Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	holy_a	son_n	trinity_n	8,730	5	10.2166	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52134	Mr. Smirke; or, The divine in mode: being certain annotations upon the animadversions on The naked truth : together with a short historical essay, concerning general councils, creeds, and impositions, in matters of religion / by Andreas Rivetus, Junior, anagr. Res Nuda Veritas.	Marvell, Andrew, 1621-1678.	1676 (1676)	Wing M873; ESTC R214932	95,720	92

instance is made in Confutation of his own false supposition that the Authors words if then our reason understand not with comprehensive knowledge what is declared how can we then make any deduction by way of Arguments from that which we understand not did in their true meaning signifie how can we by reason make any deduction by way of Argument from that which we understand not to have been declared or that I may p●…t it the furthest I can imaginable to the Exposers purpose or service how can ●…e by reason understand that it is declared which is to impose a most ridiculous and impossible sense upon the Authors plain words for if we neither understand That nor What there is an end of all understanding Yet admitting here sayes the Exposer I have stated you a Case which proves the contrary for here Arrius or Socinus have no comprehensive knowledge of what is declared and yet they understand that it is declared and doubtless the Author would say so too without ever meaning the Contrary yea and that this revelation would have been demonstration enough of that Faith which we call Catholick But what would become of their former Contradictory Arguments which the Exposer saith would stand as they did before and remain against it I cannot vouch for the Author that he would be of the same opinion For I cannot comprehend though God had not answered those Arguments of theirs in particular as the Exposer puts it that those Arguments would or could remaine against it and stand as they did before any such declaration to Arrius and Sacinus after they had received a sufficient demonstration from Gods own mouth by New Revelation They would indeed remain against it and stand as they did before to Mr. Sherlocke But when I have thus given the humorous Exposer his own will and swing in every thing yet this superlunary instance does not serve in the least to confirme his Argument that he makes against the Authors words after his transforming them For here Arrius and Socinus only bring their sense of hearing and having heard this from God do not by Reason make any Deduction by way of Argument but by a believing knowledge do only assent to this second further Revelation Nor can they then from this second Revelation make any third step of Argument to extend it beyond its own tenour without incurring the Authors just wise Argument again that seeing our reason understands not what is declared I mean we have no comprehensive knowledge of this Doctrine of Trinity which the Exposer supposes to be declared how can we by reason make any deduction by way of Argument from that which we understand not to wit not comprehensively As I have abundantly cleared But this instance was at first extinguished when I shewed in the beginning that he did impertinently tradnce the Authors words and forge his meaning In the mean time though he saith put the Case with Reverence when the Case so put cannot admit it I cannot but at last reflect upon the Exposers unpardunable indiscretion in this more then absurd and monstruous representation of God almighty assuming the shape of an Angel as he saith he treated with Abraham face to face as a man do●…h with his friend to Discourse with Arrius and Socinus These are small escapes wi●…h which he aptly introduces such an interview and conference that he treated our 4th Abraham face to face as a man doth with his friend for it is true Abraham is Stiled the friend of God and that God spoke to him but it is never said in Scripture that God did Treat that is a word of Court not of Scripture No nor that God spoke to him face to face But it is said in Sripture only of Moses Exod. 33. 11. The Lord spoke to him face to face as a man speaketh unto his friend But that was a priviledge peculiar to Moses Numbers 12. 5. And the Lord came down in a Pillar of Cloud and stood in the door of the Tabernaele of the Congregation and called Aaron and Miriam and they both came forth and he said hear now my words if there be a Prophet among you I the Lord will make my self known to him in a Vision and will speak unto him in a Dream my servant Moses is not so who is faithful in all my house with him will I speak mouth to mouth even apparently and not in darke Speeches and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold wherefore then were not you afraid to speak against my Servant Moses the Exposer is not afraid to do him manifest injury for Deut. 34. 10. And there arose not in Israel a Prophet like unto Moses whom the Lord knew face to face c. And much more might be said of this matter were the man capable of it But I perceive he neither reads nor understands Scripture and one Divine Criticism is stock enough it seems to set up an Exposer Neither is it so notorious an errour that he saith God assumed the shape of an Angel to treat with him I would be glad to know of the Exposer seeing he is so Cherubick what is the shape of an Angel Some humane Criticks have told me that it was the similitude of a Calfe But Gods appearing in a sha e to Abraham when he treated with him face to face was in the shape of a man Gen. 18 1. The Lord appeared to him in the Plane of Mamre as he sate in the Tent door and so three men stood by him c. These are easie slips and he that stumbles and falls not gains a step Yet for one as he mocks the Author p. 2. That appears as one drop'd down from Heaven vouching himself a Son of the Church of England teaching as one having authority like a Father to trip in this manner is something indecent But to bring God in to so little a purpose contrary to all rules that I have seen one with a better grace brought down by a Machine to treat with Arrius and Socinus no other Company those who have contended against the Son of God and his Holy Spirit whose Opinions have been the Pest of the Clergy for so many Ages to have them now at last brought in as Privado's to the Mysteries of Heaven and the Trinity what Divine in his Witts but would rather have lost an Argument What will the Gentleman I last named say to see such a reconciliation to behold Arrius and Socinus in so close Communion with God as to be admitted even to single Revelation He cannot then avoid thinking what he lately printed and now with more reason That God is all Love and Patience when he has taken his fill of Revenge as others use to say the Devil is good when he is pleased What a shame is it to have men like the Exposer who are dedicated to the service of the Church and who ought as in the place quoted by the Author in the present Argument they of

of Christianity saith he were virtually contained in St. Peters short Confession of Faith Thou art Christ the Son of the living God For which Confession he was blest and upon which Faith Christ declared that he would build his Church as upon a Rock In conclusion I see Antiochus has ex mero motu certâ Scientiâ and Prince like Generosity given us the Question For I would not suspect that he hath hunted it so long till he lost it or let it go of Necessity because he could hold it no longer For the Extention as well as Intention of Peters Faith was terminated in these few words For it is no irreverence to take notice how plain the Apostles were under that dispensation The same John the Apostle and Evangelist C. 14. V. 26. and in the following Chapters showes how little it was and in how narrow a compass that they knew and believed and yet that sufficed Insomuch that where C. 16. V. 17. Our Saviour promises the Holy Ghost to instruct them further he saith only It is Expedient for you that I go away for if I go not away the Comforter will not Come to you He saith not it is Necessary For that Measure of true Belief would have sufficed for their own Salvation but there was a larger Knowledge requisite for the future work of their Apostleship In how many of them and St. Peter himself as much as any were there such Ignorances I humbly use the word in matters of Faith that our Saviour could not but take notice of it and reprove them As for Peter when our Saviour was so near his Death as to be already be●…ray'd yet he Upon whose Faith he built his Church as on a Rock knew not the effect of his Passion but was ready with his sword against Christs Command and example to have interrupted the Redemption of Mankind And this short confession in which all the Fundamentalls were virtually contained as the Exposer here teacheth us and so hath reduced himself to that little Grain of Faith against which he contends with the Author was upon occasion of our Saviours question when Peter doubtless did his best to answer his Lord and Master and told him all he knew For that similitude taken from so small a G●…aine by our Saviour did equal the proportion of Faith then attainable and requisite And as in a Seed the very Plain and Upright of the Plant is indiscernably express'd though it be not branch'd out to the Eye as when it ge●…minates spreds blossomes and bears fruit so was the Christian Faith seminally straitned in that virtual sincerity Vital Point and Central vigour of Believing with all the heart that Jesus Christ was come in the Flesh and was the Son of the Living God And would men even now Believe that one thing thorowly they would be better Christians then under all their Creeds they generally are both in Doctrine and Practice But that gradual Revelation which after his death and Resurrection shined sorth in the Holy Ghost must now determine us again within the Bounds of that saving Ignorance by Belief according to the Scriptures untill the last and fu●…l Manifestation And the Intention of this Faith now also as it hath been explain'd by the Inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the Sacred Writers is sufficient for Salvation without the Chcianrey and Conveyancing of humane Extentions And the Controverter himself hath if not by his own confession yet by his own Argument all along hitherto proved it In the 6. p he saith that where the Author charges some with introducing Many and New Articles of Faith He●… hopes he does not mean all our Thirty nine Articles If he hopes so why doth he raise the suspition for which indeed there is no cause imaginable but the E●…posers own disingenuity the Author appearing thorow his whole Book a True Subscriber to Then●…e without that Latitude of Equivocation which some others use or else they would not Publish those Doctrines they do and be capable nevertheless of Ecclesiastical Places But here as though any man had meddled with those Articles he explica●…es his Learning out of Bishop L●…y and of the Communio Laica which is but his harping upon one string and his usual Scanning on his fingers For the Author having named many and neew Articles of Faith the Exposer revolves over in his mind Articles Articles of and the word not being very pregnant he hits at last upon the Thirty nine Articles of the Church of England which yet the Exposer saith himself are Articles of Peace and Consent not of Faith and Communion Why then does he bring them by head and shoulders when the Author he knows was only upon Articles of Faith He might as well have sa●… the Lords of the Articles But this he saith is one as he takes it of our Churches greatest Ecclesiastical Policyes that she admits the many in thousands and hundred thousands without any subscription ad Communionem Laicam Truly she is ve●…y civil and we are an hundred thousand times oblidged to Her But I know not whether she will take it well of him that he not being content with so good an Office as that of her Exposer should pretend to be her Ecclesiastical Polititian over an other mans head that is fitter for both and not expect the Reversion And she cannot but be offended that he should thus call her Fool by craft assigning that for her greatest Ecclesiastical Policy when to have done otherwise would have been the greatest Impertence and Folly But who are these the many whom she so graciously receives Communionem Laicam without subscription Truly all of us whom she trusts not with Teaching others or with University Degrees The whole body of the Laity There again is another name or us for we can scarse speak without affronting our selves with some contemptuous name or other that they forsooth the Clergy have affixed to us Nos Numerus sumus the many fruges consumere nati Even his Majesty too God bless him is one of the many and she asks no su●…scription of him neither although I believe he has taken his Degree in the University Well we must be content to do as we may we are the many and you are the few and make your best of it But now though I am none of you yet I can tell you a greater Ecclesiastical Policy then all this you have been talking of It is a hard Word and though it be but one Syllable I cannot well remember it but by good luck it was burnt by the hand of the Hangman about that time that the Naked Truth was Printed And had that Policy succeeded the many must have taken not only all the Thirty Nine Articles but all the Ecclesiastical Errours and Incroachments that escaped notice all in the mass at once as if they had been Articles of Faith infallible unalterable but the State of the Kingdom had been apparently changed in the very Fundamentals For a

General Free Council is but a word of Art and can never happen but under a Fifth Monarch and that Monarch too to return from Heaven The Animadverter will not allow the second General Council of Nice to have been Free because it was over awd by an Empress and was guilty of a great fault which no Council at liberty he saith could have committed the Decree for worshipping of Images At this rate a Christian may scuffle however for one point among them and chuse which council he likes best But in good earnest I do not see but that Constantine might as well at this first council of Nice have negotiated the Image worship as to pay that superstitious adoration to the Bishops and that Prostration to their Creeds was an Idolatry more pernicious in the consequence to the Christian Faith then that under which they so lately had suffer'd Persecution Nor can a council be said to have been at liberty which laid under so great and many obligations But the Holy Ghost was present where there were three hundred and eighteen Bishops and directed them or three hundred Then if I had been of their counsel they should have sate at it all their lives least they should never see him again after they were once risen But it concerned them to settle their Quorum at first by his Dictates otherwise no Bishop could have been absent or gone forth upon any occasion but he let him out again and it behoov'd to be very punctual in the Adjournments 'T is a ridiculous conception and as gross as to make ●…m of the same Substance with the Council Nor needs there any strong argument of his absence then their pretense to be actuated by him and in doing such Work The Holy Spirit If so many of them when they got together acted like rational Men 't was enough in all reason and as much as could be expected But this was one affectation among many others which the Bishops took up so early of the stile priviledges powers and some actions a●…d gestures peculiar and inherent to the Apostles which they misplaced to their own behoof and usage nay and chalenged other things as Apostolical that were directly contrary to the Doctrine and Practice of the Apostles For so because the Holy Spirit did in an extraordinary manner preside among the Holy Apostles at that Legitime Council of Jerusalem Acts. 15. they although under an ordinary Administration would not go less whatever came on 't nay whereas the Apostles in the drawing up of their Decree dictated to them by the Holy Spirit said therefore no more but thus The Apostles Elders and Brethren send greeting unto the Brethren of c. Forasmuch as c. It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and us to lay upon you no greater burthen then these necessary things that ye abstain from c. from which if ye keep your selves you shall do well Fare ye well This Council denounces every invention of its own far from the Apostolical modesty and the stile of the Holy Spirit under no less then an Anathema Such was their arrogating to their inferior degrees the style of Clergy till custom hath so much prevailed that we are at a loss how to speak properly either of the name or nature of their function Whereas the Clergy in the true and Apostolical sense were only those whom they superciliously always call the Laity The word Clerus being never but once used in the New Testament and in that signification and in a very unlucky place too Peter 1. 5. 3. where he admonishes the Priesthood that they should not Lord it or domineer over the Christian People Clerum Domini or the Lord's Inheritance But having usurp'd the Title I confess they did right to assume the Power But to speak of the Priesthood in that style which they most affect if we consider the nature too of their Function what were the Clergy then but Lay-men disguis'd drest up perhaps in another habit Did not St. Paul himself being a Tent-maker rather then be idle or burthensom to his People work of his trade even during his Apostleship to get his living But did not these that they might neglect their holy vocation seek to compass secular imployments and Lay Offices Were not very many of them whether one respect their Vices or Ignorance as well qualified as any other to be Laymen Was it not usual as oft as they merited it to restore them as in the case even of the three Bishops to the Lay-communion And whether if they were so peculiar from others did the Imposition of the Bishops hands or the lifting up the hands of the Laity conferr more to that distinction And Constantine notwithstanding his complement at the burning of the Bishops papers thought he might make them and unmake them with the same power as he did his other Lay-Officers But if the inferior degrees were the Clergy the Bishops would be the Church although that word in the Scripture-sense is proper only to a congregation of the Faithful And being by that title the only men in Ecclesiastical councils then when they were once assembled they were the Catholick Church and having the Holy Spirit at their devotion whatsoever Creed they light upon that was the Catholick Eaith without believing of which no man be saved By which means there rose thenceforward so constant persecutions till this day that had not the little invisible Catholick Church and a People that always search'd and believ'd the Scriptures made a stand by their Testimonies and sufferings the Creeds had destroyd the Faith and the Church had ruined the Religion For this General council of Nice and all others of the same constitution did and can serve to no other end or effect then particular order of menby their usurping a trust upon Christianity to make their own Price and Market of it and deliver it up as oft as they see their own Advantage For scarce was Constantine's Head cold but his Son Constantius succeeding his Brothers being Influenced by the Bishops of the Arrian Party turn'd the wrong side of Christianity outward inverted the Poles of Heaven and Faith if I may say so with its Heels in the Air was forced to stand upon its Head and play Gambols for the Divertisment and Pleasure of the Homoiousians Arrianism was the Divinity then in Mode and he was an ignorant and ill Courtier or Church man that could not dress and would not make a new Sute for his Conscience in the Fashion And now the Orthodox Bishops it being given to those Men to be obstinate for Power but flexible in Faith began to wind about insensibly as the Heliotrope Flower that keeps its ground but wrests its Neck in turning after the warm Sun from Day-break to Evening They could look now upon the Synod of Nice with more indifference and all that pudder that had been màde there betwixt Homoousios and Homoiousios c. began to appear to them as a Difference only