Selected quad for the lemma: prayer_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
prayer_n	form_n	lawful_a	set_a	2,091	5	11.0014	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27174	Take heed of both extremes, or, Plain and useful cautions against popery and presbytery by way of dialogue : in two parts / by Luke de Beaulieu.	Beaulieu, Luke, 1644 or 5-1723.	1675 (1675)	Wing B1578; ESTC R7658	78,624	146

of your being Gods Church and people and I shall say more to it anon I only add now that as it is observ'd that where Religion hath been loosest there Fortune hath been most worshipped so when you had broken all natural and religious bonds you made use of the prosperous events of your enterprizes to justifie the lawfulness of them Pr. Well I see you 'll make hard shift but you 'll have something to say But can you find that we attribute to the Sacraments the vertue of working by their own efficacy the grace they signifie which you call opus operatum don 't we rather teach that nothing but Gods Grace can work any good in us and that outward means are useless without it Pa. Yes I do suppose the Sacraments are of no great account amongst you whatever is not of your own appointment is of little use or profitableness though ordained by the first Rulers of the Christian Church or by Christ himself But I could tell you of two or three things of your own devising of as great force and efficacy as any of our Sacraments that is your Covenant your powerful Preaching and your extemporary Prayers of the first I have spoken enough already how you made it a most precious and soul-saving Ordinance and equalled it at least to the Covenants God hath been pleased to make with Mankind wherefore it was to be taken standing uncovered and one hand bare and lifted up which is more of honour and reverence than you afford to the blessed Sacrament of the Body and Bloud of Christ which you receive fitting upon your tails or to any other part of Divine Worship If any one will see more of it let him read Thomas Mokett's Sermons on that subject printed 1642. That your Preaching is likewise very powerful I have evinc'd before in that you call it the Gospel the Word of God and make it in a manner equal to Scripture as proceeding from the same Spirit as Mr. Marshal told the Parliament at a Thanksgiving-Sermon for some good success of yours S. Marshal 1643. p. 3. I should send you home presently and command all of you not to weep to day but to eat the fat and drink the sweet but that I have first some banquetting stuff for your souls such as God hath brought to my hand sure they might make a very soul-refreshing meal on what God himself had prepared Mr. Palmer also pag. 27. How few come prepared to the Ordinances your preaching and Praying Who is it that considers the weightiness of the business he is about that he is now about a soul-saving or a soul-destroying work And accordingly in your Catechising your Converts if they be aged the grand question is When and at what time they were converted for your Preaching works Conversion even as Strong-drink works Madness When you have taught malicious or ignorant people to rail at the Church and to hate it and those that side with it then the powerful Ordinance of Preaching hath done the feat and the man is converted even as the weak-brain fellow that hath lost his reason by too much drinking As for your Praying being it is by the Spirit no wonder if it works strangely Mr. Vavasor Powel a holy man The History of his Life 1671. p. 16. and well worth to be credited though somewhat more Fanatick than you for having a most authentick Testimony and Approbation of fourteen of the chiefest Divines in the Assembly did by his Prayers cure one Mrs. p 18. Watkins of the Parish of Laningg in the County of Brecknock who for two years together had kept her bed and one Elizabeth Morris of New Radnorth who was troubled with the Falling-sickness and Convulsion-Fits and did once in a wet Harvest stop a most fierce rain p. 19. in seeking the Lord and begging for fair weather This will not seem strange if we consider what one of you said That God had kindled the fervent fire of Supplication in your hearts Jehovah-Jireh p. 31. Oh how did the Lord-before and ever since this Parliament began stir up and inflame the fire of supplicating faith or faithful supplication and fervent zeal in private humiliation to seek the Lord in the face of Christ for mercy and reconcilement to our poor Land And then how could that fire that came from the Lord do less than consume and devour every thing that stood in its way As Dr. Owen said to the House of Commons Joh. Owen 1659. p. 14. The Adversaries openly confest That there was nothing left for them to overcome or to overcome them but the Prayers of the Fanatick Crew And as Mr. Coleman said to the same Auditory We prayed at Nazeby 1645. p. ●● 17 they plotted see what end the Lord hath made come and behold the works of the Lord. And at Langport and Bridgewater they could not stand for God was against them We prayed we fought Th. Good 1●●● p. ●● we conquered certainly the power of Prayers is destructive And Mr. Goodwin God hath given to those his Saints the Rebels a Commission to set up and pull down by their Prayers and Intercessions Whence by the way might be gathered that you have some kindness for us being you pull'd none down but the Church of England But possibly the efficacy of your Prayers did not so much as the reach of your Piques and Muskets However you see here is opus operatum with a vengeance all the difference is that our Sacraments are of Christs Institution and work Grace only whereas your powerful Ordinances are of your own devising and besides Grace can work destruction Pr. And can you find this one thing more about the Sacraments that we take the Cup away from the people as is the order of your Church positively against an express Command of Christ who said Drink ye all of this Sure you won't say we are guilty of dispensing with such an express Injunction of Christ as you do in this case Pa. No you never took the blessed Cup from the people but you went very near to take away from them the sacred Bread and all You know how seldom and in how few places that holy Sacrament was administred in your reforming times and you know how little regarded still by many of your party since you could preach and pray by the Spirit And yet we are in good hopes that you 'll comply with us in this too for that in another case you can dispense with as absolute a command of Christ that is concerning the Lords Prayer of which he commanded When you pray say Our Father c. Luk. 11.2 But your wisdom hath found it out that 't was enough to say the sense of that Prayer without repeating the very words and then if you should use it the people might be brought to believe that a set Form of Prayers is lawful according to so great an example which might be a great prejudice to your

make more Saints Oh it will be a comfortable work to gather and order Saints of our own making Nay though some of the Saints were froward and perchance unruly yet because they helpt to do the work of the Lord they were not to be blotted out of the Calendar for he saith a little before Saints must not be persecuted though they be peevish nay desperate I must not out of a sullen humour deny a peevish Saint the right-hand of fellowship But enough of this you shall find scattered up and down this Book Now as for your keeping of days for the old Saints I confess you are not for that neither do you keep any for Christ that would be you know what But you know also that when the designs of the new Saints were blest with success there was by Authority a day kept in remembrance of it with much solemnity So it seems the destroying of the Kings Forces was a mercy great enough to make a Holy-day of it but it would be Idolatry to do the same in remembrance of those precious mercies the Church receives from what Christ did and suffered for her and his holy Apostles after him As for praying to the ancient and despised Saints it would be to no purpose your new ones having got their place and belike their power too we have seen already that your prayers are effectual beyond what their intercessions could be which is the reason I suppose that when any amongst you is going a Journey or hath some other design in hand or feels the want of any temporal or spiritual thing he desires the prayers of the Saints in your Conventicles So there appears to me no other difference in the case but that our Saints are dead and Canonized by the Pope whereas yours for the most part are alive and of your own making Now I hope I have satisfied you and made it appear that you come much nearer to Popery than the Church of England which by your own confession hath nothing common with us that 's bad but a few Ceremonies and this of order which don't much concern Religion and which according to your Chronology were in the Christian Church long before Popery whereas you own both in belief and practice many of the Popish Doctrines which are counted the worst of our errours only you disguise them a little and put them in a Presbyterian Garb. Pr. Worthy Sir you might have spar'd your great pains for all you have said will not perswade any one man that we have any good will for the Papists 't is too well known that there is an irreconcileable antipathy betwixt them and us No we detest those opinions and practices of yours which you would perswade the world we approve and imitate and we agree with you in nothing that other Protestants disagree in Pa. Yes we do we both hate the Church of England I am sure we are agreed in that except you have gone beyond us as I remember Mr. Love said when there was an overture for peace pag. 42. At Uxbridge Is it likely to have peace with such men as these We can as soon make fire and water to agree I had almost said reconcile Heaven and Earth But there is enough said already to prove that As for your disclaiming friendship with us it only perswades me that you are of those generous Friends who oblige people behind their backs without desiring that any notice should be taken of it for to use Mr. Loves words pag. 22. When ●ou had put down the Pests and Plague-sores of the Kingdom Episcopacy and common-Common-Prayer Books you thereby advanced our interest greatly and did us a notable piece of service for then you left no visible Church no known Rules of Doctrines no set form of Government and Discipline so that whilst your tedious Rabbies were hammering in their brains the new form of a future Church according to their several fancies or according to the Pattern in the Mount the people were fain to betake themselves some to the Communion of our Church as not a few did and other some to Madness and Enthusiasm as did a great many more And besides the scandal which you brought upon the first Reformation by your fine doings was so great that thanks be to you it hath perswaded a great many that there is no safety but in the Church of Rome where there is a constant union and order So we find a Book printed in 1652. call'd A Beacon set on fire or an Information of the Stationers to the Parliament concerning the great advancement the Papists made and the many Books they printed as also the many blasphemous Books which others put out And in the seasonable Exhortation of the London Ministers 1660. they tell us pag. 10. That all manner of blasphemous and horrid Opinions were openly written and published that there was in many Atheism and contempt of Religion in others Scepticism and Irresolution in many and that some were grown to that heigth of wickedness as to worship the Devil himself And there they complain also That some by their back-sliding and apostacy fell from the truth to Popery as being the only Religion wherein unity and order was retained All which how naturally they issued from your late doings and how much the Pope and Devil were beholding to you for I leave to your own conscienciousness to consider And one thing more that makes me believe that you have more kindness for us than you own by words is that you destroy'd the King and the Church of England by the same means that were appointed by Campanella a cunning Politician and a great Enemy to Protestants pag. 160. The English Bishops it should have been Puritans are to be exasperated and put into fears and jealousies by telling them that the King of Scotland King James turned Protestant out of hope but that he will quickly return to the former Religion when he is establisht in the English Throne The same advice is also lately given by the Marquiss de C. in his Politique de France in that Chapter that treats of England That counsel was followed by you and prov'd successful the outcry whereby you rais'd the people against our late martyr'd Sovereign was Popery Rome Babylon therefore after all this judge you whether we must not be very ungrateful if we did not ingenuously acknowledge that we are highly beholding to you Pr. All that signifies nothing for we differ from the Church of England only in some few Ceremonies being agreed as to the Essentials both of Doctrine and Discipline We honour the first Reformators of this Church and we are perfectly agreed with the reformed Churches beyond Sea which we love and reverence and desire to imitate and when you have said all you can this will be truth still and I am sure will be believ'd so to be by all rational men Pa. I know that one of your Brethren an ancient Sophister in his last scribbling against Doctor