Selected quad for the lemma: woman_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
woman_n	spirit_n	truth_n	worship_v	2,361	5	9.8392	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54945	A discourse of prayer wherein this great duty is stated, so as to oppose some principles and practices of Papists and fanaticks; as they are contrary to the publick forms of the Church of England, established by her ecclesiastical canons, and confirmed by acts of Parliament. By Thomas Pittis, D.D. one of His Majesties chaplains in ordinary. Wherefore, that way and profession in religion, which gives the best directions for it, (viz. prayer) with the most effectual motives to it, and most aboundeth in its observance, hath therein the advantage of all others. Dr. Owen in his preface to his late discourse of the work of the Holy SPirit in prayer, &c.	Pittis, Thomas, 1636-1687.	1683 (1683)	Wing P2314; ESTC R220541	149,431	404

may not pray to a wrong object or to none at all Now in this I fear many may fail and in their prayers make an Idol in their fancies when yet they abhor one that is sensible or material represented to their bodily eyes For we are apt to frame to our selves especially men who are not used to abstraction a representation of God by something which has been exposed to our senses or at least by a confused joyning of many of these objects together But this is worshipping by a false similitude which we justly accuse and condemn others for And yet the difference seems not to be so great whether the similitude of our God in prayer be represented to our external senses or in the Idea and Image of our minds when we frame such an uncouth Picture there and turn our eyes inward to behold it For the fault seems not to be much alleviated when we refuse to frame a carved Image to represent him to whom we pray if in the mean time we create one in our own imagination and then prostrate our selves before it and pray with the direction of our intentions to it Were we capable indeed of framing an Idea of him that is conceiving an exact similitude of God no doubt but it would become our duty as well as our priviledge to make this representation of him to our selves and it might become an excellent mean to keep our souls and minds intent But there are two reasons among others why this is impossible to be done 1. Because God is a Spirit something that is void of all matter not capable of parts or such quantitative extension as bodies have and consequently we cannot frame any positive and proportionate notion of him all together as we can of those things which we have seen but we know his being only by his Attributes which we cannot consider all at once as we can the figure and proportion of a man together with the Being to which these Attributes belong That God is may easily be demonstrated but what manner of Being he is to which these Attributes are fixed will I think be difficult to be apprehended by men to whom the bare essences of things far inferior are so latent and abstruse So that they must be forced to acknowledge God to be incomprehensible For we find that when we retire within our selves and shut up our souls never so much from any communication with exterior objects though we can frame propositions and discourses concerning spirits yet we can have no representations of them or figures of proportion as we can make of other things which have been the objects of our senses though they are at present at a distance from us or shut out from our view by the darkness of the night or a closure of our eyes And to say truth could a spirit be drawn by us under a similitude it must put off its nature and become material whilst we draw an Image of it it must be subject to our external senses Hence was it that our Saviour confuted the worship of the Samaritans who as Mr. Mede has evidenced worshipped God under the similitude of a Dove and plainly told the woman he convers'd with that they worshipped they knew not what because the object to whom they directed their intentions was confined to this resemblance whilst they were at their devotions When all this while God was a spirit and such as pretended to his service ought to address themselves to him under that notion in spirit and in truth and not by any corporal representation And indeed it seems to be very unreasonable to draw lineaments and proportions of God by our own fancies and imaginations when he has no such things in himself nor as Christ sayes has any man seen the Father 2. 'T is impossible for us to frame a positive Idea or any adequate representation of God in our minds because he is an infinite Being and our souls are but of finite capacities And what is finite cannot frame or receive an Idea that is infinite For what is so can no more be limited or circumscribed than an infinite space can be measured or drawn into the number of proportions and this can never be because whatever a thing is measured by must either singly be commensurate to it or else by the reduplication of a shorter measure we must at last sum up its parts and proportions into one intire dimension in breadth depth and length But what infinite measure can we find out that shall stretch it self parallel to what is altogether infinite since what is so has no ends Or what number of measures can possibly reach it If it could be run over it had an end and then how could it be called infinite If it could be supposed that one infinite could be the measure of another and no penetration yet admitted then one must be where the other is not and then neither could be accounted infinite because one bounds and limits the other If a penetration through the whole should be supposed and granted both infinites would be but one and consequently the thoughts of a measure must perish So that for a finite Being to endeavour to comprehend an infinite essence or to frame an Idea or an adequate representation of him is more impossible than for a man to grasp the Globe of Earth in the hollow of his hand to carry the greatest Mountain upon his shoulder when he has torn it from the rest of the earth to drink up the Ocean at one draught or any thing else that is more difficult there being some proportion betwixt things that are finite but between a finite and an infinite none at all When we can contain the Sea and Rivers in an empty-eggshel shoot the fixed Stars down from heaven take a leap from the Earth to the Moon make the least Vessel to hold all the contents of the greatest or do any thing else that is more impossible then may we attempt though we shall not accomplish it to frame a notion and representation of the Deity that may be equal to his infinite being But in the mean time let us beware of a notional Idol whilst we endeavour to avoid a substantial one Yet since the nature and constitution of man is such that we are apt in our invocations of God to frame similitudes and representations of that Being to whom we make our religious addresses It may not be amiss if I here endeavour briefly to inform you what as I conceive ought to be the apprehensions and sentiments of mens minds with reference to the great and supream God to whom they pray that the intentions of their souls may be rationally and also piously directed in this important and necessary duty of their lives To effect this it must be remark'd that the God whom we pretend to worship contains within himself all manner of perfection and consequently he must include all those things which his own declarations have

the more we employ our bodies in decent expressions of gravity humility and apt affection to declare the inward intention of our minds which are full of all vigor and fervent desire and the most awful thoughts of that great Majesty whom we adore For this deportment gives to God a whole Sacrifice when others who in their prayers only hide their minds in their bodies as if they were confined as the Heathen Gods to an immovable and stiff Statue separating the inward actions of their souls from any correspondent gestures of their bodies if they worship God at all which they seem not very fond to declare Yet they devote only half of themselves and honor him in such a manner as other men can neither see nor know unless men had Casements in their Breasts that being opened others might look into them But that the worship of mens bodies ought to accompany the devotions of their minds is so apparent from Gods Injunctions under the Law that it cannot admit of any contradiction And if we argue for it under the establishment in the Gospel from those Commands we sind in the Law we have nothing returned but that the Jews were a dull and stupid people in comparison to our selves and men thus boast instead of having much cause of triumph For notwithstanding all the Invectives we have heard against the pitiful carnality and dulness of the Jews it appears too often to our great loss that they are as witty and more cunning than our selves We indeed having received helps and advantages by the Gospel and a greater proportion of the Spirit of Christ in whom they refused to believe are better instructed in the methods of a more spiritual Religion than they could be under the Law But yet what was then established which reason inforced being agreeable to the natures of mankind that was never yet repeated under the Gospel nor ever can I may confidently affirm may remain still without any check or controll for using it And therefore I cannot come to any damage in affirming that the worship of mens bodies in all their publick addresses unto God ought to accompany that of their minds till better arguments are brought against it than any which I have yet heard or seen 'T is true indeed our Saviour acquaints the woman of Samaria that the hour cometh and now is when those who are of the true Christian Church shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth because he seeks such to worship him John 4.23 Yet all this though when 't is interpreted according to the opinions of some men makes others stagger that are so weak as to desert their reason that they may become wise and go out of themselves to possess their souls and forsake the conduct of their own understandings guided by the rules of Gods Word that they may be frighted into the follies of others All this I say may when justly enlarged on rebuke Schism or Idolatry or false worship But this Text cannot authorize any detraction from external decency in the service of God nor abate from those orderly Rites and Ceremonies that promote Uniformity in the worship of him or tend to the sixation and establishment of true Religion under the Gospel nor such circumstances of devotion which are not in particular and directly abolished by the Messiah having been before Types and Prefigurations of him to come If any of that external worship of our bodies were of this kind which is injoyned by our Christian Superiors our practice would contradict our faith and deny Christ to be come in the flesh and justifie the Jews in the expectation of a Messiah But the truth is the conference betwixt our Saviour and the woman of Samaria is so far from prohibiting publick places of worship or external gestures of our bodies in devotion adapted to the inward reverence of our minds that it establishes a spiritual rational and Evangelical worship in opposition to the Mosaick Constitutions and the Samaritan Schism and Idolatry too and briefly declares that the Christian Religion was now to be established to abolish all other that were in the world that mankind being united in one faith and hope and consenting in one common principle and worshipping God through the mediation of their Redeemer having lived in this world with true devotion to the God that made them and in charity and peace among themselves might at last dye with comfort within their own breasts and then enter into the joy of their Lord. But if all this were largely controverted to a victory what shall we think of that Text of Solomon when he delivers points of a moral and perpetual establishment and of an universal concernment to mankind Eccles 5.1 Keep thy foot when thou comest into the Sanctuary of the Lord c. It was an usual custom amongst the Jews according to the fashion of those Eastern Countreys to signifie their reverence in a sacred place by putting off their Sandals before they entered that they might not prophane or which is all one render common by a defilement an holy place or what was separated from vulgar use to such as was sacred and related unto God From whence with reference to the reason of the thing was that Injunction more ancient than this Text Pull off thy shoos from off thy feet for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground Exod. 3.5 The place being before mean and inconsiderable a toft of ground on which bushes grew yet because God consecrated it by his own presence making it holy for Divine Offices to give Moses his Commission and to declare his Law therefore the signs of reverence were to be used there and external demonstrations of devotion to be exhibited Now this particular action of making bare the feet being an outward testimony of respect in those Countreys where this was commanded it sufficiently instructs all subsequent posterities of men that external signs of humility and submission must be given in the service of the Deity especially such in which we pretend to converse with him and in those places that are devoted to his honour And since divers Countreys use distinct modes of reverence and respect according to their customary signification and acceptance as the inhabitants of Japan salute by pulling off the Shoo when we do the same by pulling off our Hats and uncovering our Heads we may therefore fairly conclude that if Solomon in the forecited Text had spoken to persons used to our Customs and subject to the Constitutions of our Nation he would have said Pull off thy Hat when thou goest to the house of God and be more ready to hear than to give the sacrifice of fools for they consider not that they do evil And then the inference from this will be That we ought in all places dedicated to God on which his Name and Honour are inscribed where we pretend to offer our Christian Sacrifice to testifie the inward devotion of our minds by the outward

well act as they who pretend to the most magnified inspiration And as the Swan was never used in Sacrifices under the Law So will an Hypocrite though he is never so subtil be rejected by God in the service of the Gospel Because like the Swan under the white plumes and pleasant voice their lies hidden a black Skin But notwithstanding this the Hypocrite in a seeming Zeal and Devotion may frequently exceed in external sweat and gesture too him that is most serious and cordial in his prayers Though when we see so much smoke we easily perceive that the flame does not ascend For although art may vye with nature it self and the cunning Hypocrite who trades in Religion may enable himself or his customers may inform him how he may outdo the rational acts of true devotion so as to entrap the multitude yet in this the cheat will be plainly discovered and his design will be written in open characters on the matter he utters with a fervency beyond the modesty of devotion and appear also to the most vulgar eye if the head in which it is fix'd is considerate Themistocles was discerned to be no right Athenian even by a plain and simple woman of the City because the great care he had in the pronunciation of his words caused her to perceive that he affected only but had not the proper phrase and accents of Athens And indeed unless extempore men worship one God and we another it will not be either a formal head exactly adorned nor a grave aspect nor either hard or soft expressions although attended with an affected tone No nor Zeal transported into Frenzy and madness nor all the effects of subtilty or art or the easie endowments even of nature it self that can be able to recommend our prayers to that God who searcheth the hearts and trieth the reins of the children of men for he if we have true notions of him loves an honest and good mind beyond either the complements of the Formalist or the cheats of the Hypocrite we know that the Pharisees were excellent scourers of the outside of themselves and very prying into the inside of others that they could make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter when yet their own inward parts were full of ravening and all manner of wickedness These could be very precise and strict in smaller matters to the paying tyth of mint and rue and all manner of herbs but passed over judgement and the love of God Luke 11. And the Epicures notwithstanding the luxury and irregularity of their lives could speak of God in the publick Schools of Athens with greater reverence than any other Sect of Philosophers And yet we find in Tully at the latter end of his first Book de Naturâ Deorum that Epicurus retollit oratione relinquit Deos That he could allow those Gods in his Speeches which in reality he denied And whilst there is such a thing as falshood in the world and men may make profession with their tongues of what their minds do not heartily assent to There can be no certain and infallible judgement made from wordy expressions or external gestures nor yet from seeming transports of devotion Tacitus informs us that the Malecontents in Galba's time tristitiam simulabant propiores contumaciae That they counterfeited sorrow when their minds were stubborn And although many men among our selves may have steady brows and fixed eyes and walk with a grave and upright deportment yet privacy may discover to one who observantly converses with them that they are either empty or else frothy and vain Far too many are guilty of that fault which Cicero pretends against Verres Frontem atque oculos mentiri Their foreheads and their eyes speak falshoods Boldness is a common shelter to these things and confidence is almost characteristical to those that are adversaries to our Church prayers so great and large that 't is a rare thing to find modesty enough to hold the tongues of those who have been apparently baffled much less to make their faces blush when their hands were all smeer'd with blood nay so much as to ascend to the Throne with Swords and Staves not to mention what they took thence and most barbarously butchered and after all an Hue and Cry is perpetually sent out after their repentance and yet they hide it that it cannot be found But instead of an acknowledgement of their own guilt they will in despight of the experience of mankind averr their piety to exceed the Religion of other men and from their fondness to themselves infer the kindness of God to them Like that bloody and cruel Tyrant Domitian who painted Jupiter in the Market place with pleasant colours and himself in his bosom though he should have been represented trodden under his feet Strabo indeed tells us that it is impossible to persuade women and the promiscuous multitude to Religion by mere reason and dry Philosophy but that for this there is need of Superstition and this cannot be advanced without Fables and Wonders Geor. lib. 1. Yet the great God whom all Christians pretend to adore never ushered in his Religion into the World but by such Miracles as were real and true But when such a Religion as ours is becomes planted and sufficiently by Miracles beyond all the abilities of natural Causes that we are acquainted with proved to be Divine the rational account that may be given of it it no wise contradicting natural Religion will sufficiently inforce its esteem and exercise without the addition of any new juggles or devices of our own And therefore the Romans that the Religion which they embraced though false in its self might neither suffer by flattery or fraud when the Soothsayers increased so fast in their City made an Order of Senate that none but Gentlemen should practise these matters left so exalted and Divine an art should be degraded from the Majesty of Religion to a baser trade of fraud and cousenage As Tully tells us in his first Book of Divinat And indeed it holds good and rational under the profession of a true Religion more than it could possibly under a false For where as in the daies of Jeroboam the Priesthood is formed out of the meanest of the people they will not scruple to carry wisps of Hay to feed Calves at Dan and Bethel But farther and besides all this we now find Secular interest a most prevailing principle in the minds of men and therefore is it that upon a late and more particular scrutiny we find mens particular Religion stoop to their own personal advantages and the rites and devotions which they ought to exercise in the true profession to be countermanded when injoyn'd by lawful Authority by the profit which attends mens particular Trades and occupations As if because Demetrius and others made silver Shrines for Diana it must presently be concluded that great is Diana of the Ephesians This is the main reason why our Sectaries