Selected quad for the lemma: father_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
father_n	believe_v	faith_n	holy_a	10,213	4	5.4982	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23818	The reform'd samaritan, or, The worship of God by the measures of spirit and truth preached for a visitation-sermon at the convention of the clergy, by the reverend Arch-Deacon of Coventry, in Coventry, April the sixth, 1676 : to which is annexed, a review of a short discourse printed in 1649, about the necessity and expediency of worshipping God by set forms / by John Allington ...	Allington, John, d. 1682.	1678 (1678)	Wing A1213; ESTC R2327	57,253	87

we are to take no notice by a Worship in Spirit and Truth and by worshipping the Father understood worshipping in a Form for Father implies a Form and by publick Liturgies let us a little survey their Piety and their Prayers First Our blessed Lord and Master who gave this rule he himself exemplified what he gave for the exact Pattern and the very Basis of all Gospel-worship is Pater Noster Our Father The Apostolical Symbol the Canon and Square of all the Professions of our Faith it begins Credo in Deum Patrem I believe in God the Father Confession of sins as the words were by our Saviour put into the mouth of the penitent Prodigal it is an address unto the Father I will go to my Father c. And Father I have sinned against heaven and against thee The Sacrament of Initiation or first admittance into the mystical Communion it is confined to this rule In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Yea when the Church in humble thankfulness returneth Praise and Glory unto God for all his benefits it is done as becomes true Worshippers by worshipping the Father and by saying Glory be to the Father and to the Son c. And as for the Church of England is not every Collect a most exact Gospel-worship Almighty and most merciful Father begins our Confession Almighty God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ begins our Absolution Then the Prayer of the Son unto his Father And the Close of every Collect is through Jesus Christ which is still an implication of the Father So that according to this rule the true Worshippers shall worship the Father Who can be truer Worshippers than that Church all whose publick Prayers are Addresses and Acts of worship to the Father And as for Spirit and Truth had it been inconsistent with publick and outward Worship or with Form then St. Paul would never have writ to Timothy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Prayers should be not onely said but made for Kings and all that are in Authority St. James the Brother of our Lord he had scornfully and ignominiously been termed Jacobus Liturgus James the Liturgist had set Forms been inconsistent with Spirit and truth Justine Martyr he would never have spoken of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Common-prayers nor Ignatius before him of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one Prayer had it been a stinting of the good Spirit to have a Liturgy or a Common-prayer Yea there would have been no Churches to have worshipped God in no publick Assemblies to have worshipped there nor indeed no use at all of our Bodies in order to God's glory if Spirit and Truth concluded against outward worship Whatsoever then the antient Churches understood by Spirit and Truth they did not understand an opposition either to bodily or to outward worship For that which is held the best Interpreter of Scripture to wit Praxis Ecclesiae the Church-Practice you see it doth evince the contrary for they had Churches they had known and set Forms for publick worship Yea Beza himself in his smaller Notes thus Quae ad Ordinent spectant ut precum formulae disposuit Apostolus Those Decencies which appertain to Order as Forms of Prayer the Apostle himself prepared and disposed By Spirit and Truth then we may very well here understand a worshipping of the Father according to those measures which the Spirit Light and Grace of the Gospel prescribeth and alloweth to us By Truth we may understand such outward expressions and manifestations as are proportionable to such a Spirit to such Light to such Grace for so by their unanimous and constant practice the primitive and best Churches understood it Lastly therefore give me leave in a word to shew how much it concerns us to give all due regard and respect to the outward and publick Worship of God under the state of the Gospel The Servants of God under the Gospel they are stiled by our Saviour Veri Adoratores the true Worshippers not the unsatiable Hearers Now it seems strange to me that Christians should emphatically be called the true Worshippers and yet many make no account at all of Evangelical Worship as if God did not as much regard the honour done unto his Person as he doth the bare hearing and listening to his Word Or as if Pray continually and Continue in prayer sounded not as much duty as doth Be instant in season and out of season By Evangelical Worship I understand Prayers Supplications and giving of Thanks confession of Sin profession of Faith making and performing of Vows oblation of Praise singing of Hymns and Psalms reception of Sacraments Adoration either with or without these So that the Father is then worshipped in Spirit and in Truth when there is a reverential address or a religious performance of all or any of these before him so that we cannot come under the honourable Appellative in the Text Veri Adoratores true Worshippers unless we outwardly and publickly even thus assemble for to worship Esay 66. 23. the Evangelical Prophet speaking of Gospel-days thus writes All flesh shall come to worship before me saith the Lord. To worship is not to clap on our Hats and sit on our Seats to hear a Sermon but to perform some act of honour some humble office some such religious Duty the reverence whereof may shew forth our distance and the Father's glory the performance whereof may move all who see it say These men are in the presence and before their God These men know what they worship These men have the Fear and Apprehension of a glorious Majesty before their eyes For being the great designe of God in all his works is the setting forth of his own Glory Worship it is the very immediate tendency to that great end For they that worship it is their actual employment to set forth his praise and to magnifie him under some glorious Attribute or other So that indeed between Hearing and Worshipping there is as much difference as between Hearing and Doing For Hearing being but a disposition to Doing Worship is the very practice Doing and actual Advance of God's honour and therefore a Duty not to be laid aside nor so coolly frequented and performed as by too too many He who in the second Commandment said Thou shalt not bow down to them or worship them He who forbids Sacrisice and Prayers and Praises yea the very bowing of the Body to false Gods doth not in so doing imply less than a reservation of this Worship to himself And therefore to him who is the everliving God and the everlasting Father to him we must ascribe and give the Glory the Honour and the Worship that evangelically is due unto him for the true Worshippers are in all duty bound to worship the Father and to worship him in Spirit and Truth Hos 6. 6. I desired mercy and not sacrisice and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings

outward Expression be not answerable to the inward Meaning if we think one thing and say another though we say better than we think there is no sincerity nor truth in what we say Even so here if we pretend in Spirit to have in us the dreadful apprehension of our God when in outward appearance we shew nothing less if this be to worship in Spirit it is not it cannot be in Truth For the signes of Fellowship of Familiarity and of Boldness they can no more be the true expressions of the inward apprehension of Majesty Terrour and an infinite Distance than can Vomiting be of Sobriety outward Cheating of inward Honesty Railing and Wronging of inward Charity For they who know any thing of Truth cannot but know that Truth in general is nothing else but an outward Conformity to the inward Apprehension a real Evidence and Interpreter of the inward meaning And therefore wheresoever the outward conformity is not answerable to the inward conception and the outward Demeanour is not proportionable to the Spirit that acts within let people pretend what height and holiness of Spirit can be imagined Spirit and Truth are never evidenced in God's Worship or which is all one to God's honour and glory unless the outward Demeanour be proportioned to the inward Spirit and the Spirit within be really conformed to his Greatness 1 Cor. 14. St. Paul speaking of a Christian convert whose Spirit was touched with the Greatness Goodness and the Glory of his God tells us so active and powerful was the inspired Spirit that it inforced a manifestation of the truth of it for Falling down on his face he worshipped God Now without peradventure had those who pretend to have the most holy and best spirits such a feeling and real sense of the Goodness Greatness and the Glory of God as had the Convert Even they as well as he would fall upon thier Faces or at least in God's publick Worship give some more probable and better evidence that they fear God and that they are before him but as Dust and Ashes for if the spiritual man is the greatest discerner if he is most sensible of what a God he serves certainly then either there is no truth in him or he is the most devout and the humblest worshipper in the world Amongst us men in case God should sensibly reveal himself and manifest himself to the Eye as in the Bush to Moses or in the habit of the Captain of an Hoast to Joshua or in Thundring and Lightening upon mount Sinai In such a case as this I believe very few if any but would say we were bound to worship and in pursuance of that worship to humble our Bodies to fall upon our Faces and even ontwardly to use the utmost reverence that we could And here I have a special Appeal to those who themselves confessing are in the religious attendance of their God put on their Hata To them I appeal whether if the Great God even now should at this instant break in upon them and shew himself as I have already said as terrible as upon mount Sinai or in a flaming Bush or but as he did to Joshua with a Sword in his Hand I desire such to consider whether such an Apparition or such a Manifestation would not not onely move but hasten them to throw off their Hats to fall upon their Knees yea prostrate on their Faces Now then if it be so I beseech you let us calmly consider what is the solemn real and serious bottom or motive for which we ought to give unto our God all Glory Honour Reverence and Worship Is it Visibility or is it Sight If so then none are bound to Reverence Worship Kneel or fall down before him but those onely who see him with their Eyes and behold him as a thing sensible whereas God himself hath told us Exod. 33. 21. There shall no man see me and live The ground then Foundation and Motive to glorifie and worship God it is not in Sense but in Faith it is not the seeing but the believing the Glory Majesty Dominion Power and Greatness of our God that should move Christians to fear adore and worship And therefore if we believe God to be in Heaven as glorious as the Angels see him as terrible as the Damned finde him or as dreadful as he appeared upon Mount Sinai If we believe him to be a God mighty in Power glorious in Majesty and that God who is to be feared above all Gods In the Name of that God I beseech you let us but manifest that Faith and my Text is done for so to do doubtless is to worship the Father both in Spirit and in truth Matth. 18. 20. Where two or three are gathered together in my Name there am I in the midst of them Our Saviour did not say there you shall behold or see me yet he positively said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There am I. Now being God will be worshipped where he is not seen let us but so pray so praise so sing so worship where he is though not seen as if we did see him we believe we ought there would never be any further dispute or demur about outward Worship For the Spirit of God and Truth are in such a perfect union that he who worships in Spirit that is in the due Faith and fear of God he will be devout he will be humble he will by a meet demeanour and outward deportment shew the reality and truth of such a Spirit for such cannot but conclude the truth No publick Worship can or ought to be in Spirit onely Thirdly The Christian practise of worshipping God by Adoration and Liturgies demonstrates that they held that way the way of worshipping God in spirit and in truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Adoratio or as we render it Worship it is taken either in Abstracto or in Concreto as the School that is either for an Act of it self or as in Conjunction with some other Christian-duty Matth. 4. When the Devil made his last assault upon our Saviour he did require neither Prayer nor Praise nor Sacrifice nor Oblation onely thus said Vers 9. All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me He onely required an outward act of Worship abstracted from all Duty Whence it appears to me that Adoration or Worship abstractly considered when it onely imports God's Majesty and our Distance even thus and no more it is of great account with God Almighty or else the subtile Devil would never have attempted by a single act of Adoration to have robbed the World of a Redeemer by thus doing to make the Saviour of Mankinde a Sinner But by Worship in the Text we are not to understand Worship in the Abstract but as going along with other Duties such as make up Christian Worship Now that it may appear that unless the Christian Church for of Schismatical and Fanatick spirits unless by pity

then here propounded as it is not about service so neither is it about private or inward worship but it is about the outward and about the publickworship of God that is where Sacrifice was to be made where his publick Homage was to be paid whether Gerasin or Jerusalem was the place of publick worship Our blessed Master upon the point he rejecteth both saying The hour cometh and now is when to use the words of Malachi From the rising of the sun to the going down of the same my Name shall be great among the Gentiles and in every place shall incense that is an holy Worship be offered unto my Name So that whereas of old Sacrifice and that onely in the Temple and that Temple at Jerusalem was God's highest acknowledgment and outward Worship he telleth the Samaritan that hereafter the worship of God would be in a clear other mode neither confined to place nor exprest by Sacrifice so that indeed Evangelical worship is the proper subject here to be enquired on to wit What is that publick Worship which the true Worshippers should use under the state and condition of the Gospel which from the legal I shall shew you differs both in the Object and in the Expression for Veri Adoratores the true Worshippers they shall worship the Father and him they shall worship in spirit and in truth First they shall worship the Father God in all ages and states of the Church hath had his worship but under sundry Methods and divers Notions for though he himself and his self onely was the sole object of divine Worship yet in several ages he hath been pleased to be worshipped under several Apellatives Names or Attributes For Exod. 6. 3. I appeared unto Abraham Isaac and Jacob by the Name of God Almighty but by my Name Jehovah was I not known unto them To Moses it seems God was known by a Name by which he was not known to Abraham and to Abraham probably by a Name by which he was not known to Adam So that it is conceived Adam and his posterity they worshipped God under the notion of a Creator Abraham as God Almighty Moses by his Name Jehovah Yea St. Jerom hath taken pains to number up and to explicate ten Names by which under the Old Testament the people of God did worship God and yet among them all no mention of this in my Text no approach to God under the notion of a Father Albeit then we may as the Jew did worship and approach unto God as the high God as the God of all Spirits as the God of vengeance as the Lord God of Sabbaoth yet we have through the mercies of God a far nigher and a dearer Relative for we cry Abba Father Veri Adoratores Cospel-worshippers they shall worship the Father Now if it be a Gospel-priviledge and that Priviledge upon Scripture-account a choice favour to worship and approach the living God under the Relation of a Father then we who have the enjoyment of this favour we who are the onely true worshippers of God we have not onely a more comfortable object but we have a singular and extraordinary and a most affectionate motive for to worship For we are to worship a Father Now if the Jew whose state was servile if they who had onely Attributes of power and terrour to draw them to their God if they went from their own home even as far as Jerusalem to worship if their fear carried them to the holy Temple are not we very unkindly and ungracious Children who so little love value or honour the House of our Father that albeit in the same Town we will not go up to worship Had the Worship of God been a performance of mean and slight account the Aethiopian Eunuch he would never have made so long a Journey as from his Country to Jerusalem to worship St. Paul then a Christian though he was oft told by the way that Troubles and Bonds abode him at Jerusalem yet for all the Now in my Text was begun and notwithstanding Bonds and Troubles abode him there up to Jerusalem he would and did and that upon this very account even to Worship Whereas then as a great grace and priviledge of the Gospel the Worship of God is brought even from Jerusalem to our own Doors changed from a costly to a cheap worship from Bullocks Goats and Lambs to Prayer and Praises and whereas to this better worship we are now invited not by an Appellative of Terrour but by Allurements of Love Being it is said the true Worshippers that is the Worshippers under the Gospel shall worship the Father If Faith and Obedience because the Gospel exacts them be Duty then the Worship of God which is equally required must needs be Duty too And what can be more express than this from our Saviour's own mouth Veri Adoratores adorabunt Patrem The true Worshippers shall worship the Father which that as we ought we may do we will pass to the last Considerable in my Text. Third The manner how In spirit and in truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Spiritu ac veritate as Beza with spirit and truth for he leaves out the In. And indeed there are more of the Learned beside him who taking this for an Hebraism conceive they ought to be so read and indeed so read the like For whereas it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I indeed Baptise you in Aqua we English it not in but with Water And whereas it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we read it right enough With one minde and one mouth glorisie God And whereas St. Paul saith God is my witness whom I serve in Spiritu meo we read it not in but with my Spirit And therefore whereas it is said in the Text The true worshippers shall worship in spiritu veritate we may very well read it thus The true Worshippers shall worship the Father with spirit and with truth And therefore those who think by these two words In Spiritu in Spirit for they never minde in Truth to void and destroy all outward Worship they may be deceived and mistaken in the very letter of the Text which being it may be as if not more justly read with the Spirit as in the Spirit the bottom of their Building it totters if not down And therefore for the better both Explication and Application of these words I shall reduce all that followeth into these four Propositions Spirit and Truth are not here opposed to outward bodily Worship nor to any outward expression of Grace or Virtue A publick Worship in Spirit without Truth the outward expression of it cannot be The Christian practice of worshipping God by Adoration and Liturgies demonstrates that they held that way the way of worshipping in Spirit and in Truth Lastly Being Christians are the onely true Worshippers I shall briefly shew how much it concerns us to give all due regard and

known that Prayer should be with such prudence and care composed that nothing be in any of publick cognizance which hath any thing of private Interest and Designe in it In the Offices of the Church of Rome and in factious Prayers we see and hear too much of this Upon Ash-wednesday thus prayeth the Roman party Omnipotent and eternal God spare the Penitent and be propitious to the Supplicant Et mittere digneris Sanctum Angelum tuum de Coelis qui Benedicat Sanctificet hos Cineres And vouchsafe to send down thine holy Angel from Heaven that he may bless and sanctifie these Ashes Will you see to what end It followeth Vt sint Remedium salutare Omnibus Nomen Sanctum tuum implorantibus semetipsos pro Conscientia Delictorum suorum accusantibus ante Conspectum Divinae Clementiae facinora deplorantibus vel serenissimam pietatem tuam suppliciter obnixeque flagitantibus That they may be an wholsom Remedy to all who humbly call upon thy holy Name and out of conscience of their own demerits accuse themselves deploring their heinous sins in the sight of thy Divine Clemency or humbly and earnestly begging thy most serene Piety Et praesta per invocationem sanctissimi Nominis tui ut quicumque eos super se asperserint pro Redemptione peccatorum suorum Corporis sanitatem Animae tutelam percipiant per Christum Dominum nostrum And grant that by the invocation of thy most holy Name whosoever shall sprinkle these upon themselves for the Redemption of their sins may receive the health of Body and protection of Soul through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now this Collect having that in it which the Principles of our Church allow not for as much as we are wholly ignorant of any capacity in Ashes of being blessed and sanctified or of any promise made that upon prayer for such a Sanctification God will send an Angel from Heaven on such an errand we not believing that Ashes are ordained to be an wholesom remedy to all who humbly call upon God's holy Name or that in order to remission of sin we may sprinkle them upon our Heads or if we should that thence should issue no not upon Christs account health to our Bodies or protection to our Souls we I say disbelieving all this cannot joyn in such Petitions neither give our presence or Amen to such a Prayer And many very many such extravagances are in the Roman Breviary and Missal Now if Protestants generally opine it is not lawful knowingly to be present when Petitions against their Judgement and Conscience are to be offered up in Prayer and prefer'd to God certainly then it is at least very dangerous for any Christian to frequent conceived and unknown Prayers For as bad or worse than any is in the Roman Liturgie have done and may come from men so praying And this probably was a main reason that the Independants dropt off from the Presbyterians and the Quakers both for neither having common principles neither could conscientiously endure to pray together And indeed to an unknown Prayer a discreet man may very well say he therefore will not be present at it I profess it is a grand desire of my Heart that as there is but one Shepherd so there might be one Fold I should rejoyce at nothing more than an universal Communion a Catholick Peace among Christians and perchance wise men will finde no one better expedient than an uniformity of Worship by such a Form of Prayer to which all sincere and sober Christians might say Amen Now a Form nigher to such an one wiser than my self have not seen any than our present Liturgie For let all the Exceptions to which the Roman Breviary and Missal are lyable and could they be numbred let all the insipid Excursions Vagaries Impertinences and Follies of Extemporary and conceived Prayer be reckoned up The Liturgie of the Church of England is not in any proportion for Exceptions to be compared with either our Compilers aiming as Christians more at Unity than at any discernable designe whatsoever But the Porch begins to be too big for the Building and therefore my most honourable Neighbour I thus contract In Privacies as Closets let the devout proceed a Gods Name to pour out their Souls by such expressions as may best heat Devotion and best fix the Spirit For words that most affect the Heart and best sute to private grievances and personal wantings are the best expedients there For indeed onely the Spirit of man knoweth what the Spirit would But when the religious Master in his Parlour shall call in his Family to publick Duty then the Prayer be it what it may it would be set and that were it onely therefore that the weak and more ignorant might surely learn it it being a very laudable and good thing to minister Words as well as Grace unto the hearer and also for this reason further to secure the stranger who upon this account can make but one hazard of his discretion for then he shall be able to discern whether or no it be meet for him any more to joyn in such a Form But if any worthy and devout person would that all who lodge under his Roof or come ordinarily to his Table should joyn with him at his hours of Prayer without some trespass upon prudence and civility he can neither desire nor require it unless he shall use a known and a publick Form and to chuse the Common-prayer For then shall the Strangers be Children of one and the same Mother the Church of England it would be an unhandsome refusal in them not to joyn in prayer for a blessing from God the Father in the words of our Catholick and holy Mother Which Blessing may God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost confirm to you and yours and upon all the honourable Family is the unfeigned desire of From Leamington-Hastang 1666. Honourable Sir Your Neighbour professing himself most ready to Love Honour and Serve you John Allington TO THE READER THough this little Treatise now appears under a second Impression it is the Author's First For the Father being in those days Proscriptus the Child might very proportionably be Expositivus When the Father durst not shew his Head the Childe durst not tell his Name Nor was it written with any intention of a publick View so that indeed by that shift it bear 's a fairer Front than he who writ it durst have put upon it for amongst the honourable Army of Confessors Divines sequestred upon our Church-account he held himself too too unworthy to write their Apology All his designe was to give the reasons of his own Sufferings and to shew that he conceived he had just cause to prefer the Liturgie to his peace Now for as much as these Reasons were given in such a time when if they had not been Reasons the Pressures and Indigenoes attending them would easily have discovered at their Request whom I much