Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	book_n	divine_a	scripture_n	2,963	5	6.0860	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48963	Logikē latreia the reasonablenesse of divine service : or non-conformity to common-prayer, proved not conformable to common reason : in answer to the contrary pretensions of H. D. in a late discourse concerning the interest of words in prayer and liturgies / by Ireneus Freeman ...	Freeman, Ireneus.	1661 (1661)	Wing L2841; ESTC R1576	82,822	110

were recorded would never the more prove the use unlawful For where do they leave any record of singing Psalms in Rime and Meeter and other forms of worship which yet are thought lawful Indeed this is the Antisabbatarians argument If the seventh day was sanctified from the creation then the celebration and keeping of it by the Patriarchs before the giving of the Law would have been recorded But they have been answered by these Authors Brethren in non-conformity That many things may have been done which are not recorded For all this they add Yet we doubt not but we may use it in the form and so put it to an use for which God never intended it Their Reasons are 1. Because it is holy Scripture But I would fain know a reason why a form of words which are not holy Scripture may not as lawfully be used as those which are 〈…〉 sure all the phrases or forms of speech which are used in extempore Prayers are not holy Scripture 2. Because say they it is so short that we may easily get it by heart and not employ our souls at our eyes by reading while they should be wrestling with God It seems then that whatsoever they said before though there be no precept or pattern in the Word of God yet a man may use a set form of Prayer if it be so short that it may be easily remembred and that one thing which they have against the Common-prayer is that it cannot be remembred but must be read But I answer that the reading of the Common-prayer which they disallow is not such a diversion of the soul from wrestling with God as the remembring of the Lords Prayer the use whereof without book they allow I never knew a man in reading of a Prayer frequently to skip what he intended to say but I have been told of a man and that of very great parts who never offered to say the Lords Prayer in publick but he was out The employing of the soul at the eye in reading is nothing so much as her employment in that part of the brain which is the shop of memory since the characters imprinted on the book are not so easily obliterated and defaced as those instamped on the brain Let any man tell me whether his thoughts be not lesse roving from the subject while he is reading a book which he remembers not then while he is remembring a speech got by heart or whether the soul be not put to more labour by saying it memoriter then by reading it in a plain print 3. They say that they can use the Lords Prayer because the divine authority of it is such as it hath another manner of influence on their spirits in using as all the Scripture hath then can be pretended for any other forms But if they mean by this divine Authority they speak of a divine institution this cannot be pleaded by them except they will grant that Christ appointed us to use these words in prayer which before they denyed and therefore I think that not to be their meaning If by this divine authority they allow to the Lords Prayer they understand only that the form of words came out of the divine Mint not excogitated by man but dictated by the Spirit of God then the same influence may be expected from some other forms being of divine authority as well as the Lords Prayer as those in the Liturgy O Lord open our Lips save thy people blesse thine inheritance But if the Reason wherefore they can lawfully utter the Lord Prayer before God be the divine authority of it then something at least tantamount to divine authority must be found in the Prayers which they invent themselves that they think it lawful to vent them For it seems if the Lords Prayer were not of divine authority they would not use it By the same Reason they would not use their own Prayers if they were not of divine authority or were not endowed with something of an equivalent credit with divine authority But now their own Prayers are not of divine authority therefore without doubt the Authors believe some excellency to be in them which renders them as good and lawful as if they were And what is that but clearly the extempore uttering of them This is laid in the scales with divine authority and out-ballanceth it too as will appear by these two cases compared together These Authors would not use the Lords Prayer so as to utter the expresse words if it were not of divine authority but because it is of divine authority therefore they will In like manner these Authors would not utter those words which usually they do in prayer besides the Lords Prayer if they were not invented extempore but dictated by another or by themselves before-hand but because they are invented extempore therefore they will So that you see extempore invention is as much preferred before divine authority as their own invented prayers are inferiour to the Lords Prayer And now no marvel though men stickle so much for the liberty of the extempore vein for so did Alexander for divine honours How otherwise shall they be deified by the people If you take away the divine authority of their Prayers they may complain with Micah What have we more 4. They give this as their last Reason wherefore though they cannot use other forms yet the Lords Prayer they can Because say they By the length of it we easily understand that it was never intended to be used without any other Prayer But that which they easily understand will not enter into the head of a rigid Non conformist whom I know who while he stayed in his place was wont very often to begin at Church with the Lords Prayer and to joyn no other Prayer with it Yet if they were all of as easie a conception as these Authors and agreed in the premises that the Lords Prayer was never intended to be used alone yet how doth the conclusion follow thence that therefore the Lords Prayer may be used though not the Common Prayer By this Reason they might more lawfully use the Common Prayer if they might be suffered to joyn their extempore Prayers with it But who can conceive that it should be lawful to use a set form so that it be in company with some other Prayers of their own framing and yet it should be unlawful to use it alone For that Prayer which is bad when alone can make no better a sound among a pack of good ones then a Goose among Swans But it seems they compare forms of prayer as the Wag did the Committee men to Fidlers as if they were Rogues when single but in consort with extempore Prayers were Gentlemen-Musicians SECT V. Their pretence that no Forms were in use till four hundred years after Christ answered Their Arguments from the uselesness of Forms from the Heresies Persecutions and separations which they cause and from peoples resting in them considered and retorted THeir

tendency to confirm the Papists in their way of worship then for them to see us keep much the same Indeed they may be confirmed in the good parts of their worship by seeing us do the same and all the better it is better they were Papists then Atheists But how can they be confirmed in the bad parts of their worship by seeing us to use the good and refuse the bad They are rather confirmed by such as refuse the whole For then they will think all to be refused out of humour since some apparently is and that we have no more reason against the bad then against the good since we carry our selves with the same aversation to both So that the experiment they relate in the same page How some forreign Papists listening at the doors where they have heard Service read and sung cryed out This is the same with ours This experiment I say is for the credit of the Liturgy as more facilitating the Papists coming over to us and being a more easie stride then extempore Prayers The Authors tell me very good news and I am heartily glad to hear that the Papists begin to like that service which heretofore they persecuted with fire and faggot And so much for the Ministers second Reason contained in their ninth Chapter CHAP. III. SECT I. Their third reason from scandal considered 1. No scandall hath any foundation in re 2. No scandal is allow'd in Scripture 3. It is but juggling for those to plead scandal who hold the things unlawful Or 4. who endeavour not to convince the scandalized of their errour but do themselves most confirm them in it 5. The command of Authority out-weighs scandal and alters the case from that in St. Pauls dayes 6. Their Argument stands charged equally against the Directory as the Liturgy THe Authors finding their Reason drawn from the usage of the Liturgy in times of Popery to be too light and the other taken from the scandal of Brethren that are offended therewith to be no more solid and weighty have sophistically joyned them both in one in the ninth Chapter that their Respondent might be as much cumbered in the defence of his cause as a man that fights with two at once For one Answer will not serve for these two Arguments which they have confounded together But I have manifested already that they are two distinct Arguments since neither of them is rendered more accomplished for the purpose by the accession of its fellow and the Authors themselves acknowledge the distinction as by the many words they spend to prove the unlawfulnesse of offering that to God which hath been offered in an idolatrous service without mentioning the case of scandal so also in the Title of their Postscript where they plainly say that the latter is another Reason from the former Therefore having answered the former it is very reasonable according to the laws of Method that I make the examination of the latter taken from the scandal of brethren to be the proper subject of this present Chapter In the fortification of which the first thing they do after the naked proposition of it is to prevent an answer The Prolepsis is in these words We are aware what the Doctors of Aberdeen said of old to prove that the scandal of Brethren weighs light when put in the scale with the command of Authority There may something be said for their Assertion where the scandal is meerly passive and hath no foundation in re only men are offended because they are offended But where the scandal is such as is so far allowed by Scripture that a negative precept is given upon it Eat it not we are not of so easie a faith as to believe what they say when Gods Word saith Do it not To this I reply 1. That no scandal hath a foundation in re The foundation of scandal is the errour and weaknesse of the Person scandalized And we ought to be so far from respecting least such offended persons that seem to labour under the greatest weaknesse that we are to respect them most For to offend the little ones is worse then to offend the Pharisees Doctors and Rabbies But now generally those which are offended at the Liturgy as they do think themselves the most able men and women and accordingly declaim against the grosse ignorance of others yea even of the Clergy making it their recreation to scoffe and scorn at them and to contrive and tell ridiculous fables of them so by the Authors themselves they are many times acknowledged to be the ablest sort of Christians and Ministers and therefore they ought not to abstain from conformity for fear of offending them whose offence is rather counterfeit then real having no foundation in re that is in weaknesse nor in any errour which is not easily vincible if they are of so great gifts as they have the credit of 2. Whereas they say that the scandal alledged is such and so far allowed in Scripture that a negative Precept is given upon it Eat it not I answer that no scandal is allowed in Scripture and no Sctipture doth so far allow a respect to the scandal taken at the Common-Prayer as to say use it not especially when the Laws both Ecclesiastical and Civil say use it For I have demonstrated in the Chapter fore-going a vast difference between the case of meats offered to Idols and the Liturgy 3. It is but juggling for those persons to use an Argument drawn from scandal who believe the thing unlawful though no offence were taken For whosoever saith he he doth not an action because people are offended doth thereby confesse that he thinks it an indifferent thing As if a man should say I commit not adultery because if I did I should offend the Brethren The hearer would conclude that the speaker either thinks that adultery is otherwise lawful or else doth hugely prevaricate Therefore seeing the Authors do think the use of the Common-prayer unlawful though no body took offence at it they should have done ingenuously to cut short the controversie and not mention scandal that a speedy issue might be procured For I cannot see how I can argue with them upon the point of scandal but by supposing that the persons who fear to give scandal by doing the action grant the action to be lawful though they whom they fear to scandalize judge it unlawful And therefore I am forced to proceed here on that supposition 4. Such Persons cannot reasonably pretend the scandal of their Brethren as a Reason of their Non conformity till they have used all means within their power to convince the scandalized Brethren that their offence is canselesse and the thing is lawful But if they on the contrary by their actions sermons and familiar conferences beside their writings do labour to confirm them in that weaknesse and errour which causeth the scandal as usually they do then this scandal is no more excuse for their forbearance of