Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	bishop_n	law_n	power_n	3,346	5	4.9385	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41326	The liturgical considerator considered, or, A brief view of Dr. Gauden's considerations touching the liturgy of the Church of England wherein the reasons by him produced for imposing the said liturgy upon all, are found to be so weak, his defence of things offensive in it so slight, the arguments against the liturgy by himselfe afforded, are so strong, that some, who upon His Majesties declaration did incline to the liturgy, are now further from it, by reading his wordy discourse about it : also some reasons humbly rendered, why many ministers, as yet cannot conform to that liturgy, but not out of disloyalty, pride, ingratitude, peevishness, nor schismatical petulancy, as the sarcastical pen of this uncharitable doctor hath published ... / by G.F.	Firmin, Giles, 1614-1697.	1661 (1661)	Wing F956; ESTC R843	47,787	64

just Interest that it may rationally be concluded I would not in the least decline His just Desires or deviate from his Royal Command did not Conscience towards God countermand the Compliance with them And I am so much affected to the peace of the Church that I have of late preached what God assisting I resolve to practice viz. That many and great corruptions in Gods Worship are to be grieved for and patiently groaned under before Schisme be consented un o or seperation consulted Provided nevertheless I be passive not active in them I can keep communion under that Form of Worship whereby I cannot administer and heartily say Amen to the matter of those Petitions which are put up●n an order so confused preposterous and indigested that it seems to me to be so much below the gravity of the Church whose mouth I must be the seriousnesse of the Office whereby I minister the sanctity of the Duty I am to perform and the s●ored nature of the Object to whom they are presented that I dare not stand between God and his people with the same Calvins Epistle to Mr. Knox Mr. Wittingham and the brethren at Franck ford and therefore cannot but in my place and capacity contend against it and with Calvin in this very case allow their constancy who strive for a just cause being forced against their will unto contention and worthily condemn the frowardness which doth 〈◊〉 and stay the holy carefulness of ref rming the Church Let not men mistake us I profess it for my self and presume I may do it for many of my Brethren we are not against Set-forms of prayer or their use in publick we believe them lawful and convenient but not necessary and therefore not to be exclusively imposed they may be helps to weakness and happy expressions of special emergent occasions of prayer or praises in the Church I do believe the Church of the Jewes had certain Set-forms of prayer and praises but I believe also they were occasional and transient indited by the Holy Ghost and composed by Holy men for that present and peculiar occasion of this nature was the Song of Moses Deborah and Barak and Davids Psalme in 2 Sam. 22. and that at placing the Ark in the Tabernacle 1 Chron. 16. which beareth this Note upon it Then on that day David delivered this Psalm to thank the Lord into the hand of Asaph and his Brethren and many other Psalms and Set-forms which are referred to their special occasions for which having served they were added to the Canon of Scripture as witnesses of Gods dealings and directions of his peoples duty in all future Ages but were never compacted into a set Liturgy prescribed and imposed as the only standing Form of Worship the Jewish Rabbines tell us from Moses to Ezra more than one thousand years the Jewes had no stinted Forms of prayer in their Church and yet they had two considerable Reasons to have enforced it which we Christians have not their infant weak estate wanted Crutches and the time of the pouring out the spirit of supplication was not yet come 2. The Forms were indited by holy men in this very act inspired by the Holy Gkost I am easily perswaded the several parts of the Service-book were composed by single persons and who so will read Isidior Durandus His Parallel of the Liturgy and Mass-book and the Rationalists will find the time when the occasions on which and the reasons for which they were appointed in the Church Mr. Baylie hath assigned many parts thereof to the particular Popes Ecclesiastical policy Book 5. Pag. 265. and seasons prescribing the same and our own Hooker reports so much of the Letany or Rogations that chief part of our Service but that these things perished not with their Authors and occasions I see no good Reasons for it admit we that they were the good expressions of good men on good occasions yet they were only expressions of men not inspired by the Holy-Ghost and unwarrantably resolved into a Liturgy and made unjustly exclusive to the expressions of good men succeeding as in time so in capacity to express their own desires as their occurrent occasion should direct in no less sacred expressions the alterable condition of the Church doth necessitate their expression to be alterable I pray what part of our contended-for Liturgy as exactly perfect shall solemnize the saul-humbling memorial of the malicious mischievous Murther of His late Majesty to be held on the 30th of January or the God-praising memorial of the Happy and Honourable Return of his Sacred Majesty that now is to be observed Annually on the 29th of May. I hope men shall not be indicted for making mention thereof by conceived prayer or praises none being in the Book prepared or prescribed which can do it for it is most unreasonable that we should be imposed upon by the personall composures of private fancies who without warrant compose set forms and therein vent their own superstitious notions as hath been attempted by the books published as forms of prayer for the 29th of May and 30th of January the last of which was sent in the name of the Bishop of London to our Churches if by his Authority I conceive not more to the offence of many Godly men then Breach of the Laws and Usurpation on his Majesties Authority and abuse of his Royal Power punishable with a Praemunire In reference to this variation the Church might and must keep a standing Council to vary the Liturgy if we be not bound to dependance on the Spirit which the Apostle directeth when we know not what to ask Rom. 8.26 as the only help to our infirmities and so excludeth all prescribed prayers which must render the dictating power of the spirit uselesse unlesse the prayer be in an unknown Tongue or ambiguous phrase much at one with latine-service where the spirit is needed as an interpreter not dictator or most perfectly comprehensive words that the mind may expatiate upon and that is peculiar to the Lords prayer and so that must be our only Liturgy That St. John the Baptist taught his Disciples to pray I yield and that our Saviour teaching his propounded to them a most perfect prayer compendious for the manner but most comprehensive for the matter of the expression to be their pattern no serious sober Christian can or will deny but that they were confined to the only or constant use there of none do or dare affirm or that it should be to them the Dictator of a standing Liturgy cannot be rationally inferred because the prescription of it affords no premifes to enforce such a conclusion the Disciples who learned that they might teach the Church never improved it to such an end themselves prayed often and openly in the Church yet only in their own expressions for ought appears to us by holy writ and the nature and order of prayer being a serious expression of the hearts sensible conception doth

be plunged under a God-provoking Land-destroying perjury For sure I am the Directory and Service-book though amended in most things cannot consist and therefore we must be resolved in this before we receive that when something refined we may suffer we must not sin But here Captain George Masterson that Morpheus of our City A Captain in the Church-regiment for the Common-wealth Ruin● who gave in their Ensign The Law and the Testimony for their Motto wanting nothing but an inculca me tanquam salem insipidum to make him the E●ebolius of our age having turned his Belt into a Girdle and Buff into a Canonical Coat relinquished the Law and the Testimony to run to the Common-prayer Book unto whose plea borrowed from the Learned Hooker these Exceptions are framed biddeth a Stand to my March and tells us in Answer to our Covenant Herod and the Jews lying in wait for Paul sware That is true and if he will make good his Inference of the Covenant I will promise him to save the Hangman the labour and burn it and what I have written for it with my own hands in which if he fail See his S●i●itual House p. 130. he must needs be found wicked and fallacious but that is not strange to him therefore He tells us Lawful Authority is essential to make an Oath obliging but by his leave though it be to make an Oath lawful I deny it to be essential to make it obliging I believe he d●eams every unlawful Oath void but Bishop Sanderson will teach him better Divinity But that his Bowe may not break which could never hold to shoot one forcible Shaft he addes another Paradox To de●y the Covenant wanted lawful Authority is treason He lives indeed near the Inn● of Court and hath conversed much in High Courts of Justice and may blesse God for a gracious Prince that he is not as sensible of Treason as his brother Peters Yet I shall make bold to tell him I have deni'd it and do deny it and yet fear not to be indicted for Treason whilst I have the Authority of his late present Majesty owning them who enjoyned the Covenant a Parliament til his Patron Bradshaw became Preside●t I must be better informed in England's Consti●utions if Lords and Commons sitting in Parliament are not a lawful just though not a full and compleat Authority to th● Orders and Ordinances of which the people owe subjection in which my observation of daily obedience the non-contradiction of the Learned in the Law and the Act for their Continuance making sober and judicious men to doubt of their yet existence though the present Aspect of the Nation cannot bear it doth very much confirm me and yet I would have him know I think I have and shall approve my self a much more loyal Subject to his Maiesty than himself who not onely rejoyced in the death of our late murthered Soveraign but blasphemoufly triumphed over his most Sacred Majesty in the day of His distress at Worcester in these and the like terms The enemy did and might rationally expect See his considence in man preached the last day of the sixth Month 1651. dedicated to John Bradshaw p. 16 17. that if he could set his foot his wearied foot on English ground his strength would take root downward and bring forth fruit upward it could not but be expected on all hands that the further he rolled the greater strength he would gather Yet behold admi●e God though at his entrance he leave our Army fourscore miles in his Rear their flesh wearied and spiri● almost languishing through the continued difficulties they met with in a strange Land though he appear in a Countrey very fond of him though he march with an Idol in the head of his Army the name of a King to which the generality of this Nation are very superstitious too ready to ●ow down and submit their necks to a Tyrants foot yet behold his strength is at a stand much about a scantling as it was when he fled out of Scotland Let us remember Newbery and Marston and Naseby remember Dunbar and Fife and Sterling Is not this a most faithful Subject and judicious man to charge Treason on all such as esteem the Two Houses of Parliament a lawful Authority Yet This Authority was that which expelled the Liturgy and received to their Ordinance for that purpose so much of assent from his late and present Majesty that makes me sure it amounts in equity and conscience if not by the punctilioes of the Law to a full and compleat Authority especially considering it to be enforced by the Emphasis of an Oath Courteous Reader I will hold thee no longer but beg thy excuse for this too wide a Portal for the Authors more compendious Fabrick which hath been framed to fence off the force and fury of passionate and censorious men who think nothing but peevishness with-holds from using the Common-service book That the one and the other may inform convince and confirm is the hearty prayer of Thine and the Churches Servant striving for the purity plainness and simplicity of Gospel-Worship ZACH. CROFTON From my Study at Gravel-lane in Houndsditch London Jan. 26. 1660. Dr. Gauden's LITVRGICAL CONSIDERATIONS CONSIDERED The PREFACE Aphor. 1 HIppocrates tells us That in the cure of a sick person as the Physician must do his part so the sick person must do his part and the * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Liebantius in his Scholia interprets Apothecarires and Chirurgions c. Assistants to the physician must do their part else the cure may be hindered How long this poor Church hath lain sick and languishing is too well known to the Christian World divers have tried their skill to heal us but have proved Physicians of no value How many thoughts this hath caused our Royal Soveraign the King of our Prayers since God hath in so wonderful a manner brought Him to His Throne he knoweth best I doubt not but He made His Prognostick so soon as He saw the Patient that the disease was most difficult of cure yea to bring this Church to such a healing and healthy complexion that God might delight to look on it was a thing impossible for any Physician but such a one who is infallible in the knowledge of the disease and of the medicines which must heal and could irresistibly cause the Patient to take the Physick and Omnipotently concurre to the blessing of it One thing that makes some diseases as the Hypochondriaca Affectio into which the perplexed thoughts and cares about our state may be enough to bring His Majesty so difficult of cure is found in our disease viz. the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 viscerum wherein the medicines which are good for one hurt another Some men pretending Antiquity for fifteen hundred years cannot be healed unless the Physician prescribe a Bill of six hundred yea a thousand Churches to one Bishop as Cyprian and Austin had if

Liturgy is He comm●nds Liturgy His high commendation of it and here I must go search up and down to get things into a method I will do it as well as I can First He commends it from the efficient causes of it these were saith he Martyrly men who composed our Liturgy p. 3. Answ 1. Did Martyrly men compose it all you will not say so I hope I think the Romish Party did much of it from whom they took it Secondly However distingue tempora they came new out of Pope●y the Nation wedded to that Whore in a time when there were not so many well-qualified Ministers in the whole Kingdom as were lately in one City that of London Rare to find a Pulpit with a Clapper said father Latimer forced to admit meer reading Protestants well-affected to the true Religion into the Ministry But what must we enjoy the Gospel an hundred years and men not grow in knowledge gifts and grace Will you shame the Gospel Promises and English Christians Must they be ever children I am confident if those worthy men were now alive and knew what the Lord had done for the English Ministry they would abhor to impose as you would have the Liturgy imposed only this remember we honour those Martyrly men more than many of your perswasion have done or do it were well if all abhorred that Bishop of Rome as they did Secondly He commends it from the Matter the excellent matter for the main must still be retained p. 3. If it be only the excellent Matter let it stand but if you will only purge some verbal defects as you say I fear you will leave something that is not excellent The Reasons shewing the necessity of Reformation c. published by divers Ministers shew more than verbal defects I pray answer that Book like a Divine and Lawyer Mr. Powel with whom though I agree not in all things hath observed sixty nine offensive things in that Liturgy you may please to consider them Thirdly Whereas great offence hath been taken at the Form of it popular responds versicles intermixtures abbreviations abruptions stops with a present posting on again with a Let us pray when prayer before was in hand Thirdly Now he commends it from this Form the popular responds pag. 34. which he calls the Ecchoes of humble and intent affections and in the two honourable Temples finds they excite the Ministers affections c. Answ 1. Yea Sir your Templars are Lawyers I suppose and as for Lawyers unless they be a very few they are crucified men to the World they keep firm to their Baptismal Covenant forsaking the Devil and all his works the vain pomp c. But in other Congregations where we have persons very vain love money abhominably drink Sack like fish and very Drunkards rap out Oaths commonly unclean scoff at the power of their own professed Religion to have such as these in our Congregations only to make the responds when godly men will not come at us to hear the Service this makes a Ministers stomack sick instead of quickning his affections Secondly I pray Sir can you prove that this was the Form the Lord appointed at his Temple I have read in the Word of the peeples saying Amen but I never read this kind of worship Thirdly Then it seems the Minister is not the mouth of the people their own mouths speak for themselves and why should not the Minister say Amen to their prayers Sectio quinta 4thly HE commends it from the final Cause the more August and Reverent worship of God c. of which before only pag. 27. I find another it is to be the main Standard Test and measure of our publick Devotion Answ I pray open your meaning what is the Test and the Matter of it I pray first make it pure and when it is purged yet we abhor to give that honour to your Book which is due to the Lords prayer and the Word of God onely But do you mean the Form of it then it seems we must make our prayers with popular responds intermixtures abruptions c. It 's our measure you say How is that as on a Yard-wan they have one Nail two Nails a quarter of a Yard c. so they measure cloth So if we will make a prayer of three short lines or six c. we must measure by this where we have variety of lengths and thus we must make various prayers sutable to this main Standard what else you intend I know not by your Measure Fifthly He commends it from the effects pag. 12 13 18 33. It is the Bulwark against first Romish Superstition as the Mass and Popery First For the Mass while Bread and Wine are so consecrated and communicated as in the Liturgy we shall for ever keep out the Masse Answ 1. What the Doctor means by Consecration I know no● how others understand it I know but I can see nothing in the Book that is done to keep out Masse that is not done by other Ministers who yet stumble at a Liturgy imposed upon all a strange Argument that onely by reading of the words the Mass is kept out else nothing that makes against the Mass in it but we use Secondly But doth not your Book by commanding kneeling do something which may help in the Masse till Transubstantiation began to be started kneeling was not known you know the gesture for some hundred years was quite opposite Secondly it is a Bulwark against Popery he saith Answ 1. How then did Bishop Davenant prove Papists ought to be compelled to come to Church for as to our Liturgy he saith Determ 27. What is there in it that is not approved of Papists themselves which he thus confirms That some of the Bishops of Rome have offered to approve our Form of prayers provided we would accept it by their Authority Secondly Why then said one of your Bishops The Service-book of the Church of England was now so dressed that if the Pope should come and see it he would claim it as him own but that it is in English Yea the Papists boasted it was a compliance with them c. You would seem to be afraid of Popery I know who is and he that reads Bishop Bramhal's book printed at the Hague will fear more Why then was that passage left out in this Liturgy against the Pope which with divers other things makes us sure this is not the Liturgy which the Law established Thirdly It is a Bulwark against Anabaptism for it maintains Baptismal Regeneration and this you are forced first to prove as well as you can knowing it is one of the things that give offence and will do Had you carried this stoutly I would have given you many thanks and said it was a strong Argument though it doth not follow we must be tied to a Book I observe two things in your discourse 1. You give this Regeneration to all Infants baptised 2. You mention nothing