Selected quad for the lemma: reason_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
reason_n	believe_v	faith_n	revelation_n	2,830	5	9.5573	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48813	An answer to the Bishop of Oxford's reasons for abrogating the test impos'd on all members of Parliament anno 1678, Octob. 30 in these words, I, A.B., do solemnly and sincerely, in the presence of God, profess, testifie, and declare, that I do believe that in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper there is not any transubstantiation of the elements of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ at, or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever, and that the invocation of adoration of the Virgin Mary, or any other saint, and the sacrifice of the Dais, as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous / by a person of quality.	Lloyd, William, 1627-1717.	1688 (1688)	Wing L2673; ESTC R977	35,814	60

Attyr'd it in the sincere honest mind and the intelligent Christian leaving all the cramping Difficulties of Transubstantiation to its Slaves can declare freely with the Test There is not any Transubstantiation of the Elements of Bread and Wine in the Lord's Supper into the Body and Blood of Christ. Whatever spiritual Communion there may be between Christ in his Death and the true Believer is most humbly in the mean time owned and prayed for which is the first thing that was to be shewn The second Head is That the very point of Transubstantiation is of all others the most reasonable to settle the Test upon and the more reasonable in all regards because of the so exceeding difficulty of the Notion 1. What can a civil Power have greater indignation against or be more willing to settle upon as an exclusive Test of all from places of Honour Trust and Power than the being Vassals to such an Imposture as destroys all the Truth and Certainty that is in the World Who can be believ'd upon Oath which the Apostle says is the end of all strife if there be no more credit to sense then that Bread may be a Humane Body and Wine Blood though it hath all the evidences to sense possible it is what it judges it to be and that is Bread And what more heed can be given to Reason if its main Foundations can be thus overturn'd so that all the principles of Government and humane Converse are overthrown What may not such Bigots be screwed into who leave themselves naked of the defences of Sense and Reason at the Command of a tyrannic Church and Pope and become meer Tools in such Hands Who can concredit to them the Interest of their Country who couch down like Asses under such a Burden and especially for a Notion so dark and slippery that no one knows where to have it And what would become of humane Commerce if such Things multiplied 2. Upon Transubstantiation the Test-Act doth most deservedly fall because when the foundations of general Reason and common Sense are laid Religion and the Reason and Honour of that as it is National comes next to be consider'd that it may bear up it self and invite both the People of the Nation and even the Nations round about to a just veneration of it But Transubstantiation being made the great and most tremendous Mystery of the Roman Religion yet carrieth in the very judgment of sense the Countenance mean and appearance of the most notorious Cheat and Juggle that the Name of Religion ever offered to the World for there being a most contemptible poor and low outside onely without the least of Power or Puissance or any the thinnest resemblance of a Miracle demands a Belief of the Highest and most constant Miracle daily to be performed by the most Profligate oftentimes and most Ignorant of Mankind and depending upon their Intention too which may defeat the Miracle All this dishonours the very Name of Christian Religion and is so heavy and intollerable a Gabel Excise and Tax upon the Religious Sense of Mankind as must needs eat out the whole Life Power and Reverence of it And therefore it is worthy the Notice Prevention and Correction of so grand an Assembly as the King the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons of the Nation met in Parliament and the Seclusion of all Persons from so sage and awful a Convention who are under so great a Slavery as not to renounce it For as Moses testifies The wife Laws of a Nation in Religion give it an Estimation of a Wise Great and Honourable Nation If therefore a Parliament secures the Rights and Properties of the Nation from any Impositions upon their Estates but with their own Consent How justly may it doe the same against any Illegal Impositions upon their Faith And whereas this Transubstantitaion is attempted to be brought into Parallel and placed in the Rank of other great Mysteries of the Christian Religion as of the Blessed Father Son and Spirit One God of the Hypostatical Vnion and Incarnation of Jesus Christ besides the Intrinsick difference of the one and of the other There is this vast distance That those Supreme Revelations are Heavenly Divine retir'd in Meditation Holy Rational Discourse and Spiritual Adorations But this of Transubstantiation while it does nothing offers nothing to Sense to Reason or so much as to Faith from Divine Revelation but by Gross Letter a Figurative Spiritual Proposition into condensating pressing and incrassating it pretends to a real Operation or conversion of Bread into the Body without any such thing But yet as if such a thing were seen to be indeed done Mercenary Priests play all the Tricks of Gesture Posture Elevation Geniculation with the whole Train of Attendant Frauds too many to be mention'd upon the Score of a dull coarse Cheat even in Handicraft and Legerdemain in Mechanicks All which Imposture is indeed not onely Morally but Naturally impossible ever to be understood 3. It ought above all other Points in Popery to be the Subject of a Test-Act because it hath above all other Points of Popish Falshood been made the Test of Vassalage and Slavery and as it were that very Mark of the Beast joyn'd with the Idolatrie of Adoration and Image-Worship and of the Receiving his Name and Worshipping his Image which all must receiv or be kill'd and none must buy or sell that the Psuedo Spiritual Excommunication may be pursued with secular Anathema's upon all who will not bear this Cognisance of the Bestian Usurpation In short This hath been the central Point from which and into which have Flowed all the Cruelties Persecutions Massacres deluges of Bloud that have been pour'd out Bloud of Men Women and Children Sacrific'd at this Altar that have made it indeed an Altar of Bloud an Altar where real Flesh and Bloud have been Offered and to say The Bread and Wine have been so Transubstantiated into the Body and Bloud of Martyrs were much nearer Truth Here have been the so-much unheard-of Barbarities and Inhumanities that would make a Historie of Transubstantiation Truth indeed could it be had worth th' having to justifie the Test and such a one that certainly could never upon the Account of so blessed a Religion and of a Sacrifice of such infinite Grace as that of Jesus Christs Offering himself once for all for Mankind have entred into the Heart of any Man were it not that such a very detestable Bestial Power that bears at this very time and hath long born a Citie or False Church in which wil be found the Bloud of Prophets and Apostles and that is Drunk with the Bloud of Saints and of the Martyrs of Jesus is made known unto us in the Revelation Now all this is matter of known Historie and of evident Fact How justly therefore is Power and Trust endeavour'd to be surprized by a Protestant Parliament from such hands that dare not disown Principles so doub le dyed in

Bloud on the account of which such Butcheries and Burnings of Men alive have been committed that the so mis-stil'd Barbaritie and Inhumanitie of the Test-Act compared herewith is not only Mercie andHonor to the Persons concerned but a Monument of greatest Equitie and Philanthropie or Love to Humane Nature to endeavour to extinguish out of the Nation the very Principles of so much Bloud-Guiltiness and Bloud-Thirst of the greater heinousness becaus if the Bishop be to be credited in the Case it was for not believing a Transubstantiation which it was Morally impossible for those Martyrs to know and such abstrusities which they neither did nor could nor indeed ought to understand 4. To press and force a litteral Sense upon the Holy Scriptures Free Familiar Condescension to our Weakness in expressing things of a high Spiritual Nature in such Language as we in Humane Bodies most easily take things into our minds by as in the Sacrament the real Spiritual Union and Communication of the Value Vertue and Efficacy of the Sacrifice of Christ Himself and in the Union of and Communion and Communication of his Spirit to us is express'd by eating his Body and drinking his Bloud Now I say to force a litteral Sense upon this is such a piece of Rudeness Barbaritie and Ingratitude that if the same measure were meeted to all other parts of Scripture would even in the Judgment of those very Men who are either Atheists or Bigots in this matter not only turn it into Horrible and Abominable Burlesque but even Martyr and Murther those two Witnesses as some have expounded them To vindicate therefore those Sacred Volumes the Pandects of our most Holy Religion from having to do with so mid-night and Sphingian a Riddle in so plain and merciful an Institution so humble and even Domestic in a spiritual Sense as the Lord's Supper is a Riddle set on work to so much Cruelty and Bloud-shed is worthy the Spirit of a truely Christian and nobly English Senate and to set the danger of its return into use at the utmost impossibility Humane Providence could attain without the expectation of Miracle For what is meant by Transubstantiation the Bishop himself says is altogether unknown and uncertain especially to the persons chiesly concern'd viz. the Nobility and Gentry of the Nation and which they neither do can nor ought to know What obligation can they then have to believe it except with such a blind Faith as all Religion and Reason abhors However if they have no Faith concerning so fugitive a thing that like a shadow cannot be catch'd or like the Phantom of a Body that hath no flesh and bones to be seen and felt as all Bodies have and as Christ as it were prophetically expos'd his Body to the Experiment of when it was really there that no such Imposture concerning it should be palm'd upon the World I say if the Nobility and Gentry have no Faith of such a thing why may they not profess and declare they do not believe it For the Bishop seems either not to be awake or to dissemble a slumber that his Discourse of mens swearing to any thing his Burlesque on the famous Burgesses of Oxon and his Appeal to the Honourable Members concerning their Idea's of Transubstantiation and the Babel thence arising the whole Notion is indeed a Babalism or pertaining to Babylon the Great had been very good if the Test had requir'd them to declare their belief of such a Transubstantiation But now his Arguments hunt counter and impeach the Roman Tyranny of horrid Murthers upon persons for not believing what they neither do can nor ought to know what they can so hardly pronounce the sound of much less hammer the sturdy sullen Notion it self For who can know what there is no knowledge of But what more innocent than to declare when lawfully requir'd though before the Searcher of Hearts a man does not believe what he cannot nor ought to know nor so much as anvil a Notion of If it were never so true real knowable and worthy to be believed any one might without guilt when justly demanded to do so declare he did not believe it while he knew it not so as to find reason to believe it it were double Hypocrisie to do otherwise and all the Bishop's arguing and storying can never make it otherwise Indeed the whole recoyles upon himself and dashes out the brains of all he hath writ upon it which sure he crasly oversaw or thought all his Readers were such Fools as to be couzen'd with the gloss For if the infidelitie were ever so culpable it were a Dutie when adjur'd by a Law to declare it but how can the infidelitie be blam'd when after the Bishop's hunting down the Notion through the whole Historie of the Controversie He hath prey'd only upon a Ghost miss'd of all comprehension and he pronounces the summ and result of all to be what is meant by that Transubstantiation is a thing altogether uncertain and unknown and there is no one thing in which Christendom more both agrees and differs all Parties agree in the Thing and differ in the manner Now it so happens the Test was so sagaciously compos'd though it might lawfully have done much more that it modestly leaves the Thing free and requires only to declare a Belief of such Manner of Transubstantiation as of the Elements of Bread and Wine into the Bodie and Bloud of Christ and requires the Declarers own Belief alone and nothing of censure upon any others Belief in this branch of the Test which surely any man may lawfully make that makes it truly and seeing the whole Issue of the Notion is Scepticism the Bishop himself being Judg and what can the man do that comes after the ishop may not every man then say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I do not comprehend it therefore I do not believe it Indeed if there were Revelation for it like what there is concerning the Father Word and Spirit one God concerning the Incarnation and Hypostatic Vnion of the Eternal Word with Humane Nature leaning not on figurative expression but plain assertion wrought into all the discourse and whole Argument of Scripture all Disputes were silenc'd But when there is no pretext of Revelation but such a manner of speaking as if it were press'd alike into a literal sense through the whole Book of God it must overthrow all Theologie To refuse then a Figure there where it is so absolutely necessary that else Christ must eat his own flesh while it remain'd entire before the Apostles and drink his own bloud while it was circulating in his Veins and no amaze nor so much as question upon it is such a setting the Scripture to be broken upon the Wheel such a Barbarity as exceeds a thousandfold all the Barbarities and Inhumanities spoken of throughout the Bishop's whole Book Especially when our Lord declares in a like manner of speaking and doubts upon it His words were spirit and

life and the flesh profited nothing Why then should men bring the Scripture to the Engine to torture it into the confession of what as God speaks never came into his heart And so I may fairly dismiss the Bishop's longsom Historie of Transubstantiation seeing the mouth of his Canon turns upon himself for what he can and what should a man be shie of in declaring his Non-belief of what is against all the sense and reason of mankind what hath no ground in Revelation and what all the Wits and Subtilties the Canonists and School-men yea the very Councils of the Roman Vassalage can when set upon the utmost stretch make nothing of but a meer Babel if we may believe the Bishop in what he determines upon the whole search in favour of it Not like Solomon's conclusion of the matter into the whole of man but like the conclusion of Babel all was Jargon Nonsense Confusion and Rubbish and worse than that the conclusion will be like that of Babylon the Great a perpetual Desolation and Burning They therefore who have like Slaves bor'd their Ears to this spiritual Egyptian slavery and under the Plague of its Darkness to be even felt how just is it to disengage them from taking the Rights of their Prince and Country into their trust whether their contented Slavery rise from some weak part or a worse depravedness which inclines their always bowed down Backs and their Eyes laden with slumber under such a monstrous Bigottism I come therefore to consider of the second Proposition which however it runs in the Bishop's Text is thus express'd in the Test And that the Invocation or Adoration of the Virgin Mary or any other Saint and the Sacrifice of the Mass as they are now used in the Church of Rome are superstitious and idolatrous In which although I confess in my own Judgment the very Extremity as of Sense that the words can reach are supported by the demerit of the things Declared against Yet because it is a Test publickly offered the refusal of which suspends so great an Interest as all share in Government as the Bishop expresses it It will not be unfit to observe all the Lenitives that are by the Prudence of the Composers whoever they were it makes no matter contriv'd into it 1. Therfore I do believe is prefix'd to the whole Test by common Equity of Construction to be supplyed I do believe the first Proposition That in the Sacrament c. And in the second I do believe that the Invocation c. Now it is Evident a Man may Swear to his own Belief if he knows he does really so Believe although he be mistaken in the grounds of his Belief because it is onely matter of Fact within himself 2. There is a Limitation As these things are us'd and now us'd in the Church of Rome whether by express Command or by Approbation or Connivence so that the very grossness and stupidity of the most Dull and Ignorant who stick in the very thick Matter and are able to extricate themselves as the finer Wits pretend to do are to be taken into that Vsage and that most Meritoriously seeing if the Church of Rome leads such unwary and unapprehensive Persons in Obedience to it to the very brink of the Precipice into so deep and impure a Mud and that so unnecessarily it is to be chang'd with the Vsages as in it self And then those words of the Test As it is now used signifies the first beginnings of these things were not so fresh as now they are arriv'd to be 3. In that the word Superstitious is first set as the lesser and most undoubted and then not the downright full-out word Idolatry but Idolatrous It takes off the full Blow of the Censures for Idolatry imports a great danger suspicion and nearness to Idolatry but not absolute Idolatry it self And this the Bishop ought in all candid dealing to have taken Notice of and to have allowed the Caution with which the Test is worded for the Stabbing and Cut-throat word Idolatry is not used and so the Piquancy of that his remark false But letting slip all things that do not enter into the substance of the matter it is first to be observed that absolutely and in earnest all that dreadful Representation of the punishment of Idolatry in this World is disown'd by all sober Christians and those rigid Laws or any such Zelotic Spirit of Elias as among the Jews on the account of Idolatry are reversed under the milder temper and more moderate climate of Christian Religion and the compassionate Spirit of it as repeated by our Saviour expresly in those words to the Disciples that were for demanding Fire from Heaven upon the Samaritans Luke 9.54 To which our Lord rejoyned Ye know not what spirit ye are of the Son of man came not to destroy mens lives but to save them We disown all such torrid Enthusiasm where-ever it is found upon this Authority and such Ravagings upon the Lives of men meerly for their notwithstanding so great delusions in so plain a point of Divine Worship are not so much as thought of in the Test Cruelties and inhumanities of that kind are left as the proper Inheritance of the Idolatrous who indeed cut Throats and cause innocent Persons to pass through the Fire alive in the rage of their Moloch-Sacrafice And I am fully perswaded the principal end of the Test-Act was to secure the Lives and Fortunes of a Protestant Nation from the fury and blood-thirstiness of that name of Religion by which it is as much known as the Scarlet and Purple it is arraied in and that in the Historie of some Ages past and so cannot but be still suspected The prevention indeed of such the public practise of those Superstitions and Idolatrousnesses is worthy the care of a Protestant Magistracy to prevent and to take care the Contagion may not spread much less that a Protestant Kingdom should come under the Girdle of its Ministerial Government although with all Loyalty it owns their Soveraign according to the Christian Law and of the Nation and then for to set such Bounds to it as may most indemnifie it self But for the securities of Divine Justice upon Idolatry whenever they com to be manifested they wil be just and bring their conviction along with them which may be speedier than men are aware the Measure of Iniquity growing now full as of more then one God is Idolatry so of more than one Mediator is a Parallell Idolatry And as letting fall any glances of Respect upon any Creature Person or Thing Angel or Diamon Sun Moon or Stars or the inferiour Creatures as partial Gods conveying the Benifits of the Supreme God to us is foul Idolatry so any partial or inferiour Mediators are alike Idolatry under the Gospel And as the making to our selves any likeness either in Heaven above or the Earth beneath c. as a Medium to Worship God by so the making to our selves