Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	aaron_n	good_a	time_n	29	3	3.5065	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33124	An account of Dr. Still.'s late book against the Church of Rome together with a short postil upon his text.	J. V. C. (John Vincent Canes), d. 1672.	1672 (1672)	Wing C426; ESTC R18260	35,205	79

Ashtaroth the idol of the Philistins Nay a very cow or calf in the meadows if we take occasion by it to thank God for his benefits or to worship God by it is the same thing then as Aarons Moulten heifer or Jeroboams calves set up in Dan and Bethel And as it is for substance so for the figures of things St. Pauls picture so long as we do not think of God by it is a lawful picture But if we come once to think of God to worship God by it O then that is a Calf too Aarons Calf one of Jeroboams Calves c. This thinking of God this worshipping of God by any thing this is the pestilential blast that spoils all It turns sweet into bitter lawful into unlawful things innocent into sin and good things to death The representation of our blessed Lord crucified for us so long as we think not of him may pass for a good innocent or at least indifferent thing but if we once think seriously of him if we worship God by it then O Mr. Stillingfleet what is it then And yet answer me not For I will not have those blasphemous words here repeated Speak them to a Jew in order to Jesus Christ and he will embrace and love you But a Christian cannot endure to hear them § 5. Papists saith he worship God by images and so are guilty of idolatry Catholicks may hear this but can never understand what he means They are never taught in any of their Catechisms to worship God by Images None of their spiritual books wherein all religious Duties are importunately urged and pressed upon them ever mention it and their practice does not infer it For if it did they would easiliest understand it who best know what themselves do They are taught and do in their practice endeavour to worship God in their heart and soul and ardent affections streaming forth thence towards him They worship him with bended knees lips and voice hearts and eyes l●fted up unto him They worship him with the assistance of Gods good Spirit the Priests Sacrifice and help of mutual prayers They worship him by mortifying their sensuality and carnal appetites by giving alms and relieving the poor and needy for his Love by observing his Laws and Counsels by resigning to his good will and pleasure in all things especially in time of afflicting persecutions when they suffer all manner of reproach lies and calumnies loss of goods and sometimes life it self for his name sake patiently They worship him in Closets in Church-assemblies in the fields as they are walling on Land or Sea where they have opportunity to do it Thus doth their religion teach them to worship God as with the right causes and instruments as by the true effects and operations as in the times and places seasonable for worship and devotion But how they should worship God by images or as he speaketh oftner in the context of his discourse in images this they do not easily understand When he lays any thing to Catholicks charge he ought to speak I should think as Catholicks do and then he will be understood by them It is not to be conceived how any one can worship God by images and in images but either for the real presence there or ideal imitation or some sort of occasion of worship arising thence And so God must be worshipped by them and in them either presentially ideally or occasionally And it cannot be presentially For so God is no otherwise present in a picture than in the wall it hangs upon nor yet ideally for the picture for example of St. Mary Magdalen or St. Paul is no idea of that invisible and glorious Godhead nor yet is any other as the Crucifix for example or Christ our Lord in his Birth or Resurrection for all these figures are representations of his humanity and no idea's of his Deity at all And Mr. Stillingfleet must needs mean one of these two ways For otherwise he could not charge them with idolatry for it And therefore I say that his charge is false and slanderous But if he mean that they worship God by images and in their images occasionally which is a moral interpretation and the only true one Then is such a work so far from Idolatry that it is a sublime piety For what can they better do then to give God thanks for so great graces mercies helps and comforts bestowed in Jesus our Lord upon his Apostles Martyrs Confessors and Virgins when they look upon their figures and pictures either in their contemplations or patience of Martyrdome or conversion of the world subduing and bringing flesh Satan and the world under their feet especially if Catholicks conceive thereby some pious resolution as well they may of doing something the more and patiently suffering for God in imitation of those pious Heroes our Predecessours in religion and yet naturally but flesh and blood as we our selves are I say all this is signal piety and our Christian duty And according to this morall meaning Catholicks if they do worship God by their im●ges and in their images do well and like good Christians But the Doctor will not charge them I suppose with a matter of so much truth and great piety as this is although his words cannot make out any other sence that is true but only this morall one And the more logical sence of worshipping God by images and in images ideally or presentially is false Let him even take which sence he pleases either what justifies Catholicks or what salsifies his own assertion It is all one to me whether we stand or he fall § 6. He adds that the worship of God by images does not terminate upon God because God has forbid it and so gives Gods honour to the Creature This is strange gibberish An act that tends to nothing is no act If it be some act it tends and has already tended to something and it terminates upon that thing unto which it tends and whose act it is denominated This is clear enough even to a young sophomore or one who indeed never yet came into the aire of Philosophy if he do but understand the terms and words here used For example I cannot see a man in the street except my vision terminate upon him nor can my vision terminate upon him but I must see him And it is all one whether I see him close by me or by my window or in a looking glass at home For I cannot see him any way but my sight must terminate upon him and if it do not I see him not And this course of nature is not hindred not yet altered at all because that person may haply have forbidden me to look upon him either this way or that For our acts or actions are accomplished within our selves independently of any acceptance or disacceptance of them Acceptance or disacceptance commanding or forbidding is another thing extrinsecal and quite differing from the substance of the act or action

Fae'ix in Gallias Germanias invexerit By this testimony it appears that Felix over and above his capital errour about Christ our Lords adoption was an iconomachus too or adversary of images and suffered at Frankford for both his errours which is not unlikely by the testimony of Platina ●nd Paulus Emilius For Platina in the life of Pope Adrian Biennio post saith he Theophylactus Stephanus Episcopi insignes Adriani nomine Francorum Germanorum Synodum habuerunt in qua Synodus quam septimam Graeci appellabant haeresis Feliciana de tollendis imaginibus abrogata est And P. Emilius in his second book de gestis Francorum speaking of that Councill of Frankford Et imaginibus saith he suns honor restitutus est The like may be proved out of Blondus Sabellicus and other historians So that all these things rightly considered and put together will sufficiently convince his relation of the Frankford Councill to be fictitious and groundiess If the Councill were assembled by the Agreement of the Pope and Emperour then not of the Emperour against the Pope If to suppress Elipand Claudius and Felix then not the Nicen Prelates If under the same Pope and Presidents which presided lately in Nice then not against any thing determined and concluded in Nice If upon the motive of Elipands errour against our Lords filiation then was not an image the principal occasion of it If Felix were there condemned for his opposition to images then were not images condemned If Charles the great one of the devoutest to the Roman Church that ever raigned so much swaied in that Councill then would he not suffer the Roman Church to be there affronted and censured If an upright Catholick he would not in spiritual affairs gainsay the Prince of Prelates who had so lately set his hand and seale to Nicen defiinitions In a word if Charles the Great called that Council at Frankford as the Doctor affirms then without all doubt was that ratified there which was established at Nice a little before For Charles was as much a Roman Catholick as either Stephen and Theophilact or the Pope himself and knew as well as any man what obedience is due to the definitions of a Council rightly consummated and confirmed as that of Nice was Binius the great Collector of the Councils proves at large that all this story of the Carolin books and Frankford Synod assembled against that of Nice is a groundless fiction And so do Alanus Surius Vasquez and several other Doctors And they are all amazed whence the rumour should arise and by whom and in what age or time But I cannot wonder much at it since I heard lately of a French Gentleman who affirms and shows in a Book of his that the English never conquered France nor ever gave them any one overthrow in battle And when he was told by a neighbour of this his notorious falshood O quoth he my book two hundred years hence may pass for an authority as good as any that speak otherwise And so I think there may possibly be such impious men who out of their present malice may furnish out a lie to infect posterity in after times But he must be an unconscionable wicked man who can do such a deed § 12. Primitive Christians never used any images as the learned of the Church of Rome acknowledge He had done well to let us kn●w who are these le●rned of the Church of Rome But he will not do us that favour And ●e must still take his word for the judgment of the learned sort always Nay we must bel●eve too that he is ever on the learned sorts side It is indeed unlikely that figures of those holy persons who first spread our Christianity in the world and made it good both by their lives and death should be frequent in prim●tive times First because those same figures although they be honourable memories both of their persons and pieties unto whose zeal and goodness we are so much indebted yet are they not so necessarily requisite unto any such perpose but that the Church can be without them Secondly because primitive Christians had not amongst them any such plenty of Artists as we have now a days to make them Thirdly because Pagans would have mis-interpreted the end and meaning of such figures as this our Doctor does in the midst of day-light But that in those primitive times there was never any Christian so ill affected towards those pious representations as is Mr. Still appears sufficiently by the testimony of those ancient Doctors who mention incidentally the customs so those primitive times especially about the figure of the Cross which they made continually on the●r fore-head and breasts as a preservative against evil and kept it all over their houses particularly in their Bed-chambers and closets either framed in wood or stone or painted in colours There be notwithstanding the deluge of time which swallows up all things some monuments yet left among us of the respect which those Christians then bore both to the reliques and figures of their Saints The very chair of St. James the Apostle and first Bishop of Jerusalem Eusebius in the seventh book of his history attests that it was had in great esteem and veneration in all times even to his own days Accordingly S. Clement in his six●h book of apostolical constitutions gives this general testimony of that kind of piety in those primitive Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The very relicks saith he of Saints now living with God are not without their veneration Some remainds there be also of an apostolical Council at Antioch gathered out of S. Pamphilus and Origen wherein caution is given both against the Jews malice and Gent●le idols by opposing the images of Jesus and his holy fo●lowers against them both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ignati●s also that worthy apostolical Prelate the third from St. Peter the Apostle in the chair at Antioch thus signally speaks of the sign of the cross in his epistle to Philadelphia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Prince of this world saith he rejoices when any one denies the Cross for he knows the confession of the cross to be his own ruin this is the Standard against his power which so often as he either sees or hears it spoken of he shakes and trembles thus speaks that glorious Prelate The above named Eusebius testifies also in the same book of his history that he saw even in his time the brazen Statue of our Lord Jesus which was set up in Paneada in Palestin unto his honour by the woman cured by him of the blood flix so notable for miracles that they were spoke of all the world over This statue o● our Lord when Julian the apostate caused it to be thrown down and his own to be set up in place thereof a strange sodain fire from heaven consumed the statue of Julian as Zozomenus in his fist book witnesses