Selected quad for the lemma: soul_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
soul_n	act_n	faith_n	grace_n	4,482	5	5.9933	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28584	An examination of Dr. Comber's Scholastical history of the primitive and general use of liturgies in the Christian church by S.B.	Bold, S. (Samuel), 1649-1737.	1690 (1690)	Wing B3479; ESTC R18212	38,935	70

only for private use What hinders but if those variations are proper to answer the ends for which they were devised viz. the helping of people to perform the duty of Prayer with more understanding and better affections other variations in publick may be equally useful If P. 16. as the Doctor doth grant every good man may by the ordinary assistance of the spirit be moved to pray with Devotion and Fervency That is as I conceive may have his soul enlightned and possessed with a true apprehension and knowledge of his spiritual concernments and vigorously affected with them and carried out towards God in fervent desires inclinations and affections suitably to his present occasions What reason can be rendered why he may not by the ordinary assistance of the spirit be inabled to express his inward resentments in proper expressions The gift of utterance being the gift of the spirit as well as other gifts Mens discourses are usually answerable to their apprehensions and affections What we darkly apprehend we express obscurely and what we understand distinctly and clearly we discourse of plainly The principal thing indeed in Prayer is the frame and actings of our Souls the inward exercise of Faith Repentance Love and other Graces But saith the Doctor any good man may act these in the use of a Form And therefore may pray in or by the Spirit in the use of a Form But I say it must still be noted that if a man be to pray with others and that which we are now discoursing is concerning one that by way of Office is to perform this duty in the hearing of others so as to have them joyn with him in this performance he must use words and if he restrain himself to the words devised and put together by others and these words do not so well express and represent the sense he hath and which others should have of what is the matter of Prayer as others which do occur unto him and which he could very pertinently make use of for that purpose he cannot be truly said to pray in or by the Spirit according to the full import of that phrase But saith the Doctor then no man in the Publick Assemblies doth pray in the Spirit but the Minister for the Minister alone conceives the Prayer and it is a Form to the whole Congregation who must pray in his words To which I answer That the matter in dispute at present is only concerning him that officiates Besides it is not a Form to the Congregation taking a Form in the sense we are now discoursing of But the Congregation may joyn in the Spiritual Performance of this Duty acting graces suitably to the occasions which are administred and improving for this purpose the Abilities God hath bestowed upon others in order to the furthering and promoting of their devotion This is the work which pertains unto the Congregation at that time they not being called to express vocally their inward resentments during the Ministers officiating in this performance in the fittest expressions they are able The Doctor seems to be of the opinion that in the Apostles days there was an extraordinary gift of Prayer which some did partake of and that their Prayers were Divine Revelations They being immediately furnished by the Spirit both with the Matter and Words of their Prayers and that these Prayers were written down and after that gift failed they were preserved and used by the Church and were transmitted down to us by their Successors So that by this sort of discoursing our Liturgies are Divine Revelations But the Doctor hath none of the Ancients but St. Chrysostom to vouch for an Extraordinary Gift of Prayer in the Primitive Times This is certain before the Liturgies now extant or any part of them which is not expresly contained in the Books of the Old and New Testament will be owned by good Christians and sound Protestants for Divine Revelations very substantial particular proof must be made of their being such To father Liturgies in such an arrogant presumptuous manner on the Holy Spirit is not the way to bring them into credit with judicious and serious people It may effectually provoke God to pour forth in a little time so much contempt upon them they shall never get into repute any more This is further certain that our latest Liturgies have some prayers in them which by the very make of them any ordinary person may perceive they were not composed by Divine Inspiration And if the other could be proved to be of such an original surely these will not deserve to be thought the more venerable meerly because they have been added unto them Having said thus much concerning some passages in the Doctors Introduction before he enters upon the First Century I will now briefly consider the Testimonies he doth alledge for Liturgies In the First Century And he labours first of all to prove what he hath undertaken P. 28 c. by asserting that the Essenes who have been believed by divers learned men to be Christians had Forms of Prayer for Josephus saith they used Prayers which they received from their Forefathers which must be Forms and Philo saith they did sing alternately and Eusebius calls these the Hymns sung amongst us Christians And that excellent Historian labours to prove these Essenes were Christians by this Argument amongst some others Because they prayed and sung Hymns in set Forms as the Christians use to do Euscb Hist lib. 2. c. 17. Thus far the Doctor And I do readily acknowledge that Fusebius doth indeavour from what he sinds in Philo to prove the Essenes to be Christians And particularly from their way of singing Psalms and Hymns But he doth not say one word of their having set Forms of Prayers That they prayed in set Forms as the Christians use to do is the Doctor 's own saying for Fusebius doth neither say the Essenes had Forms of Prayers nor that the Christians did use any And yet Eusebius doth say That Philo's Book doth comprehend in it the Rules of the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Valefius thinks this doth import that that Book did contain in it all the Rules or Canons which were observed by the Christian Church in Eusebius's time Further Eusebius doth gather out of that Book what he thought was proper to shew how exactly these Essenes and the Christians did agree in their Ecclesiastical Affairs as he himself assures us in the Chapter before referred unto And yet saith not one word of praying by set Forms which rather intimates there were no set Forms of Prayer used by the Christians in his time seeing he omits the mention of the Forms the Essenes used if as Josephus reports the Essenes had Forms of Prayer In the next place the Doctor thinks he hath a proof of Liturgies in Clemens Romanus But whoever considers Clemens will soon perceive that the passages the Doctor hath been pleased to quote are nothing at all to the present purpose