Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	aaron_n	bless_v	defence_n	456	3	9.7158	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89681	An apology for the discipline of the ancient Church: intended especially for that of our mother the Church of England: in answer to the Admonitory letter lately published. By William Nicolson, archdeacon of Brecon.	Nicholson, William, 1591-1672.	1658 (1658)	Wing N1110; Thomason E959_1; ESTC R203021	282,928	259

pious performances as stinted worship Quiristers singing of Psalms with all the Rubrique postures I could forgive you the rest because you acknowledge these performances to be pious for if they had piety in them I see no reason why you or any body else have cause to note them for corruptions But when I came to this place I entred into debate with my self which part of Solomons counsel I should take whether I should answer or not answer Not to answer Dr. Bancroft Featly Hammond Fulke Taylour Hooker Prideaux Preston might give you occasion to boast I could not And to answer was to say over again that which hath been so often sayd by worthy and learned men whom if you have not consulted you are to blame and I wish you would if you have and are not satisfied I fear my labour will be lost However I shall set before you what they have said before me And first I shall speak to your stinted worship 1. And here give me leave first to ask you to what you referre this word stinted whether you strictly restrain it to the word worship or to the Spirit by which we are to worship If to the first I see you are against all set forms of worship if to the last that you think the Spirit is restrained by these set forms And because both are said by your party I shall answer to both and to the last first These conceiv'd forms are either premeditate or extempore if premeditate then the Spirit is as much limited in their conceiv'd forms as by any forme conceiv'd by the Church But if extempore then the Spirit only of him that makes the prayer is left at liberty for the whole Congregation is by that means as much stinted and bound to a set forme to wit of those words the Minister conceivs as if he read them out of a book And is not the Spirit restrain'd when the Congregation shall be confined to the forme of this one mans composing If this be not stinted worship if this be not to stint the Spirit I know not what it is And I can see but one way to avoid it that every one in the Congregation conceive and offer up a prayer with his own spirit and not be forced and confin'd to the Ministers single dictate this would preserve entirely that liberty of the Spirit you pretend that other will not To this if you will not yield as I know you will not it lies upon you to answer the objection which I never saw yet done 2. As for set forms of prayer which I conceive you principally intend by stinted worship I shall next endeavour to justifie them upon many grounds 1. In the old Testament we find set forms of blessing and thanksgiving and prayers appointed by God himself He it was that fram'd to his Priests the very words with which they were to blesse the people Numb 6.23.24 25 26. Numb 10.35.36 2 Chron. 29.30 Exod. 15. Selden in Eutychium Speak to Aaron and his Sonnes saying in this wise shall ye blesse the people The Lord blesse and keep thee c. At the remove of the Arke a forme is set and taught the Priests exurgat Deus dissipentur inimici At the Arks return a form Return O Lord into thy resting place Hezekiah prescribed to the Priests to sing praise to the Lord with the words of David and Asaph the Seer Moses Hymn for the overthrow of Pharaoh is extant and in the same chapter taken up and sung by Miriam which afterward grew a part of the Jewish ordinary Church Liturgy for such they had being instituted by Ezra and the Consistory What should I tell you that the 92. Psalm is a Psalm compos'd for the Sabbath The 20. Psalm to be sung by the people when the King went forth to battaile The 113. to the 118. the great Hallelujah 13. whole Psalms or as some say 15. viz. from 119. to 134. Songs of degrees Moller Ames Musculut in Ps 21. because upon every one of the steps which were 15. betwixt the peoples court and the Temple the Priests made a stay and sung one of these Psalms and the 21. Psalm composed by David to be sung by the people for the King when he came home with victory Yea but say some this was in the infancy and minority of the Church as children then they needed their Festra's as infirm bodies their crutches but now under the Gospel it is otherwise we have more light and gifts of the Spirit than they had True more light we have because the Mystery kept secret from the beginning of the world is more clearly revealed to us then it was to them but that 's not the question prove they should if they speak to the purpose that we have now more ability to compose a prayer then they had more of the Spirit of Grace and supplications Men may have a high conceit of their own abilities but I suppose no wise man will conceive but that Aaron and his sonnes Moses and the Priests Hezekiah and the Levites had as great an ability to pray ex tempore as great a measure of the Spirit of grace and supplications as any man that now lives and yet they used and prescribed set forms Their minority then was in respect of the object of faith not in respect of the spirit of supplications These men therefore shew themselves children to talke of Festra's and cripples in their understanding to talk of crutches since those mens legs were far stronger then theirs and their graces of the Spirit far beyond any Enthusiasts in these days We may think of these forms as meanly as we please but Chrysostome was of another judgement Chrysost Hom. 1. of prayer for thus he begins one of his Homilies of prayer For two reasons it becomes Gods servants to wonder and blesse him both for the hope we have in their prayers and that preserving in writing the Hymns and Orisons they offer'd to God with fear and joy they have deliver'd to us their treasure that so they might draw all posterity to their zeale and imitation Yea but the Spirit must teach us to pray it helps all our infirmities 't is the promise of God to his Church I will poure upon them the Spirit of Grace and supplications Zach. 12.10 And all this may be done in a set forme as well as by any extempore prayer True it is the Spirit must teach us to pray both for matter and forme for we know not what to ask and must teach us how to pray for we know not how to ask zeal and fervour and faith and perseverance and importunity all necessary affections in every supplicant are gifts of the Spirit and groans and sighs proceed from the Spirit he moves the heart first to supplicate brings a man to see in what a wretched case he is one that by his sins hath pierced the Son of God therefore to deprecate ask pardon deprecentur

observ'd That there hath been more haughtinesse horrour absurdity boldnesse found in some of your Pastours then you can exemplifie in any Arch-bishop If among you or us any Prelate were guilty of these foul enormities I excuse him not only object not these faults of particular persons till you be free But how do you prove your aspersion by a demonstrative reason no question It was say you in daring out of base and blasphemous blindnesse to take up and ascribe to its self such a stile and title as is not communicable to any creature c. To this I have given you your answer before and I list not to repeat it The rest of this Section I understand not well not your interrogation who is that Minister what was his name where doth he dwell c. To the Arch-Bishop sure they belong not for none that I know that was ever in that place did conceive himself in a capacity to be accounted such a superlative counsellour or comforter that was endued either with ability or authority as to conferre a spiritual Crown on any one of the sincere Elders of the Church Among us there never was nor never will be any such man if you can finde him in the society of your Combinationals you should do well to name him for to us he is a non ens These words therefore I passe by as I would the noise of a sounding brasse or a tinkling Cymbal that make a great disturbance in the eare but signifie just nothing The words of the Letter FOurthly was it not Christs own hand that did poure out a dreadful Vial of visible vengeance upon the Cathedral Church where the Lordly Diocesan was not so much the idle as the addle head which therefore under that notion was not venerable nor tolerable because of its direct and point-blank opposition unto divers and down-right peremptory prohibitions as Mat. 20.26 Ye know that the Lords of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them but with you it shall not be so c. 1 Pet. 5. Feed the flock of God which depends on you not as though you were Lords over Gods heritage Which Royal Laws do testifie all such lofty Lords and Lordlesse Out-Lawes to be such illegal and irregular livers as that their unhallowed dwellings appear to be long since destined and appointed for hedg-hoggs to house and harbour at yea for Iim and Ohim with the wild Satyrs to dance in and for Owles and Vultures to dung●on being afraid of none to drive them away thus verifying that terrible threat to be performed and fulfilled at length which was proph sied of old witnesse what is written Isa 13.19 c. The Reply We are ready to acknowledge more than you can say that Christs hand hath fallen heavy upon us that the vengeance is just visible Rev. 16.5 7. and with the Angel of the Waters at the pouring forth the third Vial we are ready to praise him saying Thou art righteous O Lord which art and wast and shall be because thou hast judged thus and to eccho unto you those words from the other Angel out of the Sanctuary even so Lord God Almighty true and righteous are thy judgments Verse 10.11 For whereas that Antichristian train under the Throne of the Beast blasphemed the God of heaven for their pains and for their sores and repented not of their works we under the Crosse blesse God and are heartily sorry for our misdoings For this is a true difference betwixt the servants of God and Vassals of Antichrist that under Gods severe hand the one blesseth Jer. 5.3 1 Tim. 3.13 Bernard in Cant. 26. Serm. the other blasphemeth the one rejoyceth the other rageth the one repents and amends the other goes on and growes worse and worse Stellae nocte splendent quae die non videntur And we have hope in this our sorrow and amendment that God may yet stay his hand and not make us drink the dregs of the Cup. For remember that this plague was poured out of a Vial which is a certain measure and more or lesse he can dispense of it Jonah 3.9 as he pleaseth Insult not then over us in our misery For who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not 2. But whereas you say this Vial was poured out on the Cathedral 't is true but you must prove that it was poured out upon it quatenus or because it was Cathedral or else your censure is uncharitable and rash For many enormities and misdemeanours there might be in the Cathedral which I excuse not that might cause God in his fierce wrath thus to proceed against her and yet she no way guilty quatenus Cathedral God punisheth his servant David the sword shall not depart from his house for the matter of Vriah but was this heavy judgment inflicted on him because he was King of Israel The punishment overtook him for his sin not for his regality his power was justifiable not his wickednesse and God shewed his anger against his sinne not his Crown The case is the same the Cathedral I grant was sinful and for that God proceeded against it but not in that Notion as Cathedral for that was justifiable as I have before proved unto you It is then a great shortnesse of discourse in you to conclude that as Cathedral it was punished which if you conclude not you conclude nothing since this vengeance proceeded against the sin of the Cathedral not the Church 3. Of this Cathedral you joy that the lordly Diocesan was not so much an idle as an addle head I little doubt but you pleased your self with this paranomasia as much as the Mathematician did with his Diagramme for the invention of which he offered to Jupiter a whole Hecatombe But what now were these qualities proper or common to the Diocesan if common then it is possible that the Pastour of a Combinational Church may be an idle and an addle head as well as the Diocesan because common accidents are communicable to subjects of divers kinds if proper then it must agree omni to every Diocesan and so every Diocesan an idle and an addle head Cranmer Ridly Latimer Hooper idle and addle heads Jewel Armagh Andrews Morton White Montague Bilson both the Abbots all those eminent and learned Bishops of our Church that have stood up in the gap and fought the battels of the Lord against that Goliah of Rome idle and addle heads Do you not blush at these obloquies by which you impute idlenesse to them who wore out their bodies in continual study and labour in defence of the Truth and addleness such as in a rotten egge to such whose names say you what you please will be venerable to posterity for their wisdome and constancy You usually call all yours painful Preachers and yet what is their pains more then that of the lungs since by your own principles they may not take