Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	lord_n	speak_v	word_n	18,458	5	4.5398	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48813	An answer to the Bishop of Oxford's reasons for abrogating the test impos'd on all members of Parliament anno 1678, Octob. 30 in these words, I, A.B., do solemnly and sincerely, in the presence of God, profess, testifie, and declare, that I do believe that in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper there is not any transubstantiation of the elements of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ at, or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever, and that the invocation of adoration of the Virgin Mary, or any other saint, and the sacrifice of the Dais, as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous / by a person of quality.	Lloyd, William, 1627-1717.	1688 (1688)	Wing L2673; ESTC R977	35,814	60

Bloud on the account of which such Butcheries and Burnings of Men alive have been committed that the so mis-stil'd Barbaritie and Inhumanitie of the Test-Act compared herewith is not only Mercie andHonor to the Persons concerned but a Monument of greatest Equitie and Philanthropie or Love to Humane Nature to endeavour to extinguish out of the Nation the very Principles of so much Bloud-Guiltiness and Bloud-Thirst of the greater heinousness becaus if the Bishop be to be credited in the Case it was for not believing a Transubstantiation which it was Morally impossible for those Martyrs to know and such abstrusities which they neither did nor could nor indeed ought to understand 4. To press and force a litteral Sense upon the Holy Scriptures Free Familiar Condescension to our Weakness in expressing things of a high Spiritual Nature in such Language as we in Humane Bodies most easily take things into our minds by as in the Sacrament the real Spiritual Union and Communication of the Value Vertue and Efficacy of the Sacrifice of Christ Himself and in the Union of and Communion and Communication of his Spirit to us is express'd by eating his Body and drinking his Bloud Now I say to force a litteral Sense upon this is such a piece of Rudeness Barbaritie and Ingratitude that if the same measure were meeted to all other parts of Scripture would even in the Judgment of those very Men who are either Atheists or Bigots in this matter not only turn it into Horrible and Abominable Burlesque but even Martyr and Murther those two Witnesses as some have expounded them To vindicate therefore those Sacred Volumes the Pandects of our most Holy Religion from having to do with so mid-night and Sphingian a Riddle in so plain and merciful an Institution so humble and even Domestic in a spiritual Sense as the Lord's Supper is a Riddle set on work to so much Cruelty and Bloud-shed is worthy the Spirit of a truely Christian and nobly English Senate and to set the danger of its return into use at the utmost impossibility Humane Providence could attain without the expectation of Miracle For what is meant by Transubstantiation the Bishop himself says is altogether unknown and uncertain especially to the persons chiesly concern'd viz. the Nobility and Gentry of the Nation and which they neither do can nor ought to know What obligation can they then have to believe it except with such a blind Faith as all Religion and Reason abhors However if they have no Faith concerning so fugitive a thing that like a shadow cannot be catch'd or like the Phantom of a Body that hath no flesh and bones to be seen and felt as all Bodies have and as Christ as it were prophetically expos'd his Body to the Experiment of when it was really there that no such Imposture concerning it should be palm'd upon the World I say if the Nobility and Gentry have no Faith of such a thing why may they not profess and declare they do not believe it For the Bishop seems either not to be awake or to dissemble a slumber that his Discourse of mens swearing to any thing his Burlesque on the famous Burgesses of Oxon and his Appeal to the Honourable Members concerning their Idea's of Transubstantiation and the Babel thence arising the whole Notion is indeed a Babalism or pertaining to Babylon the Great had been very good if the Test had requir'd them to declare their belief of such a Transubstantiation But now his Arguments hunt counter and impeach the Roman Tyranny of horrid Murthers upon persons for not believing what they neither do can nor ought to know what they can so hardly pronounce the sound of much less hammer the sturdy sullen Notion it self For who can know what there is no knowledge of But what more innocent than to declare when lawfully requir'd though before the Searcher of Hearts a man does not believe what he cannot nor ought to know nor so much as anvil a Notion of If it were never so true real knowable and worthy to be believed any one might without guilt when justly demanded to do so declare he did not believe it while he knew it not so as to find reason to believe it it were double Hypocrisie to do otherwise and all the Bishop's arguing and storying can never make it otherwise Indeed the whole recoyles upon himself and dashes out the brains of all he hath writ upon it which sure he crasly oversaw or thought all his Readers were such Fools as to be couzen'd with the gloss For if the infidelitie were ever so culpable it were a Dutie when adjur'd by a Law to declare it but how can the infidelitie be blam'd when after the Bishop's hunting down the Notion through the whole Historie of the Controversie He hath prey'd only upon a Ghost miss'd of all comprehension and he pronounces the summ and result of all to be what is meant by that Transubstantiation is a thing altogether uncertain and unknown and there is no one thing in which Christendom more both agrees and differs all Parties agree in the Thing and differ in the manner Now it so happens the Test was so sagaciously compos'd though it might lawfully have done much more that it modestly leaves the Thing free and requires only to declare a Belief of such Manner of Transubstantiation as of the Elements of Bread and Wine into the Bodie and Bloud of Christ and requires the Declarers own Belief alone and nothing of censure upon any others Belief in this branch of the Test which surely any man may lawfully make that makes it truly and seeing the whole Issue of the Notion is Scepticism the Bishop himself being Judg and what can the man do that comes after the ishop may not every man then say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I do not comprehend it therefore I do not believe it Indeed if there were Revelation for it like what there is concerning the Father Word and Spirit one God concerning the Incarnation and Hypostatic Vnion of the Eternal Word with Humane Nature leaning not on figurative expression but plain assertion wrought into all the discourse and whole Argument of Scripture all Disputes were silenc'd But when there is no pretext of Revelation but such a manner of speaking as if it were press'd alike into a literal sense through the whole Book of God it must overthrow all Theologie To refuse then a Figure there where it is so absolutely necessary that else Christ must eat his own flesh while it remain'd entire before the Apostles and drink his own bloud while it was circulating in his Veins and no amaze nor so much as question upon it is such a setting the Scripture to be broken upon the Wheel such a Barbarity as exceeds a thousandfold all the Barbarities and Inhumanities spoken of throughout the Bishop's whole Book Especially when our Lord declares in a like manner of speaking and doubts upon it His words were spirit and

life and the flesh profited nothing Why then should men bring the Scripture to the Engine to torture it into the confession of what as God speaks never came into his heart And so I may fairly dismiss the Bishop's longsom Historie of Transubstantiation seeing the mouth of his Canon turns upon himself for what he can and what should a man be shie of in declaring his Non-belief of what is against all the sense and reason of mankind what hath no ground in Revelation and what all the Wits and Subtilties the Canonists and School-men yea the very Councils of the Roman Vassalage can when set upon the utmost stretch make nothing of but a meer Babel if we may believe the Bishop in what he determines upon the whole search in favour of it Not like Solomon's conclusion of the matter into the whole of man but like the conclusion of Babel all was Jargon Nonsense Confusion and Rubbish and worse than that the conclusion will be like that of Babylon the Great a perpetual Desolation and Burning They therefore who have like Slaves bor'd their Ears to this spiritual Egyptian slavery and under the Plague of its Darkness to be even felt how just is it to disengage them from taking the Rights of their Prince and Country into their trust whether their contented Slavery rise from some weak part or a worse depravedness which inclines their always bowed down Backs and their Eyes laden with slumber under such a monstrous Bigottism I come therefore to consider of the second Proposition which however it runs in the Bishop's Text is thus express'd in the Test And that the Invocation or Adoration of the Virgin Mary or any other Saint and the Sacrifice of the Mass as they are now used in the Church of Rome are superstitious and idolatrous In which although I confess in my own Judgment the very Extremity as of Sense that the words can reach are supported by the demerit of the things Declared against Yet because it is a Test publickly offered the refusal of which suspends so great an Interest as all share in Government as the Bishop expresses it It will not be unfit to observe all the Lenitives that are by the Prudence of the Composers whoever they were it makes no matter contriv'd into it 1. Therfore I do believe is prefix'd to the whole Test by common Equity of Construction to be supplyed I do believe the first Proposition That in the Sacrament c. And in the second I do believe that the Invocation c. Now it is Evident a Man may Swear to his own Belief if he knows he does really so Believe although he be mistaken in the grounds of his Belief because it is onely matter of Fact within himself 2. There is a Limitation As these things are us'd and now us'd in the Church of Rome whether by express Command or by Approbation or Connivence so that the very grossness and stupidity of the most Dull and Ignorant who stick in the very thick Matter and are able to extricate themselves as the finer Wits pretend to do are to be taken into that Vsage and that most Meritoriously seeing if the Church of Rome leads such unwary and unapprehensive Persons in Obedience to it to the very brink of the Precipice into so deep and impure a Mud and that so unnecessarily it is to be chang'd with the Vsages as in it self And then those words of the Test As it is now used signifies the first beginnings of these things were not so fresh as now they are arriv'd to be 3. In that the word Superstitious is first set as the lesser and most undoubted and then not the downright full-out word Idolatry but Idolatrous It takes off the full Blow of the Censures for Idolatry imports a great danger suspicion and nearness to Idolatry but not absolute Idolatry it self And this the Bishop ought in all candid dealing to have taken Notice of and to have allowed the Caution with which the Test is worded for the Stabbing and Cut-throat word Idolatry is not used and so the Piquancy of that his remark false But letting slip all things that do not enter into the substance of the matter it is first to be observed that absolutely and in earnest all that dreadful Representation of the punishment of Idolatry in this World is disown'd by all sober Christians and those rigid Laws or any such Zelotic Spirit of Elias as among the Jews on the account of Idolatry are reversed under the milder temper and more moderate climate of Christian Religion and the compassionate Spirit of it as repeated by our Saviour expresly in those words to the Disciples that were for demanding Fire from Heaven upon the Samaritans Luke 9.54 To which our Lord rejoyned Ye know not what spirit ye are of the Son of man came not to destroy mens lives but to save them We disown all such torrid Enthusiasm where-ever it is found upon this Authority and such Ravagings upon the Lives of men meerly for their notwithstanding so great delusions in so plain a point of Divine Worship are not so much as thought of in the Test Cruelties and inhumanities of that kind are left as the proper Inheritance of the Idolatrous who indeed cut Throats and cause innocent Persons to pass through the Fire alive in the rage of their Moloch-Sacrafice And I am fully perswaded the principal end of the Test-Act was to secure the Lives and Fortunes of a Protestant Nation from the fury and blood-thirstiness of that name of Religion by which it is as much known as the Scarlet and Purple it is arraied in and that in the Historie of some Ages past and so cannot but be still suspected The prevention indeed of such the public practise of those Superstitions and Idolatrousnesses is worthy the care of a Protestant Magistracy to prevent and to take care the Contagion may not spread much less that a Protestant Kingdom should come under the Girdle of its Ministerial Government although with all Loyalty it owns their Soveraign according to the Christian Law and of the Nation and then for to set such Bounds to it as may most indemnifie it self But for the securities of Divine Justice upon Idolatry whenever they com to be manifested they wil be just and bring their conviction along with them which may be speedier than men are aware the Measure of Iniquity growing now full as of more then one God is Idolatry so of more than one Mediator is a Parallell Idolatry And as letting fall any glances of Respect upon any Creature Person or Thing Angel or Diamon Sun Moon or Stars or the inferiour Creatures as partial Gods conveying the Benifits of the Supreme God to us is foul Idolatry so any partial or inferiour Mediators are alike Idolatry under the Gospel And as the making to our selves any likeness either in Heaven above or the Earth beneath c. as a Medium to Worship God by so the making to our selves

search and inquiry to devour all the absurdities that the name of a Church can offer him And so to the points os Idolatry abating from things Pious and Learned to which let the utmost allowances of deference and honour be yielded and paid the Notions he would imprint of it on the minds of his Readers are an audacious affront as he speaks in a more innocent case to God the Creator of Heaven and Earth in his Word who therein abhorrs all Distributions and Parcellings out of any the least Particles of the Glory of the One God or Mediator to any of the most Seraphick of his Creatures Angels or Saints or the Mother of God as he speaks without Precedent from Scripture and hardly allowable in a Discourse of Idolatry although tolerated in the case of the Nestorian Heresie Even so all Address of any Beings besides that God and the Mediator his Word doth de TEST specially invisible Beings to whom we can make not the least Application but under the peril of Idolatry as Communicating them in any semblances of Worship with those Incommunicable Attributes and Properties of Omniscience and Omnipresence He hath indeed allowed and commanded mutuous respects in the lower humane World for the settlement of the order of Religious and Civil Offices but all the figments of Men's own Brains concerning Worship of Himself or of the Mediator through the Mediation of any of his Creatures and most notoriously by Graven Images or any kind of Similitudes comprehending other Figments he declares to be Abomination It is a grand Audaciousness therefore to offer such an insolent piece of falshood to Christian minds as that the Cherub were by his appointment to be Worshipped or to have Worship directed to them because their Resemblances were placed as waiting at that Throne that was Empty of any Presence to sit upon it but an Invisible Glory and Grace had promised favour to those who according to his Word praid toward that place which He having fill'd with a visible sign of his Presence of Glory He after placed his Name there with as much sense therefore it might have been said that every Stone in the Building of the Temple or whatever was in the Temple or specially in the Holy of Holies was to be Worshipped as to say the Cherubim were to be Worshipped of God in through or by them A Parallell Essrontery it is to load the Sun and Host of Heaven the Scripture with all the Idolatries brands and so contrary to the very letter of it that the Visional Representation of the Jewish Idolatries to Ezekiel Ch. 7. distinguisheth that of the Sun from all the Rest I stand therefore in perfect Amaze and Astonish what the Christian much more the Protestant Bishop should mean and yet make so open and publick an appeal for his Integrity God and the World in the close As to what concerns the Test and the Peerage I humbly submit the Reason of it to the higher Judges in these things begging pardon of any errors in so great matters as likewise taking example in that I beg of all Men allowance for mistakes of humane infirmity in so Critical a point and in so Critical a time DRAWDEREVE ROFMADA AN ANSWER TO THE Bishop of Oxford's Reasons For Abrogating the TEST Impos'd on all Members of PARLIAMENT Ann. 1678. Octob. 30. IN undertaking to give an Answer to these Reasons I shall choose as my particular Province to insist onely upon the most substantial Principles of Reason and that may most concern as we usually speak the Merits of the Cause with all due regard to the Character of Dignity the Laws of this Nation and the Constitution of the Government thereof both Civil and Ecclesiastick have imprinted upon the Authour as also remembring the Admonition the Apostle Jude gives from the Example of the Arch-Angel who disputing with the Devil about the Body of Moses most probably in the Cause of Idolatry did not adventure to bring against him a Railing Accusation but said the Lord rebuke Thee Nor will I assume to make the least Reflexion upon the Insufficiencies of the Discourse as to its particular Frame and Menage or upon the Air Meen or Spirit of it relating to either the Roman or the Protestant Religion or to the Names of greatest Honour Authority and Reverence who have acted or written in Defence of the Reformation But leaving all this part to those who have both Talents and Authority to support them in their just Censures of such a manner of Treaty of what deserves our highest Value and Veneration I will content my self with Debating upon the principal Matters taking them in the utmost Extent of the Offensive or Defensive Arguments upon them The Heads therefore according to which this Discourse is to be modell'd must be those Reasons the Bishop gives for the Abrogating of the Test The firstof which is That it doth not onely diminish but utterly destroy the natural Rights of Peerage and turns the Birth-Right of the English Nobility into a Precarious Title Now in the first place in answer to this I must observe that in the very thought of utterly destroying this Right the Episcopal Authour does somewhat relent and recoyl from the Height of his Expression and abates it into a Turning that Birth-Right into a Precarious Title Taking therefore advantage from that so natural and even necessary Recess or Condescension if not to be thought as it very much seems a Check upon impetuousness of style from a Consciousness of its Excess I shall take the boldness more freely to assert That the natural Rights of Peerage are not at all destroyed but own'd upheld and more solemnly acknowledg'd by the Test-Act Secondly that the Birth-Right of the English Nobility is no way turn'd into a Precarious Title by it And because this is indeed the onely Argument for the removing the Test-Act that is of true Strength and Merit in the whole Contexture it deserves the more Attent Consideration For whatever shall attempt to shake such a main Pillar and Fundamental Principle of our English Government ought to be both suspected and feared and if it indeed prove to do so to be surpriz'd and foreclos'd from its Effect But the Invalidity of this Charge will thus appear 1. It is most evident the Right of Peerage in the General stands firm notwithstanding the Test Seeing this Principle of Government is not onely still but with strongest Confirmations even from this very Test-Act on all sides preserv'd most firm and undoubted That there is a most just Right that every Peer hath to all the privileges of English Peerage Accordingly the very Act is founded upon that Acknowledgment and Supposition viz. That every Peer hath such Right to all the Honours of Peerage and to that Right most unquestionable in it self for else the very Ground of the Law were taken away 2. All and every Peer submitting to that Law takes that Right and enjoys it without any Diminution and