Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	word_n	world_n	worship_v	343	4	7.6317	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59372	Several arguments for concessions and alterations in the common prayer, and in the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England in order to a comprehension / by a minister of the Church of England, as by law established.	Minister of the Church of England.	1689 (1689)	Wing S2752; ESTC R33871	58,452	80

and for the generality of them were deprived for their Nonconformity 5. This Worship hath been eventually Evil by weakning the hands of Discipline while the scandalous open evil Livers have escaped the Censures of the Church together with the more peaceable and innocently-minded Separatists Thus Dr. Cumber on the Communation Service Discipline with-held saith he in favour of Dissenters lest by imposing of it there this Holy Means of Reformation should be despised rather than obeyed And should Men have gone about to suppress and reform Debauchery and Prophaneness by a strict Presentation of them the Court which hath more hotly pursued the Dissenters than the Scandalous and Vicious would like enough have put them upon Presentment of Dissenters without any favour or difference between the weak and the wilful which because of the ill Consequence which too often followed Excommunication and Imprisonment many Ministers and Church-Wardens were more backward and averse unto Their Consciences would not suffer them to work such ill and trouble to their Christian Brethren Fellow Protestants Loving Neighbours for some small difference in lesser matters not destructive of their Salvation And no doubt but the Wisdom of our Governours saw the Evil and Inconvenience of those severities When they took away the Penal Laws that made the Common Prayer and Act for Vniformity so terrible to the contrary-minded Arg. 3. For Proof that the Common Prayer according to the Acts for Uniformity is inconvenient in some respect and may admit of Alteration because of the great disgusts and almost invincible prejudices of People especially in the Country against this Worship or at least some things therein Cars Peaceable Moderator or Plain Considerations for satisfaction to the disaffected to our Common-Prayers In the Preface many stumble much at our Book of Common Prayers and some of them I take to be good Christians honest moderate well-meaning People and have found by experience much of their disaffection to it doth lye upon their mistake through Ignorance not peevish wilfulness After all our Preaching and Instruction and Exhortations in behalf of the Common Prayer we do not find that success which we use to have in other matters and which we might expect if their prejudice were not so deeply rooted in them and too mighty for us The difficulty is great because the guilt of People is great Where People have often sinned any Sin the harder it is to repent And how often have may been present at these Prayers Yet I fear scarce ever prayed heartily and acceptably Again Sins descending from Parents to their Children are harder to be worked out of them but prejudices against this Worship have been transmitted down from Parents and as it were entailed upon some Families So that there is as little hopes of gaining them over as for bringing Men off from the Religion of their Ancestours which commonly proves unsuccessful Again the Commonness of this Guilt were it but two or three in a Congregation that were prejudiced against it there were the more hopes that by the Examples of others they might be recovered But when it is a great if not the greater part of the Congregation that is not heartily reconciled to this Worship as I fear it is in too many Parishes It is the greater difficulty when the Disease is so general when the Infection hath spread it self so much to cure it effectually There is too much proof of Peoples prejudices in that the number is so small so few that come to the Prayers upon the Holy Dayes and yet the Church is so exceedingly full at a Funeral Sermon or any other preaching time when People are not much longer at Church than on some Holy Dayes And on the Lord's Day there are few that will come to the Prayers to be present at the whole Service many hard Speeches against them some reviling them as the Mass-Book Popish Superstitious will Worship Prayers of course a cold dead piece of Formality There are so many Objections Scruples and Cavils against it as dull and tedious for the length of it as a Form of others making and not the Ministers own as Book-Prayers slighted by the vulgar upon that account who say they can read the Common Prayer as well as the Parson against the Responses though used among the Jews and Primitive Christians against the short Prayers and Hymns read and not sung disused both in our other Devotions more commonly but one continued Prayer without ony intermixture against some things censured as vain Repetitions and against the Ceremonies used in the Worship As to particular exceptions you may find enough if not more than enough in the Grand Debate between the Conformists and Nonconformists How these prejudices may be in a great measure abated and taken away I shall show as the benefit of Union That a Comprehension of the more sober and moderate Dissenters might do it in time Evils of this Prejudice First It is the cause of the scandalous abuse and profanation of Holy Dayes If People were unprejudiced an Hour spent in devout Prayer and praises due Attention unto the Word of God and sometime in good instruction of Youth and Explication upon the Church-Catechisme or Exposition of the Epistle and Gospel of the Day would turn to some good account and the Evening Service used to as appointed on Holy Dayes but prejudice mars and hinders all this from taking effect and makes our Holy-Dayes useless in many Parishes a loss and hindrance rather than advantage to Religion Secondly It hath occasioned much dishonour to God on the Lord's Day First By a great neglect of this Worship several absenting from it and staying till the Prayers are over before they come and losing the benefit of this Worship wholly which is commonly the bigger half of God's Worship on the Forenoons and the whole Service of God in many Parishes in the Afternoon there being no Sermon nor Catechising nor at least no Explication of Catechisme And is it nothing for so many People in many Parishes to lose the benefit of half God's solemn Worship No doubt but they are highly guilty before God and will be found so at that day when Sins which the World counts light of shall appear in their just weight of Guilt according to the Word of God. Again Secondly It occasions much dishonour to God on his own day by reason of Peoples great unprofitableness in this Duty many present at it manifesting such a careless Spirit as if they were not worshipping God doing any thing rather than that Some waiting with great impatience until the Prayers be at an end as if there were no good to be gotten by them How is it to be expected that it should be done to edifying until Peoples prejudices be removed That their Hearts should be right and devout in a Worship which their minds are not reconcil'd unto They must be brought to some good liking of it as a true and sound Worship of God such as God will