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
A47150	Help in time of need from the God of help to the people of the (so called) Church of Scotland, especially the once more zealous and professing, who have so shamefully degenerated and declined from that which their fathers the primitive Protestants attained unto ... / writ by George Keith, prisoner for the truth in Aberdeen in the latter end of the year 1664.	Keith, George, 1639?-1716.; Jaffray, Alexander, 1614-1673.	1665 (1665)	Wing K173; ESTC R36221	73,094	85

there succeeded a people who saw over these who compiled or rather Englished the Service-book and they disowned it as they did also all other set forms of Prayer and cryed them down as dead lifeless things and they were for a worship in Spirit thus is was but even of very late dayes in Queen Elizabeth and King Iames the sixth and such were nick-named by their enemies Puritans and they affirmed that the Spirit of the Lord was only to teach them to pray and worship and not any Book or Man whatsoever and were not set forms of Prayer cryed down also in Scotland as lifeless barren things and the service-Book denyed and now have ye not again licked up that vomit and through your Cities men set up mostly also scandalous in their conversations at such hours of the day or night to read a set form of Prayer and is there any material difference betwixt this and the Service-book And have not your brethren in England taken it up again and when it 's offered to you to read will ye not also do the like there is no question of it but most of you will and worse also when ye are put to the tryal and oh what a mysterie is it to you praying and singing in the Spirit are ye not become so impudent as to mock this also as I have oft witnessed my self when your Church-members hath been so shameless as to cry in the very streets at us when passing by When came the Spirit last upon you give us a Prayer from the Spirit And do ye not flatly deny praying and worshipping in Spirit who deny Enthusiasm which is to say being interpreted for it 's a Greek word the inspiration of the Spirit of God which is the only flame that kindles up holy 〈◊〉 in the soul after God and you who can prate and talk unto God without a Book in your Pulpits and chief places of the Synagogues and elsewhere in your own wills and times and in the wills and times of others from a rhetorical strain as if ye were complementing some great Prince your prayers are as life ' ess and spiritless as those said of the Mass-book and were ye come truly to the spirit of prayer ye would know a bridle to your tongues without which your Religion is but vain and that the Spirit of God which bloweth as well when and where it listeth is also as far from being limitted to set times as to set forms and we read not in the whole Scripture that the Lord hath appointed any set times of prayer under the Gospel to his people at all whose great and most important work is to wait the movings of the Spirit of Life from God at all times whether to pray or give thanks or to any other spiritual exercise and blessed are they who come hither for they shall know that it is not in vain to wait upon the Lord for we have waited patiently upon him and have witnessed and do witness the pourings forth of the spirit of Prayer and praise supplications and thanksgivings filling our hearts and souls night and day to the God of our life and true prayer is the gift of God which cometh not at all in mans will or time and therefore the season is to be waited for which God hath kept in his own hand and hath the key of the heart to open it when he pleaseth and the key into the house of prayer where is the throne of grace without access to which in the drawings of the Spirit-of life man hath no acceptation with God nor his service or worship all is but idolatry and abomination only such who come to God through the Mediator and Intercessor Christ the Life feeling the living drawings thereof in the particular are accepted of him and made joyful in the house of prayer and hath it not been the regret of some among you and may be yet when ye are in a sober mood that the spirit of prayer is much lost and a dry complementing of God come in the room thereof 3. Were not your fore-fathers the primitive Protestants and Reformers a separated people did not they disown the Popish Assemblies and their preaching and worship as idolatry and forsake it and did not those called Puritans both in England and Scotland separate themselves from the other party who stuck to the Service-book and other superstitions and did not the sober people in Scotland in the former times of Prelacy separate from the Prelatical Assemblies and their Conformists did they not meet apart and talked together of the work of God on their own hearts and worshipped God in Spirit and his blessing and presence was among them while they kept cha●t to him and mixed not with Idolaters Now have ye not apostatized herein also and mixed your selves in with the profane rabble of the world as bad and worse then Papists Turks Pagans which hath provoked the Lord to withdraw from among you and ye can pray and sing and communicate with such Is not this Babylon indeed which is to say Confusion and is not our separation from you also as justifiable as the separation of your fathers from Papists being we have found you to be of the same spirit and mostly of the same principles and practices with them and generally as wicked loose scandalous prophane and covetous and abounding with all manner of iniquity as they and are not all such Idolaters is not thee vetous man an Idolater whereas covetousness is idolatry as saith the Scripture and are not all Idolaters to be denyed as to any fellowship with them in worship and your fathers did not plead such dirty st●ff as you the Professors have learned now to do to shun the Cross for keeping the Popish and Prelatical party their Assemblies Service-book worship alledging That they sit in Moses chair and therefore are to be heard and we may like their good and leave their evil Such reasons prevailed not with your fathers nor ought they for the Christians come not at all to the Scribes and Pharisees who sit in Moses chair but meet apart unless to bear a testimony against them and bad men with all their good words can never edifie a soul in faith or true knowledge which is life eternal all they can do is to edifie in the notion and feed the wrong part and spirit which delights in the notion of truth and is satisfied in the notional knowledge out of the life and the finest truest words out of a bad mans mouth can never reach the seed of God either to the raising of it up or refreshing it but on the contrary burdens and kills as said the Apostle of the false Apostles who had the letter and were Ministers of it out of the Spirit and Power and the letter sayes he kills and so we have found it in our experience but these above-mentioned arguments have prevailed with you so that ye are herein also apostatized from them 4. Your

with you and when any such die the cry goes through your streets there is a faithful brother departed c. or when any of them hath a child to be sprinkled the Priest will cause him to rehearse the Articles of his Faith and he hath no more faith nor so much as the devil for the true faith purifies the heart and lodges in a good conscience Oh horrid abomination and is not the zeal among Professors quite withered and deadness laziness stupidity security neutrality carelessness and sottishness generally overgrown them and all manner of iniquity abounds POSTSCRIPT ANd now ye who accuse us in derision called Quakers by you as Apostates and that we have denyed our fore-fathers Faith try your selves and parallel your fathers principles and practices with your own and also with ours and ye shall find ye are degenerated from them exceedingly as we were while with you but through the grace of God are we recovered and brought to witness the Spirit and Life of the primitive Protestants and Christians and in all 16. above-mentioned Articles we agree with them and ye disagree with them and ye cannot instance to us one particular wherein we dissent from them warranted from the very letter of Scripture for these things wherein we have forsaken them we have discovered by the Light which hath opened the Scriptures to us to have been but the inventions of men and Babylons more subtile cup of fornications which because that the day was not so broken up among them as among us now they did not discern but now the Light hath shined forth in such clearness that we have seen to the bottom of all Babylons treasures and were they living in this day they would concur with us in disowning these things and I am satisfied in it they have been accepted of the Lord according to their faithfulness but supposing ye were not shrunk from any of their principles it 's in vain for you to think that God will take that off your hands he received from them winking at their weaknesses in the day of ignorance for that which makes a people acceptable with God is their faithfulness to the dispensation of knowledge in their day and their answering his requirings therein and following him whithersoever he leads of which ye are very short and this is your condemnation Written in the 10th Month from the Tolbouth of Aberdeen G. K. True and righteous Iudgement from the God of judgement separating the precious from the vile concerning the late proceedings of the people of Scotland in the matter of their Reformation from and their covenanting against Prelacy with the corruptions and popish Superstitions accompanying it as also concerning their Church constitution Ministry Worship and Government set up by them after the pulling down of the former and discrying it as Antichristian wherein likewise the Lords controversie with them in laying them by and suffering this day to come over them is shewed in which their building is also laid in the dust and its the will of the Lord that it never be again rebuilt GIve ear unto me O ye people of Scotland of what quality or degree whatsoever and I will shew you the true and righteous judgement of God from whom I have received it and by whom I am moved to declare it unto you for your good concerning your late proceedings in the matter of your reformation from and your covenanting against Prelacy and the corruptions and popish Superstitions accompanying it and other particulars above-mentioned A zeal there was in many of you Rulers Teachers and People in that day for the Lord and his name and truth which he did tenderly regard and it was marked before him though the most of you all along minded more your selves and how to compass your selfish covetous and ambitious designs then his honour and ye made the name of truth and Religion a meer clock to cover and mask your hypocrisie with yet a true simplicity and uprightness of heart was among others of you and ye did well in disowning and departing from such men who gave themselves forth to be the Lord's Ministers and servants but they ran and he sent them not and their covetousness and ambition and seeking how to please men for their own ends and not his honour nor any true zeal for him set them on such a work to Lord it over the people which he had forbidden and it is abomination to him together with the many things accompanying them which they gave forth for his ordinances good order decency and comliness in the Church but were the meer inventions of men and Babylons golden Cup of Fornications and that ye vomitted up and refused any more to drink of this cup or to admit of such things as his Ordinances or belonging to his worship or as if he allowed it whereby your iniquity is exceedingly agravated before God and his indignation and jealosie burns as fire against you for your returning thereto and because of the iniquity of such men their pride pomp covetousness tirany and ambition his wrath kindled against them and he poured contempt and desolation upon them for the cry of their wickedness together with the Prayers and ●upplications which came from many in that day because of them ascended up into his Throne in the time of their great affliction of Spirit to see his Truth and Name so much dishonoured and the Lord heard and regarded and delivered them from that which was their trouble and grief of heart and he removed that out of the way which was a great let unto his work and glorious appearance in the Land and after the removal thereof the Lord put a fair oppertunity in your hands to have been blessed instruments in his work whereby had ye improved it ye should have been at this day a glory in the Earth a Praise a Renowne and a Blessing and your memory should have endured as a sweet savor unto all succeeding Generations But he had many things against you whereby he was provoked to lay you by also so that ye should not be honoured nor ever shall be in the state ye are in and way of your proceedings as instruments in his glorious work which he hath purposed to bring and is bringing forth in the earth even a work of wonders and admiration whereby he will make to himself a name everlasting therein and give matter to all the simple-hearted of thanksgiving and praise for ever and ever and this work he is bringing forth this day in the midst of you and yee are so far from joyning issue with him therein that ye are all opposing it but it shall go on and prosper over the heads and bellyes of all gainsayers on the face of the whole Earth and if yee repent not and give way unto his determination he will bring this word to passe against you Behold ye dispisers wonder and Perish And now hear the righteous judgment of God concerning these things he hath to