Selected quad for the lemma: body_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
body_n	bread_n	call_v	consecration_n	6,545	5	11.1766	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42238	The truth of Christian religion in six books / written in Latine by Hugo Grotius ; and now translated into English, with the addition of a seventh book, by Symon Patrick ...; De veritate religionis Christianae. English	Grotius, Hugo, 1583-1645.; Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.	1680 (1680)	Wing G2128; ESTC R7722	132,577	348

Pagans among whom as Grotius observes it was lawful for the Poets to sing what they pleased though never so lewd concerning the Gods and for the Epicures to take Providence out of the World while the Jews were made ridiculous and the Christians most barbarously used as if they had been the vilest of Mankind Of which more anon SECT XII The Romanists themselves overthrow their own Religion THAT argument also which he urges for Christianity against the Pagans that the chief Points of Christian Doctrine were acknowledged by some or other of the best and greatest among them may be used by us also for the Faith to which we now hold there being several learned Writers in the Roman Church who have acknowledged our belief to be sufficient to Salvation and the Points which they have superadded having been lookt upon by the most excellent Persons among them only as meer Scholastical opinions and not certain Truths of which we can have a full assurance Here I might show how the sufficiency of the Scripture hath been owned and the Apostles Creed likewise confessed to contain all things that are absolutely necessary to be believed to salvation But because I would not have this Book swell above the bigness of the foregoing I shall let them alone and instance only in the Doctrine of Transubstantiation which is now pressed with so much violence upon the Christian World but most plainly condemned by Gratian in their Canon Law and by the Author or Authors of the Canon of the Mass it self About the former we may be satisfied out of the Decretum if we look into the Third part and the second Distinction concerning Consecration Where in the XL VIII Chapter out of St. Austin and Prosper he says The heavenly bread which is truly Christs flesh suo modo after a sort or manner is called the Body of Christ whereas revera in truth it is the Sacrament of his Body which was hanged upon the Cross and the sacrificing of the flesh of Christ by the hand of the Priest is called his death and passion and crucifixion not in the Truth of the thing but in a signifying mystery Which words are so directly against the present sense of the Roman Church that no Protestant can speak more expresly and clearly against it nor desire a plainer confutation of it unless it be that of the Gloss upon those words which is this The celestial Sacrament which truly represents the flesh of Christ is said to be the Body of Christ but improperly whence it is said to be so suo modo sed non rei veritate after a manner but not in the truth of the thing So the sense is it is called Christs body that is it is signified thereby And if we look further into the LII Chapter we find he saith Christ was sacrificed but once in semet ipso in himself when he hung upon the Cross c. Yet is offered daily in Sacramento in the Sacrament which the Church frequents in memory of that thing Which Sacrifice in the next Chapter he calls exemplum the example or resemblance of that upon the Cross offered in remembrance of his Death Which is sufficient to convince us that they believed in those days as we do now and not as the Roman Church doth else He would not have called that which he says was truly the flesh of Christ the heavenly bread But to put all out of doubt let us turn to the lxxii Chapter and there we find these remarkable words out of St. Austin which fully explain the business Because it is not lawful for Christ to be devoured by our teeth therefore our Lord would have this Bread and this Wine in a Mystery by consecration of the Holy Spirit to be potentially created his flesh and blood and to be daily mystically offered for the life of the World They are potentially then or virtually made his Body and Blood though but Bread and Wine in themselves and of this Sacrifice which is thus wonderfully made in commemoration of Christ as he adds out of St. Hierom Chap. lxxvi it is lawful to eat but of that which Christ offered on the Cross secundum se according to it self none can eat But the Canon of the Mass will more abundantly convince us that he or they that made it did not believe any thing of Transubstantiation For First after the Consecration of the Bread and Wine the Priest signs them ten times at least with the sign of the Cross which can have no excuse made for it but is the greatest impudence if it be indeed Christ Himself who lies before the Priest whom he thus crosses For sure he doth not intend to bless Christ or to drive away the Devil from him or any such like thing for which those Crossings are used in that Church But more than this 2dly it is observable that after Consecration also the Priest still calls Christ's Body Panem Sanctum the holy Bread of Eternal life which shows that when this Rule was made they believed the Bread to be still remaining A further Indication of which is that 3dly the Priest proceeds to beseech God that He would vouchsafe to look upon that Sacrifice of his gifts with a propitious and ferene countenance and to accept them as He did the gift of his Servant Abel and the Sacrifice of Abraham and that which his High-Priest Melchisedeck offered to Him Which is most absurdly spoken if the Priest there offer Christ himself unto God For then he intercedes with him for our Intercessor as if he needed our Prayers and besides compares Him with the first-fruits of the Flock and the spoils of War which is so incongruous and so much below his heavenly glory that an unprejudiced Man cannot but think they who composed that Prayer looked upon those gifts which they offered as still Bread and Wine Which appears more fully 4thly from what follows in the next Prayer where bowing profoundly and laying his hands upon the Altar the Priest humbly intreats God in this manner Command these things to be carried by the hands of thy holy Angel to thy high Altar into the presence of thy Divine Majesty Where there are two plain testimonies against their present doctrine For First nothing but the Bread and Wine can be called haec these things which in no propriety of speech can signifie the very natural body of Christ Who secondly can by none of God's Angels be carried into Heaven being there already nor brought more than He is into the presence of the Divine Majesty where He was before the Priest said Mass and sits for ever there at God's right hand Had they that composed this Prayer believed any thing of Transubstantiation they would have said and could not have said otherways if they said any thing of this matter Almighty God behold here before me upon thy Altar lies thy only begotten Son Jesus Christ by my sacrifice unto Thee that very Christ who is at thy right

hand I now take into my hands to present unto thy Majesty under the form of Bread and Wine Him thou canst not reject nor me his Priest who offer Him unto Thee c. Or some such like words more befitting their present notions than desiring an Angel may carry what the Priest offers and present it unto GOD. But we find quite contrary which is the last thing I shall observe that in conclusion the Priest acknowledges that by Christ Jesus God always creates and sanctifies and quickens and blesses making a cross upon the Host and the Chalice at every one of those three last words all these good things Which can be meant of nothing but the Bread and Wine consecrated to the commemoration and representation of Christ's body and bloud sacrificed for us For Christ's own very natural body and bloud cannot in any tolerable sense be said to be continually created and quickned or made alive unless you will suppose him to have been dead before nay not to have been at all For creation implies the thing not to have been and vivification not to have been then alive when it was quickned Yet this fancy of Christs real presence in the Sacrament by Transubstantiation against which there are such numerous Testimonies in their own Communion Service is now become the main Article of their Religion For we all know to our great grief and astonishment that when the publick Authority of this Realm was on their side subscription was not urged to any Article of their Religion upon such violent and bloudy terms as unto this of the Real Presence The Mystery of which iniquity as a great Man of our own said in the Age before us cannot be better resolved than into the powerful and deceitful working of Satan who delights thus to do despite to our Lord and to his Religion by seducing his professed Subjects into a belief of such things as make them and Him ridiculous unto unbelievers and ingage them in the worst kind of Rebellion he could imagine by worshipping Bread and Wine instead of their Saviour and all this upon the least occasions and shallowest reasons SECT XIII Other Instances of it BUT besides these plain confessions of that Church against it self there are many other things which I shall but just name wherein we have the testimony of several of their own learned Men ready to be produced for our and against their belief proving clearly that the present is not the old Religion of that Church but that they have brought into it many Innovations by adding to the Canonical Books of Scripture by making their vulgar Latine Translation of the Bible about which they themselves cannot agree authentical by forbidding the People to read the holy Scriptures in their own Language and by denying them the publick Prayers in a Language they understand by giving the Pope not only a new Title of Universal Bishop but an authority and jurisdiction which was never heard of for many Ages by increasing the number of Sacraments and altering their nature by taking away the Cup from the People and turning the Sacrament of Christs body and bloud into a proper expiatory sacrifice by celebrating the Eucharist without any body to communicate by setting up Images in Churches and ordaining Religious Worship to be given to them by invocating Saints and Angels as was said before and by the Doctrine of Purgatory and Indulgences and many other together with a vast number of strange ceremonies in the making holy water consecrating bells c. For which no antiquity can be pretended The woful effect of which is this if we may speak the plain Truth that by pressing upon Mens belief a great deal too much and placing great vertue in trifles they have tempted Men to believe nothing at all As is apparent from hence that where and when as an excellent Writer of our own speaks this Religion hath most absolutely commanded there and then Atheism or Infidelity hath most abounded And how should it do otherwise when as he observes so many lying Legends have been obtruded upon Mens belief and so many false Miracles forged to justifie them as are very likely to make suspicious Men question the truth of all And so many weak and frivolous ceremonies devised and such abundance of ridiculous observances in Religion introduced as are no less apt to beget a secret contempt and scorn of it in witty Men and consequently Atheism and Impiety if they have this perswasion setled in their mind which is indeavoured to be rooted in them from their childhood that if they be not of that Religion they were as good be of none at all And when a great part also of the Doctrines now mentioned so apparently make for the temporal ends of those who teach them that sagacious Men can scarce forbear thinking they were on purpose devised to serve those designs That particular doctrine also of Transubstantiation being so portentous that joyned with the forenamed perswasion of No Papists no Christians it hath in all probability brought more than Averroes to this resolution since Christians eat that which they adore let my Soul be among the Philosophers And lastly the pretence which is so common that there is no ground to believe the Scriptures but their Churches infallibility and yet no ground to believe their Churches infallibility but some Texts of Scripture being too plain a way to lead those who discern the labyrinth wherein they are to believe neither Church nor Scripture SECT XIV Whereby they have spoil'd Christianity as the Pagans did the Natural Religion THESE things which have been already urged by the Writers of our Church for the conviction of those who are capable of it I repeat here again because they seem to me very powerful for the preservation of those who are not already tainted or too far gone in that delusion Which is so great that to summ up all belonging to this Head we may safely say Popery is just such a depravation of the true Christian Religion as Paganism was of the Natural Religion There cannot be a righter conception of it than this which appears too plainly in the absurd doctrines and opinions which they have mingled with the Christian Faith in their multiplied superstitions in their fabulous relations of the Saints wherein they have surpassed the very Poets themselves and to pass by the rest in their prostrating themselves before Images and giving religious worship to Men departed Which last instance furnished the Pagans of Cochin with this answer to the Jesuits as Christoph Borrus one of that Order relates when they pressed upon them the belief of one God and no more We do believe it said they but those whom you see us worship in their Images were Men of great Sanctity whom pious People therefore worship according to their merit just as you give to the Apostles and Martyrs and Confessors divers degrees of honour and religious service as you know them to have excelled in vertue

delivered from the heavy Yoke of Rites and Ceremonies that lay upon them But if they would admit of the Commandments of Christ which are full of all goodness easily permitted them to follow what course of life they pleased in matters of indifferency provided they would not impose the necessity of observing them upon others SECT XXV Conclusion of all UPON these terms we are ready to agree with them and I conclude all with this memorable Proposal which Erasmus made in a Letter to Johannes Slechta a Friend of his in Bohemia at the very beginning of the Reformation MD XIX This would reconcile People to the Church of Rome if all things were not so particularly defined and made a matter of Faith which we would have to belong to it but those only which are evidently expressed in the Holy Scriptures or without which we do not see any way to be saved To this purpose a few things are sufficient and a few things may be sooner perswaded than a great many Now out of one Article we make Six Hundred some of which are such that without indangering Piety we may either be ignorant or doubt of them And such is the nature of Mankind that what is once defined we hold tooth and nail and will by no means part with it But when all 's done the summ of Christian Philosophy lies in this That we understand all our Hope to be placed in God who freely gives us all things by his Son Jesus by whose Death we are redeemed into whose Body we are planted by Baptism that being dead to the lusts of this World we may live according to his Doctrine and Example not only abstaining from all evil but indeavouring to deserve well of every Body assd that if any adversity happen we bear it couragiously in hope of a future reward which without all doubt waits for all pious Persons at the coming of Christ and that we make such progress from vertue to vertue as notwithstanding to arrogate nothing to our selves but to ascribe all the good that is in us or that we can do unto GOD. These things chiefly are to be inculcated and beaten into the minds of Men so that they become as it were their Nature But if any will search into those things which are more abstruse about the Divine Nature the Hypostasis of Christ or the Sacraments that they may raise their minds the higher and draw them from things here below let them do so provided that every body be not compelied presently to believe what seems good to this or that Person For as out of large Deeds arise sooner Law-suits so are differences begotten by very many definitions And let us not be ashamed to answer to some things God knows how it may be done it is sufficient for me to believe that it is done I know that Christ's pure Body and Blood is to be purely received by those that are pure and that He would have this to be a most holy token and pledge both of his love to us and of our Christian concord among our selves And therefore I will examine my self and make a strict search whether there be any thing in me that ill agrees with Christ whether any discord with my Neighbour But how the Ten Predicaments are there how the Bread is Transubstantiated by the mystical words or as He explains himself in the latter end of his Book upon lxxxiv Psal how the body of Christ is there whether under the substance of Bread or under the species of Bread and Wine and such like doth not much conduce in my judgment to proficiency in piety c. By these and other such innumerable disputations in which some triumph the minds of Men are called away from those things which alone are to the purpose To conclude it will be of great moment to establish the concord of the World if all secular Princes and especially the Bishop of Rome would abstain from all appearance of Tyranny and of Covetousness For Men easily start back when they see slavery is prepared for them when they see they are not invited to piety but inveigled to be made a prey If they perceive us to be harmless to be beneficent they will most easily credit us and intrust themselves with us Thus He. It would not be very hard to make a longer Book on this Subject But this is sufficient as Grotius speaks in the beginning of this Discourse about the Truth of Christian Religion to convince those whose understandings are rightly disposed and are not pertinaciously set against all further information But no Arguments can be found of force enough to convince a froward will and perswade perverse affections which make Men uncapable of Moral Truth most of all of Divine Which will not enter as the Wise man speaks into a malicious Soul nor dwell in the Body that is subject unto sin For the Holy Spirit of Discipline will flee deceit and remove from thoughts that are without understanding and will not abide when unrighteousness cometh in THE END A RECAPITULATION OF THE Principal Things handled IN THIS WORK According to the several Sections of each Book The Contents of the first Book THe Preface shewing the occasion of this Work Sect. I. Proving there is a God p. 1 Sect. II. That there is but one God p. 5 Sect. III. That all Perfection is in God p. 7 Sect. IV. God is Infinite p. 8 Sect. V. That God is eternal omnipotent omniscient and absolutely good p. 9 Sect. VI. That God is the Author cause of all things ib. Sect. VII Answer to that Objection concerning the cause of evil p. 15 Sect. VIII Against the Opinion of two Principles or causes of things p. 16 Sect. IX That God doth govern the whole World p. 17 Sect. X. Yea sublunary things p. 18 Sect. XI This is further proved by the preservation of Empires p. 19 Sect. XII And by Miracles p. 21 Sect. XIII Specially among the Jews wherunto credit may be given by reason of the long continuance of their Religion p. 22 Sect. XIV Also by the truth and antiquity of Moses his story p. 24 Sect. XV. And by the Testimony of many Gentiles p. 25 Sect. XVI The same is proved by the Oracle and Predictions p. 34 Sect. XVII The Objection is answered why Miracles are not now to be seen p. 36 Sect. XVIII And that now there is such liberty in offending p. 37 Sect. XIX Insomuch that good Men are oppressed p. 39 Sect. XX. The same argument is retorted to prove that the Soul survives the Body p. 40 Sect. XXI Which is proved by Tradition ib. Sect. XXII Against which no contrary reason can be brought p. 41 Sect. XXIII Many reasons may be alledged for it p. 44 Sect. XXIV Whence it follows that the end of all shall be Mans happiness after this life p. 45 Sect. XXV Which to obtain men must get the true Religion ib. The Contents of the second Book Sect. I. TO Prove the