Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	body_n	bread_n	wine_n	4,141	5	8.0622	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77522	Letters between the Ld George Digby, and Sr Kenelm Digby kt. concerning religion.	Bristol, George Digby, Earl of, 1612-1677.; Digby, Kenelm, Sir, 1603-1665.	1651 (1651)	Wing B4768; Thomason E1355_2; ESTC R209464	61,686	137

point which appears to have been general and is recorded in divers of the Fathers as Clemens Cyprian Austin 17. Serm. de verbo Apost and particularly by Epiphanius against Aerius p. 911. Lastly in point of confession penitence be pleased to confront those passages of Chrysostome Homil. de poenit confes It is not necessary saith he that thou shouldest confess in the presence of witnesses let the inquiry of thy offences be made in thy thought let this Judgment be without a witness let God only see thee confessing And again in Epist ad Heb. c. 12. Hom. 31. I do not say to thee bring thy self upon the Stage nor accuse thy self unto others and likewise that of St. Augustine Confes lib. 10. cap. 3. What have I to doe with men that they should hear my Confessions as though they could heal my diseases Be pleased I say to confront these with some passages of other Fathers cited by Arcudius upon that subject and likewise by Bellarmine l. 3. c. 2. de Poenitentiâ and confess the Fathers in matter of practise as well as of government irreconcileable Their contradictions in matters of Belief are infinite I shall only summe up such as I esteem most important either in the points themselves which they concern or in relation to our controversies in the Doctrine of the Trinity That of Justine Martyr p. 357. against Tryphon which cannot be solved from making a distinction of nature betwixt the Father and the Son That of Tertullian advers Prax. c. 9.10 Pater tota substantia est Filius vero derivatio totius et portio and many other passages in the same book That of Origen tract in Joan. tom 3. where he implyes little less as Genebrard observes then that the Father is as much above the Son and the Holy Ghost as they above the Creatures That of Theodoret part 3. concil Ephes p. 496. where refuting Cyrils ninth Anathema he saith that in it Cyril doth anathematise all the Apostles and the Arch-Angel Gabriel himself whilst impiously and blasphemously they are his words he curseth such as do not beleeve the Holy Ghost to proceed from the Son I can easilyer accord these Doctors which Arrius then with Athanasius or the three hundred and eighteenth Fathers of the first Nicene Councel Of the state of the Soul after death in point of reward and punishment and likewise concerning Christ's descent into Hell I could here cite you multitudes of oppositions but I shall have occasion to speak of these in another place Lastly touching the Eucharist in my opinion the most important Article of any we differ in let me marshall up the Fathers oppositions somewhat more at large That of Justin in Apol. 2. The sanctified food saith he wherewith our flesh and blood by conversion are nourished we are taught to be the flesh and blood of Jesus incarnate being made such by the word of prayer after the same manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour by the Word of God took on him flesh and blood for our salvation How will it suit with the latter part of the fortieth Chap. of Tertull lib. 4. against Marcion where his whole Argument runs upon this That in the Eucharist the Bread and Wine are the figure and representation of Christs body for it would have been a very extravagant argument to one that denied as Marcion did Christ himselfe to have a body of flesh to alledge that bread was the flesh of his body his words are Having profest saith he speaking of our Saviour a desire to eat the Passover he took bread and having distributed it to his Disciples he made it his body saying This is my Body that is the Figure of my Body of which it could not have been the Figure if he had not in truth a body And again with that other passage of the same Author lib. de anima chap. 14. The taste of the Wine which he consecrated for a memoriall of his blood and also with that lib. 1. against Marcion cap. 14. The bread by which he represents his body I dare not translate the rest Etiam in Sacramentis propriis egens mendicitatibus creatoris Survey that passage of Cyrillus Hierosol Catech. cap. 4. under the form of bread his body is given thee and under the form of Wine his blood And again knowing and holding this for a certainty that the bread which we see is not bread though our taste find it to be so So how this will sound with that place of St. Austin upon the 98. Psalm where he bringeth in our Saviour speaking of this matter after this manner You shall not eat of this body which you see nor drink that blood which they shall shed which will crucifie me I have commended a certain Sacrament unto you that being spiritually understood will quicken you Next consider those passages of Gregory Nissene quoted by Bellarmin we beleeve saith he the bread rightly sanctified by the word of God to be changed into the body of God the word And again a little after This doth the vertue of the benediction effect changing the nature of what we see bread and wine into the body of the Lord To which I oppose that of Theodoret Dialog 2. The mystical Symboles are not removed from their own nature after sanctification but remain in their former substance form and figure And Dialog 1. Our Lord saith he in delivering those mysteries called the bread body and the mixture in the Cup blood And soon after saith he our Saviour inverted the names giving to his body the name of Symbole and to the Symbole the name of his body so having named himself Vine he called the Symbole Blood Next let us confront that of Chrysostome Hom. de Encoeniis Is it bread that you see is it wine do they go into the privie like other meats away with such a thought for as wax being put into the fire unites it self so in substance to it that nothing thereof remains so imagin here that the mysteries are swallowed up in the substance of the body Therefore when you approach thereunto think not that you receive the divine body as from man but fire from the pincers of the Seraphime which Esau saw so think that you partake of the divine body as if you joyned your lips to his pure and spotlesse side Confront this with that of Origen in Caep 15. Matth. As nothing sayes he is impure in it selfe but is made so to the polluted and incredulous by his own uncleannesse and unbeliefe so neither doth that which is sanctified by the Word of God and Prayer in its owne nature sanctifie him that useth it And for as much as belongs to that eating we are neither defrauded of any good by the not eating nor enricht with any good by the eating of the sanctified bread which for as much as it hath of materials goes into the belly the privy but becomes usefull and effectuall according to the proportion of faith making

some Texts of Scripture to fall into that error which so becommeth an error in Philosophy and in no wise concerning faith And that other of the Millenaries which is the last your Lordship urgeth appeareth plainly to have growne among some of the Fathers with whom the authority of Papias weighed much by literally interpreting a Text of the Apocalyps but never any of them urged the generally received opinion of the Church nor publick Tradition from Christ and the Apostles And besides the Church has never yet to this day condemned as an heresie that part of the Millenaries beliefe which some of the Fathers held which is of the Saints reigning with Christ a thousand yeares upon earth after their resurrection and enjoying onely spirituall delights but only other foule enormities which went under the name of the Millenaries heresies Now by what I have said to those instances in particular and bringing that spirit that I said before was required to the reading of the Fathers I conceive it will be no hard matter to determine which of them as your Lordship sayes we are to swallow as delivered to them and which to chaw and consider as onely delivered by them One thing more I shall adde in generall which is That a large and great soule like yours expresseth it selfe more to its advantage in weighing in the powerfull scale of reason that it hath the main bulk of what it is to judge of rather than to dwell with too scrupulous a diligence upon little quillets and niceties which admit arguments on both sides and in the mean time let slide away unnoted that great deale which is uncontroulable and plaine as though one were but to declame in Schoole to exercise ones wit and therefore he maketh choyce of some ingenious Paradox against a known and received truth and to impugne it can bring but against the skirts of it arguments or rather cavils of wit without being able to grapple with the main body of it and seeks rather to puzzle and embroyle his adversary then weightily to establish the solid truth This is a subject that is deeply to be considered for use the importantest that we can have not argued upon for ostentation and that a wise man ought to seek a settlement in and not aim at the applause of being sharp-sighted by reducing all things to uncertainty Therefore good my Lord apply that great understanding you are so excellently endowed withall to build as well as to pull down and read not the Fathers with a fore-laid designe to enerve their authority but with an indifferency to yeeld your assent to what upon the whole matter you shall judge reasonable for you so to doe And since I know that your judgement must in all things that are controverted before it of this nature tend to a settlement one way or other for only sciolous wits float onely in uncertainty as delighting to make objections and raise a dust which afterward their weak eyes cannot looke through let me recommend to you not onely to examine whether the opinion you meet with in your reading repugnant to what you were formerly imbued with be concludingly demonstrated or no but likewise examine as strictly the reason you have for your own and where the scale weighes heaviest give your assent For since of contradictory propositions one must necessarily be true and the other false a man proceedeth upon safe grounds if he take for a firm truth what is opposite to an assertion that betrayes its own weaknesse whereas if you look onely upon the true you may happily at the instant not finde a full resolution to every objection that may be raised against it which proceedeth not from the weaknesse of the thing but from ours that cannot at the first sight look into the bottome of it You see my Lord how confident I am with you to tell you what upon the present in such shortness and distraction of time occurreth to me upon this subject which your goodnesse hath invited me unto and I begge the continuance of it first in pardoning me and next in imparting to me your reflections upon them which I professe sincerely I value beyond any mans and most of all in loving me as you have ever done which is the happiest condition that can give a blessing unto London Decem. 29. 1638. My Lord your Lordships most humble and most faithfull servant K. D. My deare Lord WHen I wrot my Letter I intended to review and copy it but it held me much longer time then I designed to it It should not have been with my dull head and hand an after-suppers work and after comming home from vain entertainment with some impertinent she-wits that most tyrannically had seized upon me They had tun'd my brains to so crosse a Key as afterward all serious Images came so lamely into my fancy as I may be ashamed to send you this rough draught of them and so slowly halting as I was in good faith three houres about those blotted and interlined sheets For it was an houre past midnight afore I had done which was not one to enter upon so tedious a task as to lick this abortive and mishapen Embrion into form And now this morning my company calls upon me to be gone so that I am in a strait to appeare before your Lordship either extreamly negligent if I deferre till my return to towne the answering of your Letter and the sending my Lord Russels Picture or extreamly indiscreet if I send you so rude and indigested reflections upon your so judicious and strong discourse wherein the instances though your Lordship be pleased to call them slight ones and such as flow easiest into a Letter from a bad memorie yet you must give me leave to believe them the strongest and sharpest that can be urged upon this subject and the flower and Quintessence of what Mr. Chillingworth and the best wits have produced against the tradition of the Church and the authority of the Fathers But I will choose rather to fall into your hands for the latter then under your censure for the first and so asking you a thousand pardons I send you this by which all I can hope is that you will at least discern in me a great willingnes to come out of your debt in this kinde for all other I know impossible though I am but a flow and imperfect paymaster and that you will in some measure guess at what I would say if I had time to digest and range it as it should be I shall here only by way of supplement adde this more concerning the Millenaries because I would not render my Letters more illegible by new interlining it that as I remember Justin Martyr himself saith it is an opinion not generally beleeved in the Church but that many of the Orthodox reject it howbeit he professeth to hold it for true and accordingly endeavoureth to prove it by authority of Scripture all which manifestly declareth that it was no

of man which I doubt much whether it can truly be affirmed of all the Christians of the world I am sure it cannot of the poor number of Doctors and Governors in any one age among them But to let this supposition pass supposing that the present Church understands what is meant by All they of the preceding though I do not and that all the present receives she receives as delivered to her by all those of the preceding age let us examine a little that which you inferr upon it to wit That this being so no false proposition of faith nay as you say afterwards no false doctrine whatsoever can be admitted into the Church in any age unless they of that age do unanimously conspire to deceive their children and youngers in telling them they were taught by their Fathers what indeed they were not That this is not impossible since only the Doctors Pastors of the Church are to be understood by All they hath been already shown But is there no other way say you but this for falshood to creep into the Church Truely me-thinks on the contrary it is with error and necessary truths in the body Ecclesiastick as with life and death in the body natural And as there is onely one way for life to enter at but a thousand gates for death so for necessary truths there is but one ordinary avenne to the Church namely by Scripture read or taught but for error to get in at a thousand passages without supposing such a general conspiracie For though many times when an error hath had a long Current we cannot point directly at the spring yet are we ne're a whit less certain that it had an entrance because we know not at which doore Nilus hath a head though Geographers cannot say directly where it is And lines many times that at first appear parallels to the eie by that time they have been lengthned a great while prove apparently uneven though no man can assigne the point whereat the deflexion began The doctrine of the Chiliasts a doctrine which if any other surely that may well be said to have been a generally received tenent of the Church universal for some ages since in the whole Church for above 250. years after Christ there appears not in that point one dissenting vote till Dionysius of Alexandria oppos'd it An error 't is true and yet I hope you will not be so uncharitable as to accuse all the ancient Fathers of the second Centenary that they complotted to deceive posterity by teaching them a falshood for Apostolique tradition you are more favorable to them then so in the last part of the Letter where you your self discover a way how without conspiracy this error and so another may have overspread the Church by the Authority of one man delivering it for a whisper of the Apostles And truly Cousin what ever else may be said more probable in the particular I am confident 't is most true in the general that the worke is easie from one man of credits Asseveration to possess vast Multitudes with firme perswasions of a falshood and more in matters of Religion then in civil things since in those this pium credere prevailes much and most will rather take upon trust what many affirm and they discern no ill in then put themselves to the oft-times endless troubles of examining Credulity being so easie and natural Disproving so difficult I warrant you the Common Faith of Romulus Ascent into Heaven would have had upon your grounds as rational assertours in the State of Rome as any tradition by us questioned at this day in the sea of Rome See in that politique invention of Julius Proclus what power the imagined pietie of one man hath to make a fiction pass for an Epidemicall veritie which as Tertullian sayes Apol. cap. 8. Ab uno aliquando principe exorta exinde in traduces linguarum aurium serpat ita modici seminis vitium caetera rumoris obscurat ut nemo recogitet num primum illud os mendatium seminaverit The Jewes a much more numerous multitude heretofore and still I think equal in number to any Christian Church of one denomination were the most Religious the most scrupulous conservators of unwritten truths in their Cabala And yet what an error posfesses the whole Nation and did so long before the curse fell upon them concerning their Messias whose coming long before Christ and since they all expected and do expect in a temporal kingdome of which they did derive and do continue to posteritie the hopes by Universal tradition or if you will say that they build the doctrine not upon tradition but Scripture yet I am sure you cannot denie but that they continue the interpretation of Scripture that way by tradition which comes all to one Did you grant the possibility of a Multitudes Conspiracie I am sure you would denie it in this which is confestly the point upon which all of them agree that their supreme felicitie depended It would pass for a very fallacious reasoning to drive up this belief to the Patriarkes and so conclude it infallible because the present age received it for a tradition from the preceding and that from the Antepenultime and so forward Or because the instant where the error was admitted amongst them cannot Digito monstrari dicere hic est For truly Cousin partly through a natural desire in all men that others should think as they do or do what they think convenient from whence there springs an aptness in the teachers to applie to their opinions the strongest Authorities they can devise whether they do justly belong unto them or no and partly through an aptness of the ignorant which are the greatest part of Auditours to swallow more and retain better the words and the outward literal part of what is taught them then either to examine or hold fast the precise and inward sense It may well happen that multitudes may mumble the shell when a few have the kernell and looking superficially only upon the outward stamp toss up and down for currant among them counterfeit oft-times and Adulterate Coine The mistake is ordinary and the propagation of the error easie for instance sake in the doctrine of praying for the dead many of the Doctors of the Church who believed that all the souls of the departed were kept in certain receptacles untill the general resurrection conceiving that prayer for the beatitude of the dead came all to one with praying for the hastening of Christs Kingdome might teach it others thinking it no prophanation of prayer to imploy that holy Act even where we know it cannot availe since Christ himself prayed to have the bitter Cup of his passion removed and all the Doctours generally holding such prayers a convenient testimony of charity in the living whether they were Commemorative Eucharisticall or supplicatorie easily might the practice pass into a common doctrine Now the word Necessarie being often used for