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
A49492	Six sermons preached before His Majesty at White-Hall Published by command. Tending all to give satisfaction in certain points to such who have thereupon endeavoured to unsettle the state, and government of the church. By the Right Reverend Father in God, Benjamin Laney, Late Lord Bishop of Ely.	Laney, Benjamin, 1591-1675.	1675 (1675)	Wing L351A; ESTC R216387	93,670	230

invented by the Priests to get their living and according to the priviledge of Inventors they claim a Monopoly that they only may have the offering of that Sacrifice It is not strange that they who have not God in their hearts as the Prophet David speaks of those fools should have any sacrifice in their lips for him In this only I confess they are no fools If there be no God we need not trouble our selves about a Sacrifice but if there be a God let them take the fool again for Sacrifice is his due Never was any Nation so barbarous that fancied a Deity but thought it necessary to make some testification and acknowledgment of it by Sacrifice To these we may joyn the whole Herd of SECTARIES who are but a kind of godly Atheists When the late storm that raged amongst us brought with it those Locusts that over-spread the Nation though their whole business was to destroy yet of all most virulently the Publick Service of the Church And hence it is that in the practice of their devotions you shall find nothing that looks like the offering of a Sacrifice of praise for the honor of God But their meeting together is only to tell one another their dreams and ridiculous phansies belying the holy Spirit an hour or two and then depart And so I leave them And come to another sort of enemies whom I intend more particularly to call to an account and the rather because they seem to allow of a Publick Sacrifice of praise as far as a free Directory will go but for a set and stinted Liturgie as they call it they have it in abomination as appears by the heap of accusations they bring against it 1. That it is a polluted unclean thing 2. That it is a dead Sacrifice 3. A Book-service of the Letter and not of the Spirit 4. A Childish 5. Confused 6. Improper Impertinent service 7. A tedious service 8. A lame sacrisice full of defects And lastly A blinde one that edifies not All this dirt and filth they cast upon it is easily wiped off with a right understanding of this only general Doctrine of the Text That it is a sacrifice of praise to God for the honour of His Name First They say it is a polluted unclean thing taken out of the Popish Missal and Breviary But if it be truly according to the patern in the Text as ye have heard a Sacrifice of praise to God we need not be troubled through what hands it passed before it came to us For as we are not ashamed to confess that our Religion is not a new but Reform'd Religion so nor need we be ashamed to say We worship God not by a new but Reform'd Liturgie And so our Faith and Worship are both of a piece and both as old as the Text. Secondly They say it is a dead Sacrifice made up of empty Forms and Ceremonies void of that life and affection which is necessary in Gods service If there be that want of affection in our Prayers it is a fault lie where it may But certainly the Forms are not guilty of it It is injustice to require that in a Sacrifice which belongs only to him that offers it The Church that composed the Forms cannot create affection If we come to this Sacrifice and leave our hearts behind us I know where the blame must lie But you will say you do not accuse Set Forms for want of life in themselves but that by the continual repetition of the same things they be-dead affection in those that should have it And how I pray should that be If the sense of real wants and blessings which are always the same cannot keep up our affections how should a new set of words do it Can we imagine that God should be taken with variety and shift of phrases or that the affection that takes heat from them will render the service more acceptable to God And therefore when they complain that their devotion is tired with nothing but Almighty and most merciful Father in the Morning and Almighty and most merciful Father in the Evening and the same over and over again every day That complaint did never lie against the Jews daily Sacrifice which was a type of ours that there was a Lamb in the morning and a Lamb again at evening and the same over again every day in the year When our Savour at his last agony in the Garden three times retired himself from his Disciples to pray he used still the same form of words without any change St. Matth. 26.44 And who dares say he wanted ability to vary his prayer or can say he wanted affection though he did not For as St. Luke relates it He prayed so earneslly St. Luke 22.24 that his swet was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground and then sure there was no want of affection for when our zeal is at the hottest we do not use to swet at our prayers I go on to a third charge That Set forms instead of helping us hinder the Spirit by which we should pray The truth is Such as the Spirit may be and too often useth to be it ought rather to be bound with chains than left at liberty under a Form of Praying to Libel their Governors or whom or what they please to bring into hatred with the people But for the true Spirit of Prayer that cannot be tyed with words For they are utterly mistaken that think the Spirit of Prayer supplies any defect of words or phrases for that very Text of St. Paul whereon they ground it confutes them Rom. 8.26 The Spirit helpeth our infirmities But in what not in words for what the Spirit supplies are there said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not spoken at all or as we translate it which cannot be uttered What then doth it supply It maketh intercession for us with groans which cannot be uttered The true Spirit of Prayer consists in groans in zeal and fervency and that where it is will animate and put life into any Form of Prayer They who call Forms of their own making or borrowing con'd without Book Praying by the Spirit do both cheat the people and blaspheme the Holy Ghost A Fourth Objection is That it is but a Book-Sacrifice a Reading-Service which any child may do They complain it seems of case If God should require a harder thing of us as no doubt there are many harder things to be done do them we must The easiness lays the greater obligation upon us How ridiculous would this exception appear against the Legal Sacrifices A Butcher could kill and dress a Lamb as well as a Priest This is a false deceitful weight Gods service is not to be weighed by the labor of doing but by the relation to him for whom it is done And therefore King Solomon when by the advice of his Father upon his death-bed he call'd to account the chief Leaders in the rebellion

Confessions and Psalms and in such things where he alone is not concerned Fifthly It is not every fruit that grows upon the lips is fit to make a Sacrifice but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lips that confess to his Name But how comes confessing more than anything else to relate to a Sacrifice It is thus The end and import of every thing offered to God in Sacrifice Eucharistical is a Profession and Acknowledgment of some blessing bestowed upon the Sacrificer and so either expresly or implicitely is joyned with it As for instance At the offering of the first-fruits they are commanded to make a Confession in this form Thou shalt go unto the Priest Deut. 26.3 and say thus unto him I confess this day unto the Lord thy God that I am come into the Country which the Lord sware unto our Fathers to give us That is in the first-fruits they confess the Land that bore them to be of Gods gift Now of such confessions as these the whole body and matter of the Liturgie is framed Our first address and approach into Gods presence is by a Confession of our sins which is a putting off our shooes with the defilements we have contracted in our ways for the place and presence is holy And by this we make Profession and Acknowledgment of Gods perfect purity and holiness in that we presume not to come into his presence till we first put off our uncleanness Then follows the Absolution and this is another Confession of his infinite mercy that he is willing to forgive our sins and to use the ministry of sinful man to confer it upon us Then we have the Hymns and Psalms which is a third Confession to his Name whereby we do with chearful and thankful hearts acknowledge him to be the Author of all the good we enjoy or hope for For Lessons we have the Scriptures read and they are written for our learning In that we confess God to be our infallible Teacher to whose Oracles we submit to be guided both in faith and manners And because the Rules of both lie diffused through the whole body of Scripture we have them summ'd up in the Creeds and Decalogue In the Creeds we acknowledge our faith in his wisdom who hath so mysteriously contrived the means and way of our Salvation before unknown to Men and Angels And in the Decalogue we confess his Dominion That he is our Lawgiver and to that our Patron also not only gives us Laws but Grace and hearts to keep them In the Collects Prayers and Supplications for the supply of our wants and necessities as well temporal as spiritual we acknowledge every good gift and every perfect giving to come down from the Father of lights But the chief of all the Confessions is that for which our Saviour instituted a Sacrament Do this in remembrance of me that is in Commemoration and Acknowledgment of what he by his blood hath purchased for us For we must not think as some do that a Sacrament should be instituted for relief only of a bad memory like a thred tied about the finger but solemnly to celebrate the memory of the greatest of blessings that God ever bestowed upon men the Redemption of our Souls by the blood of his dear Son And therefore this Confession carries away from all the rest the name of an Eucharist a Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving By this we see the matter of the Sacrifice of the Text fulfilled in the Liturgie by Confessing to his Name The next thing to be observed is the circumstance of time when this Sacrifice is to be offered and that is continually In conformity to this our Service is a continual daily sacrifice a Morning and Evening Prayer And though the greatest benefit of this belongs to those that daily attend it yet because it is the Publick Sacrifice of the Church all that are Members of that have their part and interest in it though they be absent yet not in equal measure The present are intitled to the benefit as a Sacrifice offered by them the absent as a Sacrifice offered for them For this is our juge Sacrificium that is perpetually burning upon the Altar for the service of God and in behalf of every member of the Church that doth not ponere obicem set a bar upon himself by his wilful neglect of it and opposition to it Lastly By him we are to offer 'T is his merit and mediation that crowns the Sacrifice In vain should sinful man approach so great a Majesty in his own Name but by him who hath made our peace with God and sanctified us by his blood we may find access to him This by him gives the Characteristical difference of the Christian sacrifice from all others for otherwise the Sacrifice of Praise was common to all times before and under the Law You find in many Psalms a Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving but in none of them by him in Christs name St. John 16.24 Hitherto ye have asked nothing in my Name says our Saviour but hereafter his Name will give vertue and efficacy to all our services And therefore to gain so gracious an Advocate with the Father our Prayers and Supplications are in the Liturgie offered up in his Name concluding always By the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ THus you see the Text exemplified throughout in the Liturgy and the Liturgie therefore warranted by the Text. I could not promise my self time enough to take a view of all the particulars I have therefore reduced that I have to say at this time to this one Observation in gross That our Liturgie or Common Prayer is a true Sacrifice to God for the praise and honor of His Name And to this I shall not beg the assent of those that like it not but require it and by the authority of the same Apostle in another place Rom. 15.8 where we read That Jesus Christ was a Minister of the Circumcision for the truth of God to confirm the promise made unto the Fathers Now what that promise was he tells us in the next verse That the Gentiles might glorifie God for his mercy as it is written For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles and sing praises unto thy Name Here are Confessions and praises and Singing by which God is to be glorified among the Gentiles They that will be Christians upon other terms do in effect make God a lier who promised it should be so And yet they that would not have it so are very many and of many sorts and though I cannot think the worse of it that it lies under a popular dislike yet because it is no ill way of learning our duties by the folly of those that oppose it I shall give you a short account of them The ATHEIST first charges it with such weapons as he hath scorn and drollery That these Forms and Ceremonies and Pageantry of worshipping God in Liturgies is but a trade