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
A66784	Three private meditations which being, for the most part, of publick concernment, are therefore published, by their author / George Wither.	Wither, George, 1588-1667.	1665 (1665)	Wing W3197; ESTC R12458	20,586	50

thereby offend and when I am thereto inclined for no carnal respects I can communicate with any professing belief in Christ Jesus either in Humiliations Thanksgivings Breaking of Bread in commemoration of our Saviours Passion or in Prayer where nothing is so idolatrously or superstitiously injoyned or practised that it derogates from the honour of God or is contrary to the Canon of his Word or may in my understanding seem destructive to true Piety or Morality For all other such deficiencies or superfluities as we may suppose to be in the outward worship of God do but exercise love humility or meekness and I look upon them where such be as I do upon mine own failings or performances Whatsoever where I come which I find to be so done or spoken that I may absolutely conform thereunto without offence to God and mine own Conscience I therein joyn and when ought is acted or said whereto I cannot fully assent I lift up my heart in secret prayer to God beseeching him to vouchsafe pardon to me and them for what is ignorantly offended in and to rectifie both mine and their erroneous understandings who are then present which practice of mine if not worthy to be exemplar I hope deserves at least a charitable censure Most of the quarrellings amongst Christian Professours are about matters of less moment then tithing mint and annise and occasion the neglect of weightier matters as it will appear if well heeded as also that most of our Contests spring from self-love though pretended for God and tend more to satisfie the ambition and covetousness of men then to advance his honour or true piety For it is evident that a superintendency over divine Rites and the Worship of God is unduly assumed by many surreptitiously obtained and magisterially usurped by som who had no lawful call thereunto yea viciously exercised in my judgment by all those who endeavour to compel men otherwise then by loving compellations either to the omission or to the use of this or that Discipline or Form of Prayer against their Consciences They who think no Oblation's accepted of God but those set forms or extemporary Devotions which they affect are equally guilty of a superstitious errour For both the one and the other may be compleat or defective warrantably or unwarrantably exhibited according as they are performed Extempory Prayers are set forms to all who hear them except to the speakers onely and perhaps also to some of their knowledges who speak them the greatest part of those Prayers are set forms and otherwhiles in that regard the more acceptable For that form which the Spirit of God hath at any time dictated never leaves it to be less effectual then it was at first if it shall at any other time be offered up on the like occasion by those who with the same devotion and a true sense of what is wanting shall faithfully pray for it in the same words Some have affirmed in my hearing that by declaring my private judgement touching matters controverted I exposed my self to more sufferings then were necessarily adventured yet I do not so believe For all that I have publickly affirmed in subjects of that nature whereupon troubles ensued was by me intended for Gods Glory and the common good though turned to my personal detriment in appearance and they have hitherto brought upon me no mischief which God hath not converted to my spiritual advantage whereas many of those things which my Censurers practice and profess have occasioned uncharitable separations without any benefit to themselves or others yea disturbed their own and the publick tranquility to the daily enlargeing of breaches and to the hazzard of an universal irreconcileable Discord if the probable evil consequents be not timely prevented by an amicable declaring what we are perswaded in our own heart as we finde just occasion and by leaving other men to the same Liberty until they shall be as conscientiously inclined to believe otherwise and then perhaps many will suspect their own discretion as much as now they do mine and make it to themselves questionable who required their former actings or sufferings at their hands Let this be considered by all those Censurers of my open heartedness to whom this shall come and let my friends be many or few as God pleaseth for my trust is in him onely his honour is my chief aim from him I cannot conceal what I believe and from men as touching things relating to his Service and the peace of his Church I will not nor dissemble my belief as it should more appear if it were always as free for me to publish my thoughts as I am to write them at this present It is for such respects questioned by some What I am as to Religion and of what Society I profess my self to be whereto I answer that I profess my self a Catholick Christian mistake me not I do not mean a Roman Catholick which are terms contradictory to themselves being so united because the addition of Roman to Catholick destroyes that Denomination I am a member of that Church which is Universal and of every particular Church in those places where I reside so far forth onely and no further as it is a member of the Church Catholick professing and practising in purity the Faith Doctrine and Discipline thereof I am not of Paul or Apollo's or Cephas or any Society but as they are of Christ Jesus whom I desire to know as Paul said he did not onely as he was in the flesh but as he is spiritually to be known also and to avoid that dividing into parties which from the Apostles time until this day hath tended more to the nourishing of Discord and confirming of Errors then to edification in Piety and good life I separate from no Church adhering to the foundations of Christianity not wilfully professing and practising what may be destructive thereto though there be some defects or corruptions therein I joyn not in doing or approving what is not approvable in my understanding yet am as far from a disaffectionate separation on my part as from separating my self from my self or a limb from my body though painful and loath some unto me by a wound or some disease For I shall cherish it until it so corrupts and gangreens that it may destroy my whole body and then I shall willingly be rid of it In like manner waiting in love upon Gods good pleasure toward me and every weak member of Christs mystical Body I will endeavour to preserve my self and them in unity and leave the anathamizing or judging others to him onely whose members they are or pretend to be The Title of a Catholick Christian aforementioned I affect not out of singularity but admit of it by way of distinction onely to answer their questionings who ask of what Religion or of what Church I am And I profess an absolute adherence to the Catholick Church onely because that onely is infallible and the Sanctuary of God upon earth wherein his Mystcries are preserved in purity and wherein I may have assurance of salvation by continuing therein I wave the confining my belief or practice to any one National or Congregational Society of Christians not out of a factious inclination or petulent disesteem of any But having a desire to be instrumental in uniting men dissenting in judgement both unto God and to each other in Love I conceive that endeavour would be suspected of partiality and not so effectually prosecuted if I made my self a party with any one Fraternity more then with another some of whom strain at a Gnat and swallow a Cammel or so presume of their infallibility that they exclude all as Reprobates who dissent from them in Doctrine or Discipline having also more affection for those who are zealous in the Opinions and Formalities which they approve though held in unrighteousness for carnal ends then they have for them who are conscientious professours of the Truth in godliness and sincerity according to their measure of faith and understanding if they dissent from them but in a Crotchet For these and such like respects I suffer not my self to be bound up with any Congregation as aforesaid but so far as the Christian Liberty and the exercise of Charity towards all men may be preserved as also the Peace and Credit of all Societies professing Jesus Christ so far forth as it ought to be for though he may have somewhat to alleadge against them as he had against the seven Churches in Asia to whom he wrote by St. John they are all in some degree Nurses of Piety and good manners And many thousands have had and have in them initiations into that which is best approvable Our National Church was my first Nurse and I confess with thankfulness I from thence first drew nourishments strengthening me towards eternal life that I had there also dry Nurses some of which fed me wholesomely and some to the endangering my being poisoned or starved But I have but one Spiritual Mother which is the Catholick Church aforementioned There are other Objections whispered some against my late published Meditations upon the Lords Prayer some against my Tract entitled The Persecution of the Tongue among Brethren a manuscript not yet published and some others which I shall by Gods assistance vindicate as soon as I have leasure from misapprehensions and make it evident there are many who have heretofore complained of severity in those by whom they were persecuted for their Consciences who would quickly had they power answerable to their will improve it into that Persecution which is the Mark of the BEAST in the forehead or in the hand But having for just cause added this here I will conclude for the present heartily beseeching GOD that his Peace may be established and continued among his Saints for ever FINIS