Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	ability_n	able_a	grace_n	148	3	5.0521	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A55574	Common-prayer-book no divine service, or, XXVIII reasons against forming and imposing any humane liturgies or Common-prayer-books, and the main objections to the contrary, answered also, the English Common-prayer-book anatomized, likewise twelve arguments against diocesan and lord-bishops, with the main objections answered, and the great disparity between them, and Timothy and Titus, shewed / by Vavasor Powell.	Powell, Vavasor, 1617-1670.	1661 (1661)	Wing P3084; ESTC R40660	35,918	54

Common-Prayer-Book NO Divine Service OR XXVIII REASONS AGAINST Forming and Imposing any Humane LITURGIES or COMMON-PRAYER-BOOKS AND The main Objections to the contrary answered ALSO The English Common-Prayer-Book anatomized LIKEWISE Twelve Arguments against Diocesan and Lord-Bishops with the main Objections answered AND The Great Disparity between them and Timothy and Titus shewed By VAVASOR POWELL The Third Edition Corrected and Enlarged Why do you also transgress the Commandement of God by your Traditions Mat. 15.3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not as though yee were Lords of or over the Heritages 1 Pet. 5.3 London Printed for Livewell Chapman and are to bee sold at his shop at the Sign of the Crown in Popes-head-Alley 1661. TO The Composers of Imposers of Readers of Hearers of Disputers and Writers for Common-Prayer I Would desire you all in the Name and Fear of the All-seeing Almighty and All-judging GOD to set these following and the like Considerations to your hearts and your hearts to them Consider 1. How jealous the Lord of Heaven and Earth is of his own Worship and of all the Parts and Circumstances thereunto belonging Deut. 5.9 Hos 5.11 Mat. 15 3. Col. 2.21 22. Rev. 22.14 20. 2. How abominable and unacceptable to this holy just God have been and are all Idolatrous Superstitious and False Services and all that do serve him in any Way or Thing which he hath not himself commanded and appointed Deut. 7.25 26. Isa 30.22 66.3 4. Jer. 9.13 14 Ezek. 20.4 3. How sorely and severely he hath punished those Kings Priests Prophets and People that have been false Worshippers and swerved from His Holy Commandements 1 Kin. 11.6 Num. 11.3 4. 4. Whether God doth call upon any of you all to offer him any such Service as this is And whether he may not say to you as he did once to Judah Who hath required this at your hand Isa 1.12 2. How inconsistent with the Day and Light of the Gospel is this Service God having sent his Word more fully and plainly to direct his Ministers and People and given his Spirit in a more abundant measure to help and inable them to call upon him 6. How little good if any at all hath been done by the long use of the Service-Book though men have prayed long by it That the rest of their Lives might be holy and righteous and yet they still continue prophane and unrighteous 7. How much hurt it hath done in shouldring and thrusting out many godly painful soul-saving Preachers and in bringing in and maintaining so many ignorant scandalous lazy and formal Priests and Curates to the deceiving and utter undoing of precious Souls 8. Whether the imposing of the Scottish Liturgy which in some things was better though in some others worse than the English was not the beginning and first Cause of the late grievous Wars and if so whether men should not be more cautious to do the like for the future 9. Whether if the Truth were thorowly and truly weighed and examined the first end of composing the Common-Prayer-Book which doth so much symbolize with the Mass was not to bring Papists to Church but it effected so little therein not because they so much dislike it as because it was not in Latine and commanded by the Pope that it did rather confirm them in their Mass-Service 10. Whether some now may not intend by the re-establishing of this Book to oppose and pull down that excellent and gracious Spirit of Prayer and Preaching which God hath poured out upon his Ministers and to make this a Snare and Net against all Preachers and People that out of Conscience cannot conform thereto 11. Whether any Persons can produce any such Liturgie or such Form of Prayer from the beginning of the World either among the Jews or Gentiles till above three hundred years after Christ when Antichrist began to exercise Papal Power 12. Whether if there were no other Reason but that this Book hath been so much idolized by the generality of men and offensive to so many Christians it should not be done with as the Brazen Serpent was by Hezekiah 1 King 18.4 13. Whether one end of Christs coming into and one part of his work in the world was not to redeem men from the Rudiments and Traditions of men of which this is one And whether it be not a Sin against the Blood Spirit and Gospel of Christ to impose maintain and continue still to use the same 1 Pet. 1.18 19. Heb. 9.10 11. 14. They that worship God in a false way are said in Scripture to worship Devils Lev. 17.7 Deut. 32.17 2 Chron. 11.17 1 Cor. 10.20 15. Whether at the great and terrible Day of judgement any Magistrates Ministers or People can justifie before Christ the making imposing reading or hearing of this or the like Service And whether good men as far as they build with this Material will not then suffer loss And whether those can then stand in the Judgement without fear shame and sorrow that have cast out persecuted imprisoned or otherwise afflicted the true Preachers and Servants of God who did chuse to obey GOD rather than men and to observe His Divine Will rather than Mens Traditions Consider what I say and the Lord give thee you understanding in all things 2 Tim. 2.7 I esteem all thy Precepts concerning all things to bee right and I hate every false way Psal 119.128 Against Imposing the Common-Prayer-Book COLLECTIONS OUT OF SM EC TY. MN VVS Dedicated and presented to the Lords and Commons in Parliament IN Page 5. that the first and purer times knew no stinted Liturgy as it appears from Tertullian in Apol. 9. cap. 30. Epist 121. who saith The Christians of those times prayed Sine monitore quia de pectore That is without any Prompter but their own hearts Austin also telleth us Liberum est it is free for us to ask the same things in the Lords Prayer aliis atque aliis verbis sometimes one way and sometimes another and Justin Martyr tells us Hee who instructed the people prayed according to his ability p. 7. yet have some Bishops blasphemed the Spirit of Prayer and many able learned conscientious Preachers have been molested and suspended for letting the constant flames of their fixed conceptions mount up from the Altar of their zealous heart unto the Throne of grace p. 8. their tongues also have raged against this way of Prayer have sealed up the mouths of Ministers for praying thus in publick and imposed Penances on private Christians for praying thus in their Families and compelled to abjure this practice endeavouring with raging violence to banish this Divine Ordinance from our Churches and Dwellings professing in open Court it was fitter for Amsterdam than for our Churches as did Doctor Corbet Mr. Nevil and all this in behalf of that Book of Common-Prayer the Original whereof is published in that Proclamation of King Edward the Sixth p. 9. which they so rigorously pressed to the casting out

a proof But put the case that Christ had left his approbation of Scriptural forms which are Divine that therefore he gave his approbation of meer humane forms This is like the Papists pleading from written Truths to unwritten Verities But further suppose all that the Objection supposes that Christ did approve of such Forms yet where do you finde that Christ did impose such or give authority to any sort of men to impose such Object 7. But Christ used the same words thrice in Prayer Answ See the Answer to the fourth Objection Obj. 8. But Christ did use a Hymn Ans If by a Hymn be understood one of the Psalms of Scripture why might not Christ and his Disciples use it the Psalms being in Metre and then in use among the Jews but others understand by an Hymn On Col. 3.16 an extempore Song as divers Interpreters make that distinction between Hymns and Psaelms and Spiritual Songs others understand by a Hymn no more than praising God As the same word is used Heb. 2.12 as the word is taken and that may serve for an answer to the other Objection That the Apostles commanded it Obj. 9. If it be lawful to use a form in preaching then in prayer but the former is 〈◊〉 Ergo the latter Answ When it can be proved that it is lawful for any Preacher to write all his Sermon verbatim then preach or rather read it so without addition substraction or alteration and afterwards print it and impose it upon others then I shall grant it to bee lawful to make such forms and read them instead of preaching Obj. 10. Because it was the practice of the Churches in Scripture-times and downwards to have such Liturgies Ans The Bishops said so and sought to prove it as Bishop Andrews pursued in his inquiry so hard after Lituagies that he thought he had gotten a Jewish one which he sent to Cambridge to translate but it was there soon discovered to be one made long after the Jews ceased to be a Church See Smect and so he himself supprest it and had there been any such in our Saviours or his Apostles time doubtless we should have found some mention of it in the Scriptures where mention is made of their reading and preaching in the Synagogues of the Jews Luk. 4.17 and where we read of giving the Book of the Prophet Isaiah but not Common-Prayer-Book Obj. 11. But a Liturgy or Common-Prayer-Book is good to help those that cannot pray as Crutches to help a lame man Ans It is rather a Hindrance than Help for people would if it were not for such Forms seek the Spirit of God which would be given to help them 2. Either these are to help those that have no grace or those that have grace not those that have none for what good will Crutches do to a dead man Ephes 2. 1 5. 1 Tim. 5.6 as every graceless and natural man is 3. If he hath grace then he wants no Crutches for he is cured and should do with those Crutches as lame Persons when they are cured in the Bath hang up their Crutches on the Cross and leave them behinde them to shew they are cured 4. If the lame should use Crutches yet that is no ground why those that God hath cured of their lameness should bee tied to carry Crutches or walk on them Quest But what Reasons or Objections have you against the English Liturgy or Common-Prayer-Book in particular Ans In an English Book called Smectym-uus published by divers godly and learned Presbyterian Ministers as Mr. Marshal Mr. Calamy Mr. Young Mr. Newcombe and Mr. Sp●rstow about the year one thousand six hundred forty two and this year one thousand six hundred and sixty reprinted there are several Reasons set down against it as also against Bishops some of the former I here insert As 1. It symboleth that is agreeth so much with the Popish Mass that the Pope himself was willing to have it used if he might but confirm it I shall add this out of the Book of Martyrs vol. 2 pag. 667. Printed Anno 1631. when there was a rebellion in Devenshire in King Edward the sixth his daies he writes to them thus As for the Service in the English Tongue it hath manifest Reasons for it King James also did as is credibly reported commonly call it An ill said Masse and yet perchance it seemeth to you a New-Service and indeed is no other but the Old the same words in English which were in Latine c. And then afterwards if the Service in the Church were good in Latine it is good in English 2. It was framed and composed on purpose to bring Papists to Church 3. Because it is so much Idolized called Divine Service as I heard one lately say that brought a Bible to a Book-binders shop to be new bound In Shrewsbury last May. when the Book-binder said he could hardly binde it and that he would sell a new Bible for a little more mony The owner returned answer That that Bible was worth twenty new ones and the onely reason was because the Book of Common-Prayer was in it 4. Because many distate it 5. Because it differs much from Liturgies in other Churches and yet they are not enjoyned I may add 6. Because it hath tended to maintain a lazy and scandalous Ministry 7. Because it together with other Ceremonies hath been a means to bring many godly Preachers and Professors under great Persecution and Suffering some as Penry and Barrow Greenhood to suffer Death some Bawshment and many Imprisonment Indictment and other troubles either for speaking and writing against it or for not reading and hearing it 8. Because it hath tended to harden many Papists in their false Religion by seeing us come so neer to them in our way of Worship as you finde in the first Reason and ignorant scandalous people among our selves thinking that they are true Christians by conforming thereto 9. Because it teacheth things that are Heathenish as to call the Months January February c. and the daies of the Week Sunday Monday c. from the old Saxon Idols c. Jewish as Priests and as was added in the Scots Liturgy Altars Sacrifice and Popish as Christmas c. 10. Because it is a very imperfect form there being many things wanting that men ought to pray for as assurance sending forth Labourers into Gods vine-yard and many the like which cannot be found in it 11. Because there are so many unwarrantable things and offenfive to good Christians therein Q. What are those things in the Book of Common-Prayer that are unjustifiable in themselves and offensive to good Christians Answ 1. Adding to and diminishing from the Scriptures in the very beginning of it in the words At what time soever a sinner doth repent him of his sins c. which in the Rubrick and direction before it is called one of the Sentences of the Scripture and they cite