Selected quad for the lemma: saint_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
saint_n	intercession_n	mediator_n	redemption_n	1,722	5	9.9845	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56600	An answer to a book, spread abroad by the Romish priests, intituled, The touchstone of the reformed Gospel wherein the true doctrine of the Church of England, and many texts of the Holy Scripture are faithfully explained / by the Right Reverend Father in God, Symon, Lord Bishop of Ely.	Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.	1692 (1692)	Wing P745; ESTC R10288	116,883	290

Nay his own Sixtus Senensis saith upon the like place though Noah Daniel and Job stood before me that the Prophet speaks upon a supposition that if such men as they were in this sinful World they should deliver none c. God would not hear them for such a wicked People It is of no consequence what Baruch saith being never reputed a Canonical Book and according to his own Rule in his Preface ought to pass for nothing unless he had prov'd the same that Baruch saith by places of Canonical Writ Besides III. Baruc 4. dead Israelites may mean no more but those now dead who when they were alive prayed as their Posterity now did And so Nich. Lyra understands by dead Israelies the holy Patriarchs and Prophets who when they were alive prayed for the good Estate of their Posterity Or dead may signify those whose condition was so low that they could do nothing for themselves as he describes all Israel v. 10. that they were accounted with them that go down into the grave that is dead men This I will stand to it is an Interpretation they cannot confute Theodoret doth say that these words clearly prove the immortality of the Soul and that 's all I see no reason why II. Rev. 26 27. may not be interpreted of the preferment Christ promised in this world to those who should keep his words i. e. fulfil his Commands to the end of that present persecution But if it relate to the other World Menochius a better Interpreter than he expresly saith that Christ speaks of the power which the Saints shall exercise in the day of judgment over all Nations which did not obey Christ judging them with Christ and delivering them to the punishment of eternal death Agreeable to what we read III. Wisd 8. They shall judge the Nations and have dominion over the people St. Austin hath not a word of this matter upon the second Psalm but only says these words ruling with a Rod of iron is as much as with inflexible Justice We see what th●se men would bring things to it they be let alone The Saints may be looked upon now as Rulers of this World by a power imparted unto them from Christ who hath thus established them this man saith over the Nations He should have shewn us where he reads this for we cannot find it here But this leads him into reasoning again finding so little help in his express Scriptures and that is as weak as all the rest For it is out of a Parabolical Scripture before-named from which all acknowledge Arguments ought not to be drawn And besides it is not a Prayer to Abraham but such a request as we make one to another here when we want relief What St. Austin saith on this place is not worth the searching after for it will prove no more than what he quotes out of his XVth Sermon de verb. Apostol he should have said the XVIIth where he distinguisheth between the Commemoration that was made of the Martyrs at the Altar and of other Faithful persons For the l●tter they prayed but this would have been an injury he thinks to the Martyrs by whose Prayers we rather should be recommended to God But this signifies no more than a general recommendation of the Church to God's Mercy His next Father St. H●lary speaks only of what Angels do not of Saints And I gave an account of that before but for want of company he brings him in again He concludes with Damascen a Father that lived almost Eight hundred years after Christ and was so credulous as to vouch it for a Truth That Trajan's Soul was delivered out of H ll by Gregory 's Prayers and saith The whole world witnesseth it Which all the world now even their own Church believes to be a fable And yet this Damascen s●ith no more but that they are to be honoured as those that make Intercession to God for us that is for the Church XXXIII That we ought not to beseech God to grant our Prayers in favour of the Saints or their merits nor do we reeeive any benefit thereby Answer IT is no small favour that we can get so much truth out of him as to confess That this is one way of their Praying by the Mediation of Saints to beseech God to grant their desires in favour of them and their merits For some of his brethren mince the matter and say they only desire the Saints to pray for them But their Missals and Breviaries confute such men as notorious dissemblers for there are abundance of Prayers like this That * Decemb. VI. by the Merits and Prayers of St. Nicholas God would deliver them from the fire of Hell Which if it be an allowable way of Praying I do not see but the Saints are Mediators of Redemption as well as of Intercession as they are wont to distinguish for by their merits is a great deal more than by their Intercession And if they intercede by their merits wherein do they fall short of Christ who by his Merits redeemed us and in virture of the same Merits intercedes for us But let us hear his Scriptures which the Reader may take notice are every one of them out of the Old Testament during which according to the common Doctrine of their Church the Souls of pious men were held in a Limbus remote from God in the borders of Hell and therefore could not be Intercessors with God much less plead their merits This is enough to overthrow his whole Discourse in this Chapter yet to shew his folly a little more fully I am content to consider them particularly The first is XXXII Exod. 13. which he hath the confidence to say XXXII Exod. 13. is against us in express words when there is no mention of merit and the sense is evidently declared in the Text it self which speaks of the Oath of God to those great men Abraham Isaac and Jacob shewing that Moses his Prayer was grounded not upon their merit but upon God's gracious Covenant with them confirmed by his Oath XXVI Gen. 3. Which is the sense of Theodoret also whom this man most shamefully belies in the place by him quoted Moses mentions the name of the Patriarchs instead of supplication and remembers the Oaths made to them and begs that the Covenants wherein he was engaged to them might stand firm Who would trust such a man as this who makes Theodoret say that Moses added the intercession of the holy Patriarchs thinking himself insufficient when he only saith he mentioned their name as men i. e. in covenant with God instead of supplication And thus he deals with St. Austin or rather worse who in the place he mentions saith not a word of Abraham Isaac and Jacob but only of Moses whose merits were so great with God as his most faithful Servant that God saith Let me alone c. upon which Passage he makes this reflection We are admonished hereby that when our

merits have so loaded us as to make us not beloved of God we may be relieved by the merits of those whom God doth love For when he saith Let me alone that I may destroy them what is it but to say I would have destroyed them had they not been beloved of thee Now what is this to the meritorious intercession of the Saints in the other World when he speaks of the merits as his phrase is of Moses here on Earth I have been the longer in this 2 Chron. VI. 16. because it will serve to answer all the rest For in 2 Chron. VI. 16. the Prayer expresly relies upon the promise God had made to his Servant David not upon David's merits In the next place CXXXII Psal 1. CXXXII Psal 1. God is desired to remember David's afflictions but how doth it appear that they merited If this Psalm was made by David as many think from the first 8 Verses of it sure he was not so immodest as to plead his own merits with God The truth is the Penner of this Psalm whoever he was most likely Solomon puts God in mind of David and his fidelity to him under all his sufferings because of the Covenant God had made and confirmed by an Oath with that pious man v. 10 11 12. He doth wisely only to name the next place 2 Chron. I. 9. for the words are expresly against him which are these Now O Lord God let thy promise unto David my Father be established But the alledging LXIII Isa 17. argues gross Ignorance for it 's a plain desire God would return to them for the sake of the Twelve Tribes of Israel which contain'd his people who were his inheritance as Menochius and indeed the Text it self expounds it And this desire is founded upon the above-named Covenant Promise or Oath made to their Fathers which he may find in a number of Places 1 King VIII 25 26. 2 Chron. XXI 7. LXXXIX Psal 3 4. Why he adds the two next places unless to make a show I cannot imagine For H ster's Apocryphal Prayer hath nothing in it sounding this way but only those words O God of Abraham And David only says 1 Chron. XXIX 8. O God of Abraham Isaac and Israel our Fathers Which no Man in the World but himself I believe will take to be naming them for his Intercessors as he speaks when they evidently signify the favour and kindness God had to them which he hoped he would graciously continue according to his Promise unto his People Israel The last place XX. Exod. 5. is a direct Confutation of all that he saith for it mentions not the Merits of good Men but the Mercy which God will show unto thousands of them that love him and keep his Commandments God of his infinite Mercy put an end to the reign of these Men who thus fouly abuse his holy word that they may no longer pervert the right way of the Lord and mislead his People into pernicious Errors XXXIV That we ought not expresly to pray them to pray or intercede to God for us Answer HEretofore the words were these That we may not pray to them which is the true point But now they are changed into We may not pray them to pray for us As if the Church of Rome did no more than this when it is manifest they pray directly to them and Invocation according to their Doctrine is a part of that Worship which is due to them whereas praying them to pray for us as one man desires another to do hath nothing of worship in it He could not go on to deal sincerely as he had begun in the former Section Truth is a very great stranger to them and their great business is to misrepresent both our Opinion and their own Luk. XVI 24. The very first Scripture also which he quotes over again if it prove any thing proves more than he would have us think is their Opinion For the Man doth not say I pray Father Abraham pray for me but have mercy on me But I have told him before this is a Parable which he will by no means allow and thinks to choke us with the Voice of ten Renowned and Ancient Fathers who all affirm this to be a true History and not a Parable But this Man hath very ill luck with his Fathers for the very first he mentions who should have been one of the last Theophylact not only calls it a Parable but is so confident of it that he says they think foolishly so it is in the Greek tho in the Latin they leave out that word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 foolishly who take it for an History The Reader I believe blushes for this Man who if he could or would have look'd into Maldonate a Jesuit of no mean note he might have found several other Fathers whom Theophylact follows in this opinion And St. Chrysostome among the rest who indeed sometimes says it is a History but doth not say as this Man makes him that it is not a Parable And if the Cause must be carried by the Voices of Fathers I can name him more than Ten or a Dozen who say the Souls of the Faithful do not enjoy the Glorious Vision of God till the Resurrection And therefore Saints can neither know our Prayers nor are to be invoked as he concludes merely from this Parable Concerning which I think both Maldonate and Menochius two considerable Jesuits have very judiciously resolved for the quieting of this doubt whether it be History or Parable that it is both For that there was a rich man and a poor called Lazarus that the one when he died went to Hell and the other was carried to Abraham's Bosome is a History But that the rich man talk'd with Abraham and desired him to send Lazarus to cool his Tongue with a drop of Water is a Parable adjoyned to the History for they that are in Hell do not ask Courtesies of the Saints Now it happens unfortunately for this man that what he grounds his Argument upon falls within that part which is Parable Father Abraham have mercy on me Which Maldonate judiciously observes is a form of Speech which Beggers use as they lye in the High-way showing their sores and well represents how Lazarus and he had changed Conditions Lazarus was poor here and the rich man stript of all there Here the rich man enjoyed his pleasure and there Lazarus rejoyced No man of sense can reject this Interpretation And yet this Writer cries out Lo two Saints are here prayed to and besought in one verse Nay he hath the Confidence to ask us For God-sake where are your Eyes Truly mine are newly open this morning when men are wont to be most sober and I can see none to whom the rich man addresses his Request but Abraham alone How this man came to see double I leave it to himself to consider Here is not a word said to Lazarus in this Parable