Selected quad for the lemma: blood_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
blood_n	body_n	bread_n	transubstantiation_n	7,578	5	11.1962	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62581	The rule of faith, or, An answer to the treatises of Mr. I.S. entituled Sure-footing &c. by John Tillotson ... ; to which is adjoined A reply to Mr. I.S. his 3d appendix &c. by Edw. Stillingfleet.	Tillotson, John, 1630-1694.; Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699. Reply to Mr. I.S. his 3d appendix.	1676 (1676)	Wing T1218; ESTC R32807	182,586	472

of the true and pure Doctrine c. viz. My self and many others again my self and as many Christians as are thoroughly of the right perswasion Secondly Who deny the Millennium Many Christians saith Justin but what Christians Of a right perswasion That saith he I have signified before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For I have shewed thee of them who are called Christians but are indeed Atheists and impious Hereticks that they teach blasphemous and atheistical and absurd things And true it is he did shew before that those who deny'd the Millennium were many in number and were called Christians c. but were Teachers of blasphemous and atheistical things c. and known to be Atheists and Impious c. But he shewed it of none other besides these So that if this Doctrine were likewise denied by many Christians of the pure and pious perswasion than Justin Martyr had foulely forgot himself But if not then it is plain that the Transcribers have wronged Justin by leaving out a Negative which ought to have been inserted It is worth observing by the way how Mr. White pleases himself with false and frivolous Criticisms upon the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 False they are as Mr. White shall know if he desires to hear any more of them and frivolous they are rendered by my preceding Discourse for which reason I say no more of them But I think he may do well hereafter as Mr. S. warily suggests not to engage himself nor be hook't by others out of his own infallible way but leave it wholly to the Bird-witted Hereticks as Mr. S. calls them to perch upon the specifical natures of Words as he does of Things § 9. Besides these Instances I have given of Doctrines and Practises which Mr. S. cannot deny to have been innovated I might instance likewise in the chief Points of Popery and shew that for all their pretence to Tradition they are really Innovations But because this would engage me in tedious Disputes about particular Points I will only single out one of their most fundamental Doctrines viz. that of Transubstantiation concerning which I shall shew that notwithstanding it is the universal perswasion of the present Roman Church yet they have not nor can have any assurance that it was the Doctrine of Christ and that it is descended to them by an uninterrupted Tradition I shall not at all contend against the word Transubstantiation which is generally acknowledged to be new but only the thing signified by it a substantial change of the Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. And this I might shew at large not to have been the Doctrine of the ancient Fathers But because Mr. White and Dr. Holden and Mr. Cressy do so frequently and confidently tell us that nothing is to be reputed a Traditionary Doctrine the contrary whereof hath been publickly held by any Catholick who continued afterwards uncensured and in the Communion of the Church Therefore I shall content my self at present with one clear Testimony and that of a very eminent Person in the Church St. Theodoret concerning whom Pope Leo in an Epistle to him at the end of Theodoret's Works gives this Testimony That in the judgment of the Apostolick See he was free from all stain of Heresie The passage I intend is in his Dialogues between a Catholick under the name of Orthodoxus and Eranistes who susteined the person of an Heretick Eranistes maintaining that the Body of Christ was changed into the substance of the Divinity he illustrates it by this similitude As says he the Symbols of the Lords Body and Blood are one thing before the invocation of the Priest but after the invocation are changed and do become another thing So the Body of our Lord after his Ascension is changed into the Divine substance To which Orthodoxus returns this answer Thou art caught in thine own Net Because the mystical Symbols after Consecration do not pass out of their own Nature for they remain in their former substance figure and appearance and may be seen and handled even as before He does not only in express words deny the substance of the Symbols to be changed but the occasion upon which these words are brought in and the scope of them if they be of any force against the Hereticks illustration renders them uncapable of any other sense When Mr. S. hath answered this Testimony I have more for him That which I mainly urge against this Doctrine is the monstrous Absurdities and Contradictions contained in it together with the necessary consequence of them Several of the Absurdities of it are well brought together by Scotus who tells us That to prove the possibility of Christs Body being contained under the species of Bread and Wine many things must be proved which seem to involve a Contradiction as 1. That one quantum or extended Body may be together in the very same place with another 2. That a less quantum may be together in the same place with a greater i. e. a Body of less extension may occupy not only the same but as much room as a Body of greater extension does which is to say no more but this that a Body less than another may be as great as that other even whil'st it is less than it 3. That a greater quantum may be together with every part of a less quantum i. e. a Body that is greater than another may be as little as the least part of that other Body which is less than it 4. That a subject may be without quantity i. e. there may be a Body which hath no kind of Magnitude 5. That a Body may be somewhere where it was not before without changing its place i· e. a Body may be removed to another place whil'st it remains still in the same place 6. That a quantum may be without any quantitative Mode i. e. a Body may be extended without any manner of extension The possibility of all which he saith and I am very much of his mind it would be too tedious a work to prove and therefore he only attempts to prove the two last which in all reason is work enough for one man All these seeming Contradictions as he modestly calls them are by his own acknowledgment involved in this Doctrine To these I might add many more as How a thing can be said to be changed into another thing which did exist before How a Body can be present in a place after the manner of a spirit and yet this they affirm concerning the presence of Christs Body in the Sacrament one might as well say that Snow is black but not after the manner of blackness but in the way of whiteness which is to talk non-sense after the manner of sense How the whole Body of Christ can be contained under the least sensible part of the species of Bread as is generally affirmed nay and Scotus

innovated have made the same pretence to uninterrupted Tradition Fourthly That it is not the present perswasion of the Church of Rome whom he calls the Traditionary Christians nor ever was that their Faith hath descended to them solely by Oral Tradition If I can now make good these four things I hope his Demonstration is at an end SECT VII § 1. THat these Principles wholly rely upon the truth of the Grounds of his Demonstration a Priori For if the Doctrine of Christ was either imperfectly taught in any Age or mistaken by the Learners or any part of it forgotten as it seems the whole Greek Church have forgot that fundamental Point of the Procession of the Holy Ghost as the Roman Church accounts it or if the Arguments of hope and fear be not necessary causes of actual will to adhere to Tradition then there may have been changes and innovations in any Age and yet men may pretend to have followed Tradition But I have shewn that Ignorance and Negligence and Mistake and Pride and Lust and Ambition and any other Vice or Interest may hinder those causes from being effectual to preserve Tradition entire and uncorrupted And when they do so it is not to be expected that those Persons who innovate and change the Doctrine should acknowledg that their new Doctrines are contrary to the Doctrine of Christ but that they should at first advance them as Pious and after they have prevailed and gained general entertainment then impudently affirm that they were the very Doctrines which Christ delivered which they may very securely do when they have it in their power to burn all that shall deny it § 2. I will give a clear Instance of the possibility of this in the Doctrine of Transubstantiation by shewing how this might easily come in in the Ninth or Tenth Age after Christ. We will suppose then that about this time when universal Ignorance and the genuine Daughter of it call her Devotion or Superstition had overspread the World and the generality of People were strongly enclined to believe strange things and even the greatest Contradictions were recommended to them under the notion of Mysteries being told by their Priests and Guides that the more contradictions any thing is to Reason the greater merit there is in believing it I say let us suppose that in this state of things one or more of the most eminent then in the Church either out of design or out of superstitious ignorance and mistake of the sense of our Saviour's words used in the Consecration of the Sacrament should advance this new Doctrine That the words of Consecration This is my Body are not to be understood by any kind of Trope as the like forms in Scripture are as I am the Vine I am the Door which are plain Tropes but being used about this great Mystery of the Sacrament ought in all reason to be supposed to contain in them some notable Mystery which they will do if they be understood of a real change of the substance of Bread and Wine made by vertue of these words into the real Body and Blood of our Saviour And in all this I suppose nothing but what is so far from being impossible that it is too usual for men either out of Ignorance or Interest to advance new Opinions in Religion And such a Doctrine as this was very likely to be advanced by the ambitious Clergy of that time as a probable means to draw in the People to a greater veneration of them which advantage Mr. Rushworth seems to be very sensible of when he tells us That the power of the Priest in this particular is such a priviledg as if all the learned Clerks that ever lived since the beginning of the World should have studied to raise advance and magnifie some one state of men to the highest pitch of Reverence and Eminency they could never without special light from Heaven have thought of any thing comparable to this I am of his mind that it was a very notable device but I am apt to think invented without any special light from Heaven Nor was such a Doctrine less likely to take and prevail among the People in an Age prodigiously ignorant and strongly enclined to Superstition and thereby well prepared to receive the grossest Absurdities under the notion of Mysteries especially if they were such as might seem to conciliate a greater honour and reverence to the Sacrament Now supposing such a Doctrine as this so fitted to the humor and temper of the Age to be once asserted either by chance or out of design it would take like wild-fire especially if by some one or more who bore sway in the Church it were but recommended with convenient gravity and solemnity And although Mr. Rushworth says It is impossible that the Authority of one man should sway so much in the World because sayes he surely the Devil himself would rather help the Church than permit so little pride among men yet I am not so thoroughly satisfied with this cunning reason For though he delivers it confidently and with a surely yet I make some doubt whether the Devil would be so forward to help the Church nay on the contrary I am enclined to think that he would rather choose to connive at this humble and obsequious temper in men in order to the overthrow of Religion than cross a design so dear to him by unseasonable temptations to pride So that notwithstanding Mr. Rushworth's reason it seems very likely that such a Doctrine in such an Age might easily be propagated by the influence and authority of one or a few great Persons in the Church For nothing can be more suitable to the easie and passive temper of superstitious Ignorance than to entertain such a Doctrine with all imaginable greediness and to maintain it with a proportionable zeal And if there be any wiser than the rest who make Objections against it as if this Doctrine were new and full of contradictions they may easily be born down by the stream and by the eminency and authority and pretended sanctity of those who are the heads of this Innovation And when this Doctrine is generally swallowed and all that oppose it are looked upon and punished as Hereticks then it is seasonable to maintain that this Doctrine was the doctrine of forefathers to which end it will be sufficient to those who are willing to have it true to bend two or three sayings of the Ancients to that purpose And as for the contradictions contained in this Doctrine it was but telling the People then as they do in effect now that contradictions ought to be no scruple in the way of Faith that the more impossible any thing is 't is the fitter to be believed that it is not praise-worthy to believe plain possibilities but that this is the gallantry and heroical power of Faith this is the way to oblige God Almighty for ever to us to believe flat and down-right