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	time_n	word_n	15,308	5	4.0545	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42477	Considerations touching the liturgy of the Church of England In reference to His Majesties late gracious declaration, and in order to an happy union in Church and state. By John Gauden, D.D. Bishop elect of Exceter.	Gauden, John, 1605-1662.	1661 (1661)	Wing G349; ESTC R218825	26,979	44

for those few Ceremonies which the wisdome of this Church thought fit being very ancient and innocent to retain and fix as signall markes of faith or humility or purity or courage and constancy upon some parts of the worship and service of Christ For these ceremonies sake the Liturgy fared the worse yet I have known many grave and learned men very reverently and constantly use the Liturgy who scrupled at some or all of the ceremonies which yet in time they grew reconciled unto and used not as any Sacramentall signes conferring any grace which the Church of England never dreamed of and oft declared against as that which could not be but where there is a word of God instituting a duty and promising grace but meerly as visible tokens or memorials apt by a sensible signe to affect the understanding with something worthy of its thoughts as signified thereby which not only sacred but even civil ceremonies and all motions or formes under the empire of reason do import among all rationall men when they come to be by use and custome instituted and as it were imposed upon them in any Country or Church for meditation or reverence or comlinesse as I am no enemy to decent ceremonies in Religion of Ecclesiasticall institution use and custome when such as S. Austin would have them and our Church had them few in number easy in practice apt in signification and fixed by the laws of Church and State So I judge them as the Church of England oft declared to be no parts essential or necessary in their nature to any divine duty or Worship That they fall not under the first or second command but under the third fourth and fifth as reverentiall in the solemn calling upon Gods name as decent in Gods publick worship on the Lords day or any other and as instances of our obedience to superiours in Church and State commanding things not contrary to Gods word in faith mysteries or manners And thereby reducing the vagrancy rudenesse or incertainty of necessary circumstances as time place vesture gesture measure and manner which are as the naturall skin or hair necessarily growing on all things done under the Sun and inseparable from them to some fixation unity comliness or fashion as we fit clothes to our bodies and perukes to our heads and tunes to Psalms so as seems to the Church most comly for the nature of that duty for the conveniency of the people and the honour of the Ministery in things indifferent Certainly Humane or Ecclesiasticall Ceremonies like shadows neither fill nor burden any Conscience of themselves that which is considerable in them is as they are in their nature and use comly for the duty and instances of either our obedience or our charity and unity And it is no lesse certain what ever indulgence as to penalty for non-practise of ceremonies His Majesties clemency may please to grant to some men of weak minds and scrupulous consciences in these things which Royall charity no good Christian will repine at provided it be used with meeknesse and humility not insolence and factiousness yet as to the principle which the Church of England went by in matter of ceremonies it is most true and undeniably to be maintained even to the death That this National Church as all others hath from the word of God liberty power and authority within its own polity and bounds to judge of what seems to it most orderly and decent as to any circumstance and ceremony in the worship of God which the Lord hath left unconfined free and indifferent in its nature and onely to be regulated or confined by every such Ecclesiasticall polity within it self where the consent of the major part of Church and State both in Councils and Parlaments includes the whole and may enjoyn its rules and orders in these things upon all under its jurisdiction and within its communion as well as a Master of a family may appoint the time place manner and measure gesture and vesture wherein he will have all his family to serve God with him But I have gone too much beyond my first design which was onely to consider the book of Common-prayer and to expresse the just value I have of it which truly is so great that I think the Church of England had far better want the so cryed up gifts of particular Ministers in their prayers then want the use of the Liturgy if the question were which should be laid aside or used I should for those many reasons before expressed prefer the Liturgy as the sure constant and complete measure of publick devotions before any private mens abilities Nor do I find that anciently the Bishops and Presbyters of the Church used any other or very little and those but short forms of publick prayers or praises save those which were in the setled Liturgies of their Churches which were most apt and adequate to every publick duty and to the satisfaction of all sorts of Christians But God be thanked by the divine permission as well as by the custome of this Churnh and His Majesties allowance people may enjoy and Ministers may use their own gifts before and after their Sermons in prayer and prayses besides the Liturgie and sure as it were pride in Ministers so to prefer their own as to reject the other so it were a great folly in people and an injury to their souls to be content with one when they may have both or so to dote on any Ministers private spirit and abilities in prayer as to neglect the publick spirit in the Liturgy the want of which as it already appears very much so it will daily more in the ignorance irreverence and uncharitableness of people every where for want of due fixations of their affections and illumination of their judgements by some constant light and sober heat of uniform devotion I have heard it from others and find it my self that many aged poor people being now asked very easie questions of their Faith since the long disuse of the Liturgy the Catechisme and other plain principles of Religion as Creed Commandments and Lords prayer have confessed they had forgot what heretofore they could have given some good account of Nor doth the hand of God onely punish people by gross ignorance fanatick vanities and great retrogradations as to sound and saving knowledge but by horrible Apostasies also as to the morall and practicall the equitable and charitable parrs of Religion yea and many Ministers leaning wholly on their own presumed gifts have grown so dull flat formal and tedious that they have brought and taught people to despise both them and their duties losing the honour and reputation which they might have kept if they had kept within sober bounds but running out to popular ostentations they soon lost themselves and the value of sober people so far that I have known an aged Minister after much noyse and glorying as if he were the delight of