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
A86280	Certamen epistolare, or, The letter-combate. Managed by Peter Heylyn, D.D. with 1. Mr. Baxter of Kederminster. 2. Dr. Barnard of Grays-Inne. 3. Mr. Hickman of Mag. C. Oxon. And 4. J.H. of the city of Westminster Esq; With 5. An appendix to the same, in answer to some passages in Mr. Fullers late Appeal.	Heylyn, Peter, 1600-1662.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Bernard, Nicholas, d. 1661.; Hickman, Henry, d. 1692.; Harrington, James, 1611-1677.	1659 (1659)	Wing H1687; Thomason E1722_1; ESTC R202410	239,292	425

exemplifying in my many repr●ac●es against extemporary Prayer the holy improvement of the Lords day c. but where I beseech you in what Book or Books of mine may a man meet with any of those many reproaches against extemporary Prayer May you not be again mistaken and find upon a further search that those many reproaches against extemporary Prayer are to be found in D. ●olkinton or in some body else The most that I have said ag●inst extemporary Prayer occurreth in a brief discours touching the form of Prayer appointed to be used before the Sermon Sect. 22. in which you read That whereas the Church prescribes a set form of Prayer in her publique Liturgie from which it is not lawful for any of her Ministers to vary or recede she did it principally to avoid all unadvised effusions of gross and undigested Prayers as little capable of piety as they are uterly void of order and this she did upon the reason given in the Melevitan Council viz. least else through ignorance or want of care any thing should be uttered contrary to the rules of faith Ne forte aliquid contra fidem vel per ignorantiam vel per minus studium si● compositum as the Canon hath it And again page 348. We plainly see by the effects what the effect of theirs would tend to What is the issue of the liberty most men have taken to themselves too many of that sort who most stand upon it useing such passages in their Prayers before their Sermons that even their Prayers in the Psalmist's language are turned into sin Thus find we in the General Preface That the inconveniencies which the liberty hath brought upon us in these latter days are so apparent that it is very hard to say whether the liberty of Prophesying or the licentiousness in Praying what and how we list hath more conduced to these distractions which are now amongst us and if there were no such effect too visible of this licentiousness which I desire the present state to take notice of the scandal which is thereby given unto our Religion in speaking so irreverently with such vain repetitions and tautologies to almighty God as in extemporary and unpremeditated Prayers is too frequently done seem a sufficient consideration to bring us back again to that ancient form which the wisedom of the Church prescribed to prevent that mischief And finally that men never did so litterally offer unto God the Calves of their lips as they have done of late since the extemporary way of praying hath been taken up ●nd if it were prohibited by the Law of Moses to offer any thing unto God in the way of the legal Sacrifices which was maimed sported or imperfect how can it rationally be conceived that God should be delighted with those Oblations or spiritual Sacrifices which have nothing almost in them but maims spots and blemishes These are my words I must confess but that they are reproaches I must needs deny But first I do not speak these words of all extemporary Prayers in general or more particularly of those which gifted men may make in their private devotions but of those unpremeditated undigested Prayers which men ungifted and unlearned men have poured out too frequently in the Church of God And secondly if they be reproaches they are such reproaches and such only as when a man is said to have been slandered with a matter of truth and for the proof hereof besides the authority of the Council of Melevis before remembred I ma● bring that our incomparable Hooker in the fifth Book of his Eccles Politie Num 25. Who though he actually saw but few did foresee many of ●ho●e inconveniencies which the humor of extemporary Prayer at last would bring into the publique worship of Almighty God for there he tells us of the grievous and scandalous inconveniences whereunto they make themselves daily subject who by their irksome deformities whereby through endless and sensless effusions of undigested Prayers they oftentimes disgrace in most unsufferable manner the worthiest part of Christian duty towards God when being subject herein to no certain order pray both what they list and how they list But behold a greater then Hooker is here even His most Excellent and most Incomparable Majesty the late King CHARLS who telleth us in his large declaration against the Scots That for want of a set form of Prayer they did sometimes pray so ignorantly that it was a shame to all Religion to hear the Majesty of God so barbarously spoken unto and sometimes so seditiously that their very Prayers were either plain libels against Authority or manifest lies stuffed with all the false reports in the Kingdom And what effects he found of them among the English appears by his Proclamation against the Directory bearing date Novemb. 30. Anno 1644. where we are told That by abolishing the Book of Common-Prayer there would be a means to open the way and give the liberty to all ignorant factious or evil men to broach their own fancies and conceits be they never so wicked and erroneous and to mislead people into sin and rebellion and to utter those things even in that which they make for their Prayers in their Congregations as in Gods presence which no conscientious man can assent to say Amen to And hereunto I shall add no more but this viz. that the passages produced before out of two of my Books and countenanced both by sad experience and such great Authorities must needs be either true or false if true they can be no reproaches if false why do you not rather study to confute them then reprove me for them 17. The next charge which you lay upon me and thereby render me obnoxious to a new reproof relates to my reproaches against the holy improvements of the Lords day c. How far your c. will extend is hard to say and therefore had you done more wisely had you left it out especially consider how many doubtful descants and ridiculous glosses were made upon a former c. and happily left standing in one of the Canons Anno 1640. for either I am guilty of more reproaches against piety and the power of godlines or I am not guilty if guilty why do you not let me know both their number and nature that I may either plead my innocence or confess my crime If not why do you thus insinuate by this c that you suppress some other charges which you have against me But letting that pass cum ceteris ●rroribus Where I beseech you can you point me to any reproaches of that day or of the holy improvements of it Much I confess is to be found in some of my Books against the superstitious and more then judaical observation of it which cannot come within the compass of being a reproach unto it Might not the Scribes and Pharisees Si licet exemplis in parvo grandibus uti in the Poets words have charged our Saviour with the

you have attributed to them as far as the effects can shew the heart to others I have before took some pains to let you see how easily men may be mistaken when they behold a man through the spectacles of partiality and defection or take the visible appearances for invisible graces the fraudulent art fi●●s and deceits of men for the coelestial gifts of God And as for that which you have inferred hereupon viz. that if he love them he will scarcely take my dealing well You should first prove the Premises before you venter upon such a strange conclusion and not condemn a Christian brother upon Ifs and Ands. 32. In the next place you please to tell me that you are not an approver of the violence of any of them and that you do not justifie M. Burtons way and that you are not of the mind of the party that I most oppose in all their Discipline as a Book now in the Press will give the world an account In the two first parts of which Character which you have given us of your self as I have great reason to commend your moderation and hope that you will make it good in your future actions so I can say little to the last not having heard any thing before of the Book you speak of nor knowing by what name to call for it when it comes abroad But whereas you tell us in the next that you are sure the Church must have unity and charity in the ancient simplicity of Doctrine Worship and Government or not at all I take you at your word hold there and we shall soon agree together Vnity and charity in the ancient simplicity of Doctrine Worship and Government no man likes better then my self bring but the same affections with you and the wide breach which is between us in some of the causes which we mannage on either side will be suddenly closed but then you must be sure to stand to the word ancient also and not to keep your self to simplicity only if unity and charity will content you in the ancient Doctrine in the simplicity thereof without subsequent mixtures of the Church I know no doctrine in the Church more pure and ancient then that which is publickly held forth by the Church of England in the book of Articles the Homilies and the Chatechism authorized by Law under the head or rubrick of Confirmation Of which I safely may affirm as S. Augustine doth in his Tract or Book Ad Marcellinum if my memory fail not his qui contradicit ●ut à Christi fide alienus est aut est haereticus that is to say he must be either an Infidei or an Heretick who assenteth not to them If unity and charity in the simplicity of Worship be the thing you aim at you must not give every man the liberty of worshiping in what form he pleaseth which destroys all unity nor cursing many times in stead of praying which destroyes all charity the ancient and most simple way of Worship in the Church of God was by regular forms prescribed for the publick use of Gods people in their Congregations and not by unpremeditated indigested prayers which every man makes unto himself as his fancy shall lead him which I hope I have sufficiently proved in my Tract of Liturgies And if Set Forms of Worship are to be retained as I think they be you will not easily meet with any which hath more in it of the ancient simplicity of the Primitive times then that by which we did officiate for the space of fourscore years and more in the Church of England And finally if the ancient simplicity in Government be the point you drive at what Government can you find more pure and ancient then that of Bishops of which I shall only present you with that Character of it which I find in that Petition of the County of Rutland where it is said to be That Government which the Apostles left the Church in that the three ages of Martyrs were governed by that the thirteen ages since have alwayes gloried in by their succession of Bishops from the Apostles proving themselves members of the Catholick and Apostolick Church that our Laws have established so many Kings and Parliaments have protected into which we were baptized as certainly Apostolical as the observation of the Lords day as the distinction of Books Apocryphal from Canonical as that such Books were written by such Evangelists and Apostles as the consecration of the Eucharist by Presbyters c. An ample commendation of Episcopal Government but such as exceedeth not the bounds of truth or modesty Stand to these grounds for keeping unity and charity in the ancient simplicity of Doctrine Worship and Government in the Church of God and you shall see how cheerfully the Regal and Prelatical party whom you most oppose wil join hands with you and embrace you with most dear affections 33. But you begin to shrink already and tell me that if I will have men live in peace as brethren our Union must be Law or Ceremonies or indifferent Forms This is a pretty speculation I must needs confesse but such as would not passe for practicable in any well-governed Common-wealth unless it be in the Old Vtopia or the New Atlantis or the last discovered Oceana For how can men possibly live in peace as brethren where there is no Law to limit their desires or direct their actions Take away Law and every man will be a Law unto himself and do whatsoever seemeth best in his own eyes without control then Lust will be a law for one Felony will be a law for another Perjury shall be held no crime nor shall any Treason or Rebellion receive their punishments for where there is no law there is no transgression and where there is no transgression there can be no punishment punishments being only due for the breach of Laws Thus is it also in the service and worship of Almighty God which by the hedge of Ceremonies is preserved from lying open to all prophaneness and by Set Forms be they as indifferent as they will is kept from breaking out into open confusion God as S. Paul hath told us is the God of Order not of Confusion in the Churches If therefore we desire to avoid confusion let us keep some order and if we would keep order we must have some forms it being impossible that men should live in peace as brethren in the house of God where we find not both David hath told us in the Psalms that Jerusalem is like a City which is at unity in it self and in Jerusalem there were not only solemn Sacrifices set Forms of blessing and some significant Ceremonies prescribed by God but Musical Instruments and Singers and linnen vestures for those Singers and certain hymns and several times and places for them ordained by David Had every Ward in that City and every Street in that Ward and every Family in that Street and perhaps every

remedies That which concerns me in relation to Bishop Burlow is my acquitting him from shewing any partiality in summing up the conference at Hampton Court a matter never charged upon him by the Puritan faction more then twenty years after his death and more then thirty years after the publishing of that Book which as the Church Historian saith to have been complained of so doth he only say not prove it and affirmations or complaints are no legal evidences where there are any reasons of strength to evince the contrary but what he wants shall be supplied by the Antagonist who fearing to be prevented in it puts the best legg forwards crying out with more hast then good speed That he will Answer the Doctor Admit him to his Answer and he will tell us That the times were evil that the prudent did think themselves obliged to be silent and that God did so order the matter that they lost no credit by a quiet committing their cause to him How so Because saith he D. Burlow lying on his death bed did with grief complain of the wrong which he had done to D. Reynolds and others that joyned with him in that conference If this be prooved we will admit of all the rest but if this be not proved all the rest is nothing And for the proof of this he is able as he saith to give a satisfactory account to any person of ingenuity who desires it of him I would have took him at his word desiring earnestly to be satisfied in the truth thereof presuming that I might lay claim to so much ingenuity as would entitle me to a capacity of obtaining that favour 20. But in this point I reckoned without my host for though I pressed my desire so far as to conclude that if he did not gratifie me with an Answer I should think he could not yet I am stil as far from satisfaction as at first I was I must first gratifie him in answering such demands as he puts unto me impertinent to the cause in hand and such as the nature of the point in issue cannot bind me too by any Rule of Disputation in the Schools of Logick or else the evidence desired must not be produced I gave some reason why I was not willing to name the parties who received or paid the pension given by Bishop Williams towards the maintenance of a Scholer two of the parties to my knowledg and the third for any thing I know to the contrary being still alive otherwise I could not only name the men but produce the acquittance And for the words relating to Bishop Prideaux they were spoke at a great Table in the Court in the hearing of many and being spoken in the Court must refer only to such Sermons as were preached at the Court and not to all which had been preached elswhete by that learned Bishop The Sermons will be shortly published if not done already and will be able to speak as much for themselves as can be desi●ed of me to do The witness in the cause touching Bishop Burlow may appear securely without drawing danger to himself and will be heard no Question both with love and freedom For if he be a lover of the English Prelacy Liturgie and Ceremonies who is to attest unto this truth I know of none who can refuse to give credit to it but if he take up the report at the second hand from one who told him that he took it from the Doctors mouth and not from the man himself that spake it his witness may be lyable to just exception and then we are but as we were without proof at all He vaunts it somewhere in his Book That he is furnished with a cloud of Witnesses to justifie his cause against you but in this point and the next that follows his Witnesses are all in a cloud shadowed as Aeneas and his followers were from the sight of Dido so that no mortal eye can see them Et idem est non esse et non apparere was the Rule of old 21. Upon no better grounds then this he lays a fouler reproach on the late most Reverend and still Arch-Bishop of Canterbury as being turned out of the Divinity Schools with disgrace by D. Holland in publicis commitiis for but endaevouring to maintain That Bishops differed in order and not in degree only from inferiour Presbiters I reproved him for this in my first Letter and told him how much he would be troubled to produce his Author he shifted it off by saying that he means no otherwise by being turned out of the Schooles with disgrace then that he was publiquely checkt by the said D. Holland for maintaining the said opinion and having M. Prinnes Breviate for the truth of this he thinks it a sufficient proof also to confirm the other but is it possible that any man who pretends but to a grain of ingenuity or learning should dare to lay so base a calumnie on so great a person and hope to salve the matter by such a ridiculous explication as may justly render him contemptible to the silliest School-boy Assuredly if he received a publique check be that same with being disgracefully turned out of the Schools there must be more turned out of the Schools with as much disgrace because as much reprehended and checkt as he of whom the foulest mouth could never raise so leud a slander The Doctor of the Chair in the Divinity Schools at Oxon would be more absolute in his decisions and determinations were this once allowed of then all the Popes that ever sate in Peter's Chair since they first laid claim to it 22. But he goes on and adds that this disgrace was put upon him for maintaining such a novel Popish Position as that before Not Novel I am sure for the ancient Writers call the solemn form of consecrating a Bishop by no other name then that of Ordinatio Episcopi and if the Bishop at his Consecration doth receive no Order his consecration ought not to be styled an Ordination And if it be not Novel then it is not Popish for id verum quod primum as they Father it unlesse he will be pleased to make Popery Primitive and intitle it to the Eldest times of Christianity But Popish if it needs must be then must the Form of Consecration of Arch-Bishops Bishops c. be accounted Popish for which it stands acquitted by the Book of Articles and the two Parliaments of K. Edw. 6. Queen Eliz. must be Popish also by which that Form of Consecration was confirmed and Ratified Twice in the Preface to the Book we find mention of three Orders of Ministers in the Church of Christ Bishops Priests and Deacons and this distinction made as antient as the very times of the Apostles And in the Book it selfe besides the three distinct forms of Ordination the one for Bishops the other for Priests and the third for Deacons in one of the Prayers used at the Consecrating of a