To the Right Ho.ble, the Lords and Commons, &c. the humble petition of troubled minds.

To the Right Ho.ble, the Lords and Commons, &c. the humble petition of troubled minds.

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To the Right Hoble, the Lords and Commons, &c. The humble Petition of Troubled Minds.

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To the Right Hoble, the Lords and Commons, &c.
The humble Petition of Troubled Minds.

SHEWETH,

THat your Petitioners having been prohibited of serving God after their accustomed maner, and by a Directory put upon a publick worshipping the Almighty by Extemporarie prayers, groundlesly without a Liturgy, presuming (as they suppose) to imitate the miraculous Founders of Christian Religion, who then for planting of Churches had speciall assistance of the holy Ghost, by which many signs,Joh. 14. 26. wonders and miracles were wrought, for they then spake as the Spirit gave them utterance: But our Divines wanting those Apostolicall gifts, neither in veritie have they the holy Ghost as the Apostles had, whereby their utterance and fraile memories might be helped, and understandings from errors be preserved, but in these things are subject to miscarriages, and therefore according to their weake abilities as they stand opinionated in judgements, a strange worship of their own inventions is oftentimes produced, whereby it comes to passe, that in praying they have strange words and passages, not according to godlines, but instead of a solemne sacred Service to a Divine Majesty (as our former Prayers were, composed by a conjunctive help of many men learned and holy,Mart. 2. Vol. pag. 660. Edit. 1641. yea such as were Martyrs, and who as the Author of the Book of Martyrs saith, and the Act of Parl. made to confirme that Service in the time of King Edw. 6. performed it through the aid of the holy Ghost) we have now a Modell by a single, weak, yea and sometimes an hereticall braine, which presumes to poure out prayers simple or senslesse; yea sometimes hereticall, or passages tending to blasphemie; sometimes treasonable, or passages tending to sedition; sometimes superstitious, or passages tending to Idolatry; sometimes malicious, tending to revenge, murder, bloodshed, all which though not expressed in plaine, but doubtfull termes, according to the corrupt cunning of deceivable men, whose perverse opinions,For the Antiquity of Churches, and a Christian Church-Liturgie, within 40. yeeres of our Lord, see Euseb. lib. 2. ch. 17. their seduced followers complying with, think they have performed a holy sacrifice to God: But your Petitioners tremble, they should now be forced, or the Almighty limited in his publique Worship, to such Prayers and strange Service, which till this Age neither they nor their Fore-fathers ever knew. Moreover, if the memory or utterance of those Divines that be orthodox and godly shall faile, then doth the solemne worship of Almighty God which the Directory hath made to depend upon those mens weak memory fail also. This much troubleth your Petitioners, who finding the prayers of these former rehearsed opinionated men, the most part naught, & these last though they be for life and doctrine unblameable, yet by reason of an unperfect or weake memory, their extemporarie prayers, to which our Synod hath limited Gods publique Worship, prove not perfectly good. And besides, your Petitioners in hearing strange men, or every day new extemporarie prayers, whilst their understandings are exercised, how lawfully to divers passages and Petitions they may say Amen, their devotions in the meane time which with zeale and fervencie ought to be fixed upon the Almighty God, are by distempered thoughts extreamly weakned, and made cold, if not totally lost:

Wherefore the inconvenience of extemporary prayers being considered, we your Petitioners, Members of the Church of England, doe humbly pray for the sake of God and our Saviour Christ, and for that Mother-Churches sake wherein your selves have received Baptisme, Faith, and Grace, whereby you stand stated in hope of the glory of God, yea that Christian Protestant Church, Reformed not by the blood of others, but her owne patient sufferings in her owne blood, that you will suffer her children to worship God in their accustomed reverentiall manner: And we humbly pray that you would be pleased to consider, that the Judaicall Christians were not forced to leave their Jewish Customes, Act. 21. though abolished by Christ: Constantine the Great forced neither Pagans nor Heretiques to Christianity,Euseb. of the life of Const. lib. 1. ch. 38.but made Edicts to the contrary. The Turk in matters of Religion doth not force men. Yea the very Church of Rome, although they think themselves infallible, yet in all places doe not force men, and why will ye, who being more modest,Lib. 2. 55.doe judge your selves subject to errors, force men to that now, from which upon better information ye may depart to morrow?Lib. 2. 59.we pray you to consider, and help us troubled minds, and allow us to serve God according to our former Liturgie,

And we shall ever pray, &c.

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Title statement

To the Right Ho.ble, the Lords and Commons, &c. the humble petition of troubled minds.

Edition statement

1647

Publication

Publisher

Text Creation Partnership,

Place of publication

Ann Arbor, MI ; Oxford (UK) :

Date

2009-03 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1).

ID [DLPS]

A94669

ID [STC]

Wing T1697

ID [STC]

Thomason 669.f.11[40]

ID [STC]

ESTC R210520

ID [EEBO-CITATION]

99869308

ID [PROQUEST]

99869308

ID [VID]

162689

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Early English books online.

Notes

(EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A94669)

Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 162689)

Images scanned from microfilm: (Thomason Tracts ; 246:669f11[40])

Source

— To the Right Ho.ble, the Lords and Commons, &c. the humble petition of troubled minds.,

Extent

1 sheet ([1] p.)

s.n.,. [London :: 1647]. (Imprint from Wing.) (Annotation on Thomason copy: "July ye 7th 1647".) (Reproduction of the original in the British Library.)

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