Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	true_a	worship_v	worshipper_n	5,566	5	12.1877	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30890	John Barclay his vindication of the intercession of saints, the veneration of relicks and miracles, against the sectaries of the times Book II. Chap. VII. Englished by a person of quality. With allowance.; Parænesis ad sectarios. Book 2, Chapter 7. English.	Barclay, John, 1582-1621.	1688 (1688)	Wing B716; ESTC R215790	13,055	23

expect Help and desire it Thou wilt see in fine that all these things are as right and sincere approv'd by Miracles These Reliques we either deposite under the Altars or lay up in Beautified Coffers And both these according to Antient Custom St. Hierom against Vigilantius has these words Is it therefore ill done of the Roman Bishop to offer Sacrifices to our Lord over the Venerable Bones as we esteem them of St. Peter and St. Paul who are Dead though in thy Opinion 't is only useless Dust And in the same place he says of the same Vigilantius He grieves that the Reliques of the Martyrs are cover'd with costly Vails and not rather bound up in Rags or Hair-cloth We go also to the places where these Reliques are kept there to Pray to GOD or speak to the Saints and falling down we Kiss their Sepulchres These things also we have from Antient Institution For St. Hierom calls Vigilantius a Moster deserving to be Banish'd to the farthest parts of the Earth for daring to write these words The Souls of the Martyrs therefore love their Bodies and hover about them and are always present lest if an Orator should perhaps come they being absent might not hear him Now who can believe either that Vigilantius would have written those things had it not been at that time usual with the Christians to crave the Martyrs Intercession at the Places where their Reliques were reserv'd or that the most Learned St. Hierom would have been so highly offended with Vigilantius for scoffing at this Practice had not he who was educated in the Church and throughly vers'd in Antiquity well known that this was Piously to GOD's Honour and with the Churches Approbation perform'd by Christians The same St. Hierom in the Life of St. Hilarion writes thus of one Constantia whom he calls A most Holy Woman She was wont to watch whole Nights at his St. Hilarion's Sepulchre and there to Discourse with him as if he were present to hear her Prayers And St. Augustine in his Treatise of the City of GOD lib. 22. ch 8. relates that one Pauladia was by a very great Miracles Cur'd of a most dreadful Disease who says he Went to make her Prayers to the Holy Martyr St. Stephen We believe in fine That at the presence of such Reliques the Devils are vex'd and tormented Nor mayst thou therefore call us simple and credulous Coxcombs For in this we have the Church for our Mistress and the most Antient Fathers for our Authors Was the Emperor Constantine says St. Hierom against Vigilantius guilty of Sacriledge in Translating to Constantinople the Holy Reliques of St. Andrew St. Luke and St. Timothy in whose presence the Devils roar There is a remarkable Passage in St. Augustin's 137 Epistle to the Clergy and People of Hippo which I will for thy sake O Sectary here transcribe GOD indeed who created all things is every where being contain'd or included in no place and he must by all true Worshipers be Worship'd in Spirit and Truth that hearing in Secret he may also Justify and Crown in Secret. Nevertheless as to those things which are visibly known to men who can search into his Counsel why these Miracles are Wrought in some places and not in others For the Sanctity of the place where the Body of Blessed Felix of Nola is Buried is known to many whether I desir'd that they to wit Boniface the Priest accus'd of an hainous Crime together with his Accuser should go because from hence it may more easily and Faithfully be written to us what shall be manifested in either of them For we know that in Milain at the Sepulchres of the Saints where the Devils wonderfully and Terribly Confess acertain Thief who came to that place with a full intent to deceive by Swearing a Falshood was forc'd to confess his Theft and restore what he had stoln The Matter being sufficiently asserted by such eminent Persons by so Antient a Practice and Belief I shall conclude with the Opinion of Gennadius of Marseilles which he himself thus delivers among the Ecclesiastical Decrees Lib. de Ecclesiast Dogmat. cap. 73. We believe that the Bodies of the Saints and especially the Reliques of the Blessed Martyrs are most sincerely to be Honour'd as Members of CHRIST and that the Churches call'd by their Names are with most Pious Affection and Faithful Devotion to be frequented as Holy Places Dedicated to Divine Worship Whosoever shall oppose this Sentence is not to be thought a Christian but an Eunomian and Vigilantian Tell me Sectary if Gennadius had liv'd in this Age would he not have added you to Eunomians and Vigilantians and said He is not to be thought a Christian but a Puritan or Protestant Matters are so connex'd that whilst we assert one thing we at the same time Plead for another For you deny all Belief to Miracles which you say to have seen frequent in the Churches Infancy but that now the Christian Faith being Establish'd they are ceas'd But consider O Sectary that this Faith was in St. Augustin's time receiv'd and settled throughout the World And that the frequency of Miracles was then ceas'd by which the Foundations of the Church in the Apostles time Encreas'd and yet He as thou seest acknowledges that Miracles were wrought in his Age especially at the Reliques of the Saints nor that only in these Places we have already cited but in many others also Likewise says he Lib. 1. Retract cap. 13. Whereas I said in my Book concerning true Religion That these Miracles were not permitted to continue to our Times lest the Soul should always seek visible things and Mankind now grow cold by their frequency which was heretofore inflam'd by their Novelty This indeed is true for they do not now when Hands are laid on the Baptiz'd so receive the Holy Ghost as to speak with the Tongues of all Nations Nor are the Sick now Cur'd by the Shaddow CHRIST's Preachers as they pass along The same may be said of such other things as were then done and have since manifestly ceas'd But what I said is not so to be understood that no Miracles should be now believ'd to be done in the Name of CHRIST For I my self when I writ that very Book well knew that a Blind-man in the City of Millain receiv'd his Sight at the Bodies of certain Martyrs there with several other Miracles of which there are even in our Times so many wrought that we can neither know them all nor reckon those which we know In the same Book ch 14. he says In another place having related the Miracles which our Lord JESVS did when he was here in the Flesh I added these words You will say why are not these things done now And answered Because they would not move if they were not wonders and they would not be wonders if they were frequent Now this I said because neither all those nor yet so great Miracles are now wrought and not because there are now none at all He has related also at large the Miracles of his Age in his Tract of the City of GOD lib. 22. cap. 8. What how great and how many are the Miracles there recited And those indeed certain clear done in his own Memory and of which he himself was for the most part also a Witness Nor did he commit to Writing all that he then knew to have happen'd being in a manner overcome with their Multitude For he says The desire I have of finishing according to my Promise this my Treatise permits me not to mention all I know of this kind and without doubt most of my Friends who shall happen to read what I have here set down will be sorry that I have omitted so many which they know as well as I. Whose pardon I now beg desiring them to reflect what a Toil it would be for me to do that which the Work I have here undertaken will by no means allow For to say nothing of others should I but set down the Miraculous Cures wrought by 〈◊〉 Martyr the most glorious St. Stephen in the Town of Calama as also in our own it would require the Writing of many Books and yet they would not all be collected Why therefore should our Age be thought destitute of Miracles What use was there then for them which may not happen now What Scripture what word of GOD banishes from us these VVorks of the Almighty If thou have regard to those frequent and as I may say daily Miracles by which the Church was in her beginning asserted they were already as St. Augustin confesses ceas'd in his time but as for such as are more seldom though no less certain neither was that Age nor is ours without them But 't is no wonder you would have those Miracles remov'd from the Minds and Eyes of Men by which your Cause is overthrown since there are none wrought amongst you but such by which you may learn that you are in Error since you are Enemies to Holy Relicks at which CHRIST often does these Supernatural Works since lastly as many Miracles as are wrought amongst us are so many Thunderbolts of Almighty GOD by which he confounds your Heresy The End of the Seventh Chapter James Stuart the 1st