Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A34136
|
Common-prayer-book devotions, episcopal delusions, or, The Second death of the service-book wherein the unlawfulness (with advantage) of the imposition of liturgies ... is clearly and plainly demonstrated from the Scriptures ...
|
C. W.
|
1666
(1666)
|
Wing C5572; ESTC R35602
|
67,445
|
80
|
correspondence any light or loose behaviour with known Adulterers or persons strongly suspected of that Wickedness Under the Law God strictly prohibited such things unto his People which were in themselves lawful enough though not necessary because they were observed by their idolatrous Neighbours See read consider and compare at leisure Levit. 19.27 28. 21.5 6. Deut. 14.1 2. with Isa 15.2 Jer. 48.37 9.26 25.23 49.32 according to the import of the Original noted in the margent of your larger Bibles at these three last Texts and Deut. 12.30 they are charged by him not to ask or enquire How did these Nations being idolatrous serve their gods that I may do so likewise And in the New Testament Christ insisteth upon the practice of the Gentiles as an argument to disswade his Disciples from taking thought for outward things For after all these things do the Gentiles seek c. Mat. 6.32 Besides for Saints to borrow of a superstitious wicked and idolatrous Generation Enemies unto God and to all that truly love and fear him a Model or Platform of Worship to be presented unto him by which they have in conjunction with other unhallowed Artifices supported nourished and kept up an Antichristian Interest for a long time in the World when as they the Saints have the manifold Wisdom of God before them in the Scriptures and may have his Spirit also for the asking to direct and teach them how to worship and serve him acceptably from time to time must needs in the eye of Reason it self be spiritually unnatural and most unbecoming those who pretend to the high honour and dignity of being Children of Light The Apostle Paul pleads this twice together by way of bar to the eating of things offered unto Idols by Christians The Earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof 1 Cor. 10.26 28. The connexion of this reason with that which he desires to perswade unto by it is this It is most unworthy the Sons and Daughters of God to defile themselves with eating the Devils meat that which hath been sacrificed and given unto him whereof he hath no great plenty neither whenas their Father is Lord and Owner of a world of Provisions clean and wholesome wherewith they have no cause to fear or doubt but that he will sufficiently supply them And of those who did or should presume to eat of the Devils portion he demandeth argumentatively and with great earnestness and vehemency of spirit thus Do we provoke the Lord unto Jealousie that is to the fiercest of his displeasure against us Are we stronger than he meaning otherwise that we are not like to escape the severity of his anger if we continue so to provoke him 1 Cor. 10.22 Is it not altogether as ill consistent with the Wisdom Honour and Peace of Believers in these days to be found of that Worship which hath been devised contrived formed and fashioned no man knows by what Rule nor by whose Directions by men justly given up by God unto strong delusions and to believe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Lie of Lies 2 Thes 2.11 and to walk in abominable Idolatries as Peter speaketh whenas God in and by the Scriptures and supplies of his Spirit hath vouchsafed unto them means and opportunities in abundance to inable themselves to worship him with a Worship pure and clean no ways charged or encumbred with any suspicion or jealousie of Satans interposure with the least of his Fingers in the moulding and framing of it That which is commonly pretended to hide the baseness of the Parentage or Original of the Liturgy impleaded is but a vail that is transparent and easily seen thorow by those that are willing to examine it and look a little narrowly into it For the Martyrs and other pious and learned men in whose weakness the importune Commenders and Obtruders of this Liturgy our apocryphal Lord Bishops with those that are younger Brethren in the same iniquity with them do so much glory for advantage sake as if they were the Fathers or Compilers of it the truth is they were neither so nor so unless in a diminutive sense onely and that which is not much considerable for their purpose And if they had been as desirous to honour those Martyrs and pious men they speak of as they are to exalt themselves they should with the good Sons of Noah have cast some covering over their nakedness and not publish it upon all occasions as now they do unto the world with an intent to cover or rather to justifie their own by it Some afterwards Martyrs and other good men were indeed the Authors of our English Liturgy as such I mean as English and haply as wanting many strains of that gross Superstition Error and Idolatry which are sound in the Latin Mass-Book and likewise as having some few things of lesser moment added and inserted by way of accommodation to the Civil State the Romish yoke as well in Civil as Ecclesiastick affairs having been newly cast of by it Nor do I doubt but that much may be pleaded and this very Christianly for the justification of those worthy and good men in respect of the uprightness of their hearts the honesty and sincerity of their intentions in the Work who by a little refining of the said Popish Devotions and by altering the property of the Language wherein they were written thought they might make them commodious enough for English Protestants yea and probably they might suppose that when they brought the Service of God such as it was and they it seems esteemed it such as by a little purgation might be cleansed from all the noysom dregs of Popery and so become lawful out of an unknown Tongue into a Language which the People understood they had in a good sence brought light out of darkness and so might be well apaid in their Consciences with their Work But though it be granted that they were persons of eminent worth both for their Piety and Learning yet questionless they were no Prophets or else the spirit of Prophecy failed them in reference to the event and consequence of their Common-Prayer-Book Atchievement For had they so much as once dreamed that this Book would prove such a Root of Bitterness unto the Nation as it is too well known it hath been that it would create those sad distempers those divisions distractions tumults and confusions whereby both sin and sorrow have been abundantly encreased amongst the inhabitants of the Land or that it would be an Engine in the hands of men of unmerciful high-imposing Spirits wherewith to rack the Consciences and wreck the Comforts Liberties Estates c. of many thousands of the Saints and dear Children of God in the Nation being at this day employed and like to be employed in these bloody executions unless the Righteousness of God will please to restrain the remainder of the wrath of men Had I say the good men we speak of but once dreamed of those
And Nadab and Abihu the sons of Aaron took either of them his Censer and put fire therein and put Incense thereon and offered strange fire before the Lord WHICH HE COMMANDED THEM NOT. And there went out Fire from the Lord and devoured them and they dyed before the Lord. Lev. 10.1 2. In this high-provoking act of the Sons of Aaron for which the severe jealousie of God brake out immediatly upon them in a consuming fire there was no disobedience to any Command I mean unto any particular or express Command of God he had no where forbad them at least explicitly or directly to offer ordinary or common fire which is termed strange fire because the Commandment of God knew it not in their Priestly Ministrations nor is any disobedience in this kind charged on them by the holy Ghost nor so much as mentioned as any cause of that terrible execution which was suddenly done by the immediate hand of God himself upon them their only crime and guilt was that they offered strange fire before the Lord WHICH HE COMMANDED THEM NOT they presumed to worship God otherwise than he had appointed or commanded The sin of Uzzah in putting forth his hand to stay the Ark for which he likewise suffered the same measure from the provoked jealousie of God being by him struck dead in the place was of like nature and consideration For neither did he therein transgress any express Command of God for he had no where commanded that none but the Levites should touch or meddle with the Ark only he had commanded that the Levites should wait upon the Tabernacle with what appertained to it So that the provocation in his sin also only was his intermedling with the holy things of God relating to his Worship without his Command And thus David upon the ground that we maintain namely that all Worship uncommanded or unappointed by God is unlawful and displeasing unto him or which is the same that his order and appointment are requisit to legitimate any Worship or holy Service proved it to have been unlawful for any other to carry the Ark of God but the Levites only None saith he 1 Chron. 15.2 ought to carry the Ark of God but the Levites for them hath the Lord chosen to carry the Ark of God and to minister unto him for ever It was unlawful for all other persons the Levites excepted to carry the Ark of God not because he had prohibited them by the letter or direct import of any Law to carry it but because he had not chosen or appointed them as he had the Levites Again Secondly Of the same or like import with the texts already cited are all those also in which God stigmatizeth the Worship which men performed unto him with this character of his hatred that it was of their own chusing or devising after the imagination of their own heart c. In all such places as these which are not a few he asserteth unto himself the appointment of his own Worship as belonging prerogative-wise unto himself and wherein he will not indure any creature to have part and fellowship with him For otherwise as we reasoned before no Worship were reprovable simply upon this score that it is of mens own chusing or devising We shall not stand to argue any of these places as we did most of the other the inference or result now mentioned from the general tenour of them all is pregnant and convincing enough And if it be an hateful brand upon any form of Worship to be of humane extraction or to call any man or any numbers of men Father how much more hateful and provoking in the fight of God must it needs be to attempt to bind any such spurious and base worship upon the generous and heaven-born consciences of the sons and daughters of God or indeed upon the consciences of any men with the hard cords of Imprisonments Confiscations Banishments or what other Cruelties Satan shall please to suggest unto men for the promoting of his worship and service in the world under the delusive pretence of the Worship and Service of God But places of the late mentioned character are these with their fellows And it shall be unto you for a fringe that ye may look upon it and remember all the Commandments of the Lord and do them and that ye seek not AFTER YOUR OWN HEART AND YOUR OWN EYES after which ye use to go a whoring Numb 15.39 Take heed unto your selves that your heart be not deceived and ye turn aside and serve other Gods and worship them and then the Lords Wrath be kindled against you c. Deut. 11.16 17. And it cometh to pass whâ—n he heareth the words of this Curse that he blesseth himself in his heart saving I shall have peace though I walk IN THE IMAGINATION OF MINE OWN HEART That is in such a way of worshipping God as I conceive to be pleasing to him as appears by the mention of God's Jealousie in the words following to add drunkenness to thirst The Lord will not spare him but the Anger of the Lord and his Jealousie shall smoke against that man c. Deut. 29.19 20. So he Jeroboam offered upon the Altar which he had made in Bethel the fifteenth day of the eighth month even in the month VVHICH HE HAD DEVISED OF HIS OWN HEART c. 1 King 12.33 He that burneth Incense is as if he blessed an Idol yea they have CHOSEN THEIR OWN VVAYES and their soul delighteth in their abominations Isa 66.3 From whence it is very observable and maketh with an high hand for our present purpose 1. That it is incident to men to chuse wayes and methods of their own i. e. of their own devising for the worshipping of God in stead of and before the wayes prescribed by himself for that purpose 2. That these ways of mens own devising and choosing are their abominations that is ways for which they must answer to God as for things that are abominable in his sight or at least may be yea and sometimes are such 3. And lastly that notwithstanding such ways be their abominations yet they are wont animitùs deperire to love and delight in them with their whole soul and to be enflamed with zeal over them as the Scripture testifies in many places and our own experience in the importune and bloody Promoters of the Service-Book doth confirm as if God himself loved and delighted in them as much as they There are many more texts and passages of like notion with those now cited and which offer the right hand of fellowship unto the Doctrine which hath been made good by them but those already mentioned I judge abundantly sufficient for the eviction of this Truth That all worship of humane device or contrivement is of an unpleasing resentment with God and will be cast as dung in the faces of those that shall offer it unto him of how sweet a savour soever it may be unto