Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	flesh_n	speak_v	word_n	7,887	5	4.5970	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38514	An epistle of a Catholique to his friend a Protestant touching the doctrine of reall presence. Or, the answer to a question propounded in these tearms What should move you, contrary to the plain testimony of your senses, to believe, that after consecration the bread and wine in the sacrament is become really Christs very body and blood.		1659 (1659)	Wing E3164AA; ESTC R222634	19,912	20

AN EPISTLE OF A CATHOLIQUE To his Friend A PROTESTANT Touching the Doctrine of Reall Presence OR The Answer to a Question propounded in these Tearms What should move you contrary to the plain Testimony of your Senses to believe that after Consecration the Bread and Wine in the Sacrament is become REALLY Christs very Body and Blood Matth. 22.29 Ye doe erre not KNOWING the Scriptures nor the POWER of God It is a manifest signe of an VNBELIEVING Heart in the Works of God to ask HOW This or That can be St. Basil lib. 5. contr Eunom Printed in the Year 1659. An Epistle of a Catholique to his Friend a Protestant touching the Doctrine of Real Presence SIR YOu having desired me to give you some probable Reasons which did or do perswade me to believe that after the words of Consecration the Bread contrary to the Senses of Seeing and Feeling and Tasting is Christs very Body and the Wine his Blood in answer to your demand I shall according to my weak Capacity tell you truly by what Reasons I am chiefly so perswaded First the Holy Scriptures unanimously in expresse tearms say That it is his Body and that it is his Blood the places in the Evangelists are so manifest and well known that it may seem needless to name them however for the importance of the matter I quote them to you Mat. 26.26 28. Mark 14.22 24. Luke 22.19 20. Secondly the Ancient Fathers did never understand those places otherwise then in their literal and proper sense as appeareth by their Works left in writing which are too numerous here to insert and is acknowledged by many of the most eminent Protestants themselves as namely Philip Melancthon the Centurists Bucer Peter Martyr Calvin and others as you may see in the Book called The Progeny of Catholiques and Protestants lib. 2. cap. 8. pag. 35 36 37. lib. 5. cap. 3. pag. 13. Thirdly it was the unanimous Doctrine of the Councels not one of them ever determining the contrary though at some times moved so to have done by some few private persons that Heretically opposed the Doctrine and many of the said Councels having expresly determined for it Fourthly it was ever the constant Belief and Practice of the universall Church throughout the world and whensoever any did oppose it they were presently judged condemned and cast out by the Church of that Age as Heretiques and in all after ages so likewise esteemed namely Heretiques and their memory held abominable stinking like to those Carcases Esay 66.24 which it is not improbable the Prophet in Spirit might principally mean when he said that the Carcases of the men that had transgressed being cast out shall be an abhorring to all flesh For so indeed most commonly are the memories of all Heretiques they are an abhorring not onely to the Catholique Church but to all flesh for the latter Heretiques do in one kinde or other usually condemn the former as much as Catholiques do Fifthly the Divisions and Differences which are among those whose opinions in this matter be contrary to the Church are so many and manifold that it is not easie to reckon them and do clearly convince that there can be no certainty of Truth in any of their said different opinions Luther in his time observed Eight several Expositions of those words Hoc est corpus meum This is my Body all contrary one to another and coming as he saith not from the Spirit of God but from the mouth of Devils and not long after him Claudius de Sainctes a learned Bishop of the Catholique Church in his Book of the Eucharist reckoned no less then fourscore different Expositions of the said words of Institution This is my Body c. and this is my Blood c. all earnestly maintained by learned Protestants with rejection of the contrary sense So that we see once out of the way of true expounding of Scripture and there 's no end of erring Luther speaking of Carolstadius Zuinglius and Oecolampadius all three Sacramentarians as he calls them saith Cursed be their Charity and Concord for ever and ever signifying that he would have nothing to do with them in the matter of this Sacrament He said moreover that they expounded the words This is my Body as absurdly as if one should expound that Text in the Book of Genesis In the beginning God made heaven and earth thus The Cuckow did eat up the Tittling or Hedge-Sparrow bones and all and as for that Passage of Saint John Chap 1. v. 14. of his Gospel The word was made flesh their Exposition saith Luther is as good as to say A crooked staff is made a Kite Thus did Luther not without cause set out and deride the Sacramentarians expounding of Scripture as you may see more at large noted pag. 22. of the Answer to Mr. Charks Preface called The Triall of Spirits Sixthly if the words This is my Body be to be expounded thus This is a figure or This is a sign of my Body then is there no hard mystery no hard saying at all in those words nor in those other which our Saviour spake John 6.53 Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you which were utterly contrary not onely to the speeches language and confessions of all Writers and of all Records of Antiquity which acknowledge a great difficulty and hardness in this Mystery and a great irreconcileable repugnancy to carnal sense and Reason that the Eucharist or Sacrament should be verily and truly Christs Body and Blood but contrary to the whole purport of our Lords Answer to the Capernaites whose great stumbling question was how Christ could give them his flesh to eat This both They and also some of his Disciples called an hard saying they could not understand how it should be done nor yet by the Answer which our Saviour gave them did they or indeed could they in reason understand it as the Sacramentarians now do to wit that the Bread in a Spiritual sense is onely a figure of his Body and not his very Body indeed For what hardness had there been then to conceive and comprehend the full nature of the Mystery especially how could his Saying have been thought so hard that it should move many of Christs own Disciples to leave him and to walk no longer with him And surely a sad parting it was seeing our Lord presently upon it said as it were mournfully to the Twelve and will ye also go away And yet notwithstanding though it were for their satisfaction and to keep them from going away with the rest our Saviour even he who is so great a lover of souls thought fit to make them no other answer but this Doth this offend you what if you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before John 6.62 as much as if he had said though I do ascend and leave you yet of necessity my flesh must be eaten

short but a short moment even as a drop of a bucket to the whole ocean se● and one gravel stone in comparison of the sands upon the sea shore so are a thousand yea a thousand thousands of years to the dayes of Eternity Therefore O my soul saith Esdras 2 Esdras 8.4 5. swallow down understanding and devour wisdom for thou hast no longer time then onely to live wherein thou must gain eternity Wherefore as the Preacher saith Eccles 9.10 whatsoever thy hand hath found to do to wit of good do it with all thy might for there is no labouring in the grave Let us now resolutely and courageously resign up our selves to all manner of afflictions for heavens sake and by so doing lay hold of eternal life let us not let slip any opportunity for in that way we shall best gather to our selves treasures of glory we may think our selves happy as many of us as in this kind and for this cause suffer persecution Diverse Catholique Countreys want this high favour from God which we in England have Such in other Countreys as fix their eyes upon eternity force themselves to long and sharp Penances in Fastings Watchings hard Labour austere Discipline with other mortifications of the flesh but instead of these we in England have countrey-men and neighbours persecuting us to the loss of goods liberty and life sometimes O let us be content and account that this time is our Fair and Market our Mart-time to get both precious glorious and durable riches to eternity And as for those who are our Persecutours let us mourn and pray for them Our Lord said to the daughters of Jerusalem Weep not for me but weep for your selves and for your children So I would to God these would pitty themselves more then they pitty those whom they persecute which yet sometimes they seem to do Let us pray earnestly for them and fear that it is for some great foregoing sins still aggravated and continued by our own iniquities that hath so incensed and moved the merciful God to permit our neighbours to be our persecuters and that God uses them as his Battle-ax as the Rod of his wrath and the Staff of his indignation to punish Hypocrites but to purge and purifie those whom he loves O 't is a woful condition that such our persecuters are in let us pray heartily for them for their Conversion and amendment before the Altar of our God that it would please the merciful God of all flesh and Father of Spirits to illuminate those that live out of the Church seriously to apprehend the danger of their estate and the great importance of eternal Salvation and that it would please the Almighty to incline the hearts of our Magistrates both rightly to understand our Religion and impartially to consider our Sufferings and however they oppress and persecute us yet O Lord make us ever with exact fidelity to perform our duties to them And also let us pray that God would be pleased to asswage his anger towards our Nation to forgive the sins of our forefathers and ours and to turn away his wrath from us their postetity to deliver the ignorant from being any longer seduced by false Teachers and the learned from being mislead by their worldly interests and passions and the whole Nation from the Spirit of Contradiction Licentiousness and Discord that instead of so many Sects Divisions and changes of Religion they may all again be restored to that One True Religion and to that unity of Minde and steadiness of Faith and tranquillity of Conscience which is no where else to be sought no where else to be found but in the Communion of Gods Church nor by any other means to be attained but by the conduct of his Grace Amen An Appendix to the foregoing Discourse in Answer to an Objection c. Dear Friend WHereas you object that Tertullian and some other of the Arcients do call the Symbols of Bread and Wine after Consecration Figures onely I wonder that you being a knowing man in these matters should thus speak That they call them Figures sometimes it s confest and so do divers Catholick Writers of present times as you may see in Bellarmin Libr. 1. de Sacram. Eucharist cap. 5 but that they called or esteemed them Figures onely and no more or Figures without the Substance as Protestants do is denied The Holy Scripture calls the Son Heb. 1.3 the express Image or Figure of his Fathers Substance or Person Is he not therefore of the same Substance and Divine Nature with the Father The Quakers indeed understand and esteem him onely a Figure because of this Text but the Church and all true Christians believe otherwise namely that though he be the Figure of God yet he is also in the verity of his own Person true and eternal God and that in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily Col. 2.9 And therefore for you to say that the Fathers esteemed the Sacrament duly consecrated to be a Figure onely of Christs Body is a great mistake and undervaluing of the Fathers Judgements supposing them to be so stupid that they should both Adore and also Offer up to God as a Sacrifice of such Divine Vertue and Merit and of so Supream and Superlative Excellency above all other Sacrifices whatsoever that had been offered before it that which was in it self but a piece of Bread a thing so much inferiour even to the meanest of the Jewish Sacrifices I say that the Fathers should thus Magnifie and Adore that which they believed to be nothing else but a piece of bread is the greatest absurdity that can be imposed upon men But you wil not believe perhaps that the Fathers Adored the Sacrament To convince you of this I shall alledge some few examples of many out of their Works by which it will undeniably appear what both their judgement and practice was concerning this matter First St. Augustin Epist 118. saith It is he the Apostle saith shall be damned who doth not with SINGULAR VENERATION or Adoration make a difference betwixt this meat and all other meats And again upon the 98. Psalm No man saith he eateth this Sacrament but first he Adoreth it Secondly St. Ambrose lib. 3. cap. 12. de Spir. Sanct. We ADORE saith he the flesh of Christ in the Mysteries Thirdly St. Chrysostome Homil. 24. in 1. ad Cor. We ADORE him on the Altar as the Wisemen did in the Manger Matth. 2.11 Fourthly St. Gregory Nazianzen in Epitaph Gorgon professeth of his Devout and Faithful Sister Gorgonia that being in a distress she ran to the Church and casting her self down before the Altar invocated or called upon Christ who is adored or worshipped thereon Fifthly Theodoret. dial 2. entituled Inconfusus The Mystical Symbols saith he are ADORED as being in truth the things they are believed to be to wit the Body and Blood of Christ Lastly St. Dennis Areopagita Scholar of the Apostles themselves Ecclesiast Hierarch