Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A26149
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An answer to some considerations on the spirit of Martin Luther and the original of the Reformation lately printed at Oxford.
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Atterbury, Francis, 1662-1732.
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1687
(1687)
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Wing A4146; ESTC R4960
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53,756
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88
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is mean't here by regretting I don't understand for Adamus says no more then that he was concern'd at the censures of some people about it But the Pamphlet in the next words will explain it self where we are inform'd that Melancthon too by Ls procurement took a Wife so that it 's plain now that by regretting is meant approving for certainly if a man were disgusted at marriage he would never recommend it to his friend This I take in the language of the book to be a sufficient autocatacrisy If the English Reader be p. 10. startled at the Word he may be pleas'd to know that it's Greek for a Blunder After these advances Lr. wholly left off his Canonleal §. 13. Hours an heynous accusation why he had left off his Monkhood too and was no longer oblig'd to 'em How could he have the leysure and retiredness of the Cloyster to perform all those acts of Devotion in when the Burthen of the Reformation lay upon his Shoulders No his active spirit was employ'd upon things more acceptable to God almighty because more useful to mankind He was wrestling against Principalities and Powers against Ephes. 6. 12 13. 14 15. 16 17. 18 19. the Rulers of the darkness of this world and against spiritual wickedness in high places To that end he took unto him the whole armor of God that he might be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand He stood therefore having his Loyns girt about with Truth and having on the brest plate of righteousness and his feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace Above all taking the shield of Faith wherewith he was able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked And he took the Helmet of Salvation and the Sword of the Spirit which is the word of God Yet praying alwayes with all Prayer and Supplication in the Spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all Saints And for himself that utterance might be given unto him that he might open his mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the Gospel I could not forbear setting down at full length this Panoply of St. Paul wherewith Lr. compleatly arm'd himself in his spiritual warfare and I do not know whether this description belong's so justly to any man as him since the day 's of the Apostles Should he therefore have laid aside his Canonical Hours yet the Work he was about sufficiently atton'd for the omission But I had rather his Accuser should vindicate him then I. You will find then that tho L r. has discharg'd these duties quite at the entrance of the Paragraph yet at the end of it you will be told that he never totally cast off this holy Exercise So obligingly do's this author contradict himself to spare the Replyer's pains â—…d And this ease I must acknowledge he has more then once afforded me In the following Account of L s. appearing before §. 14. the Legat in Germany I must desire him to rectify a mistake or two for neither was L r. condemn'd by Cajetan there nor was Cajetan a moderate Prelate He descended to bitter reprehensions says Soave Hist. Counc Tr. p. 8. and base terms and concluded that Princes haue long hands and so bid him be gone Here was no Judicial Process all ended in a threatning and this moderate Prelate behav'd himself with such a rude zeal through the whole conference that even his own party blam'd the furiousness of it Soave ibid. If Lr. afterwards threw off the Pope's Authority it was not till he had try'd all softer wayes of redress by Letters Remonstrances and the most submiss applications it was not till a fresh Bull of Leo's had declar'd how inflexible the Court of Rome was in the point of Abuses and not till Prierias had in downright terms told him Indulgentiae authoritate scripturae non innotuere nobis sed authoritate Ecclesiae Romanae Romanorumque Pontificum quae major est The Pope now was become a party in the cause and could not be rely'd upon for a decision to a Council therefore he appeal'd and if he afterwards revok'd this Plea too 't was because he found the expected Council was dwindling into a Conventicle a pack'd Assembly of Italian Bishops not a free convention of Fathers from all Quarters of the Christian World So that to urge upon this account that he deny'd the Authority of the present Church §. 15. or deny'd 〈◊〉 presâ—… Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—…ay §. 16. no worse of it an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fâ—… bâ—… â—…e present Church here is meant 〈◊〉 more then the Court of Rome and it's dependents But he is challeng'd of going much farther then this even to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the visibility of the Church for many ages upon what account Because he made this the only note of the 〈◊〉 Church that there the Gospel be truly and sincerely 〈◊〉 As if 〈◊〉 and with him a great train of learned 〈◊〉 did not own that in all that dark 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were still some gleams of light some witnesses that arose to give testimony to the truth and protest against innovations I cannot but take 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 way of a little artifice of the Considerer's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he has of disguising a Doctrine when it lyes a little too open by putting a new name to it Is it too bold to say the Elements must be ador'd they shall then only have a certain sort of a Culâ—… paid them So here the Priest is said to operate the presence of the body and blood of Christ which in plain broad English is neither more nor less then to make God But that 's too gross to go off so a term is coyn'd to make the conveyance easy As for the newness of Ls. opinions and his marching §. 16. alone against the Doctrine of the primitive ages 't is so beaten a point that it deserves no other Answer then that true Jest of Scaliger's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Novatores sed Vos estis Veteratores and the Considerer if he pleases may apply it But 't is ridiculous to say he deny'd the validity of §. 18. the former Clergy's ordination for that necessarily draws along with it the invalidity of his too Yet he proceeded we see in the work of his Ministry without expecting any new Mission and never thought himself a See Disc about the Euch. oblig'd to a reordination No he was so far from this that in the Articles of Smalcald he own 's Orders confer'd by a Popish Bishop even then to be valid a Smalcald Art 10. and in his Letter about the Anabaptists you will find him in 20 places owning that the C. of Rome hath the true Faith Baptism Sacraments the Keys the Office of Preaching c. Concessions that run as high as any the most charitable Protestants now make So that that objection of the Devil 's in Ls. book of the Mass
must be counted a flourish only and not a convincing argument for tho' Lr. gives his assent in general to the reasoning of that discourse yet he do's not say every particular of it amounted to a demonstration As for his book adversus falso-nominatum ordinem Episcoporum and some harsh expressions about the Prelates of his time they must not be so understood as if he meant to unbishop 'em but only to set out their corruption and degeneracy Athanâ—…sius do's not speak more softly of the Arrian Bishops in Constantius his Court he says they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that if any of 'em has a mind to be consecrated he is not told that a Bishop should be blameless but only bid to rage against Christ and never trouble himself about manners b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athan. Ep. ad Solit. Vit. agentes p. 812. Edit Paris 1â—…27 But these words must be allow'd a latitude and are not strictly to be taken as if the Father deny'd the validity of their Consecration After the Breach with the Pope 't is own'd that Lr. â—… 17. took the freedom of calling him Antichrist when ever he came in his way but ere this can be made his crime it must be prov'd that St. Paul has not call'd him so too for otherwise we can't but think that he has taken after a good pattern If his spirit must be dubb'd evil for an hard word or two against his holyness of what spirit pray was the sacred Council of Brixia when they stigmatiz'd Hildebrand calling him Virum procacissimum sacrilegia inâ—…endia praedicantem Perjuria Homicidia defendentem manifestum Necromanticum and a deal of that stuff Now can I see no great difference between Lr. and the Council in this matter but that they rayl'd perhaps with infallibility on their side when He had only plain certainty on his But he rejected the authority of Councils yes siquando §. 19. contraria Scripturae statuunt a Assert Art 29. and so do all the Reform'd as well as He. So that this won't pass for a fault in him till 't is prov'd one in us too But he never refus'd to be concluded by the authority of One legally summon'd as is plain from that Preface of his to the Smalcald Articles written a little while before he went out of the world Indeed the sense he had of the tricks and Artifices us'd in convening these Synods for some Centuries together and the noise of his Adversaries who were perpetually crying Councils Canons c. when they had nothing else to say for their cause might perhaps force out an expression or two from him that did not carry all the respect due to those great Names he had fire in his temper and a German bluntness and upon these provocations might possibly strain a phrase with too great freedom yet even the diligence of his accuser has in all his works been able to find out but a few passages of this nature and of them the most material perhaps were never found out by any body else but himself For those two which seem the warmest on this occasion are quoted the one from Assertio Art 36. contra Reg. Angliae the other from a Treatise of his about Councils in 1639 two imaginary books that the considerer dreamt of perhaps but I am sure L. never wrote a In Luther's Works in High Dutch there is a Book of Councils I confess But this can't be that my Author means because his Quotations here are in Latin So that till he lay'â—… his Indictment in some certain County we don't think our selves bound to answer an indefinite charge As for the rest we acknowledge he call'd the Council of Constance Synagogam Satanae and I wonder my author should be offended at the expression when 't is consider'd what unlucky things they did in the business of the Pope's Supremacy especially since their own Annalist has given the same Title to that of Syrmium a Council legally summon'd by the Emperor Constantius approv'd by Pope Liberius and which they of the Roman Perswasion have no colour to reject but upon Protestant grounds because it made Heretical Decrees Lr. says sive Papa sive Concilium sic aiunt abundet quisque in sensu suo in rebus non necessariis ad salutem Assert Art 28. Here is He represented by this author as denying the power of the Church in indifferent things but this is foul dealing to conceal the occasion the words were spoken upon and then fasten a sense of his own This Article is aim'd against the pretences of a Pope or Council to make that a necessary point of faith by their determination which was of it self unnecessary before For they took upon 'em he knew to enlarge the Creeds which were already fix'd and had explain'd a Parable of our Savior's in a far different sense to what he taught it in The Faith which was but a Mustard-seed in the Primitive ages was grown by little and little tow'rds the beginning of the 16th Century into a great Tree This power of their's and no other Lr. here disowns as any one that views the place but cursorily must needs see There is no harm in this I hope and yet how bigg the accusation look'd as his sly Enemy had manag'd it There is another sentence taken from Tom. 2. p. 243. But I must desire the Citer henceforward to inform us of his Editions too for in the first Wirtenberg one which I now have by me no such thing appears I would request of him too to be punctual in his Titles that we who are at the drudgery of Reading him may loose no more time then is necessary By the book de gravi doctrina is meant I suppose de quavis doctrina p. 33. but 't is a trifle he has taken from it and what he knows every body own 's Thus has this one Paragraph afforded us more absurdities then we could possibly have expected in so narrow a compass and methinks tho I don't well know what the words mean yet in the phrase of the man it discover's a strange plerophory of blindnesâ—… Lr. is next arraign'd for speaking contemptuously of §. 20. Fathers but this is a rank calumny No man has a greater veneration for 'em then He. Let his latest Writings which our Author observes to have been the most haughty give us a tast of his thoughts on this point I say not this to lay a blott on the Holy Fathers whose Labors we ought with veneration to receive They were great men but men still and a little afterwards b Quoties videmus patrum opinioneâ—… cum scriptura non convenâ—…re cum reverentia eos toleramus agnoscimus tanquam majorâ—…s 〈◊〉 sedâ—… 〈◊〉 eoâ—…â—…almen non discedimus ab authoritate scripturae Ibid. When â—…e find the opinions of Fathers jarring with Scriptures we must pay a respect to 'em even in their very Errors and