Selected quad for the lemma: prayer_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
prayer_n	offer_v	sacrifice_n	thanksgiving_n	3,189	5	10.9292	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66403	A manual, or, Three small and plain treatises viz. 1. Of prayer, or active, 2. Of principles, or positive, 3. Resolutions, or oppositive [brace] divinity / translated and collected out of the ancient writers, for the private use of a most noble lady, to preserve her from the danger of popery, by the Most Reverend Father in God, John, Lord Arch-Bishop of York.	Williams, John, 1582-1650.	1672 (1672)	Wing W2711; ESTC R38653	30,581	162

We dignifie them as Saints by celebration we dare not deifie them as Gods by invocation Your own men confess there is for this praying to Saints neither precept nor example in all the Bible And Origen made but a question S. Basil an If Gregory Nazianzene a thinking or an opinion only of this which you make an Article of Faith We are commanded to call upon God upon him only for he is our King of old and we are stark mad if we think to better our selves by changing of Masters Pap. I but how will you answer Antiquity For I have been told that there are found in the writings of the Ancient Fathers prayers made to many of the Saints and Holy men departed Prot. If you please to observe them well you shall find they are no Orisons but Orations A certain kind of passionate and rhetorical exclamations made unto the dead concerning some notable events happened unto the Church in general or the parties themselves in particular This is easily believed of them who use to read the Greek Fathers which are full of such ejaculations in their affectionate Discourses And that their passages are no Prayers this is an argument Because there is not any of all these Fathers when they treat of Prayer as it is their usual theam of set purpose and handle all the objects and kinds thereof that ever mention one syllable of this prayer to Saints This is an answer will never be taken away by any of your side Now if your Priests took an hint hereby to erect Masses for the dead I hope you know they loose nothing by the bargain Pap. You likewise contemn and deride the Reliques of the Saints which are shewed preserved and adored in our Churches Prot. We are so far from contemning any thing in this kind that did we know them to be true reliques and no impostures we should honour them more than you do to wit with an honourable and Christian burial We hear indeed that there were of old b some Christians that attributed too much to the reliques of the Martyrs but we hear from the same Father The better sort of Christians did not so And we hold it very idle to propose for our imitation any other than the best and most absolute pattern Pap. You do also speak basely of the blessed Virgin and compare her to your own Wives and such baggages Prot. A rayling Frenchman doth charge Melancthon with such a comparison but that Book or passage he cites is not to be found among the works of that most learned and modest writer However our Church hath never a Saint Ruffyn as yours hath to heal all frenzies and madnesses and we count no better of those desperate speeches that any one shall vomit against the glorious Virgin Yet I think your men abuse her far more one calling her a Goddess another the Goddess of the sea which is the title of Venus In very deed you all abuse her For as one well observes when you say your Ave Maries you pray for her But we hold as to pray for her to be most injurious so to pray to her to be most unlawful and superstitious Pap. Also you never use to pray for the dead although the Ancients did so Prot. We dare not indeed For if they be in Heaven we shall wrong them if in hell we cannot help them and Purgatory b your own men confess was never heard of amongst the Ancients Now for those prayers for the dead in the old Liturgies they were conceived if you mark them for men dying and passing not dead already and so they are still used in the Church of England and most diligently and devoutly in the Collegiate Church of Westminster But to stretch and extend these Collects to men stone-dead and past their particular judgements was a pretty project of the Monks and Fryars and they were very well pay'd for their wit and invention as you shall find when you shall have occasion to purchase a Mass for any of your kindred departed Pap. Nay say you nothing of the Mass for out of malice and derogation from the Sacrifice therein offered you have bred in the people such a slight opinion of the Blessed Sacrament as they make of it but a bare sign or a token or a figure or I cannnot tell what And dare not conceive Christ to be there for fear of imprisonment or the high Commission Prot. We do indeed acknowledge no oblation in the Blessed Sacrament but a lively commemoration of that oblation of Christ which he offered upon the Cross for our redemption Nor any Sacrifice at all but that Sacrifice of Collects Prayers and Thanksgiving which the Church poures out unto God at the receiving of the Sacrament And these commemorations and Collects are the reason why the Supper of the Lord was termed by the Ancients a Sacrifice an Oblation the Eucharist the Hoast c. But the reverence due to this great Sacrament is as observable as the manner of Christs presence therein is unexpressible The names of a figure a signe a type and the like we keep to expound the words only but not as though they were keys to open and unfold the manner of the mystery The speech is to be expounded figuratively because This and Christs body before the pronounciation of the last syllable of the words are disparats and of a contrary nature But Christ is present there for the matter substantially truly really nay most truly and most really and more truly and more really than the Bread and the Wine but for the manner ineffably and unexpressably And this is that Calvinistical doctrin you so much cavil at and deride 1. We honour the Saints with Ecclesiastical observation but not with a Spiritual adoration 2. The Ancient Fathers made Orations but no Orisons unto them 3. The blessed Virgin is more abused by Papists who make her To give suck to a Priest Vincent Spec. hist l. 7. 84. Mend Thomas a Beckets old hose Cantib l. 2. c. 29. 12. Heal a scab'd Head Caes l. 7. c. 25. Clip a Monk Id. l. 7. c. 51. Kiss another Id. l. 7. c. 33. Sing to a third Id. l 7. c. 22. Lie between Man and Wife Vincent l. 7. c. 8. Supply a Nuns place that was gone to a Bawdy House Caesar lib. 7. cap. 35. Bring an Abbesse to Bed gotten with Child by her Serving-man Vincent Spec. hist lib. 7. cap. 87. 4. We are ready to bury but not to adore reliques 5. We pray for men departing as the Fathers did not for the departed as the Fryars did 6. Christ is the Sacrament really for the matter ineffably for the manner CHAP. V. Some idle personal exceptions Prot. HAve you any other points of our Religion that you stumble at Pap. These are the main points of your Religion