Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	bless_a	heaven_n	lord_n	2,141	5	3.5839	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26853	An accompt of all the proceedings of the commissioners of both persvvasions appointed by His Sacred Majesty, according to letters patent, for the review of the Book of common prayer, &c.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1661 (1661)	Wing B1177; ESTC R34403	133,102	166

such sins We are loth to enter upon such Comparisons between the Ministers ejected for the most part and those that are in their rooms as tends to shew by this Rule who are likest to be the Dividers And for inordinate desires of Honour and Wealth between your Lordships and Us we are contented that this Cause be decided by all England even by our enemies at the first hearing without any further vindication of our selves and so let it be judged who are the Dividers Only we must say that your intimation of this Charge on us that seek not for Bishopricks Deaneries and Archdeaconries or any of your preferments that desire not nor would accept pluralities of Benefices with Cure of Souls that never sought for more than Food and Raiment with the liberty of our Ministry even one place with a tollerable Maintenance whose provoking Cause hath been our constant opposition to the Honours Wealth Lordships and pluralities of the Clergy yea who would be glad on the behalf of the poor Congregations if many of our Brethren might have leave to Preach to their Flocks for nothing We say your intimation maketh us lift up our hands and hearts to Heaven and think O what is man what may not by some History be told the World O how desirable is the blessed day of the righteous universal Judgement of the Lord How small a matter till then should it be to us to be judged of man We hope upon pretence of not suffering us to deceive the People you will not deny liberty to Preach the necessary saving Truths of the Gospel considering how terrible a Symptom and Prognostick this was in the Jews 1 Thes. 2. 15 16. Who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own Prophets and persecuted the Apostles and God they pleased not and were contrary to all men forbidding to Preach to the Gentiles that they might be saved to fill up their sins alwayes for wrath was come upon them to the utmost We can as easily bear whatever you can inflict upon us as the hinderers of the Gospel and Silencers of faithful Ministers and troublers of the Churches can bear what God will inflict on them and so the Will of the Lord be done Sect. 13. There hath been so much said not only of the lawfulness but also of the conveniency of these Ceremonies mentioned that nothing can be added This in brief may here suffice for the Surplice that reason and experience teaches that decent Ornaments and Habits preserve Reverence and awe held therefore necessary to the solemnity of Royal Acts and Acts of Justice and why not as well to the solemnity of Religious Worship and in particular no Habit more suitable than white Linnen which resembles Purity and Beauty wherein Angels have appeared Rev. 15. fit for those whom the Scripture calls Angels And this Habit was ancient Chrysost. Hom. 60. ad pop Antioch Repl. 1. If nothing can be added then we doubt the answered Writings extant against these Impositions will never be well answered 2. We are desirous that no undecent Vestures or Habits be used in Gods Service Those that scruple the Surplice do it not as it is a Habit determined of as decent but as they think it is made an holy Vestment and so a part of external Worship as Aaron's Vestments were as may be seen in the Arguments of Cotton and Nichols lately Printed together Sect. 14. The Cross was alwayes used in the Church in immortali lavacro Tertul. And therefore to testifie our Communion with them as we are taught to do in our Creed as also in token that we shall not be ashamed of the Cross of Christ. It is fit to be used still and we conceive cannot trouble the Conscience of any that have a mind to be satisfied Repl. That the Cross was alwayes used in the Church in Baptism is an Assertion certainly untrue and such as we never heard nor read till now Do you believe it was used in the Baptism of the Eunuch Lydia the Jalor Cornelius the 3000. Acts 3. or in those times And when it did come up it was with Chrysm and not our airy transient Image and therefore you so far differ from the users 2. The Condemnation of Genuflection on the Lords dayes in adoration was at least as ancient and universal and commanded by Councils when the Cross was not and yet you can dispense with that and many such usages And if you will your selves fall in with Custom yet every ancient common Custom was never intended to be a matter of necessity to Union or Tolleration of our Brethren use no other force about the Cross than the Church then did Your saying that you conceive it cannot trouble the Conscience of any that have a mind to be satisfied doth but express your uncharitable censeriousness while your Brethren have studied and prayed and conferred for satisfaction it 's like as much as you and profess their earnest desires of it and their readiness to hear or read any thing that you have to say in order to their satisfaction Sect. 15. The posture of kneeling best suites at the Communion as the most convenient and so most decent for us when we are to receive as it were from Gods hand the greatest of seals of the Kingdom of Heaven he that thinks he may do this sitting let him remember the Prophet Mal. Offer this to the Prince to receive his Seal from his own hand sitting see if he will accept of it when the Church did stand at her Prayers the manner of receiving was more Adorantium St. Aug. Psal. 98. Cyril Catech. Mystag 5. rather more than at Prayers since standing at Prayer hath been left and kneeling used instead of that as the Church may vary in such indifferent things now to stand at Communion when we kneel at Prayers were not decent much less to sit which was never the use of the best times Repl. To all this about kneeling we say 1. We have considered the Text in Mal. and what you say and yet 1. We find that our Betters even Christs Apostles and the universal Church for many hundred years thought not kneeling most decent nor did the Church in the first Age think sitting unmeet in that Service to the King of the Church And we hope you reprehend them not 2. You require not the Adult that are baptized to receive that Seal or Sacrament kneeling 3. When kneeling at Prayers was in use in the Apostles times yet kneeling in the reception of the Sacrament was not 4. Why can you so lightly put off both the Practice and Canons of the Church in this more than in other such things However you cannot here deny de facto but that kneeling on the Lords dayes in the receiving the Sacrament was for many hundred years of the purer times of the Church disused and condemned And why do you not tell us what other General Council repealed this that we may see whether it be

Prayer and that the body of your dayly Prayers broken into severy Collects should not as set together have any considerable respect unto that order nor yet to the order which reason and the nature of the thing requireth which is observed in all things else and yet that you should so admire this and be so tenatious of that which in conceived Prayer you would call by worse names then Confusions this sheweth us the power of prejudice We were thus brief in this Exception lest we should offend by instances But seeing you conceive the Order and Method to be excellent and to be willing to hear more as to this and the following Exception we shall when you desire it give you a Catalogue of Defects and Disorders which we before forbore to give you The Psalms have ordinarily an observable Method If you find any whole parts you cannot so well set together as to see the Beauty of Method will you turn your eye from the rest and from the Lords Prayer and choose that one for your President or excuse disorder on that pretence Sect. 2. The Collects are made short as being best for Devotion as we observed before and cannot be accounted faulty for being like those short but prevalent Prayers in Scripture Lord be merciful to me a Sinner Son of David have mercy on us Lord increase our Faith Repl. We do in common speech call that a Prayer which containeth all the substance of what in that business and addresse we have to say unto God And that a Petition which containeth one single request usually a Prayer hath many Petitions Now if you intend in your addresse unto God to do no more then speak a transient request or Ejaculation which we may do in the midst of other business then indeed your instances are pertinent but why then do you not give over when you seem to have done but come again and again and offer as many Prayers almost as Petitions This is to make the Prayer short as a Sermon is that is cut into single sentences every Sentence having an Exordium and Epilogue as a Sermon but it is to make the Prayers much longer then is needful or sutable to the matter Do you find this the way of the Saints in Scripture indeed Abraham did so when Gods Interlocution answering the first Prayer called him to vary his request Gen. 18. but that 's not our Case The P●alms and Prayers of David Solomon Hezekiah Asa Ezra Nehemiah Daniel and the other Prophets of Christ John 17. are usually one continued Speech and not like yours as we said before Sect. 3. Why the repeated mention of the Name and Attributes of God should not be most pleasing to any godly Person we cannot imagine or what burden it should seem when David magnified one Attribute of Gods mercy 26. times together Psalm 36. Nor can we conceive why the Name and Merits of Jesus with which all our Prayers should end should not be as sweet to us as to former Saints and Martyrs with which here they complain our Prayers do so frequently end since the Attributes of God are the ground of our hope of obtaining all our Petitions such Prefaces of Prayers as are taken from them though they have no special respect to the Petitions as following are not to be termed unsutable or said to have fallen rather casually then orderly Repl. As we took it to be no controversie between us whether the mention of Gods Name is deservedly sweet to all his servants so we thought it was none that this reverent Name is reverently to be used and not too lightly and therefore not with a causeless frequency tossed in mens mouths even in Prayer it self and that Tautologies and vain repetitions are not the better but the worse because Gods Name is made the matter of them Is it not you that have expressed your offence as well as we against those weak Ministers that repeat too frequently the Name and Attributes of God in their extemporary Prayers and is it ill in them and is the same and much more well in the Common Prayer Oh have not the Faith of Worship of our Glorious God in respect of Persons Let not that be called rediculous idle impertinent or worse in one which is accounted commendable in others Do you think it were not a faulty crossing of the mind and Method of Jesus Christ if you should make six Prayers of the six Petitions of the Lords Prayer and set the Preface and Conclusion unto each As Our Father which art in Heaven hallowed be thy Name for thine is the Kingdom c. and so on all the rest Yet we know that the same words may be oft repeated as David doth Gods enduring mercy without such Tautological vanity when it is not from emptiness or neglect of order or affectation But in Psalms or Hymnes where affections are to be elevated by such Figurative Elegancies and strains as are best beseeming Poetry or rapture we are not against such Repetitions But if we may according to the Common Prayer Book begin and end and begin and seem to withdraw again and make a Prayer of every Petition or two and begin and end every such Petition with Gods Name and Christs Merits as making up half the Form or neer nothing is an affected empty tossing of Gods Name in Prayer if this be not We are perswaded if you should hear a man in a known extemporary Prayer do thus it would seem strange and harsh even to your selves Sect. 1. There are besides a preparative exhortation several preparatory Prayers Despise not O Lord humble and contrite hearts which is one of the Sentences in the Preface And this That those things may please him which we do at this present at the end of the Absolution and again immediately after the Lords Prayer before the Psalmody Oh Lord open thou our Lips c. Repl. Despise not O Lord humble and contrite hearts is no Prayer for assistance and acceptance in that worship suited to the duty of a People addressing themselves to God But it is recited as a Scripture invitation to Repentance And that those things may please him which we do at this present are no words of Prayer but part of an exhortation to the People And O Lord open thou our lips comes after the Exhortation Confession Absolution and Lords Prayer and ergo is not in the place of such an address as we are speaking of What will not serve to justifie that which we have a mind to justifie and to condemn that which we have a mind to condemn Sect. 2. This which they call a defect others think they have reason to account the perfection of the Lyturgie the Offices of which being intended for common and general Services would cease to be such by descending to particulars as in Confession of Sins while it is general all persons may and must joyn in it since in many things we offend