Selected quad for the lemma: saint_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
saint_n	incense_n	prayer_n	smoke_n	1,391	5	11.4786	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A94720	The female duel, or The ladies looking glass. Representing a Scripture combate about business of religion, fairly carried on, between a Roman Catholick lady, and the wife of a dignified person in the Church of England. Together with their joynt answer to an Anabaptists paper sent in defiance of them both: entitled the Dipper drowned. / Now published by Tho. Toll Gent.	Toll, Thomas.	1661 (1661)	Wing T1776A; Thomason E1813_2; ESTC R209780	171,193	328

dare presently to thrust himself before his divine Majesty that he has offended but by mediators and intercessors The wisest of Kings Solomon rose up to meet his mother and bowed himself unto her 1 Kings 2.19 and caused a throne to be set for his mother and she sate on his right hand and shall not Jesus Christ a greater and a wiser than Solomon honour his mother in the like kinde It is most manyfest that the Angells are assisting to us and pray for us Mat. 2.8 Mark 12 Psalm 33 then why should not we pray to them and there is the same reason for the saints as for the Angells who are their equalls in heaven as we finde in the holy Gospells Psalm 90. how freequently in the Psalmes does the Royal prophet speak of Gods sending his Angells to snatch us out of dangers to gard us and to keep us in all our ways c. Then we finde in the Prophet Zachcariah Zach. 1.12.13 how the Angel of the Lord interceded for the people in these words O Lord of Hoste how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem Heb. 1.7 and on the Cities of Judah against which thon hast bad indignation these threescore and ten years and the Lord answered the Angell with good words and comfortable words Then S. Acts 12.12.7 8. Paul calls the Angels minnistring spirits and we finde how freequently they have delivered Gods servants as S. Peter out of prison c. now I say if it be in the power of the Angells in heaven to help us by their prayers the same reason will hold for the saints who are as the Evangelists aforesaid tell us their equalls both in their favour and power with God And that they do too is as manifest for the Lord has sometimes sought for a saint to stand in the gap as he saies himself in Ezeckiel Ezek. 22.30.31 and I sought for a man amongst them that should make up the hedge and stand in the gap before me for the land that I should not destroy it but I found none therefore have I powred out mine indignation upon them I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath c. therefore did the Lord do it for want of an acceptable intercesor But it is most cleer in the Apocalyps Revel 4. 5. how the four beasts and four and twenty elders are continually falling down before the Lamb and interceding for the faithfull on earth with their Violls full of precious oyntments which are the prayers of the saints And then again it is expressly said that another Angell came and stood at the Altar haveing a golden censer Revel 8.3.4 and there was given unto him much incense that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden Alter which was before the Throne and the smoke of the incense which came with the prayers of the faints ascended up before God out of the Angels hand c. If yet there be any doubt remaining me thinks meer reason raised from a most undoubted Scripture should cleer this point as first we finde and I thinke no body questions it that Jesus Christ as he is man does continually interde for all mankinde especially his faithfull ones if any man does doubt let him look into S. Paul to the Romans Rom. 8. Heb. 7. and Hebrews where it is positively said in divers places that Jesus Christ does constantly interecde for us And S. John tells us if any man have sinned 1 John 2. we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous and he is the propitiation for our sins nor for our sins onely but for the sins of the whole world If therefore Christ our head according to his humanity pray for us why should not his members the saints that rain with him and are conformable to him intercede likewise in their proportion for their fellow members uppon earth for we are all members of the same mysticall body Again the liveing pray for one another and frequently obtain Exod. 17 31. Mat. 15. Luke 7. Acts 17. Collos 4.2 2 Thes 3.1 as Moses pray'd and obtained for the people the woman of Canan for her daughter the Centurion for his servant Paul for those that sailed with him Nay S. Paul desired the Colossians to be instant in prayer and particularly for himself and so to the Thessalonians he says finally hretheren pray for us that the word of the Lord may have free course c. If therefore the living may pray for one another why may not the glorifyed saints in heaven do the same for us who are more perfect in charity more powerfull with God and more pure in understanding for if they may not pray for us as the living do it would appear unworthy of Christs grace and favour to them which we cannot apprehend or it must be because it is a purpose of the excellency that it is fiting onely for Christ himself to do it and no person else and then it will not be lawfull for us mortals to pray for one another But that we know the contrary by what has been before set down and as S. Paul does earnestly beseech the Romans Rom. 15.30.31 James 5.16 for the Lord Jesus Christ sake and for the love of the Spirit that they pray to God for him So I do humbly beseech the blessed mother of God and all the saints of heaven to pray for me and all the world besides And so as S. Iames adviseth us let us pray one for another that we may be saved I pray you heer take notice that I have made use of no Scripture out of Baruch the Machabees or any parts of Scripture which you question for Apocrypha though by all the Canons of the Church they are received so I proceed To what you alledge against our use of images which you call an abominable and idolatorrious doctrine I answer thus To the first I say that God Allmighty in that commandment has sufficiently explained his own minde both in the precedent and subsequent words for as he did forbid the worship of strange Gods so he forbide the Images of them to be erected But we worship not the saint for Gods therefore we are not at all prohibited by that commandment to set up their Images For in the first place he saies thou shalt have no strange Gods before me then follows thou shalt not make to thee any graven Image c. then last of all thou shalt not bow down to them nor worship them see then the whole drift of that commandment is evident that Images should not be made to that end and purpose and so we concur with you For if to make and erect Images were absolutly and in it self unlawfull then it would follow that Moses himself had sinnd immediately after the giving of that commandment nay that God Almighty had shewed the first way to breake his own commandment for God commanded

Moses thus Exod. 25.18 And thou shalt make two Cherubims of Gold of beaten work shalt thou make them in the two ends of the mercy seat It would likewise follow 1 King 7 that Solomon had sinnd in his Architecture of the Temple when he made twelve litle Lions and set them over the Throne And when he made Oxen Lions and Cherubims or brasen bases Thus we see the end to which those Images are made and erected does alltogether alter the case To the Second I grant that Hezekiah broke the brasen serpents Image therefore must the Image of Christ and his saints be broken I deny it First because the Image of the brazen serpent was made by Moses 2 Kings 18. that they which were bitten by the firey serpents should look upon it and be healed so long as that end lasted the Image lasted but that ceasing it was fit for nothing else but to be broken Then the brazen serpent began to be an occasion of idolatry and they burnt incense to it so then it ought to be broken but the Image of Christ and his saints cannot be occasions of that amongst Christians for we retain the use of Images only as they are the representations of him from whom we have received so great benefits and of those his blessed servants who are to be our examples To the Third I grant to you that God is and ought to be worshipt in Spirit and in truth which that we may do the better we make use of images for they put us in mind of our duties and call us to a remembrance of those benefits we have received which cannot but inspire a devotion into a heart of stone And why I would fain know or wherein a spiritual worship should be at all hindred by the sight of an image more then the opperation of Sacraments be taken off by the sensible signes whereunder they lye and as under those visible signs we receive an invisible grace so are we led by the visible images of Christ and his Saints to the true and spiritual worship of those things invisible of which they are but the representations To the fourth I say there can be no danger at all of Idolatry amongst Christians for there is none so simple but knows that the veneration that is used referres not at all to the image of wood Stone or Brass but to the prototype or person represented and that is enough to rectifie their intentions then for the danger of unclean thoughts there is care sufficiently taken by the Church to inhibite Painters and Carvers all manner of laciviousness or probable dispositions towards it Then as to your argument that you think is so strange and in your opinion caries horns with it you will finde upon better examination that they are but a pair of ears You say either images are commanded or they are not if they be then we are to shew it in Scripture if they be not then you say it must follow that it must be a will worship or Idolatry I answer some things are commanded in Scripture and yet not to be observed as the observation of the Sabbath day holy or sanctifying it as the Scripture speaks as also the forbearing of things strangled and of blood c. It is enough to satisfie any reasonable Christian that the Church hath appointed images to be set up for the use of Christians as I say for profitable and almost necessary expedients to their devotion So I return your horn'd argument upon your self thus either to sanctifie or celebrate the Lords day that is the first day of the week is commanded or it is not if it be let Scripture be shew'd for it if it be not then it is will worship a fond and a vain thing to do it and that I am sure none of your Church will ever yeeld to That the use of Images is lawfull and profitable in the Church of God I prove by Scripture thus I must confess we have nothing express in the the new Testament for it and the reason I conceive was the fierceness of the primitive persecution which would hardly permit the persons of Christians to meet much less to adorn their meeting places with images or any thing else And yet we have it by universal Tradition that the use of images is Apostolicall and that we have our authority for the use of them from the Apostles themselves Then we have in our Ecclesiastical histories as how our Saviour sent his picture to Abagarus King of the Edessens which is yet as I am informed preserved and to be seen at Genoa Then we have again in the same story that our Saviour himself imprest the picture of his countenance upon a piece of linen cloth which he gave to Veronica by the virtue of which picture the Emperour Tiberius was recovered from a dangerous disease and for that reason Cesar would have decreed to Christ divine honours Then again we have in history and clear Tradition that S. Luke the Evangelist did draw the picture of the blessed virgin which was for many ages preserved in great veneration and to say that there were no Painters Mark 22 Carvers or Engravers in that age is most extreamly false for we finde our Saviour asking in the Gospel whose image and superscription is this But all this I must pass by because we have resolved to insist onely upon Scripture and in the old Testament we finde enough First we finde in Exodus as a foresaid Exod. 25.18 and thou shalt make two Cherubims of gold of beaten work shalt thou make them in the two ends of the mercy-seat Numb 21.8 Then we finde the Lord saying to Moses make thee a fiery Serpent and set it upon a Pole and it shall come to pass that every one that is bitten when he looketh upon it be shall live and Moses did so and it was a certain cure to them Now this Brazen Serpent was the figure or Type of Christ hanging upon the Cross for as they that were bitten by the fiery Serpents were cured by looking upon the Brazen Serpent so all they that are bitten by the devil are cured by a faithful looking upon Jesus Christ Crucified as we finde in the Gospel of S. John from whence I think I may conclude The figure must of necessity be of less value than the thing that is figured as Moses who was likewise the figure of Christ was of much less value then Christ himself the Paschal Lamb less to be esteemed then our Eucharist and circumcision than Baptism If then the image of the Brazen Serpent was honour'd as we know it was how much more ought the image of Christ be honoured nay it is plain that the Serpent had not been honoured at all but as it was the figure or shadow of the image of Christ upon the Cross nor had it cured those that were bitten by the fiery Serpents but by the virtue of Christ who cures still