Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	blood_n	body_n	jesus_n	12,126	5	6.1739	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42243	The grounds and occasions of the controversy concerning the unity of God &c. the methods by which it has been managed, and the means to compose it / by a Divine of the Church of England.	Nye, Stephen, 1648?-1719.	1698 (1698)	Wing G2135; ESTC R12220	49,121	55

be apt to suspect that it was the Doctrine of our Church that God has given power to our Priests that now are to forgive sins but yet the generality of our Priests abhorring delusive Priest-craft make no more of it than a meer Declaration that God forgives the Sinner supposing he be truly penitent When they have thus explain'd themselves no Body can quarrel their Doctrine and who would fall out with them for an aukward way of expressing it Ever give me Catholick Orthodox Doctrine tho vail'd under obscure and less proper Phrase rather than gross affected Tritheism openly avow'd and in distinct plain words express'd in words and phrase so clear and proper that every understanding unbiass'd Reader may at first sight apprehend it Now by explaining and defining the occasion of Dispute is remov'd indeed some Disputants define ignotum per ignotius one obscure ambiguous word term phrase by another more obscure and ambiguous they mend the matter well but full plain and clear Definitions make short work of Controversy The Disputants quickly see by this means where 't is they differ if so be they do differ for not rarely it happens they discover that they were of one and the same mind tho they did not express their thoughts after one and the same manner I am very much mistaken or this is the very Case between the suspected Unitarians and the Nominal Orthodox Trinitarians who suspected them Indeed as to the Realists there is a wide difference between them and both the former their Tritheism is Innovation with a Witness and a just Motive for their Opposers to engage in Religious Controversy Again it may happen that the Innovation comes to no more than the reviving a long-buried Truth or the rubbing the rust off from a corrupted Usage for Truths certain and useful have run like Rivers under ground for several Ages and then their first appearance afterwards may be call'd Innovation but that will not justify any Man's contending for his old Errors no tho his old Errors have liv'd for several Ages The eating and drinking the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ by Faith t'other Day was a meer Innovation yet I do not believe that our Real Trinitarians will say that the Anthropophagous Romanists the human Flesh and Blood-eating Papists had reason with Fire and Sword to oppose it The cry of Innovation is sometimes made use of to secure a beloved false Doctrine from being contradicted a superstitious cheating Practice from being undermin'd Where a present Establishment is without fault no Innovation can be so but a departing from the Language of the Schools is not the same thing as departing from the Faith Yet that our Differences may be accommodated in some tolerable manner let sound Religion say I be taught in barbarous Language better so than Tritheism cloth'd with words pure and proper and phrase elegantly plain for that 's but like Martial's fine Amber-Box with nothing but a Viper and a dead Fly in it 3. Both Realists and Nominalists as themselves profess and I believe honestly have entred into Religious Controversy to vindicate the Christian Religion the main Foundation of which they once by mistake verily thought that the Unitarians were undermining and labouring to overthrow It is good to be jealous for the honour of the Christian Religion but nevertheless it is a fault and a very unchristian one to charge any Man unjustly for an unjust Charge of this high nature robs innocent Persons of the Comforts and Advantages which they might chance to have in the good opinion of others and not only so but exposes them to the dire Effects of that Zeal which is too hot ever to have mercy and too passionate ever to consider matters calmly deliberately and as they ought to be consider'd When the Realists and Nominalists first suspected the Unitarians of entertaining such wicked and detestable thoughts as to undermine and subvert the main Foundation of the Christian Religion it would have extreamly become them to have carefully weigh'd what are the sure and certain Truths which may be reasonably call'd the Foundation of the Christian Religion and what are the less certain Doctrines and Speculations concerning which Men that lead vertuous and Christian Lives are differently perswaded But now in their anger and their haste they have condemn'd the Unitarians as Hereticks for not giving the true sense of some Articles whose true sense they themselves have not yet found out or are not agreed upon One would think that a mistaken Exposition of an obscure Article did not tend to the Subversion of the Christian Religion but they have judg'd it otherwise yet to do them right for furious merciless Judges they use as much equity as could be wish'd carrying on their severe Censures with a remarkable Impartiality The Tritheistick Trinity says one of them is worse even than Socinianism The Nominal Trinity says another is as bad in which last Censures I shall not contradict them but one thing I must remark viz. That when the Purposes in which Men agree are none of the best the gaining their Point is but removing an Obstacle which hinders them from vexing one another There are some great Men who out of what Christian Principle neither I nor they can tell would have the Unitarians be Hereticks by themselves and by consequence burnt by themselves without the company of any of them who commit the very same or a more hainous fault For which purpose they solicit the Magistrates after the manner of Inquisitors Omni affectu quo possint but without the Hypocrisy of the Inquisitors for these great Men of ours call for Fire in plain words which the other mean when they require Mercy and to justify the Exemption of whom they please from Heresy and the Stake T'other day this Dream was told A Man may be very right in the belief of an Article and yet be mistaken in his Explication of it I call this a Dream meaning no disrespect in the World to the Author for quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus but because it appears at the very first sight an inconsistent Notion now pleasing Dreams Men are unwilling to part with therefore a Friend is call'd in to give credit to this but as ill luck would have it all which that Friend says is That a Man may quit his Explication without parting with the Article it self That is Dr. Sh may quit his Explication and so may every other Realist without parting with the Article of the Trinity But under favour he that quits the true Explication quits the Article it self or it is impossible to quit it To speak seriously one would wonder how it could enter into the thoughts of a wise Man being awake to imagine that an Article might be rightly believ'd that was not rightly understood If it be objected that I alter the Case and should have worded it that was not rightly explain'd I reply The thing is the same for I presume that the

better Argument hope to confound the Unitarians is Socinian Now it must be confest That the Unitarians think honourably of Socinus but yet they do not espouse his whole Scheme nor any thing of his Scheme because it is his nor any thing more of his Scheme than is espous'd by their Arminian Nominalist Brethren who are a great majority of the Church tho the Animadverter may not love to bear of it Socinus's Life is in Print among us both Latin and English the Memory of the Man is frequently revil'd but I do not hear that his Adversaries undertake to refute the historical Account which the Polonian Knight has giv'n of him Mr. Bidle in his Preface has these Words of Socinus He took the same course to propagate the Gospel that Christ and the Apostles had done before him forsaking his Estate and his nearest Relations and undergoing all manner of Labours and Hazards to draw Men to the Knowledg of the Truth He had no other End of all his Undertakings than the Glory of God and Christ it being impossible for Calumny it self to asperse him with the least Suspicion of worldly Interest He of all Interpreters explaineth the Precepts of Christ in the strictest manner and windeth up the Lives of Men to the highest Strain of Holiness The Author of the Growth of Error makes it an Article against Socinus that he accus'd the Reformed of immoral Practices and boasted of the Holiness of his own Followers But what says that Author Was Socinus's Accusation unjust or his Boasting rash and ill grounded Why he says Meisner answer'd Socinus but it seems he confesses too that Schlichtingius defended him Upon the whole matter to speak impartially Excepting that the foreign Unitarians are recorded to have sometimes dealt hardly with one another upon account of their different Perswasions concerning worshipping Jesus Christ it does not appear that their Lives were wicked and unchristian Here in England Men that know little of them or have Ends in traducing them load them with heavy Imputations but impartial Men abroad who have known and observ'd them notwithstanding they differ from them do yet bear honourable Testimony to their Piety and Vertue Monsieur Stoop a Protestant Officer in the French Army in his Religion of the Dutch Anno 1673. gives this Account of the Socinians in Holland They have their secret Assemblies in which they are very fervent in Prayer to God with groaning and weeping They affirm that they have no Interest in the maintaining their Doctrine save only the Perswasion they have of its Truth and the Zeal of appropriating to the only individual and sovereign God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the Glory of his Divinity They are confirm'd in their Faith by reading the Word of God and by the Books which have been written against them Their Conversation is holy and without Reproach as far as Men can judg by what they see Much more this impartial Gentleman none of their Party says to their Praise Even of the English Unitarians one of our Reverend Bishops disputing against them when he look'd upon them as altogether Socinianiz'd fairly professes that he judges they would not think so meanly of our Lord Christ but for fear of taking away from the Honour of God Almighty But I have a Word or two to offer to the Reverend Bishop of Sarum before I speak of the English Unitarians of this last Age. As ill as he thinks now of these Unitarians I hope he will not retract the noble Character which he once gave of one George Van Par a Dutch-man burnt in England 1549 for Unitarianism which he could not in Conscience abjure He led a very exemplary Life for Fasting Devotion and a good Conversation and suffer'd with extraordinary Composedness of Mind It is out of the way to speak of Barth Legat a Man of whose vertuous Behaviour the Booksellers of Pauls among whom he convers'd for 7 Years before his Execution gave a good account for he was an Arian burnt An. 1611 re-burnt this last Year by Mr. Gailhard but it is a better Argument for that poor Man's Seriousness in his Religious Perswasion that he could endure to be burnt for it than it is for the Sincerity of Mr. Gailhard and the Honour of Calvinism that he thirsts after the Blood of thousands and damns all Orders and Degrees of Men that do not forward his Executions But that no ill-minded Person may hence take occasion to say that I insinuate that the Unitarians are a numerous Body I openly declare that whether they are many or few is more than I know or care who am an impartial tho not always a melancholy By-stander But that they are better Men truer Christians and more faithful Subjects than the revengeful Calvinists will appear to any Man that examines the Writings of both sides I now come to speak of those Persons of this last Age who have been distinguish'd by the Name of Unitarians Anthony Wood in his Athenae Oxonienses 2d Vol. p. 197-199 gives a large Account of John Bidle and says among other very commendable things that being Master of Crifts School in Glocester He was much esteem'd for Diligence in his Profession Severity of Manners and Sanctity of Life And when he came to converse in London after many Years Imprisonment He was very taking for his Religious Discourse and Saint-like Conversation Now Mr. Wood I presume cannot be suspected of Partiality in favour of an Unitarian John Bidle seal'd the Sincerity of his religious Perswasion by his Death for he took that Sickness in Newgate whereof he died 2 days after Removal Mr. Cooper succeeded Mr. Bidle Master of Crifts School in Glocester afterward Minister of Chelthenam in Glocestershire and after the Act of Uniformity Minister of an Unitarian Congregation in that Place We appeal to all that knew him whether he was not a Man always compos'd and grave but of a most sweet and obliging Temper and Conversation He suffer'd those Abuses from intemperate and riotous Men when the Nation was running mad they knew not for what that it broke his Health and hastned his End His Daughter Mary died about a Year and a half since a known Unitarian so that the Minister who preach'd her Funeral Sermon commended her to his Auditors for a Pattern of Christian Vertues however erroneous in her Judgment Mr. Cooper was succeeded in the Guidance of an Unitarian Congregation by Ralph Taylor Henry Sturmy Thomas Macock and Allen Kear all of them very serious and diligent in their way devout and pious strictly honest and charitable to their power however not so accomplish'd in Humane Learning John Knowles of Glocester by long and diligent Study became very knowing in the Critical Learning of the Scriptures his much Reading and Thoughtfulness won him to Unitarianism having in his younger Years been an Independent His singular Piety and Vertue were exemplarily conspicuous in divers Stations and Stages of his Life His Labours were directed to the