Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	body_n	fire_n	soul_n	6,029	5	5.5197	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56100	The Protestants letter concerning the re-union of the two religions to the Assembly of the clergy of France, held at Paris, May, 1685 humbly offered to the consideration of all Protestants in England, as an expedient for reconciling the great differences in religion now among them.	Kidder, Richard, 1633-1703.; Catholic Church. Assemblée générale du clergé de France.	1690 (1690)	Wing P3851; Wing K409_CANCELLED; ESTC R882	28,330	38

Re union doth also oblige you to open for us the ways unto it If we were in that Post which you possess if we were the ruling Religion it would be our parts to clear and to make plain the ways but in the place wherein you are it would be expected from you Sirs to do that by virtue of the Authority you have in your Hands which we in our weakness should but in vain attempt Let this be laid down for an unquestionable Principle That it is absolutely impossible to have any Re-union without some Reformation so that if you do seriously and heartily desire this Union you must Sirs grant some Reformation and do not take it amiss if we represent unto you that the Reformation ought to go before the Propositions of Re-union I mean an actual Reformation for it would be no way reasonable that you should oblige us to re-unite with you before you had reformed under the bare promise of a future Reformation For in the first place in expecting that this Reformation should be wrought we must certainly continue a long time among you How long were they forced to demand the Council of Trent and the Reformations there made before they could obtain them The Catholick Princes were near forty years in soliciting them without any success The same thing could not fail to happen here and in a tedious expectation our Consciences must groan in a Church where we should be obliged to participate in a Worship which we believe to be evil Secondly What assurance could we have that Promise should be kept with us We doubt not but you are sincere and well intentioned Sirs but on the other side we doubt not but that when you had resolved to reform the Church you would find thousands of People to traverse your Design and if among all those Obstacles any should frustrate this pious Purpose of Reformation we should find our selves in an un-reformed Church with which we should be forced to break a second time or to damn our selves in it abiding therein against our Consciences Forasmuch as that in all Treaties it is necessarily requisite that the Parties should act by way of accord It would be absolutely necessary Sirs that you should procure his Majesties full and entire consent for our free liberty to confer together and also that we may take advice of our Brethren the Protestants of Germany of England Switzerland and the Low-Countries for whatever respect we have for the Orders of his Majesty yet we cannot make a Schism with our Brethren neither can we act any thing herein without their advice and consent After we should have thus conferred together it would be necessary that we should also confer with you not to enter into Disputes and to treat of Controversies for that is a way which never had nor ever will have any good success In those kind of Controversies the ruling Party will alway have the Reason on their side they publish what they please and yet when all is done every Body believes of it as he shall find cause The Honour of Victory is more sought after than the Triumph of Truth The Conferences ought to run only upon this what things may be mutually tolerated and what cannot But to dispose Men's Spirits unto this Re-union it would be necessary Sirs that you should procure a Cessation of those Rigors and Severities which are exercised against us throughout all the Kingdom under your direction and by your sollicitation Whoever they were that persuaded you that this was a good means to make us return were very ill acquainted with the Heart of Man and the workings thereof It is true that these ways of rigour may gain you some base ignorant interessed Souls Souls void of Piety and without any Love of the Truth but it will endlesly drive away from you all that have any Zeal or so much as the least spark of Honour in the World When a People shall see their Temples pull'd down their Altars demolish'd their Children snatch'd out of their Arms their Estates plundered their Liberties violated when they shall see themselves bereaved of Sacraments their dying Friends without any Consolation the Living without Instruction when they shall see their Countreymen incited to their ruine and that they are continually threatned with Death Massacre and Pillage when they see themselves shut up in a Kingdom so that they cannot go any where else to seek their Means of Living which is denyed them in their own Country against the Law of Nations which doth permit Persons to seek Food for their Bodies and for their Souls wheresoever they can find it All this I say is apt to provoke and enflame to incense and set Men's Spirits on Fire to ruine their dispositions unto Re-union and to banish all thoughts of Peace And therefore it is a Preliminary of absolute necessity to reclaim Men's Spirits which are made hagard and exasperated by the hardships which they have suffered of late years to reduce them I say by opening the Prisons unto so many Innocents who are shut up for no Cause but for Religion by restoring unto so many Consciences which are now in Slavery the liberty to follow their own Motions by permitting so many scattered Flocks to re-assemble themselves to pray unto God and so many banished Ministers to return into the Kingdom there to join their Prayers with those of their Brethren that they may obtain the Blessing of God upon this great Design of a Re-union In the Name of God Sirs remember that the Ways of Rigour are not those which the Gospel doth command The Feet of a persecuting Converter which comes with thundering Arrests with Menaces and offensive Arms are not the Feet of the Evangelists of which the Holy Ghost says Oh how beautiful are the Feet of him that bringeth good Tidings of Peace that publisheth Salvation that saith unto Sion Thy God reigneth We do earnestly beseech you to have pity upon so many Thousands of Souls driven out of the Kingdom who have saved nothing but their Consciences and who are reduced unto very cruel Extremities We do heartily beg that you will suffer your selves to be moved by the Tears of so many Persons who weep for the Infants which are snatched out of their Bosoms and out of their very Bowels against the Laws of Nature who do miserably perish by the harshness of their Country-men who are violenced in their Consciences by the Laws which do lay a Yoke upon their Souls who are cruelly tormented with the Remorse wherewith their own Weakness doth upbraid them who do assist at your Mysteries without having any Faith or Respect for them who find themselves reduced to a Necessity either of losing their Goods and Liberty or of betraying their Sentiments I will add Sirs that you ought not to consider the great disproportion of Numbers Strength Credit and Authority which is between you and us Say not that we ought to yield all because we are the weakest

happy and which do dispose us unto a perfect beatitude it is enough therefore for us to ask them of him alone We ought not to pray unto the Saints according unto you Sirs with any other Spirit or Affection than that wherewith we desire the Faithful here upon the Earth to pray unto God for us and is that such a great Piece of Business to leave it when it proves to be such a Rock of Offence unto so many Millions of Souls which according to your supposition do destroy themselves in the Schism You do agree that a Man who doth content himself with the succours of his Brethren's Prayers alone who are here on Earth and who should continually himself pray unto God should yet nevertheless be in a very fair way for Heaven and should not fail of obtaining that which he did ask for We desire you also Sirs to consider that supposing that the Saints do know our Wants and do intercede for us that the Church would lose nothing by it though they were not invoked here upon Earth You are sufficiently persuaded that the Charity of those Glorious Souls is no way in the World dependent upon the Homages which are paid unto them here below they are jealous only for God they do not require of any body to build them Chapels and to pray unto them And if a Cessation were put unto that Invocation not out of any Contempt of them but for fear of exciting the Jealousie of God they would never be displeased with the Church for that Cause they would pray nevertheless for the Church in general and for the Necessities of every one of the Faithful in particular You do also know that though they should be supposed to be capable of Resentment for the abandoning of their Oratories and their Chapels yet they would still pray unto God in the behalf of those who did nothing for them So that the Church would lose no Succours by retrenching this Invocation and she would gain an infinite of Souls by the Bargain This Invocation of Saints is founded upon that which they call their Intercession You do agree in that Point Sirs that the Intercession of Jesus Christ is only sufficient for to save us that although all the Saints should be silent provided that our Redeemer did but set his Bloud a speaking for us that our Affairs would go on never the less prosperously for all that You do also grant Sirs that he who doth rely upon the Intercession of Jesus Christ alone doth not do amiss What prejudice therefore could it be to the Church to lay aside the Intercession of the Saints If we should leave it out of a Principle of Scruple and of Fear to offend Jesus Christ we should not yet for all that lose it in case that there be any reality in such Intercession for as we have lately represented unto you you are sufficiently persuaded that the Saints if they know our Wants do pray for the Conversion of the Ungodly who do never at all invoke them as well as for the Perseverance of the Faithful who do Unto these Considerations we may subjoin another thing Sirs which you do very well know and which without making any Mystery of it you do openly avouch namely that this Invocation of the Saints is very subject unto great Abuses and that a great number of them are already crept thereinto The wisest Persons of your Body do publickly complain of those Abuses and do reprove them they do approve of The wholsome Advices of the Virgin unto her indiscreet Votaries The Defence of the Bishop of Tournal for those wholsome Advices The Catechism of the three Bishops of Anger 's of Rochel and of Luzon wherein there is an entire Lesson concerning the Abuses which ought to be avoided in the Invocation of Saints and in the Devotion of the holy Virgin That Lesson begins thus Is there no Abuse to be avoided in the Invocation of the Saints And the Catechumenos is made to answer Yes there are many of them which are but too too common among ill-instructed People You know Sirs that it is impossible in this Case to weed out the Abuse without extirpating the Thing which is abused for the People are not capable in religious Service to discern and separate the Bounds which distinguish the Honour which is due unto none but God alone from that which may be render'd unto the Saints We dare boldly say it is impossible but that they should be deceived herein by their Ignorance and by those Inclinations they have unto Superstition Whereupon I beseech you Sirs to consider that the Worshipping of Saints on the one hand being not absolutely necessary to the Perfection of the Christian Religion and on the other hand being subject unto so many Abuses it would become your Piety and your Charity to retrench a thing the privation of which would bring no prejudice to the Church and the removing whereof would restore her so many Souls which according unto you are wander'd from her Folds To conclude You are all of you fully persuaded that the Divine Service would be never the less pure though none but God alone should be invoked and therefore you are also persuaded that God and his Glory would suffer no prejudice by such Retrenchment The same things we say concerning Images and the Worship of them That kind of Worship will everlastingly beget an Horrour in the Protestants they believe that the Law of God doth forbid it they are persuaded that it is a pure piece of Paganism which the Devil hath brought into the Church they cannot beat it out of their Thoughts but that this Worship is an invincible Obstacle unto the Conversion of the Jews and Mahometans Suppose if you will that all this is but Pre-occupation yet however it is such a Pre-occupation as they can never recover from But on the contrary Sirs you are fully persuaded in the first place that Images are not essential unto the Christian Religion and that one may pass very well without them Secondly That the Church Apostolical was well enough contented without Images You will say that that was for fear lest it might prove a Snare unto the ill-instructed Pagans whom they desired to withdraw from the Worship of Idols But let that be how it will it doth thereby appear that one may be a very good Christian without prostrating himself before Images The most Learned and the most sincere among you do also agree that the Church was without Images for more than three hundred Years which doth still make it evident that even according unto you Images are not necessary Finally You do agree that the Abuse of that Worship is possible frequent great and dangerous Moreover it is impossible for the Simple to form unto themselves distinct Ideas of relative Worship and of absolute You cannot be ignorant how many thousands of People are mistaken therein and that a Peasant doth prostrate himself before an Image with more