Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	apostle_n	church_n	creed_n	2,605	5	10.2206	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54945	A discourse of prayer wherein this great duty is stated, so as to oppose some principles and practices of Papists and fanaticks; as they are contrary to the publick forms of the Church of England, established by her ecclesiastical canons, and confirmed by acts of Parliament. By Thomas Pittis, D.D. one of His Majesties chaplains in ordinary. Wherefore, that way and profession in religion, which gives the best directions for it, (viz. prayer) with the most effectual motives to it, and most aboundeth in its observance, hath therein the advantage of all others. Dr. Owen in his preface to his late discourse of the work of the Holy SPirit in prayer, &c.	Pittis, Thomas, 1636-1687.	1683 (1683)	Wing P2314; ESTC R220541	149,431	404

nor can any man give a true assent to that whose truth he cannot discern nor has any overpowering reason to believe This our own experience upon reflection must fully convince us of Or if any that have immortal souls within them and are quite sunk into rottenness and clay so that they will not or cannot intend their minds to receive satisfaction within themselves yet if they have sense enough to be common Christians of the lowest form in the School of our Lord the authority of his Apostle must convince them and they must on divine revelation believe that praying in an unknown tongue must be nonsence and folly in him that thus offers to God he knows not what and consents to that of which he has no knowledge at all If I know not says S Paul the meaning of the voice I shall be to him that speaketh a Barbarian and he that speaketh a Barbarian unto me 1 Cor. 14.11 And verse the 16. When thou shalt bless with the spirit that is as before in an unknown tongue how shall he that possesseth the room of the unlearned say Amen i. e. give his assent at thy giving of thanks since he understandeth not what thou saiest To speak or write more in such a plain case would apparently disparage an Auditory and a Reader and a man might be accused of wasting time and of rendring our adversaries very considerable in the defence of such a point in the management of which they have little or nothing to say for themselves besides this That Latin Service being formerly their custom when it was commonly understood in the Western Empire they think it fitting and honourable to continue it still lest a change might make them lose the credit of Antiquity though the principal reason of uttering Divine Service in this language is gone and becomes an argument that points a quite contrary way and directs all Churches to their vulgar language since the Latin is so far from being the common tongue in which the multitude of men express their thoughts and come to the understanding each other even in those places in which by the Roman Church the publick Service is injoyn'd to be used that the common people do not understand it even in Italy it self But the Church of Rome has one reason for it above all that the great ones will let us know from themselves but yet they do not here in England stop our mouths so that blessed be God we can speak it for them though they had rather that we would still hold our tongues Yet the reason is this Because hiding under an unknown tongue the abomination and false opinions which they practise and uphold in their publick offices their people are kept in great ignorance and dark devotion nourishes them into a great zeal and blind obedience that the Priests may make impressions on them and they may receive and embrace those instrumental principles that pick their Pockets for the advantage of holy Church and empty their Purses into the Popes Coffers And this is the most weighty reason for their religion in those particulars in which it is departed from Primitive Christianity But yet methinks I have so much confidence in the rational natures of mankind that where they could understand they would examine and if they once arrived at that they would quickly reject every Article of the Church of Rome which they have added to the Apostles Creed and what the Reformed Protestant Church of England owns And I am fully perswaded that the generality of the English Nation who cannot if they have been any thing serious but be well acquainted with the necessary points delivered in the Scriptures would so loath and abhor the Roman Breviaries and Mass-Books were they faithfully translated into our common Language so that both parties might sign the Copy that the people would confute them themselves without the toil or pains of another But the Romanists had rather still lurk behind the Curtain deal with the credulous and lock up the Key of Knowledge by keeping the Scriptures from the searches of the people unless they are such particular parts as they think fit to afford them the perusal of This better serves their turn than to permit a bold and inquisitive multitude to view all that they may make discoveries and twattle to one another and so at last make enquiries into those Services of their Church which the Governours are willing should be accounted divine till the people should be able by due search to confute the Roman Prayers by the Scriptures and then in a little time more the Capitol it self must be delivered when they had no more Geese to defend it I see therefore in the Roman way the blind must lead the blind till both together fall into the ditch where I shall at present leave them as to this point of Latin Service till their Seers are able to pluck them out For when error is attended with an obstinate resolution to maintain it even against the testimony of an Apostle the persons thus possessed with it are only to be treated as things insensible not minding the authority by which Christian Religion is established And when people thus present petitions to Almighty God which they cannot so much as pretend to understand 't is plain that they offer the sacrifice of fools and their Priests sacrifice to their own net and 't is in vain to perswade in such a case where the people delight in their own slavery and the Priests love their covetousness too well to forsake the Trade in which they can so easily impose on those whom by such means they keep in ignorance and so make an outside godliness their gain Certain it is that the people under the Roman yoke can only draw nigh to God in their Publick Service with their lips at best when their hearts and minds being under an impossibility of accompanying them must of necessity be far from him and they lose also the blessed influence of all their Publick Prayers on themselves in raising their affections acting their graces mortifying their sins and prompting them to their duty all which prayers well composed uttered and understood must needs effect upon the minds of well inclined Devotionists And so I proceed to another Argument we have against the Publick Prayers of the Romanists That they pray to Creatures when they ought to pray to God alone That God only is to be the object of our prayers in divine worship I have already shewed in the Third Chapter of this Discourse And that the Romanists pray to Angels and Saints departed their Service is so full and frequent an evidence of it that they themselves will not deny it They endeavour therefore to justifie the thing by the bold assertions of their own Authors and without any plain authority but from the Heathens and themselves and without any solid and substantial argument Yet that I may give the Reader an hint or two that none unless

the conceptions of their minds to an utterance of our petitions in an unknown tongue And it concludes indeed against the Publick Service of the Papists in Latin and justifies our own in English As I have already shewed But it can neither strengthen the Enthusiast nor detract from the worth or reputation of a well composed Liturgy And that this is the true meaning of this Scripture and the real opposition which is here made of Spirit to understanding and the difference betwixt them appears plainly from the naked words of the nineteenth Verse without any Paraphrase upon them For saies the Apostle I had rather speak five words with mine understanding that by my voice I may teach others also than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue And though St. Chrysostom's interpretation of the whole does not in every part agree with this Yet he expounds Spirit by the gift of tongues But if men will still evidence their vanity by defending their extravagancies by Texts of Scripture which have been won from them as often as they have trump'd them up to the world and urge that in the twelfth of Zechariah Where God promises to pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of Grace and of Supplications c. They will gain but little countenance from hence for their irrational and loose way of worship Though as a neat Commentator of their own descants upon it it should be poured out as by whole Pailfuls Trapp in loc For nothing can be concluded from this Text but that the time should come in which God would by his benign operations confer so much favour to the Jews that they who were hardned through their own infidelity to the affronting and Crucifying the blessed Jesus should so relent for their former wickedness that they would pray to God and petition for their pardon when they came to be convinced that the very person whom they put so death under the notion of an Impostor was indeed the promised Messiah And so it no more concludes that the Holy Ghost is promised under the Gospel to dictate matter and expressions to all those who devoutly pray than it proves all Saints under this dispensation to be perfect Jews that crucified their Saviour Nor can all the Hebrew and Greek and Latin in the world make either out from this Text. Nay such Doctrine can no more be founded on this Prophecy of Zechariah than that the Holy Ghost should also dictate matter and words in Preaching too and render all Sanctified mens Sermons as much the word of God as the Scriptures can be infer'd from that Promise in the second of Joel where God saies I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh and your Sons and your Daughters shall prophesie Since this was fulfilled on that eminent day of Pentecost when the Holy Ghost visibly descended on the Apostles to enable them to speak divers languages and to work Miracles c. for the propagation and confirmation of the Gospel and accordingly 't is limited by St. Peter Acts 2.16 If men will still trifle with the Scriptures let them allow also women to be Preachers as well as men Because in the promise it is said that Daughters as well as Sons shall Prophesie 'T will only as 't is usual with some men prefer the Old Testament to the New and set a Prophet and an Apostle together by the ears that we may judge the advantage to which we please as he gratifies either our humour or our interest But suppose our extempore men should flie from Scripture to the succeeding Writers among the Christians as I know not but they may when they find any thing that makes for them and tell us that all this worship which we declaim against is justifiable by the practice of the Primitive Christians who living near the times of our Saviour and his Apostles must needs understand their Doctrine and their practice better than we who live in an Age so far off and quote some passages from the Ancient Fathers to justifie their extravagant devotions now I only reply 1. We grant that in the first times of Miraculous operations before the Christian Church was well setled in the World the Spirit did as well dictate prayer to some for the help of others as it inspired some to deliver the Christian Doctrines and faith that they might be derived downward to posterity But all this ceased afterwards when the reasons of it ceased when the Canon of the new Law was compleated and Knowledge and Parts became the fruits of liberal education and the Spirts co-operation with human industry 2. That the Fathers give no countenance to this extempore wild way of prayer And the later Patrons of this conceived method when they urge any expressions from them are fain to squeeze a few particular passages hard either by a false rehearsal Or else by Criticising and large interpretations they draw their words off from the sence which the subject matter and coherence of the place does willingly afford them 3. That this way of arguing in this affair is disclaimed by a late Nonconformist writer who is eminent both in venting and darkning too these extempore prayers And almost as ancient as any now living in defending them Nay and he has reason too when the contrary opinion as he saies becomes opposite to his own experience But to give him his due he admits Scripture in this Controversie And would have men to believe that all the commands for prayer in the Sacred writings are so many laws to injoin their own extempore way and method Yet though he adventures at some promises I cannot find that he meddles with the commands so as to appropriate any one to extempore prayer Though he is very good at Criticism and Inference But natural Enthusiasm when riveted by custom skulks so within a man that though possess'd with it he does not know it And 't is such another thing as what the vulgar call Arminianism which a man may sometimes be charg'd with when he yet pleads not guilty As I have heard of another great Writer whose Aphorisms when Dr. Hammond had perused presently replied This man is an Arminian but he does not know it 4. If any will defend these conceived publick prayers from Antiquity I wish they would also put other matters in Controversie betwixt them and the Church of England upon the same trial and permit the Government of the Church of Christ to be also determined this way Yet Lastly these things are here set down not because we have any cause of fear from what can fairly be urged for extempore prayer out of any Ancient Author of undoubted Credit the quotations having frequently been answered But more especially because they are just now explain'd in the Second Part of certain Cases of Conscience resolded concerning the lawfulness of joining with forms of Prayer in publick worship The view of which since the composure of this small Discourse