Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	public_a	zeal_n	zealous_a	14	3	8.2772	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85836	A petition for the vindication of the publique use of the Book of Common-Prayer, from some foul, but undeserved aspersions lately cast upon it And for the asserting of the publique use of set-forms of prayer, and dispensing the holy Sacraments. Occasioned by the late ordinance for the ejecting of scandalous, ignorant, and insufficient ministers and school-masters. As also thirty seven quæres concerning the said ordinance, and the particulars thereof. Humbly presented to the most Honourable and highest court of Parliament, now convened at Westminster, anno 1654. With a true account rendred in an epistle prefixed, and an appendix subjoyned, both of the printing and presenting the same. By Lionel Gatford, batchelour in Divinity.	Gatford, Lionel, d. 1665.	1654 (1654)	Wing G336; Thomason E818_17; ESTC R207397	22,484	48

A PETITION For the Vindication of the Publique use of the Book of COMMON-PRAYER From some foul but undeserved aspersions lately cast upon it And for the asserting of the Publique use of Set-Forms of PRAYER and dispensing the holy SACRAMENTS Occasioned by the late Ordinance for the ejecting of scandalous ignorant and insufficient Ministers and School-Masters As also thirty seven Quaeres concerning the said Ordinance and the particulars thereof Humbly presented to the most Honourable and Highest Court of PARLIAMENT now convened at Westminster Anno 1654. WITH A true Account rendred in an Epistle prefixed and an Appendix subjoyned both of the Printing and Presenting the same By Lionel Gatford Batchelour in Divinity 2 CHR●● 13. v. 9. DEUT. 33. v. 8.10 11. London Printed for John Williams at the Crown in Saint Pauls Church-yard 1655. TO THE MOST HONOURABLE and Highest Court of PARLIAMENT now assembled at Westminster Lionel Gatford Batchelour in Divinity wisheth all Wisdome Courage and Fear of the Lord with all other graces necessary for this life and all comforts and joyes reserved for a better Most Honourable and truly honoured BE pleased I most humbly beseech you to receive by the hands of another what my present infirmities of body and poverty of condition will not permit me to present unto your Honours by mine own The following Petition and certain Quaeres annexed thereto both occasioned by the late Ordinance for the ejecting of scandalous ignorant and insufficient Ministers and School-masters An Ordinance deserving your strictest examination as being suggested to his Highnesse by some grand but close underminers of the Protestant Religion for the utter extirpation of the Ministery thereof out of this Nation and therefore already taken as I am informed into your most pious consideration as a work most beseeming you and your known zeal and affection to the said Religion And if the said Petition and Quaers may contribute ought though never so little to that great and glorious work I shall give God all the glory of it as I shall never cease to supplicate him for his assisting you therein and crowning your endeavours with an happy and honourable successe I have caused both the Petition and Quaeres to be Printed and taken the best order I could at this distance with the Stationer to whose care I committed the Printing of them that your Honours might have each of you a perfect Copy to the intent that you might by your selves in your retirements as well as joyntly in your Assembly if you see cause peruse and scan every part and clause thereof And if after such a perusal your Honours shall finde as I trust you will nothing therein either repugnant or prejudicial to truth and the zealous and prudential propugning thereof or unbeseeming the propugner or unworthy of your Honours appearing for I humbly begge your further recommending them if you shall think fit to a more publique view either of his Highnesse 〈◊〉 any other with what advantage your better Judgements and more inflamed zeal to Gods glory and the true Reformed Religion shall prompt you to But if they obtain no other favor but the being read by you I shall repute it no small recompence as well as honour to have such witnesses of my being really studious and co●dially desirous to defend and maintain to the utmost of my weak power and ability the said true Reformed Protestant Religion established in the Church of England against all the enemies and oppugners thereof as also against whatsoever scandalls reproaches or aspersions they can cast on it And that as readily and willingly now in these times of frenzy and madnesse on the one hand as heretofore in those of imprudence and incogitancy on the other And perhaps the known adversaries of our Religion whose heads have been and still are very busie in all the designs and contrivances against it though they have and doe make use of others hands to act by may lose a great part of their present designe if they be not wholly frustrated by this single appearance of one poor stripling of the Church of England it being known to them and to the world that notwithstanding the fall of so many thousand able and eminent professors and repugners of the same Religion by their Jesuitical treacheries and conspiracies there are yet whole Armies left of the same faith and courag● though they have not so publiquely dec●ared themselves nor indeed might without ●●curring some censure which they are desirous to avoid Howsoever if that stripling be but encouraged with your approbation as he hath reason from former mercies and deliverances to hope for Gods assistance he shall willingly hazard himself in the defence of his Religion and upon reasonable warning will be ready with his Shepherds Scrip and Pastoral Instruments though he be sequestred from his flock to encounter with any Philistine to whom your Honours shall send or call forth Your most devoted servant TO THE MOST HONOURABLE and Highest Court of PARLIAMENT Now Convened at Westminster for England Scotland and Ireland The Humble Petition of Lionel Gatford B.D. Most humbly sheweth THat whereas it pleased his Highness the Lord Protector upon the subtil and malicious suggestions of close pernicious enemies to the true Reformed Protestant Religion as your Petitioner in honour of his Highnesse and Council is bound to conceive by his Letters to the Judge of the Assises the last Spring to require the Justices of Peace to be more particularly carefull of the suppressing of Ale-houses and the Book of Common-Prayer And again since that by an Ordinance intituled An O●dinance for the ejecting of Scandalous ●gnorant and insufficient Ministers c. 〈◊〉 conjoin the publique and frequent reading or using the said Book with the horrid crimes of holding or maintaining blasphemous and Atheistical opinions of being guilty of Cursing Swearing Perjury subornation of Perjury Adultery Fornication Drunkennesse and other abominable crimes mentioned in the said Ordinance As also thereby to adjudge the so reading the said Book to be a crime so scandalous as that he that should be guilty thereof how thoroughly Orthodox or faithfully laborious how devoutly pious and eminently religious soever he otherwise be should be ejected and displaced from his Cure of Souls Benefice or other place or charge to his own and poor wife and childrens ruine if not to the extreme dammage or hazzard of those Souls committed to his Charge and acknowledged to have been much benefited by his Ministery Your humble Petitioner in his zeal to Gods glory and the honour of the true Reformed Protestant Religion of both which the said Book hath been instrumentally none of the least promoter and advancer most humbly craveth leave to offer these few particulars to your most serious and pious consideration First Whether the joining of the Book of Common-Prayer and Ale-houses in their suppressing and the reputing and accounting the publique reading or using it amongst such horrid crimes before mentioned and the adjudging him that so

readeth or useth it to be therefore so scandalous as to deserve to be ejected out of his Cure or Charge be not to say the least of it very injurious and prejudicial to the true Reformed Protestant Religion it self and highly dishonorable both to it and to the true Professors thereof as also much advantagious to the enemies of both as well in their now more then ordinarily endeavoured and more then wontedly prevailing seducements and temptations for the perverting and corrupting many weak brethren as otherwise when it cannot be denyed but that the said Book was at first composed by most pious and religious as well as Learned and Orthodox men eminent for their wisdome and prudence in assis●ing the Reformation of Religion a●d renowned for their fidelity and c●●●tancy in sealing their profession with their bloud And hath been since revised and farther approved and established by all our pious Protestant Princes with the advice and consent of their most Judicious and Religious Parliaments And contains in it the form and matter of the publique worship of God by Prayer and the form and manner of the publique dispensing the holy Sacraments and other necessary publique observances constantly practised and observed by the Protestants here in England ever since the Reformation and no ways repugnant in any essential part thereof to the publique form of Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments used in other Reformed Churches So that if that way and manner of the publique worship of God by Prayer and of the publique dispensing or administring the Sacraments which hath bin the only constant and approved way here in the Church of England be such as deserves not onely utterly to be abolished and suppressed but to be joined in the abolishing and suppressing it with those sinks of sin and nurseries of vice common Ale-houses and to have the using that way and manner reputed amongst such horrid crimes as by the said Ordinance 't is reputed and to be adjudged so scandalous as that they who use it ought to be deemed and censured as unfit unworthy to officiate in the Church and for that cause alone to be ejected and displaced It will thereupon easily be inferred and concluded that the Church of England the acknowledged Bulwark and Fortresse as well as asyle and refuge of all the Protestants in Christendome hath hitherto foully and grosly yea criminously and scandalously erred in two main Fundamentals of Religion and discriminating notes of a true Church viz. the true worshipping of God and the right and lawful administration of the Sacraments And whether the granting or supposing this be not very injurious and prejudicial to the true Reformed Protestant Religion it self and highly dishonourable both to it and to the true Professors thereof c. as is before alledged is humbly submitted to your Judgements Secondly for the vindicating of the true Reformed Protestant Religion and the professors thereof from this foul but most unjust scandal and aspersion and from the injury prejudice and dammage that it and they may suffer thereby Your humble Petitioner further prayeth that his Highnesse the Lord Protector may be so fairly and observantly treated with and advised by your Honours his now greatest Council concerning that particular that without the least reflection of diminution upon his Honour and Wisdome so far as is possible his own opinion or rather sudden conception upon others suggestions concerning the Book of Common-Prayer may bee taken off changed into better thoughts and so the honour of that Book so far at least as concerns the honour of God himself and the true Reformed Protestant Religion be preserved which is no more then the Apostles themselves did in the abolishing of Jewish Rites and Ceremonies how inconsistent soever with the Christian Profession and practise and may much more be indulged to the reverend and religious worship of many thousands and ten thousands eminently renowned Christians And for the same ends your Petitioner in the third place offereth to your Honors this humble motion and earnest supplication That you would be pleased with the consent of his Highnesse first obtained to publish a decree or command That all persons of what religion or profession soever that have ought to object or except against set forms of publique Prayer and administration of the Sacraments in general or against the Book of Common-Prayer in particular do by some few of their own religion and profession chosen by them for that purpose for the avoidng of tumults and confusion within such a time give in to your Honours either written or printed all or the chief of the reasons grounds of those their objections and exceptions And that your Petitioner though very weak and unworthy to appear in so great a cause together with some few other of those many that are of his judgement may upon sufficient notice thereof given to them and some small charges by reason of his and their known poverty allowed them be admitted to return answer to those objections and exceptions and then have some further time assigned them to clear and make good to his Highnesse and to your Honours these three Assertions I. That Set Forms of publique Prayer and dispensing of the Saeraments are more agreeable to and consistent with the precepts and rules of Prayer and dispensing the Sacraments contained in sacred Scripture then ex tempore Prayers and Arbitrary modes of dispensing these Ordinances are II. That it is requisite and necessary for every settled Church in every Nation to have as anciently and lately they had known Set-Forms both of publique Prayers and of publique dispensation of the Sacraments that so errors in both may be the better avoided and the uncharitable judging of each other prevented and peace and truth preserved III. That the Book of Common-Prayer and administration of the Sacraments formerly established and used here in England is absolutely the best Form and freest from all just exceptions in all essentiall points and practises of Religion that ever yet saw light in the Christian world and none of the weakest Forts that the Church of England had against Popery and other errors and heresies And therefore may by your Honours mediation to his Highnesse and with his and your joint approbation and confirmation be still continued in this Church at least in those Congregations that shall accept and desire it without the scandal of any or prejudice to those that shall use it And for this your justice and zeal for the honour of God and the true Reformed Protestant Religion your Petitioner with many thousands shall faithfully and devoutly pray c. CERTAIN QUAERIES Concerning the Ordinance for ejecting of Scandalous Ignorant and Insufficient Ministers and Schoolmasters Humbly presented to the Highest Court of PARLIAMENT now convened at Westminster By L.G. B.D. Quaer 1. WHether the Ordinance it self be not contrary to the known Lawes and other just claims of the Subjects of this Nation as Magna Charta and the Petition of Right