Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	fire_n	set_v	tongue_n	3,652	5	9.4006	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47407	The breach repaired in God's worship, or, Singing of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, proved to be an holy ordinance of Jesus Christ with an answer to all objections : as also, an examination of Mr. Isaac Marlow's two papers, one called, A discourse against singing, &c., the other, An appendix : wherein his arguments and cavils are detected and refuted / by Benjamin Keach ...	Keach, Benjamin, 1640-1704.	1641 (1641)	Wing K50; ESTC R21273	133,739	273

thing you call Essence a Heart-service only without the Bodily Organs and rendering your self to be but little better in your so doing than a mere Enthusiast and whilst you plead for Spiritual Worship and cry down all Forms you seem to overthrow all external Acts of Religion by intimating that because the Heart 〈◊〉 perform one Duty at some Seasons acceptably to God viz. Prayer without the bodily Organs why may not the Spirit or Heart perform Singing too say you And why not say I Preaching the Word Baptism and Breaking of Bread also The Quakers have not only got a Spiritual or Heart-Baptism and a Spiritual or Heart-Breaking of Bread but an assembling together for Heart-Preaching also And what you say about the Essence of these Duties being in the Heart and how 't is the Heart or Spirit only in Duty and Ordinances that God looks at and from hence seek to make void Singing with the Voice it doth as all Men may see strike through the Loins of all External Acts of Divine Worship as before shewed For as I told you in the first Chapter the Essence of Preaching and every other External Duty may as well be said to lie in the Spirit as this of Singing Psalms and Hymns c. Besides since God is so much pleased as you intimate with the bare Internal Worship of the Heart without the bodily Organs and with Prayer particularly why do you not excuse the Tongue from that Service likewise and say that External Expressions in Prayer or praising God with the Tongue is a low formal thing and to be rejected But I can't but smile at one of your first Expressions You say very right ours is an intel●gible sort of Singing But that which you ●lead for is such that no Body can tell what to ●ake of besure 't is no Singing at all as in the first Chapter I have proved I mean that which you call the Essence or Being of Singing in the Heart or inward Joy Brother I have shewed you that Singing and Preaching c. are Ordinances of a different Nature to that of Prayer Prayer may be performed in the Heart without the Tongue but there is no proper Singing or Preaching without the Organs of the Tongue and therefore all your whole Fabrick is overturned with one blast for this Error of yours is like that of the first Concoction If you have got no other proper singing of Psalms than what we plead for and practise nor no other can be found warranted in God's Word Then 〈◊〉 must be the true and right Ordinance and manner of performance of it likewise Let Men but destroy the practice of an Ordinance as 't is by so many practised and has been from the beginning and as we conceive and believe in a right manner unless they have another Form to present to our sight that we may have time to compare them with God's Word to see which may be nearest the Rule in our Judgments they do nothing but perplex the World as well as us You have presented us with one I must confess which only has that Name given to it by your self but it is not the thing i. e. it is no proper Singing at all You talk of the Essence of Sin in the Heart as well as the Essence of Duties being in the Heart or Spirit What do you mean can sin be no where but in the Heart because it is there or can a thing be where its Being or Essence is not There may be much Evil in the Eyes we read of Eyes full of Adultery Nay and I must tell you that the Essence or Being of Sin is in the Tongue likewise Pray see what the Apostle James saith In the Tongue 〈◊〉 a Fire a World of Iniquity so is the Tongue amongst our Members that it defileth the whole Body and setteth on fire the whole course of Nature and is set on Fire of Hell Jam. 3. 6. Certainly the Essence of Sin is in the Tongue as well as in the Heart or you are out in your term and the Essence of Singing some will tell you is wholly in the Tongue And now since the Tongue doth thus dishonour God by the way let me tell you there is great reason it should not be idle but be imployed to praise and sing to the Honour of God If by Essence of Sin you mean the Rise Spring or Fountain of Sin I say you speak Truth and good sense too for it is out of the Heart that proceeds Fornication c. Yet some Sins may be said to have their proper Essence or Being in the Life as well as in the Heart and may rise from a Temptation from without also We will grant you likewise that the Heart is the Fountain or Spring of most Actions all our Duties must spring or flow from thence i. e. the Heart by God's Spirit must stir us up to do them 〈◊〉 does it follow from hence that many of 〈◊〉 Duties can be performed by the Heart or ●pirit without the Tongue Sure you will say 〈◊〉 Man can preach though the Matter be 〈◊〉 his Mind or Head c. No more say 〈◊〉 can they in a proper sense be said to sing Psalms c. Only one word more and I 〈◊〉 done with this In pag. 9. you speak of 〈◊〉 Fields rejoicing and singing We have ●ewed you that there is an improper or metaphorical Singing mentioned in the Scripture 〈◊〉 so that Scripture and some other places are to be taken and know that your singing is no 〈◊〉 a proper Singing than Abel's Blood which is said to speak was a proper Speaking as I said in the first Chapter be fore II. Of David's Psalms 1. You say There was no Institution of Singing before David's Time Answ We have proved Singing the Praises of God is a part of natural Religion and so a moral Duty in its own Nature as Prayer is and that the Heathen sang the Praises of God for his goodness in Creation that ha●e no written Word And what is this then to the purpose if we should grant that Singing was not brought under an Institution till David's Time As touching what you say about the Israelites in the Wilderness how in trouble they did not sing 't is more than you know for I think you will find they were not far from the Wilderness when Moses and the Congregation sang Exod. 15. However our Lord Jesus and his Disciples sang when it was a sad Wilderness●time with them it was just the Night before our Blessed Saviour was betrayed And Paul and Silas sung in the Wilderness of a Prison and though the Saints are always sorrowful yet they are required ever-more to rejoice All outward Comforts of this World are not 〈◊〉 thousand part such cause of Joy and Singing as our spiritual Deliverance and Salvation by Christ is Do you think that outward Blessings here will better tend to tune our Spirits and Tongues to sing the Praises of God than the Love

as they suppose which was used in the Primitive Time in Singing was not continued and successively handed down to us Answ By the same manner they might object against the Bible and say We ought not to receive it because God did not continue the Gift of Tongues in the Church that by virtue of those Gifts the Old and New Testament without Humane Art might be delivered to us Nay and against Preaching too c. for those Gifts in the Apostolical manner of Preaching was not continued nor handed down to us nay what Ordinance had not lost its Primitive Form under the Apostacy The Conclusion AND now Brother suffer me to make a little Improvement likewise as well as you and notwithstanding your Conclusion savours of much Bitterness I would fain have mine end with all Sweetness if there is any Tartness I cannot well help it First Whereas you infer singing together of David's Psalms or any humane precomposed Forms is a corrupting the pure Worship of God in mingling Law and Gospel or humane and divine things together First I infer That to sing David's Psalms and Scripture-Hymns and sacred Songs taken out of the Word of Christ together in the publick Worship of God is an holy Ordinance of Christ and not in the least to mingle Law and Gospel together any otherwise than the Holy Ghost hath done it for Moral Duties are the same in the Law and Gospel Secondly Whereas you say This will lead us to return from whence we came at a Dog to his Vomit and as a Sow that was washed to her wallowing in the Mire I say 1. You do not write like an humble and trembling-hearted Christian but shew too much Gall and Worm-wood in your Spirit And 2. I say to sing the Psalms of David and other sacred Scripture-Hymns and spiritual Songs is to build up the old waste places and restore the ancient Paths to dwell in and a going forward and not backward Thirdly You would you say have the Leaders among us seriously consider that are for such formal Singing as you call it whether they will be able to plead at the Bar of Christ for this Practice tho they may urge it on their fellow-Brethren here c. and you put up a kind of Prayer that God would give us a true sight and sense of the evil Consequences of this Error as you are pleased to call it that we may not cause his People to sin but that with sound Doctrine we may strengthen the weak Hands and feeble Knees c. Answ I must intreat you to consider whether you will be able to give a good account at the Bar of Jesus Christ for endeavouring to diminish from God's Word nay from Christ's New Testament for sure we are singing of Psalms Hymns and spiritual Songs is one Ordinance found therein which you strive to take way and foolishly plead only for a thing called the Essence of it without the Act or discharge 〈◊〉 the Duty according to the nature of the Ordinance and so contrive a new kind of singing out of the dark Imagination of your Heart and add that in the stead of it which is not understood by the generality of Mankind and so make us to believe if you could that Christ hath left an Ordinance that there is no way to come to any Certainty how it should be performed and hereby also lay a just occasion of Offence or a Stumbling-block in the way of weak Christians to think they may practise Ordinances acceptably to God which requires the bodily Organs without the Body and so deny the Body to glorify God tho redeemed to that end and expose our Glory viz. our Tongue to Reproach and Shame and consequently rob God of some part nay one great part of his glorious Praise and his poor Church of much sweet Comfort and Soul-Refreshment in his blessed Ordinance as I have shewed in the first Chapter Moreover consider what an account you will have to give to the Judg of the Quick and Dead for saying when the Scripture saith they sung viz. Christ and his Disciples they did but give Thanks or say Grace from the remote and indirect Signification of the Greek Word or else sung alone and not his Disciples with him See what Reverend Mr. Cotton hath said in Pag. 14. of his Book in Answer to such a kind of Objection as you make mentioning that place of David Psal 3. 4. Psal 77. 1. I cried to the Lord with my Voice Shall a Man detract from his meaning and say saith Mr. Cotton he cried to God only with his Heart So when David exhorteth the Gentile Churches to make a joyful Noise unto the Lord you do detract from his meaning when you make his meaning to be not that we should sing unto him with our Voice but that we should only make Melody to him in our Hearts such 〈◊〉 ●aith he from the Word is alike disallowed and accursed of God as adding to his Word or otherwise say I a diminishing from it Object But saith he you object singing of Psalms with the Voice is but a Type of that Melody in the Heart or to that purpose I find he speaks Answ 1. No Scripture saith he speaketh of it as a Type nor doth any Evidence of Reason declare it 2. You might as well say that praying with the Voice was a Type of praying with the Heart and so it is abolished 3. If singing of Psalms with a loud Voice had been a typical Worship David would not have exhorted us to the Practice of it on the Lord's-Day under the New Testament Psal 95. 1 2 7. 4. Christ and his Apostles would not have used it in the Lord's-Supper which is a Feast of the New Testament nor would Paul and Silas have used it in Prison among the Gentiles nor would the Apostle have injoyned it on the Churches 5. The Light of Nature is never wont to teach us Types and Shadows doth it not as well teach us to praise God in singing with our Tongues in times of our rejoycing as to cry to God with our Voices in times of distress Fourthly Whereas you would have us to consider that if we err from the Rule in offering Praises to God contrary to his Appointment whether we do not worship God in vain I say to you whilst we thus offer Praises to God it appears we worship him according to his Appointment and so acceptable to him and to his Glory and our Comfort Strange ours is not right and spiritual Singing and yet you can find no other way according to the Rule to perform that sacred Duty and Ordinance Thus I have answered your Book as well as the Lord hath been pleased to help me according to your Request for I was 〈◊〉 by you to do it you well know before several Witnesses But did not I think the Name and Honour of God lay at stake and the Information of man● of his dear Saints and People in order to