Selected quad for the lemma: opinion_n

Word A Word B Word C Word D Occurrence Frequency Band MI MI Band Prominent
opinion_n body_n bread_n transubstantiation_n 642 5 10.9009 5 true
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A17572 A defence of our arguments against kneeling in the act of receiving the sacramentall elements of bread and wine impugned by Mr. Michelsone Calderwood, David, 1575-1650. 1620 (1620) STC 4354; ESTC S120683 45,714 80

There are 2 snippets containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

the Formalists idolatry preparing the way to or rather drawing on the worshipping of Christ as bodily present or the bread transubstantiated into his body For I have already declared that kneeling in the act of receiving eating and drinking cannot be but idolatrous Many grosse corruptions were in the Kirk before the opinion of the Reall Presence or Transubstantiation prevailed Seeing then it came in under the Antichrist whether should we follow the Antichrist and his Lawes or Christ his holy Institutions Defence of our foureteenth Argument KNeeling in the act of receiving is scandalous to many He saith that wee ought to do our duty though men be never so much offended otherwise the scandall is not given but taken our duty is to obey the ordinance of the Kirk made anent kneeling and not to offend the Kings Majesty Here ye see first he opponeth offending that is greeving or displeasing the Kings Majestie to offending that is giving occasion to his brother to fall in a grosse sinne and so to distroy him for whom Christ died so far as in him lyeth Next suppose that kneeling in the act of receiving the sacramentall elements were not a sinne both in disordering the right manner of celebration and also in that it is idolatry yet it is a matter of actiue scandall in that it hath a shew of evill and giveth occasion to our brother to fall into that evill wherof it hath a shew to wit in bread-worship For a mans doing is the cause of anothers fall two wayes per se of it selfe or per accidens through the default of another onely who is ill affected and taketh occasion to offend even at good things The first is actiue scandall the second is passive In the active sometime there is intentio operantis an intention in the doer to draw another to sin sometime there is without any such intention onely conditio operis such a manner of doing that of it selfe it giveth occasion to another to fail As when a man doth such an act which is an inducement to sinne as when a man committeth publiquely a sinne or that which hath the shew or likenesse of sinne saith Aquinas This shew of idolatry that is in kneeling suppose there were no more is an inducement and occasion to others to commit idolatry hardneth the Papist in his idolatry It is an active not a passive scandall We must not omit a necessary duty suppose others unjustly take offence But kneeling in the act of receiving is not a necessary duty but such a deed as is inductive to scandall The Doctor ' saith that it is a necessary duty to obey the ordinance of our Superiours and not to withstand the Authority No man denyeth obedience to be due to the Magistrate or Superiour suppose others should take offence for that were mat●ris proxima scandali the neerest and immediate matter of the scandall to deny that lege cominum by the common law the law of God and men Magistrates and Superiours should be obeyed But lege particulari by a particular law made of any particular matter wee are not ever bound to active obedience as when he commandeth to sinne or do any thing that hath the shew of sinne or is apt to breed scandall like as kneeling in the act of receiving hath proved by the event or experience both of the ages before and at this present Neither is in this same case obedience passive denyed and so the Morall duty of obedience is fulfilled Daniel would not desist from opening his windowes toward Ierusalem not withstanding of the Kings edict The commandement of the Magistrate cannot make a thing which of it selfe is scandalous and hurtfull not to bee hurtfull but rather by the strength of his authoritie maketh it more scandalous and hurtfull then it would be But none of our Formalists will deale in earnest with the supreme Magistrate and tell him that he committeth active scandall in laying a stumbling block before the people and therfore sinneth against the LORD The Nurse that left a knife vvith the child found dead at her returne could not be free of blame but the Nurse that layeth downe the knife is farre lesse to be excused Ez●kias removed a passive scandall to vvit the brazen Serpent For the brasen Serpent vvas not an active scandall Seeing therefore there is passive scandall in this kneeling it is sufficient cause to remove it suppose there vvere no active Will the flattering Formalist then bee instant vvith the Magistrate to remove or rather not to reinduce this passive scandall and follovv the example of good Ezekias For this invention of man hath beene is and is still likely to be abused superstitiously giving and not granting that of it selfe it vvere not idolatry But our flatering Formalists care more for their formal coats then the hazard of many thousand soules Againe it is to be remembred that our superiours cannot free u● or drive us from our oath taken by their own consent Can they make us sweare the one day and drive us to perjury another day Last it is no lawfull ordinance which was made at Perth as all our arguments doe evince neither vvas that meeting a lawfull and free Synod but a Null and pretended Assembly vvhich they are never able doe vvhat they can to defend The Doctor fayth he feareth some Ministers do cause the people to take offence Surely if they were not constant in their doctrine and practise as they have professed these many yeares they would cause the people take offence at the vvhole doctrine vvhich they have taught and to call it in doubt Let them alone sayth he they be blind leaders of the blind Certainly vvho vvill be lead by this vvorthy vvork of the Doctors I affirme he is either a temporizer seeking a cloake for his back-sliding or els he is blind led by a blind Doctor or if he be not blind he is blinded vvith avarice and ambition or hath a part of both Defence of our fifteenth Argument HE maketh us an argument of every thing wherewith we exaggerate their fault We say that Bellarmine argueth a priori from the real presence for adoration and againe a posteriori from adoration for the reall presence And if it bee lawfull to kneele at the receiving of the sacrament it is lawful to kneele before images He sayth We may fal down before the symbols which we have already refuted He sayth that the Papist worshipeth Christ the image with one worship Christ and the Eucharist as being one What is that to the purpose that the idolatry of the Papist and of the formalist is not all one in every respect seeing he misapplieth onely the popish adoration as I have sayd before Bellarmine sayth not that Christ and the image is to be worshiped with one vvorship after one manner for Christ is to be vvorshiped vvith that high worship called cultus latriae and that properly the image of Christ improperly and per accidens as he that adoreth
and on the other 〈…〉 let not men give greater honour unto them then their institution will suffer And before that time even then when he wrote against Gardiner he often fore warneth of the danger of it Vt quod mihi videtur dicam ad evitanda superstitionum pericula nolim hoc tempore adorationis externae signa in Eucharistiae perceptione adhiberi utut non ad symbola panis vini sed ad ipsum Christum in coelis regnantem derigerentur Howbeit they should direct their worship not to the symbols but to Christ yet he sayth there is danger of superstition in it This was the best that ever Martyr could make of it for throughly he could never digest it and in that Epistle to the Polonians he is more free Where he testifieth upon his own experience what such pestilēt seeds of idolatry have wrought I know what I spake meaning no doubt the revolt of England and who knoweth if there were the like triall what the formalists would doe So howbeit Papists are hardened and increase to the feeling of all men yet all the danger is not seen not felt till the time of triall come Beza sayth Adoration in the very act of receiving how dangero 〈◊〉 it is it being that which hath opened an occasion to breadworship from whence at last Satan cast men down headlong to transubstantiation the matter it selfe maketh manifest And in his eight Epistle he sayth that the event and lamentable face of the Kirk doth more then sufficiently teach us how hurtfull it is and commendeth these Churches which have abolished it with no lesse care then other apertas idolemanias manifest mad idolatry What need I cite many testimonies when as all the Divines in well reformed Kirks do think the same and yet he will say that the Belgick Kirks feared where there was no need of feare At last he telleth us that a Synod in Pole made standing or kneeling indifferent but sitting they condemned That Synod was a confused or mixt Synod of sundry sorts of professors some adhering to the Augustane confession some to the Helvetian some to the Bohemian Next they thought that the Arrians had been the first authors of sitting after the reformation when as both the Scottish and Belgick Churches at that same time and many yeares before did use the gesture of sitting and as worthy a Polonian as that Church bred in his time Iohannes Alasco a Polonian Baron wrot before the holding of that synod many years more amply and more earnestly for sitting then any other man els and did put it in practise in the kirkes where he bare office So it was in them a grosse ignorance in a matter of fact which was so publick in the view of all men Thirdly howbeit there was at that mixt Synod a great number of Lutherans yet they consent with the rest that no man should be urged to kneel because it was neither the will of God nor custome of the purer Kirk to censure or punish godly men for externall rites The Lutheran yee may see is more favourable in this poynt howbeit he maintain Christs bodily presence then these who would seem to be of our own profession It is to be marked that in this place the Doctor esteemeth bread-worship to be no error in the foundation Defence of our twelfth Argument KNeeling in the act of receiving say we is will-worship He sayth it is no part of Gods worship properly and therfore it cannot be will-worship This followeth not for will-worship is of sundry sorts as when a man inuenteth a new kinde of service to God which hee never commanded or when he misplaceth that vvhich God hath commanded and useth it vvhere he will or vvhen that vvhich is not in the own nature vvorship the user maketh it worship in his own conceit and opinion Next it followeth not because that kneeling is a signe of vvorship that therefore it is not worship properly or because sometime we use it and sometime not for howbeit it be a signe of the internall adoration yet is it the matter it selfe of externall adoration for by it we do not onely signifie the affection of our heart but also honoureth God either in secret or before men For he that adoreth honoureth and we honour God not onely with our spirit but also with our body As the Doctor himselfe said before we direct to God not onely the worship of our hearts but of our body When wee pray without kneeling we give spirituall vvorship vvithout determination of that particular bodily vvorship at that time but vvhen vve pray kneeling vvee cojoyne the bodily and spirituall worship Thirdly it is not the kneeling outward onely that we call will-worship but that also wherupon kneeling doth usually attend that is set and continued prayer For we say that in the act of receiving there is not the proper time and place of set and continued prayer wherof we shall intreat in the own place To pray then is Gods worship but to pray in an unfit time to displace any other part of God worship is will-worship Defence of our thirteenth Argument VVEE say that kneeling entred into the Kirk under Antichrist whether Honorius was the first deviser of it or not we regard not as a point materiall It appeareth that Honorius decreed onely an inclination or bowing of the super our bulk of the body at the elevation but not kneeling If he ordained so much to be done at the elevation it is likely that in the act of receiving kneeling was either then also ordained or come in a little after But whether before or after is not the chiefe question It is sufficient that it was not in use in the Kirk of God for a 1000. years or before the time at least when the Antichrist was at his height For there is not one expresse testimony in all the ancient Writers for kneeling in the act of receiving except some counterfeit worke yea not so much as in any counterfeit work so farre as we have yet seen alledged except in one Cyrillus The censure of Moulins upon these Catechismes of Cyrillus is marked and set down already in Perth Assembly I adde the censure of the Bishop of Spalato who saith that the Catechismes which go abroad under the name of Cyrillus Hierosolymitanus are to him greatly suspected for they smell of farre posterior times and he setteth down the reasons of his judgment Beza saith that kneeling in the act of receiving brought in Popish bread-worship and transubstantiation because it may be he gave some credit to Cyrillus but it is very likely that it came in after the opinion of the reall presence and transubstantiation For as I have said there is not a testimony we can heare of yet alledged for kneeling within the space of a 1000. yeares And suppose that kneeling went before the opinion of Reall Presence or Transubstantion yet even then it was and no other wayes it could be