Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	day_n	sabbath_n	word_n	19,993	5	5.4703	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66373	A brief discourse concerning the lawfulness of worshipping God by the common-prayer being an answer to a book entituled A brief discourse concerning the unlawfulness of the common-prayer worship lately printed in New-England, and re-printed in London, in which the chief things objected against the liturgy, are consider'd.	Williams, John, 1636?-1709.	1694 (1694)	Wing W2683; ESTC R203	34,319	42

A BRIEF DISCOURSE Concerning the Lawfulness of Worshipping GOD BY THE COMMON-PRAYER Being in ANSWER To a Book Entituled A Brief Discourse concerning the Vnlawfulness of the Common-Prayer Worship Lately Printed in New-England and Re-printed in London In which the Chief Things Objected against the Liturgy are consider'd The Second Edition Corrected Let all things be done decently and in order 1 Cor. 14. 40. LONDON Printed for Ri. Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard M DC XCIV IMPRIMATUR August 9. 1693. GEO. ROYSE THE PREFACE HOW Pious or Learned the Author of the Book I undertake to answer may be I am no more concern'd to know than I am who the Author is whom the Publisher bath thought fit to commend as such and having so done to conceal But he is not as far as I conceive the more Learned or Pious for Writing this Book Not the more Learned for by all the helps he professes to have had from Didoclavius c. he is guilty of many gross and palpable Mistakes And not the more Pious because of the uncharitable Reflections and Inferences he every where makes For would any man of a truly Christian Temper alledge these things now against the Common-Prayer which were alter'd or expunged above thirty years before he published his Brief Discourse Or charge us with violating the Word of God because we change the word Sabbath for the Seventh Day or say that we sacrilegiously steal from it because Hallelujah or Praise the Lord is sometimes left out in the Reading-Psalms or that we equal the Apocrypha to and set it up above the Canonical Scriptures because it s read on the Highest Holy-days as he saith but not very truly tho the Articles of our Church expresly declare them to be only of humane composition Suppose now I should treat this Author after the same manner and whereas he professes to have compared our Liturgy with the Missal c. I should take all advantages given in his Book to shew that notwithstanding this he had never read them I am certain I could much more easily and as Charitably do it as he make good his abovesaid Charge For would any one conversant in the Missal Breviary and Ritual of the Church of Rome have said as he doth p. 5. That Beza notes that in the Roman Liturgy men are taught to cry Jesu Miserere mei no less than ten times one after another For what need he quote Beza for that which he has as he saith read himself and which after all Beza mistook and he with Beza or rather he mistakes Beza in since the Jesu Miserere thus repeated is not in the Missal c. but in private Offices of that Church Who again that had been conversant in our Liturgy would have said as the Author Some have observ'd that of 172 Apocryphal Chapters but 38 are omitted For what need he to be beholden to another's Observation for what he that had thus read the Liturgy must have under his own eye So easy is it to repay him in his own Coin if we will reflect and infer after his way It 's a shrewd sign this Author was hard put to it to make good his Charge against the Liturgy and to prove his Point That it 's unlawful to be present at the Common-Prayer Worship And after all it 's of little Service to our Author and those of his Communion to make such Exceptions as he has done for if all things were alter'd and remov'd that he objects against they of his way would be no nearer to us than they are as the things stand at present as long as we are a National Church and have a Liturgy and whilst they continue Independent and Congregational are against the use of any Forms even such as are Scriptural as the Lord's Prayer and Decalogue nay against reading the Scripture in their Publick Congregations Indeed he had dealt more sincerely if he had acquainted his Reader That they hold it unlawful to communicate with us because we are a National Church and that they don't joyn in the Common-Prayer Worship because it 's a Form and all Forms are in his Opinion unlawful This indeed had struck at the Root of all but this he knew was not so easily prov'd nor would look so popularly as to cry out Heathenism Judaism and Popery which he charges our Service-Book with This indeed will rouze the Multitude and it 's no wonder when possess'd with this Representation of our Worship that the deluded People broke into the Church Erected at Boston for the Worship of God according to the Church of England to search for the Images they supposed we worship'd The time was when the Antinomians from among themselves treated them in the like way and call'd them Legal Preachers Popish Factors Scribes and Opposers of Christ And they may remember what had like to have been the Effect of it if they had not taken up what their Adversaries call'd a Bloody Tenet And truly we had reason to fear it if there had not been a Superior Authority to over-rule it But I shall forbear to recriminate and shall leave the rest to the Book where I have let nothing escape that requires an Answer and I hope have given a sufficient Answer to it and in the issue have prov'd that as far as his Exceptions go they have no reason to forbear being present at or joyning in the Common-Prayer-Book Worship which is the Matter of the First Question Nor that it 's unlawful to take an Oath by laying the Hand upon the Bible which is the Matter of the Second A BRIEF DISCOURSE Concerning the Lawfulness of Worshipping GOD BY THE COMMON-PRAYER THE First Question proposed by the Author is Q. What are the Reasons why you judge it unlawful to be present at or to partake in the Common-Prayer Worship The Reasons he gives are four taken 1. From the Original of the Common-Prayer-Book which saith he with the Ceremonies and Worship prescribed therein I find to be in a great measure Popish and Heathenish 2. From the Matter of the Common-Prayer-Book 3. Because Publick Liturgies of humane Composure are an Innovation and Deviation from Primitive Purity 4. In this Age of Light it would be a great Apostacy in the least to countenance or comply with the Common-Prayer-Worship These are the Reasons he advances and by which he endeavours to justify their continuance in a Separation from the Church of England and the Worship therein Administred And these I shall take the liberty to examine For the clearer discoursing upon which I shall divide what I have to say into so many Chapters viz. 1. Of the Original of the Common Prayer or English Liturgy 2. Of the Matter of it 3. Of the Original of Liturgies 4. Of Worship by a Liturgy CHAP. I. Of the Original of the English Liturgy OUR Author saith That the Common-Prayer-Book with the Ceremonies and Worship prescribed therein are in a great measure Popish and

of the Gospel and allowable by the Christian Church and therefore what the Papists will or ought to allow but for all that we are no more Papists nor that any more Popish than the Independent is a Presbyterian or our Author a Church-of England-man It was not then because it was Popish that they approved of our Service but that it was Christian and pure in its Order and Composure neither was it because it was Popish that the Pope would have ratified it but because upon any terms he would have prevailed upon Queen Elizabeth to own his Authority and regain'd her to their Church 4. However I deny not but that the Compilers of the Liturgy did peruse the Popish Offices and take as much from thence as was conformable to the Ancient Offices and was fit to be used and that the rather that they might the more easily satisfie doubting or discontented Minds under the Alterations then made and induce them to comply with them And this was the meaning of King Edward's Proclamation A practice very Christian and commendable and agreeable to the Apostolical prudence which we read of Acts 15. 16. 3. 1 Cor. 9. 19 c. And which the Nation soon felt the happy effects of when by this excellent Conduct it became generally speaking Reformed But yet after all so little was taken out of the Mass-Book c. that they differ'd more than they agreed in and more was left than taken out But our Author stays not here That the English Liturgy saith he is originally Heathenish as well as Popish is manifest 1. In that the Pope's Liturgy from whence ours is deriv'd is so The Principal Parts of the Mass-Book were borrowed from Idolatrous Pagans They came from Numa Pompilius p. 4. Ans It has been sufficiently made out by Protestants that there is a great Affinity and Agreement between the Heathenish and Popish Rites but our Author does an injury to the Argument when affirming that the Principal Parts of the Mass-Book were borrowed from Idolatrous Pagans he goes no further than Vestments Holy Water and Incense as if these were the principal Parts of the Mass-Book and the chief things that that agreed in with the Idolatry of the Heathens But this indeed is not to our purpose Well! suppose there be this Conformity between the Papist and the Pagan what is that to us if we agree with neither but that he attempts to prove For tho he cannot find Incense and Holy Water and his Et caetera among us yet he saith What Vain Repetitions does the Common-Prayer Book abound with In one Service the Worshippers must repeat these words Good Lord deliver us Eight times over And We beseech thee to hear us Twenty times over The Gloria Patri is to be repeated Ten times in the same Morning or Evening Service That the Heathens were wont to Worship their Idols just after the same manner is clear from Matth. 7. c. And Beza notes that the Roman Liturgy does abound with them wherein Men are taught to cry Jesu Jesu miserere mei no less then Ten times one after another For the better Resolution of which I shall proceed in this order 1. We grant that there may be such things as vain Repetitions in Prayers and other Divine Offices for that is a fault our Saviour charges on the Heathens and what we as well as our Author charge on the Church of Rome and is also frequently charged by those that use and plead for Forms on those that use extemporary Prayers 2. We yet do maintain That there are such Repetitions in Divine Worship as are not vain that are neither Heathenish or Popish Such do we read of in the Old Testament as Psalm 57. 1. 75. 1 4 5. 94. 1. 103. 1 2 22. 107. 8 15 21 31. 136. throughout And thus our Saviour repeated the same words thrice in his Agony in the Garden Matt. 26. 44. and twice on the Cross Matt. 27. 46. And consequently all Repetitions are no more condemned by our Saviour in Matt. 6. 7. than all long Prayers are Matt. 23. 14. So that the vanity of Repetitions does not consist in using the same words eight times or twenty times in Prayer For do we repeat in our Service Good Lord deliver us eight times And Glory be to the Father c. ten times And We beseech thee to hear us good Lord twenty times So we find that they not only had their thrice and their four times but their twenty seven times in every Verse of Psalm 136. His mercy endureth for ever which Psalm was most used on solemn Occasions as we may find it 2 Chron. 5. 13. 7. 3 6. 20. 21. Ezra 3. 11. Jer. 33. 11. So that we may more truly say of the Church of God amongst the Jews than he doth of the Heathens and their Idols that they were wont to Worship God just after the same manner with Repetitions in their Service as we 3. We are to consider wherein the vanity of Repetitions consists so as to be after the manner of the Heathens This admits great variety and just bounds cannot be set so that it 's not to be exactly said Here the vain Repetitions begin But they are such 1. When they that use them think that they shall be heard for their much speaking as our Saviour saith the Hethens did Thus the Priests of Baal did crying out O Baal hear us from Morning till Noon and accordingly Elijah upbraids them 1 Kings 18. 26 27. 2. When it is nothing but Tautology viz. a Repetition of the same words without new Matter or of the same matter but in different words Such were the Verses of Battus the babling Poet. Such were the Hymns used often by the Heathens in the worship of their Gods Such are the Jesu Jesu c. without Intermission sometimes used in the Roman Church But when there are distinct Petitions as when we say We beseech thee to hear us good Lord it 's as lawful to close each after that manner as it is to say Amen which we find to follow every particular Petition and was distinctly repeated for twelve times together after that manner Deut. 27. 15. 3. Vain Repetitions are when the words are thought sufficient tho the Heart be not with them but this may be common to any So that tho there are Repetitions in our Service as there were among the Heathen and are in the Church of Rome yet ours are not vain nor such Repetitions as theirs by reason of the matter only if accompanied with the heart 3. He saith Some of the most Learned Patrons of Liturgies produce it as an Argument for them that the Heathens made use of Forms in their Idolatrous Worship p. 5. And so he makes this the difference between the Heathens and Christians that the first used Forms but the last prayed without them As for the practice of the Christians we shall have occasion to speak of it under another Head neither shall I