Selected quad for the lemma: prayer_n
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A45353
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An account of familism as it is revived and propagated by the Quakers shewing the dangerousness of their tenets, and their inconsistency with the principles of common reason and the declarations of Holy Scripture / by Henry Hallywell.
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Hallywell, Henry, d. 1703?
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1673
(1673)
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Wing H458; ESTC R25413
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52,525
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144
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just a claim to them as any man has to his own Free-hold Estate I am sure their title to Tithes is much more antient than any mans title to his Temporal Inheritance and no one thing hath been oftner confirmed and ratified by the Acts and Statutes of this Kingdom than the Possessions Tithes and Rights of the Clergy SECT IV. Having proved by undeniable Arguments that God is to have a portion out of our Lands and Goods and that no man unless he be impiously prophane and Atheistical can deny the just payment of these Dues much less plead Conscience to excuse Sacrilege It remains only now to shew the grounds upon which the present Ministers of England claim these devoted Lands and Profits as their Inheritance The Foundation of their claim is this That they are true Ministers of the Lord Jesus or true Pastors under that great Shepherd and Bishop of all our souls Now 't is required in every true Minister of the Gospel that he be rightly and duly called to the executing of this his Function According to these express Scriptures Heb. 5. 4. No man taketh this Honour unto himself but he that is called of God as was Aaron And Rom. 10. 15. How shall they preach except they be sent Yea our Blessed Saviour himself did not take upon him publicly to preach the Gospel till he was solemnly inaugurated and installed in his Office by the descent of the Holy Ghost and a voice from heaven which said This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Matth. 3. 16 17. And when the Lord Jesus was risen from the dead before he ascended into heaven he gives a Commission to his Disciples John 20. 21. As my Father hath sent me even so send I you Christ here rehearses his own Commission and then gives the Apostles theirs and when he had said this he breathed on them and saith unto them Receive ye the Holy Ghost And lastly v. 23. he declares to them the Power that he had invested them withal Whos 's soever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained and this Power was not only inherent in them but is derived to all the succeeding Ministers of the Gospel to the end of the World But the most solemn and public Inauguration of the Apostles in their Office was by a bright and shining glorious Descent of the Holy Ghost upon them by this visibly ratifying and confirming the Commission that Christ had before given to them This being certain then that no man ought to execute that sacred Function of a Minister of the Gospel but he that is called thereto I shall now shew the manner of the Designation or Authorizing of any man to execute this holy Employment and that was by Imposition of hands according as it was used by the Apostles and commanded by them to their Successors and continued from thence in the Church unto this very day Insomuch that the great Apostle of the Gentiles St. Paul though he were honoured by a singular Prerogative and Call from Heaven by Christ himself yet was to stay till he had the ordinary Call of the Church too and was consecrated by the Imposition of hands Acts 13. 2 3. As they ministred to the Lord and fasted the Holy Ghost said Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have â—alled them and when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them they sent them away And these same very persons having in their travels converted whole Cities and Towns to the Gospel of Christ they leave them not as sheep without a Shepherd but they ordain them Elders in every Church Acts 14. 23. And St. Paul leaves the Ordination of Timothy upon record together with the manner of it that it was by the Imposition of his hands and the hands of the Presbytery 2 Tim. 1. 6. and 1 Tim. 4. 14. And because the Apostles could not live always they transmitted their Power to others and those likewise to their Successors As the Scripture informs us Tit. 1. 5. For this cause left I thee in Crete that thou shouldest ordain Elders i. e. Pastors and Ministers of the Gospel in every City as I had given thee order These things being so it follows First that the present Ministers of the Gospel in the Church of England are true Ministers of Jesus Christ and therefore have right to Tithes forasmuch as they have both an inward and outward call The inward call is the Testimony of their own Consciences in that they believe themselves furnished in a good measure with gifts for the discharge of their Office and desire to employ them for the advantage of mens souls And then they have the outward call of the Church being consecrated and set apart for that Office by Imposition of hands and Prayers Secondly it follows that no man though he have the inward call that is find himself gifted ought to take upon him the Office of a Priest or Minister of the Gospel without the outward call likewise And therefore it is an intolerable presumption for illiterate Mechanics and Tradesmen to take upon them the Office of a Minister of the Gospel and for this their boldness they may justly expect if not the same yet as great Judgments as befel Korah Vzzah and Vzziah for invading of and intermeddling with the Priests Function And it were easie to imagin the Idolatry and Heresie that must needs overspread a Nation where the Russet-Rabbies and Apron-Levites are the Instructers of the People CHAP. IV. That Quakery though it pretend high is mere Sadducism at the Bottom IT is well known that the Immortality of the Soul by the Doctrin of H. N. was nothing but the Perpetuation or Continuance of the Succession of the Family of Love and the Resurrection was nothing but a Mystical Rising into his Doctrin that the day of Judgment was then in being the Nations of the Earth being judged by him as by the Man whom God had appointed as he sacrilegiously arrogates that place which was spoken of Christ to himself Acts 17. 31. Now according to this Doctrin if there be no other but a Mystical Resurrection and that Immortal Life be but the Continuance of H. N.'s Doctrin among his Followers for ever and that the day of Judgment be already past then it is certain that men have no Souls nor any thing to answer for in another world but die like beasts The full sense of H. N. concerning these things is expressed in his Euangel c. 34. Behold and consider my beloved how wonderfully God worketh in his holy ones and how that now in this day or light of the love the Judgment-seat of Christ is revealed and declared unto us out of heaven to a righteous Judgment upon Earth from the right hand of God and how that on the same Judgment-seat of Christ that the Scripture might be fulfilled there sitteth one now in Truth in the
the very secret instinct and working of Nature leads men to the Practice of this Duty and hence likewise it was that the Jews though never commanded of God had two sorts of Places for Religious Duties besides their Tabernacle or Temple the one called Proseuchae Oratories and the other Synagogues The Oratory or Place of Prayer was a Plot of Ground encompassed with a Wall or some other like Mound or Inclosure and open above and the use was properly for Prayer and this stood without the City But the Synagogue was a covered Edifice as our Houses and Churches are where the Law and the Prophets were read and expounded and the People instructed in Divine Matters according to that Acts 15. 21. Moses of old time hath in every City them that preach him being read in the Synagogues every Sabbath day and this stood within the City The Oratory or Place of Prayer is sometimes mentioned in the New Testament as in Luke 6. 12. where it is said that our Saviour went out into a mountain to pray and continued all night 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in an Oratory or Prayer-house of God And in Acts 16. 13. St. Luke tells us that St. Paul being come to Philippi in Macedonia On the Sabbath day they went out of the City to a river side 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where there was famed or reported to be an Oratory yet if we render it Where Prayer was wont to be made it will follow that here was a place set apart and used for Prayer and there St. Paul sate down and spake to the women that were come together there From what has been said it follows that to set apart a Place for the Worship of Almighty God is the common Voice and Dictate of Reason and Nature inasmuch as the Jews had set Places in and about every City and Town where the Word of God was preached and to which they assembled to pray unto him which Places God never commanded them to erect and build and yet both these sorts of Places were sanctified with Christs own presence in them And what they did all other Nations equally thought themselves obliged to do as I have above instanced in the Heathens yea the very Turcs have their Moschs or Places to pray in and to worship God Only these Familistical Heretics because they deny the Lord Jesus Christ do likewise despise his Religion and the Place wherein he is worshipped And because the Familistical Generation do at this time befool ignorant though many honest and conscientious People and draw them off from the Truth which their Fore-fathers peaceably and harmlesly mainteined by telling them that to call a Material Building a Church is Popery and Antichristianism I shall shew 1. That it is so called and used in the Holy Scripture 2. That there were such Places in the Apostles times That the word Church Ecclesia is used for the Material Building as well as to signifie the People or Congregation let any man that doubts consult 1 Cor. 11. 22. Have ye not houses to eat and drink in or despise ye the Church of God That by Church here is not meant the Assembly or Congregation but the Place appears 1. By comparing the 18. and 20. verses before-going When ye come together in the Church and the Apostle in the 20. verse continuing his speech upon the same subject goes on thus When ye come together therefore into one place so that now it is determined what the word Church signifies namely the Place whither they came together 2. The Apostle opposes the Church to their own Houses Have ye not Houses to eat and drink in As if he had said Your houses are the places to eat and drink in but the Church is the Place of Prayer and to commit such a Disorder there is to vilifie and contemn the Place which is set apart for Gods Worship And therefore in the last verse the Apostle says If any man hunger let him eat at home by which 't is plain the Church and their Houses were different Places 3. The very Etymology of our English word Church denotes the Place for that comes from the German word Burken and that of the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies Dominicum the Lords House or the Place where the Lord is worshipped But if such Whifflers did not despise all Learning as well as the Church of God they might from an ordinary School-Boy be furnished with Examples enough where one and the same word signifies both the Persons and the Place as he would tell them that Civitas signifies both the Citizens and the City Collegium the Society and the House Senatus the Senators and the Senate-house Synagoga the Assembly and the Place of the Assembly and so Ecclesia Church signifies both the People and the Material Building For the second thing that there were Churches that is Oratories or Places set apart for Divine Worship in the Apostles times and that they did not assemble promiscuously and uncertainly here and there as they pleased and in places of common use appears not only from those Records which make mention of their Times but from some places in the New Testament We read in Acts 2. 46. of the first Christian Society at Jerusalem That they continued daily in the Temple and breaking bread 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the house ate their meat with gladness and singleness of heart That which I observe from hence is this that the Disciples at Jerusalem met together in a certain House which was dedicated and set apart from common use for the peculiar Worship of God and therefore ought to be read in the House and not as we translate it from house to house And so 't is used elsewhere in the New Testament as Rom. 16. 3 5. Greet Priscilla and Aquila and the Church that is in their house And again sending salutation from them 1 Cor. 16. 19. Aquila and Priscilla salute you much in the Lord with the Church in their house Now that by the Church in their house is not to be understood their Family is evident in that St. Paul useth it only to some persons and not to others who questionless were Masters of Families likewise Thus St. Paul salutes Philemon and v. 2. the Church in his house from which I gather that Philemon's House was the Church in which the believers met to serve God in Laodicea And I have these two reasons to think it to be so 1. That if by the Church in Philemon's house were meant his Family it should properly and regularly have been joyned immediately after the greeting of Philemon whereas St. Paul salutes Apphia and Archippus between 2. It were very strange he should not salute the Family of Archippus who was then Bishop of Laodicea as well as the Family of Philemon By the Church therefore at such a mans house must be the whole Congregation of the Saints which assembled at such a house which House