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	watch_v	2,594	5	9.9201	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65319	A lawyer's advice to the devil's agents: or, Some strokes at the unfruitful works of darkness, tending to their destruction made with a weapon taken out of the armory of the Most High. By William Watson, student in law.	Watson, William, student in law.	1693 (1693)	Wing W1150A; ESTC R220895	26,435	71

to censure your Ministers and affirm that they do not take pains enough in their Stations and therefore do not Preach to you with that liveliness and earnestness that otherwise they might but don 't consider that you your selves are in a great measure the occasion of it For what can more discourage a Minister than when he has preached ten or twenty years against gross and heinous sins to find them reign as much or more in his Congregation than when he first came to it and that almost all his Labour is lost as to the reforming of his sinful Hearers and his Doctrine despised and neglected Is not this the way to help to stop and hinder the Utterance of your Ministers instead of praying that it may be given to them according to the Apostle's Command that they may be bold to make known the Mysteries of the Gospel Ephes the last Chapter 18 19 20th Verses Praying always with all Prayer and Supplication in the Spirits and watching thereunto with all Perseverance and Supplication for all Saints and for me that utterance may be given unto me that I may open my mouth hodly to make known the Mystery of the Gospel For which I am and Embassadour in Bonds that therein I may speak boldly as I ought to speak And if St. Paul had occasion for the Prayers of the People to enable him to speak as he ought much more occasion have the Pastors of our times who are far inferiour to him in gifts and knowledge But truly if they could not in some measure speak as they ought without them I know not when they would for I doubt many People seldom think of praying that their Teachers may be able to teach them as they ought much less do it But let them know that their forgetting or neglecting of it does not in any wife make it cease to be their Duty Secondly You have not that Estimation for them that you ought but generally contemn and despise their Office and Authority and set less by them tha the temporal Physician and the Professor of the Law for though you 'll advise with the one when your Bodys are arrested by a dangerous Disease and if your Title to your Estate be any way scrupled you will not be any means omit consulting the other yet you think it beneath you to advise with your Minister though your Souls are in danger of perishing throgh Sin and your Title to Heaven be never so doubtful and will imprudently rely upon your own Judgments in this respect although it is a matter of the greatest moment t' ye in the whole World and that which you are highly obliged to be as well assured of as possible yo can And hereupon 't is you are so earnestly exhorted by the Apostle to make your Calling and Election sure 2 Pet. 1.10 Wherefore the rather Brethren give diligence to make your calling and election sure But this may serve to inform us and that much to our disgrace that we are generally more careful in the preservation of our Bodies and Estates which are mortal and perish in the very using than we are of our Souls which are immortal and can never cease to be either happy or miserable And hence it comes to puss that your Ministers are not worthy to be sent for in your sickness no not in the greatest extremity of it even at the point of Death but perhaps you think 't is their Duty to come I shall not say 't is not for I suppose 't is if they know it but I am sure if they do not come without sending for 't is your Duty to send for them Jam 5.14 15. Is any sick among you let him call for the Elders of the Church and let them pray over him anointing him with Oil in the Name of the Lord And the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up and if he has committed Sins they shall be forgiven him But this Text of Scripture is some what intricate and the true meaning of it may not easily be comprehended by a vulgar Capacity and therefore I shall not think it impertinent a little to explain it Elders is a Title of Dignity rather than of Age and there were two sorts of them the one took care of the Government and Behaviour of the Congregation only the other besides that did pray and preach to them also And both these Orders were very honourable as appears from the saying of the Apostle 1 Tim. 5.17 Let the Elders that rule well be counted worthy of double Honour especially they which labour in the Word and Doctrine But methinks I hear some conceited ignorants say How shall any one send for the Elders there are none in our Church But that is their mistake All Ecclesiasticks compleated in sacred Orders by what Titles soever they are dignified or distinguished are Elders and so were the very Apostles also as they frequently stile themselves 1 Pet. 5.1 The Elders that is those that are Pastors and have the care of the Church as you may easily gather from the following Verse which are among you I exhort who am also an Elder But then you 'll say Why don't we call them so We do in effect so call them for our word Priest is the original word for Elder which is I 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 contracted or shortened And as for the word Bishop which many seem to take offence at it is derived from the Saxon word Bisceop and that from the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the very Title by which those of the highest Dignity in the Church were stiled in the Apostles days Tit. 1.7 and signisies an Inspector or him to whom the Over-sight of the Church belongs and this Name I take to be given to them for reason because as it was the Office of him that was called by this Name among the Heathens to see that their temporal Food was duly administred to them so it is the Office of a Bishop to take care that Christians may have their spiritual food duly administred to them And though some that delight in Novelties choose rather to call those that officiate in their Churches Ministers and Superintendents than Priests and Bishop are the same thing only Priest and Bishop are derived from Greek Fountains which is the Original Language of the New Testament and Minister and Superintendent the one is a Latin word and the other derived from a Latin word and if they abhor the Doctrine of the Latin Church so much as they pretend I wonder why they should have such an esteem for its Language as rather to let it enter into their Church by their Ecclesiastical Titles than the Greek or words derived from it which is the Language Apostolical And truly those persons act very imprudently that raise Controversies about and contend against and hate the innocent Names by which those of the Holy Function are distinguished for the Offences of the

Persons called by them for they neither occasion their offending neither can they restrain them from it And whereas mention is here made of the sick's being saved and raised up and his sins forgiven through the Blessing of the Lord upon the Prayer of Faith we must understand that the Elders in the Apostolical Days were endued with miraculous Gifts as the Apostles themselves were so as to be able through the strength of their Prayers and Exhortations to heal the sick and take away the principal cause of Distempers from them which was their sins by procuring for them the forgiveness of them And the anointing with Oyl was used as the sign of this miraculous Gift of healing and obtaining the forgiveness of sick Men's sins by their Prayers which our Church has very judiciously laid aside as not necessary seeing healing the thing signified by it as well as all other miraculous Gifts ceased when the end for which they were designed which was a Confirmation and Establishment of the Gospel sufficient for its support encrease and further propagation without them was accomplished which was as some Church-Historians tell us about the end of the third or shortly upon the beginning of the fourth Century which is about thirteen hundred years since And those superstitious persons that still make use of this anointing the Sick with Oyl as the Elders in the Primitive times did unless they could in the like miraculous manner perform the ting signified by it and restore them to Health and obtain the Remission of their Sins without the use of other means as they did do but shew their folly and render themselves obnoxious to Ridicule and Derision amongst People of Understanding that have not renounced their Senses and imprudently yielded themselves up to fraudulent persons Impositions and captivated their Belief to the Conduct of Impostors and Deceivers which are forced to pretend to these and such like wonderful performances to bear up their Reputation amongst those they have so far deluded as in part to satisfie their Ambition and Covetousness by making Merchandize of them as the Apostle foretold of them 2 Pet. 2.3 And through Covetousness shall they with feigned words make Merchandize of you but let them read the remaining part of the Verse and see how fast Judgment and Damnation are coming upon them for it whose Judgment now of a long time lingers not and their Damnation slumbers not And these are the evil Men that by grosly abusing their power in the Church have made the People unwilling to allow the Reformed Churches so much power as Christ has given them and will scarce be induced to believe that they ought or that 't is to any purpose for them if their Consciences are loaded and disquieted through any grievous Crimes they have been guilty of to make confession of them to their Pastors and Teachers and ask their Advice and desire them to put them in the best and most effectual method towards the getting of their Grief removed and their sins pardoned and that they would help and assist them by bestowing their servent Prayers upon them towards the doing of it although the Apostle expresly commands us to confess our Faults one to another and pray for one another that we may be healed Jam. 5.16 and them gives an encouraging reason drawn from the powerful effect of Prayer The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous Man avails much And if we are obliged to confess our faults one to another and pray one for another towards the healing of them much rather to the Minister that he may pray for us towards the healing of our Offences Nor does the true and faithful Minister's power end here in hearing the Confessions of his people and praying for them but it extends further and authorizes him when he finds the Offender has performed those acts of Repentance which God's Holy Word requires to apply the merciful Promises of God to repenting Sinners in the forgiveness of their sins unto him and declare his Crimes pardoned through the great Mercies of God and the Merits of his dear Son Jesus Christ and so reconcile him to God as having received from him the Ministery of Reconciliation 2 Cor. 5.18 And all things are of God who has reconcited us to himself by Jesus Christ and has given to us the Ministery of Reconciliation Thirdly Some of you think them burdensome and that their allowance is too great and above their Deserts and hereupon argue that Tithes are not of Divine Institution and that you are no where commanded to pay them in the New Testament But in what part of the same Testament are you forbidden to pay them And although they are not ordained in express words in the Gospel by Christ yet he has ordained that they which preach the Gospel should live of it 1 Cor. 9.13 14. Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the Temple And they which wait at the Altar are partakers with the Altar Even so has the Lord ordained that they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel And can you find out any better way of raising wherewithal they may live upon than by giving of them Tithes And this I may say for the Lawfulness and Authority of them that our Saviour told the Scribes and Pharisees that they ought to pay them which I suppose he would not have done if he had intended to abolish them and that they should not have been paid under the Gospel Matt. 23.23 Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites for ye pay Tithe of Mint and Anise and Cummin and have omitted the weightier matters of the Law Judgment Mercy and Faith these ought you to have done and not to leave the other undone And here observe that this Woe is not denounced against them because of their exactness in paying Tithes even to the very Herbs but because of their Hypocrisie in not being as exact in things of greater concern as making right Judgment in deciding of Controversies shewing Mercy and relieving the oppressed and being as faithsful in the performance of their Promises as they were in paying of Tithes both which ought to have been done with the like exactness And this may serve to admonish us as well as let us know that our Saviour allowed of paying Tithes in his time against the folly and errour of such Hypocrites as will be very exact and careful in things of less moment and remiss and careless and apt to pass over those things that are of far greater concern And the reason of the Apostle's not requiring Tithes may be this because they would not hinder the progress of the Gospel by giving them the least occasion of thinking they preached it more for their own profit and advantage than for their Good And hereupon the Apostle says he wrought with his own hands that he might not be chargeable to any of them not but that he had power to forbear