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	moses_n	speak_v	10,234	5	5.6402	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44141	A correct copy of some letters written to J.M., a nonconformist teacher concerning the gift and forms of prayer by Matthew Hole ...	Hole, Matthew, 1639 or 40-1730.; J. M. (John Moore), 1641 or 2-1717.	1698 (1698)	Wing H2408; ESTC R19302	77,888	204

is but another word for the same thing and yet I suppose they had as little need of them as you or any body else We find the Disciples of Christ confessing their own Impotence and saying They knew not how or what to Pray for as they ought And Christ gave them a Form of found Words with which he would have them go to their Heavenly Father He doth not say Use this Form till you have better Gifts and your Legs be grown stronger but absolutely and indefinitely When you Pray say Our Father c. Luke 11.2 And the Christian Church hath observ'd and done so ever since Will you say or think that all before you have gone upon Crutches and that you only have arrived to that sure-footing as to be able to lay them aside and go without them This farther shews what a fine Conceit you have of yourself But I think you had better rely upon those Crutches which Christ made and his Apostles used than stand too much upon your own Legs And now I think you may easily see that these fine Fetches of yours have more of Pride than Argument in them But there is one thing more which must be considered in this place and that is you say That God must be served with the best you have And you say true but 't was not so wisely done to contradict it again and say That God is better serv'd with the Incongruities and Barbarisms of Conceived Prayer than the more Elegant and Exact Composure of well-digested Forms I hope Sir you will not say that Nonsense and Incongruities are better or more acceptable to God than proper and well-order'd Sense But this is another of your Incongruities And yet you quote St. Austin for it That where the Heart is sound God accepts a few Solecisms and Barbarisms in Prayer c. Indeed where these are the best that we have or can get God accepts according to what a Man hath and not according to what a Man hath not But where the Church hath made better provision for us 1 Cor. 8.12 he will not away with such blind and lame Sacrifices Mal. 1.13 And having in our Flock a Male will not be put off with a Corrupt thing In short Sir you may easily perceive that you have as much need of these Spectacles as other Men to help the Weakness of your Sight in these matters And the Lameness of your Arguments as well as Prayers may call upon you to make use of these Crutches With which therefore you may do well to furnish your self with all speed Your loud and frequent Out-cries about silencing so many brave Men for not using Forms of Prayer shall be heard and considered in my next In the mean time I am SIR Your affectionate Friend and Servant M. H. LETTER XII To J. M. SIR WE are yet upon the Injunction of Forms of Prayer for publick Worship against which you have Two farther Exceptions the one that it hath silenced many hundred of able and painful Ministers and deprived the Church of their Labours the other that it hath set up and encouraged a lazy Ministry in their room A heavy Charge indeed But let us see how it 's made out First then you say that the Enjoyning of Forms hath stopt the Mouth of many able and painful Ministers and struck many Hundreds of them Dumb at one clap Well! But how was this done I hope here was no violence used in stopping their Mouths and forcing them to perpetual Silence no 't was their own voluntary Refusal of those publick Prayers which many of them had used themselves and most of them judged lawful to be used and all of them might have used if they pleas'd Why then it seems they Silenced themselves and made it their own Choice and what reason have they to complain of their own Act But 't was the Enjoyning these Prayers that made them unlawful and hindred their Compliance with them How so What could the Enjoyning a lawful thing alter its Nature and make it Sinful Is there such a Malignity in the Power of Superiours as to Poyson a good Action and turn it into Evil meerly by Commanding it I hope Sir you have better thoughts of the higher Powers than so To state this Matter aright Was this Injunction made by good and sufficient Authority and was there wise and good Reason for the making of it Yes it was done by our lawful Superiours both in Church and State And that too to preserve Order and Unity and to put a stop to those Swarms of Sects and Schisms which the Liberty of free Prayer had brought in Why it seems then they were Silenced by Law and such a one too as they might and ought to have obey'd Where is the Fault then of stopping the Mouths of Gainsayers and putting to Silence the Ignorance of foolish Men Besides is it not the Will of God that Men shall pay a due Reverence and Obedience to all lawful Commands of our Superiours who have the rule over us in the Lord Did not God cause the Earth to open its Mouth and Silence those that spake against Moses and Aaron Numb 16.32 who all perished in the gainsaying of Korah Do we not read of some whose Mouths must be kept with Bit and Bridle Psal 32.9 lest they shall fall upon thee And have not many fallen upon their Governours this way speaking Evil of the Rulers of the People and Slandering the Footsteps of Gods Anointed And does not the Apostle speak of some unruly and vain Talkers and Deceivers Tit. 1.10 whose Mouths must be stopt And is not this the case of all such as speak and act against good Orders So then for ought I can find These Men are silenced by the Law of God as well as Man for Christ himself hath commanded that if any neglect to hear the Church Mat. 18.17 that is to obey the good Orders of it he must be thrust out of it and be esteemed but as a Heathen Man and a Publican Where then is the Hardship in the Case Why you say Governours are to Rule not by Constraint but Willingly But what if some are unwilling to be ruled If the sense of Duty will not constrain them must there be no restraint laid upon their Disobedience What then will become of Government Will not this leave every one to do what is right in their own Eyes Sit down Sir and consider this But you will have me consider the hard Terms that were put upon these Men in order to their Conformity I shall Sir Why then First They were required to give their unfeigned Assent and Consent to all that is used in the Publick Prayers of the Church or else they must hold their Tongues And is not this very fit think you that Men should assent to the Truth and consent to the use of what is duly established Would you have them say one thing in the Service of God and think

you Sir be too positive in that For when Christ taught his Disciples to Pray he did it in these Words When you Pray say Our Father c. which is a plain Command to use these Words or this Form And 't is to think unbecomingly of the Apostles that when our Saviour taught them what to say they should be so little observant and dutiful to their Master as to neglect the Form he taught them and to prefer their Own Words before His especially when thy were so sensible of their own Inability to Pray aright So that by your leave Sir I believe that Christ did take Liberty to Enjoyn a Form of Prayer and that the Apostles and Christian Church understood him so by the constant use of that Form ever since But tho' Christ might well enough do this how does it appear say you that ever the Apostles assumed any Power of enjoyning these things 'T is certain Sir they assumed some power of enjoyning as appears by their Injunction of Abstaining from things offered to Idols and from Blood and from things strangled Acts 15.20 And I think both they and the Christian Church had and still have as much Power to enjoyn a set Form of Prayer as any of those things Yea 't is more than probable that the Apostles did exercise a Power even in this thing for we find them frequently requiring Christians to keep close to the Form of sound Words 2 Tim. 1.13 Which for ought you know might among other things comprehend the Lord's Prayer which having learnt of Christ themselves they were willing to have it learnt and kept to by all Christians Does not St. Paul will the Corinthians To mind and speak the same things 1 Cor. 1.10 in the Worship of God And how could that be without some Form of Publick Worship to joyn and agree in Again does not he command the Philippians To walk by the same Rule Phil. 3.16 Which no doubt was set and prescribed for else they could not tell how to walk by it These things we often find them pressing and enjoyning too upon the Consciences of Men which was all they could do at that time when the Secular Power was against them But assoon as the Emperours became Christians their Successors call'd in the Aid of the Temporal Power to ratify and enforce them But Forms of Prayer say you may be of excellent use and sit to be enjoyned too in Times of Ignorance and Darkness when Men can neither know nor do better And such you say was the Time when our Liturgy was compos'd but now the Meridian Light of the Gospel shines out so bright upon us there can be no such need or use of them I fear Sir this Meridian Light of yours if well look'd into will prove no better than Cimmerian Darkness You are not the first that have taken Darkness for Light the Church of Laodicea thought themselves rich and abounding in Knowledg when all the while they were poor and miserable blind and naked And I find you who no doubt think your self encompass'd with Rays somewhat in the dark as to the Nature and Gift of Prayer by placing that in the Ability of Expressions which should be put in the inward Desires and Devotion of the Heart But Thanks be to God you are pretty well coming out of it for you own it improperly plac'd in the former and there is some hope you may in time find out the proper place of it and put it in the latter But may not this be reckon'd another Instance of your Vanity and Self-conceit to think that you who cast off Forms of Prayer are in the highest Form of Christians and like the Israelites in the Land of Goshen surrounded with a Glorious and Meridian Light While others that use them are in a lower rank and like the Egyptians wrapt in black and thick Darkness You will never do well Sir till you subdue this Pride and learn to speak and think more humbly and modestly of your selves But you have two fine Similies which I find you very much insisting and relying upon though they are at best but the feeble Supports of decay'd Nature and I fear will prove but the weak Props of a sinking Cause and they are Spectacles and Crutches Concerning which give me leave to present you with a wise Observation of a Great Man viz. That there is nothing more poor in Learning than a fine and handsome Similitude when it hath no Truth to rest upon for the best that can be said of it is That it 's a pretty fine thing if it were to the purpose However let us see what use you make of them First then you ask What need have they to use Spectacles that have good Eyes of their own that is in plain terms What need have they to use Forms that can do well enough without them But pray Sir had not the Apostles and Primitive Christians as good Eyes in their Heads as most Men and yet they had those Spectacles appointed for them and used them too For when Christ taught them to Pray he gave them a Form Luke 11.2 And can you think them so unthankful as to lay it aside and say they could see well enough without such Spectacles Sure the Apostles who had their natural Sight assisted and elevated by the Light of Divine Revelation could see as far and as deep into things as any now-a-days and yet we find them acknowledging That they saw through a Glass darkly 1 Cor. 13.12 i. e. as some render it Through Spectacles And if such Quick-sighted persons stood in need of such Glasses to help their Eye-sight certainly now the World is grown older and more dim-sighted there is none may disdain to use them But you will still be setting up your self as a Spectacle of Pride and Folly in pretending to higher Attainments than any went before you not considering that these things were enjoined when Men were endow'd with as great Gifts and Graces as any can now pretend to and are still used by Men of far greater Abilities than they who think they have no need of them But you have another fine Simile and ask Why such should be forc'd to use Crutches that can stand and go upon their own Legs You compared Forms of Prayer before to Spectacles the Weakness whereof is now so obvious that any ordinary Eye may see through it and now you compare them to Crutches which a Man would be glad to hang up and lay aside as soon as he may And here you magnify the strength of your own Legs and tell me That you and some others that you know can go on well enough in this Duty without such Helps But pray Sir be not too bold nor trust too much to your own Legs but take St. Pauls Advice Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall 1 Cor. 10.12 We saw before that the Apostles used these Spectacles and we may see them using these Crutches too which