Selected quad for the lemma: saint_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
saint_n	pray_v	prayer_n	supplication_n	1,875	5	11.3215	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28839	An exposition of the doctrine of the Catholique Church in the points of controversie with those of the pretended reformation by James Benignus Bossüet, counseller in the King's counsels, Bishop and Lord of Condom, tutor to His Royal Hyghness the Dolphin of France ; translated into English by W.M.; Exposition de la doctrine de l'Eglise catholique sur les matières de controverse. English	Bossuet, Jacques Bénigne, 1627-1704.; Montagu, Walter, 1603?-1677.	1672 (1672)	Wing B3782; ESTC R30305	47,803	218

vtility of Prayer to Saints aduiseth vs to pray in the same spirit of charity and according to that order of fraternall society which moues vs to request the succors of our bretheren liuing vpon the earth and the Catechisme of the Councel of Trent concludeth of this doctrine that if the quality of Mediator which the holy Scripture attributeth to CHRIST IESVS did receiue any preiudice by the intercession of Saints who reigne with God almighty that it would haue the same diminution by the offices and mediations of the faithfull who are liuing with us This Catechisme informeth vs clearly of the extreame difference between the manner of our imploring the succour of God that of our solliciting the contributions of the Saints for thus it says We pray to God either to giue vs good things or to deliuer vs from ill but by reason the Saints are more acceptable to him then we our selfs we request of them their protection sue to them they would obteyn for vs these things we stand in need of And hence it is that we vse two kinds of prayer very different since when we address to God the proper style is HAVE PITTY ON VS BEPLEASED TO HARKEN TO VS but we account it sufficient when we recurr to Saints to beseech them to PRAY FOR VS Whereby we must vnderstand that in what termes soeuer the prayers we offer to Saints are styled the intention of the Church of the Supplicants reduceth them alwayes vnto this forme as the same Catechisme confirmeth in the processe of that discourse But it will not be amisse to consider the words themselfs of the Councel which intending to prescribe to the Bishops in what manner they should speake of the inuocacation of Saints obligeth them to teach that the Saints who reigne with CHRIST IESVS offer to God their prayers for men that it is good and vsefull to inuoke them by way of supplication and to haue recourse to their succours assistances to obtayne of God his benefits through his Sonne our Lord CHRIST IESVS who alone is our Sauiour Redeemer And in order to this declaration the Councel condemneth those who teach a contrary doctrine whereby it is euident that to inuoke the Saints according to the intent of this Councel is to resort to their prayers for the obteyning the blessings and benefits of God by CHRIST IESVS And in truth what we obteyne by the interuention of Saints we acquire only by CHRIST IESVS and in his name since the Saintsthemselfs intercede but by CHRIST IESVS and obteyne their graunts but in his name This is the Faith of the Catholique Church wh ch the Councel of Trent hath cleerly explained in few words after which euidence we cannot conceaue how it can be obiected that we depart remoue our selfs from CHRIST IESVS when we supplicate his members which are also ours his children who are our brothers and his Saints who are our first fruits to ioyne their prayers to ours offering them both to our common Master in the name of our common Mediator The same Councel explaines cleerly in few words the meaning of the Church when it offers to God the holy sacrifice to honor the memory of the Saints That honor we render them in the act of Sacrifice consists in mentioning their names as of the faithfull seruants of God in the prayers we addresse to him thankes-giuings and prayses for the victories they haue obteyned and in humbly mouing his condescending in our fauor by their Intercessions S. Augustin hath declared 1200 years past that none ought to conceiue the Sacrifice as offered to the holy Martyrs although by the custome in practise euen in those tymes vniuersally by the Church the Sacrifice was offered vpon their holy bodies vnto their memories that is to be vnderstood before the places wherein their pretious Reliques were conserued and the same father sayth further that commemoration was made of the Martyrs at the holy table at the celebration of the Sacrifice not intending to pray for them as we doe for other dead but rather in order to their praying for vs. I alledge the perswasion of this holy Bishop by reason the Councel of Trent vseth almost the same words to instruct the faithfull that the Church offers not the Sacrifice vnto the Saints but to God alone who hath crown'd them and that the Priest doth not adresse himself to S. Peter or S. Paul saying I OFFER VNTO YOV THIS SACRIFICE but praysing God for their victories he implores their assistance to the end that they whose Commemoration we celebrate vpon Earth may be moued to pray for vs in Heauen This is the manner wherein we honour the Saints to obteyne graces and benefits from God by their Mediation and the cheifest of those fauors we hope to procure is that of being inabled for their imitation to which we are excited by contemplation of their admirable precedents and by the honour we pay in the presence of God to their blessed memories Whosoeuer shall rightly consider the doctrine we haue proposed will be forced to auowe that as we substract from God none of the perfections peculiar to his infinite essence so we doe not ascribe to Creatures any of those properties or operations the which can not sort but with God alone which doth so absolutely distinguish us from Idolaters that we can not conceiue vpon what ground they lay that imputation And when the Pretended Reformers obiect that in our addressing our prayer to Saints and in honouring them as if they were present all ouer the earth we attribute to them a kind of Immensity or at least the knowledge of the secret of harts which appears reserued singly to God by so many testimonies of the Scripture in this obiection they doe not apprehend our doctrine right for in fine abstracting from the ground we may haue to attribute to the Saints some certain degree of knowledge of such occurrencies as passe amongst vs or euen of our secret thoughts it is euident that it is no eleuation of the creature transcending its condition to affirme that it hath some notion of things by the light which God infuseth by his communication The example of the Prophets attests this clearly God hauing vouchsafed to discouer to them future euents although they seeme to be reserued much more specially to the Omniscience of God But besides this neuer any Catholique conceiued that the Saints by themselues did discerne our wants nor euen the desires for which we addresse particular prayers The Church is content to teach concurrently with all Antiquity that such prayers are very beneficiall to those who practise them whether the Saints apprehend them by the ministery commerce of Angels which according to the profession of the Church know what passeth amongst vs as being appointed by God's order as ministring spirits to concurre in the worke of our Saluation or be it that God himself acquainteth them with our

r Daillé hath writt a treatise intitled Faith grounded vpon the scripture wherein after having exposed all the articles of Faith professed by the Pretended-Reformed Church he Saith that They are without contest the Church of Rome professeth the beleife of them and true it is that they hold not all our opinions but that we hold all their beleefs Wherefore this Minister cannot deny our beleeuing all the principall articles of Christian Religion vnless he will destroy his own Faith But had not Mons r Daillé graunted this the matter proues it self since all the world knowes that we profess the beleife of all those articles which the Caluinists call Fundamentalls so that an ingenuous syncerity would allow vs without dispute this Assertion that we haue not waued or declined any of the Essential perswasions The Pretended-Reformers discerning the aduantages we may draw from this concession seeke to disapoint vs by alledging that we destroy those articles by asserting others which are inconsistent with them This is what they labour to euince by consequences they inferr from our doctrines but the same M r Daillé whome I produce to them not so much to conuīce them by the testimony of one of their most learned Ministers as in regard that what he saith being euident in it self teacheth them what they ought to beleiue of those sorts of consequences supposing that ill ones might be deriued from our Doctrine This is what he saith in his letter to Mons r de Monglat vpon the occasion of his Apologie Although the opinion of the Lutherans in point of the Eucharist inferres according to vs as well as that of Rome the destrūction of the humanity of CHRIST JESVS yet that consequence cannot be obiected to them without calumnie considering that they doe formally reiect it There is nothing more Essentiall to Christian Religion then the verity of the Humane Nature of JESVS-CHRIST and yet notwithstanding the Lutherans hold a doctrine from which is inferr'd a destruction of this Essentiall verity by consequences the Pretended-Reformers account euident they haue not scrupuled to offer them their communion in respect that their opinion hath no poyson in it as M r Daillé attesteth in his Apologie and their Nationall Synod held at Charenton in 1631 admits the Lutherans to their Communion vpon this ground that they agree in the principles and fundamentall points of their Religion It is therefore a maxime constantly established amōgst them that we ought not in this matter to consider the consequences which may be drawne from a Doctrine but simply what the party maintaineth and what he stateth who professeth it So that when by consequences they pretend to deduct from our Doctrine that we can not sufficiently acknowledg the souueraine glory due to God nor the quality of Saviour and Mediator in CHRIST JESVS nor the infinite dignity of Sacrifice nor the superaboundant plenitude of his merits we may easily defeate those consequences by this short answer which M r Daillé himself furnishes vs with by saying that the Catholique Church disclaiming them they can not be imputed to vs without calumny But I will vndertake further and clear to the Pretended-Reformers by the single explication of our Doctrine that so farr it is from ouerthrowing the Fundamentall articles of Faith either directly or by any just consequence that quite contrary our Doctrine hath established them in a manner so solide so euident that without palpable injustice the aduantage of a right vnderstanding them can not admit a question And to begin with the adoration due to God the Catholique Church teacheth that it consists principally in beleiuing that he is the Creator Lord of all things and in adhering to him with all the powers of our soule by faith hope and loue as to him who alone can conferr our Eternall happinesse by com̄unication of the infinite Good which is himself This interior adoration which we render to G'od in spirit and in truth hath its exterior markes of which the principall is Sacrifice which can not be offered but to God alone by reason the homage of Sacrifice is established in order to a publike confession a solemne protestatiō of the soueraingnity of God and of our absolute dependance on him The same Church teacheth that Religiōs Worship ought to terminate in God as being the necessary end and obiect thereof and if the honour she renders to the Blessed Virgin and the Saints may be termed an Act of Religion it is upon the ground that it relateth necessarily vnto God Before I explaine further in what this honour consisteth it will be vsefull to obserue that the Pretended-Reformers being press'd by the power of euident truth begin to acknowledg that the practise of praying to Saints and honoring their reliques was established in the Church euen in the fourth Century M. Daillé making this acknowledgment in the booke he writt against the Latine Church touching the obiect of Religious Worship accuseth S. Basile S. Ambrose S. Hierome S. John Chrysostome S. Augustin and diuers other great lights of Antiquity which did shine in that age and aboue all the rest S. Gregory Nazianzen who is styled the Deuine as a note of his excellency he taxeth all these with hauing changed in this point the doctrine of the preceding ages But surely it will seeme very improbable that M. Daillé should have better vnderstood the sentiments of the three first ages then those who did as it were inherite their doctrine immediately vpon their death and it is by so much the lesse to be beleiued by reason that the fathers of the fourth age were so farre from perceauing any introduction of new doctrines in this Act of Religion that this Minister himself citeth expresse texts by which they shew clearly that they pretended in praying to Saints to follow the example of their Predecessors But not to examin any longer the iudgments of three primitiue ages I rest satisfyed with the graunt of M. Daillé who yealds to vs so many eminent Doctors who did instruct and discipline the Church in the fourth Age. For though it is an easy matter twelue hundred years after their death to taint them by way of scorne with the title of a Sect calling them Reliquarists as persons who honored Reliques I will hope that those of his Communion will beare more respect to those eminent personages they will not presume at least to object that theyr praying to Saints and honoring their Reliques rendred them guilty of Idolatry or that they ouerthrew the confidence that Christians are to haue in IESVS-CHRIST and we may hope that hence forward they will forbeare those reproaches when they consider they can not apply them to vs without laying the same imputation vpon so many excellent persons whose Doctrine Sanctity they professe to reuerence But since it is my worke to exhibite here our Beleif rather then produce the Mantainers of it we must persue the explication of it The Catholique Church teaching the