Selected quad for the lemma: reason_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
reason_n	image_n	worship_n	worship_v	2,495	5	9.2639	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A80626	A modest and cleer ansvver to Mr. Ball's discourse of set formes of prayer. Written by the reverend and learned John Cotton, B.D. and teacher of the Church of Christ at Boston in New-England. Published for the benefit of those who desire satisfaction in that point	Cotton, John, 1584-1652.	1642 (1642)	Wing C6444; ESTC R212884	45,765	95

Quotations out of the Books of ancient Divines whom more commonly then safely they call Fathers though the sentences be godly and pithy how much more will it be an unsanctified kind of prayer to make up not only many Petitions together but also a whole form of Prayer out of a book lesse ancient and much more offensive 4. Let me conclude with a fourth reason and adde no more in this place He that selecteth a few prayers which in themselves are free from offensive matter but of a book lyable in the whole bulke to many just exceptions and withall imposed by one Church upon another he doth really therein hold forth and professe his subjection not only to the irregular exercise of that authority whereby it is injoyned but also to the whole order of worship injoyned in that book as Paul in practising though but seldome a few ceremonies out of the book of the Law did therein hold forth and professe his orderly walking according to the whole Law and his prosessed subjection to the whole order of worship prescribed by the authority of the Law Acts 21.24.25 which had it not been warranted by God himself fora season he had doubtless thereby sinned against the second Commandement Since then the second Commandement is so many wayes violated by reading of a Prayer-book devised and prescribed by humane authority for the publique Prayers of the Church the Lord pardon all our provocations of his jealousie by our former ignorance in this point keep us blamelesse for after times for his holy names sake in Jesus Christ Amen You know the sinnes against this Commandement do more provoke the jealousie of the Lord against his people and that for many generations then the breach of any of the rest which is the reason why the Lord setteth before his people as a flaming sword his jealousie for a sanction and fence of this Commandement above the rest Eaeod 20.5 And shall we then provoke the Lord to jealousie are we stronger than he but let us proceed with our Discourse Disc They tell us say you God hath not ordained a set prescript worship he hath not indeed prescribed it as necessary but his Word doth warrant it to us as lawfull Answ First shew us but one Text of the word that doth warrant it as lawfull any word of precept or promise or pattern from the Scripture and we shall do as you offer to do sit down in silence Secondly if God hath not prescribed a set form as necessary why is such necessity put upon all the Churches for receiving of it hath the Church power to bind where God looseth Disc Touching the externall form of words in which we should profer our Petitions we know nothing precisely commanded by the Lord and therefore judge it a thing meerly indifferent whether our requests be read or uttered whether in a stinted or conceived form of words neither do we bring in any strange manner of Prayer for in substance the prayer read and conceived is all one Answ First touching the externall form of words in prayer we may know and must willingly know what the word hath taught us that the Lord hath commanded whether expressely or by just consequence all is one First that as in Preaching so consequently in Prayer we are to expresse our minds in such a frame of words not which mans wisdome teacheth but which the Holy Ghost teacheth 1 Cor. 2.13 Secondly that we are not to worship God after the precepts or patterns of men but do all things after the pattern in the mount Esay 29.13 Deut. 12.30 31 32. Heb. 8.5 Thirdly that we should not worship God in an Image devised by man and such are all set forms of Prayer devised helps of worship and prescribed to be read in the Church of Christ Answ 2. But suppose as the Discourse presumeth that it were a thing meerly indifferent whether our requests be read or uttered whether in a stinted or conceived form of words It seemeth to us a manifest transgression of the bounds both of Apostolicall authority and Christian liberty to bring in or take up a form of Prayer stinted and limitted by men which is left to us indifferent by God nor can we excuse a read prayer prescribed by men from a strange form of prayer seeing no such form is read or heard of in all the Scripture so great a difference is there betwixt a conceived and prescribed read prayer as is betwixt the fire from the Altar and the strange fire the one is an ordinance of God the other is an imagination of men CHAP. III. Wherein Answer is returned to Reason the second IF it be lawfull to use a prescript form of blessing prayer thanks-giving and baptising set down in the Word of God Then all prescript forms of Prayer or Liturgy are not to be condemned but the former appeareth from Numb 6.22 23. Psal 102.1 Hos 14.2 3. Joel 2.17 Deut. 5.10 Psal 92.1 Ezra 3.10 Rev. 15.3.2 Chron. 29.30 Isa 12.1 Math. 28.19 What answer do our Brethren return to this Argument Answ Our answer is ready and plain just and short we deny both the Major Proposition and the ground of the Minor for to speak first to the former it doth not follow that prescript form of prayer invented by men is lawfull because a form prescribed of God is good and allowable the Reason whereof is sound and evident though God forbid men to make themselves any Image or likenesse in his worship yet he hath not forbidden himselfe this power to prescribe any Image or form to us he appointed his people to make the Cherubims to worship him before them both in the Tabernacle and Temple but yet when Jeroboam made to himself the like form at Dan and Bethel and prescribed them to the people it was a manifest breach of the second Commandement what reply doth the Discourser return to this Disc A meer shift say you instead of an answer for the question is not of this or that form in particular but of a prescript form in it selfe considered the Lords Prayer was indited or prescribed by our Saviour himself and they yet deny the use thereof as a prayer and most of the Reasons which they bring do conclude against every set form of prayer as well as against any one thus they argue If a set form of Prayer be lawfull then a man may carry his prayers in his pocket buy them at the Book-binders shops c. and doth not this Reason disallow all penned and printed formes as well as ours Answ Thus with one sudden and blunt dash of a Pen a holy and divine truth confirmed by plentifull evidence of Scripture and applyed generally and frequently by our best Divines against Popish Images is at once blotted out and branded as a shift I say no more but this This is a speaking evill of the Law and condemning of the Law and that in a higher degree than that which is reproved by the Apostle