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	cup_n	7,649	5	9.8955	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77522	Letters between the Ld George Digby, and Sr Kenelm Digby kt. concerning religion.	Bristol, George Digby, Earl of, 1612-1677.; Digby, Kenelm, Sir, 1603-1665.	1651 (1651)	Wing B4768; Thomason E1355_2; ESTC R209464	61,686	137

point which appears to have been general and is recorded in divers of the Fathers as Clemens Cyprian Austin 17. Serm. de verbo Apost and particularly by Epiphanius against Aerius p. 911. Lastly in point of confession penitence be pleased to confront those passages of Chrysostome Homil. de poenit confes It is not necessary saith he that thou shouldest confess in the presence of witnesses let the inquiry of thy offences be made in thy thought let this Judgment be without a witness let God only see thee confessing And again in Epist ad Heb. c. 12. Hom. 31. I do not say to thee bring thy self upon the Stage nor accuse thy self unto others and likewise that of St. Augustine Confes lib. 10. cap. 3. What have I to doe with men that they should hear my Confessions as though they could heal my diseases Be pleased I say to confront these with some passages of other Fathers cited by Arcudius upon that subject and likewise by Bellarmine l. 3. c. 2. de Poenitentiâ and confess the Fathers in matter of practise as well as of government irreconcileable Their contradictions in matters of Belief are infinite I shall only summe up such as I esteem most important either in the points themselves which they concern or in relation to our controversies in the Doctrine of the Trinity That of Justine Martyr p. 357. against Tryphon which cannot be solved from making a distinction of nature betwixt the Father and the Son That of Tertullian advers Prax. c. 9.10 Pater tota substantia est Filius vero derivatio totius et portio and many other passages in the same book That of Origen tract in Joan. tom 3. where he implyes little less as Genebrard observes then that the Father is as much above the Son and the Holy Ghost as they above the Creatures That of Theodoret part 3. concil Ephes p. 496. where refuting Cyrils ninth Anathema he saith that in it Cyril doth anathematise all the Apostles and the Arch-Angel Gabriel himself whilst impiously and blasphemously they are his words he curseth such as do not beleeve the Holy Ghost to proceed from the Son I can easilyer accord these Doctors which Arrius then with Athanasius or the three hundred and eighteenth Fathers of the first Nicene Councel Of the state of the Soul after death in point of reward and punishment and likewise concerning Christ's descent into Hell I could here cite you multitudes of oppositions but I shall have occasion to speak of these in another place Lastly touching the Eucharist in my opinion the most important Article of any we differ in let me marshall up the Fathers oppositions somewhat more at large That of Justin in Apol. 2. The sanctified food saith he wherewith our flesh and blood by conversion are nourished we are taught to be the flesh and blood of Jesus incarnate being made such by the word of prayer after the same manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour by the Word of God took on him flesh and blood for our salvation How will it suit with the latter part of the fortieth Chap. of Tertull lib. 4. against Marcion where his whole Argument runs upon this That in the Eucharist the Bread and Wine are the figure and representation of Christs body for it would have been a very extravagant argument to one that denied as Marcion did Christ himselfe to have a body of flesh to alledge that bread was the flesh of his body his words are Having profest saith he speaking of our Saviour a desire to eat the Passover he took bread and having distributed it to his Disciples he made it his body saying This is my Body that is the Figure of my Body of which it could not have been the Figure if he had not in truth a body And again with that other passage of the same Author lib. de anima chap. 14. The taste of the Wine which he consecrated for a memoriall of his blood and also with that lib. 1. against Marcion cap. 14. The bread by which he represents his body I dare not translate the rest Etiam in Sacramentis propriis egens mendicitatibus creatoris Survey that passage of Cyrillus Hierosol Catech. cap. 4. under the form of bread his body is given thee and under the form of Wine his blood And again knowing and holding this for a certainty that the bread which we see is not bread though our taste find it to be so So how this will sound with that place of St. Austin upon the 98. Psalm where he bringeth in our Saviour speaking of this matter after this manner You shall not eat of this body which you see nor drink that blood which they shall shed which will crucifie me I have commended a certain Sacrament unto you that being spiritually understood will quicken you Next consider those passages of Gregory Nissene quoted by Bellarmin we beleeve saith he the bread rightly sanctified by the word of God to be changed into the body of God the word And again a little after This doth the vertue of the benediction effect changing the nature of what we see bread and wine into the body of the Lord To which I oppose that of Theodoret Dialog 2. The mystical Symboles are not removed from their own nature after sanctification but remain in their former substance form and figure And Dialog 1. Our Lord saith he in delivering those mysteries called the bread body and the mixture in the Cup blood And soon after saith he our Saviour inverted the names giving to his body the name of Symbole and to the Symbole the name of his body so having named himself Vine he called the Symbole Blood Next let us confront that of Chrysostome Hom. de Encoeniis Is it bread that you see is it wine do they go into the privie like other meats away with such a thought for as wax being put into the fire unites it self so in substance to it that nothing thereof remains so imagin here that the mysteries are swallowed up in the substance of the body Therefore when you approach thereunto think not that you receive the divine body as from man but fire from the pincers of the Seraphime which Esau saw so think that you partake of the divine body as if you joyned your lips to his pure and spotlesse side Confront this with that of Origen in Caep 15. Matth. As nothing sayes he is impure in it selfe but is made so to the polluted and incredulous by his own uncleannesse and unbeliefe so neither doth that which is sanctified by the Word of God and Prayer in its owne nature sanctifie him that useth it And for as much as belongs to that eating we are neither defrauded of any good by the not eating nor enricht with any good by the eating of the sanctified bread which for as much as it hath of materials goes into the belly the privy but becomes usefull and effectuall according to the proportion of faith making

the soule perspicatious and considerate of what is profitable Lastly to conclude this point let me set before you Macarius Homil. 17. and Theophylact more remote from one another in this article of faith then in the times wherein they lived Macarius telling us that we offer bread and wine the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of his flesh and blood and they which are partakers of the visible bread do eat the flesh of the Lord spiritually And Theophylact teaching the directly contrary doctrin upon the 6. of Saint John Note here saies he that the bread which we eat in the mysteries is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Lords flesh but the very flesh of the Lord and let no body be troubled that the bread should be believed flesh since the bread which he did eate when he walked here was altered into his body and made the same with his holy flesh so would the wafer be turned into his flesh if Christ as man did eat it will the veryest Sacramentary say I have insisted the longer upon this particular as conceiving it the highest point of all our controversies and wherein the Fathers should have most obliged us had they left to posteritie a right and unanimous intelligence of that great mysterie of the Eucharist But the certainest conclusion I can draw from them in this and the rest is of the uncertainty of concluding any thing in our differences from those that differ so much amongst themselves Justin Martyr in Orat. cohort ad Gent. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He should have my vote for a rare Musitian that could contrive those their discords into a Harmony fit to be the measure either of our practise or belief My next Reason is the Fathers variance from themselves a quality of much more prejudice to them then the other for upon contradiction of testimonies how point-blank soever a Judg may fall to examine the fame and reputed integrity of the witnesses in which if he find a difference he will not stick many times to pronounce a sentence according to the intire credit of the men but who will ever give judgement upon ones evidence who in the same businesse is found in contrary tales And here I could run over most of the materialest points wherein I made my former instances and produce almost out of every Father pro con examples not onely of variance but almost of as eminent contradiction as that of St. Augustine concerning Purgatory in Serm. 232. de Tempore where he flatly denies that there is any third place besides Heaven and Hell calling them deceivers that teach it And likewise in his 21. Book de Civitate Dei cap. 16. where he absolutely rejects the opinion of any Purgatory flames before the day of Judgement to another passage in Cap. 24. of Lib. 21. de Civitate Dei where he seemes positively to affirm i● himselfe but I forbear in regard it would be tedious and likewise for that I am unwilling to presse a point of derogation from those holy Fathers whom I reverence further then I needs must it being sufficient for what I intend to inferre that they appeare oftentimes to vary from their owne positions in divers Articles that we dispute of and others fully as important in which I may be well excused from the trouble to us both of alledging examples since Genebrard and Pamelius thought it their best course to purge the one Origen the other Tertullian from grosse and impious errour in many places by shewing how they teach the cleane contrary in others though by the way I must needs say that Pamelius his manner appeares to be very extravagant for as to some poysonous doctrines of Tertullian a Montanist he rightly applies a cure from some other passage of Tertullian a Catholick so at other times to what hee thought venemous in Tertullian a Catholick he preposterously prescribes an Antitidote out of Tertullian an Heretick as you may see in the eighth of his Paradoxes where he confutes an errour in his Apologetique and de Testimonio Animae Bookes which that Father wrote being a Catholicke with a passage of his Book de Anima composed when he was turned Cataphrygian and yet who so forward as Pamelius when any passage in such bookes makes for us to cry out away with it 't was a saying of Tertullian a Montanist I may well help my cause the best I can by this unsetlednesse of the Fathers since the noblest pillar of the Roman Church Cardinall Peron so often wrests their variance from themselves so much to the advantage of his See how in his reply to King James p. 374. he makes bold with Gregory the Great with Ruffinus with Jerome touching the Maccabees reception into the Canon wherein I doe not think him more in the wrong in the particular then I believe him right in the generall to wit that the Fathers did often vary their opinions according to their severall greenness or maturity of studies from whence Vincentius Lyrenensis his directions will follow cont haeres c. 39. That the Fathers depositions are onely to be taken who living in the Catholick Faith and Communion holily and wisely did constantly teach and persist even untill their death in Christ and further such only as did receive preserve and deliver their doctrines all or the greatest part manifestly and in one and the same sense wherein what use soever some Papists make of that passage I professe I thinke we are somewhat lesse beholding to him for the certainty of a rule and evidence to guide our faith by then to Archimedes for his Engine to remove the World For the Mathematitian disabuses us and declares that there is not a solid place to be found wheron to fix his instrument but th' other leaves us to that vain search of an impossibility for truly as the case stands I cannot think it less then an impossibility to know with any competent assurance what in all or almost any of our debated questions the Fathers hold with all those solid circumstances whereon Vincentius his rule is grounded of holiness wisdom catholickness immutability of the teachers and perpetual identitie of the doctrins sense if with years they all improved I might be comforted a little by relying on their last dictamens but as I find a S. Augustin that with age retracted his errors so on the other side I meet with a Tertullian that going forward in years and experience went less in his judgement how happie should we both be in one that could assure us in the Legion of Fathers when was the verticle point of each their erudition whether at their summer or winter solstice if I give you the notes of it and tell you then only you have it certain when they are in a perfect and palpable conjunction with Scripture you will think it but an imperfect indication if you say that then they were ariv'd to the high point of their perfection when they were once exactly instructed in the full

in heat against Pelagius but in other differences and those of greater importance I collect and probably if I am not much deceived that their sense is much clearer for us as in the doctrines of Purgatory and of the Eucharist for as touching the first although you may pretend in some that the words and outward shell wherein the Fathers opinions were conveyed belong more to you yet if the matter be carefully pick'd and examined I doubt not but the sense and kernel will prove ours it will be found that when ever any of the Fathers Origen onely excepted and his adherents who held the very flames of Hell but Purgatory Temporal I say those set aside all the expressions of the Fathers this way appear clearly to me to have been understood not of a Purgatory but onely of a probatory fire whether they meant that of affliction or that of the day of judgement as for that place in St. Augustine formerly alledged for Purgatory his best commentator Lod. Vives confesses he could never meet with it in the ancienter copies of that Fathers admirable works however crept into the vulgar Editions In point of the Eucharist I believe my former instances will deserve a confession of the ballances being so equally poysed in this affaire as far forth as expression at least that the overbearance of either scale is hardly perceptible but did I grant that their words weighed incomparably more on your side yet I should not doubt to challenge their sense for us and that most confidently upon this reason That supposing the Fathers to have believed as we doe the Sacrament to be Bread great reason might they have notwithstanding to raise the majesty of it in their expressions and to term it the body of Christ it being usuall and thought necessary in the primitive times to wrap up the Sacraments of the Church in mysteries that the Catechumens might be possest with a more awfull reverence towards them and be whetted and fan'd as it were to a more keen and ardent desire of being admitted unto them especially the danger being much more easie for them to think too meanly of what bore the name of Christs body but was palpably bread then that they should fall to adore that for God which their eare onely told them was the flesh of Christ and all their other senses assured them to be the commonest food of mankind wheras supposing them to have believed as the Church of Rome doth that the Sacrament is the very Flesh and blood of our Saviour and to be received with the same reverence that belongs to God himselfe there can be no warrantable reason why they should at any time lessen the majesty of so sacred an object of our adoration or give it so often the name of those ordinary elements whose evidence to our sense should they alwayes have said all they could invent of dignifying would still have been apt enough to give an allay to the faith and veneration that 's pretended to These being as I conceive two of the most important Articles of difference between your Church and ours what hath been said will suffice to manifest unto you that throughout this discourse I decline not the trial by the Fathers out of any distrust of our cause for truly though I will not allow their Writings to be the proper tribunall at which our controversies are to be judged I should be content to referre with you the whole matter to their arbitration and voluntarily to allow them that determinating power which in right they cannot claim so farre am I from acknowledging a greater conformity in the Church of Rome then in ours to what they teach to have been either the Government Practice or Beliefe of the primitive times nor yet should I refuse them for Arbitrators as peremptorily as I doe for Judges I would not think my pains lost or study of the Fathers not worth the while For besides the addition of knowledge and general improvement of the Soul which one must be a very stupid Reader of the Fathers not to advance in by the helps of their great and universal learning besides the admirable excitations to piety and zeale I conceive that even in the affair of directing us to a soul-saving Religion a Christian by searching into their ancient memorials may as you say reap a far greater advantage then either Criticks or Lawyers do in their several Sciences from their worm-eaten monuments of Antiquity for they Cousin from those maymed evidences of broken and disjoynted Records draw out principles it is true so probable as may prudentially induce a rational and equal Surveyers assent from which they frame perhaps some such text whereby indifferent men do consent to be regulated but we by our holy search into the Sacraries of former ages are led to a text already divinely framed A text perfectly comprizing all parts requisite to the supreme Science it concerns A text whose very affirmation is an uncontroulable resolution from our Records of antiquity wee draw not only Topical Arguments but proofs to any discoursing man above demonstration such as it were madness and impiety to reject upon any argument to the contrary and this in all points of Religion mistake me not I mean that do really and confestly on all hands import Heaven or Hell in mens beliefs and practise and from hence though I should deny the Fathers any usefulness at all in our controversies yet I should extreamly gratulate to my self the labour and ambition to be in some good measure skill'd in their Antiquities and to you your great and according to your principles most judicious progress in them Your next advice is that I should apply my understanding and industry to build up as well as to pull down and to examine as strictly the reasons of my own belief to see whether that be wel grounded as those for the contrary opinion to observe whether that be concludingly demonstrated I must confess I ever thought it a superfluous labour to seek to establish one part of a contradiction by any further proof then the destruction of the other and you your self supposing our Tenents contradictory do warrant that for a truth to me sufficiently proved and press on me a necessity of imbracing whatsoever is contradictory to a falshood 'T is true that St Jerome passes upon Lactantius a censure in a wish Vtinam tam nostra confirmare putuissit quam facile aliena distruxit but his case and ours are not alike 't was not so convincing an Argument Paganism is ridiculous Judaism exolete Therefore Christians are in every thing in the right as 't is with us the Church and tradition is not infallible in all things therefore fallible in some the bread is not transubstantiated therefore it remains bread There is no third place for us after death besides heaven and hell and no fall from the one and no redemption from the other therefore no Purgatorie In these and the like cases