Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	church_n	scripture_n	word_n	7,625	5	4.5069	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66484	An address to those of the Roman communion in England occasioned by the late act of Parliament, for the further preventing the growth of popery.	Willis, Richard, 1664-1734.	1700 (1700)	Wing W2815; ESTC R7811	45,628	170

Protestants examining the Scriptures now but what would have held as well against the Command of our Saviour here to the Jews unless they can shew us a positive Institution of an Infallible Guide but all the Arguments from Reason and the imperfection of our Understanding are perfectly the same in both Cases The truth is all our Saviour's Preaching did suppose this for it had been a vain thing to Preach to People who had not abilities to understand And if we go further to the Preaching of the Apostles we shall find that they endeavoured to prove the truth of what they said out of the Scriptures by which they appealed to the Understanding of their Hearers and made them proper Judges of what they said as far as their own Salvation was concerned in it We see in Acts 17.11 The Bereans were commended as more noble than those of Thessalonica because they searched the Scriptures daily to see whether the things the Apostles preached were so or not The Apostle St. John commands Christians to try the Spirits that is to examine the pretences that any should make to the Spirit of God which supposes that their Understanding how fallible soever was sufficient to judge in these Matters In a word the Writers and Emissaries of the Church of Rome do themselves when they don't think of it in effect confess this for when they bring Scripture and other Arguments to persuade us to come over to their Church I would ask them are we proper Judges of these things or are we not Will our Faith be a true Faith that is founded upon these Scriptures or these Reasons that you here bring If it be so then we may understand for our selves and there is no necessity in order to true Faith of an Infallible Judge but if it be not so there ought to be then an end of Disputes for it 's in vain to Dispute where it 's supposed that we cannot understand or judge and all offering of Scripture or Reason to prove the truth of their Opinions is only affront and mockery But it may be it will be said Don't we see People differ about the Interpretation of Scripture some go one way and some another and yet all are consident of their own how can we be sure that we are in the right any more than they who are as confident in what they say as we are Now this Objection is founded upon this that we cannot have certainty of what is once Disputed which is contrary to the Common Opinion of Mankind who would have done Disputing if they thought they could not be certain when once Men differed from them This does indeed overthrow all Reason and Religion Some have ventured to Dispute the Being of God and many more the Truth of the Christian Religion and yet I hope we may be very certain of the Truth of both these But I would only urge at present this one Consideration Are all the World agreed about their Infallible Judge If not how can they be certain of that But to press this Matter a little more plainly they say for instance that we can't from Scripture be certain of the Divinity of our Saviour because the Socinian's a small number of Men dispute that Matter But the same Socinians deny their Infallible Judge and therefore that must at least be as uncertain as the other And not only the Socinians but all Protestants deny it which must make it still more uncertain and not only all the Protestants but the Greek Armenian Aethiopian Churches a vast Body of Men which must still add to the uncertainty and not only all these but all that in any Age or Nation have ever differed from the Church of Rome for whoever differs from them must deny their Infallibility and consequently this must have been Disputed not only as much as any one Point but as much as all the rest together This I think is a demonstrative Answer to this whole way of Arguing and shews the manifest Absurdity of it for it makes things uncertain because they are Disputed and yet makes the most Disputed thing in all the World the Foundation of all the certainty they have I have been the longer in examining this Point of the Infallibility of your Church as being that which is the great support of all your other Errors I now proceed to speak something to the particulars I promised and first I shall begin with Transubstantiation which is the first thing Renounced in the Test The Sense of the Church of England in this Matter seems to be this That tho' Believers in the faithful and due receiving of this Holy Sacrament are made Partakers of the Benefits of the Death of Christ that is of the breaking of his Body and the shedding his Blood and so may be properly enough said to be partakers of his Body and Blood yet that which they take into their Mouths is really but Bread and Wine but Bread and Wine set apart for a holy Use to represent the breaking of the Body and the shedding of the Blood of our Blessed Saviour and therefore in a Sacramental sense may be called his Body and Blood tho' in truth and reality they are but Bread and Wine Both Sides do in some Sense own a real Presence of Christ in this Sacrament but this one thing if observed will sufficiently shew the difference That Protestants say that in the devout and holy Use of this Sacrament Christ will be present with his Grace and Assistance to the Souls of good People but that the Things which appear before us which we eat and drink are not Christ but Bread and Wine Those of the Church of Rome on the other side say That the Thing which lies before them which they put into their Mouths tho' before Consecration they are Bread and Wine yet upon pronouncing those Words This is my Body and this is my Blood they lose their own Nature and Substance of Bread and Wine and become very Christ the very same Christ that was Born of the Virgin Mary and that suffered upon the Cross And therefore pay them the same Divine Honour and Worship as if God or Christ did truly and openly appear before them Now the whole ground of this Dispute lies in the Words of the Institution This is my Body and this is my Blood They say that the Words ought to be understood in the plain literal Sense we say they ought to be understood as used by Christ in his Instituting a Sacrament that is appointing one thing to be a representation and a memorial of another and which because it does represent may very well be called by the Name of that Thing which is represented by it which we think to be a very natural easy way of speaking and agreeable as to that present occasion so to other terms of Speech of the same nature which had been in use among those People to whom our Saviour spoke But in particular the time in which