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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	body_n	disease_n	physician_n	1,388	5	8.4138	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56741	A discourse of the sacrifice of the Mass	Payne, William, 1650-1696.	1688 (1688)	Wing P901; ESTC R19214	76,727	100

from the following considerations 1. Then these Oblations were made for departed Souls who were not supposed to be in a state of pain as they now believe Purgatory to be but in a state of ease and happiness as St. Austin believed his Mother to be when he offered for her and when he prayed for her * credo quod jam seceris quod te rogo sed voluntaria or is mei approba Domine August Confess l. 9. c. 12. he did believe that God had already granted her what he prayed for but he beg'd him to accept these free Will offerings of his mouth It was not then a doubt of her state but only the voluntary expressions of his Love and Duty which he designed by his Prayers and Oblations for her and those Olations were made even for Saints and Martyrs and the most holy Christians of whose future happiness there was no manner of question and for all indeed who dyed in the Communion of the Church And therefore 2. They were an honorary Testimony given to them of their good state and of their dying in the Peace and Communion of the Church to have their names recited at the Altar service out of the Diptychs or folded Tables was an honorary memorial and mention of them as members of the Church and 't was a disowning them as such to expunge or blot their names out of those Diptychs and so the making or receiving Oblations for them at the Altar was an acknowledgment of their right to the Altar to the Christian Communion and therefore no oblations were received of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of those who were not Communicants or had not a right to Communion of those who were guilty of scandalous sins or of those who were in a state of Penance for them as may be seen in the Apostolick Constitutions † l. 4. c. 5. l. 3. c. 8. and in one of the most ancient Councils (a) Episcopum placuit ab eo qui non communicat murera accipere non dibere Concil Eliber c. 28. which forbids the Bishop to take oblations from him who does not communicate Petavius has largely made this out in his Notes on Epiphanius (b) Animadvers in Epiphan Exposit fid and produces a Council which provides † Concil Vasense Ib. that the Oblations of those penitents should be received who were surprized by a sudden death in a journy Which was a receiving them into the Churches Communion quasi ex Postliminio 3. By having these Oblations received and offered for them they were made partakers of the prayers that were made for them at the Altar what ever benefit these prayers were believed to be of to departed souls which I am not here to examine that did accrue to them by having these oblations made and received for them for by this means they were particularly mentioned and recommended in the Prayers at the Altar and thus both Tertullian St. Cyprian and St. Austin explain the sacrifices and oblations which they mention as made for the dead (c) Vxor pro animâ defuncti mariti or at offert annuis diebus dormitionis ejus Tertull. de Monogam The Wife prays for her hushands soul and offers on his Anniversary And again (d) Neque enim ad altare meretur nominari in jacerdotum prece qui ab altari jacerdotes ministros suos avocari voluit Cypr. Ep. 1. He deserves not to be named in the prayer of the Priests at the Altar of God who takes off Gods ministers from the Altar in the fore-mentioned case of making a Clergy-man Executor (e) Vbi in precibus sacerdotis quae Domino Deo ad ejus altare funduntur locum suum habet etiam commendatio mortuorum August cura pro mor●uis And in the prayers of the Priest which are poured out to God at his Altar the commendation of the dead has place So that the good they had by these oblations was upon the account of these Prayers and not by any vertue in these oblations as they were a sacrifice distinct from the benefit of the Prayers as they were Alms indeed together with prayers they thought the dead benefitted by them together with the prayers and so St. Austin in the fore-quoted place mentions the sacrifices of the Altar which he explains by prayers and Alms both which he calls sacrifices * sive altaris sive orationum sive eleemosynarum sacrificiis supplicamus ut supra but not in a proper and strict sense as our Adversaries must acknowledge For these sacrifices I hope were not true and proper ones such as the sacrifice of the Mass is held to be nor were they properly propitiatory for their sins nor did the Antients who prayed for the dead at the Altar and made oblations for them think that these oblations were properly propitiatory or satisfactory for their sins as the Church of Rome believes the sacrifice of Mass now to be there is nothing that amounts to this in any of those places where they speak of offerings for the dead nor would St. Cyprian or the Bishops who ordained in Council that no offerings should be made for him who appointed a Clergy-Man Executor to his Will have inflicted so severe a punishment upon so small a fault had they thought this would have deprived his soul of a true and real propitiation for his sins nor would blotting out of the Diptychs have been so commonly put in use had this been consigning the soul to the punishments of another World. There was therefore no such thing meant as our Adversaries would now draw from that ancient custom of Oblations for the Dead and yet that this quickly degenerated into superstition and has been farther improved in aftertimes and is now come to very great perfection in the Roman Church we willingly own that the first beginnings of this were lay'd in this unscriptural custom as the Worship of Saints was from the Anniversary memory of the Martyrs is not to be denyed But corruptions in Religion like Diseases in the body might proceed at first from very small causes but by neglect and carelessness grow oftentimes very great and dangerous especially when the Physicians that should have cured them thought it for their purpose and interest rather to heighten and increase them 10. The sacrifice of the Mass must either be unnecessary or else must reflect on the sacrifice of the Cross if it be not necessary for obtaining the pardon and remission of any sin or for the relief of any spiritual want and necessity for which there has been no provision made by the sacrifice of the cross then it is wholly useless unprofitable if it be necessary for any such purpose then the sacrifice of the cross is not perfect and sufficient for all those ends but requires this sacrifice of the Mass to make up what is lacking and behind of the sufferings of Christ upon the

if not the whole of it or if as some think the Consumption of the Sacrifice is the great thing that makes it perfect and consummate I ask whether Christ does then eat his own Body every Mass when it is eaten by the Priest If as Bellarmine owns the Consumption of the Sacrifice be absolutely necessary to make a sacrificial Oblation and the true Offerer be Christ himself as the Council of Trent says then Christ himself must consume the sacrifice that is he must eat his own body Bellarmine is really pincht with this difficulty and he hath so wisely managed the matter that as he brought himself into this streight so he knows not how to get out of it but he is forced to confess † Tamen ipse dici potest consumere sacramentum Bellarm. de Miss l. 1. c. 27. That Christ may in some sense be said to consume the Sacrament i. e. himself for 't is Christs body and blood is the Sacrament and not the species at least not without those We always thought it a prodigious if not a horrid thing for another to consume Christs real body but now for Christ himself to be made to do this is to expose Christ shall I say or themselves or that cause which is driven to these Absurdities and which can never avoid them whilest it makes the Mass a true sacrifice and Christ himself the offerer of it 9. The Offering this Sacrifice to redeem souls out of Purgatory as it is made one of the greatest ends and uses of this Sacrifice of the Mass so is one of the greatest Errors and Abuses that belong to it for besides that it contains in it all the foregoing Errors and Absurdities of its being a proper Sacrifice and so benefitting those who do not at all receive it as a Sacrament and being properly propitiatory at least for lesser sins and for the temporal pains that they suppose due to greater sins after they are forgiven which is another cluster of Errors that grows likewise to this Doctrine though it belongs to another place to consider them I say besides all those Errors it takes in also the groundless and uncomfortable and erroniou opinion of Purgatory whereby a great many departed Souls are supposed to be in a sad state of extream pain and torment till they are delivered from it by these Masses and sacrifices which are offered for them to that purpose And this is indeed the great advantage of them I mean to the Priests that offer them who hereby make Merchandize not only of the Souls of Men but of Christs Body and Blood and are made by this sacrifice a sort of Mony-changers in the Temple and instead of Doves sell Christ himself and the souls in Purgatory are redeemed out of it by such corruptible things as Silver and Gold which are to purchase Masses that is Christs body and bloud at a certain price This is a most horrible abuse of Christianity which exposes it to infinite scandal and reproach the selling of Masses and Indulgences is so visible a blot in Popery that though nothing has more enriched yet nothing has more shamed it then these have done both those have relation to Purgatory which is an unknown Countrey in the other World that hath given rise to those two profitable Trades and to all that spiritual Traffic that is carried on by it A Late excellent discourse has so fully considered that subject that I am no further to meddle with it here then as the sacrifice of the Mass is concerned in it Our Adversaries most plausible and specious pretence for both those Doctrines is taken from the antient custom of oblations for the Dead which cannot be denyed to be of great antiquity and general use even very near the beginnings of Christianity and to have had a long continuance in the Christian Church Tertullian mentions them as made on every Anniversary of their birth † Oblationes pro defunctis pro natalitiis annuâ die facimus Tertul. de Corona militis c. 3. i. e. on the day wherein they died to this World and were born into immortality St. Cyprian speaks of them as so generally used for all persons that it was made the punishment of him who should leave a Clergyman his Executor and so take him off from his sacred employment to secular Troubles and Affairs that (a) Ac siquis hoc fecisset non offerretur pro eo nec sacrificium pro dormitione ejus celebraretur Cyprian Epist l. 1. Edit Ox. no offering should be made for him neither should any sacrifice be celebrated for his departure (b) Episcopi antecessores nostri religiose considerantes salubriter providentes censuerunt nequis frater excedens ad tutelam vel curam Clericum nominaret c. Ib. and this was an Order he sayes made by former Bishops in Council and therefore he commands that Geminius Victor who had made Geminius Fanstinus Tutor to his Will or his Executor (d) Non est quod pro dormitione ejus apud vos fiat oblatio aut deprecatio aliqua nomine ejus in Ecclesiâ frequentetur Ib. should have no oblation made for his departure nor any Prayer used in his name in the Church St. Austin gives it in as the custom of the Vniversal Church in his time that a sacrifice was offered for the dead (e) Non parva est Ecclesiae Vniversae quae in hâc consuetudineclaret authoritas si nunquam in Scripturis veteribus scriptum legeretur sc oblatum pro mortuis sacrificium August cura pro mortuis and this he says is sufficient authority for it though there were nothing of it in Scripture and having shown that what happens to the dead body is of no concern to the departed soul (f) Non existimemus ad mortuos pro. quibus curam gerimus pervenire nisi quod pro eis sive altaris sive orationum sive ele●●osyn arum sacrificiis solenniter supplicamus Ib. versus finem none of our care says he can reach the dead but only that we supplicate for them by the sacrifices of the Altar of Prayers or of Alms and the same thing he mentions in several other places of his works and in his own oblations at the Altar for his Mother Monica after she was dead Now what can we think of these Oblations unless with the Papists we allow such a state of departed souls as they call Purgatory that is neither Heaven nor Hell for if they were either in the one or the other of those these oblations would signifie nothing to them and how plain is it that they thought them to be some way benefitted or relieved by the sacrifice of the Mass or Altar I answer that neither of those Opinions as they are now held and received in the Church of Rome do follow from the Primitive Custom of offering for the Dead but that they were of another nature then what they account them and this I shall evince