Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A44522
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Four tracts by A. Horneck ...; with a preface by Mr. Edwards.; Selections. 1697
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Horneck, Anthony, 1641-1697.
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1697
(1697)
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Wing H2831; ESTC R4616
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55,346
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154
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〈◊〉 O my Lady Holy Mary I commendmy 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 Christ's Will nay and her own as if she were a Lawgiver 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 cried Lord Jesu receive my Spirit Then follows the Evening Prayer to the Virgin Mary O Mary Mother of God and gracious 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 God's 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 Joys Amen Then follows Under thy Protection we flee Holy Mother of God despise not our Prayer in our Necessities but deliver us from all dangers always 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 Christ's 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 the Relicts How unlike that plain and simple Worship which the Gospel enjoyns One would think it should a little startle you to see that your Church is afraid to let the Second Commandment be known to the People you know they leave it out in their Primers and Catechisms 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 Commandment made People run away from the Church of Rome as much as any thing Indeed to consider the general terms God uses there Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven Image c. Thou shalt not only not Worship them but not so much as fall down before them would make a Person that is not taken more with the Golden Legends than with Scripture afraid of Prostrations before Images upon the account of Devotion It is not all your plea that you do not terminate your Worship on the Image but on the Person represented by the Image that will excuse you at the great tribunal for not to mention that in the same manner the Heathen used to defend their grossest Idolatry and that you are forced to borrow their very Arguments your own Authors do confess that the common People are apt to pay Adoration and do pay Adoration to the Images themselves and why will you lay such a Stumbling-block before the People Much might be said of the Adoration you pay to the consecrated Host You confess that the Worship you give to it is the same Worship you give to God What if that Wafer should not be turned into the Body and Blood of Christ What if it should remain as very a Wafer as it was before Consecration What if it should not be God as you have all the Demonstration that Sense or Reason can give you that it is not changed into another Substance What monstrous Idolatry would this be Ay but we believe it to be God Why Madam doth your Belief that such a thing is God or Christ excuse you from Idolatry Should you believe a Stone to be God and adore it might not you justly be charged with Idolatry You look upon the Heathens as Idolaters because they adore the Sun Ay but they believe that Sun to be God and how then according to your plea can they be Idolaters If there be such a Transubstantiation in the Sacrament as you fancy and an Adoration of the Hoste so very necessary what 's the reason the Apostles of our Lord that saw Christ before their eyes only could not believe that there were two Christs one sitting at the Table the other reached out to them What 's the reason I say that they sate still and paid no Adoration to the Bread which according to you was transubstantiated into Christ If they did not adore it what a Presumption is it in you to give the highest Worship to the consecrated Bread upon a pretence that that Bread is God under the accidents of Bread But of this I have said enough before and could you but find time to read what our Authors have written upon this Subject it could be nothing but hardness of Heart and Resolution to be blind could keep you in a Church that fills your Head with Doctrines contrary to the nature of a Sacrament contrary to all that Moses and the Prophets nay and all sound Philosophers have said I will not say any thing here of your strange unbloody Sacrifice of the Mass a thing unheard of in the purer Ages of Christianity and which the Scripture is so great a stranger to that one would wonder how Mankind came to light upon the notion Nor of your Doctrine of
together To say that this Infallibility lies in the Church though you know not where is to say a Needle lies in a Bottle of Hay and he hath good luck that finds it Nay I think the Church of ROME hath been so modest that notwithstanding all her pretences to infallibility She never hath dared to obtrude a Comment on the Bible as infallible nor did I ever see any Interpretation of the Bible made either by Pope or Council which hath pretended to Infallibility If that Church be infallible why do not their own Divines agree in Interpretation of Scripture if there be an infallible Sense of the Scriptures in that Church then the Members of that Church are mad not to keep to that infallible Sense especially if they know where to fetch it and they offer great injuries and affronts to their Church in differing so much about interpretation of Scripture when their Church can give them an infallible Sense of it For that Church having as they pretend the Holy Ghost to guide them in all things I suppose that Spirit assists her in Interpretation of one place of Scripture as well as in another if they say it doth infallibly assist them in some places and not in all they destroy their own Principle and how shall a man be sure that just in those Points that are in dispute between Us and them they are Infallible Is the Spirit divided Or is he not always the same Or doth not he exert his power upon all occasions Madam who so blind as those that will not see Who sees not that the pretence of Infallibility is nothing but a juggle a device to maintain a tripple Crown and an Engine to carry on a temporal Authority God indeed hath promised that his Church dispersed thro' the World shall last to the World's end and that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against her but that promise differs very much from a promise of Infallibility and suppose it did inferr an Infallibility how comes the particular Church of ROME to ingross it to her self that is at the best but a Member and a very unsound one of Christ's Universal Church It is one thing to be secured against being destroyed and another to be free from all possibility of Errour There is no doubt but a sober rational man that prays earnestly for illumination and reads the Scripture much and considers the Circumstances the Holy Writers were in when they writ and the Occasions of their writing and hath the advantage of Learning of Languages and History may give a very true Interpretation of Scriptures such an Interpretation as no man can rationally contradict tho' he hath not recourse to a Visible infallible Guide and tho' himself be not infallible Things may be very certain tho' they are not infallibly so and he that can make things out so that a prudent man cannot but give consent to them and hath no just cause to doubt of their truth may justly challenge belief from other men But I will not insist upon this point because I never heard you speak much of it I will come a little closer to those reasons that moved you to go over to the Roman Church whereof the principal was this that you were troubled in mind upon the account of your Sins could get no satisfaction in Our Church tho' you sought it like Esau with tears whereas you did no sooner confess to a Roman Priest and receive Absolution but you presently found unspeakable comfort And are you sure Madam that the peace and satisfaction you found in that Church was not delusion you tremble at that word but le ts consider the Nature of your peace When you were in our Church either you did truly repent of all your Sins or you did not If you did not most certainly you could have no solid peace but if you did truly repent as you say you did what could hinder you from applying the Promises made to penitent Sinners to your self which are the true grounds of comfort and satisfaction may be you wanted a Voice from heaven to confirm the Promise of the Gospel but have you since heard such a Voice from heaven in the Church of Rome I think not if you truly repented in our Church then certainly by the Word of God you were assured that your Sins were pardoned and if they were pardoned why should you not comfort your self with that pardon That which makes you rejoice now is because you believe your Sins are pardoned but if when you were of our Church you verily believed you truly repented you could not but believe that your Sins were pardoned and consequently you might have taken as much comfort as you do now But the Minister of the Church of England you say gave me no absolution which the Roman Priest did Why Madam did any of our Ministers deny your Absolution when you could assure them that your Repentance was sincere did you ever ask Absolution and were you refused Nay I appeal to your Conscience did not those Ministers you conversed withal assure you over and over that you need not doubt of the pardon of your Sins so long as you did detest and abhor them and watch and strive and pray against them and were sincerely resolved to commit them no more and did avoid the very occasions of Evil and what was this but Absolution which however you might have had performed with greater Ceremony if you had had a mind to it It is no very hard matter to guess at the rise and progress of your peace and satisfaction in the Roman Church All new things please and provided they have but a good face allure our fancy and this being pleased it 's very natural to defend them and having once defended them our Love to them advances and by degrees we think our Honour and Credit is too far engaged to part with them We see how Children are quieted with new trifles pardon the uncourtly comparison I know not how to shun it and the new object they never saw before surprizes and charms them makes them fix their Eyes upon it and cry if they cannot have it In the nature of Children we see our own and embracing new objects which our sickly fancy is roving after is but the Scene of Childrens longing for new play things changed the Novelty of the thing you were venturing upon the new Church new indeed new to you and new to Almighty God which you were to joyn your self to the Stool of Confession in the Church and the Priests new habit and mortified face which perhaps he owes more to his Country than to his Vertue and affected gravity and assuring of you that their absolution had a wonderful Vertue and Efficacy all these together surprized you and raised your expectation and struck some kind of reverence into you Your mind being thus possessed with the Idea's of these new things you never tried before and working upon your affections and moving your