Selected quad for the lemma: soul_n
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A44536
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A letter from a Protestant gentleman to a lady revolted to the Church of Rome
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Horneck, Anthony, 1641-1697.
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1678
(1678)
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Wing H2845; ESTC R1400
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32,717
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156
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eating and drinking that is believing in him and obeying him and hoping for pardon through his death which is the Spiritual food of the Soul is evident from the 54 th and 56 th Verse where every one that eats of his flesh and drinks of his blood is said to have actually eternal life in him and Christ dwelling in him and he dwelling in Christ. That is Christ loves him with a love of complacency he is a Child of GOD and beloved of him and an heir of Heaven But since Wicked men come to the Sacrament not only in our Church but even in the Church of ROME it would follow if a corporal eating were understood that Wicked men eating Christs body and drinking his blood have Eternal life in them and that Christ dwels in them and are true Children of GOD and heires of Heaven contrary to the unanimous consent of the Holy Prophets and Apostles who call Wicked men Children of the Devil and blinded by the Devil the GOD of the World and Heirs of damnation And indeed it is strange that people should contend for this corporal and sensual eating of Christs flesh and drinking his blood when Christ himself saith v. 63. That the flesh profiteth nothing and that this eating and drinking must be understood spiritually i.e. of Spiritual eating and drinking which is believing as it is said v. 64. You see Madam what it is not to make use of your own reason but to enslave it to the Faith of a Church which loves to act in the Dark and would have her Children Colliers and believe what the Church believes and know little more than the great Mystery of an Ave Maria or a Rosary Time was when you were pleased to tell our Ministers that though you were gone over to the Church of ROME yet you had liberty not to pray to Saints nor to fall down before Images for that was not thought necessary by the Church of ROME which only recommends praying to Saints and Veneration of Relicks and Images as a thing useful and which men have received much benefit by And indeed I remember I was told you thought that praying to Saints was a kind of Idolatry and therfore were glad they would excuse you from that Worship but since I hear that you are grown as devout a Worshipper of Saints and peculiarly of the Virgin Mary and do prostrate your self before them as much as the most tractable Papist in the World I confess I did smell a Rat at first when your Priests assured you that Invocation of Saints was not a thing commanded but recommended as useful and was then confident that before a year came to an end for all these soft expressions and dispensations with your omission of this worship they would perswade you to that worship which then you thought unlawful My prophecy is come to pasâ— and the Pill which seemed very bitter at first is swallowed and become sweeter than hony and look'd upon as an excellent Medicine And this I must needs say is more than you could have in our Church But this is our Comfort that the more ingenuous men of the Church of ROME confess that this praying to Saints or Angels was not heard of or used in the Christian Church for the first three hundred years after Christ and if the Christian Church for the first 300 years did not think it useful at all it is a strange degeneration from their principles to press it now as useful Certainly if GOD had thought this invocation so useful as your Church pretends it is He would not have so peremtorily commanded Call upon me in the day of trouble I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorifie me Psalm 50.15 and it 's probable the Apostles in prescribing so many useful things of far less concern would not have left us in the dark as to the mighty usefullness of this invocation especially when they had occasion to mention the spirits of men made perfect and did so often converse with Angels The Angel Revel 22.8.9 thought it a very useless thing and would not admit of so much as a Religious prostration of the Evangelist before him because it look'd like Sacriledge and robbing GOD of his due But since your Church in this adoration takes pattern so much by the Courts of Princes give me leave to suggest to you how you think a Soveraign Prince would take it if a Subject should give any of his servants the title of Majesty or any other title which properly belongs to him There are few titles that GOD hath and inspired men have given to him but you give them to the Blessed Virgin and though when you are charg'd with it you fall to distinctions and turn and wind your selves to get out yet that shews only a bad cause because it requires so much artifice and cunning to defend it but alas â— it must be Children that are perswaded and coaxed to believe that the Church of ROME onely counts it useful not necessary when it is well known that the generality of that Communion pray to Saints more than to GOD which in the Scripture phrase is honouring the creature more than the Creator and they never leave that person that goes over to them till they have brought him to that Worship of Saints and Angels It s pretty to hear these Men talk that it is only recommended as useful when the Bishops and Preachers of that Church are injoyned and take their oath upon 't to commend this invocation to the People as profitable and the People are obliged to hearken to their Priests in all things so that though a Man at first may think this Invocation not necessary upon the account of its being onely useful yet from that other obligation he hath to obey the Priest in all spiritual things it becomes necesssary But from this scruple we are delivered Madam by the Confession of Faith which the Roman Catechisme doth prescribe for there it is that it is not only useful but that we ought to pray unto Saints and indeed should any man live in that Communion and omit it he would soon be looked upon as prophane and but a half Convert to their Church they would soon let him know their displeasure and either fright or flatter him into conformity And is this the Worship Madam which Christ and his Apostles have injoyned the World Are not you afraid of doing things that do so nearly border upon robbing God of his honour and glory Idolatry is a frightful word and you do not love to hear it and therefore I will trouble you with it as little as I can But when God hath commanded you to come to him directly without mentioning the intercession of Saints and Angels how dares your Church of her own head bring in a Worship so dangerous who should prescribe the way how God is to be worshipped but God himself And if God requires you to address yourself to him without any other Mediator but Christ
Jesus Have not you just reason to be afraid that God will reject your Prayers which are addressed to Saints as Mediators contrary to his order and injunction What Kings suffer here on Earth in letting their Subjects address 〈…〉 to them can be no example here for God as he intends not to regulate his Court by the Court of Princes so we know it is against his Order to go to his Servants when we are commanded to come directly to him and it is such a voluntary humility as deprives us of our reward as the Apostles expresly tells us Coloss. 2.18 God knew well enough if men addressed themselves to his Servants to have access to him something of the Worship due to him would stick by the way and rest upon his Servants to his dishonour and disparagement and therefore he mentioned nothing of this mediate address It s true we desire our neighbours here on Earth to pray for us but for that we have a command for the invocation of Saints departed we have none and in vain do they worship me saith God teaching for doctrines the Commandments of men Mat. 15.9 But besides when you desire your living Neighbours to pray for you I hope you do not fall down upon your knees to them nor use the same zeal and devotion to them as you do to God and for whole hours together as you do to Saints departed But why will you blind your self in a thing which your own practice contradicts you in you know you do not onely pray to Saints departed to pray for you but you do many times without making any mention of their Prayers for you beg of them with the same reverence and prostrations you use to God to deliver you from all evil and consequently you beg the same Blessings of them you beg of God And it is but a weak excuse to say that you intend by those Prayers nothing else but that by their intercession they may get those blessings for you for you go contrary to the nature of things and whereas words ordinarily are interpreters of the mind you make your minds interpreters of your words and actions which is a strange evasion and if such a thing be intended why do you lay a snare before the Common sort of People who being ordered to pray to Saints for such and such blessings know nothing to the contrary but that they are able to dispense those Blessings to them and thus commit Idollatry by your willful connivance whose blood will certainly be required at your Churchmens hands one day Examine but your Prayers to the Virgin Mary in your own Manuals when you have prayed to her and begged of her all that you can pray of GOD you add a word or two of her intercession which in good truth is nothing but a blind that you may not be said to commit down right Idolatry You know those Prayers to the Virgin Mary which in the Latine and I think in the English Manual too are ordered to be said to the Virgin Morning and Evening the one O my Lady Holy Mary I commend my self my Soul and Body to thy blessed care and singular custody and to the bosome of thy mercy this day and every day and in the hour of my going out of the World All my hope and all my comfort all my afflictions and miseries my life my end I commit unto thee speak seriously what can you say more to GOD that by thy most holy Intercession and by thy merits all my words and actions may be directed and disposed according to thine and thy Sons Will Amen Where it 's worth noting that first you do put as much trust in the Virgin as you do in GOD and then afterwards to make these harsh expressions softer you desire her to interceed for you that your works may be directed according to Christs Will nay and her own as if she were a Law-giver too Then follows Maria Mater Gratiae c. O Mary Mother of Grace Mother of Mercy Protect us from the Enemy and receive us in the hour of Death which St. Stephen thought was fitter to be said to Christ when he Cryed Lord Jesu receive my spirit Then followes the Evening Prayer to the Virgin Mary O Mary Mother of GOD and gratious Virgin the true Comforter of all distressed Creatures that call upon thee this Epithete by the way the Scripture gives to the Holy Ghost by that great joy whereby thou wast comforted when thou didst know that Jesus Christ was risen the third day from the Dead impassible be thou the Comforter of my Soul and by the same who is thine and GODS only Son in the last day when with body and Soul I shall rise again and give an account of all my actions do thou Vouchsafe to help me that I may escape the Sentence of perpetual Damnation by thee Pious Mother and Virgin and may come happily with all the Elect of GOD to Eternal joyes Amen Then follows vnder thy protection we flee Holy Mother of GOD despise not our prayer in our necessities but deliver us from all dangers alwayes O glorious and blessed Virgin Not to mention any more prayers of this nature whereof there is a vast number If GOD be a GOD jealous of his Glory how can he like and approve of such doings It 's true the Honour done to his Servants is done to him but then it must be such Honour as they are capable to receive so to Honour them as to give them the Epithetes and titles which the Scripture gives to none but GOD so to Honour them as to use in your prayers to them the same outward prostrations that you use to GOD when you pray to him so to Honour them as to spend more time in your addresses to them than you do in supplications to GOD as is evident from your Rosary so to Honour them as to say more prayers to them than to Christ so to Honour them as to joyn their merits with Christs merits This is an Honour which I believe will oblige GOD to say one day who hath required these things at your hands And how unlike the Worship of the true GOD is that Veneration you express to the Images and Pictures of Saints and to Relicks How unlike that plain and Simple Worship which the Gospel enjoynes One would think it should a little startle you to see that your Church is afraid to let the second Commandement be known to the people you know they leave it out in their Primmers and Catechismes or if they mention it they do so mince it that one sees plainly they are afraid the People should see the contrariety of their Worship to the express word of GOD. In the beginning of the Reformation the very sight of this Commandement made people run away from the Church of ROME as much as any thing indeed to consider the general termes GOD uses there Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven Image c. Thou shalt