Selected quad for the lemma: prayer_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
prayer_n	holy_a	spirit_n	supplication_n	2,162	5	10.6010	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23818	The reform'd samaritan, or, The worship of God by the measures of spirit and truth preached for a visitation-sermon at the convention of the clergy, by the reverend Arch-Deacon of Coventry, in Coventry, April the sixth, 1676 : to which is annexed, a review of a short discourse printed in 1649, about the necessity and expediency of worshipping God by set forms / by John Allington ...	Allington, John, d. 1682.	1678 (1678)	Wing A1213; ESTC R2327	57,253	87

distance or for not acquaintance with the Voice he oft cannot understand or understanding cannot so instantly consider and judge of as to deem it a meet oblation for his God Whether I say these acts can better be discharged and Praestantissima quaeque Deo upon a transient than a set Form let every man so judge as he will answer it to his God Sixthly Men of different Principles can never conscionably joyn in conceived or conceited Prayer For he who holds Original Sin in Infants as such no bar to Salvation he cannot abide that men in Prayer should say they are damned before born and came into the world Brands of Hell-fire Or such who hold Sacraments have no effect but in the Elect onely these cannot joyn in a preparative Prayer but either they must have a Congregation of Elect onely or they must rashly say they know not what and pray for such grace for some present which they pretend to know God will never give And indeed upon what but upon this are built all the sorry Objections against the Liturgy Seventhly Conceived Prayer or as they call it praying by the Spirit is for the most part a great cheat being the main Product of a ready Tongue and a strong Memory in which is treasured up for all occasions Scripture-Phrases Collections Notes and such Expressions as are most taking and popular For that the Holy Spirit will put words into the mouth of any man as he did once into Balaam's Ass suddainly and irresistibly or that by the Spirit of Prayer is meant a capacity to speak in the Vocative Case an Hour or two is not yet proved to a serious and a sober Christian That place of Zechary I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplications it will by no means do them this service For Authority I hope undeniable to conceivers the Assembly-Annotations tells us And I will pour This Prophecy had its accomplishment partly upon our Saviour's coming and yet shall more fully upon the last conversion of the Jews So that by them the present Church seems not the subject of this promise Indeed they say the house of David typically represents the Church of Christ and the Children of God But then by the Spirit of Grace and Supplications they by no means mean the gift of Prayer or a power of a sudden to say what they list in the Vocative Case For by the spirit of Grace they onely mean an help from God to make Prayer in Believers holy and acceptable and that is far from long and indigested Rapsodies And as for that upon which Fanaticks lay the great stress the Spirit of Supplications The Comment declines it wholly and rather sides with those who render the Original by Compassion or Lamentation So that this is a pitiful Bottom to cozen and cheat the people on with or to an expectation of such a surprize of Spirit as shall make them pray what they list and as long And indeed both the learned in the Hebrew Tongue and the Context bear against it for albeit some conceive as the vulgar Latine renders it Prayer or Supplications may yet as Cornelius à Lapide whom I therefore quote because he hath prepared the Collection for me upon the place observes the Septuagint the Chaldee Pagnine the Tigurine Version and Hierom by what some Humorists call the Spirit of Prayer they rather render Compassion Commiseration a Minde tender and propense to pity and compassion And indeed if we consider the very next words and by them measure the prime end of this promise we shall finde the genuine and proper meaning of the Text must needs be thus I will pour upon the house of David and the Inhabitants of Jerusalem a Spirit so tempered with Grace and Tenderness that they shall be sensibly touched and affected when they shall look upon him whom they have pierced and shall mourn for him as one who mourneth for his onely Son Enough to evince the Septuagint the Chaldee and the rest rather to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Spirit of Commiseration Pity and Compassion than as the vulgar Latine which but to serve an interest the godly Party abhors to follow Spiritus precum the Spirit of Prayers Yea in former and elder English Versions it is read thus The Spirit of Grace and Compassion and perchance had been so still had not this pretended gift of praying sprung out not many years before the last Translation But since men have had an itch to magnifie their own gifts and as did the Scribes and Pharisees by long prayer to get into and deceive the people set Forms of Prayer hath been mightily deprest as if those Prayers were unworthy a Parlour that did decore a Church But If we shall look back to the days of Edward the sixth and Queen Mary we shall finde both at home and abroad both in private and in publick the Church-Prayers were venerable and of great use In the days of Edward the sixth one Thomas Cottesford put out the Church-prayers in the Singular Number that they might be fitted for a Closet and a personal Devotion and accommodated to every day of the Week Morning and Evening And he was held a very good man in his days and as I have been told of the Puritan way In the days of Queen Mary Dr. Taylor Parson of Hadleigh in Suffolk as in his Life appears when his Wife came in an Evening to visit him his Evening-prayer was the Letany and whilst he lay in Prison his daily Prayers were the Service-book of Edward the sixth and that Book he gave to his Wife as a pious Legacy So that it was then no strange thing to use the Common-prayer in a private house nor was that arrogancy of Spirit in holy Breasts as to think no Prayer comparable to those of their own conceiving I may take God to witness honourable Sir I can say with a perfect Heart as Moses once did Numb 11. 26. Would God all the Lords people were prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them But to hear ignorant rash cunning and catching people calling their own God's Spirit and their crafty effusions the Breath of God and his Dictates This my soul abhors an indignation to this was a great motive to the following Letter I conceived a necessity upon me then to assert a set Form when an abundance of what was then called Prayer savoured more of Diurnals Designes News and Villanies than of godliness or purity of the Gospel Yea the Spirits of too too many of my own calling are not yet to be trusted to speak what they list in Prayer some yet taking occasion rather to instil their present dislikes than to promote a sincere and pure Devotion Now being it is so that men of different Principles can never conscionably joyn in a controverted Prayer there seems to me even hence a great necessity that Prayer should be set and

we are to take no notice by a Worship in Spirit and Truth and by worshipping the Father understood worshipping in a Form for Father implies a Form and by publick Liturgies let us a little survey their Piety and their Prayers First Our blessed Lord and Master who gave this rule he himself exemplified what he gave for the exact Pattern and the very Basis of all Gospel-worship is Pater Noster Our Father The Apostolical Symbol the Canon and Square of all the Professions of our Faith it begins Credo in Deum Patrem I believe in God the Father Confession of sins as the words were by our Saviour put into the mouth of the penitent Prodigal it is an address unto the Father I will go to my Father c. And Father I have sinned against heaven and against thee The Sacrament of Initiation or first admittance into the mystical Communion it is confined to this rule In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Yea when the Church in humble thankfulness returneth Praise and Glory unto God for all his benefits it is done as becomes true Worshippers by worshipping the Father and by saying Glory be to the Father and to the Son c. And as for the Church of England is not every Collect a most exact Gospel-worship Almighty and most merciful Father begins our Confession Almighty God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ begins our Absolution Then the Prayer of the Son unto his Father And the Close of every Collect is through Jesus Christ which is still an implication of the Father So that according to this rule the true Worshippers shall worship the Father Who can be truer Worshippers than that Church all whose publick Prayers are Addresses and Acts of worship to the Father And as for Spirit and Truth had it been inconsistent with publick and outward Worship or with Form then St. Paul would never have writ to Timothy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Prayers should be not onely said but made for Kings and all that are in Authority St. James the Brother of our Lord he had scornfully and ignominiously been termed Jacobus Liturgus James the Liturgist had set Forms been inconsistent with Spirit and truth Justine Martyr he would never have spoken of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Common-prayers nor Ignatius before him of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one Prayer had it been a stinting of the good Spirit to have a Liturgy or a Common-prayer Yea there would have been no Churches to have worshipped God in no publick Assemblies to have worshipped there nor indeed no use at all of our Bodies in order to God's glory if Spirit and Truth concluded against outward worship Whatsoever then the antient Churches understood by Spirit and Truth they did not understand an opposition either to bodily or to outward worship For that which is held the best Interpreter of Scripture to wit Praxis Ecclesiae the Church-Practice you see it doth evince the contrary for they had Churches they had known and set Forms for publick worship Yea Beza himself in his smaller Notes thus Quae ad Ordinent spectant ut precum formulae disposuit Apostolus Those Decencies which appertain to Order as Forms of Prayer the Apostle himself prepared and disposed By Spirit and Truth then we may very well here understand a worshipping of the Father according to those measures which the Spirit Light and Grace of the Gospel prescribeth and alloweth to us By Truth we may understand such outward expressions and manifestations as are proportionable to such a Spirit to such Light to such Grace for so by their unanimous and constant practice the primitive and best Churches understood it Lastly therefore give me leave in a word to shew how much it concerns us to give all due regard and respect to the outward and publick Worship of God under the state of the Gospel The Servants of God under the Gospel they are stiled by our Saviour Veri Adoratores the true Worshippers not the unsatiable Hearers Now it seems strange to me that Christians should emphatically be called the true Worshippers and yet many make no account at all of Evangelical Worship as if God did not as much regard the honour done unto his Person as he doth the bare hearing and listening to his Word Or as if Pray continually and Continue in prayer sounded not as much duty as doth Be instant in season and out of season By Evangelical Worship I understand Prayers Supplications and giving of Thanks confession of Sin profession of Faith making and performing of Vows oblation of Praise singing of Hymns and Psalms reception of Sacraments Adoration either with or without these So that the Father is then worshipped in Spirit and in Truth when there is a reverential address or a religious performance of all or any of these before him so that we cannot come under the honourable Appellative in the Text Veri Adoratores true Worshippers unless we outwardly and publickly even thus assemble for to worship Esay 66. 23. the Evangelical Prophet speaking of Gospel-days thus writes All flesh shall come to worship before me saith the Lord. To worship is not to clap on our Hats and sit on our Seats to hear a Sermon but to perform some act of honour some humble office some such religious Duty the reverence whereof may shew forth our distance and the Father's glory the performance whereof may move all who see it say These men are in the presence and before their God These men know what they worship These men have the Fear and Apprehension of a glorious Majesty before their eyes For being the great designe of God in all his works is the setting forth of his own Glory Worship it is the very immediate tendency to that great end For they that worship it is their actual employment to set forth his praise and to magnifie him under some glorious Attribute or other So that indeed between Hearing and Worshipping there is as much difference as between Hearing and Doing For Hearing being but a disposition to Doing Worship is the very practice Doing and actual Advance of God's honour and therefore a Duty not to be laid aside nor so coolly frequented and performed as by too too many He who in the second Commandment said Thou shalt not bow down to them or worship them He who forbids Sacrisice and Prayers and Praises yea the very bowing of the Body to false Gods doth not in so doing imply less than a reservation of this Worship to himself And therefore to him who is the everliving God and the everlasting Father to him we must ascribe and give the Glory the Honour and the Worship that evangelically is due unto him for the true Worshippers are in all duty bound to worship the Father and to worship him in Spirit and Truth Hos 6. 6. I desired mercy and not sacrisice and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings

Under the Law we all know the ordinary and outward Worship it was Sacrifice and Burnt-offerings and yet mercy and the knowledge of God Spiritual and Evangelical acts were even then most acceptable and even then upon this very account you shall finde both David and the people going up to worship Psal 122. 1. I was glad when they said unto me Let us go into the house of the Lord. Now what did the people go into the House of the Lord for or for what did David so rejoyce to go up with them was it think you to hear a Sermon No but it was to worship or as it is v. 4. To give thanks unto the Name of the Lord. And Psal 42. 4. What is it the Prophet David there so sadly remembreth and in bitterness poureth forth his Soul for the want of it but onely this I had gone with the multitude I went with them to the house of God What to do onely to hear No but to worship and to give praise to God For it followeth I went up with the voyce of joy and praise with a multitude that kept holy-day He was a great Worshipper and delighted to go up with them who went to worship And it seems to me worth observation and to our present purpose that from the beginning of the world all along in Scripture we never read of any erection raised to God but the first and prime intention of it was Worship For The first holy erections we read of they were Altars and those we know were for Sacrisice which was then Worship The second we read of was the Tabernacle and at the Door of this Moses and Aaron they went up to worship Thirdly we read of a glorious Temple built by Solomon of a second built by Zerubbabel a third by Herod all devoted and built for Worship Yea saith God by his Prophet My house shall be called the house of prayer to all nations and what is that but the house of Evangelical worship And indeed we finde to that very use the blessed Apostles did put the Temple Peter and John they went up to the Temple at the hour of prayer Yea the very first Houses that the holy Christians after them built they were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oratories or Houses of Prayer And indeed what is Heaven it self and the glorious presence of our God but a place of worship Rev. 4. 10. The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sate on the throne and worship him that liveth for ever and ever and cast their crowns before the throne saying Thou art worthy O Lord to receive glory and honour and power for thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were created Yea if that Argument of St. Paul upon which he prefers Charity before Faith and Hope be concluding if Charity because it abideth when Faith and Hope shall be no more is therefore the more excellent gift certainly then since we finde Worship where Preaching shall not be since we finde Worship the employment of Angels and the everlasting exercise of beatified Saints and Souls to worship God must needs be a duty of no mean concern specially if we consider how we are taught to pray Thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven for the will of God there is an incessant and an everlasting worship Now certainly either we minde not what we pray believe not we are to do as well as to say our Prayers or else we could not conceive our selves bound to worship upon Earth even him who is incessantly worshipped in the Heavens And being I have shewed unto you how all holy places that were ever erected either by Commandment from God or by the instinct or motion of the Spirit of God were all chiefly designed for worship that is for offering up unto God either Sacrifice or Prayers Praises Confession of Sins Professions of Faith Hymns Psalms and spiritual Songs therefore such places they ought to be frequented by us and that purely upon the account of these performances that is upon the account of Worship For He that enters into this House of Prayer and devoutly as did the Publican shall smite his Breast and say no more than God be merciful to me a sinner he doth God more honour than is done by the rude and ordinary hearing of a Sermon He who shall humbly fall upon his Knees and sincerely offer up unto the Father the Prayer of his own Son those two Knees do God more honour than a thousand Hats upon a thousand Heads Yea being it is the charge of our blessed Lord and Master Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in Heaven It is impossible any example should be visible unless the Reverence be sensible and the outward Expressions such as may move others to fall down and worship that is reverendly to confess to praise to bless and to glorifie our Father which is in Heaven It is an old saying and a true Occultae Musicae nullum encomium Of concealed Musick there is no praise For let an Artist have in him the sense and habit of Musick never so well be he able in his Spirit to lodge the comprehensions of all Harmony yet unless he either sing or play unless he either by Voice or Instrument discover this hidden skill he can neither give delight to the Hearer or get any praise or respect unto himself Even so it is in Religion and holy Duties let men have in Spirit the habits of Faith Hope Charity and all Graces whatsoever all this whilst but in the Spirit it onely is Occulta Musica undiscerned Piety invisible goodness nothing at all either edifying others or advancing God's glory So that whether it be Conversation or Worship Spirit without Truth inward Religion without outward Evidence Faith within without Works without they may be Arguments of a Fanatick by no means of an holy Spirit So that I shall conclude this whole Discourse with that of our Saviour Matth. 19. 6. Whom God hath joyned together let no man put asunder Whether it be in our converse with God or Men whether it be in God's Service or in God's Worship whether what we do hath respect to the Person of God or to the Commands of God Spirit and Truth whom God hath joyned together they must never be put asunder What Graces soever we have in the Spirit the truth of their being there must be evidenced by our outward carriage what Reverence what Fear what Awe and what Esteem soever the Spirit hath of the Majesty Presence and Greatness of our God that must be verified seen and proved by our outward Worship For If God in Heaven will not that Angels and Spirits worship within themselves and as some take the Notion in Spirit onely If to him all the Angels cry aloud the Heavens and all the powers therein If to him Cherubin and

The Reform'd Samaritan OR THE WORSHIP OF GOD By the Measures of Spirit and Truth Preached for a VISITATION-SERMON at the Convention of the Clergy by the Reverend Arch-Deacon of Coventry in Coventry April the Sixth 1676. To which is Annexed A Review of a short Discourse Printed in 1649. about the Necessity and Expediency of Worshipping God by set Forms By JOHN ALLINGTON Vicar Of Leamington-Hastang LONDON Printed by J. C. for Thomas Basset at the George near St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet-street 1678. To the Honourable CHARLES LEIGH Esq Now at Leighton-Buzzard Be Health Honour Happiness SIR OF that Gentile who built them a Synagogue the Jews gave this Eulogie That he was worthy and that he loved their Nation That your self came a worthy person into the World your paternal Dignity will avouch and that you are one who not onely love your Nation but the Religion of it I shall onely in proportion to the Synagogue say You have lately at your own Cost beautisied the better part of the House of God not doubting but Beauty in Place as well as in a Person may be a great attractive endeavouring to woe the People to worship their God in the Beauty of Holiness Having thus done and hearing the following Sermon you did more than desire that it might be made publique and merely therefore because it had for subject onely the Worship of God which as distinct from Service hath not been in your hearing so plainly explicated as you candidly concéived it is Now honoured Sir to gratifie you and at your instigation to promote the Worship of God in the capacities of such who are not sinely learned I have delivered my Endeavours and your Desires to the world My Intention is good the Acceptance dubious but shall I please God and please you in so doing I have my end There is annexed to the Sermon what many years hath lain in the posture it now appears which for the Brevity Easiness and Time it was writ in was much importuned Thousands since the Glory of our Worship brake forth that dismal Cloud which many years it stood eclipsed in I say thousands have now courted it as the rising Sun but by their mincing and mangling and neglect of it declare they receive it onely as an expedient to hold a Living Whereas when that was writ a Living was lost for the using of it and the Author suspended by an imperious Beggar Tam ab Officio quam à Beneficio for reading the Common-prayer without Book The sum is that to worship God by a set Form is the stablest and most certain advance of his Glory and the securing of the holy Duty from all impertinencies A Discourse not unfit to accompany and wait upon a Sermon precisely about Worship which shall suffice at this time to trouble both your honourable Self and the willing Reader From my Study at Leamington Novemb 20. 1677. Yours Most willing to Honour Love and Pray for you John Allington THE REFORMED SAMARITAN JOHN 4. 23. The hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth TO traverse the Coherence from the sixth to this present Verse would spend too much time and therefore being intelligentibus loquor I shall observe as introductory to my Text onely three things 1. One concerning the Woman a Samaritan 2. The place Jerusalem and Gerasin 3. The Worship it self First The observable in the Woman it was a religious piece of Hypocrisie For when our blessed Master convinced her of being a close Adulteress then she begins to speak godlily and to turn her discourse as Factious Saints use to a religious Controversie Our Fathers saith she worshipped in this mountain and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where we ought to worship Our Saviour puts her in minde of living in Adultery and she puts our Saviour upon the decision of a Question our Saviour tells her of her living with one that was not her Husband and she tells our Saviour that the Jews did not worship where they should Our Saviour tells her of an undoubted fault and she makes scruple of a disputable Ceremony And in this she seems to be the Emblem of too too many yea of too too many even at this very day For have not we those who make huge scruple about what they understand not and yet none at all of indisputable and known sins I have heard of one who made an huge scruple of kneeling to ask Blessing to a Mother who made none of lying with another Womans Husband I have heard of some who make an huge scruple of any Recreation upon the Lord's day who upon all the days of the Week have made none at all of Rebellion Schism Sedition Heresie which witness the Apostle are more undoubted wickednesses Yea we have heard and seen too too many boggle at a Surplice who made nothing of Plundering Killing and Cutting of Throats Too too many scrupling a Gesture at the Sacrament who made none after their own mode to receive it with Hatred Malice and all Vncharitableness And what is this but just as did the Samaritan Woman to wave common and crying sins with religious controversies yea what are all such scruples but meerly Religion in Hypocrisie Secondly The next observable it is about the place from Vers 21. where it is written Neither in this mountain nor yet in Jerusalem shall ye worship and it shall be onely this These words are not as some mistake them an inhibition of set places as if God under the Gospel would have no Churches no Temples no holy places But this is a gratious enlargement and an holy Liberty given to devout Christians in any place to erect a Temple and in every Country Town or City to build an House of Prayer In those daies the Samaritans they held themselves bound to Gerasin and the Jews we all know were confined and bound to go up to Jerusalem for to worship but by the coming of Christ and his Gospel so are Christians enlarged that wheresoever we shall dedicate Houses to his Worship there will he be worshipped there will he receive our Vows our Prayers our Praises Nor doth worshipping in spirit and truth in the least oppose this For if worshipping in spirit and in truth were an opposition to material places then we might not pray in our Closets nor in our Chambers nor in our Houses nor in Groves nor in Fields nor indeed upon God's Earth for these are all material as well as Churches Nay I might adde not in our Bodies for even they are materials also By Worshipping then in spirit and truth there is no rejection of material places no neither of Jerusalem nor Gerasin in order to Evangelical worship For where Story telleth us Eruptions of Fire would not permit the re-edifying of a Temple even there at this day the Christians have a Temple and do worship Thirdly therefore to come directly to the Text our last introductory Observation