Selected quad for the lemma: prayer_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
prayer_n	pray_v	spirit_n	supplication_n	6,826	5	11.2274	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45302	A modest confutation of a slanderous and scurrilous libell, entitvled, Animadversions vpon the remonstrants defense against Smectymnuus	Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656.	1642 (1642)	Wing H393; ESTC R3701	34,653	47

used which are most accommodated to the capacity of the people Herein I known you will agree with me I go on But a set form is most accommodate Ergo This proposition is easily proved I make it good thus 1. The understanding is prae-acquainted with and the subject otherwise difficult is thus made obvious and easie 2. The matter is the same not at the will or passion or ignorance or negligence of him that prayeth to be varied by reason of which sometime the people cannot sometime dare not go along with their Minister 3. Though the language be not in it self unknown yet the harshnesse of it in some the length and tediousnesse of stile in others the affected heighth of forced Allegories and Tropes not to say the nonsense and ridiculously absurd variations of many pretenders to the faculty render● it altogether as unintelligible as it were Latine or Greek If were to make good this assertion by a particular in ●ance I would go no farther than your prayer you have given us pag 6 37 38. which infinite of honest and simple Christians would no more know how to understand than they would doe a Scene out of Iohnsons Cataline But what command in Scripture is there for it Where is conceived prayer mentioned what such virtue is there in the extemporall wording of a Prayer that for the giving it such undoubted liberty we must run all these hazzards The soul may be as much inflamed that prayes in a set form as that which doth not and that may be as cold that prayes extempore Will you say that every one that hath the gift hath also affections answerable you dare not That then may be belyed and we shall admire the spirit where it is not what is this but to warm our selves at a painted fire For indeed it is not the volubility or roundnesse of tongue that is the work of Gods Spirit primarily in him that hath this gift of Prayer but the enkindling of the affections I say primarily for where the Spirit of Grace which is as fire in the heart findes such abilities such naturall abilities either actuall or potentiall it doth catch hold of them and make fuell as it were of them whereby the soul burns the more ardently But where it finds them not God never infuseth them this is meer Anabaptisme otherwise no such abilities no grace no extemporall expressions no Prayer And this being thus doth it make a Prayer ever the more acceptable to God that it is extemporall Doth it make a Prayer unacceptable that it is not so In truth no But this is it there is more of the man in the extemporall Prayer and that makes us doat so much upon it as the fond mother commonly loves that child best whose face is most like her though perhaps of worst conditions You cannot but know that there are of the holiest men and most able Ministers about London and elsewhere that both use our Liturgy and accustome themselves to a set form of their own wisely considering as I said before that they are publike men and are bound to do not what they could more to their own benefit but what they must to the peoples Yea those that do use extemporall expressions I would ask them how far they are from a set form Is not yesterdayes to dayes to morrows and every dayes Prayer alike in the frame oeconomy or disposition of the matter Is not the matter the same do they not preface petition conclude always alike Not in the same words you will say Well but S. Paul did so in all his Epistles in the very same words and it is more than probable did so in all his Prayers If there be new emergent occasions do not those men insert into their own doth not the Church insert into the Common-prayer book such petitions as are needfull for those occasions Consider then in what things their Prayers come near yours and yours come near theirs and where 's the difference why is the world distracted about nothing either you are exorbitant or both may agree 3. Most expedient to attain the end such worship drives at Order Unity Piety and the best advancement of Gods glory Whereas an unbounded liberty in extemporall and fanaticall Prayers brings forth the quite contrary disorder dis-union of affections between man and man impiety atheism and anarchy Ex ungue leonem What leud demeanours what insolent and irreligious behaviours both towards the Book of Common-prayers and the men that use them hath this lawless time shewn now while the laws are still in force that authorize them The King and Parliament devoutly use them religious people morning and evening frequent them now some to spurn and tear them others spit at them you to call them superstitious evill a Crambe a Kickshoe an Hotch-potch a Drench c. If this be not the highest degree of profanation nothing is Surely if we do not repent for this our posterity will and besides that blush when ever they shall be upbraided by such prodigiously Atheisticall Ancestors But to proceed What order can ever be expected what uniformity looked for what consent and harmony betwixt Church and Church when every one shall differ in that which should make them truly one a Communion of Saints even their community of Prayers How while some are starved shall others be pampered and then what likenesse Tell me not that they that will shall use the Churches set forms for either they will be wholly neglected where others cannot be had being so discountenanced if left arbitrary discountenanced I say by publike authority depraved condemned damned by private persons or else whiles both are in use it will nourish a continuall enmity betwixt the users of each It is a requisite in the Church of Christ that the particular Congregations which are the members of that mysticall body be of one heart and one minde especially in their Prayers to and Praises of God more especially in publike meetings at publike deliverances in publike dangers how shall we be so when we shall not know what one anothers hearts and mindes are No but the designe of your dear friend the Authour of The Protestation protested and some since him is to have the Church at length sifted and winnowed and the grain laid apart by it self that is your faction and for the chaffe all else let them do or be what they will it matters not If the Kings State will maintain the faith of Christ well and good they shall have your fair leave if not they shall have your leave too so you may enjoy your consciences you are indifferent This is the Common good that is cryed up though indeed the Publike wo and thus you tread a fair way to it you shall have the hold of the hearts of the people the surest hold that may be of their consciences of all their religiousest actions their Prayers Supplications c. and the State shall have none of you not command you to pray

follow such Ring-leaders as you to their own destruction Such men will acquit our great Clerks well enough of any or all your pretended slanders and besides tell you that though against all sense and reason they make them not Judges of their abilities and against all antiquity and custome of the Church above what ever is written or practised in Scripture they receive not their ordination from them yet they both encourage them in and blesse God for their safe knowledge and becomming actions Go you then to your mutinous rabble and if you can appease their furies enthrone their sage wisedomes upon some stall or bench and cite before them the Clerks of either University those competent Judges I guesse will do like themselves reject one as unsufficient so as they the Horse which Polygnotus had exquisitely painted damned the whole piece because contrary to the nature of that beast he had made him with hairs on his nether eye-lids onely for that he hath too little haire on his upper lip or too much upon his fore-head because he useth not to wear wrought night-caps or mastick patches In the mean while another as the Good-wife in Plutarch judged of Philopoemen shall be thought fitter to ●leave blocks than divide a Text because he hath a sowre or crabbed countenance because either his learning is too much or that little he hath lodges as their Prentices do in an ugly Garret Whiles a third shall be deeply suspected of Arminianism because he hath a squint-eye or is of the Archbishops Colledge Briefly all those glorious lights and bright stars of eminence and lustre in either Horizon shall be no better esteemed of than Tyro in Gellius observes the Hyades were which by his Clownish Ancestors were taken for so many sucking-pigs and perhaps under that name shall be driven to Hogs-Norton to pipe upon the Organs if they be yet standing But I leave these grave Censors these Areopagi if you will to their own discretion lest while I am busied in observing of theirs I forfeit mine and this Paragraph be taxed for that fault of your whole discourse which in the easiest Censurers mouth is but Levity and Digression §. XI OF Liturgie first Into which that distinction of Saint Pauls shall lead the way All things are lawfull but all things are not expedient A thing in its own nature indifferent and so lawfull doth sometimes {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} become inexpedient and so unlawfull By this rule we will examine the point in hand For that set forms of Prayer are in themselves at least indifferent the precept and practice of Christ confirms and no man in his right wits ever denyed Some set forms of Prayer by some men in some cases may be lawfully used The question is therefore of the expediency not of the lawfulnesse of such prayers viz. Whether a set form of Prayers this in particular to which the Church of England hath been and is laudibly as piously accustomed may {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} expediently be used and enjoyned by all to be used in a nationall Church as ours is To the clearing of which point there are two things of necessity to be done 1. The conveniencies and inconveniencies of such prayers in the generall must be weighed 2. The blemishes with which this of ours in particular is charged must be examined According as we find which for or against our conclusion must be made 1. It suits to and agrees best with Gods own proceedings in the government of his Church In which it hath pleased his divine wisdome so to order the matter that since all men are not alike capable of knowledge nor have the same abilities his providence should as it were conform it self to this unequall condition of men whence it is he hath made choice of some to teach others and pray for others chose some to be Apostles some Ministers Pastors Teachers whereas had he not had respect to this and purposed to go along with this weaknesse of mans nature he could as well have infused abilities I mean supernaturall into the brest and brain of the most ignorant despicable member of the Church sufficient without other teachings or helps to have raised him to converse with God here and possesse God hereafter as ever he did into the ablest of the Apostles And now having thus ordered the matter for thus it is was and ever will be let men dream never so long torture and rack Scripture to make it roare out an imaginary lying perfection God looks that those some which he hath chose endued set apart to teaching and praying and all other offices of ministeriall function as they are publike men so should have a publike care of that Church wherein they are So drive as the Church may go like a flock together a due respect had to the Lambs and Ewes big with young to the weary faint and lame Hanc aegram vix Tytere duco which alwayes are the most considerable number Yea come we to the Shepheards themselves How many laborious painfull conscionable men are there that if these helpes may not be allowed them must either tempt God fail in the performance of their duties or give them quite up as not sufficient for these things And if it come to this once how many souls every one for ought we can say of this or that particular being to God alike pretious will here be desperately irrecoverably lost For what help will our Land afford enow such ex tempore men no nor the much magnified Amsterdam with Geneva and New-England to boot Hope is a brave heroick sublimed Christian virtue but it is of things which make us not ashamed 2. Such Liturgies and set forms are most expedient if we look to the nature of Prayers publike Prayers Prayer in it self considered Is the proper act of the soul of the will and understanding and may be completely and perfectly offered up to God without those subsidiary helps of invention disposition memory language these when we speak of private Prayer are but the vain pomp of it when of publike the necessary adjuncts I will pray with the Spirit and I will pray with understanding 1 Cor. 14. 15. This often mis-applyed Text is to be understood of publike Prayer as you may see by comparing it with the second verse He that speaketh or prayeth in an unknown tongue speaketh or prayeth not unto men but unto God By Spirit is meant not as our vain humourists would have it an extemporall faculty of wording it but that gift of the Spirit which Saint Paul mentions vers. 5 6 c. viz. the miraculous gift of tongues or faculty of speaking divers languages by understanding is meant the understanding of the people for he that prayeth in an unknown tongue prayeth not unto men that is not to their understanding That which I gather from hence is this That those publike Prayers are most expedient to be