Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	body_n	bread_n	eat_v	28,034	5	7.9898	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66404	Of the perspicuity of Scripture, and rules for interpretation of it a sermon preached at St. Martins in the Fields, Mar. 2, 1695/6, being the third of the lecture for this present year, founded by the Honourable Robert Boyle, Esquire / by John Williams ...	Williams, John, 1636?-1709.	1696 (1696)	Wing W2712; ESTC R38654	13,865	34

understand or is not plainly to be found in Scripture I mean thereby not the matter or thing spoken of but the Proposition For the Proposition may be a plain and a very intelligible Proposition when the matter of it is inexplicable and above our understanding As the Proposition God is a Spirit is a plain Proposition and as easy to be understood in respect of its Sence and Meaning as that a Triangle is a Figure consisting of Three Angles but the matter is vastly different for who can tell what a Spirit is or can give as adequate a Definition of it as he can of a Triangle And yet the Proposition before-recited of God's being a Spirit is as plain to be understood and as necessary to be believed as if it were in its Nature plain and Intelligible and that we as perfectly knew what a Spirit is as we know what a Triangle is And therefore the Obscurities arising from such Sublimity of the matter are not to be brought here to account for they can never be made plainer to us than they are till our Understandings are Elevated and raised up to them 'T is a Spirit alone that can tell what a Spirit is and 't is God only knows himself And though now we have it as plainly Revealed that God is a Spirit as that God is yet we must be contented neither to have an adequate Notion of God unless we were as God nor also the like Notion of a Spirit till we become Spirits our selves When I say again That it is a sign of the matter 's being unnecessary that it is not plainly to be found in Scripture thereby is meant what is plain to such as Search Enquire and Compare and know how to argue from it And if by Search and Enquiry by comparing and arguing it comes to be plain I may as well so call it as if it was in so many words therein expressed There is a very convincing Argument of a Future State in the Scripture quoted by our Saviour when God saith I am the God of Abraham c. from whence our Saviour with great strength infers God is not the God of the Dead but of the Living and so those that he is the God of are alive But though the force of the Argument is now very evident by the light our Saviour gives to it yet I believe few would have observed it without that Direction or to be sure without taking that Method of comparing Scripture with Scripture For it is by that Rule 1. We come to understand the Idiotisms and Proprieties of the Language in which the Scripture was Written and without attending to which we shall fall very much short of attaining to the sence of it These Idiotisms are common with the Hebrew to all Languages and so are no otherwise to be understood than by a strict Observation of them As for Example Without this Key how irreconcileable would it be to other Texts to have it said God would have mercy and not sacrifice and that our Saviour should require his Disciples not to labour for that meat which perisheth and that the Apostle should forbid Women the adorning themselves with the outward adorning of plaiting the hair and wearing of gold or of putting on of apparel All of which were notwithstanding allow'd and some requir'd elsewhere But now if we attend to the Genius of the Hebrew and compare one Scripture with the other we shall find that the Jews having no Degrees of comparison were wont to express comparisons by Antitheses or Negatives and then the sence of the Negative Not is not so much as labour not that is not so much for the meat that perisheth as for that which endureth to everlasting life c. And if this be observed we shall find there is no contradiction when in one place Sacrifices are requir'd and in another that God would have mercy and not sacrifice when in one place it is commanded to work with their own hands and in another labour not for the meat that perisheth c. 2. By this way of comparison we come to understand the Figurative Phraseology or manner of Expression in Scripture and we shall find that such are not to be understood in a proper and literal but allusive sence As for Instance God is in Scripture said to have Eyes and Hands Ears and Bowels which are terms belonging to a Natural and Human Body And also to Laugh and to be Angry and to Repent which are passions belonging to Mankind And yet we read also that God is a Spirit and so hath not a Body nor any of the parts belonging to it And that he is not as man that he should repent and neither is nor can be subject to those Infirmities and Passions which belong to us And therefore when such Bodily or Mental Affections and Properties are imputed in words to him it is in a figurative and improper sence and which are spoken of him after the manner of Men and in condescension to our Infirmity who are not able to conceive of him as and according to what he is in himself So that it would be a gross piece of folly for the sake of such Figurative Expressions as Theodoret saith of Audaeus to conceive of God as a Corporeal Being which is to say he is not a Spirit and so to make the Scripture inconsistent with it self Another instance of this kind is the Assertion of our Saviour This is my Body which being a Sacramental as well as Figurative Phrase of Speech recourse must be had to the like Institutions in Scripture and to what has the nearest resemblance to it and that is the Passover the Jewish Sacrament and as I may so say their Lord's Supper Now when we read in the Law of the Lord 's Passover and that they roasted and eat the Passover we easily conceive that by it they meant not the Angel's passing over the Houses of the Children of Israel which gave occasion to the Phrase but the Lamb which was the Memorial and the Representation of it So when in Correspondence hereto we read of our Saviour that at the Institution of the Lord's Supper he said of the Bread This is my Body and that he broke the Bread and they eat of it we can reasonably no more understand that his Natural Body was then actually broken and that they did eat his very Body than we can understand that when the Jews roasted and eat the Passover they roasted and eat the Angel that passed over the Houses where the Blood was sprinkled And therefore what was improperly and figuratively spoken of the one was after the same manner spoken of the other and alike to be understood Indeed such Figures and Modes of Speech are as soon understood for the most part as plain and literal Propositions As when our Saviour is called a Lamb a Door a Shepherd a Vine he was no more really such nor are such Phrases any