Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	david_n	psalm_n	sing_v	2,543	5	9.4001	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23673	A serious and friendly address to the non-conformists, beginning with the Anabaptists, or, An addition to the perswasive to peace and vnity by W.A.	Allen, William, d. 1686.	1676 (1676)	Wing A1072; ESTC R9363	75,150	222

Churches in their Dominions but had left them all at liberty to do that which should be right in their own eyes And suppose again that any other Ecclesiastical Power over the whole should have thought fit to have prescribed the same Form for all the Parish Churches which now is prescribed by the Higher Powers in this Nation or some other as dissatisfactory to some Nay to go lower suppose yet further that the several Parishes or particular Churches had not been under any such general Ecclesiastical Power nor ruling over the whole neither but each particular Congregation had been under its own Government only And suppose in this case that the ruling prevailing or major part in one or more such Independent Congregations should have thought it fit to have such a form used in their own Congregation as is now prescribed by our Higher Powers or should have done or caused to be done in the publick administration something else as unacceptable to part of such a Congregation as the form now prescribed by our Higher Powers is to you Yet the question would still be which would have been most Christian in either of these Cases whether to divide separate and break the Church to pieces or to submit to the use of it to avoid such a breach and the bad effects of it until they could in a peaceable and regular way have obtained their desire or come to better satisfaction in their own minds Supposing still that all this while the dissatisfied part had been put upon doing nothing sinful in it self but only what was less useful and desireable in their own apprehensions And if you allow of separation upon any account less than that of necessity when men must sin or separate or an utter failure in the means of edification you open a door to confusion in and destruction to the Church It is upon this very account of necessity that we justifie our separation at first from the Church of Rome Now if such things as now supposed did proceed from any other Church Governing Power were it indulged to by the Higher Powers would be no good ground of separation neither then can they be any when they proceed from the Higher Powers For let them proceed from the one or the other it doth not alter the nature of the things themselves otherwise than as the stamp of authority may make that in some degree necessary in use which was and still is but indifferent in its own nature and might have been used or another in the stead of it Now see then where you are and to what you are brought If you cannot prove that to join in the publick worship of God administred according to our Liturgy is a Sin then if you refuse to do it and separate from the Church because of it you make yourselves guilty of as great a sin as the monstrous effects of an unlawful Schism and separation argues it to be And you cannot prove that your joining in the publick worship administred by our Liturgy is a sin unless you can prove that something therein appointed for the publick worship and which you must join in if you join in the publick worship at all is contrary to some institution rule or Precept of our Lord and Saviour which I presume you will never be able to do And the reason is because the things for which we pray therein and for which we give thanks are agreeable to the Scripture they are prayer matter and thanksgiving matter And then for the external circumstances of Form and Method you cannot prove these unlawful because it is no where forbidden in Scripture to present your prayer matter or thanksgiving matter to God in such an external form and method as is used in the Liturgy but rather countenanced therefrom as by our Saviours directing his Disciples to use a Form of Prayer and by the forms of Prayer in the Psalms composed to be used as Prayers The title of Psal 102. is this A prayer for the afflicted when he is over-whelmed and poureth out his complaint before the Lord. The title of Psal 90. is this A prayers of Moses and the man of God The 72. Psalm ends thus the prayer of David the Son of Jesse are ended Hezekiah the King and the Princes commanded the Levites to sing praise unto the Lord with the words of David and Asaph 2 Chron. 29 30. The Scripture hath no where determined whether Prayer shall be made with the use of a Book or without or whether longer or shorter or whether in our publick Devotions one or two or more shall be used or whether all shall be pronounced by the Minister only or part by the people also We do not count it unlawful to pray to and praise God with united voices in singing of Psalms Now where we are left at liberty in these things there it cannot be unlawful in it self to use either the one way or other as circumstances direct Some circumstances may make one way or mode convenient at one time and in one case and other circumstances may make another more convenient at another time and in another Case about external forms of worship If our Lord had not intended us a Christian liberty in outward forms there is no doubt but we should have had as particular direction in them as we have about the substance And we may well use the words of St. Paul in exhorting one another to stand fast in this liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free I mean in using this liberty one way or other as it tends to Peace Charity and edification and not the contrary as some urge it The Jews had their Liturgy in their Synagogues at the use of which our Saviour we may presume used to be present in as much as we find he frequented the Synagogue where he lived Lu. 4.16 The antient Church before Popery lookt out into the World had their Liturgy and so have other reformed Churches besides ours unto this day And we in this Nation so far as I can understand have only been so unhappy as to break our selves in pieces about it Whoever soberly considers what hath been the effect of casting off the Liturgy and the established Church Government in this Nation and of the liberty that was taken in the late times of liberty may by this time be pretty well reconciled to it again whatever his thoughts may have been heretofore Can any considering man think that the Church of God and the concerns of Religion in this Nation suffered at that rate by reason of the restraint put upon it by the Liturgy before our late sad distractions brake out as it hath done by those sundry strange sects monstrous opinions and practices violent contentions sore breaches and divisions and the effects of these which that little time of liberty in which the Liturgy was cast off and the bonds of Government broken hath produced Suppose there were or are some things superfluous or wanting in