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	truth_n	15,566	5	5.7471	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26615	Protestancy to be embrac'd, or, A new and infallible method to reduce Romanists from popery to Protestancy a treatise of great use to all His Majesties subjects, and necessary to prevent error and popery / by David Abercromby, D., lately converted, after he had profess'd near nineteen years Jesuitism and popery.	Abercromby, David, d. 1701 or 2.	1682 (1682)	Wing A86; ESTC R6382	30,832	174

our mind a World of illegal absur'd and irrational inferences and are besides contradicted through all Ages by the constant experience of all seeing and feeling men Let no Man nevertheless imagine we ground our mysteries on the Testimony of our Senses we only say nothing can be suppos'd as a mystery that is point blank against the evidence of sence and infallible experience which cannot be retorted against the mystery of the Trinity for though we neither see it nor feel it yet our Senses shew nothing to us evidently destructive to it and on this account this mystery is not against but above the reach both of Sense and Reason Secondly This Doctrine inclineth the meaner capacities to idolatry and the sharper wits to Hypocrisie and Dissimulation The common People because incapable to distinguish the appearance of Bread they see from the Body of Christ they see not and being taught to adore him hidden thus under the veils of Bread and Wine are apt to and no doubt do frequently adore the accidents they see which they call sometimes blasphemously God yea say commonly when the Wafer is lifted up by the Priest in the midst of the Mass on leve Dieu God is lifted their understanding finding no passage through the Consecrated Wafer to Christ's Body 9. As for the sharper sort of Romanists when they reflect 1. On what is said in Scripture that the Heavens must receive Christ until the times of restitution of all things 2. That a Body can no more be without its due extension for example of five or six foot than water without humidity fire without heat a stone without hardness 3. That the Bread cannot be miraculously chang'd into Christ's Body because all miracles are of necessity visible as is clear by all those we ever heard or read of But here the substance into which the Bread is converted is not visible This visibility nevertheless is necessary in a change really miraculous as it appears by that of water into wine of Moses Rod into a Serpent c. 4. That 't is inconsistent with reason to say Christ's Body is at the same time in Heaven and Earth yea and in as many places as there be all the World over Consecrated Wafers Who-ever understands these absurdities will never I am confident believe a true Transubstantiation though he profess otherwise outwardly through Hypocrisie and Dissimulation The Trinity I confess and Hypostatical Union or the Incarnation are far beyond the reach of our reason yet because they are not the Objects of our Senses we believe them with less reluctancy and more easily upon authority but that which hath ever been and still is evidently repugnant to the experimental knowledge of all our Senses as the Transubstantiation confessedly is can scarce ever be looked upon as a truth by such as make use of their discerning faculty The Romanists instance commonly these Words of Christ This is my Body as the ground of this Doctrine which they say must not be taken in a figurative sence because they are Christ's last Will and Testament and no man neither ignorant nor malicious expresseth his last Will by Figures and Metaphors But here lies their mistake that these words This is my Body are a true and real Testament or Christ's Legacy to his Apostles For he says not I leave you my Body which is the usual manner of uttering our selves in Testaments but This is my Body 'T is no Testament than as they imagine or at least not a proper one 10. Their Doctrine relating to the mediation of the Virgin Mary and other Saints withdraws them from rendering to Christ our only Redeemer due Honour and Glory For though there is no other Name under Heaven whereby we must be saved but that of Christ yet many of them pretend to Eternal Happiness by the merits of the Saints and the Virgin Mary whom they joyn still with Jesus in their Visits to the Sick either crying aloud to them or exhorting the sick to pronounce Jesus Maria as if they judg'd Christ's merits insufficient or that some other Name than that of Christ our Advocate with the Father could be a propitiation for our Sins hence 't is they extol so much their meritorious works that we have reason to say they ground thereon their best hopes of the other Life at least 't is certain the simple undiscerning sort relys more on what they do than on what Christ did for them I mean more upon their good works than on his infinite merits and mercys SECT II. Their Divine Worship and Ecclesiastical Discipline 1. THeir manner of Divine Worship is not unlike that of the ancient Heathens and on this account is far from the purity of the Primitive Church They adore God in Pictures and Images as he was adored by the Heathens in the Sun Moon and other less noble Creatures or rather to speak in their own terms they worship those Images as representations of that invisible and Soveraign Being we call God Though this was severely punished in the Israelites worshipping the Golden Calf as a representation of God for I cannot imagine they ador'd it as a true God unless you suppose they were as void of reason as it was if then this Worship of theirs be looked upon by all as Idolatry what may we judge of that Romish Image Worship the very same or at least in nothing material differing from it 2. Images are commonly called the Books of Ignorants but in my judgment they deserve rather to be denominated the Books of Ignorance because they occasion often mistakes and errors As for instance an Old Man representing God the Father a Dove the Holy Ghost are apt to make the ignorant sort believe they have indeed some such shape I shall not contest here about this point because it hath been discuss'd so often by others One thing only I shall say which I think is undeniable that Protestants serve God more in spirit and truth than Romanists do Because they make their Addresses to him immediately without having recourse to Images or imploring the help of Saints as Mediators I know they answer this by distinguishing a relative and Soveraign Worship The former they allow to Images the latter to God only But First This relative Worship was condemn'd and punish'd in the Israelites as I have insinuated above And Secondly They adore confessedly the Cross cultu latriae with that Soveraign cult belonging to God only What then can they instance in defence of their innocency I must as yet tell them in this place 3. They fall short of the end they aim at in covering the inside of their Churches with rare Pictures and Images of exquisite Artifice their aim is as I charitably suppose to stir up the people thereby to greater devotion But we find by experience a quite contrary effect they are diverted from Prayer by that great variety of alluring objects they have before their eyes you may see them in their Churches more gazing for

Majesty and consequently deserve his eternal Wrath as being of an unlimited malice Fifthly They allow every one to read the Scripture as the Fountain of all wholesom Doctrine and capable to make us wise unto Salvation as being a Light to our Understanding lest we err and a Fire to our Will lest we wax Cold in Charity and Love towards God and our Neighbors Sixthly Their Doctrine concerning the Lord's Supper is spirit and life it gives no occasion either of Idolatry or Hypocrisie by teaching that strange Novelty of Transubstantiation They captivate indeed their understanding in obsequium Fidei in obedience to Divine Faith but pull not out their Eyes to believe there is no Bread in the Eucharist where they see all the inseparable Properties thereof as Colour Shape Quantity c. Seventhly They rely solely on the Merits of Christ neither on the mediation of Saints nor on their own good works fully persuaded of this Christian Truth when they have done all they can they are but useless Servants and that all their sufficiency is from Above Eighthly Their Divine Worship is pure and without mixture of Superstition or Idolatry neither intirely without Ceremonies nor overburden'd with 'em superstitiously Ninthly They adore God in Spirit and Truth not under corporal Shapes and false Representations they adore him as Spirit and Truth as he is in reality knowing perfectly all their spiritual needs and bodily necessities without the help of Saints as Speakers and Informers Tenthly Their Ecclesiastical Discipline is most conformable in all its parts to that of the Primitive Church as also their Faith their Manners and way of living as may be gathered out of this and the foregoing Article and every one knows that is not altogether a Stranger to Antiquity Eleventhly They serve God in all freedom of spirit without endangering their Souls by vows of Continency true Snares rather to Innocency than fit means for attaining to Perfection and eternal Felicity ARTICLE III. SECT 1. Conclusions flowing from the first Principle of this Method I. MY first Principle was That those who profess Protestancy may be saved I proved it to Conviction without invectives or bitterness in the spirit of Christian Charity Meekness and Lenity persuaded of this clear Truth that Conviction of the intellective Faculty worketh never a true Conversion unless the Will be conquer'd by a civil and charitable way of debating II. 'T is Proverbial amongst the Romanists That out of the Church there is no hopes of salvation In what sense this is true 't is not my design here to inquire but I affirm they are pitifully mistaken understanding by the Church that handful of Christians united together in communion with the See of Rome which is as unreasonable as if one would say a Particular is an Universal a Part is the Whole or at least of as great and vast a bulk They will grant then I suppose Protestants to be Members of the Universal Church but dead ones destitute of life spirit and vigour The contradictory of this Proposition stands demonstrated in the first Article for since they may be saved by the merits and influence of their invisible Head Christ they are both wholesom living and vigorous Members of his Church III. They cannot be accused of Schism nor without a groundless Calumny called Schismaticks since they are still contain'd in the Catholick or Universal Church their Reform being in the Church not from it hold they not all Points necessary to salvation and whatever was of Divine Faith in the primitive Times They separated I confess from the particular Church of Rome but Romanists were the true causes of this Separation by introducing Errors and Novelties so they are properly the Separatists not Protestants Let them be ashamed then to sound perpetually as they do in the Peoples ears such a notorious Calumny which with greater truth may be Retorted against themselves IV. I hope hereafter they shall prove more moderate and call them Brethren whom they have thought hitherto Hereticks for I am persuaded they are convinc'd this foul aspersion of Heresie is groundless as being a meer illusion and the product of a preoccupated judgment The Protestants say they are Hereticks because they reject obstinately the Decisions of General Councils but will they never reflect that these Decisions can neither be looked upon by us nor by them as revealed Truths unless their Infallibility be either grounded on clear Scripture or in their sentiment on the Authority of some General Council In what Scripture is it said General Councils are infallible Judges of Controversial Debates In what Council was it decided that General Councils were unerrable Here they are amaz'd and their thoughts at a stand they are forced to yield and confess ingenuously that this pretended Infallibility hath no other foundation in being but that of their own Opinion and Fancy For though 't were grounded on the Decision of some General Council this must be first proved Infallible by an Evidence distinct from its own Testimony V. But because my onely design in this place is to raise Inferences and not to frame new Arguments I entreat the Romanist Reader after a serious perusal of my first Article to reflect a moment upon his own Uncharity against so many Thousands of His Majesties Subjects and other Nations so commendable for their unstain'd Life and Conversation so acceptable to God because of their Virtue and Innocency Let them I say upon second thoughts repent of their former Uncharity in condemning their Neighbors so inconsiderately as Schismaticks Hereticks Reprobates Let them detest from the bottom of their hearts this Unchristian Rigor and Severity if perhaps upon such groundless pretences they were persuaded 't was lawful to persecute them by Treason Fire and Sword the deep ignorance they liv'd in could be as a Veil to the Enomity of their Crime But after the perusal of this Treatise they can no more pretend ignorance they are told of their Errour and sufficiently inform'd of their former mistakes VI. Neither can they with the least appearance of Truth call Apostates such as embrace Protestancy since they retain still the Faith of that Church which flourished the first three Centuries after our Saviour's Birth and is confessed by all Parties to have been the true Church of Christ They admit not indeed the additional Articles of Purgatory Transubstantiation Image-worship Invocation of Saints c. for the grounds above laid But on this account they are in no true sense Apostates because Apostasie is a defection from the true Faith and these Points are either gross Errors or as a learned Divine of the English Church calls them inferiour Truths not destructive to Divine Faith whether believ'd or denied though they be as I have insinuated elsewhere not a little prejudicial to true Virtue and Christian Piety VII Rashness or Imprudence can with as little justice be objected to such as retreat from Popery It has been demonstrated by the consent of Romanists and self-evident