Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	body_n	bread_n	literal_a	1,845	5	12.1734	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44536	A letter from a Protestant gentleman to a lady revolted to the Church of Rome	Horneck, Anthony, 1641-1697.	1678 (1678)	Wing H2845; ESTC R1400	32,717	156

men to deny both their reason and senses to beleive a transubstantiation Here indeed a Faith is necessary strong enough to remove mountaines and though never any Miracles were wrought but were wrought on purpose to convince our senses yet here we must believe one which neither sence nor reason can discover When Christ gave the Sacrament to his Disciples saith the Apostle 1 Corinth 11.24 He brake the bread and said take eat this is my body which is broken for you It is a wonderful thing that the word is in the first Sentence this is my Body should have a litteral sense and in the very next sentence pronounced with the same breath cannot admit of a Litteral sense for the word is in the second sen●ence must necessarily stand for 〈◊〉 h● because Christs Body when he gave the Bread was not yet broken If it will not admit of a Litteral Sense in the very next sentence because of the absurdity that would follow that Christ was Crucified before he was Crucified why should we understand it in the first sentence litterally when the absurdity is far greater Nay that the word is should not be capable of being understood litterally in the second essential part of the Sacrament This cup is the New Testament that here I say it should import and can import nothing else but signifies or is a sign of the new Testament and yet must not be understood so in the first part of the Sacrament is a thing we cannot comprehend And when the Apostle speaking of the Lords Supper or Eucharist 1 Cor. 10.16 The Cup of blessing which we bless is it not the Communion of the Blood of Christ and the Bread which we break is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ Let the rigidest Papist that hath not quite banished his reason tell me how he will make sense of the word is here except he understand it figuratively most certainly it cannot be understood literally for the Cup is not that Communion but is a sign of it One would admire how m●n can be so obstinate in a thing as clear as the Sun and you might as well conclude that Christ is a Door made of boards and nailes because the Scripture sayth he is a Door and that he is a real Vine with green Leaves and Grapes about him because the Scripture saith he is a Vine But suppose the word is in these words This is my body must be understood literally how doth this make for transubstantiation Are the words is and is transubstantiated all one A thing may be said to be a thousand ways and yet without transubstantiation so that if by the word is you understand transubstantiation you your selves must go from the literal sense and assume a sense which is not expressed in that saying All the Jews are so well versed in the sense of Sacramental expressions that by the word is they understand nothing but signifies or represents and therefore it s a horrid shame that Christians meerly for fear of being laughed at for departing from an absurd opinion and losing the credit of a pretended infallibility should make themselves ignorant in that which the meanest Jew even before the Gospel understood without a Teacher for we may confidently beleive that no Jew before Christs time was so sottish to think when it 's said the flesh is the Passeover Exod. 12.11 that the flesh or blood was really the Passeover but only a sign and representation of it or a token to them as Moses calls it ver 13. I will not here put you in mind of the strange absurdities that must follow from this Doctrine of Transubstantiation viz. that Christ when he did eat and drink in this Sacrament must have eaten his own fl●sh and that the Apostles must have eaten his body while he was at the Table with them and before it was Crucified c. I could tell you that this Doctrine is against the great Article of our Faith that Christ is ascended into Heaven and there sitteth at the Right Hand of GOD until the day of Judgment That it is against the Nature of a real Body to be in a thousand places at once And that from hence it must follow that the Body and Blood of Christ is capable of being devoured by Vermine capable of being poisoned and instead of giving life may be so order'd that it shall kill and murther witness Victor the third Pope of ROME and Henry the VII th Emperour who were poisoned in the Sacrament not to mention a thousand more of such Monstrous consequences But since Madam you do insist so much upon that place of Scripture John 6.53 Except you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in you I le but breifly shew you how ill a Logician you are to conclude that this is spoke of the Sacrament or that these words infer a Corporal manducation of Christs real Body and blood if they be meant of the Eucharist it will necessarily follow that Christ oblig'd the Jews and his hearers to come to the Sacrament at the time he spake these words for he speakes of their present eating and drinking Except ye eat c. But this he could not possibly do for the Sacrament of his body and blood was not instituted till at least a whole twelve months after nor did any of his disciples at that time dream of any such thing as his dying and being crucified nor doth Christ speak the least word of it in the whole Chapter which he must necessarily have done if he had intended the Sacrment by it which is all together founded in his crucifixion For this Sermon of Christ concerning eating and drinking his flesh and blood was delivered just about the Feast of the Passeover ver 4. After which feast as it is said John 7.1 2. the Jews celebrated the feast of Tabernacles and after this they kept another feast of the Passeover the last which Christ was at which was no less than a twelve month after John 11.55 John 12.21 So that the Sacrament of Christs Body and blood not being instituted before the last Passover as all the Evangelists agree it was not possible that either the believing Jews or the Apostles could understand it of the Sacrament and I suppose Christ intended to be understood because there was no such thing as yet instituted Besides it is impossible that it can be understood of the Sacramental eating and drinking of the Body and Blood of Christ for without this eating and drinking there is no Salvation to be had as i● is said Joh. 6.53 54. and if it were to be understood of the Eucharist we must exclude all Christians from Salvation that are not in a capacity nor in a possibility of receiving it which I am sure your own Church will not do And that these words of Christ cannot possibly be understood of a Corporal eating Christs flesh and drinking his blood but must be understood of a Spiritual

not only not Worship them but not so much as fall down before them would make a person that is not taken more with the Golden Legends than with Scripture afraid of prostrations before Images upon the account of devotion it is not all your plea that you do not terminate your worship on the Image but on the person represented by the Image that will excuse you at the great tribunal for not to mention that in the same manner the Heathen used to defend their grossest Idolatry and that you are forced to borrow their very Arguments your own Authors do confesse that the common people are apt to pay adoration and do pay adoration to the Images themselves and why will you lay such a Stumbling block before the people Much might be said of the adoration you pay to the consecrated Hoste you confess that the worship you give to it is the same worship you give to God What if that Wafer should not be turned into the Body and Blood of Christ what if it should remain as very a Wafer as it was before consecration what if it should not be God as you have all the demonstration that sense or reason can give you that it is not changed into another substance what monstrous Idolatry would this be Ay but we believe it to be GOD why Madam doth your belief that such a thing is God or Christ excuse you from Idolatry should you believe a Stone to be GOD and adore it might not you justly be charged with Idolatry you look upon the Heathens as Idolaters because they adore the Sun Ay but they believe that Sun to be God and how then according to your plea can they be Idolaters If there be such a Transubstantiation in the Sacrament as you fancy and an Adoration of the Hoste so very necessary what 's the reason the Apostles of our Lord that saw Christ before their eyes only could not believe that there were two Christs one sitting at the table the other reached out to them What 's the reason I say that they sate still and paid no Adoration to the Bread which according to you was Transubstantiated into Christ If they did not adore it what a presumption is it in you to give the highest Worship to the consecrated bread upon a pretence that that bread is God under the accidents of Bread But of this I have said enough before and could you but find time to read what our Authors have written upon this subject it could be nothing but hardness of heart and resolution to be blind could keep you in a Church that fills your head with Doctrines contrary to the nature of a Sacrament contrary to all that Moses and the Prophets nay and all sound Philosophers have said I will not say any thing here of your strange unbloody Sacrifice of the Mass a thing unheard of in the purer Ages of Christianity and which the Scripture is so great a stranger to that one would wonder how Mankind came to light upon the notion Nor of your Doctrine of Merits because I find your Priests have two strings to their Bow and tell the people one thing and their adversaries when they dispute with them another affirme and deny it as they see occasion and necessity requires Only one thing I must needs take notice of before I take my leave and that is the Gigantick Argument that some of your Gentlemen boast of and which strikes all Protestants dead at the first hearing of it If there be any thing true this must be true that there is a GOD if there be a GOD there must be a true Religion if there be a true Religion there must be a true revealed Religion if there be a true revealed Religon the Christian Religion must be that true revealed Religion and if the Christian Religion be true then the Religion of the Church of ROME must be true for the Argument that proves the Christian Religion to be true proves the Religion of the Church of ROME to be true which is this Either the Christian Religion was propagated without miracles or by miracles if by miracles then it must be divine if without miracles then it is the greatest miracle that a Religion so contrary to flesh and blood should prevail with sensual men The same say they is true of the Religion of the Church of ROME For if it be propagated by Miracles it must be divine if without Miracles it must be so much more because it prescribes things contrary to Flesh and blood as Penances Austerities c. And thousands of People do embrace it I will not make my self merry here in a thing so serious else I could have told you that I have hard of an Argument when I was at School somewhat like this He that drinks well sleeps well he that sleeps well commits no Sin He that commits no Sin will be saved therefore he that drinks well will be saved But I forbear And as to the aforesaid Argument whereby one of your Priests that hath printed it thinks to end all Controversies I will say no more but this First that as there is no Christian but must readily confess that the Miracles Christ and his Apostles wrought were a Confirmation of the Divinity of their Doctrine so there is no man of any brains can admit of the other part of the dilemma as Universally true that a Religion that goes against Flesh and blood if propagated without Miracles must therefore be necessarily Divine Secondly that so far as the Religion of the Church of ROME agrees with the truly Christian Religion so far it is undoubtedly true and it will naturally follow that if the Christian Religion be true the Religion of the Church of ROME so far as it agrees with the Christian Religion must needs be true And the same may be said of the Protestant Religion but that the Roman Religion must therefore be true where it goes away and differs from the truly Christian Religion revealed to us in the Gospel is a consequence which none but Children can approve of Thirdly with this Argument a man might prove the Divinity of almost any Religion in the World He that is no stranger to History must needs know what severities what austerities of life the Brachmans or the Heathen Friers in the Indies do both prescribe and practise and what Proselites they make and how full the Kingdom of the great Mogol is of them how some Wallow in ashes day and night how others go charged with heavy Iron Chaines all their dayes how others stand upright upon their Leggs for whole weekes together c. How in Japan and other places of the Indies the Priests perswade the people to fast themselves to death to go long Pilgrimages to give all they have to the Priests to throw themselves down from steep rocks and break their necks and all to arrive the sooner to the happiness of another World c. I think there cannot be things more