Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	according_a	holy_a	sense_n	2,853	5	6.3504	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38514	An epistle of a Catholique to his friend a Protestant touching the doctrine of reall presence. Or, the answer to a question propounded in these tearms What should move you, contrary to the plain testimony of your senses, to believe, that after consecration the bread and wine in the sacrament is become really Christs very body and blood.		1659 (1659)	Wing E3164AA; ESTC R222634	19,912	20

AN EPISTLE OF A CATHOLIQUE To his Friend A PROTESTANT Touching the Doctrine of Reall Presence OR The Answer to a Question propounded in these Tearms What should move you contrary to the plain Testimony of your Senses to believe that after Consecration the Bread and Wine in the Sacrament is become REALLY Christs very Body and Blood Matth. 22.29 Ye doe erre not KNOWING the Scriptures nor the POWER of God It is a manifest signe of an VNBELIEVING Heart in the Works of God to ask HOW This or That can be St. Basil lib. 5. contr Eunom Printed in the Year 1659. An Epistle of a Catholique to his Friend a Protestant touching the Doctrine of Real Presence SIR YOu having desired me to give you some probable Reasons which did or do perswade me to believe that after the words of Consecration the Bread contrary to the Senses of Seeing and Feeling and Tasting is Christs very Body and the Wine his Blood in answer to your demand I shall according to my weak Capacity tell you truly by what Reasons I am chiefly so perswaded First the Holy Scriptures unanimously in expresse tearms say That it is his Body and that it is his Blood the places in the Evangelists are so manifest and well known that it may seem needless to name them however for the importance of the matter I quote them to you Mat. 26.26 28. Mark 14.22 24. Luke 22.19 20. Secondly the Ancient Fathers did never understand those places otherwise then in their literal and proper sense as appeareth by their Works left in writing which are too numerous here to insert and is acknowledged by many of the most eminent Protestants themselves as namely Philip Melancthon the Centurists Bucer Peter Martyr Calvin and others as you may see in the Book called The Progeny of Catholiques and Protestants lib. 2. cap. 8. pag. 35 36 37. lib. 5. cap. 3. pag. 13. Thirdly it was the unanimous Doctrine of the Councels not one of them ever determining the contrary though at some times moved so to have done by some few private persons that Heretically opposed the Doctrine and many of the said Councels having expresly determined for it Fourthly it was ever the constant Belief and Practice of the universall Church throughout the world and whensoever any did oppose it they were presently judged condemned and cast out by the Church of that Age as Heretiques and in all after ages so likewise esteemed namely Heretiques and their memory held abominable stinking like to those Carcases Esay 66.24 which it is not improbable the Prophet in Spirit might principally mean when he said that the Carcases of the men that had transgressed being cast out shall be an abhorring to all flesh For so indeed most commonly are the memories of all Heretiques they are an abhorring not onely to the Catholique Church but to all flesh for the latter Heretiques do in one kinde or other usually condemn the former as much as Catholiques do Fifthly the Divisions and Differences which are among those whose opinions in this matter be contrary to the Church are so many and manifold that it is not easie to reckon them and do clearly convince that there can be no certainty of Truth in any of their said different opinions Luther in his time observed Eight several Expositions of those words Hoc est corpus meum This is my Body all contrary one to another and coming as he saith not from the Spirit of God but from the mouth of Devils and not long after him Claudius de Sainctes a learned Bishop of the Catholique Church in his Book of the Eucharist reckoned no less then fourscore different Expositions of the said words of Institution This is my Body c. and this is my Blood c. all earnestly maintained by learned Protestants with rejection of the contrary sense So that we see once out of the way of true expounding of Scripture and there 's no end of erring Luther speaking of Carolstadius Zuinglius and Oecolampadius all three Sacramentarians as he calls them saith Cursed be their Charity and Concord for ever and ever signifying that he would have nothing to do with them in the matter of this Sacrament He said moreover that they expounded the words This is my Body as absurdly as if one should expound that Text in the Book of Genesis In the beginning God made heaven and earth thus The Cuckow did eat up the Tittling or Hedge-Sparrow bones and all and as for that Passage of Saint John Chap 1. v. 14. of his Gospel The word was made flesh their Exposition saith Luther is as good as to say A crooked staff is made a Kite Thus did Luther not without cause set out and deride the Sacramentarians expounding of Scripture as you may see more at large noted pag. 22. of the Answer to Mr. Charks Preface called The Triall of Spirits Sixthly if the words This is my Body be to be expounded thus This is a figure or This is a sign of my Body then is there no hard mystery no hard saying at all in those words nor in those other which our Saviour spake John 6.53 Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you which were utterly contrary not onely to the speeches language and confessions of all Writers and of all Records of Antiquity which acknowledge a great difficulty and hardness in this Mystery and a great irreconcileable repugnancy to carnal sense and Reason that the Eucharist or Sacrament should be verily and truly Christs Body and Blood but contrary to the whole purport of our Lords Answer to the Capernaites whose great stumbling question was how Christ could give them his flesh to eat This both They and also some of his Disciples called an hard saying they could not understand how it should be done nor yet by the Answer which our Saviour gave them did they or indeed could they in reason understand it as the Sacramentarians now do to wit that the Bread in a Spiritual sense is onely a figure of his Body and not his very Body indeed For what hardness had there been then to conceive and comprehend the full nature of the Mystery especially how could his Saying have been thought so hard that it should move many of Christs own Disciples to leave him and to walk no longer with him And surely a sad parting it was seeing our Lord presently upon it said as it were mournfully to the Twelve and will ye also go away And yet notwithstanding though it were for their satisfaction and to keep them from going away with the rest our Saviour even he who is so great a lover of souls thought fit to make them no other answer but this Doth this offend you what if you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before John 6.62 as much as if he had said though I do ascend and leave you yet of necessity my flesh must be eaten

1.5 he saith that the Gospel is made known unto all Nations for the obedience of Faith that is to say that by faith and by believing all that the Gospel required of them men might shew themselves to be entirely obedient and subject unto God in their understandings no less then in their affections and wills And truly considering the way and order of God Almighties dealings with the sons of men we ought not to think it strange that he should in this particular of eating require a renuntiation of our senses We may do well to remember that when time was by following our senses contrary unto Gods command we lost Paradise and if now by obeying God contrary to our senses Paradise may be regained we shall have no great cause to murmure So that indeed this Imposition of believing and eating contrary to our senses seems as it were a certain Penance which God layes upon man for his first and great sin to the end that as by following his senses contrary to Gods express word and command Adam lost Heaven and eternal happiness as much as in him lay so by an obedient and submissive Faith in Gods word and unto his command renouncing the dictates of our own sense and all suggestions of flesh and blood the sons of Adam might through Grace recover Heaven and eternal happiness Sense and natural Reason tells Naaman that the Rivers of Damascus were as likely to cure him of his Leprosie as Jordan in Judea 2 Kings 5.12 but he found it otherwise So it was contrary to sense and contrary to all natural reason that the walls of Jericho should fall down at Israels blowing with Rams-horns yet we know they did so Joshua 6.20 Contrary to sense Moses divided the Sea by the stroak of a rod Exodus 14.16 21. And contrary to sense Jordan divided it self as soon as it was but touched by the feet of the Priests Joshua 3.15 16. And contrary to sense Iron did swimme 2 Kings 6.6 It was contrary to sense that a little meal and oyl no more then would make one cake should feed the Widow the Prophet and her Son many dayes or a long time together and not waste 1 Kings 17.12 16. It was contrary to sense that five loaves and two fishes should satisfie the hunger of five thousand persons and that there should remain twelve baskets full of broken meat after all had eaten Mat. 14.20 Mark 6.43 John 6.13 Considering the deadness of Sarahs womb as the Scripture speaketh Rom. 4.19 and also of Abrahams own body it was contrary to sense and re●son that Sarah should have a childe yet Abraham believing what God had said to him his Faith found the effect of the promise and it was counted to him for righteousnes For by believing saith the Scripture Rom. 4.20 he gave glory to God and was counted the friend of God James 2.23 So is it in this matter and mystery of the Eucharist they that believe what our Saviour hath said and accordingly trust thereupon give glory to God by this their believing yea are made thereby and esteemed the friends of God to wit so far as they do not frustrate or make void the merit of their faith by the demerit and wickedness of their lives Many other places and examples might be alledged that demonstrate Gods people alwayes to have walked with God by faith and not by sense and why not then in this Mystery as well as in others why should this Doctrine seem so strange to men of understanding and knowledge in the wayes of God considering the greatness of the Almighty and how he vails his will and mysteries oftentimes unto us Considering how terrible in the Old Testament he was to such as would pry into his wayes and secrets further then was permitted them how fearful the wiser sort of Jews were so to do and lastly how answerable the practice of the universal Church of Christ hath been in this thing and that for above sixteen hundred years namely to walk by faith rather then by sense in this business and to rest more upon the Word and Power and Truth of God then upon our own reason or understanding Consider I pray what the Prophet saith Isa 7.9 If ye will not believe surely you shall not be established By reason of unbelief was that Lord on whose hand the King leaned trodden to death in the gate of Samaria 2 Kings 7.20 A believing heart is the root of all spiritual excellency and acceptableness with God and it is the character which he gives them I take to witness saith God 2 Esdras 1.37 the grace of the people to come meaning the Christians such as should believe in the Messias that was to come whose little ones saith he rejoyce in gladness and though they have not seen me with bodily eyes yet in spirit they believe the things that I say Hitherto also comes that saying of our Lord to St. Thomas Because thou hast seen me Thomas thou believest but blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed John 20.29 Wherefore let us not dispute but rather pray to the Almighty to captivate our understandings to the obedience of Faith that we may here in reverence to his word be willing to believe what we do not see that so hereafter in the blissful vision of his glory we may be admitted to see more then we do now believe And besides all this the Prophetical Types and Shadows of the Sacrifices in the Law as also the Prophetical sayings or predictions of the Prophets concerning somewhat of greater worth and far exceeding the dignity of Mosaical Sacrifices that should be sacrificed and eaten under the Gospel are a further and undeniable argument that the Eucharist is not a figure onely of Christs Body but his very real and true Body 'T is granted by all at least by the most learned and ingenuous amongst Protestants to wit by all such as pretend any shew of respect to Antiquity that those Prophesies of the old Testament do point at the Eucharist or Sacrament of Christs Body in the new Now if the Sacramentarian opinion be true to wit that the Bread of the Eucharist remains still even after Consecration in truth and substance but a morsel of Bread and nothing else and the Wine after Consecration nothing but meer Wine how is the Sacrament of the Eucharist a more noble and excellent thing then were the Sacraments and Sacrifices of the Jews for they also were no less signs and figures of Christs Body then the Bread of the Eucharist is Yea who sees not that the Jewish Sacrifices upon this supposition viz. that the Eucharistical Bread is indeed nothing but Bread and the Eucharistical Wine nothing but Wine I say who seeth not upon this supposition that the Jewish Sacrifices far exceeded the Christians in the worth and dignity of the things sacrificed for example the Paschal Lamb was it not a more excellent Sacrifice in its own nature then a piece of