Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	ghost_n	holy_a	receive_v	18,187	5	5.7163	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51288	A brief discourse of the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist wherein the witty artifices of the Bishop of Meaux and of Monsieur Maimbourg are obviated, whereby they would draw in the Protestants to imbrace the doctrine of transubstantiation.	More, Henry, 1614-1687.; Wake, William, 1657-1737.	1686 (1686)	Wing M2643; ESTC R25165	52,861	96

propose not only one Maxime but several Maximes wherein both the Romanists and We and indeed all mankind are agreed in and which therefore I will instead of Maximes call Common Notions in allusion to those of Euclid And the first shall be this I. That which in it self is false no declaring or saying it is true can make it true II. Whatever is plainly repugnant to what is true is certainly false III. Whatever is false can be no due Article of a true Faith or Religion IV. The senses rightly circumstantiated are true Judges of their Object whether such an Object be Earth Air Fire or Water Body or Spirit and the like Besides that this is a Common Notion with all mankind the Incarnate Wisdom himself has given his suffrage for it in his arguing with S t Thomas Iohn 20. v. 27. Then saith he to Thomas Reach hither thy finger and behold my hands and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side and be not faithless but believing What is this but the appealing to the truth of sense by our Saviour himself And Luke 24. v. 29. Behold my hands and my feet that it is I my self handle me and see for a spirit has not flesh and bones as ye see I have Here is an appeal both to Sense and Reason at once and that about the very Body of Christ touching which the great Controversie is raised V. An Essence or Being that is one so long as it remains so as it is distinct from others so it is undividable or inseparable from it self VI. The whole is bigger than the part and the part less than the whole VII In every Division though the parts agree with the whole yet they disagree amongst themselves So that the part A. is not the very part B. nor the part B. the very part C. nor can each part be truly and adequately the whole by the foregoing common Notion VIII The same Body cannot be actually a Cube and a Globe at once and there is the same reason of any other different Figures of a Body IX No Revelation the Revealing whereof or the manner of the Revealing whereof is repugnant to the Divine Attributes can be from God X. No Tradition of any such Revelation can be true for as much as the Revelation it self is impossible XI No interpretation of any Divine Revelation that is repugnant to rightly circumstantiated Sense and pure and unprejudiced Reason whether it be from a private or publick hand can be any Inspiration from God XII No Body can be bigger and less than it self at once XIII That Individual Body that is already nor ceaseth to be cannot be made while it is already existing XIV One and the same Body cannot be both present with it self and many thousand miles absent from it self at once XV. One and the same Body cannot be shut up in a Box and free to walk and run in the Fields and to ascend into the very Heavens at the same time XVI And lastly to omit many other such self-evident Truths or Common Notions it is impossible that a man should swallow his whole Body Head Feet Back Belly Arms and Thighs and Stomach it self through his Mouth down his Throat into his Stomach that is every whit of himself into one knows not what of himself less than a Mathematical point or nothing For if all be swallowed what is there left of the man for it to be swallowed into but a mere point or rather nothing 5. Certainly all the World as well Papists as Protestants as soon as they do but conceive the meaning of the Terms will assent to the Truth of these Propositions at the very first sight which therefore has made me call them Common Notions Let us now apply our selves to the use of them in the examining the strength of Monsieur Maimbourg's general Maxime wherein he will have the Papists and Protestants agreed The first Prop thereof is That the true Church is infallible by the promise made to her of being assisted by the Holy Ghost But here I demand whether this promise be made to the Universal Church or any Particular Church or Churches throughout all Ages That it is not made to the Universal Church throughout all Ages is plain in that the parts thereof have been and are still divided in several matters of Faith That no such promise is made to any Particular Church or Churches is plain from hence that these Churches are not named in any part of the Scripture which omission is incredible if there had been any such entailment of Infallibility upon any Particular Church or Churches But of all Churches I humbly conceive it is impossible it should be the Church of Rome unless it be possible that all those Common Notions which I have set down and in which all the World even the Church of Rome her self if they will speak their Consciences are agreed in be false which they must be if Transubstantiation be true And therefore let any man judge whether is themore likely viz. That Transubstantiation should be false or those Common Notions not true 6. Again How does it appear that this promise of the assistance of the Holy Ghost is not conditional Indeed Christ says Iohn 16. 13. When the spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all truth viz. the same spirit that is promised chap. 14. v. 15 16 17. But the words of this pretended Charter of Infallibility are there set down more fully If you love me keep my commandments And I will pray the father and he shall give you another comforter that he may abide with you for ever even the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive The promise of the assistance of the Holy Ghost for the infallibly concluding what is true even from the words of this pretended Charter of Infallibility is conditional that is to say if they so love Christ as to keep his commandments and become not worldly and carnal for the World cannot receive this spirit of truth then this spirit which leadeth into all truth shall assist them Wherefore as many as Christ sends this infallible spirit to he first fits them for it by mortifying the spirit of the World in them and making them members of his truly Holy Church for the calling themselves Holy Church makes them never a jot the more Holy if they really be not so by the first common Notion And besides If the Words of this Charter of Infallibility had not been so express yet in common sense and reason this condition would necessarily have been understood Forasmuch as nothing can be more absurd than to imagine the Assistance of the Holy Ghost to be so cheap and trivial a thing as to be procured for the concluding Controversies arising or set on foot in the Church which are needless and frivolous or more for satisfying Curiosity than Edification and which tend to Division and tearing the Church violently into parts which was one before and

Learned Discourse of the Sacrament quotes out of S t Ambrose who says he speaking of that Body which is received in the Eucharist calls it the spiritual Body of Christ the Body of a Divine Spirit and he does confidently affirm of all the Antients who have either purposely interpreted or occasionally quoted the Words of Christ in the sixth of S t Iohn touching the eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood that they all understand him to speak of a Spiritual Flesh and Blood distinct not only from the Substance of the Holy Elements but also from that natural Body of Christ which he took of the Substance of the Holy Virgin pag. 233. So little Novelty is there in this distinction of the Body and Blood of Christ into natural and Spiritual or Divine CHAP. VII 1. An Apology for being thus operose and copious in inculcating the present point from the usefulness thereof 2. The first usefulness in that it defeats Monsieur de Meaux his Stratagem to reduce us to Transubstantiation as if no Real Presence without it 3. The second usefulness for the rectifying the Notion of Consubstantiation 4. The third for more fully understanding the Mystery of the Eucharist with Applications of it to several Passages in our Communion-Service 5. The fourth for a very easie and natural Interpretation of certain Passages in our Church-Catechism 6. The priviledge of the faithful Receiver and of what great noment the Celebration of the Eucharist is 7. The last usefulness in solidly reconciling the Rubrick at the end of the Communion-Service with that noted Passage in our Church-Catechism 1. THE Reader may haply think I have been over operose and copious in inculcating this Distinction of Gratian's touching the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist But the great usefulness thereof I hope may apologize for this my extraordinary diligence and industry For the Notion being both true and unexceptionable and not at all clashing so far as I can discern with either the Holy Scripture or right Reason and solid Philosophy to say nothing of the Suffrage of the Primitive Fathers but rather very agreeable and consentaneous to them all and also having as I said its weighty usefulness it was a point I thought that was worth my so seriously insisting upon and as I have hitherto endeavoured faithfully to set out the Truth thereof I shall now though more briefly intimate its Usefulness 2. And the first Usefulness is this Whereas that Reverend Prelate the Bishop of Meaux tugs so hard to pull back again the Reformed Churches to the Communion of the Church of Rome by this Concession or rather Profession of theirs that there is a Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ at the Celebration of the Eucharist to be received by the faithful and that therefore they must return to the Doctrine of Transubstantiation as if there were no other Mode of a Real Presence to be conceived but it the force of this Inference is plainly taken away by this Distinction that Gratian one of their own Church hath luckily hit upon or rather taken out of some antient Father and is more fully made out in this Discourse that there is a Spiritual and Divine Body of Christ distinct from that particular Body of his that hung on the Cross which the faithful partake of in the Lord's Supper Whence it is plain there is no need of Transubstantiation which is incumbred with such abundance of Impossibilities and Contradictions 3. Secondly This Notion of ours is hugely serviceable for the rectifying of the Doctrine of Consubstantiation in the Lutheran Church who are for an Ubiquity of the particular Body of Christ that hung on the Cross which assuredly is a grand Mistake But I believe in the Authors thereof there was a kind of Parturiency and more confused Divination of that Truth which we have so much insisted upon and their Mistake consists only in this that they attributed to the particular Body of Christ which belongs to his restrained and circumscribed humane Nature that which truly and only belongs to his Divine Body as he is the Eternal Logos in whom is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Life or Spirit of the Logos to which Spirit of his this Body belongs and therefore is rightly called his Body as appertaining to his Spirit For this Body this Divine and Spiritual Flesh as Gratian calls it is every where present though not to be received as the Food of the Inward man but only by the Faithful and Regenerate so that according to this Notion there may be a Consubstantiation rightly interpreted that is a Compresentiation or rather Compresentiality of both the Real Bread and Wine and the Real Body and Blood of Christ at once so that they both may be really and indeed received by all true Believers And Lutheranism in this point thus candidly interpreted will prove a sound and unexceptionable Doctrine And I charitably believe the first Authors of it if they had fully understood their own meaning meant no more than so And I wish I had as much reason to believe that the Pontificians meant no more by their Transubstantiation but a firm and fast hold of the Real Presence I hope the most ingenuous of them at this time of the day mean no more than so viz. That they are as well assured of the Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ to be received in the Celebration of the Eucharist as if the very Bread was turned into his Body and the Wine into his Blood by a miraculous Transubstantiation 4. Thirdly It is from this Notion or Distinction of the antient Fathers as I hinted above of the Body and Blood of Christ into Natural and Spiritual or Divine that we have ever been well appointed to give a more full and distinct account of the nature of the Solemnity of the Eucharist as it is celebrated in our Church it plainly comprizing these two things The first the Commemoration of the Death of Christ of the breaking his Body or Flesh viz. the wounding thereof with Nails and Spears The other The partaking of the Divine Body and Blood of Christ by which our Inward Man is nourished to Eternal Life which our eating the Bread and drinking the Wine are Symbols of Both which in our Communion-Service are plainly pointed at The first fully in the Exhortation to Communicants where it is said And above all things you must give most humble and hearty thanks to God the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost for the Redemption of the World by the Death and Passion of our Saviour Christ both God and Man who did humble himself even to the Death upon the Cross for us miseable sinners And to the end we should always remember the exceeding great love of our Master and only Saviour Jesus Christ thus dying for us and the innumerable benefits which by his precious Blood-shedding he hath obtained to us he has instituted and ordained Holy