Selected quad for the lemma: honour_n
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A41591
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An amicable accommodation of the difference between the representer and the answerer in return to his last reply against the papist protesting against Protestant popery.
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Gother, John, d. 1704.
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1686
(1686)
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Wing G1325A; ESTC R201691
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19,896
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44
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them or no They profess'd a hatred to Image-worship in the beginning for the more plausibly turning the Papists out of doors when they pursu'd them with the Commination in their old Common-Prayer-Books of Cursed be all Worshippers of Images but afterwards succeeding to the Errors of the Papists as well as to their Revenues they no longer dar'd to curse the Worshippers of Images knowing the Curse would light upon their own Heads but instead of that reform'd their Prayers and have it now Cursed are ye Idolaters 4. They worship Saints and Angels For see Beloved besides the building Churches to the Honour of their Names and setting up their Pictures in them which are as great external Acts of Worship and Religion as can be they likewise set Days apart to honour them as God has his Day set apart they command their Vigils to be kept and have Prayers in their Honour not questioning but that they can Pray for as many as they know upon Earth Nay they likewise pray for and depend upon their Assistance Help and Protection but especially of the Angels as you may see in their Common-Prayer Books where on the Day of Michael they beg to be defended by the Angels as if God who is Almighty were not able to defend them that they should thus seek shelter under the Angels Wings Is not this to leave God and his Christ and to make Gods of Creatures Oh! such abomination as this is not to be endured 't is intolerable Beloved For these Churches in their honour Days in their honour Images in their honour and Prayers in their honour is paying to them Divine Honours 't is worshipping them as Gods For mark ye now all Civil Honour is terminated on the visible things of this World and we have no intercourse with the invisible Inhabitants of the other World but what is Religious now if all Worship of invisible Beings is Divine and Religious Worship what abominable Idolatry are our blind Brethren faln into who by this Religious Worship make as many Gods as there are Angels and Saints in Heaven 5. They practice Idolatry again in receiving the Sacrament for though they allow this to be only Bread and Wine yet they pay it Religious Worship and honour it as God by falling down to it on their Knees They may say they do not this to the Bread and Wine But what must we not believe our Senses in so plain a Case Do we not see them do it with our Eyes And let them pretend what they please their Practice is the best explication of their Belief 6. They use a Book of Prayers which is nothing but a ship of the Mass 'T was call'd a Mass-Book when it came first to light and tho' it has since reform'd its Name for the better imposing upon poor Souls yet the Nature of it is still the same The Epistles and Gospels and Collects and Litanies and Hymns are nothing but Terms of Babylon And pray now what are the Vigils Ember-days Rogation-days Ashwednesday Epiphany Sexagesima Quinquagesima Septuagesima is not all this the Language of the Beast Yea Beloved from the abundance of the Heart the Mouth speaketh as their Language is such is their very Heart and Soul they delight in an unknown Tongue and one may as well understand the Mass as this Language of the Common-Prayer Book Then look in the Calendar of the Common-Prayer and there you 'l find the Mass-Saints stand in their Order March shews you Gregory the Pope and Benedict the Monk April has George that kill'd the Dragon the follow Dunstan that catch'd the Devil by the Nose and stickl'd for the Celebacy of the Clergy and Augustin that brought Popery into this Nation and thus their Saints are listed as in the Mass-Book and as the Demy-Gods were in the Calendar of the Heathens Then if you listen to them in this their Devotion you will not think them to be an Assembly of Christians but rather a Confusion of Misbelievers of all sorts of Infidels met in a Club There you 'l hear them with the Persians crying out to the Sun with the Aegyptians to the Whale to all the Fishes and Beasts with the Chaldeans to the Fire with the Syrians to the Birds and with the Papists too to Ananias Azarias and Misael Dead Men Men that cannot hear them and this in all their Churches as if these their Saints were like God himself present in all Places And this Devotion is call'd the Canticle of Benedicite taken out of the Apocrypha which with them you may see passes for very good Scripture So that the whole Common-Prayer Book if not worse is nothing but the Mass-Book in English And all the difference is that the Missal is of an Ancient standing us'd even in Basil and Chrysostom's time But our Common-Prayer Book never knew light till 't was devis'd under Edward VI. And how many Alterations has it had in this time Some made by King Edward himself some by Queen Elizabeth and several others since Nay have we not seen Prayers added to this Book in Thanksgiving for the Discovery of and Deliverance from a Plot which now every considering Man has reason to believe to have been no more than a Chimera and the Invention of Bad Men 7. They make Gods of Men attributing to them a Power of Forgiving Sins the incommunicable Attribute of the Almighty and this is plain in their Liturgy in which their Priests are order'd to give Absolution to Sinners 8. They encourage a Death-bed Repentance permitting their Members to live as extravagantly as they please all the time of their Health and not a word of Confess and Repent but when Death is waiting for them at their Beds-Head They have a Power to give Absolution they say and their never enjoyning it but in the last Agony is Argument enough to conclude there 's no obligation of Repenting amongst them till Death looks 'em in the Face 9. They know not what their Belief is touching this Power of Absolution Some of their Divines affirm That the Sentence by which Absolution is given to the Penitent is an Absolute and Definitive Sentence judicially absolving him from the Guilt of his Offences Others of their Doctors say That the Form of Absolution is Declarative rather than Absolute and think it a rashness to pronounce a Definitive Sentence in Gods Name And thus tho' their Faith be all pretended to be according to the Word of God yet 't is wonderful hard to know what it is and whilst they thus disagree amongst themselves how can any embrace their Creed who know not what they believe themselves 10. They dispense with Vows and dissolve the Obligation of such as are made even to God himself Thus you see when any Priest Jesuit or Fryar comes over to their Church tho' they have solemnly vow'd their Virginity to God and promised to the Almighty never to Marry yet they are no sooner made a Member of this Reform'd Congregation
Beloved out of the Swing of his Tail Oh he has a long Tail Beloved a long Tail and do ye mark me now there 's as much Poison in his Tail as in his very Teeth I must explicate to you this Mystery The Dragon's Seat is upon the Top of the Hills and the poor Papists lie under his very Nose There are some others who have had thoughts of withdrawing themselves from this Place of Iniquity and have stepp'd a little aside but could never yet bid Adieu to their Captivity and these are such who call themselves Men of the Church of England who tho' they have retir'd a little from the Top of the Hill and are got from under the Dragon's Feet yet they are not the half-way down but stick in the way and are as much under the Power of the Dragon as if they were under his very Belly For mark ye Beloved he has such a Sweep with his Tail that as many as are on the Sides of the Hills are still under his Command and breath nothing but the Air of the Dragon Smell to 'em a little my dearest Saints and you 'l soon perceive them rank with Popery and that their Delight is in the Fopperies and Abominations of the Whore and their Marks are the Marks of the Beast For see what they are behold their Character Beloved 1. They allow and maintain an intolerable Pride in their Prelates setling on them large Revenues and State contrary to the Example of the Apostles who were poor and humble and by the Work of their Hands got Bread for themselves and their poor Neighbours And these Prelates are verily nothing but Popish Prelates and are commanded by their Church to wear the Miter and the Crosier and the Cope the most solemn Rags of the Whore and tho' they generally dissemble this Popery in their Life-time excepting only on their Coaches so to try if they can gain us yet you may see their Claim to it at their Death there being scarce any of 'um buried but with the Miter and Crosier on their Tombs 2. They make Gods of Dead Men erecting Churches in their Honour and Dedicating them to their Names Nay they honour them more than God himself of the Hundred and thirty seven Parish-Churches of the Weekly-Bill of London there being only Five in Honour of Christ or the Blessed Trinity And how much they honour the Virgin Mary more than Christ you may see in the same Weekly Bills in which Mary has Nineteen Churches Dedicated to her Name and Christ only Three And is not this to place Mary above Christ and to make a Goddess of her Is not this to worship her more than God For what more Sovereign and Divine Honour can there possibly be paid to any than to raise Temples and Churches to their Names This is an Honour and Worship to which all others of Bowing Kneeling and Praying are much inferiour For these Actions we lawfully use to Creatures we Bow and Kneel to our Prince and by humble Petitions beg his Assistance But to build Temples and Churches to the Honour and Name of any Creature is Blasphemy and Idolatry 't is to make Gods of them and nothing better than an Imitation of the Heathens And therefore as they had their Temples Dedicated to their Demy-Gods Hercules Vespasian Trajan and Diana c. so amongst our Brethren you see one Temple rais'd to Martin another to Dennis another to Bennet another to Catherine For this the Papists were Idolaters and for this the Church of England are Idolaters and this Idolatry they inherit of the Papists for tho' these Churches were built first by the Papists yet the Church of England rais'd them out of their Ashes and rebuilt them with the same Titles Invocations and Dedications 3. They teach and practise Idolatry on another account and that is their Image-Idolatry For tho' they pretended an hatred to Images for some years yet that was only Dissimulation For now at last they speak plain and have given that Abomination a place in every Leaf of their Bibles They may pretend they do not honour and respect them as the Papists do but this is only before us Schismaticks for believe me my Flock in Christ they honour them in their Hearts more than the rankest Papist in the World For I appeal to you now be you Judges What greater Honour can there be imagin'd than to give a thing place even in the very Word of God You understand very well that to place an Image in the Throne of a King is to give it Kingly Honour and to place it in the Imperial Seat is to give it Imperial Honour What then Beloved is it to place Images and Pictures in the Bible in the very Word of God but to give them Divine Honour and to respect them as Gods For certainly the Word of God is of God and all Divine and to give any Image place there is the greatest Argument of Sovereign Honour and open acknowledgment of its Divinity But this is not all my Brethren for besides this Abomination of thus honouring Images and Pictures they likewise Pray to their Pictures as you may see them in their most solemn Devotion of the Common Prayer For they have them not only on the Walls in some Churches but look but over their Shoulders and you 'l see them in the very heat of their Devotion under their very Eyes in the Leaves of their Common-Prayer Books Nay their Altars have their Images too and this in a more prophane manner than the Papists for these have none but Images of Christ of the Apostles and their Followers and if any were tolerable it ought to be These at a Christian Altar but to throw down these of Christ and set up Moses and Aaron in the place is an Idolatry beyond all Excuse God hid Moses's Body and they set up his Likeness over their Altars And mark ye now Beloved how all this is in defiance to the Commandment of God For the Lord has said Thou shalt not make to thy self any Graven Image nor the Likeness of any thing in Heaven above or in the Earth beneath So that did they not honour worship or pray to these Pictures yet the very Making them is expresly forbidden by God And let their Intention be what it will in so doing 't is certain there 's no Intention can alter the Nature of Actions which are determin'd by a Divine Law For then Men might Murder or Steal or Forswear themselves and yet avoid the Guilt of such Actions by intending to do no Evil in them 'T is therefore a very prophane Absurdity Beloved to see the Commandments set up in Churches in order to the keeping them and yet with Moses and Aaron on each side which is a flat Contradiction to the very Second of them which says Thou shalt not make the Likeness of any thing in Heaven above c. What think you now my Brethren do these Men love Images and worship