Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	prayer_n	spirit_n	supplication_n	2,281	5	11.0765	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61101	A Protestants account of his orthodox holding in matters of religion at this present in difference in the church, and for his own and others better confirmation or rectification in the points treated on : humbly submitted to the censure of the Church of England.	Spelman, Henry, Sir, 1564?-1641.; Spelman, John, Sir, 1594-1643.	1642 (1642)	Wing S4940; ESTC R12772	24,078	35

we may no more for respect of persons be they Popes or whatsoever call good evill or evill good then we may for respect of persons break the Commandments of God Nor is it more to be abhorred as a popish corruption to use the Ordinances of Popes which are not wicked Ordinances in themselves than blessing the people of in the words wherewith Balaam blessed them is to be abhorred as a Balaamish corruption for when by the names of Popish Jewish Heathenish c. we condemne any thing we all intend that the thing condemned is of the nature of those things wherein they were especially corrupt and not of the nature of their doings which were neither good nor evill and much lesse of the nature of those wherein they excelled So as to be popish simply being no argument of necessary faultinesse we must see whether our Liturgie partakes of any popish corruption or no To come readily to the matter when in all the whole Frame of our Liturgie there is no Worship nor Innovation but of the true God onely neither is he worshipped any other way than by the sole and immediate mediation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ there first can be no Idolatrous corruption in the Liturgie Secondly It cannot be Antichristian because that contrary to the proper work of Antichrist which is to deny the Son and the Father and as God in the Temple of God to exalt himself above all that is called God the Liturgie thorowout the whole course thereof makes an exact acknowledgement adoration and exaltation above all things whatsoever and as it acknowledges them in profession so there is not any thing in it whereby they are denyed in practice So as to call it Antichristian is a malicious slander against the clear truth examined by the Light and Rule of Gods Word Lastly It cannot be superstitious neither for howsoever in the performance of it there may be some few Ceremonies brought in which rightly weighed do perhaps conduce more to worldly solemnity and ostentation in Religion than to true and necessary religious decency and reverence and therefore would be laid down yet being things otherwise indifferent introduced for decency onely and not pressed as things of any other necessity they can at the worst be but errours of Judgement mistaking what is decent and orderly they cannot be superstitious seeing they are not made matters of Religion but of decency and order without which nothing ought to be done When then according to true understanding and intention nothing is meant popish but what partakes of the superstitious corruptions of the Popes the Liturgy of the English Church must needs be acquit and discharged not onely of the infamous calumny of being Idolatrous Antichristian and suspicious but even also of that malicious aspersion of popish And then it will follow That the censures of those sinners against their own souls who in and for these things do falsly judge censure and condemn their Mother Church and renounce obedience to her and communion with her because as they suppose she is popish superstitious idolatrous Antichristian their unjust censures I say will prove the condemnation of themselves both of uncharitablenesse of self-conceit and of insolent exalting themselves against the Church of God at least if not of Antichristian persecution of it also and the more for this That while they promise liberty and freedome from superstition they themselves become slaves unto superstition making a matter of Religion not to obey the Ordinance of their Church in things indifferent and where the Word of God doth not forbid obedience but command it This briefly touching the generall exceptions Popish Superstitious Idolatrous Antichristian As for the particular exception That in our Liturgy all prayer praise and thanksgiving is in a set Form a device of mans not the command of God a muzling of the Ministers spirit a nurse of idlenesse and means of neglecting the gifts and graces of God c. We must consider 1. That there is not any expresse Scripture against set Forms of prayer and therefore the use of it is not against any expresse command of God 2. All Christian Churches thorowout the world as well the Greek and Eastern where Popery never raigned as these our Western Churches when once they attained a setled Government have in all ages served God in set Forms of Divine Service yea even the reformed Churches beyond Sea use some set Forms And for our set Liturgy if any man lift to be contentious against it we can truely say It is the Custome of our Church and also of the Churches of God and then the depravers of it will prove to be despisers of Authority and advancers of their own private judgement against the Universall Judgment of the Church Catholique 3 Under the Law there were set Forms of publike Confessions Thanksgivings Blessings c. which being no part of the Ceremoniall is warrant enough for Christians to use the like 4. The Psalms of David which as they abound with all those necessary parts of Gods publike service confession of sins prayers Praise and Thanksgiving so especially with Prayer many of them having that Title A Prayer they were not onely used publikely by both the Jewes Church and the Christians but were penned to that end and dedicated to the Priests that had the Office of praising God and were most excellent in those kindes of Musick to which they were set and the most excellent passages of praise and prayer in them had the word Selah added to them to the end that in the publike use of them those passages might be iterated and said or sung over again Also our Saviour himself having given us one Form of set Prayer which he bids When ye pray Say and not at all forbidden the use of set Forms makes it out of question that to pray in a given Form is lawfull so the Form be good And what doubt we but when John Baptist taught his Disciples to pray he did it by giving them some Form which our Saviours Apostles liking desired to have the like from him and our Saviour we see did not so much give them Precepts and Rules instructing them how to make prayers of their own though his Prayer hath that office too but gave them a perfect prayer in an exact conceived Form how much should men fear that their conscience offended at the use of set prayer without the Light of Gods Word declaring it to be unlawfull are consciences blinded with superstition afraid where no fear is and their consciences not onely darkened but their hearts also seduced with self-conceit and singularity unto perverse and affected contention with the Church 5. While they pretend to be free Ministers from a supposed restraint put upon their spirits by the use of set Forms they lay a reall restraint upon the spirits of all Congregations who being always perfect in the Contents and use of their set prayers do with prepared hearts

and spirits attend the publike and joynt presenting of their known supplications to God for those mercies and graces which the Church by those Forms declares all men to stand in need of and every ones particular spirit attesteth to be necessary for him But if all Congregations which God forbid should be deprived of the use of them every man shall go to Church bound in the spirit and know not what supplications he shall make to God till the mouth of the Minister shall declare it and then the single Minister whatsoever his gifts or faculties be shall determine of the devotion of the whole Congregation and conclude them all that they shall make no publike Invocation of God neither for matter nor form otherwise than as his spirit and perhaps sudden conceit shall minister unto him 6. When all the Service of the Church shall stand onely upon the strength and gifts of the Preachers and they differing in gifts one from another it will inevitably follow That those of the best gifts will more draw disciples after them than ever and men will become followers of men when they shall have no other means of publike communion with God either to hear him or to speak unto him than onely by the gifts of the Preacher and so the Church shall against Gods Word be necessarily drawn into Sectarism and Division 7. Lastly If we change our set Forms of D●vine Worship into the various and arbitrary service that is to be performed by the Minister onely among many evills not now to be foreseen there is to be feared that when men shall have known no other publike exercise of Religion than by the Preachers arbitrary administration and that he be generally beh●ld as the onely Minister of the spirit of publike service and prayer the consciences of men thenceforth subdued to an awfull dependance on him shall finde the Ministers like the Jesuites through the Soveraignty they hold in matters of Religion to exercise an externall dominion over their fortunes also and set on foot a more dangerous tyranny in Religion than hitherto the Church hath ever known And if their opposition to set Forms of publike Service and to what is used in the Church of Rome shall proceed so far as to reject the publike reading of the Scripture eight severall Lessons or portions of which are now by Gods mercifull providence dayly or at least every Sunday and holy-day publikely read in the Church then shall our Church of England by an ill-guided meaning to oppose the Church of Rome come to imitate her and towards her children commit the same cruelty that we justly condemn the Church of Rome for using towards hers who though she suffer her Layicks to hear the Word preached yet suffers them not to hear in their own Tongue the powerfull Word of God read unto them and we as well as the Romanists shall toward those that cannot or are carelesse to reade even wholly take away the means which our pious Mother the Church hath ordained for their conversion And whereas such publike reading of Gods lively and powerfull Word is no mean degree of Preaching we shall in an important part suppresse the Word of God and through disuse of frequent hearing breed a generall unacquaintednesse with the Precepts and Stories of the Scripture which will in time hinder both the understanding and applying of that which shall be preached We need not further seek to give particular answer to every quarrell that is now made against severall parts and passages of our Liturgy But when kneeling at the receit of the Sacrament is so agreeable to the religious performance of that Duty and yet is quarrelled with we cannot in silence passe it over For when want of due preparation is dangerous yet is not performed without humiliation contrition abhorring ones self forgiving others turning to them in all charitable affections thirsting for grace and fervent invocation of the Divine Majesty for them how can we perform these rightly without the lowliest prostration of soul and body that one can solicite God withall Will we say It should be done before but not at our receiving It is true it ought to be begun before but he that can so approve of his preparation before as to cease and say I have done enough he is rather to fear his presumption than to rest in such preparation he perhaps makes a popish opus operatum of his preparation and cries peace before there is peace nor can he say kneeling is an unfit posture to receive that grace in which is fittest to be begged on our knees Will we say kneeling is Idolatry to the Bread and Wine We must then shew that it is commanded to be done to the Bread and Wine or intended so or at least by Protestants abused so if none of those be but it be commanded only as the proper expression of the reverence and humiliation belonging to the duty then is the exception not onely without cause but slanderous and malicious Will we say That in the Institution of it our Saviour made not the disciples kneel True but let us also confesse that the disciples had the Bride-groom with them who though he were their Lord yet called them friends and admitted them to a liberty sutable We will not I am sure say the Sacrament is now to be celebrated in all things as it was then and no otherwise and if in any thing there be liberty of receding from what was done at first whose judgement shall we trust what we must hold and what we may recede from if not the Judgement and Practice of the Universall Church from the first to this present And if indeed we would observe the first Institution Why spurn we at receiving it together at the Table for so the the disciples did And Saint Paul calls it the partaking of the Table of the Lord and David The preparing of a Table for us Truely the receiving every one or every family apart by themselves in their seats ●uits not with observing of Communion nor coming together to eat nor eating together into one Body but savours of singularity and inconformablenesse to the observance of a true Eucharist It is not to be expected we should here examine all the dissentitions in Religion that are among us But seeing that in generall they are the quarrells of particular men for exercise of Religion in wayes either besides or contrary to the established Ordinances and usage of our Church in which yet they can neither charge the Church with violating the Word of God nor shew by the judgement of the Church Catholike that their own exercise of Religion is that which by the Word of God is only to be taught and practised It will not be unnecessary to represent to further search and consideration how much some passages of Gods Word too little examined by us are pertinent to the decision of these matters For Whereas true Christianity is a perfect Catholicisme and