts of that Person who compos'd it So that he who will needs continue the use of these Forbidden Prayers in the Pulpit takes the readiest Course as much as in him lies for the rooting out of the Publick Liturgy Object It may be said perhaps that many Church-men both of great Knowledge and great Place have themselves used these Forms of Praying And upon that ground why may not they Ans. Truly if to Argue at this rate were Concluding it might soon free us not only from the tyes of many English Laws but from the Obligation also of the Decalogue it self which without all doubt is broken often enough not only by those of the Common Sort but by men of great Place and Knowledge But we must Distinguish between Consuetudo and Corruptela and so Learn that Vsages taken up against express written Laws are Corruptions but not Iustifiable Customs I suppose that these men do not at all like the Course that the Independents now use in Prayer who permit this Extemporary or Voluntary way not only to the Priests but to their Souldiers and to their Mechanicks And I Imagine a main cause of their mistakes to be because such an office is intruded on by those men who have no just Authority to perform it But then if they would consider things well they would easily find that this use of Forbidden Prayer has Metamorphos'd them into Independents since they have no more Authority to compose such Forms from the Apostolick Church that Ordain'd them than either that person has who is now employ'd to make shoes or that other Ecclesiastick whose Formalities are a Belt and a Buff Ierkin One thing I shall add more and it is a short Discourse how the Pulpit Forms of Prayer were brought into the Church of England We must know then that in the times of Popery the manner Commonly was to use the Lords Prayer or else an Ave Maria before Sermon So that when King Edward the Sixth came to Compose his Injunctions He made Choice as he had very good Reason of the Lords Prayer for that purpose But because it was thought fit that the Kings just Supremacy in Ecclesiastical things should be at least Weekly publisht to the People it was thought Expedient to premise to the Pater-noster a Form as his Injunction styles it of Bidding Prayer wherein the Priest was not to speak to God but only to the People Exhorting them to pray Instantly for such and such Persons and things but He pray'd not to God at all until he clos'd his Exhortation with the Lords Prayer This was likewise confirmed in the Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth and Expresly called the Form of Bidding Prayer And when King Iames of Blessed Memory turned those Injunctions into Canons his Law runs Canon 55. That Ministers should move the People to joyn with them in Prayers viz. in this Form of Bidding Prayer Ye shall Pray for Christ's Catholick Church c. concluding always with the Lords Prayer Now Let any Indifferent man Judge Are Exhortations proper Forms of Prayer Nay let a Discerning person Consider it well and it will appear that things there prudently spoken by way of Exhortation and Narration would prove very Absurd in Prayer How fond would it appear to tell the great God of Heaven and Earth of the King 's most Excellent Majesty our Soveraign Lord Charles by the Grace of God King of England Scotland France and Ireland Defender of the Faith c. or as some oft do to tell God of such a Lord Earl of such a place and Baron of another One of his Majesties most Honourable Privy Council and his very good Lord and Patron c. And yet when we do but exhort them to joyn their Prayers such Clauses may not be unfit I can scarce think of any other apparent way to defend them And yet 't is true this Form is there viz. Canon 55. call'd a Prayer before Sermon And so it is because we then say together with the Preacher the Lords Prayer to those very purposes he Exhorts And they well know who know Divinity that all kinds of prayer are reducible to that Holy Form But it follows not that the Preachers Exhortation is a Prayer Or that he then at all speaks to God himself but only to the People Indeed upon an occasion Extraordinary it is a Prayer of no Ordinary Composition and therefore call'd the Form of Bidding Prayer both by a Reform'd King and a very glorious Queen and yet de facto disus'd by an Itching Puritanical Humour at first no doubt by Cunning and Design and afterwards as I verily think for the most part by mistake of the bad end to which it drove or by Inadvertency of the Law But it is most apparent that such Forbidden Prayers are an Especial means to Eat out the whole English Liturgy FINIS * Alsop against Dr. St. Hickringil c. † v. The Form of Ordination c. * Quod ipse in publicis precibus Sacramentis administrandis illam prorsus formam quae in dicto libro praescribitur non aliam sit observaturus Sparrow's Collections p. 287. * v. The Acts of Uniformity and especially That in primo Eliz. which is still in force as will appear by that in xiv Car. ii and is meant by the Author See also lib. quorundam Canon ib. p. 238. parag 2. * But in Ordination the Person to be Ordain'd is rather call'd to the contrary as is shewn above in the first Argument v. Sparrows Coll. p. 47. and p. 60 * Canon 12. † This is also repeated in the 70 th Canon of the Council of Africk And hereunto agrees the 3 d. Conc. Carthag Can. 23. see also Microl. de Eccles. Observ. c. 4. Orationes quae ab Ecclesia probatae non sunt rejiciantur as 't was decreed under Carolus magnus * In the Composers * This is too true but makes it not a whit more Lawful † 'T is call'd there the Form of Bidding the Common-prayers Sparrow's Collect. p. 10. * The Title is The Form of Bidding the Prayers to be us'd Generally in this uniform so●t Spar. Collections p. 85. * Populum Hortabuntur ut secum in precibus Concurrat c. Sparrows Coll. p. 294. * Or desire them † From impertinence in that practice * Precationis formula in Concionum ingressu ibid. * Such as this appears to have been in th●design and use of it * Edw. 6. and Q. Eliz. ut supra * And perhaps Both.