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A60320
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A sermon preached at Christ-Church in Dublin before the Lord Lieutenant and Council, the fifth day of July, 1674 by Mr. Andrew Sall ...
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Sall, Andrew, 1612-1682.
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1674
(1674)
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Wing S392; ESTC R32075
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51,081
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162
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chapter of St. Luke who having lavished away his substance with riotous living in a forreign countrey Luke 15.15 he joyned himself to a Citizen who employed him in feeding his swine and he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat How so that delicate youth who loathed the plentiful fare of his Fathers house now fancy the husks that swine did eat Is that a proper food for a man and such a man no but the company of swine made him put off his own nature and wear theirs And when he came to himself so followeth the Text. What did he leave himself yes saith ingenious Peter Chrysologus à se migrat transit in bestiam Chrysol Ser. 2. living with beasts he left himself and turned beast That is the ordinary effect of bad company to turn into its own condition the nature of such as adhere to it To presume the contrary is to pretend to a miracle and tempt God It were indeed a miracle and a singular one that a person living in a bad company should not conform to it Our Saviour to confirm his Doctrine with an uncontrolable miracle against the obstinate Jews who condemned as Sorceries his other miraculous works got innocent children to blaze his glory in the Temple of Jerusalem according to the Prophet David Mat. 21.16 in the eighth Psalm Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise This miracle wrought deeply upon the Jews and confirmed them in the belief of the others preceding as St. Matthew relates St. Mat. â—â— 19. And when the chief Priests and Scribes saw the wonderful things that he did and the children crying in the Temple saying Hosanna to the Son of David they were sore displeased What made them take more notice of these innocent Elegies of the children than of the other wonders he wrought 〈…〉 Euthymius glâ—ssing upon this passage answers that in other occasions they suspected Christ might have deluded their eyes with appearances of things not really existing but that their own children bred by themselves and living among them should break out into Elogies of one they saw ever contemned and reviled by them was a miracle they knew not how to controll That ears continually beaten with calumnies and opprebries against Christ should entertain any favourable opinion of him was a wonder which malice and envy it self could not suspect So strange it is that any should not act according to the temper of the company he lives in A wonder passing all wonders Such is the influence bad company hath over minds adhering to it And herewith I conclude the first Point of my Discourse how justly our Saviour in the words of our Text was so earnest in exhorting his Disciples to shun the Abominations of Jerusalem given over to corruption and reprobate obstinacy that they might not be perverted by them and that if we should see any of those three Abominations declared by the three Opinions of Interpreters related in the opening of our Text that is to say Idolatry Cruelty or Impiety or all three practised in a Church or Congregation we are to shun it with all speed and diligence Now I will proceed to the Second Point proposed of my discourse which is to declare how I saw and by what means God was pleased to let me see that all these three abominations are generally practised in the Roman Church as it stands at present to wit Idolatrie in their Manner of Worship Cruelty in their conduct of Souls and Antichristian Impiety in extolling men above God That so my receding from the Communion of It may be justified as no more nor other than a dutiful obedience to the Councel of Christ declared in our Text. But before I enter into this Point I desire my judicious hearers not to conceive I come here to scold or Insult upon my former Brethren of the Roman Communion I may not hate Them without hating my self my flesh and blood and dearest friends being among them with tender compassion I lament their Errour I could not in piety abandon the Mother at whose brest I sucked the Belief of a Christian if with tears or sweat I could hope to wash away the stains which corruption of time has cast upon her face once fair and glorious but seeing her disease appears both incurable and contagious I was forced to a divorce Mean faults could not give a just cause to it they must be grievous ones which I cannot declare without giving them their own names the same our Text and declaration of it puts into my mouth for just cause of the like seperation Idolatrie Cruelty Impiety How I came to perceive the present Practise of the Roman Church to be guilty of these faults I will endeavour to declare with the brevity and sincerity duty requires being to speak in so Illustrious an Auditory Gods Providence leading me in my younger years to the Schools of greatest credit in Spain and disposing so that having compleated in them my courses of Philosophy and Divinity I should be imployed many years in teaching the same Faculties The exercise of those Reasoning Sciences joyned with my own Genius not fit for Pythagoras his School where ipse dixit was the rule and knowledge must be taken upon credit of the Master got me a habit of demanding reason for the belief of Doctrines proposed This assisted by frequent reading of Holy Scriptures Fathers Councels and Histories of the Church made me doubt of the Truth of several Tenents introduced by the use or Authority of the Roman Church repugnant in my esteem to common reason and not warranted by Divine testimony to captivate my understanding to the belief of them Of the Truth of Holy Scriptures of the Apostles Creed of that of Nice and Athanasius I never doubted Therein I acknowledged the Heavenly gift of Faith received in the Holy Sacrament of Baptism and lifting my heart and eyes to Heaven gave thanks to God for this Soveraign benefit in those words of the Psalm Psal 4. v. 6. Signatum est super nos lumen vultûs tui Domine Thou hast lifted upon us O Lord and printed in our hearts the light of thy countenance Without which certainly an understanding accustomed to search exactly into the nature of things their Essential constitutes the proportion of causes with effects and to measure by these rules the credibility of them would never give so free and easie assent to the ineffable mysteries of Trinity and Unity in the Divine nature of the Incarnation Resurrection Ascention of Christ our Saviour of the Descent of the Holy Ghost in tongues of fire upon the Apostles and other mysteries contained in Holy Scripture and the Creeds On the other side the reluctancy I found in assenting to those Tenents of the Roman Church as opposite to other Christian Congregations was to me an occasion of suspecting they might not be grounded upon Divine institution all my understanding
in several verses after making mention of that Consecrated Element calls it still Bread as often as you eat this Bread Whosoever shall eat this Bread c. In all which St. Paul doth but conform himself to the words of our Saviour which he relateth exactly as set down by St. Luke in the 22th chapter of his Gospel v. 19. And he took Bread and gave thanks and brake it and gave unto them saying This is my Body which is given for you this do in remembrance of me And when our Saviour himself thus declareth his words to be in a figurative sense after an usual and plain manner of speaking it is a disorder to run to a violent explication of them containing wonders surpassing humane understanding without any probable ground in the holy Text as the Papists do to maintain their doctrine with this or the like gloss This is my Body that is the thing contained under those Forms is by conversion and substantial transmutation my Body So as pretending to stick to the letter they only keep the sound of the words and to give them sense for their purpose they unaware produce a trope or something darker a paradox repugnant to all humane reasoning and nothing coherent with the context We agree all in calling the holy Eucharist a Sacrament why should we not then agree in taking the expressions touching it in a Sacramental way A Sacrament in common is a sign of a sacred thing Signum rei sacrae as Divines do ordinarily define it Why may not the Sacrament of Christ's Body be called a sign of his Body Why may not we understand that to be the meaning of Christ's words when taking the Bread he said This is my Body to wit this is the sign of my Body It being usual to call Sacramental signs by the name of the things signified by them As St. Augustine testifyeth Sicut ergo secundum quendam modum Sacramentum Corporis Christi Corpus Christi est Aug. to 2 ep 23. ad Bonifac saying Sacraments are signs which often do take the name of those things which they do signifie and represent And to our purpose addeth that after a certain manner the Sacrament of the Body of Christ is the Body of Christ So the Lamb being a sign of the Passover is called the Passover Mat. 26.17 Exo. 12.11 The Rock being a sign of Christ suffering for us is called Christ Vt Baptismus dicitur Sepulchrum sic hoc est Corpus meum Aug. con Faust li 20. c. 21 and the Rock was Christ 1 Cor. 10.4 and Baptism the sign of Christ's Burial is called Christ's Burial which St. Augustine applyeth to our purpose saying As Baptism is called Christ's Burial so is the Sacrament of the Body of Christ called his Body Besides Bellarmine Non enim Dominus dubitavit dicere hoc est corpus meum cum signum daret corporis sui Aug. to 6. cont Adaman cap. 12. and all other Romish Writers do confess being not able to deny it that the words of our Saviour touching the second part of this Sacrament to wit the Cup are sigurative This Cup is the New Testament of my Bloud Where they acknowledge a Trope in the word Cup or Calice taking it for that which is in the Cup. Why will not they likewise admit the former words relating to the Bread to be figurative Non negamus in verbo calix tropum esse Bellarm. de Euch. l. 1. c. 11. such pressing reasons moving to it and such terrible inconveniences attending their construction as hereto has been and after shall be further declared Now that the most Reverend Fathers of that happier Age taught by Christ and his Apostles were of our Opinion taking the words of our Saviour in a Figurative sense and the Eucharistical Bread a Type or Sign of his sacred Body is clearly seen by their Writings such as could escape the blots of the Roman Expurgatory Vererable Denis Areopagita was ignorant of Transubstantiation and so distinguished between the substantial signs and Christ signified by them saying By those Reverend signs and Symboles Christ is signified Dionis Areopagita Eccles hierar c. 2. I no Dionisiq cap hier 3 Eucharistiam vocat ant typon Belar li. 2. de Eu char c. 15. n. sed hoc and the faithful made partakes of him He calleth the Sacrament a Type even after Consecration as Bellarmin himself confesseth So that according to St. Denis the Elements of Bread and Wine in this Sacrament are Types and Symboles which is to say figures and signs of the Body and Blood of Christ though not bare signs but really exhibiting Christ and his Spiritual grace to the faithful duly disposed which being St. Denis his expression fully agreeth with the belief of the Church of England in this particular St. Chrisostom delivereth clearly the same Doctrine Chrisest epist ad ad Caesar coâ—tr haeres Apollinar saying that before the Pread is sanctified we name it Bread but the Divine Grace sanctifying it by the means of the Priest it is freed from the name of Bread but it is esteemed worthy to be called the Lords Body although the nature of Bread remains in it But St. Austin is most eminent in clearing this point where he bringeth in Christ thus speaking to his disciples Augâ— in Psa 98. you are not to eat this Body which you see or to Drink that Bloud which my crucifiers shall powr forth I have commended to you a Sacrament which being spiritually understood shall quicken you Contra Adamantium cap 12. And again he saith that Christ brought them to a banket in which he commended to his Disciples the figure of his Body and lood For he did not doubt to say This is my Body Contra â—â—austum Manichaeum when he gave the sign of his Body And in another place he saith that which by all men is called a Sacrifice is the sign of the true Sacrafice in which the flesh of Christ after his assumption is celebrated by the Sacrament of remembrance Theodoret is more emphatical upon this subject saying Theodoreus Dialog 2 c. 24. Christ honoured the Symboles and the Signs which are seen with the title of his Body and Blood not changing the nature but to nature adding grace For neither do the mistical signs recede from their nature for they abide in their proper substance figure and form and may be seen and touched c. I will conclude these testimonies with one that haply may carry more weight if not deemed Infallible I mean of Pope Pelagius speaking thus Pelagius Papa de duabus naturis contra Eurichem Nestori um vide Picherel in dissert de missa expositione verborum institutionis caenae Domini Pag. 14. Truly the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ which we receive is a Divine thing for that by it we are made partakers of the Divine nature and yet it ceases not to be the substance or